Blocking Visual Spam -Hindu
SeeFree has rolled out its `Visual Spam Blocking System', which uses technology to filter out `visual spam.' SeeFree spectacles provide users with the ability to see the world as it would look — without billboards, signs and other commercial visual spam, thus allowing the user to focus only on the objects that he wants to see. The spectacles, resembling cool sunglasses, are fitted with an electronic binocular see-through device.
Its `brain' is a sophisticated microprocessor system that processes all visual information in your sight, in real time. This `image recognition system' can distinguish billboards, advertisements and the like from other visual elements. After the system has recognised the `unwanted' elements, it creates a `floating mask' according to their shapes to be overlapped to the actual view. In order to make the masked elements less contrasting and distracting, the system calculates the colour and brightness of the mask as an average to the surrounding areas.
27 June, 2005
01 June, 2005
Someone's checking up on you -ZdNet
Before you join an IT company, your past life will be probed thoroughly. V Narayan (name changed), 30, returned from the US and applied for a job at a Fortune 500 IT company in India. With impeccable credentials, he almost landed a project leader's post. But he had not told his future employer that he had been arrested for child molestation in the US. Narayan had assumed that the Indian company would never find this out. But it did. It had entrusted the task of screening him to Mumbai-based background screening company Quest Research.
What is checked...
The large IT companies now spend anywhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 6,000 per candidate, while mid size companies shell out between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 per candidate
Investigations in India can take anywhere between 4 and 15 days per candidate. That's because information on individuals is not available at one place in India, unlike in the US where the social security number can provide leads on a person. 7 separate documents, ranging from the passport and driving licence to the ration card, identify an individual in India. Except for the passport, every document can be easily bought.
Before you join an IT company, your past life will be probed thoroughly. V Narayan (name changed), 30, returned from the US and applied for a job at a Fortune 500 IT company in India. With impeccable credentials, he almost landed a project leader's post. But he had not told his future employer that he had been arrested for child molestation in the US. Narayan had assumed that the Indian company would never find this out. But it did. It had entrusted the task of screening him to Mumbai-based background screening company Quest Research.
What is checked...
- Your general education background. Companies call up the university where you studied for your bachelor's or master's degree and check the records.
- Your professional degree or certificates. Ditto, but this relates to your MBA degree or any certificates you may have obtained. The first point that's checked is whether your university is a recognised one.
- Employment history. Companies call up all the companies you had worked for. Companies don't call the people you have given as references because these may be your friends. Instead, they call the HR department or others.
- Criminal check. Companies check with the local police station and so on.
- Address. Companies check whether you are staying at the address you mentioned in your application. They talk to your neighbours and so on.
The large IT companies now spend anywhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 6,000 per candidate, while mid size companies shell out between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 per candidate
Investigations in India can take anywhere between 4 and 15 days per candidate. That's because information on individuals is not available at one place in India, unlike in the US where the social security number can provide leads on a person. 7 separate documents, ranging from the passport and driving licence to the ration card, identify an individual in India. Except for the passport, every document can be easily bought.
31 May, 2005
Google Translator: The Universal Language:
At the recent web cast of the Google Factory Tour, researcher Franz Och presented the current state of the Google Machine Translation Systems. He compared translations of the current Google translator, and the status quo of the Google Research Lab’s activities. The results were highly impressive. A sentence in Arabic which is now being translated to a nonsensical “Alpine white new presence tape registered for coffee confirms Laden” is now in the Research Labs being translated to “The White House Confirmed the Existence of a New Bin Laden Tape.”
How do they do that? It’s certainly complex to program such a system, but the underlying principle is easy – so easy in fact that the researchers working on this enabled the system to translate from Chinese to English without any researcher being able to speak Chinese. To the translation system, any language is treated the same, and there is no manually created rule-set of grammar, metaphors and such. Instead, the system is learning from existing human translations. All it needs is someone to feed the system the two books and to teach it the two are translations from language A to language B, and the translator can create what Franz Och called a “language model.” This is brute force AI, if you want – it works on statistical learning theory only and has not much real “understanding” of anything but patterns.
Now comes the exciting part. This translation system can have numerous applications. Apart from the usual 'website translation' services, it could be used in more advanced applications like Instant Messengers and Babelfish-It would be a smart device you plug-in to your ear, and it would have speech recognition and Auto-translation built in. You can now visit a foreign country and understand people who talk to you in languages you never learned. While the needed text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies are far from perfect at the moment, they are still realistic possibilities.
At the recent web cast of the Google Factory Tour, researcher Franz Och presented the current state of the Google Machine Translation Systems. He compared translations of the current Google translator, and the status quo of the Google Research Lab’s activities. The results were highly impressive. A sentence in Arabic which is now being translated to a nonsensical “Alpine white new presence tape registered for coffee confirms Laden” is now in the Research Labs being translated to “The White House Confirmed the Existence of a New Bin Laden Tape.”
How do they do that? It’s certainly complex to program such a system, but the underlying principle is easy – so easy in fact that the researchers working on this enabled the system to translate from Chinese to English without any researcher being able to speak Chinese. To the translation system, any language is treated the same, and there is no manually created rule-set of grammar, metaphors and such. Instead, the system is learning from existing human translations. All it needs is someone to feed the system the two books and to teach it the two are translations from language A to language B, and the translator can create what Franz Och called a “language model.” This is brute force AI, if you want – it works on statistical learning theory only and has not much real “understanding” of anything but patterns.
Now comes the exciting part. This translation system can have numerous applications. Apart from the usual 'website translation' services, it could be used in more advanced applications like Instant Messengers and Babelfish-It would be a smart device you plug-in to your ear, and it would have speech recognition and Auto-translation built in. You can now visit a foreign country and understand people who talk to you in languages you never learned. While the needed text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies are far from perfect at the moment, they are still realistic possibilities.
25 May, 2005
Miscreants encrypt files, hold them for ransom -ZdNet
In a new type of online attack, extortionists remotely encrypt user files and then demand money for the key to decode the information. The attack occurs after a user visits a Web site containing code that exploits a known flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. The flaw is used to download and run a malicious program that in turn downloads an application that encrypts files on the victim's PC and mapped network drives, according to Websense. The program then drops a ransom note.
Attackers could use e-mail, a Web site, or other means to distribute the Trojan.Pgpcoder and launch a widespread extortion campaign. Attackers leave a trail if they ask for money. This type of attack is not that difficult to perform. However, in order to collect money the attackers are leaving themselves open to investigation and tracing.
In a new type of online attack, extortionists remotely encrypt user files and then demand money for the key to decode the information. The attack occurs after a user visits a Web site containing code that exploits a known flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. The flaw is used to download and run a malicious program that in turn downloads an application that encrypts files on the victim's PC and mapped network drives, according to Websense. The program then drops a ransom note.
Attackers could use e-mail, a Web site, or other means to distribute the Trojan.Pgpcoder and launch a widespread extortion campaign. Attackers leave a trail if they ask for money. This type of attack is not that difficult to perform. However, in order to collect money the attackers are leaving themselves open to investigation and tracing.
19 May, 2005
China's way ahead of India on software piracy list -The Economic Times:
India with 74% piracy rate has managed to slip out of the list of 20 countries with the highest incidence of software piracy, despite a 1% increase in piracy rate. China, with 90% piracy, occupies the third slot — after Vietnam and Ukraine leading with 92% and 91% piracy rates, respectively.
In India, it’s corporate end-user piracy where small and medium segment businesses use unlicensed software that is a constant worry. For every two dollars worth of software purchased globally, one dollar worth was obtained illegally.
India with 74% piracy rate has managed to slip out of the list of 20 countries with the highest incidence of software piracy, despite a 1% increase in piracy rate. China, with 90% piracy, occupies the third slot — after Vietnam and Ukraine leading with 92% and 91% piracy rates, respectively.
In India, it’s corporate end-user piracy where small and medium segment businesses use unlicensed software that is a constant worry. For every two dollars worth of software purchased globally, one dollar worth was obtained illegally.
18 May, 2005
16 May, 2005
Go up the value chain or perish -ZDNet:
There's definite evidence of India excelling in the IT industry. But within this vast spectrum of IT services, including consulting, ITES, application development, what can be called India's niche area of expertise?
India needs to identify an area of specialisation in the face of rising competition from countries such as Russia, the Philippines and China. We need to excel in providing a certain category of goods and services, so we do not lose our footing when the eventual exodus starts - of countries shifting their outsourcing requirements to nations which have a definite cost advantage over India in terms of lower labour rates, better infrastructure and less red tapism.
With India having captured only 0.2% of the $180 billion global software product development market, there is still a long way ahead for us. Offshoring in the early 1990s began with product development, and not IT services. In the mid 1990s, the focus shifted to outsourcing IT services.
There's definite evidence of India excelling in the IT industry. But within this vast spectrum of IT services, including consulting, ITES, application development, what can be called India's niche area of expertise?
India needs to identify an area of specialisation in the face of rising competition from countries such as Russia, the Philippines and China. We need to excel in providing a certain category of goods and services, so we do not lose our footing when the eventual exodus starts - of countries shifting their outsourcing requirements to nations which have a definite cost advantage over India in terms of lower labour rates, better infrastructure and less red tapism.
With India having captured only 0.2% of the $180 billion global software product development market, there is still a long way ahead for us. Offshoring in the early 1990s began with product development, and not IT services. In the mid 1990s, the focus shifted to outsourcing IT services.
14 May, 2005
Microsoft tries to breathe life into older PCs -Zdnet:
Code-named Eiger, the product is basically designed to turn older PCs into a thin client, which is a terminal that gets most of its information from a central server. Unlike traditional thin clients, though, a few programs can be run locally, including Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and antivirus software.
Microsoft is pitching the software at customers who can't or don't want to buy new PCs, but are concerned that their older computers are not secure and hard to manage. Under the hood, Eiger is a hybrid of Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and Windows XP Embedded.
Code-named Eiger, the product is basically designed to turn older PCs into a thin client, which is a terminal that gets most of its information from a central server. Unlike traditional thin clients, though, a few programs can be run locally, including Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and antivirus software.
Microsoft is pitching the software at customers who can't or don't want to buy new PCs, but are concerned that their older computers are not secure and hard to manage. Under the hood, Eiger is a hybrid of Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and Windows XP Embedded.
03 May, 2005
An Adobe killer from Microsoft -Digit Mag
Adobe may have killed the competition in online publishing by acquiring Macromedia. But Microsoft is not keeping quite. The next version of Windows will include a new document format, code-named "Metro," to print and share documents. Metro appears to rival Adobe's PostScript and PDF technologies.
The format, based on XML (extensible markup language), will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Web browser.
The Metro technology is likely to go head-to-head with Adobe's PostScript technology. "It is a potential Adobe killer", said Richard Doherty, research director with The Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York. "But this is just the first warning shot. Adobe could put something that is even more compelling Longhorn.
Adobe may have killed the competition in online publishing by acquiring Macromedia. But Microsoft is not keeping quite. The next version of Windows will include a new document format, code-named "Metro," to print and share documents. Metro appears to rival Adobe's PostScript and PDF technologies.
The format, based on XML (extensible markup language), will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Web browser.
The Metro technology is likely to go head-to-head with Adobe's PostScript technology. "It is a potential Adobe killer", said Richard Doherty, research director with The Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York. "But this is just the first warning shot. Adobe could put something that is even more compelling Longhorn.
01 May, 2005
ASPs failed ? But are now making a comeback -ZDNet:
Some five to six years ago, Application Service Providers (ASPs) were one of the hottest categories in software. They would transform the way software would be delivered and create a win-win situation for customers and software vendors. That dream did not pan out.
ASPs offer applications over the internet using their own servers to customers, who pay a regular fee for the use. For companies, there is no need to own either the application or the underlying infrastructure.
For service providers, it helps them aggregate a large number of customers, providing economies of scale. Using the internet as the distribution medium, ASPs can reach out to customers globally.
ASPs in many respects presented a false start in the efforts to break out of the enterprise straitjacket. In particular, few of them adopted Web services architectures as their technology platform. Instead, they attempted to build businesses on the internet using traditional technology architectures. This proved a significant flaw in the early ASP model.
The big opportunity for ASPs is the long tail of enterprises in the world's developing countries. They have been largely unaffected by the internet - other than email usage and in some cases have a minor web presence.
Some five to six years ago, Application Service Providers (ASPs) were one of the hottest categories in software. They would transform the way software would be delivered and create a win-win situation for customers and software vendors. That dream did not pan out.
ASPs offer applications over the internet using their own servers to customers, who pay a regular fee for the use. For companies, there is no need to own either the application or the underlying infrastructure.
For service providers, it helps them aggregate a large number of customers, providing economies of scale. Using the internet as the distribution medium, ASPs can reach out to customers globally.
ASPs in many respects presented a false start in the efforts to break out of the enterprise straitjacket. In particular, few of them adopted Web services architectures as their technology platform. Instead, they attempted to build businesses on the internet using traditional technology architectures. This proved a significant flaw in the early ASP model.
The big opportunity for ASPs is the long tail of enterprises in the world's developing countries. They have been largely unaffected by the internet - other than email usage and in some cases have a minor web presence.
30 April, 2005
Advertising revenues of Google + Yahoo > TV ads
This year the combined advertising revenues of Google and Yahoo! will rival the combined prime-time ad revenues of America's three big television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, predicts Advertising Age. Both Google and Yahoo! make most of their money from advertising. Auctioning keyword search-terms, which deliver, along with their own search results, sponsored links to advertisers' websites, has proved to be very lucrative. Advertisers like these links because, unlike with TV ads, they pay only for directly measurable results. They are charged when someone clicks through to their own website.
This year the combined advertising revenues of Google and Yahoo! will rival the combined prime-time ad revenues of America's three big television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, predicts Advertising Age. Both Google and Yahoo! make most of their money from advertising. Auctioning keyword search-terms, which deliver, along with their own search results, sponsored links to advertisers' websites, has proved to be very lucrative. Advertisers like these links because, unlike with TV ads, they pay only for directly measurable results. They are charged when someone clicks through to their own website.
25 April, 2005
Best Articles Published Since 2003-
2005: Year of the Balance of Power
Learn to Disconnect -Deepak Chopra
Capture Still Images from Media Player
Microformats
Google playing Mind games
Your keyboard's clatter can reveal your e-mail's content!
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: 'I'm going to f***ing kill Google'
Google Translator
Different types of Search Engines
The long tail of software
How to start a startup
Envisioning a leap frogged world
Ajax: A new approach to web applications
Militants planned attack on Indian software firms
Do 1 or 2 things really well
Bill Gates and other communists by Richard Stallman
Getting to the bottom of bullshit
The Typo Millionaires
Can this black box see into the future?
Interned at IBM, resigned from Microsoft, fired from Google
New markets (middle class) for future technologies
Larry Ellision on offshoring as a philanthropy
Spyware - IT's public enemy no.1
Your mobile phone too can be cloned
Porn business driving DVD technology
Sanskrit in your Sanganaka (Computer)
Game industry bigger than hollywood
Desktop search tools - A virus writer's best friend
To outsource or not to outsource
Hatching big plans
Wifi - Where's the money?
Mobile phone with a projector
Sun invities outside involvement with Java 6
Gates: World's most spammed person
Why bandwidth is costly in India?
Rural Outsourcing
P2P for cell-phones
Resistance is futile
India's broadband policy
.jpg, .png and now .doc !
IBM search engine will find video, audio on the net
Geek battles - A call for perspective
Tech specialist + business consultant rules
Data fountains
Double trouble - Virus writers + Spammers
Did your code ever make anyone deaf?
Internet 2: 2004 and beyond
Click fraud
Yahoo to Trillian: Talk to the hand
Cooool - Disc Tatto technology
The Penny black project by Microsoft to outsmart spam
Windows 2000 code posted on net
Radiation from montiors can be used for spying
A superb copy-protection technology
IE bug lets fake sites look real
Java v/s .Net : Battleground India
Hackers get novel defense - "The computer did it!"
Shift key breaks cd-copy locks
2005: Year of the Balance of Power
Learn to Disconnect -Deepak Chopra
Capture Still Images from Media Player
Microformats
Google playing Mind games
Your keyboard's clatter can reveal your e-mail's content!
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: 'I'm going to f***ing kill Google'
Google Translator
Different types of Search Engines
The long tail of software
How to start a startup
Envisioning a leap frogged world
Ajax: A new approach to web applications
Militants planned attack on Indian software firms
Do 1 or 2 things really well
Bill Gates and other communists by Richard Stallman
Getting to the bottom of bullshit
The Typo Millionaires
Can this black box see into the future?
Interned at IBM, resigned from Microsoft, fired from Google
New markets (middle class) for future technologies
Larry Ellision on offshoring as a philanthropy
Spyware - IT's public enemy no.1
Your mobile phone too can be cloned
Porn business driving DVD technology
Sanskrit in your Sanganaka (Computer)
Game industry bigger than hollywood
Desktop search tools - A virus writer's best friend
To outsource or not to outsource
Hatching big plans
Wifi - Where's the money?
Mobile phone with a projector
Sun invities outside involvement with Java 6
Gates: World's most spammed person
Why bandwidth is costly in India?
Rural Outsourcing
P2P for cell-phones
Resistance is futile
India's broadband policy
.jpg, .png and now .doc !
IBM search engine will find video, audio on the net
Geek battles - A call for perspective
Tech specialist + business consultant rules
Data fountains
Double trouble - Virus writers + Spammers
Did your code ever make anyone deaf?
Internet 2: 2004 and beyond
Click fraud
Yahoo to Trillian: Talk to the hand
Cooool - Disc Tatto technology
The Penny black project by Microsoft to outsmart spam
Windows 2000 code posted on net
Radiation from montiors can be used for spying
A superb copy-protection technology
IE bug lets fake sites look real
Java v/s .Net : Battleground India
Hackers get novel defense - "The computer did it!"
Shift key breaks cd-copy locks
07 April, 2005
And here's a key to combat hacking -The Economic Times:
David Pearson, a division scientist at the Massachusetts-based BBN Technologies is already trying his hand at building an unhackable network. And thanks to quantum cryptography, it is possible.
It harnesses quantum physics to create encryption keys that are all but impossible to crack because they are rendered useless by simply looking at them. The keys are made from tiny bits of light called photons. Even when assuming hypothetical eavesdroppers with unlimited computing power, the laws of physics guarantee that the secret key exchange will be secure, given a few other assumptions.
David Pearson, a division scientist at the Massachusetts-based BBN Technologies is already trying his hand at building an unhackable network. And thanks to quantum cryptography, it is possible.
It harnesses quantum physics to create encryption keys that are all but impossible to crack because they are rendered useless by simply looking at them. The keys are made from tiny bits of light called photons. Even when assuming hypothetical eavesdroppers with unlimited computing power, the laws of physics guarantee that the secret key exchange will be secure, given a few other assumptions.
02 April, 2005
Google enhances search for Firefox users -ZDNet:
Google has added a new feature to its search engine that allows Firefox users to obtain search results more quickly. The search engine's preloaded link feature is supported by Mozilla browsers, including Firefox, but because Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other browsers do not provide such functionality, they will not be able to use the feature.
When you do a search on these browsers, we instruct them to download your top search result in advance, so if you click on it, you'll get to that page even more quickly.
There are some potential issues, however. "You'll run into trouble if the first match is a porno site and your company's proxy logs it-you get all cookies of the first match without seeing the page",one Firefox user said. Another user adds,people may unknowingly download illegal content.
Google has added a new feature to its search engine that allows Firefox users to obtain search results more quickly. The search engine's preloaded link feature is supported by Mozilla browsers, including Firefox, but because Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other browsers do not provide such functionality, they will not be able to use the feature.
When you do a search on these browsers, we instruct them to download your top search result in advance, so if you click on it, you'll get to that page even more quickly.
There are some potential issues, however. "You'll run into trouble if the first match is a porno site and your company's proxy logs it-you get all cookies of the first match without seeing the page",one Firefox user said. Another user adds,people may unknowingly download illegal content.
01 April, 2005
Finding information: Search Engines
Phil Bradley has complied an excellent list of search engines with their best of utility value identified.This is a collection of search engines and similar resources that phil says he uses on a regular basis when looking for different types of information. Excellent list indeed.
What do you need to find, and what do you already know? | What is the best resource to make use of? |
| I know what I'm looking for, and I can describe it with some key words | Google is always a good bet, since it has the largest index. |
| Yahoo Search is useful if Google doesn't do it for you. | |
| MSN Search is getting better and may provide results if the other two don't work. | |
| I have an exact phrase that I want to search for | Any of the above, with "double quotes" around the phrase will do the trick. |
| I want a quick factual answer | Microsoft Encarta provides factual information to questions |
| Ask Jeeves can sometimes be worth asking, if you tightly phrase your question | |
| Brainboost is new, but seems to work quite well. | |
| Factbites is also new. Good for very specific search terms | |
| I want to compare results from different search engines | Jux2 will compare results from Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves |
| Thumbshots Ranking compares results from Google, Yahoo, Alltheweb, AltaVista, MSN, Teoma, Wisenut. | |
| TurboScout allows you to type in the search once, then run it across 23 different search engines. | |
| I want an overview of a subject. | Yahoo Directory provides 14 main categories |
| Google Directory provides access to 16 main categories | |
| The Open Directory Project provides access to 16 main categories | |
| I want some suggested categories to narrow my search | Clusty suggests narrower topics to search under |
| Teoma suggests categories and collections of resources by experts | |
| Wisenut also has category suggestions | |
| I want a small collection of websites I can look at | Any of the three engines above will give you access to websites, rather than pages |
| I need recent additions to search engines | GooFresh from Research Buzz for new additions to Google |
| Exalead Advanced Search to limit by time | |
| AlltheWeb Advanced Search has a date limiting function | |
| I want to see thumbnails of pages before visiting them | Icerocket automatically provides thumbnails |
| Exalead will show thumbnails and loads the page locally for you to see it | |
| ZapMeta has a quick view option | |
| I want to do a comprehensive search across search engines | eZ2Find is a meta search engine with access to 6 major engines |
| Ixquick has a nunber of UK based engines in its collection | |
| Fazzle gives you a percentage result | |
| I want to re-rank or re-order my results | Exalead Advanced re-ranks by date |
| MSN Search Builder re-orders on update/popularity/accuracy | |
| Google Personalized will re-rank based on your interests | |
| ZapMeta re-ranks on popularity, title, source, domain | |
| I want a more personalised search experience | Personalised Google Emphasis subject areas of importance |
| Eurekster is good for groups of people | |
| My Jeeves storage, access from different computers | |
| I don't know how to spell what I'm looking for | Exalead Advanced search allows you to search for approximate spelling or phonetic spelling |
| The Reverse Dictionary will suggest words based on your suggestions | |
| Dictionary.com can suggest correct spellings for you | |
| I want a visual representation of my results | Kartoo provides a visual indication of importance of results and links between them |
| Mooter provides an initial visual representation | |
| WebBrain displays a visual representation above, and links below | |
| I need to search for different file formats | Google Advanced search for .pdf .ps .doc .xls .ppt .rtf |
| Exalead Advanced for .txt .pdf .doc .xls .ppt .rtf .wpd .swf | |
| I need to find websites that I can trust | Pinakes provides a list of Virtual Libraries with links to sites chosen by experts |
| Librarians' Index to the Internet sites are chosen by librarians | |
| The World Wide Web Virtual Library provides access to virtual libraries | |
| I need access to academic resources | Infomine for scholarly internet resource collections |
| Scirus provides access to scientific information | |
| Google Scholar provides access to scholarly articles | |
| SMEALSearch for Academic business information | |
| I want to search geographically | Country search engines is my list of over 2,500 country search engines |
| Teoma Advanced has a regional search option | |
| Many search engines have regional versions - replace the .com with the country code | |
| I want to search the hidden web or the invisible web | Turbo10 searches over 700 deep web search engines |
| Invisible Web is a small collection of high quality resources | |
| eZ2Find suggests appropriate databases once a search has been run | |
| ProFusion has access to hundreds of specialised search engines | |
| I need to find images | Google Images has over 1 billion indexed |
| Yahoo Search has over 1.5 billion images | |
| Fagan Finder lists several dozen good engines | |
| I need to find moving images | Yahoo! Video Search broad search |
| Google Video Search for recent television programmes | |
| Blinkx TV video search | |
| I need to find sounds | FindSounds for sound effects and musical instruments |
| I want to find out detailed information about a certain site | link:www.sitename.com in a search engine tells you who links to it |
| The Wayback machine may be able to show you an archived version of a site | |
| Better Whois shows ownership for top level domains | |
| Alexa provides traffic details and related sites | |
| I need search engines suitable for children | Kids search tools wide variety of useful resources |
| KidsClick! directory listings, chosen by librarians | |
| Yahooligans! for children aged 7-12 | |
| I want to find people | Internet Address Finder US biased, but still useful |
| 192 for UK individuals | |
| British Telecom Directory Enquiries | |
| I want people's opinions on a subject | Google Groups provides access to newsgroups |
| Daypop searches weblog entries | |
| Technorati searches weblogs in more depth | |
| I want current affairs and news information | Google news over 4,000 news resources |
| BBC it's the BBC - what else to say? | |
| MSN Newsbot, wide variety of resources, slightly US biased | |
| I want information on particular words | Online Etymology Dictionary Large and impressive collection |
| World Wide Words International English from a UK viewpoint | |
| Anagrams Very good utility for finding anagrams. | |
| Acronym Finder is extremely good | |
| What's new on the Internet? | Neat New Stuff from an American Librarian, Marylaine Block |
| Librarians Index to the Internet new sites that have been discovered and listed | |
| USA Today web guide is fairly eclectic | |
| I want local information | Google provides local information by adding in a place |
| Streetmap for UK information on places, streets and postcodes | |
| UpMyStreet for UK information on particular areas/regions | |
| I want to share or view bookmarks | FURL excellent for saving pages and sharing them with others |
| SPURL is very similar to FURL | |
| Del.icio.us for social bookmarking | |
| Connotea online reference management service for scientists from Nature | |
| My Bookmarks is the one that I've been using just for bookmarks. |
Biometrics, the machete hack -News.com.au
Criminals chopped off the tip of a man's finger in Malaysia to override a high-tech security feature that required his fingerprint to start his luxury car.
Criminals chopped off the tip of a man's finger in Malaysia to override a high-tech security feature that required his fingerprint to start his luxury car.
31 March, 2005
Phishers change bait as IM use grows -ZdNet:
Previous phishing attacks were based around luring a user to perform an action through social engineering, primarily through spoofed e-mail and Web sites. The use of IM to spoof companies and phish for information is becoming more frequent.
Yahoo last week confirmed that users of its Messenger software were being targeted by this type of attack. According to the search giant, attackers are sending members a message containing a link to a fake Web site. The fake site, which looks like an official Yahoo site, asks the user to log in by entering their Yahoo ID and password. The scam was more realistic because the incoming message appeared to originate from someone on the victim's contact list.
Phishing without a lure is now becoming more prevalent among attack styles. The most common is malicious code which either modifies your host's file to point commonly accessed sites to the fraudulent site. DNS cache poisoning is also an alternative means that can be used to resolve information to non-legitimate Web sites. The simplest form of cache poisoning is simply sending fake answers to someone's DNS server.
Check out this site for a funny analogy to cache poisoning.
Previous phishing attacks were based around luring a user to perform an action through social engineering, primarily through spoofed e-mail and Web sites. The use of IM to spoof companies and phish for information is becoming more frequent.
Yahoo last week confirmed that users of its Messenger software were being targeted by this type of attack. According to the search giant, attackers are sending members a message containing a link to a fake Web site. The fake site, which looks like an official Yahoo site, asks the user to log in by entering their Yahoo ID and password. The scam was more realistic because the incoming message appeared to originate from someone on the victim's contact list.
Phishing without a lure is now becoming more prevalent among attack styles. The most common is malicious code which either modifies your host's file to point commonly accessed sites to the fraudulent site. DNS cache poisoning is also an alternative means that can be used to resolve information to non-legitimate Web sites. The simplest form of cache poisoning is simply sending fake answers to someone's DNS server.
Check out this site for a funny analogy to cache poisoning.
30 March, 2005
Future of Microsoft -Sadagopan:
Apple, finally price competitive with PCs, and offering software used interchangeably with other programs, the company is staging a run.Apple, with its tight, integrated interfaces cinching hardware to software has proven powerfully resistant to viruses and spyware, the poisonous infections of the Internet. Apple is today on the upsurge because its personal computing systems have been vacuum-sealed, and because the company has – to the point of fetish – delighted in producing its own devices.
A new "browser war" has been launched in the form of Firefox. Firefox is to IE, What IE was to Netscape. This application creep happens so easily – like Google -providing a new and improved search engine, splices in a few well-targeted ads, and is now capitalized at $50bn. Microsoft, despite ‘owning’ the software on which the applications run, did not get here first.
Microsoft appears to be losing customer centricity and their cultural DNA seems to be moving away from incremental innovation –particularly with the windows platform and their inexplicable delay in rolling out Longhorn are clear indications of losing steam. Microsoft will take decades to be out of business as their product basket of offering is wide.
Apple, finally price competitive with PCs, and offering software used interchangeably with other programs, the company is staging a run.Apple, with its tight, integrated interfaces cinching hardware to software has proven powerfully resistant to viruses and spyware, the poisonous infections of the Internet. Apple is today on the upsurge because its personal computing systems have been vacuum-sealed, and because the company has – to the point of fetish – delighted in producing its own devices.
A new "browser war" has been launched in the form of Firefox. Firefox is to IE, What IE was to Netscape. This application creep happens so easily – like Google -providing a new and improved search engine, splices in a few well-targeted ads, and is now capitalized at $50bn. Microsoft, despite ‘owning’ the software on which the applications run, did not get here first.
Microsoft appears to be losing customer centricity and their cultural DNA seems to be moving away from incremental innovation –particularly with the windows platform and their inexplicable delay in rolling out Longhorn are clear indications of losing steam. Microsoft will take decades to be out of business as their product basket of offering is wide.
Move over India, Bulgaria is here- The Economic Times:
Beware India, Eastern European nations like Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania and Estonia have been declared the new tech outsourcing leaders of 2005. However, India and Russia still lead the list in total certifications, while California and Texas were the largest overall within the US.
Beware India, Eastern European nations like Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania and Estonia have been declared the new tech outsourcing leaders of 2005. However, India and Russia still lead the list in total certifications, while California and Texas were the largest overall within the US.
Three Indians crack Google code jam- The Economic Times:
14,000 techies from six countries in South Asia participated in the online contest, only 500 qualified for the first round and 50 of them reached the final round. Three Indians are among the top five winners of a contest organised by Google.
"We were given three algorithms problems. The first was to find out the unique URLs (universal resource locators); the second was trying to find the shortest possible path and the third was to calculate the probable winner among the two in a competition," said fifth-placed Ramachandran. "These problems were challenging. We had to choose one among two languages – Java or C++ - and were given two hours to solve the problems. Speed of thinking was the key to winning," Ramachandran added.
14,000 techies from six countries in South Asia participated in the online contest, only 500 qualified for the first round and 50 of them reached the final round. Three Indians are among the top five winners of a contest organised by Google.
"We were given three algorithms problems. The first was to find out the unique URLs (universal resource locators); the second was trying to find the shortest possible path and the third was to calculate the probable winner among the two in a competition," said fifth-placed Ramachandran. "These problems were challenging. We had to choose one among two languages – Java or C++ - and were given two hours to solve the problems. Speed of thinking was the key to winning," Ramachandran added.
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