Norton 2011 beta released

As protections against garden-variety viruses and malware have become more effective, malware writers have turned to new ways to infect computers in the pursuit of profit. Two increasing threats are malware spread via bad Facebook links and so-called scareware -- malware that masquerades as virus-scanning software.

The beta of Norton Internet Security 2011 adds several tools designed to protect against those threats, along with other useful tools and tweaks. The result is a useful all-around security application aimed at keeping up with a fast-changing landscape where new threats are constantly emerging.

Android runs on Apple's iPhone

There are matches made in heaven, and on the other side of the spectrum, there is David Wang's accomplishment: booting Google's Android operating system on Apple's iPhone

Wang, the "planetbeing" member of the a group called the iPhone Dev Team devoted to hacking iPhones, posted a video demonstrating Android on an iPhone Wednesday.

The demo shows the boot process--complete with the Tux Linux mascot--and Wang using Android for browsing, receiving a text message, answering a phone call, and playing music. The phone is set up with a dual-boot configuration and indeed the video begins with it running iPhone OS.

Deve Gowda asks Govt to probe on Reddy Bros Mining scam

 Just when he was about give up his fight against the Bellary Reddy brothers, the Shashi Tharoor incident happened. With the Congress launching a full fledged attack on the BJP on its failure to contain corruption, former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda has found enough reason to revive his campaign against the mining magnates.

In a move to up the heat on the Reddys, Gowda met Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday morning and sought a probe by the Income Tax department into their financial deals.

Incidentally, Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan had on Monday spoken about the failure of the Yeddyurappa government to act against the Reddy brothers despite enough evidence of an illegal mining scam.

Gilani positive of resuming talks with India soon

Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today reciprocated the good wishes conveyed to him by senior Indian leaders and hoped that the stalled dialogue between the two countries would be resumed soon.

Gilani made the remarks during a meeting with population welfare minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, who visited India recently and met several leaders, including Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

During her meeting with Awan, Sonia Gandhi sent her felicitations to President Asif Ali Zardari, prime minister Gilani and the people of Pakistan on the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which strips the president of his sweeping powers and removes changes made to the constitution by military dictators.

Facebook shuts its stripped down version after 7 months of its launch

Facebook has shut down its Lite site aimed at users with slow or poor internet connections.

The stripped down version of the original ran for around seven months.

Facebook posted a note on its own fan page thanking those who used Lite, adding that it had "learned a lot from the test of a slimmed-down site".

"I think a lot of the Facebook experience was left out of Lite, especially the monetisable parts," said Ray Valdes of Gartner Research.

India ranks 5th in the Cyber attack

In a recently released report by Symantec, India ranks among top 5 countries globally for cyber attacks. India was ranked 11th in 2008 and has risen to 5th position in 2009. The other countries are Russia, China, US and Brazil. Also India ranks 2nd in the Asia Pacific countries for cyber crimes. Cyber attacks from India accounts for 16 percent in total cyber crimes in Asia Pacific countries in 2009, up from less than 1 percent in 2008.

Also the medium of cyber crime has also changed in 2009 than from 2008. In 2009, most of the cyber attacks were through social networking sites where as in 2008, it was mainly through emails. It is reported that on social networking site, personal information is easily available and users trust each other much more. In these cases it becomes easy to send malicious content which the targets users easily clicks. Once clicked, the suspicious files get stored into local system and than information stored can be easily collected.

3G auction will earn Rs.45,000 Cr to Govt - Raja

The ongoing auctions to award radio frequency spectrum for third generation (3G) telecom services and for rolling out broadband wireless internet services could raise Rs.45,000 crore, Rs.10,000 crore more than anticipated, the government said Thursday.

'We anticipated that the auction would raise Rs.35,000 crore. It may go up to Rs.45.000 crore,' Telecom Minister A. Raja said during question hour in the Rajya Sabha.

GM's Chevy Spark makes history

Carmaker General Motors India rolled out its 1,00,000th Chevrolet Spark from Halol plant, situated near Ahmedabad.

The hatchback is produced at the company's Halol and Talegaon plants, which has a total production capacity of 2,25,000 units per annum.

"Chevrolet Spark has performed exceedingly well in the Indian market. The car continues to record impressive growth in sales month after month," General Motors said in a statement.

IT raid in KKR office found indiscriminating Docs

The Income Tax (IT) department officials, who conducted raids on four IPL teams on Wednesday, Apr 21, have revealed that some 'incriminating documents' were recovered at the offices of Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB).

The eight-hour long searches began on Apr 21 evening and went on till 1 am on Thursday, Apr 22 morning. IT officials searched the offices of Chennai Super Kings in Chennai, Deccan Chargers in Hyderabad, Kings XI Punjab in Gurgaon and KKR in Kolkata.

Microsoft India's massive plans

 Along with its plans to take on Apple and its iPhone with its upcoming Windows Phone 7 series, global giant Microsoft has something special planned for markets like India.

According to Sudeep Bharati, director, developer tools for Microsoft India’s Visual Studio Team, the company is working with manufacturers to come up with lower-end phones for the Indian market.

Oberoi hotels to reopen this weekend

The Oberoi, one of the three luxury hotels which was stormed by militants nearly 17 months ago in the city, will reopen this weekend.

The Oberoi, Mumbai will finally welcome back guests on April 24 following an extensive renovation work.

East India Hotels has said that the total cost of renovation of its Oberoi property in south Mumbai, which was severely damaged during the November 2008 terrorist attacks in the city, is expected to be around Rs 160-180 crore.

McAfee update causes continuous reboot on indentifying a harmless Windows file

Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update it posted at 9 a.m. Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

McAfee could not say how many computers were affected, but judging by online postings, the number was at least in the thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands.

Spycam found in ladies lavatory in a delhi based Call centre

An office-boy of a call centre was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly installing a spy-camera in the ladies' lavatory in the office, police said.

Sanjay was apprehended following investigations into a complaint filed by a call centre in north-west Delhi's Peetampura and its women employees after they found a spy-camera in a packet of freshener.

The incident came to light four days ago but the complaint was made today, a senior police official said.

Technical Education in India needs change

Technical education in the country needs an overhaul and some radical changes, scientists and academicians taking part in a three-day international conference in the city have said.

“We need radical changes in engineering education,” VK Aatre, former scientific advisor to the defence ministry, said on the first day of the conference titled ‘Convergence of science and engineering in education and research’ on Wednesday.

S(ex)wami Nithyanada arrested in Himachal

A team of the Karnataka State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) along with the Himachal Pradesh police, took Swamy Nithyananda into custody from the Solan district of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday afternoon.

Swamy Nithyananda, who has been eluding the police for almost one-and-a-half months, was traced through the sim card he was using, based on a tip-off.

His associates Nithya Bhaktananda alias Gopal Seelam Reddy, Mitha Sanathan Nanda, Arpil Sangil and Arun Raj were also taken into custody along with Nithyananda, from the house of a Delhi- based businessman. Nithyananda and Reddy are wanted in connection with two cases registered at the Bidadi police station. They will be produced in court on Thursday and will be brought to Bangalore, probably on Thursday. Rs 3 lakh in cash and up to $7,000 were seized from the house. Another CID team conducted a search at Swami Nithyananda’s ashram at Bidadi on Tuesday, and seized important documents, officials said.

Nitin apologises to delhiwalas for traffic chaos during the parties rally

Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday apologised to Delhiites for the "inconvenience" caused to them as the party's massive rally against rising prices led to traffic jams on the city roads. (Read: Gadkari faints, BJP rally stops Delhi)

"I personally apologise on behalf of the BJP to the people of Delhi, NCR (National Capital Region) and the neighbouring states for the inconvenience caused to them due to the traffic disruptions during the rally," Gadkari said in a statement released here.

Fire test to boost self confidence in Surat's private school

In a shocking incident, students of the primary section of a private school in Surat were forced to walk barefoot on a bed of burning coal and broken glass, on Tuesday evening.

The entire exercise, ostensibly organised to boost the self-confidence of the children, took place at the Riverdale Academy located on Rander road in the city.

During the event, which lasted for close to three hours, the participating children suffered injuries and cried profusely but this had no impact on the school authorities.

India & US in talks for India's access to terror(Head)ley

The US and Indian authorities are holding discussions on providing New Delhi access to LeT operative David Coleman Headley who has confessed to his role in the Mumbai terror attacks and agreed to be interrogated by foreign agencies.

"Those discussions (of providing Indian investigators access to Headley) are going on between our government and the Indian government at this time. It is part of the plea agreement that Headley would cooperate with Indian authorities," Pakistani-American Headley's lawyer John Theis.