Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Raped by 42 men in 40 days. Sixteen years later, she awaits justice

When she was 16, she was raped by 42 men in 40 days. In Kerala, her case is known as the Suryanelli rape case, after the village where she lived with her parents. They have moved houses twice since then, driven out they say by jeering neighbours. 

"Nobody accepts us; when they see us, they try to avoid us. We don't go out," said her father.

As a teen, she was abducted by a bus conductor who raped her, then passed her onto others, some of who were powerful and well-connected in Kerala at the time.

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Over 90% women in Kerala feel unsafe on roads: Study

 An overwhelming majority of women feel that the roads in Kerala are unsafe for them and children after sunset, a study conducted by womens' resource centre, Sakhi, revealed. 

The study revealed that 98% women in Thiruvananthapuram and 99% women in Kozhikode indicated sexual harassment as their major concern and felt threatened by the risk of violence in public places. 

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Monday, December 31, 2012

A young Indian woman who died after being gang-raped on a bus has been cremated in the capital, Delhi.


The ceremony came hours after a plane chartered by the Indian government brought her body back to the city.
The 23-year-old medical student died in a Singapore hospital where she was being treated for severe injuries.
The attack sparked two weeks of protests about gender attitudes in India, and calls for changes to laws on rape and violence against women.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the head of India's governing Congress party Sonia Gandhi were at the airport when the plane landed at about 04:15 (22:45 GMT).
A convoy carrying a gold-coloured coffin and the victim's parents then drove towards the Janakpuri district of Delhi where she had been living.
The private funeral was held amid tight security.


The BBC's Andrew North in Delhi says the government has been heavily criticised for its response to the attack and remains anxious about a backlash, with police still cordoning off the heart of the capital to prevent demonstrations.

Monday, December 5, 2011

India v/s Australia & Tri series 2011/12


Fixtures/Schedule : India v Australia test series 2011-2012
Date/Match Venue

15-16 December 2011 Indians v CA Chairman's XI Manuka Oval, Canberra
19-21 December 2011 Indians v CA Chairman's XI Manuka Oval, Canberra
26-30 December 2011 India v Australia, 1st test Melbourne cricket ground
3-7 January 2012 India v Australia, 2nd test Sydney cricket ground
13-17 January 2012 India v Australia, 3rd test WACA in Perth
24-28 January 2012 India v Australia, 4th test Adelaide Oval

India v Australia 2 Twenty20 series 2012

1 February 2012 India v Australia, 1st T20 (N) Sydney cricket ground
3 February 2012 India v Australia, 2nd T20 (N) Melbourne cricket ground

India v Australia v Sri Lanka Tri-series 2012

5 February 2012 Match 1 : India v Australia (D/N) Melbourne cricket ground
8 February 2012 Match 2 : India v Sri Lanka (D/N) WACA in Perth
10 February 2012 Match 3 : Australia v Sri Lanka (D/N) WACA in Perth
12 February 2012 Match 4 : India v Australia (D/N) Adelaide Oval
14 February 2012 Match 5 : India v Sri Lanka (D/N) Adelaide Oval
17 February 2012 Match 6 : Australia v Sri Lanka (D/N) Sydney cricket ground
19 February 2012 Match 7 : India v Australia (D/N) Gabba in Brisbane
21 February 2012 Match 8 : India v Sri Lanka (D/N) Gabba in Brisbane
24 February 2012 Match 9 : Australia v Sri Lanka (D/N) Bellerive Oval, Hobart
26 February 2012 Match 10 : India v Australia (D/N) Bellerive Oval, Hobart
28 February 2012 Match 11 : India v Sri Lanka (D/N) Sydney cricket ground
2 March 2012 Match 12 : Australia v Sri Lanka (D/N) Melbourne cricket ground
4 March 2012 1st Final (D/N) Gabba in Brisbane
6 March 2012 2nd Final (D/N) Adelaide Oval
8 March 2012 3rd Final (if required) (D/N) Adelaide Oval

BSNL website gets hacked again

The official website of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has been hacked, yet again, by the Pakistan Cyber Army.

And no, it isn’t the first time. The website had gotten hacked a couple of months ago, too, by the same outfit,
stealing all the sensitive data like names, email addresses and phone numbers of the subscribers, claiming that the details were safe with them and they just wanted the government organization to better their security.


According to Telecom Talk, the hack was first spotted at 2:21 am on December 4th, 2011, and the group comprises of five hackers by the aliases x-c0p, nginx-adm1n, enc0der, k3rnel and sm0ky. 
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Mobile Technology – Planning | IT Services @ Bristol


Its an exciting time for mobile technology, new devices are being constantly  created and refined in both tablet and smartphone form factors. Driven by consumers these devices are incorporating new technologies and enabling us to do more and more with devices. The lines between what we define as phone and computer are now not as rigid as before, as such we need to make sure we structure our thinking and policies around making the best use of the technology within the University. To do this we need to have a combination of fresh thinking, challenging the existing policies and evaluating how these technologies fit within our IT Environment.
At the beginning of August I joined the Residential and Mobile IT department as a Mobile Technology Specialist. A lot of my time has been spent looking at projects that are currently underway within the University that are either completely mobile or have elements that include Mobile Technology. I have also spent my time investigating mobile technologies that can benefit and staff and student, and considering how we can deliver more mobile services to benefit the University.
Recently we had a brainstorming meeting with the following members of IT Services:
Assistant Director – Infrastructure/Operations – Nick
Residential and Mobile IT Manager – Mark
Mobile Technology Specialist – Chris (Me)
In this meeting we tried to start with a blank canvas and brainstorm what the University want to get out of Mobile Technology. To do this we wrote down ideas on post it notes and then grouped similar Items together. The outcome of that process can be seen below:


As you can see from the picture above (you may need to zoom to read some of the handwriting though!), there are a few distinct groupings.
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ISMG Announces Launch of "Mobile Technology: How to Mitigate the Risks" Panel Webinar

Princeton, NJ, December 03, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Information Security Media Group, publisher of BankInfoSecurity, announces the launch of its latest panel webinar, "Mobile Technology: How to Mitigate the Risks," which will debut December 6.

The 90-minute session is led by mobile security expert Terrell Herzig, CISO, UAB Medicine, and it is sponsored by Accellion, Imation and Symantec. In addition to Herzig, the panelists include Paula Skokowski, VP, Products & Marketing, Accellion; Scott Ashdown, Director, Products and Solutions, Imation; and Robert Hamilton, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Data Loss Prevention, Symantec.

About the session: Smart phones, laptops, tablet PCs, optical discs and USB devices. There are many new mobile devices and emerging technologies to help today's professionals do their jobs in any location - and increasingly private business is being conducted on personal digital and storage devices. Yet, these technologies create new risks to the security of information systems and privacy of protected data.

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Will mobile phone competition spell the end of the MP3 player?



Berlin - Even though it seems that everyone is getting a smartphone these days, there is still a market for the lowly MP3 player - the devices that got the digital music revolution started in the first place - especially if you're looking for a multimedia device that won't break the budget.

Still, it's a fair question to wonder if a basic MP3 player has any kind of long-term future, when market analysts note that every second mobile phone purchased tends to be a smartphone. A Gartner survey suggests 95 per cent of the German market for example will be based on smartphones by 2015.

Which would seem to argue against people keeping separate music players. However, the German Society for Entertainment and Communications Technology (gfu) sees a future for them.

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Singapore Poly aims for fully mobile tech-enabled campus by 2014

 Singapore Polytechnic said it is on track to become a fully mobile technology-enabled campus by 2014.

It recently organised a Mobile Festival to help students build their competency in the creation and use of mobile technology.

One of the innovations shown at the festival is the use of iPhones and iPads to make music. The mobile devices were configured with specially designed apps to produce these sounds.

Other innovative ideas featured at the festival include an app that allows students to buy and sell used textbooks.

The polytechnic has a vision of becoming a mobile-enabled campus, where mobile technology is extensively used.

Tan Hang Cheong, principal of Singapore Polytechnic, said: "We do not really know what technology mobile devices will be like by 2014 because (technology) changes so quickly. Hopefully, we can reach a stage where mobile devices can really replace notebooks and PCs."

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Mobile: The Next Big Game-Changer for Agents

The explosion in popularity of smartphones, iPads and other tablets is changing customer expectations and behavior so rapidly, and so significantly, that travel agents who ignore mobile do so at their own peril.

That’s the consensus of travel technology experts who see mobile poised to transform the way travel agents engage with their clients – conceivably as dramatically as did the Internet.

Mobile isn’t a threat to agents, they say. It actually holds tremendous positive potential for agent-client relations.

But agents will need to make the mobile phenomenon their own, just as surely they needed to learn to use the Internet to their advantage, rather than being supplanted by it, said David Goodis, founder and chief executive officer of Revelex Corp.

‘Customers will demand it’
“Agents have got to be able to serve up what they have on any device. Customers will demand it,” said Goodis.

Goodis urged agents to adopt a multichannel approach. “We’re on the cusp” of that change occurring in the marketplace, said Goodis, whose firm is currently developing technology for agents that will enable them to adopt the mobile channel.
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Friday, November 18, 2011

Mobile Technology: Marine Corps Get Smartphone Network

Further incorporating mobile technology into the military, the U.S. Marine Corps will soon use a tactical smartphone network developed to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises.
The Office of Naval Research purchased from Lockheed Martin a MONAX system for the Marine Corps Forces Pacific Experimentation Center.
A portable, private 4G network, it provides voice, data and video services through commercial Smartphone technologies.
"We are proud to help the Marine Corps support this critical mission," UPI.com quoted Sam Guthrie, MONAX program director for Lockheed Martin IS&GS-Defense, as saying. "MONAX is a unique offering that provides an affordable, portable network for a wide range of military, civil and humanitarian missions."
MONAX provides users with a 4G private network they can operate anywhere. Connecting off-the-shelf smartphones to a cellular base station infrastructure, this secure broadband network system enables users to securely send and receive data.
Through the use of a secure RF Link, strong exportable encryption serves as a protection for communications, enabling the safe transfer of pertinent and sensitive information.

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Mashable Media Summit - Mobile Technology Advances for 2012

At the Mashable Media Summit, Pete Cashmore and other thought leaders discuss the future of

Thursday, November 17, 2011

World’s 7 billionth citizen more likely to die of diabetes

cientists have revealed that world citizen number 7 billion is less likely to die from infectious diseases like measles or even AIDS, and more likely to contract diabetes or other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), as they are now the leading causes of deaths globally.


The pathological picture changes, as more than half the world``s 7 billion people live in urban areas.

“Our new world citizen number 7 billion is more likely to grow up in an urban setting, which increases his or her risk of getting diabetes, as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cancer and heart disease,” said Siri Tellier, from the Copenhagen School of Global Health at the University of Copenhagen.

World citizen number 7 billion, who was estimated to be born on 31 October, will face very different diseases than that of children born only a few decades ago.

As the population of urban areas keeps growing, it rapidly changes the global health challenges.

“Until 2008, the majority of the world population lived in rural areas, but since then the majority has become urban, and most future population growth will happen in urban areas of developing countries. And one third of them, a little more than one billion, live in urban slums,” stated Siri Tellier.

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Facebook Says India Users Not Hit by Hacking Attack

Internet site Facebook Inc. Thursday said user accounts in India weren't affected by the spam attack which posted pornographic and violent images on the pages of users of the popular social networking website in the U.S. earlier this week.
Denying a recent media report, Facebook said that there have been inaccurate reports of users' accounts being hacked in India.
"This is not true. Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us".
Facebook has 25 million users in India.
Earlier, a report on the Midday tabloid website said accounts of more than 200,000 Facebook users were hacked and weblinks to their morphed pornographic pictures were sent as news feeds to friends and family.
However, Facebook denied this, saying users' photos were not transferred to an unwanted site and that no accounts were compromised.
Facebook's denial comes as the company Tuesday acknowledged a "coordinated spam attack" in the U.S. over the weekend, where some of its users were tricked into pasting and executing "malicious javascript" in their browser URL bar, causing them to share offensive content without knowing it.
"Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those responsible," Facebook said, in a separate response to the attack overseas.
The company has a no-nudity policy and requires that members be at least 13 years old. Users are encouraged to report questionable content via links on Facebook pages. The social network also removes pornography on its own initiative.
"We are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove material that violates our terms, and take action on those who is responsible for these types of content," the company said Thursday.
The site is facing challenges at a time when it is set to unveil a major redesign of the profile pages of its 800 million users. The redesign, called Timeline, is supposed to allow Facebook users to let the site organize all of their actions chronologically.

Facebook warns of recent wave of spam

Facebook said Wednesday that it has stopped most of the spam that has flooded many users' pages with pictures showing graphic sex and violence.
The social-networking company urged its 800 million-plus users to remain vigilant to keep their accounts from being hijacked.
That includes reporting suspicious links on friends' pages and not clicking on links that offer deals that are too good to be true.
Social-networking sites are popular targets for spammers because people are more likely to trust and share content that comes from people they know. This makes spam, scams and viruses easy to spread.
Still, Facebook says less than 4 percent of content shared on the site is spam. By comparison, about 74 percent of email is spam, according to security firm Symantec, though the bulk gets filtered out before reaching the inbox.
Over the past couple of days, many users have complained about finding links on their Facebook pages taking them to images depicting jarring violence and graphic pornography. Although the way the latest spam messages spread isn't new, their content is more shocking than the typical scam enticing a free iPod shuffle.
The latest attack tricked users into clicking on links by offering some sort of promise — free plane tickets, a fun new video or answers to a quiz, for example, said Vikram Thakur, principal security response manager at Symantec.
Clicking on the link took users to a page that asked them to copy and paste a line of malicious JavaScript programming code into the address bar of their Web browser.

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New technology comes with new privacy concerns

New technologies such as Apple Inc.’s Siri and Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire are pushing both the limits of mobile technology and the amount of data that can be collected about users. High-speed cellular service and relatively slow mobile hardware has supercharged hand-held devices and upped the ante on privacy concerns.
“I think that individuals do not understand that they are providing all of this detailed information when they sign up for services,” said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the American Civil Liberties of Illinois. “We need to make sure engaging in public life doesn’t result in harm or intrusion upon an individual’s privacy,” warns Ed Yohnka.
Apple's latest iPhone, the 4S, houses weapons-grade technology in its glass body. Siri, a project that originated in the depths of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, allows the user to interact and control the phone’s features by speaking to it in everyday language.

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T-Mobile USA Gains Net Subscribers in 3rd Quarter

New plans at T-Mobile USA helped the struggling No. 4 carrier stabilize its business in the third quarter after dismal results earlier this year.
The improvement comes as AT&T Inc.'s deal to buy T-Mobile from its German parent Deutsche Telekom AG has hit a roadblock in Washington. The Justice Department sued to stop the deal in August, saying it will reduce competition in the industry.
T-Mobile USA on Thursday said it gained a net 126,000 subscribers in the July to September period after three quarters of losses. It still lost contract subscribers, who are the most lucrative, but at a slower rate. The company credited its "Value" plans, which give subscribers the option to pay lower monthly fees if they bring their own phones or pay full price for new phones.
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AP
A sign for a T-Mobile store is displayed,... View Full Caption
T-Mobile USA gained non-contract subscribers under its own brand for the first time in more than a year, helped by plans that provide access to faster "4G" data service.

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Adobe's decision to abandon Flash for mobile technology decision, or economic Continue reading on Examiner.com Adobe's decision to abandon Flash for mobile technology decision, or economic - San Antonio Technology | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-san-antonio/adobe-s-decision-to-abandon-flash-for-mobile-technology-decision-or-economic

dobe announced earlier today that they have decided to abandon their Flash for Mobile software in favor of developing for HTML 5 support instead.  Much of the current reporting on this story is following the idea that Adobe is finally conceding a loss to Steve Jobs following their famous debate over the decision to exclude Flash support on iOS devices.
Jobs decided that HTML 5 was a better alternative to supporting media and animation over the web.  Apple has a long history of abandoning technology too soon, just as they did with Firewire.  In reality however, while HTML 5 does provide many advances over the previous iterations of the ubiquitous markup language, it is still years away from being completed.  The timeline for the technology is already behind schedule and is not expected to receive W3C Recommendation status until the year 2022.  Until that time, a large majority of websites will continue to include Flash media.  In fact, some websites wrap their entire content in Flash animations.  Many ads are also presented using Flash, as annoying as such ads may be.

Creating an Aura for Insurers With Mobile Technology


Many of us are still wired to the office, tied down to the trusty PC. But the number of business users on the go—not to mention consumers who stay connected 24/7 via their smartphone—isn’t likely to go down ever again.
Those mobile technology users enjoyed their experience on the PC or with their laptop and they want it replicated with their smartphone or tablet device.


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Africa: Mobile Media - How to Get Your Content to Your Audience

Mobile is often seen as the medium for Africa - the personal, portable devices are more numerous on the continent than traditional desktop computers.
A plenary discussion on the first day of the 2011 African Media Leaders Forum centred on the potential this mobile technology has to disrupt traditional distribution models for media content, and how media organisations can make use of this medium to reach their audience.

"Traditional media has its limitations. The mobile screen is the next platform," explained the Mobile Entertainment Forum's Emma Kaye.
"We are leap-frogging the PC and desktop environment in Africa - instead, we're going straight to mobile," Kaye added.
Mobile platforms like cell phones give media organisations the opportunity to interact with communities on a platform that is always on and used throughout the consumer's day. The devices allow for a level of personal interaction that is not possible with traditional media outlets.
"There is a deep need to interact and the mobile platform has the potential to actively engage the end user," explained Kaye.
Despite the strengths of the mobile platform, many companies find it difficult to make money from mobile devices. Audiences are often reluctant to pay for content, and some media organisations find it difficult to generate revenue.

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