Jan Lokpal on Twitter

The Jan Lokpal movement is spreading  on Twitter.

The Anna Hazare led movement demanding formulation of a strict law onLokpal- Jan Lokpal (People’s Lokpal) is abuzz on twitter with more than Two lakh then thousand people following the twitter handle.

The handle is now being followed by 214,480 (morning 6.50, 31 July 2012), with only 14,784 tweets.

People are using Twitter as a a medium to raise their voices and support Jan Lokpal. Anonymous, the loose hackers group has also shown support for the movement. It has tweeted on “Anonymous hereby pledge to fight against corruption in Indian system #OpRiseINDIA ENGAGED!”

Here I am posting some of the tweets and re-tweets by Jan Lokpal:

Vinita Deshmukh ‏@VinitaDeshmukh : If you cannot be on streets, then be on tweets. Support Anna in anyway you can.

VISHAL DADLANI ‏@V1SH4L : The People’s voice must not be a violent one, or an abusive, name-calling one. Let’s maintain dignity, decorum and a sense of true purpose!

Devendra Kumar ‏@dev_ism : Indian Archers Team want to join IAC-UK team in Protest. Hope they get permission. @janlokpal #Jantar MAntar #Anna

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ‏@SriSriSpeaks :I appeal to Annaji & Team Anna to call off the fast imm. We will continue to fight the menace of corruption together with greater resolve.

Shekhar Kapur ‏@shekharkapur : #Anna risks his life fasting for r future n v say its his personal political ambition?Does he need 2 die 2 convince us?

Rahul Kanwal ‏@rahulkanwal : For the record, no body in Govt stopped us from reporting on Anna earlier & no one has asked us to go now. These charges are ridiculous.

Anupam Kher ‏@AnupamPkher: My participation in Anna’s movement stems out of d values taught to me by family & my belief that “We The People” CAN make a difference.:)

Piyush Bhatia ‏@piyushbbhatia : Are you just reading tweets? IAC Mumbai needs thousands of volunteers…. come to Azad Maidan, CST!

ashutosh ‏@ashutoshibn7: i am at Jantar Mantar. Critics should take back their words and should stop discounting people’s mood.

Twitter Has Begun to Cut Off Instagram

News came out overnight that Twitter has disallowed Instagram users from finding their friends who are already on Twitter and adding them as users on Instagram. Twitter has confirmed this.

This is big news because it is a first step towards disallowing Instagram users from posting their pictures to Twitter, which almost certainly coming.

Why the change? Last month, Twitter blocked LinkedIn (LNKD) from reposting Twitter tweets on its site. This forces users to going to Twitter to see all their tweets and interact with them.

Many commentators tut-tutted CEO Dick Costolo for doing this, warning that Twitter would face the wrath of developers. I thought it was a brilliant move and feel the same about this latest development.

Twitter clearly felt jilted when Instagram agreed to be acquired by Facebook (FB). Twitter Chair Jack Dorsey was buds with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. In fact, Systrom was once an intern for Dorsey. Dorsey gushed to Charlie Rose that Systrom was a real “craftsman” and Dorsey used Instagram all the time.

When Systrom took Zuck bucks, Dorsey immediately switched to using Pic.Twitter.com — Twitter’s own (currently limited and boring) photo sharing service.

I’m sure Dorsey would have loved to buy Instagram but Twitter doesn’t have the cash and stock to do that. Maybe they will if they get into bed with Apple (AAPL) one of these days.

But, as I argued a few weeks ago, how hard would it be really for Dorsey to put 13 people in a room and create a bunch of filters for Twitter’s own photo-sharing service? As great as Instagram is, it’s not rocket science to copycat. If they can do it in Beijing, why can’t a few folks in San Francisco get on their horse and do the same thing?

They should. Instagram announced proudly over the weekend that they’ve reached 80 million users. How much of that was thanks to Twitter? A lot.

Twitter probably still hopes that the FTC will block Facebook’s anti-competitive acquisition of Instagram (and they should). Maybe they’ll get another kick at that can with help from Apple.

In the meantime, Twitter should say “no soup for you” to Instagram — and launch its own half-decent copycat. It would do very well. I would happily switch.

The biggest earthquake is probably still to come though. Let’s wait andd see how Facebook’s MAUs, DAUs, and mobile MAUs change when Twitter cuts off Facebook

Twitter users consume bandwidth for cyslists in Olympics

Twitter has disrupted the GPS Navigation of cyclists in the Olympics by consuming more bandwidth. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked Twitter users to stop consuming bandwidth needed by broadcast media after GPS data transmissions stopped working correctly.

According to the Associated Press: the Olympic Broadcasting Services service was jammed by “hundreds of thousands” of people sending texts, pictures and updates to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Reuters explains how the social media stream interfered with GPS signals tracking Olympic cyclists:Commentators on Saturday’s men’s cycling road race were unable to tell viewers how far the leaders were ahead of the chasing pack because data could not get through from the GPS satellite navigation system travelling with the cyclists.

To alleviate the bandwidth issue, which prevented broadcasters from tracking the exact location of cyclists, the IOC asked users not to tweet, saying unless it’s an “urgent, urgent one, please kind of take it easy.”

The problem arose due to lack of data bandwidth provided by telecom carriers, which did not properly anticipate demand. In a sense, the bandwidth allocation issue is not surprising given the scale of social media during these Olympics. CNET’s Zack Whittaker reports that users send almost ten million tweets during the opening ceremonies alone.

Since this blog is about IT failures, we must ask whether this situation qualifies as such a failure. The answer is a definite “yes.” Although the cause was human error in planning for sufficient bandwidth, the net effect is a technical glitch that prevents media broadcasters from doing their job as planned.

Many IT failures appear as technical problems even though the underlying cause has no basis in technology. In this instance, planners under-estimated demand for data and did not allocate sufficient bandwidth. In addition, it appears the telecom provider did not prioritize broadcast-related traffic over public access use. As a result, congested data pipes pushed out the GPS signals, creating this particular IT failure.

(Source:zdnet.com)

Security researchers break encryption on Android phones

If you lose your Android phone, your personal and confidential data could find its way into the wrong hands, even if you have encryption turned on. That’s what hackers have demonstrated at the DefCon.

A pair of security researchers have found an easy way past the encryption on many Android phones.

The good thing is that, the method is not exploiting any flaw in the Linux-based encryption system used in Android devices, but it is rather the passwords that protect the encryption tend to be rather weak. This is because Android uses the same password to decrypt the data on the phone as is used to unlock the device. People tend to use either short PIN numbers, simple patterns or easy-to-remember words. As a result, the encryption is fairly easily broken, through what is known as a brute-force attack.

“The encryption is good but you are able to brute-force it,” said Thomas Cannon, director of research and development for Chicago-based Viaforensics. Cannon highlighted the issue during a presentation at the Defcon hacker conference on Saturday.

Once unlocked, all the information in the user data partition is easily accessible.

An easy fix is – if Android were to incorporate two passwords — a strong one for decrypting a phone at boot-up, and a simpler, easy-to-remember one for unlocking the device, Cannon suggested.

(Source: allthingsd.com)

The battle of tech giants

The two tech giants – Apple and Samsung are to take their patent battle to a federal jury trial in San Jose. The trial is expected to be a weeks-long court fight.

Apple and Samsung, are the world’s largest consumer electronics companies, and are accusing each other of patent violations as they fight for dominance in the mobile devices market. This fight began last year when Apple sued Samsung accusing it of copying the iPhone and iPad models. In response to this Samsung countersued.

The US District Court of Northern California Judge Lucy Koh of  will spend much of Monday on jury selection. A 10-member jury will hear evidence. If there is time, the two sides will be able to present open arguments. The trial will resume on Tuesday and for the first two weeks, the trial will take place Monday, Tuesday and Friday. If the trial stretching into a third week, it will meet every day.

Apple alleges that Samsung has illegally produced knockoffs of Apple’s iPhone and iPad products. In the lawsuit, filed last year, Apple seeks $2.5 billion in damages. If Apple wins the sum, it would be the largest patent-related verdict in history. The two companies have been fighting in court over other issues as well.

Samsung has been ordered to pull its Galaxy 10.1 tablet from the U.S. market until the trial is complete. Samsung argues that some of the technology in question has been standard across the telecom industry for years — and Apple itself has copied products off of other companies. It said Apple developed its iPhone by copying off of Sony. It denies allegations that it created knockoffs of Apple’s products.

Grid Failure- North India Black Out

Today due to the failure of the northern grid, the second largest grid supplying electricity to the country – whole India slipped into darkness.

In the night at about 2.30, electricity went off in 9 states, including Delhi. Electricity was restored after only 12 in the morning, in selected areas. 80% of the areas in Delhi got power by 3 in the afternoon. Northern Railway was also affected by this, as nearly 300 trains, including Rajdhani, Shatbadi and Duronto, were severely affected were disrupted. Traffic was back to normal by 9 in the morning.

 

Twitter to let you download all your tweets

Twitter will soon let you download all your tweets, including the oldest. Finally it is working on a solution to one of the most obvious things which is missing from the social network right now – the option to let the user go back to all the old and oldest tweets.

Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo told The New York Times that the social network is working on a tool to let users retrieve all of the updates they’ve posted to the social network. “We’re working on a tool to let users export all of their tweets,” Costolo said. “You’ll be able to download a file of them.”

Costolo however, did not give the New York Times a launch date for the new feature, but he did say he was confident the tools would reach users at some point. He also said the export tool will only let users grab their own tweets, not tweets from the general masses.

According to Business Insider, some third-party services have come up with workaround solutions to this problem, including one new site called Oldtweets, which lets users search through all the tweets posted to Twitter in the first year after the social network launched.

(Source: businessinsider.com, www.latimes.com)

Nuclear power will expand to 99 percent by 2035 – Report

According to the UN’s Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear power will expand between 44 and 99 percent by 2035, with a total added capacity between 165 and 371 gigawatts.

This biennial report on uranium resources and nuclear development thinks in 20 years those echoes which emerged after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl still is echoing loudly through the industry, less than a year and a half after the earthquake and tsunami did their work on the Fukushima plant – will have faded.

Some countries, notably Germany, which has pledged to shut down all of its 17 reactors by 2022, are headed in the opposite direction. Even if they follow through, however, this might not make a dent in the industry overall growth. The report, known informally as the Red Book, predicts nuclear will expand between 125 and 185 percent in East Asia, with heavy construction in China, South Korea, India, and Russia.

It seems striking that a disaster that captured the world’s full attention might have so little lingering effect. Gary Dyck, the head of nuclear fuel cycle and materials at IAEA, told Reuters that “we see [Fukushima] as a speed bump. We still expect huge growth in China.” That’s a hell of a speed bump; after Chernobyl in 1986, global nuclear capacity growth did slowfairly dramatically, though this could be attributed to a number of factors.

One thing that won’t hold up nuclear growth is fuel supply. The Red Book, which focuses on uranium mining and availability, indicates that total identified resources have grown 12.5 percent since 2008. Costs of production have also increased, but overall the “total identified resources are sufficient for over 100 years of supply based on current requirements.” And it could be even longer if a few very rich people are right about the potential of some novel nuclear reactor designs. The future of nuclear power might be a bit rosier than it has seemed over the last 18 months.

(Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org)

Polymer solar cell offers reasonably impressive efficiency

A new type of polymer solar cell adds to the growing field of transparent solar technology, and offers reasonably impressive efficiency for such a device. Researchers at UCLA have created a cell that absorbs primarily infrared light, allowing much of the visible spectrum to pass through; the cell is 66 percent transparent, with an energy conversion efficiency of 4 percent.

The 4 percent rate seems low compared to the 15 to 20 percent for standard solar panels, but transparent cells are generally stuck in such low ranges. And if the new cells are cheap to produce and actually install on windows, 4 percent won’t sound so terrible. The new work’s lead researcher, UCLA materials science and engineering professor Yang Yang, said in a press release that “they can be produced at high volume at low cost.”

According to the group’s paper, polymer solar cells have reached a record efficiency of 10.6 percent, at least suggesting that the materials could compete with more standard solar technology. The new cell involves a photoactive layer sandwiched between transparent electrodes. The photoactive layer is made of a near-infrared light-sensitive photovoltaic polymer (if you must know: poly(2,6′-4,8-bis(5-ethylhexylthienyl)benzo[1,2-b;3,4-b]dithiophene-alt-5-dibutyloctyl-3,6-bis(5-bromothiophen-2-yl)pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-dione, or, in the interest of brevity, PBDTT-DPP). From the paper: “PBDTT-DPP is a low band gap polymer with strong photosensitivity in the range of 650-850 nm.” The top transparent electrode was made from silver nanowire composite films, allowing for solution processing — a cheap method for fabricating solar cells.

The researchers created 40 of the cells to ensure reproducibility, and found efficiencies ranging between 3.6 and 4 percent. Transparent solar has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, given the obvious appeal of having every sun-facing window producing power even while you stare through it. The economics of covering every skyscraper in energy-producing glass might not work for a while, but there is undeniable potential: in 2010, buildings accounted for 41 percent of all electricity consumption in the U.S.

(Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/solar/new-cell-a-step-forward-for-seethrough-solar)

Google Fiber launched as promised

It’s official — as promised, Google Fiber has launched in Kansas City on the 26th. After months of building its Fiber infrastructure in Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO Google is now ready to connect Kansas Citians to Google Fiber’s ultra-fast Internet and crystal clear HDTV.

Google Fiber is different—and getting it is different too. For the who would like to connect their homes to Google Fiber, one first need to pre-register at google.com/fiber and pay a $10 fee. Google have said – “Pre-registering matters—if your fiberhood doesn’t reach its goal by September 9, you will not be able to get Fiber.”

Novice players feel moral distress, remorse after playing violent video games

New research from the University of Luxembourg shows that novice video game players experience “moral distress” and “remorse” after playing violent video games. Experienced players of violent video games did not experience the same phenomenon.

The researchers had 76 people play violent video games for 15 minutes, after which they were told to select gift items for others. Those who were “inexperienced” with violent video games were more likely to select “hygienic products” like shower gel, deodorant, and toothpaste than those who played violent video games on a regular basis.

“The need to cleanse to keep moral purity intact, the ‘Macbeth effect,’ is a psychological phenomenon in which a person attempts to purify oneself in order to cope with feelings of moral distress,” said lead researcher Dr. Andre Melzer. “We find that the Macbeth effect can result from playing violent videogames, especially when the game involves violence against humans.”

The “Macbeth effect” is named after a scene from the play by Shakespeare in which Lady Macbeth suffers from guilt after a dream about her involvement in the bloody murder of the king. She obsessively washes her hands throughout the play.

Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts.

Video game advocates contend that a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence. They argue that violent video games may reduce violence by serving as a substitute for rough and tumble play and by providing a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings.

Dr. Melzer plans to present his research findings at the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA) World Meeting 2012 at the University of Luxembourg and publish his work in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Samsung leads globally in smartphone market

Samsung is the global smartphone market leader, commanding an impressive 32.6 percent share in the second quarter of 2012, according to idc.com.

Not only that, the South Korean vendor is also leading the overall mobile device market: Samsung, which has just reported record quarterly operating profits of 6.72 trillion won (US$5.9 billion), took that spot from Nokia during the first quarter.

The table below tells the smartphone market story. What’s interesting, apart from the overall pace of growth is, Samsung and Apple combined now account for about half of the total market. The ZTE is making progress that matches its ambition.

Smartphone Shipments and Market Share, Q2 2012

Shipments in millions	Q2 2012 units	Q2 2012 market share	Q2 2011 units	Q2 2011 market share	YoY change
Samsung	50.2	32.6%	18.4	17.0%	172.8%
Apple	26.0	16.9%	20.4	18.8%	27.5%
Nokia	10.2	6.6%	16.7	15.4%	-38.9%
HTC	8.8	5.7%	11.6	10.7%	-24.1%
ZTE	8.0	5.2%	2.0	1.8%	300.0%
Others	50.7	32.9%	39.2	36.2%	29.3%
Total	153.9	100%	108.3	100%	42.1%
Source: IDC    Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.

In the overall mobile phone segment, Samsung is the clear market leader, leaving Nokia to lick its wounds in second place.

Mobile Phone Shipments and Market Share, Q2 2012

Shipments in millions	Q2 2012 units	Q2 2012 market share	Q2 2011 units	Q2 2011 market share	YoY change
Samsung	97.8	24.1%	75.4	18.8%	29.7%
Nokia	83.7	20.6%	88.5	22.0%	-5.4%
Apple	26.0	6.4%	20.4	5.1%	27.5%
ZTE	17.7	4.4%	16.3	4.1%	8.6%
LG Electronics	13.1	3.2%	24.8	6.2%	-47.2%
Others	167.7	41.3%	176.4	43.9%	-4.9%
Total	406.0	100%	401.8	100%	1.0%
Source: IDC   Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.

(Source: lightreading.com/)

Fastest supercomputer in Europe runs Linux

SuperMUC, the fastest supercomputer in Europe and world’s fourth most powerful supercomputer runs SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The system was built by IBM and  has the distinction of being the single fastest x86-based supercomputer. The Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.

A statement issued by SUSE says that the supercomputer has a unique cooling system inspired by human blood circulation that significantly reduces energy consumption. The supercomputer is reportedly designed so that some of the energy can be recaptured and used to heat buildings at the LRZ campus. The statement also says that the SuperMUC has 155,000 processor cores capable of delivering a total of 3 petaflops of processing power. A report on Slashdot indicates that the computer has 324 terabytes of memory.

SUSE Linux runs on approximately one-third of the world’s top 25 supercomputers. Some prominent examples of SUSE-powered supercomputers include Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Blacklight at the Pittsburgh Super Computer Center, JUGENE at the Jülich Research Centre, Pleiades at NASA’s Ames Research Center, and Columbia at NASA’s advanced supercomputing facility.

(Source: http://arstechnica.com)

Apple, Samsung competition continues

Apple and Samsung smartphone competition is not limited to the patent fight. Apple offers another reason – It is buying mobile security company AuthenTec – which had only just signed a deal with Samsung for Android devices — for $356 million.

AuthenTec among other things, makes fingerprint sensor chips that are used for security and identification purposes; these are embedded in computing devices. The news was first reported by Reuters; the full announcement was filed with the Securities Exchange Commission.

Just earlier this month AuthenTec had signed a deal with Samsung to cover security and device management services to cater to the “BYOD” trend (Bring Your Own Device) — that is, workers taking their own handsets into their enterprise environment. The AuthenTec service would let IT managers quickly secure and authenticate those devices.

Security has become a very strong focus with smartphones: the more wireless we become the more of our lives we put into the cloud, with those devices becoming a key way of accessing it. With the introduction of mobile wallet services — something likely to be on Apple’s radar — the importance of securing our devices will become even greater.

We will have to wait and see exactly what Apple intends to do with this purchase, but it’s likely to mean a stronger set of enterprise-friendly features, and possibly some security and authentication services that can be used for the whole of the iPhone user base.

(Source: http://techcrunch.com)

Provide adequate info to broadband consumers, directs TRAI

To ensure transparency in delivery of broadband services and to protect interests of consumers in the telecom sector, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today issued directions to telecom service providers for delivering broadband services in a transparent manner by providing adequate information to the broadband consumers about various plans and Fair Usage Policy.

Through this direction, telecom service providers have been asked to provide adequate information on Fair Usage Policy; to ensure that speed of broadband connection is not reduced below the minimum speed specified and to provide alert to consumers when their data usage reaches 80% and 100% of the data usage limit bundled with the plan.

This direction has already been placed on TRAI website- http://www.trai.gov.in.

(Press Release from the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology today)