11174390
submission
William Robinson writes:
The New York Times is reporting that 'Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, and have been observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defense Ministry, including documents on several Indian missile systems. Though the Indian government was the primary target of the attacks, one chink in computer security can leave many nations exposed. The researchers said that the spy operation appears to be different from the Internet intruders identified by Google and from a surveillance ring known as Ghostnet, also believed to be operating from China, which the Canadian researchers identified in March of last year. Ghostnet used computer servers based largely on the island of Hainan to steal documents from the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and governments and corporations in more than 103 countries.'
5537041
submission
William Robinson writes:
Indian Space Research Organisation is launching beta version of Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit), a web based tool similar to Google Earth. Some of the key differences include, Bhuvan will be able to take much closer pictures of the Indian Subcontinent as compared to the Google Earth. Bhuvan will feature a zoom level of upto 10 meters while the Google Earth features a zoom level of up to 200 meters. The user can also navigate through 3D viewing environment. One can "fly" to destinations of choice and even draw 3D objects such as placing of expressive 3D models, 3D polygons and boxes. The site also offers tools to measure horizontal, vertical and aerial distances.
5363107
submission
William Robinson writes:
The first Indian porn website has been shutdown after it was banned by Indian government a month ago. Savita Bhabhi, an Indian cartoon porn star born just a year ago, attracted more than 60 million visitors a month. Puneet Agarwal, creator of the web site, who had remained incognito using the pseudonym 'Deshmukh' and who came out openly to save the web site, has finally decided to pull the plug in spite of attempts to save the website by fans over twitter and blogs.
5127947
submission
William Robinson writes:
Googlers announced a new project, Google Chrome OS saying lower-end PCs called Netbooks from unnamed manufacturers will include it in the second half of 2010. Linux will run under the covers of the open-source project, but the applications will run on the Web itself. According to Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, "Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the Web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small Netbooks to full-size desktop systems. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates". The story is discussed on CNET.
3546827
submission
William Robinson writes:
Comet Lulin, formally known as C/2007 N3, which is on visit to solar system, will be closest to earth tonight, about 38 million miles. To the naked eye, the comet looks like a fuzzy patch of hazy light in southeastern sky near Saturn, at the tip of Leo the Lion's hind leg. After this brief visit, Lulin will be heading back out to its kin in the Oort Cloud.
2843987
submission
William Robinson writes:
The moon mineralogy mapper (M3), a scientific instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) onboard India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, found iron-bearing minerals on the lunar surface. The images revealed changes in rock and mineral composition, and the abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene. The moon mineralogy mapper, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, provides detailed compositional information regarding the moon a thing which has never been done before. The region that was mapped recently is called the Orientale Basin. Different wavelengths of light captured in the image provide new insights into the composition of the region. The story is available here too.
1813169
submission
William Robinson writes:
Mumbai, in India, has been attacked by terrorists killing more than 100 innocent people while looking for foreigners, especially US and UK citizens, some of them still being hostages. The new design of military style armed attacks brings up new possibilities of unsafe cities, five star hotels, civil as well as nuclear installations. While recalling memories of 9/11, and condemning these attacks, I wanted to ask slashdotters what needs to be done for preventing the terrorists becoming successful?
1796795
submission
William Robinson writes:
India's first unmanned lunar craft, Chandrayaan-1 has reported an unexplained rise in temperature on the atmosphere of Moon. According to the officials at ISRO, rise in the temperature is a normal phenomenon since it was still a summer time on Moon. They feel that the temperature would back to normal by December. The temperature inside India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 has gone over 50 degrees Celsius, prompting scientists to explore various options to cool down the unexpected surge. They have rotated the spacecraft by 20 degrees which has helped reduce the temperature of the craft to 40 degrees Celcius. As a last resort, they are planning to raise the orbit of the spacecraft to cool it down.
1714915
submission
William Robinson writes:
After 18 days journey, Chandrayan, the moon mission of India, has entered Lunar orbit. The manoeuvre was described as crucial and critical by scientists, who pointed out that at least 30 per cent of similar moon missions had failed at this juncture, resulting in space crafts lost in outer space. The lunar orbit insertion placed the Chandrayaan in an elliptical orbit with its nearest point 400 to 500 kilometres away from the moon and the farthest, 7,500 kilometres. By November 15, the spacecraft is expected to be orbiting the moon at a distance of 100 kilometres and sending back data and images. The Chandrayaan is also scheduled to send a probe to the moon's surface.
1320809
submission
William Robinson writes:
The Chandrayaan-1, literally "Lunar Craft", was launched today from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, on the southeastern coast of India. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon for two years, charting its mineral composition, searching for ice, and helium-3, all three fundamental for the establishment of a lunar outpost. It is carrying 2 NASA instruments, The Moon Mineralogy Mapper, which will assess mineral resources, and the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar, or Mini-SAR, which will map the polar regions and look for ice deposits. Apart from these two NASA instruments and three European Space Agency instruments, the Chandrayaan-1 is carrying the C1XS, an X-ray Spectrometer to get high-quality, X-ray spectroscopic mapping of the Moon, a near infrared spectrometer called SIR-2 to study the chemical composition of the Moons crust and mantle, and SARA, the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyser which will study plasma-surface interactions in space for the first time. The picture gallery and videos of Chandrayan 1.
836193
submission
William Robinson writes:
BBC is reporting that the next version of Internet Explorer will have a special "Privacy Mode". By clicking a button, users of IE8 will be able to limit how much information is recorded about where they go online and what they do. Users may wish to turn on the privacy mode if they are planning to visit some special web sites, buying presents or researching a medical condition and do not want others users of the same computer to find out. Safari already has this feature.
710501
submission
William Robinson writes:
A new research conducted at University of Illinois a higher-protein diet that emphasizes lean meats and low-fat dairy foods as sources of protein and calcium can mean weight loss without bone loss, as evident from bone scans performed on 130 middle-aged, overweight persons. Bone mineral content and density were measured with DXA scans of the whole body, lumbar spine, and hip at the beginning of the study, at four months, at eight months, and at the end of the 12-month period.
161193
submission
William Robinson writes:
The popular web site Orkut is planning to apply censorship on its contents. From this news from CNN "And if you have been concerned of web pages with obscenities scrawled over the national flag, or even others criticising the Father of the Nation or the ones negating political leaders — then sit back as these are going to be out of the website soon. Just report these to the Mumbai Police and chances are that not only will the pages be erased, but the creators brought to book for there has been an informal tie-up between the Mumbai Police and the Orkut management." What will be the level of censorship?
34989
submission
William Robinson writes:
A rare planet event is going to occur on Nov 8th, when mercury will transit the Sun during day time, and observers on earth will be able to see this even for almost 5 hours. Mercury's orbit is tipped 7 degrees relative to Earth's. So when Mercury passes between Earth and the Sun (during what astronomers call inferior conjunction), it usually passes a bit above or below the Sun from our viewpoint. But twice each year, around May 9th and November 10th, the imaginary ellipse of Mercury's orbit is projected directly against the Sun. Be careful while watching this event. Observers can burn a permanent blind spot in their eye's retina without proper protection.
33573
submission
William Robinson writes:
Microsoft has launched to Virtual Earth 3D, a new version of the company's mapping application that enables users to "fly" through three-dimensional models of cities from directly within their Web browser. Though, this step seems to be takes to compete with Google Earth, Microsoft says its offering takes the concept to another level, by bringing the virtual world closer to the physical world. Instead of grey scale boxes of buildings like in Google Earth, Virtual Earth 3D uses photographs to create realistic, textured buildings. Microsoft says it developed the cameras it uses to capture the images in house, as well as creating an algorithmic program to build the textured 3D models.
