Chinese students use high-tech devices to cheat in exam.

Seven students were caught using wireless earphones and wristwatch-like receiving devices for cheating during a national college entrance examination in northwest China.

The students took the exam Monday and Tuesday in China's Gansu province, Xinhua reported quoting local authorities Wednesday. They scored zero marks in the exams.

Meanwhile, police have detained three people who allegedly sold the devices, a spokesman for the education bureau in Jingyuan county said.

The annual two-day exam, or "gaokao" in Chinese, is the only opportunity for the high school students to secure a place in the universities.

Chinese students use high-tech devices to cheat in exam.

For men it just take milliseconds to fall for attractive women.

Blame it on their genes, but men take just a fraction of a second to judge a woman on her looks and whether she will be a potential partner or not.

They weigh up potential partners based on their appearance because their "ancient" genetic preference for attractive mates leads them to, experts claim.

According to research, men take a woman with an attractive face to be fertile and able to continue the family line, which appeals to the man's survival instinct.

On the other hand, women take longer to decide their feelings for a man because they need to weigh up whether he will be a committed partner who will provide for them well - part of their survival programming.

Professor Mark van Vugt and Dr Johanna van Hooff, from the University of Amsterdam, and postgraduate student Helen Crawford, from the University of Kent, were behind the study.

For men it just take milliseconds to fall for attractive women.

Transformer 3 revealed,

• Transformers 3 is the working title for the third movie in the series, scheduled for release on July 1, 2011. The possibility has been evaluated that the third film will be made in 3-D.
• As we know that there wont been Megan fox in Transformers 3, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is confirmed as female lead role.
• "Dorky comedy" gone. Twins are "basically" gone.
• Transformers 3 will be the end of a trilogy. Bay says “As a trilogy, it really ends. It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending.”
• The main villain in Transformers 3 will be Shockwave.

Src: [tfw2005.com]

Transformer 3 revealed,

Private data from Austria, Denmark, Ireland deleted: Google

Google has deleted private wireless data mistakenly collected by its "Street View" cars in Austria, Denmark and Ireland, the Internet giant said in a letter to US lawmakers.

Google, in the letter posted online Friday on the website of the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US House of Representatives, also reiterated that the data was never used in any Google product or service.

Google also repeated an apology for the gathering of personal information sent over unsecured wireless networks by the Street View cars used to create the panoramic pictures featured in Google Maps

The letter from Pablo Chavez, Google's director of public policy, was in response to questions posed by US Congressmen Henry Waxman, Joe Barton and Edward Markey to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

Private data from Austria, Denmark, Ireland deleted: Google

New strain of bacteria discovered that could aid in oil spill, other environmental cleanup.

Researchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive "rhamnolipids," and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs - environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills.

Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say.

More research to further reduce costs and scale up production would be needed before its commercial use, they added.

The findings on this new bacterial strain that degrades the PAHs in oil and other hydrocarbons were just published in a professional journal, Biotechnology Advances, by researchers from Oregon State University and two collaborating universities in China. OSU is filing for a patent on the discovery.

"PAHs are a widespread group of toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds, but also one of the biggest concerns about oil spills," said Xihou Yin, a research assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy.

"Some of the most toxic aspects of oil to fish, wildlife and humans are from PAHs," Yin said. "They can cause cancer, suppress immune system function, cause reproductive problems, nervous system effects and other health issues. This particular strain of bacteria appears to break up and degrade PAHs better than other approaches we have available."

New strain of bacteria discovered that could aid in oil spill, other environmental cleanup.

Artefact puts Flash and sliverlight on iPad 'In A Pinch' [VIDEO]

As Steve jobs rejects Flash adobe propriety software on iphone and ipad but a Artefact Group have been working on a service called Flash In A Pinch.

Recently we saw Smokescreen, a browser plug-in that pulls apart SWF binaries and reassembles them into something Apple-friendly.

It’s not jail-broken and it doesn’t require an app or a plug-in: Just the default Safari browser. 

And for the proof they had posted some videos

Artefact puts Flash and sliverlight on iPad 'In A Pinch' [VIDEO]

Google ends background image experiment.

It looked horrible, and users hated it. Even so, Google persisted with it for hours - and only stopped it because of a 'bug'

Google ended its experiment to put a picture on its front page – whether you wanted on or not – only 14 hours into its 24-hour experiment, blaming the decision on a bug which meant that an explanatory link wasn't included.

The problem was caused when it added a World Cup doodle - which of course would look like a mess of pottage if you had chosen a picture for your background.

Google ends background image experiment.

Apple faces antitrust scrutiny: report

The regulators have already started scanning Apple's actions, the paper said, citing people familiar with the move.

But it is not yet clear whether the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice would take up an investigation, the Times said.

Apple could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

On Wednesday, Google said recent changes to Apple's developers agreement would effectively cripple Google's advertising tools for the iPhone, creating "artificial" barriers to competition.

Apple changed the language of the agreement on Monday, which now appears to prohibit certain third-party ad agencies from collecting critical usage data from iPhone applications.

Apple faces antitrust scrutiny: report

Google helps build trade case over Web censorship.

Google Inc is working with U.S. and European officials to build a case that would argue Internet censorship acts as a trade barrier, a top company executive said on Friday.

Robert Boorstin, Google's director of corporate and policy communications, said the company is working with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the State Department, Commerce Department and European officials to build a case to take to the World Trade Organization.

Such a case could help U.S. tech companies seeking greater access to Chinese consumers while furthering the U.S. government's human rights agenda.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her technology advisers have promoted Internet freedom as a basic human right.

Google helps build trade case over Web censorship.

Twitter Launches Official World Cup Tracking Page.

The FIFA World Cup 2010 is officially opened and football fever is touching its new height. In order to make it easier to follow news and updates about specific teams and matches, Twitter has launched a brand new World Cup portal page.

The new page is smartly designed, displaying upcoming matches, the most interesting tweets (as determined by Twitter’s algorithm) and Twitter staff picks for relevant users to follow.

Twitter Launches Official World Cup Tracking Page.

Yahoo World Cup Shootout Game to Raise $100k to Fight AIDS in Africa.

World Cup 2010 is officially underway and to celebrate, Yahoo and (RED) have teamed up to donate $1 for every goal scored today via Yahoo Penalty Shootout to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

Yahoo’s Penalty Shootout online game launched in May. The game tasks users to try their hand at winning a penalty shootout against friends or strangers. You can choose your country and challenge one of your Yahoo or Facebook friends to a shootout duel. For each shootout, you’ll play the part of both the striker and the goalie, selecting a portion of the goal to either attack or defend.

Yahoo World Cup Shootout Game to Raise $100k to Fight AIDS in Africa.

New facebook design being tested.

Facebook confirmed they are testing this new look in an email to us this afternoon, writing, “we’re currently testing different variations and designs of our Publisher. As with many of our features and products, we’re constantly making tweaks to test performance and usability.”

New facebook design being tested.

Twitter crashes explained by their engineers.

Twitter explaines the causes of — and remedies for — its multiple and massive failures over the past week.

The high number of errors and generally poor performance , this summer’s problem has been one of scale: Twitter is growing so much and so quickly that the engineering team has been challenged when trying to keep up with the sheer volume of data going through the service’s internal network.

What happened that caused this week’s Twitter issues, wrote engineer Jean-Paul Cozzatti, is that the engineering team made three critical mistakes:

• The team put two important, fast-growing, high-bandwith components on the same segment of Twitter’s internal network.
• The network wasn’t being monitored the way it should have been.
• The internal network was also temporarily misconfigured.

To ensure the same mistakes aren’t repeated, Cozzatti continued to outline what Twitter will be doing to fix the problem. He wrote that the company has doubled the capacity of its internal network, improved how it’s monitored and rebalanced its traffic.

Twitter crashes explained by their engineers.

Son kills father over mobile recharge.

 This incident took place in West Bengal.

A 16-year-old boy allegedly killed his father when he refused to give him money to recharge his mobile phone, police said on Friday.

Monsoor Sheikh repeatedly beat his father, Khijmat Sheikh, 40, on his head by a lathi on not getting money to recharge his mobile phone in the presence of other family members in their house at Nandai village in the district, they said.

Sheikh, a daily wager, died on the spot, they added.

Monsoor's mother lodged an FIR against his son with Kalna Police station, claiming that she and her three other children were eyewitness to the incident.

Monsoor is absconding.

Son kills father over mobile recharge.

Abby Sunderland is safe in Indian ocean, spotted by Australian Airbus A330

A teenage US sailor who went missing while sailing solo around the world has been found safe and well, her family has said.

Direct content from soloround.blogspot.com

We have just heard from the Australian Search and Rescue. The plane arrived on the scene moments ago. Wild Eyes is upright but her rigging is down. The weather conditions are abating. Radio communication was made and Abby reports that she is fine!

We don't know much else right now. The French fishing vessel that was diverted to her location will be there in a little over 24 hours. Where they will take her or how long it will take we don't know.

More updates as news comes in.

Laurence & Marianne

Abby Sunderland is safe in Indian ocean, spotted by Australian Airbus A330

Inventor of Photosynthesis-Based Solar Cells Wins Millennium Tech Prize.

A Switzerland-based chemist who invented solar cells that mimic photosynthesis is the winner of a million-dollar technology prize announced Wednesday. Michael Gratzel invented low-cost solar cells that can be turned into electricity-generating windows, mobile solar panels and other devices.

He won the $960,000 (€800,000) Millennium Technology Prize, awarded every other year by Finland's Technology Academy.

The cells use nanocrystal films to produce power from sunlight, the BBC reports. The particles are so small that they don't scatter light, and can collect solar energy from all sides. The cells are fairly cheap to make — they use dye squeezed from berries, for instance — which the Finnish academy said could be a breakthrough for solar energy.

Inventor of Photosynthesis-Based Solar Cells Wins Millennium Tech Prize.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter joins twitter for world cup.

Blatter's account, @seppblatter, went live on Thursday on the eve of the tournament's opening game and the 74-year-old Swiss had already amassed almost 3,000 followers by the early evening.

Blatter is more fortunate than many of the players at the tournament in being able to use the micro-blogging service.

Netherlands players have been banned from using Twitter during the World Cup after Eljero Elia sparked a racism row with comments on a live streaming video.

Src & Text: [reuters]

FIFA president Sepp Blatter joins twitter for world cup.

Collecta Raises $5M for its upgrade.

Real-time search outfit Collecta has just announced a $4.7 million Series B round of funding from Dace Ventures.

Funding will be used to help grow the company’s team, strike more content partnership deals, and increase the level of engagement and time spent on its sites. The company’s products include user-friendly widgets, custom Site Search and several APIs.

Collecta will also be moving its headquarters to LA, advantageous for creating and strengthening relationships with big, traditional media companies. To date, one of the company’s greatest strengths has been its ability to broker deals with and create value for companies such as CNN and FOX. We look forward to seeing what kinds of partnerships are forged once the staff has settled into its new home.

Collecta Raises $5M for its upgrade.

Twitter Acquires Smallthought Systems to Integrate Analytics Tools

Twitter has acquired Smallthought Systems, makers of Dabble DB and Trendly, an analytics dashboard that appears to have inspired the acquisition.

With the acquisition, Twitter (Twitter) will bring the Smallthought team in-house to integrate Trendly concepts into Twitter.

The news is also featured on Dabble DB’s website. The company writes that this is not the end of Dabble DB and that operation and technical support will continue as usual for existing users, although new sign-ups will not be allowed and no new features will be released.

Twitter Acquires Smallthought Systems to Integrate Analytics Tools

Android Phones Selling Faster Than They Can Be Built.

According to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, company’s Android-powered mobile devices are selling faster than they can be manufactured. Verizon has had similar experiences with the Droid Incredible from HTC, an Android phone whose biggest problem has been that demand outstrips current supply, said to Reuters.

More Motorola devices, including several with front-facing cameras for video conferencing, are slated for release later this year. Sprint’s EVO, another video conferencing-capable Android handset, has been on sale for just a few days and is already sold out and breaking Sprint sales records, too.

Additionally LG, a company that had previously committed to releasing Windows Mobile handsets, has stated it will release 20 Android handsets this year alone.

Ever since the Droid’s launch last November, its sales figures have rocked the mobile industry.

Android Phones Selling Faster Than They Can Be Built.