Astronomers ‘discover’ planet made of diamonds

 In what could be called a gem of a discovery, astronomers claim to have found a planet entirely made of diamonds.

An international team of scientists, who reported their discovery in the journal Science, said they have unearthed a once-massive star in the Milky Way that has been transformed into a small planet made of the precious rock.

The team — made up of scientists from Australia, Italy, Germany, Britain and the U.S. —— first detected an unusual star, called a pulsar, and followed up their discovery using a telescope based in an observatory in Cheshire.

It led the scientists to discover the gravitational pull of a small companion planet orbiting the pulsar, the Daily Mail reported.

Pulsars are small spinning stars more than ten miles in diameter — the size of a small city —— that emit a beam of radio waves.

The researchers think that the “diamond planet” is all that remains of the original star, most of whose matter was siphoned off towards the pulsar.

The companion planet is small, at less than 40,000 miles wide — about five times the diameter of Earth.

But it is so close to the pulsar that if it were a bit bigger it would have been ripped apart by the gravitational force of the star, which rotates more than 10,000 times per minute and has a mass of about 1.4 times that of the sun.

“This remnant is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times,” said research team member Dr. Michael Keith of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia.

Google TV to launch in Europe in 2012

Google Inc will launch its TV service in Europe early next year, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said, despite teething problems that had led some observers to question how committed the company would remain to the project.

Google TV, which allows viewers to mix Web and television content on a TV screen via a browser, was launched in the United States in October but received mixed reviews and was swiftly blocked by three of the top US broadcast networks.

Large parts of the television industry, like the news and telecoms industries, view Google with suspicion and accuse it of stealing their advertising revenues without contributing to the costs of making programs.

Schmidt sought to allay the fears of Britain's broadcasting elite in a speech to the Edinburgh television festival, the first time a non-TV executive had been invited to give the keynote MacTaggart lecture at Britain's premier industry event.

"Some in the US feared we aimed to compete with broadcasters or content creators. Actually our intent is the opposite," he told an audience who quickly warmed to his friendly style and liberal compliments to the quality of British television.

"We seek to support the content industry by providing an open platform for the next generation of TV to evolve, the same way Android is an open platform for the next generation of mobile," he said.

"We expect Google TV to launch in Europe early next year, and of course the UK will be among the top priorities."

Google TV has gained little traction so far in the United States, and its set top box provider Logitech International SA slashed prices to $99 in July from an initial price of $299.

Schmidt also included a warning to British television regulators, who he said were far more stringent than their US counterparts and threatened to throttle the development of British television companies in an increasingly global market.

"Stifling the Internet -- whether by filtering or blocking or just plain turning the 'off' switch -- appeals to policy makers the world over," he said. "Instead, policy makers should work with the grain of the Internet rather than against it."
Opportunistic
Google has long held ambitions in the television arena, hoping to extend its online advertising business, which made $28 billion for the company last year, to the big screens that still command the lion's share of global advertising budgets.

"If his ambition was to go there and convince the TV people he wasn't a big threat, I don't think he achieved it," said Keith McMahon, an analyst at research firm Telco 2.0/STL Partners.

"The message I got was that TV is such a big market that Google can't ignore it. They're never going to give it up."

So far, Google has had little success breaking into the TV market, despite its ownership of the world's most popular online video site, YouTube.

Last week, however, Google agreed a deal to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc for $12.5 billion, handing it the world's leading set top box business which delivers content for many of the top cable TV companies in the United States.

The headline attraction of the deal was Motorola's huge portfolio of wireless patents but the set top box business could help Google transform its TV project by giving it insights into pay-TV.

Google has not spelled out its plans for the set top box business, and many analysts expect it to divest the unit at the first opportunity, having no experience or previous interest in running a hardware business.

Others believe Google could change tack under CEO Larry Page, Google's co-founder who took back the reins from Schmidt in April and has already started a social network to compete with Facebook while ditching other projects.

"Google describes itself as an opportunistic company. So while it may not have wanted to buy Motorola's operations, it may now assess whether retaining these assets can compensate for the risk of owning them," New York-based Nomura analyst Stuart Jeffrey wrote in a note this week.

Schmidt made no mention of the Motorola acquisition or its implications on Friday, but will hold a question and answer session in Edinburgh on Saturday.

Magnetic computers coming Soon: Could use million times less energy

Today's silicon-based microprocessor chips depend on electric currents, or moving electrons, that generate a lot of waste heat.But microprocessors employing nanometre-sized bar magnets -- like tiny refrigerator magnets -- for memory, logic and switching operations theoretically would require no moving electrons. A nanometre is a bnth of a metre.

Such chips would dissipate only 18 millielectron volts of energy per operation at room temperature, the minimum allowed by the laws of thermodynamics. That's a million times less energy per operation than consumed by today's computers.


"Today, computers run on electricity; by moving electrons around a circuit, you can process information," said Brian Lambson, University of California Berkeley graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences, according to a California statement.


"A magnetic computer, on the other hand, doesn't involve any moving electrons. You store and process information using magnets, and if you make these magnets really small, you can basically pack them very close together so that they interact with one another.


Lambson is working with Jeffrey Bokor, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at California, to develop magnetic computers.

Google Labs to be shut down

Google Inc will shut down a website that offered public access to experimental products, the latest step by the company to refocus resources under Chief Executive Larry Page.

Google said it will "wind down" Google Labs, ending many of the projects offered on the site, in a move to "prioritize its product efforts," the company said on its corporate blog.

Google said that many of the products and technology from Google Labs would be incorporated into some of the company's other products, which range from the world's No. 1 search engine to its popular Android smartphone operating system.

Google Labs functions as a central hub for the various projects created by Google employees, who are allowed to spend up to 20 percent of their time working on side-projects. Google Labs products were available as prototypes that users could try out and provide feedback on, while Google made ongoing changes and adjustments.

Among the products listed as "alumni" of Google Labs on the Labs website are Google Maps, Google Alerts and Google Transit.

A Google spokesman said the closure of Google Labs was unrelated to the company's 20 percent time policy .

"We don't have any changes to announce regarding 20 percent time. We'll continue to devote a subset of our time to newer and experimental projects. In fact, we'll be focusing this same creative energy on bigger bets, with bigger potential long-term payoffs," the Google spokesman said in an emailed statement.

The closure of Google Labs comes a few months after Google co-founder Page took the CEO reins in April.

Last month Google said it was pulling the plug on a pair of products that let consumers monitor their home energy consumption and keep track of their personal health records.

On Google's second-quarter earnings conference call last week, Page said the company was moving to put "more wood behind fewer arrows."

The Google spokesperson said the company did not have any specific timing for the end of Google Labs, but said it would provide updates on the Google Labs website.  ”

Can Google, Motorola deal hamper Apple?

Google's smash hit deal to buy Motorola mobility for $12.5 Billion has created a fuss around analysts, critics and industry observers. The commotion is all about will this deal have an impact on Apple's business and on the mobile industry. The Apple's stock value has become a question for the future and for the other companies in mobile market.


After the announcement of Google obtaining Motorola mobility, the Apple's share value increased. On August 16th there was a downfall in Apple's share. The Wall Street and Main Street says that this deal will not be affecting Apple in anyway. The iPhone will be topping the list in mobile space.
But, there are chances for Apple to be affected by the Google's deal. The 10 reasons are listed below:

1.Motorola Smartphones had good reputation in market:
Motorola mobility was a good competitor for Apple and other mobile companies in mobile space even before the Google's announcement about the acquisition. The Motorola Android phones were of good quality and were available in affordable prices. They had good options for the customers who never wanted to own an iPhone. Now this Google- Motorola deal may lead to the enhancement of the quality and features of the mobiles which can affect the demand of iPhones in market. 2.Google is rich:
The monetary issue was a major problem for Motorola mobility. It was unable to invest money on their mobile product features, whereas Apple's investment on their iPhones always kept their competitors off shore. Google has money and if they invest on the Motorola mobility in a healthy way they can improve the devices by using the best technologies similar to Apple iPhones. So the money spurring battle is sure to take place.
  3.Increase in demand of Android phones:
The customers of android phones are increasing day by day which can harm the demand of iOS, BlackBerry OS and other mobile OS. Now the Motorola mobility in the hands of Google, the improvement in OS is possible as Google owns Android and people have Goodwill for the Google's product which can affect the sales of iPhones.
4.Apple has to compete with two Android dealers:
Samsung was the only major competitor of apple in mobile space and was the only mobile company whose sales matched the sales of iPhones. Now Motorola's tie up with Google can increase the demand of their Cellphones as customers have an option of another Android phone. So now it will be Samsung and Motorola who will be giving a tough competition to Apple phones. This doubles the worry of Apple in mobile space.

Google Maps adds a weather layer

 Internet search giant Google is providing current weather information and cloud data from across the world on its Google Maps application, a move that will hopefully make travel and activity planning easier.

“We’re adding a weather layer on Google Maps that displays current temperatures and conditions around the globe,” Google User Experience Designer Jonah Jones said in a blog post on Thursday.

The company is providing this facility through an arrangement with weather.com and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

The information about weather is visible through a widget in the upper right corner of Google Maps. Clicking on the weather icon for a particular city opens a window with data like current humidity and wind conditions, as well as a forecast for the next four days.

In addition, users can also click on the left-hand panel to change the units for measurement of wind speed and temperature and enable or disable the viewing of clouds when zoomed out from the map. 

Google tricks you didn’t know about

We all know how to search on Google. But not many of us know the tips and tricks that can make Google searches better and in easier on Google.

Having an alternative to something as useful and vast as Google can help us anytime, anywhere. We bring you eight alternative ways to search the most searched engine: We all know how to search on Google. But not many of us know the tips and tricks that can make Google searches better and in easier on Google.

Having an alternative to something as useful and vast as Google can help us anytime, anywhere. We bGoogle’s ‘What Do You Love’ service is a one-stop-shop destination for all its other services. It collates data from all its services such as YouTube, Translate, Images and News and to you at a single place and in a single click. ring you eight alternative ways to search the most searched engine: Having a hard time reading searching on your mobile? Screen is not large enough to accommodate Google’s advertisements, sidebars, images, et al.? Type Google.com/m in your browser to access a cleaner version of the site, minus all its ‘unnecessary’ frills. Wish you could look at the two most prominent search engines side-by-side saving you considerable amount of time and energy? Yes you can do it.

You can check your search results on both Bing and Google at the same time on www.bing-vs-google.com. On the same page you will get the information displayed on both the sites. This alternative way to search Google will, for once, remind you of your HTML lessons. Goosh.org is a Google-interface that behaves similarly to a unix shell. Written by Stefan Grothkopp, Goosh calls itself ‘the unofficial Google shell.’ Users can type commands such as ‘video’ or ‘news’ to obtain results from a particular Google service. Results can be accessed by clicking on their respective links or their numbers can be typed in Goosh. To see more results type ‘more’.

Forget .coms, your name alone can be an internet address

Forget confusing web addresses. Soon if you just type SBI on your browser you can to go to the web site of the State Bank of India or by merely typing SpiceJet, the airline’s portal opens before you —— no .com, .net, .in, .org or .edu.

The way you surf the net is set for another revolution. The global non—profit organisation that oversees domain addresses is lifting the restrictions on suffixes, which will enable companies and people to personalise their presence on the web even further.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will open up the new domain name system beyond the current 22 generic domains such as .com, .gov, .info, .biz, or .int to just about anything. These will be supplemented by thousands in virtually any language.

But this is where the happy story ends.

The application money alone will set you back by $185,000 (Rs.85 lakh) and more for the process. The window for applying will be open for four months starting Jan 1. And if you miss the bus, it is uncertain when fresh applications will be accepted.

“You can call the fee steep. But look at the potential. It creates a separate level of branding,” said Jasjit Sawhney, chief executive of Net4 India, one of the largest web hosting providers, and among those authorised to register domain names in India.

“For established names, it creates a separate level of branding. There is no doubt a few thousands of top global brands will go for this. In their overall spend, this will just be a drop in the ocean,” Sawhney told IANS.

“Now, it is very easy to go phishing, hijacking people’s identities and diverting them to another place. If you register sbicreditcardschennai.com and place an SBI logo on the page, it will look authentic and easily misguide users to this domain address,” he said.

“But if SBI itself is the extension, there is no chance of deception.”

For the new domain extensions, three categories will be permitted - based on the brand or firm names, generic names and community or geographical names. But domain names like India will be reserved for the government - but get it only if it applies.

“For some government bodies, it can also become a significant revenue model as they can sell domain prefixes. We are already in discussions with four state governments,” said Sahwney, but declined to name them.

“Then there are the generic domains which do not belong to anybody. These would be like .web, .food, or .shoes. There is going to be a frenzy for these. They will be auctioned and my bet is each of them would fetch over $10 million,” he added.

Accordingly, smaller players - say, someone running a stand—alone restaurant - can buy a prefix of the entity’s name from whoever has the rights for the generic names of food or restaurant.

“These will, of course, come cheap. My guess is as low as $5—$10.”

Russia to launch 'space hotel' with 'intergalactic view'

A Russian company has unveiled an ambitious plan to launch a ‘space hotel’ in orbit 217 miles up which would have huge windows for views of the Earth turning below.

A five—day stay in the hotel, which would house seven guests in four cabins, would cost 100,000 pounds, on top of 500,000 pounds for journey, the Daily Mail reports.

Orbital Technologies will construct the hotel, and has claimed that it will be ‘far more comfortable’ than the International Space Station used by astronauts and cosmonauts. In the weightlessness of space, visitors can choose to have beds that are either vertical or horizontal.

Tourists, who will be accompanied by experienced crew, will dine on food prepared on Earth and sent up on the rocket, to be reheated in microwave ovens, the paper said.

The freeze—dried tubes of nourishment given to astronauts would be replaced by delicacies such as braised veal cheeks with wild mushrooms, white bean puree, potato soup and plum compote.

Iced tea, mineral water and fruit juices will be available, but alcohol will be strictly prohibited. Toilets will use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system. Waste water will be recycled, while the air will be filtered to remove odour and bacteria and then returned to the cabin.

A plan for the hotel to be used as an emergency bolthole for astronauts aboard the International Space Station if there is a crisis, rather than bringing them all the way back to Earth is also underway, the paper said.

Hybrid Solar System Makes Rooftop Hydrogen - New Discovery For Energy Generation

While roofs across the world sport photovoltaic solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity, a Duke University engineer believes a novel hybrid system can wring even more useful energy out of the sun's rays.Instead of systems based on standard solar panels, Duke engineer Nico Hotz proposes a hybrid option in which sunlight heats a combination of water and methanol in a maze of glass tubes on a rooftop. After two catalytic reactions, the system produces hydrogen much more efficiently than current technology without significant impurities. The resulting hydrogen can be stored and used on demand in fuel cells.

For his analysis, Hotz compared the hybrid system to three different technologies in terms of their exergetic performance. Exergy is a way of describing how much of a given quantity of energy can theoretically be converted to useful work.

"The hybrid system achieved exergetic efficiencies of 28.5 percent in the summer and 18.5 percent in the winter, compared to 5 to 15 percent for the conventional systems in the summer, and 2.5 to 5 percent in the winter," said Hotz, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.

The paper describing the results of Hotz's analysis was named the top paper during the ASME Energy Sustainability Fuel Cell 2011 conference in Washington, D.C. Hotz recently joined the Duke faculty after completing post-graduate work at the University of California-Berkeley, where he analyzed a model of the new system. He is currently constructing one of the systems at Duke to test whether or not the theoretical efficiencies are born out experimentally.

Hotz's comparisons took place during the months of July and February in order to measure each system's performance during summer and winter months.

Like other solar-based systems, the hybrid system begins with the collection of sunlight. Then things get different. While the hybrid device might look like a traditional solar collector from the distance, it is actually a series of copper tubes coated with a thin layer of aluminum and aluminum oxide and partly filled with catalytic nanoparticles. A combination of water and methanol flows through the tubes, which are sealed in a vacuum.

"This set-up allows up to 95 percent of the sunlight to be absorbed with very little being lost as heat to the surroundings," Hotz said. "This is crucial because it permits us to achieve temperatures of well over 200 degrees Celsius within the tubes. By comparison, a standard solar collector can only heat water between 60 and 70 degrees Celsius."

Once the evaporated liquid achieves these higher temperatures, tiny amounts of a catalyst are added, which produces hydrogen. This combination of high temperature and added catalysts produces hydrogen very efficiently, Hotz said. The resulting hydrogen can then be immediately directed to a fuel cell to provide electricity to a building during the day, or compressed and stored in a tank to provide power later.

The three systems examined in the analysis were the standard photovoltaic cell which converts sunlight directly into electricity to then split water electrolytically into hydrogen and oxygen; a photocatalytic system producing hydrogen similar to Hotz's system, but simpler and not mature yet; and a system in which photovoltaic cells turn sunlight into electricity which is then stored in different types of batteries (with lithium ion being the most efficient).

Top 5 gaming websites in India

Games are considered as the ultimate souse of stress busters and entertainment for both adults and kids. Since the inception of the gaming phenomenon in India, gaming websites have garnered huge demand and popularity. Today every one of us wants to get our hands on the latest and the best games in the market, but who brings in the best and the fastest is the matter of the crux.


So, here we bring to you some of the top gaming websites ruling in India.

1. Zapak.com-Zapak.com- is the most famous and sought after gaming portal in India. One can play free online games, multiplayer flash games, cricket games, free racing games, online sports games, action games, arcade games, strategy and puzzle. Its huge list of database of online game is something that is rarely found in any internet website and it is sure to give you the best deal in the market.
 2. Sify.com/games-Sify.com is one of India's most trusted website in India. This portal features games like SpiderMan & Mission Impossible, Lifeguard & Pearl Harbour. Apart from this awesome list, they also features online flash games for kids.

3. Yourfungames.com-This is the ultimate hub for enjoying freaky free online games and especially if you are a shooter fan this is the place for you. It offers variety of free online games, from its kitty ranging from Arcade Games, Card Games, Puzzles, Shooting Games, strategy games, etc. Moreover, every week the website lists out few top online games that you can cash on.

4. Gameguru.in-This is one portal where you can find the best games till date like Battlefield 3 etc. Along with games it also features reviews, interviews and previews of upcoming games. It also lay outs the trendy games in Indian Gaming zone and as well as global too.

5. Gamesonline.in-This gaming portal is fully dedicated to all the pumped-up folks ever ready to make a dangerous voyage through the sea of adventures. The big list of online adventure games like Online Casinos, Pharaoh Phobia, Mario World, Gold Strike, Shoot Out, Wheel Lego Adventure, The Ghost, the Steppenwolf series, etc.

Anti-matter around Earth discovered-Earth's magnetic field could trap

 Planetary scientists claim to have for the first time spotted a thin band of anti-matter particles, called anti-protons, enveloping the Earth. The find, published in the "Astrophysical Journal Letters", confirms theoretical work that predicted the Earth's magnetic field could trap
antimatter, according to a team led by the University of Bari.

The astronomers say that a small number of anti-protons lie between the Van Allen belts of trapped "normal" matter.

The anti-protons were spotted by the Pamela satellite launched in 2006 to study the nature of high-energy particles from the Sun and from beyond our Solar System - so-called cosmic rays, the 'BBC' reported.

These cosmic ray particles can slam into molecules that make up the Earth's atmosphere, creating showers of particles. Many of the cosmic ray particles or these "daughter" particles they create are caught in Van Allen belts, doughnut-shaped regions where the Earth's magnetic field traps them. The new analysis shows that when Pamela passes through a region called the South Atlantic Anomaly, it sees thousands of times more anti-protons than are expected to come from normal particle decays, or from elsewhere in the cosmos.

 The astronomers say this is evidence that bands of anti -protons, analogous to Van Allen belts, hold anti-protons in place -- at least until they encounter the normal matter of atmosphere, when they "annihiliate" in a flash of light.

The band is "the most abundant source of anti-protons near the Earth", said Alessandro Bruno, team member.

"Trapped anti-protons can be lost in the interactions with atmospheric constituents, especially at low altitudes where the annihilation becomes the main loss mechanism. Above altitudes of several hundred kilometres, the loss rate is lower," he added.

7 Ways to battle with mobile malwares

Smartphone malware is considered as the biggest internet security threat of 2011. Although protecting PC with antivirus software has turned into a traditional rule in user's life, the same behavioral change has not been noticed often among them the smartphone users. However it is very important to understand the importance of being aware of such malwares and also the ways to prohibit such malwares entering your smartphones.


Mobile malware is a growing fraud category which involves infecting mobile devices with viruses and Trojan horses that may force a mobile phone to do unauthorized activities, like making phone calls and deleting or stealing information.

Here are some of the ways to of preventing such malwares.
1. Opt for well known apps only:Always go for apps which are well known in the market. Make sure you adjust the operating system?s application settings to stop the installation of non-market apps. It is an outmost necessity to review other users' comments on the marketplace to assist in determining if an app is safe. During the installation of any apps, always check that the access permissions being requested for installation. If they seem excessive for what the application is designed to do, it would be wise to not install the application. Regardless of whether an app is free or paid, any given download is a potential threat to your phone's security. Take the time to scrutinize each app's market listing carefully before downloading it to your device.
2.Installing ring tones from the Web:Ringtones also have become of the potential threat of malwares hence be careful of installing ring tones from the web as these kinds of file types are ableto hold mobile malware.
3. Never turn off your firewall:A firewall puts a protective barrier between your smartphone and the Internet. Turning it off for even a minute increases the risk that your smartphone may be
infected with malware.
4. Beware Strange Texts and EmailsLike emails, text messages have been an ultimate weapon to spread malwares, phishing scams and other threats. Hence Smartphone users should be just as cautious of phishing scams as the PC users, and resist opening any links from unknown or dubious sources.
5. Use Mobile Security SoftwareThere are innumerable vendors offering to prevent such malwares, go and make your smartphone safe by availing to anyone of them. They can help detect and protect against mobile malware, and it is increasingly wise to use one.
6. Update software regularly:Cybercriminals are continuously tiring out innovative techniques to get into your smartphone in some way or the other. That is why you should regularly install updates for all your software antivirus and antispyware programs. You can subscribe to automatic software updates whenever they are offered.
7. Strong passwordLast but not the least make sure you have a strong password. A strong password should include at least 14 characters long and include a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols and most importantly don't share your passwords with anyone. Further do not use the same password on all sites as in case it is stolen, all the information it protects is at risk.

Google+ pulls 25 million visitors in a month!

According to a data released by Comscore, Google+ attracted 25 million users in a month, which makes it the fastest website to reach that huge audience size. Though Google made a late entry into the social networking, but its new site, Google+, is giving a tough competition to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

Google+ was launched in late June, and by 24th July it managed to attract 25 million visitors and the number is growing to one million visitors a day. Whereas Facebook took about three years to attract 25 million visitors and Twitter took just over 30 months. Though Google+ kicked off by almost breaking all the records in the social networking, but it still has time to be counted among the long-term success projects. MySpace is one such site which pulled 25 million visitors in less than two years, but it couldn't keep up to its pace n lost a lot visitors in last two years. Therefore, it is too early to draw a conclusion regarding Google+ in the long run.

While United States had more than 6 million visitors, India record more than 3.6 million visits. Canada and U.K. had 1 million visitors each, Germany had over 920,000 and Brazil over 780,000. France and Taiwan had 500,000 visitors each.

Facebook pictures can reveal your secrets - advanced hacking technique

If you are an active Facebook user and if you have the habit of uploading all your photos, then beware as you will be terrified to know that behind your photos, there might be hidden kilobytes of data which are totally invisible, a list of all your passwords and even your credit card number. With the most advanced hacking techniques today, it is completely possible!! Stegobot", a proof-of-concept botnet, is designed by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology in New Delhi, India. It attaches to Facebook profiles, and more certainly, steals users' confidential information, such as online banking and email passwords, through their Facebook pictures.

Stegobot is developed by the researchers with an intention to show how easy it is for a hacker to use Facebook photos to surreptitiously spread large-scale online attacks.
New Scientist explained that Stegobot uses the technique of stenography to hide the data in picture files without changing the picture's appearance.

It is possible if Stegobot got its hands on it that the 720x720 pixel image could be sheltering 50 kilobytes of data - plenty of space to hide and "transmit any passwords or credit card numbers that Stegobot might find on your hard drive," New Scientist wrote. After the botnet hides your personal information in a photo and a friend views your Facebook page, their computer automatically becomes infected. They do not even have to click on the corrupted photo for Stegobot to work. The masses of stolen data makes their way back to the botnet operator from there, who can extract the payload from each picture and can use it in whatever devious manner he wishes. But what brings a relief is that Stegobot only exists in a lab, for now.

Sugar Doesn't Melt -- It Decomposes, Scientists Demonstrate

Flying in the face of years of scientific belief, University of Illinois researchers have demonstrated that sugar doesn't melt, it decomposes.This discovery is important to food scientists and candy lovers because it will give them yummier caramel flavors and more tantalizing textures. It even gives the pharmaceutical industry a way to improve excipients, the proverbial spoonful of sugar that helps your medicine go down," said Shelly J. Schmidt, a University of Illinois professor of food chemistry.

In a presentation to the Institute of Food Technologists about the importance of the new discovery, Schmidt told the food scientists they could use the new findings to manipulate sugars and improve their products' flavor and consistency.

"Certain flavor compounds give you a nice caramel flavor, whereas others give you a burnt or bitter taste. Food scientists will now be able to make more of the desirable flavors because they won't have to heat to a 'melting' temperature but can instead hold sugar over a low temperature for a longer period of time," she said.

Candy makers will be able to use a predictable time-temperature relationship, as the dairy industry does in milk pasteurization, to achieve better results, she said.

Schmidt and graduate student Joo Won Lee didn't intend to turn an established rule of food science on its head. But they began to suspect that something was amiss when they couldn't get a constant melting point for sucrose in the work that they were doing.

"In the literature, the melting point for sucrose varies widely, but scientists have always blamed these differences on impurities and instrumentation differences. However, there are certain things you'd expect to see if those factors were causing the variations, and we weren't seeing them," Schmidt said.

The scientists determined that the melting point of sugar was heating-rate dependent.

"We saw different results depending on how quickly we heated the sucrose. That led us to believe that molecules were beginning to break down as part of a kinetic process," she said.

Schmidt said a true or thermodynamic melting material, which melts at a consistent, repeatable temperature, retains its chemical identity when transitioning from the solid to the liquid state. She and Lee used high-performance liquid chromatography to see if sucrose was sucrose both before and after "melting." It wasn't.

"As soon as we detected melting, decomposition components of sucrose started showing up," she said.

To distinguish "melting" caused by decomposition from thermodynamic melting, the researchers have coined a new name -- "apparent melting." Schmidt and her colleagues have shown that glucose and fructose are also apparent melting materials.

Another of Schmidt's doctoral students is investigating which other food and pharmaceutical materials are apparent melters. She says the list is growing every day.

Having disposed of one food science mystery, Schmidt plans to devote time to others. For instance, staling intrigues her. "We could ship a lot more food around the world if we could stabilize it, keep it from getting stale," she said.

Or there's hydrate formation, which can make drink mixes clumpy if they're open for a while. "We've observed the results -- clumping under conditions of low relative humidity -- but we really don't know why it happens," she noted.Schmidt said that new instruments are making it possible to probe some of the processes scientists have taken for granted in a way they couldn't do before.

Four studies describing Schmidt's research have been published in recent issues of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Co-authors of the first, third, and fourth articles are Joo Won Lee of the U of I and Leonard C. Thomas of DSC Solutions. Joo Won Lee, John Jerrell, Hao Feng, and Keith Cadwallader, all of the U of I, and Leonard C. Thomas of DSC Solutions co-authored the second article.

Google Chrome is third most popular browser: Report

Google Chrome is now the world’s third most popular web browser with one in five users preferring it.

Google Chrome has also emerged as Britain’s second most popular web browser, edging Mozilla’s Firefox and nibbling at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the current leader.

Chrome accounted for 22 percent of the British web market, compared to 45 percent of users preferring Internet Explorer. Apple’s Safari stood at the fourth place with nine percent share.

But experts pointed out that Internet Explorer’s market share was falling despite the programme already pre—installed on almost every computer sold in Britain, The Telegraph reports.

Google said its surge in popularity could be explained by its speed of delivery results, its security and a new ad campaign.

Lars Bak, the Google engineer responsible for Chrome, based in the Danish countryside, said the company’s aim was speed. He said users should “never be happy” with the existing speed.

IEEE publishes White Space standard

The technology is designed to provide broadband wireless access to up to 100 km range New JERSEY, USA: IEEE publishes the IEEE 802.22 standard, a new standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs), which takes advantage of VHF and UHF TV bands to provide broadband wireless access over a large area up to 100 km from the transmitter.

Each WRAN will deliver up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of existing TV broadcast stations, using the so-called white spaces between the occupied TV channels. This technology is especially useful for serving less densely populated areas, such as rural areas, and developing countries where most vacant TV channels can be found.

IEEE 802.22 incorporates advanced cognitive radio capabilities including dynamic spectrum access, incumbent database access, accurate geolocation techniques, spectrum sensing, regulatory domain dependent policies, spectrum etiquette, and coexistence for optimal use of the available spectrum. BANGALORE, INDIA: Jim Anderson, senior VP,  Networking Components Division, LSI Corporation, says: “Indian market is an important market for us especially because of the new network build-out that is happening in the wireless infrastructure space. The company has been growing its presence in India pretty rapidly over the past few years and will continue to do so.”

The company recently divested its storage systems arm Engenio to NAS provider NetApp, so that it can increase its focus on semiconductor space.