Beware of GhostNets

Many government agencies around the world were attacked by unknown botnets (network of computers used to carry out automated tasks such as spamming) for spying purposes, they were termed GhostNets, as the botnets could not be detected.

Once GhostNets infect the system, it becomes a zombie machine that could be controlled by a master computer called the command and control server. From the command and control server, cybercriminals can manage their botnets and instruct the army of zombie computers to work on their behalf.

Analysts say that these programmes are not system heavy or resource intensive and become active only when a certain piece of information is there on the system. So, even if you delete the mail after opening it or installing a required plug-in, the bots get installed.

It has been noticed that few hackers organisations are actively involved in the development and dissemination of toolset used to create the back door used in GhostNet. This threat, names Backdoor. GhostNet can easily be created by just about anyone who can use the toolset, which is built to be very easy to use.

So, how can users safeguard themselves from a threat that can't be detected?

“Users need to know that this is likely any other cyber crime and is there to stay. It might change form of mutate in future. They keep their anti-malware software updated irrespective of whether it can detect GhostNets or not. Besides, they can use technologies like reputation services to block access to the source of the malware. Also, never install plug-ins without knowing the URLs”.

Dual Screen Laptops Coming soon....

The world's first laptop with twin monitors is slated to hit the stores by the end of the year.
The dual-screen laptop, entitled Spacebook, was masterminded by Alaska-based technology firm gScreen. The pioneering technology, that will let users to multi-task while on the move, will have two 15.4 in screens.
Spacebook is thought to be the first of its kind with twin screens of equal size.

This laptop is clearly meant for professional designers, programmers, filmmakers, and others that regularly need two monitors to get work done. Two-screen set-ups just allow you to get more done. There are disadvantages though, like the power drain two screens will cause and the sheer weight, estimated at 12+ pounds. And, of course, the price may be a deal-breaker: around $3000.Still, this thing could do wonders for the productivity of digital professionals everywhere.

Laptops will run Windows 7 and be powered by Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 4GB of RAM and high-end Nvidia GF900M GT discrete graphics. The plan is for fast 7,200 RPM hard drives and six or nine-cell batteries. It will also have a DVD player so one can watch a movie on one screen and work side by side on the other. It is absolutely the opposite of a netbook.

Airtel Brings In Voice mCheck

There is tremendous potential for voice enabled m-Commerce services in India.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel launched its m-Commerce service ‘mChek on Airtel’, which will allow its subscribers to pay their Airtel mobile and fixed-line bills on the voice platform.
With this service, all Airtel mobile users can perform secure and seamless m-transactions, ranging from paying Airtel mobile and fixed-line bills, recharge Airtel pre-paid and digital TV accounts, recharge Delhi-Gurgaon expressway toll tags, pay insurance premiums, buy gifts, tickets to shop using their mobile phones, with just a simple call to toll free number 543219.

In order to ensure highest security to the users, mChek on Airtel involves a unique two-step authentication process.
Currently, the service can be accessed on various mediums like SMS, USSD, J2ME and SIM application and WAP.

A Tweet A Day Can Keep A Doctor Away

I am really fascinated by Twitter. That's cause for both joy and concern. To be fascinated is to be charmed and I do feel that way about Twitter. When I first came across it last year, I thought it was just a pastime networking site. But then later I started "following" some pretty interesting people (to follow someone is to sign up to receive a feed of that person's tweets). " Personally I believe one way to look at twitter is as a method of mass communication”.

Twitter is instant knowledge. I'm betting that over the next few years, Twitter will graduate from satisfying our teenage instincts for social acceptance to being a business tool, much like instant messaging has.

It's the increasingly popular social networking tool that was at first merely a convenient way to stay in touch with friends and family, is emerging as a potentially valuable means of real time, on the go communication of health care information and medical alerts.

Physician groups, hospitals, and health care organizations are discovering a range of beneficial applications for using twitter to communicate timely information both within the medical community and to patients and the public. Short messages, or "tweets," delivered through twitter go out from a sender to a group of recipients simultaneously, providing a fast and easy way to reach a lot of people in a short time.
This has obvious advantages for sharing time-critical information such as disaster alerts and drug safety warnings, tracking disease outbreaks, or disseminating health care information. twitter applications are available to help patients find out about clinical trials, for example, or to link brief news alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reliable websites that provide more detailed information.

The use of social media and Internet-based outlets such as twitter to communicate medical information requires a high degree of caution, however, to preserve confidentiality and patient privacy in the clinical care setting, and to ensure that information sources are accurate, reliable, and current.

Is Gmail the World's Greenest Email?

IT and consumer computer use are major worldwide contributors to carbon emissions and there's no doubt that email is responsible for more than its share of that total. And every time you send and receive email and even when you merely store email on a server you use energy.

In an OpenWeb Developer's Journal, Bob Gourley makes the argument that Gmail is the greenest email in the world. His argument is straightforward. Google does a remarkable job greening its massive data centers, using techniques such as water evaporation for cooling, and in general streamlining their electrical infrastructure. He says "They even take the Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) out of their servers to lessen energy requirements."

The result of all this is extremely energy-efficient and green data centers. The most widely accepted measurement of power usage for data centers is Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), which is calculated by taking the total energy used by a data center, and dividing it by the energy use of IT technology in the data center. The lower the PUE the better, and the lowest PUE possible would be 1.0. That's impossible, of course, because data centers need to be lit, cooled, and so on. But the closer to 1.0, the more energy efficient the data center.

Gourley says that Google has set an eventual PUE goal of 1.1 for its data centers overall, and already, some data center are down to a 1.11 PUE rating, which is remarkable. Microsoft is also a leader in PUE, and overall, Gourley says, the global PUE average for its data centers is 1.60, which is quite good as well.

Google takes other steps to reduce the carbon footprint of its data centers, such as using renewable energy in some of them, recycling their cooling water, and so on.

All this is why he argues that Gmail is the greenest email in the world, it's powered by the greenest data centers. He also recommends Hotmail, because Microsoft's data centers are quite green as well.

Toyota Fortuner launched in India

The Toyota Fortuner has been one of the most anticipated SUV launches in India. Toyota Kirloskar launch its SUV, the Toyota Fortuner, in India at a price of Rs. 20 lakhs to compete other cars of this segment like Honda CRV, Chevrolet Captiva and awaited Hyundai Santa Fe. Currently this segment was dominated by Honda CRV and Chevrolet Captiva so it seems that Toyota Fortuner launch will surely capture more share in this segment as it is loaded with more advanced and luxurious features with best in class style.

The car is available in two engines, four-cylinder petrol 2700 cc and a 2500 diesel common-rail turbo engine.Tough looking from the outside with a strong bonnet, alloy wheel, big tail lamps, fog lamps, the Toyota Fortuner have plush interiors with all the standard luxury and safety features thrown in. There is no doubt that the Fortuner is a looker.Toyota Fortuner drives in with advanced features such as overhead rear seat, Bluetooth connectivity, air conditioning vents, cruise control and navigator.


Safety features include traction control, bigger disc brakes, and vehicle stability control.Fortuner was assembled in India at Toyota Kirloskar’s factory at Bidadi, near Bangalore, Karnataka.

The Fortune has been highly appreciated the world over and has set global benchmarks in the luxury SUV segment.

The Cloud Could Be a Boon for Flash Storage

Cloud computing and flash-based storage, two fast-emerging IT technologies, are driving each other forward as users of Internet-based services like social networks demand near-real-time access to ever-growing amounts of data.

Executives at Web-based companies like MySpace Inc. and Facebook Inc. are calling flash storage technologies vital to the future of businesses like theirs, which must deliver data to thousands of users simultaneously.

"In the last 20 years, spinning disk really hasn't gone any faster, and right now we're really on the cusp of a change with flash technologies," said Richard Buckingham, MySpace's vice president of technical operations, speaking at The GigaOM Network's Structure 09 conference in San Francisco.

Flash storage is faster than hard disk drives because it doesn't need to spin a disk to get to a particular bit of data. With flash technologies like solid-state disk drives (SSD) and PCI Express flash cards, it's possible to read data anywhere in a storage device in less than a millisecond, compared with several milliseconds on a traditional hard disk drive. SSD and flash storage systems also take up less space and use less power than spinning disks.

The data centers of cloud-based companies are so big that all of those benefits really matter, said Andrew Reichman, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.
Although Corporate Information Technology shops could also take advantage of the performance gains, the high cost of flash technology will likely continue to blunt its progress in enterprise IT, according to analysts.

How has Telecommunication impacted Humanity ?

Communication is a very important aspect, not only for people around the world, but also for small and large businesses. Long distance communication has been around for years with the oldest methods that can be remembered to date being the use of smoke signals. With time, methods such as horns became a means of communication. But with time there has been a lot of development and with that came the more advanced technologies such as radio, phone, television and the Internet.

Telecommunications provides a lot for the world. The commerce that telecommunications creates is a nice little chunk of the gross world product. It provides business, money and market stability in the world. Not only does it create these things as a product of itself, it benefits and enhances the whole world market by creating a tighter community and allowing for quicker reaction time and exchange of information.

The impact that telecommunications have had on the world is evident. It’s one of the leading causes of why the world has grown so big and become so helpful and aware of many issues. Telecommunications promotes a better awareness of society and human life. It helps develop solutions and gather support for causes and problems all over the world, making Earth a little closer and a little safer.

Dreams On Wheels

A report recently published by Biker Survey makes interesting reading for motorcyclists and anyone in the motorcycle trade.

Despite Ducati's range of Sport Classics, they're intended 'Hypermotard' and their strong superbike range, this time they didn't make it into the top five.

Honda are in at number five. The tried and trusted brand probably would have wanted to rank higher than this, but despite producing bikes with a great image for reliability, the CBR600RR and CBR1000RR haven't rocked the boat enough to take Honda to the top spot. Honda's usual dominance in racing circles hasn't been so strong this year, this could be a possible factor in why more people haven't ranked them number one.

Triumph have been steadily building up a strong range of Retros. The marque is, as ever, strong overseas . The 675 not only had the looks but the go too and it's impressed the motorcycle press the world over. No-one would have predicted this three years ago.

Kawasaki have waded in at the deep end with their ZZR-1400, taking it to Suzuki's Hayabusa and setting new records for production bike power outputs and top speeds.

Yamaha is on the top. The new FZ1 is styled to look more aggressive and exciting. But undeniably, the new YZF-R6 has shaken up the hotly contested super sports market.

BMW have been taking on their opposition head on over the last 12 months. Now there's no doubting they're shaking their pipe and slippers image with bikes like the K1200R, K1200S and the F800S, along with the rumoured new superbike, but clearly opinions need a bit more time before they forget BMW's bikes of the last 20 years. KTM have also assaulted the market with their capacity-hiked range.

Windows 7 To Launch On October 22

Despite the economic slowdown pinching the IT budgets of corporates, Microsoft India is hopeful that its latest product Windows 7, scheduled to be launched in October, will attract a huge number of small and medium businesses and retail customers. To make the product a success, the company is adopting a new strategy, which entails promoting the product through various channel partners.

The idea is to create excitement among partners and showcasing the upgradation opportunities. To begin with, the company is planning a 16 city partner roadshow in October. Now a days the company is trying to reach out to over 1,800 partners across several cities including Ahmedabad, Cochin, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Indore besides the five metros.

During the course of the drive, Microsoft will educate partners, provide demos and highlight the potential opportunities. This company is also working with hardware vendors to make their programs and products compatible with Windows 7. To further enhance its focus on channel network the company plans to increase its channel reach to 500 cities, up from 250 cities now. These channel partners will be paid for installing the system on customer's PCs. Partners who are able to install the software on five PCs of one client will be paid a bonus.

The product is ideal for SMBs and it will help extend their PCs working lives. The system comes with an inbuilt firewall, spyware and other security software.

Natural is Beautiful Forever !!

Nature has bestowed upon India an invaluable treasure in the form of herbs. Ayurveda, is the ancient Indian science of life, has been using the herbal resources such as botanical extracts of roots, stems, leaves, fruits, flowers & barks for effective healing since ages.

Now a days the latest innovation which have taken place in cosmetic industry is coming up of natural cosmetics. Personally I prefer these natural cosmetics on my face so as to look more beautiful and graceful without applying chemicals. Let me tell you the importance of natural cosmetics.

Natural Cosmetics are the cosmetics produced from things obtained from nature. They may either involve using the products directly or derivatives of these products. Nature offers innumerable products which can be wisely utilized in preparing different types of cosmetics. Plant products are the most widely used ingredients in natural cosmetics. Thus, they are also often referred to as herbal cosmetics.

Natural cosmetics use various parts of plants- the leaves, the bark, the roots, the oil extracted from seeds, the fruits and also at times the whole plant. Alongside, mud and mineral products, honey etc. may be used. Milk, milk cream, yogurt and eggs are also largely used in various natural cosmetics as an ingredient to add body.

Natural cleansers like milk and lemon are effective natural cosmetics in themselves. Fruits can make up excellent face packs. The names of cucumbers, peaches and apricots can be especially mentioned in this regard. The oils obtained from almond and coconut act as very good massage oils for skin and hair. The application of these oils brings a healthy glow to the skin and hair and makes them beautiful. They also help restore or maintain youth by controlling wrinkle and crease formation on the surface of the skin.

Advantages of natural cosmetics:

- harmless on the skin
- contains time tested ingredients with proven efficacy
- cure skin ailments and hair problems
- natural products- leaves, roots, fruits etc. supply several essential nutrients to the skin too
- essential oils of certain plants brings forth miraculous results

The natural cosmetics certainly promise to pamper your beauty and aesthetic senses and bring about a transformation in the way you look about yourself and nature.

Indian Fashion Industry Turns Global

The Indian fashion industry have grown so much that the names of a few known designers like Rohit Bal, JJ Valaya, and Ritu Beri are in the circuit. The present fashion circuit is laden with several talented designers who are well known for their expertise in their respective domains, not only in the national arena, but in the international podium as well.

Lakme India Fashion Week is one such annual mega event that witnesses the gathering of the nation’s best fashion designers like Rohit Bal, Tarun Tahiliani, Ashish Soni, Rohit Gandhi, Rahul Khanna, Rina Dhaka, Manish Arora and Ritu Kumar, as well as buyers from the home turf and abroad. One good turn out of such events is the exposure of the designers into the international stage, which consequently facilitates profitable business for the Indian fashion industry.

Paris, London, New York, Milan, Dubai, and Australia are some of the popular international fashion arenas. It’s a little wonder therefore, why the Indian fashion industry has become all the rage in the past few years.

According to a report of Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), the Indian fashion industry, driven by increasing investments, is expected to reach Rs.7.5 billion by 2012, more than double its current size of Rs.2.9 billion.

Automotive Industry in India

Automobiles today resemble “computers on wheels” because of the increasing number of digital systems. With each model year, vehicle manufacturers offer more sophisticated electronic systems addressing vehicle safety and infotainment. The costs associated with these sophisticated systems are also rising.

Automobile industry of India can be broadly classified under passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, three wheelers and two wheelers, with two wheelers having a maximum market share of more than 75%.

Facts:

The Automotive Industry in India is one of the largest industries and a key sector of the economy.

The Indian automotive industry started from 1991with the government’s de-licensing of the sector and subsequent opening up for 100 per cent FDI through automatic route. Since then many large global companies have set up their facilities in India taking the production of vehicle from 2 million in 1991 to 9.7 million in 2006.

At present, India is the world's
- Largest tractor and three-wheel vehicle producer.
- Second largest two-wheel vehicle producer.
- Fourth largest commercial vehicle producer.
- Eleventh largest passenger car producer.

Automobile Dealers Network in India

In terms of Car dealer networks and authorized service stations, Maruti leads the pack with Dealer networks and workshops across the country. The other leading automobile manufactures are also trying to cope up and are opening their service stations and dealer workshops in all the metros and major cities of the country. Dealers offer varying kind of discount of finances who in tern pass it on to the customers in the form of reduced interest rates.

Major Manufacturers in Automobile Industry

- Maruti Udyog Ltd.
- General Motors India
- Ford India Ltd.
- Eicher Motors
- Bajaj Auto
- Daewoo Motors India
- Hero Motors
- Hindustan Motors
- Hyundai Motor India Ltd.
- Royal Enfield Motors

The Future

- The Indian automobile industry is expected to grow to US$ 40 billion by 2015 from the current level of US$ 7 billion in 2008. By the year 2016 the industry is expected to contribute 10% of the nation’s GDP. The industry manufacturers over 11 million vehicles a year, employing more than three million people.

- The greatest challenge and competition would be from the Chinese automobile industry. The Chinese automobile industry has been able to give stiff completion to India in terms of productivity, cost of manufacturing and technology. Again the present trend of excess manufacturing capability, reduced margins put additional pressure on the industry.

- The global recession has had a dampener effect on the growth of the industry, but market experts believe it is only a short term phenomenon and are confident of the industry bouncing back.

- On the positive side, India’s strength in software sector, combined with skilled labor and low cost of manufacturing should place it in a favorable position globally.

- Recently Ratan Tata, Chairman (Tata Motors) created history by launching the world's cheapest car NANO. The cars pricing is around one lakh, gaining instant recognition in the automobile industry across the globe. It heralded the coming to age of the Indian Automobile Industry.

Trade Fairs: Best Medium To Enhance Business Networking

Trade shows have a great potential as a sales/marketing tool. It gives opportunity for those people to stay updated with new technology and industry trends. Getting people from different disciplines exposed to new ideas and innovations is key for continued growth and improvement within any organization. It also keeps the businesses current, so that they can better serve their customers. Sometimes new customer relationship can be formed and you find yourselves as competitors. Strategically, trade shows enables individuals to opt for technology and technological advances and then determine how applicable those advances are to their products and services.

Trade shows have been growing in number and attendance for over fifty consecutive years because they work really well. Attendance increases in good times and in bad times, but for different reasons. This marketing technique can open avenues to manufacturers, distributors, licensees, and strategic alliance partners. Trade shows can offer the business a quick read on your targeted market. You can take orders before you build inventory or commit to tooling. You can work the floor to meet and evaluate potential distributors, etc. At a trade show you can test the marketing plans, your complimentary materials, and the basic opinion of your concept. In concept trade shows allows for a more personal presentation of one company's products and concept. Impact to potential clients is expected to be better due to the availability of further explanation of the product and human contact. We can expect that product retention can be higher due to the existence of demo's and live interaction and direct observation of the products use.