Hackers assail epileptics with flashing banner attack !!

Internet vandals attacked an epilepsy sufferers’ message board and injected a series of flashing animations into it. Flashing images, as many know, can trigger seizures in epileptics, and that’s exactly what happened, with several people reporting that they were affected by the attack and at least one woman saying she suffered her worst attack in a year after being exposed to the flashing image.
Wired is calling the attack a watershed moment, “possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims.”
No one has taken responsibility for the attacks, but early evidence points to Anonymous, the anti-Scientology group, as being responsible, according to Wired’s Kevin Poulsen (see link below for details). UPDATE: Another theory holds that the attacks were generated by a group trying discredit Anonymous. I make no claim either way. Their attack method was hardly a unique one, using JavaScript to cause a post in a message board to resize a browser window to full-screen size and then redirect itself to another website which displayed the flashing pattern. The Epilepsy Foundation quickly took action to close the site and has repaired its security vulnerabilities since that time.
Though no permanent damage appears to have been done (seizures can sometimes end in death), attacks like this need to be investigated thoroughly and taken with utmost seriousness. Here’s hoping those responsible are eventually brought to justice.

New Features inside orkut

This is probably old news for you, (especially if you do heavy searching on the forums) but for those of you who did not know, Google has recently added a new feature to Orkut, enabling users to search the “orkutsphere” for key phrases and words.

To access this feature from your homepage, click on the Search link above…

…which should bring you to the Universal Search page. After that, click on the Topics menu…

…then select your topic (in this case I choose banana).

After that, click the Search button, and Orkut will list every forum within its query (aka results of the search).

True to being a Google search, the cool thing about this is the ability to type in quotations around two words if you are looking for an exact phrase (like “banana rama”).

Good job Google! Now if only we could have something similar for our scrapbooks…

Track your stolen Laptop

Are you upset abut stolen your laptop? But you dont disappoint, Unistal System Pvt. Ltd. offers laptop tracking system to track stolen laptops using world wide web. Locate stolen laptops using laptop tracking software. When a laptop that has the software disappears, Unistall’s servers pick up its distress signals the instant the thief tries to surf on the stolen laptop. The Internet Protocol address is quickly tracked and just as quickly, the cops can recover the laptop. For some, though, the deterrent in using Unistall’s software would be that it costs Rs 3,000.

Softwares such as Locate PC and Snap Files, both of which are easily available on the Internet offer the same protection without charging a penny. They even work exactly like Unistall. There is catch, however. No matter which of these softwares are used, if once someone formats the hard disk, none of them would be able to track the laptop.

IBM launches Power 595 and Power 575

IBM has launched two new high-end power system models, dubbed Power 595 UNIX for enterprise servers and Power 575, which is a Power6 hydro-cluster supercomputer. They are equipped with IBM virtualization technology and energy-saving capabilities that can reduce bottom-line operating costs like energy, floor space and systems management. These also improve system performance.

The water-cooled POWER6 supercomputer has been developed to assist consumers to tackle some of the world’s most challenging problems in the fields of energy, aerospace and weather modeling, offering green IT, service management and cloud computing. It comes with 448 processor cores per rack that produces around five times the performance and above three times the energy efficiency of its predecessor, the IBM POWER5+ processor-based p575 supercomputer.

IBM India/SA said, “The world’s most powerful enterprise UNIX server with superior virtualisation for workload balancing across UNIX, Linux and i applications, and the water-cooled supercomputer – represent major breakthroughs in innovation and energy efficiency for IBM clients, and makes the new enterprise data centre a reality. Sun and HP UNIX customers just might discover that the new ’power rewards programme’ is the impetus to make the switch to the power roadmap.”

The company’s UNIX based server is the world’s fastest server in its category. IBM proudly claims that the new Power 575 is made to tackle the world’s most challenging problems in fields like energy, aerospace and weather modelling and offers the users nearly five times the performance and more than three times the energy efficiency of its predecessor, as reported by a website.

Yahoo! Maps in Local Indian Languages

Yahoo! India has introduced maps in nine local Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi (to be made available), Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Oriya — apart from those in English. The service, which can be found at http://in.maps.yahoo.com.

Users can zoom into the cities or towns of their choice. They can seek directions to go from one place to another and the detailed walking directions appear in a box alongside the map, where the route is highlighted, complete with services en route such as restaurants, ATMs or petrol pumps. The service can be accessed by anyone who has an Internet connection and also works on Net-capable mobile phones. Even if you search on a PC or laptop, you can e-mail or SMS the directions to a friend’s mobile number. Well it’s not yet a complete regional version of Yahoo! India Maps because only names of states and cities appear in their respective regional languages while directions continue to be displayed in English.

Convert your file in any formate without any software

Many tools are available for convert your file in other formate. These are available for few days only for free. But a online tool media-converter.com is available to convert your file in other formate. Media-Convert is the best manner of converting audio files, video, presentation, document, spreadsheet, etc. Media-Convert is 100% free. No software is needed, and you don’t have to register. You only need your favorite Internet browser. Your files are ready 7/7 days 24/24 hours. You can access from everywhere in the world through Internet. and then download the result quietly to your cell phone, mp3 reader or any other hardware. Media-Convert supported lot of formate such as Raw text, HTML, XHTML, Microsoft Word, RTF, PDF CSV, dBase, Microsoft Excel, Pocket Excel, Lotus 123, 3G2, 3GP, AMV, ASF, AVI, MP4, MPG, SWF,WMV etc.

To convert a file located on your computer : Check File mode, click Browse and choose the file, select input format (if autodetection fails) and output format, submit the form. To convert a file located on a webserver : Check URL mode, enter the file URL, select input and output format.