Google Power Meter

The Mountain View, California Web giant Google has developed a new tool called Google PowerMeter which will allow consumers to track their household energy consumption.

Google has partnered with a host of electric utilities, device makers, regulators and other tech companies to deliver how much electricity they consume and is intended to provide live electric data consumption information about home energy usage to raise consumers' awareness and potentially inspire them to be more energy efficient.

Devices such as washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers will provide a visual display of how much money it will cost to use the device at that particular time.

Google doesn't give any specific information if the Power Meter will come with a price or not. Once it becomes available later this year the Power Meter will work on the iGoogle home page.

Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph above shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.

Source: http://www.google.org/powermeter/

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Sam

NTFS Hidden Threat

A relatively unknown compatibility feature of NTFS, Alternate Data Streams (ADS) provides hackers with a method of hiding root kits or hacker tools on a breached system and allows them to be executed without being detected by the systems administrator.

ADS is the ability to fork file data into existing files without affecting their functionality, size, or display to traditional file browsing utilities like dir or Windows Explorer. Found in all version of NTFS, ADS capabilities where originally conceived to allow for compatibility with the Macintosh Hierarchical File System, HFS; where file information is sometimes forked into separate resources. Alternate Data Streams have come to be used legitimately by a variety of programs, including native Windows operating system to store file information such as attributes and temporary storage.

Amazingly enough, Alternate Data Streams are extremely easy to make and require little or no skill on the part o the hacker. Common DOS commands like “type” are used to create an ADS. These commands are used in conjunction with a redirect [>] and colon [:] to fork one file into another.

For instance: the command
“type c:\anyfile.exe > c:\winnt\system32\calc.exe:anyfile.exe”
will fork the common windows calculator program with an ADS “anyfile.exe.”

Alarmingly files with an ADS are almost impossible to detect using native file browsing techniques like command line or windows explorer. In our example, the file size of calc.exe will show as the original size of 90k regardless of the size of the ADS anyfile.exe. The only indication that the file was changed is the modification time stamp, which can be relatively innocuous.

Once injected, the ADS can be executed by using traditional commands like type, or start or be scripted inside typical scripting languages like VB or Perl. When launched, the ADS executable will appear to run as the original file - looking undetectable to process viewers like Windows Task Manager. Using this method, it is not only possible to hide a file, but to also hide the execution of an illegitimate process.

Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to natively protect your system against ADS hidden files if you use NTFS

Source: http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Alternate_Data_Streams.html

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Sam

Privacy fears over Google Latitude

Google's Latitude service which allows users to share their locations with elected friends, is drawing fire from a privacy watchdog, reports the BBC.

The "opt-in" Latitude service uses data from mobile phone masts, GPS, or wi-fi hardware to update a user's location automatically. Users can also manually set their advertised location anywhere they like, or turn the broadcast off altogether.

The service has raised a number of security concerns, as many users may not be aware that it is enabled.

Industry watchdog Privacy International argues that there are opportunities for abuse of the system for those who may not know that their phone is broadcasting its location.

Source: Textually

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Sam

You Are The Result Of Yourself

Don't blame anyone, never complain of anyone or anything

Because basically you have made of your life what you wanted.

Accept the difficulties of edifying yourself

And the worth of starting to correct your character.

The triumph of the true man arises from the ashes of his mistakes.

Never complain of your loneliness or your luck.

Face it with courage and accept it.

Somehow, they are the result of your acts and

It shows that you'll always win.

Don't feel frustrated of your own failures, neither unload them to someone else.

Accept yourself now or you'll go on justifying yourself like a child.

Remember that any time is good to start

And that no time is so good to give up.

Don't forget that the cause of your present is your past,

As the cause of your future will be your present.

Learn from the brave, from the strong,

From who doesn't accept situations

From who will live in spite of everything.

Think less of your problems and more of your work.

Learn to arise from your pain,

And to be greater than the greatest of your obstacles.

Look at the mirror of yourself and you'll be free and strong

And you'll stop being a puppet of circumstances.

For you yourself are your destiny.

Wake up and stare at the sun in the mornings and breathe the sun of dawn.

You're part of the strength of your life now,

Rise up, fight, walk, be sure and you'll win in life.

Don't ever think of 'fate'

For fate is the excuse of failures.

-- Pablo Neruda [Chilean Writer]

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Sam

Global Warming

The global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005.


The causes of the recent warming are an active field of research. The scientific consensus is that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity has caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industry era.

Antarctica is heating up than scientists had thought. A large part of West Antarctica, not just the peninsula area, has warmed during the past 50 years, a study shows. The issue of climate change on the frozen continent has been controversial because East Antarctica has been cooling and temperature records are sparse. The evidences shows the continent as a whole is getting warmer.

Warming in West Antarctica exceeded 0.1 degrees a decade during the past 50 years. Significant warming extends well beyond the Antarctic Peninsula to cover most of West Antarctica, an area of warming much larger than previously reported, ice sheets in West Antarctica was at greater risk of melting. Along with the Greenland ice sheet, a complete melt of both sheets would raise sea levels by 14 meters.

Another study, also published in Nature, has found that the seasons are starting about a 1.7 days earlier on average around the globe than during the first half of the century.

Source: smh
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

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Sam

Windows 7

One week after Microsoft began offering preview downloads of Windows 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, experts are generally optimistic about what they're seeing. The full release of the new operating system isn't planned until 2010. But the software giant seems to be hoping that the preview release will allay the concerns of Windows users who were unwilling to switch from Windows XP to its troubled successor, Vista.

Vista, which was released in late 2006, met with some bad reviews and sluggish adoption in the business world. Forrester Research reports that by June 2008, only about 9 percent of its clients had switched to Vista. Microsoft went on selling XP months longer than it had planned. Now, the company is promoting Windows 7 as a response to user feedback.

Windows 7 features a few changes to Microsoft's familiar user interface. Buttons for open windows no longer appear along the bottom of the screen. In their place are larger icons representing active and frequently used (or user selected) programs. When a user hovers the cursor over the icon for an active program, preview thumbnails of the open windows pop up, and the user selects the one that she wants. Certain cursor movements also trigger common changes to windows. Dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, dragging a window to the side snaps it in place so that it takes up half the screen, and dragging the cursor down to the right-hand corner of the screen makes all the open windows transparent so that the user can see down to the desktop. Microsoft also says that it has made it easier for users to create home networks, and that Windows 7 makes better use of resources than Vista did. The system requirements are similar to those for Vista Home Premium, but early reports say that Windows 7 manages memory better and runs faster.

The first and only release candidate of Windows 7 is expected to be released in April 2009. The OEM of Windows 7 is aiming for an autumn release while the final retail release is expected to be available at the beginning of the Christmas season.

Link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/
Source: TechologyReview

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Sam

Google India's Free SMS Channel

Stay up to date with the latest information via SMS. Create your own SMS-based communities.

Google Labs in India recently launched SMS Channels, a new free SMS messaging service for India. It may prove to be incredibly useful. The service allows anyone to set up a group of mobile subscribers to message to, or for a group to message each other many-to-many. A user can receive news alerts and blog updates via SMS

There are many commercial group messaging solutions in India where the primary means of mobile communication is SMS. However, unlike GupShup, Zook and MyToday, Google’s SMS channel is two-way, enabling subscribers to publish to the channel.

Link:
https://www.google.com/accounts/Login?continue=http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/

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Sam