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Google Inc. can sift through more than a trillion Web links
2010-09-01 | 09:57:30 am
Google Inc. can sift through more than a trillion Web links in a matter of seconds, but can the Internet search leader help people wade through their overflowing e-mailboxes?
That's the challenge Google will try to tackle Tuesday with the introduction of a tool called "Priority Inbox" in its Gmail service.
The feature relies on formulas devised by Google engineers to automatically figure out and highlight which incoming messages are likely to be the most important to each Gmail user.
Users who opt to turn on the Priority Inbox will see their messages separated into three categories. "Important and unread" e-mails will be at the top followed by messages that have been previously stamped with a star by an accountholder. Everything else appears at the bottom.
AP
Theories in the formation of galaxies, maybe rewritten
2010-08-26 | 09:07:23 am
"Supermassive" black holes were created relatively soon after the Big Bang that created the Universe, a finding which could rewrite theories about the formation of galaxies, scientists said on Wednesday.
Ordinary black holes are entities of mass whose gravitational pull is so huge that not even light can escape them.
But they are dwarfs compared to so-called supermassive black holes, which are many orders of magnitude bigger.
Since the first of these behemoths was spotted 12 years ago, astronomers have come to the conclusion that every galaxy, including the Milky Way, has a supermassive black hole at its core, some of them with a mass billions of times that of our Sun.
AP
Intel and Finland's Nokia opens joint research lab
2010-08-25 | 03:47:07 pm
US computer chip giant Intel and Finland's Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, said Tuesday they had opened a joint research laboratory on Finland's northwestern coast.
Intel, whose processors power nearly 80 percent of computers worldwide, said in a statement the centre would "employ about two dozen research and development professionals."
The centre is hosted at the University of Oulu, which said the lab's research activities had "started gradually in August."
AP
Toshiba to develop 3D television without glasses
2010-08-25 | 10:03:09 am
Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday it is developing technology for a 3-D television that won't require special glasses.
Company spokeswoman Yuko Sugahara confirmed such technology was in the works. But she declined to comment on a report in the Yomiuri newspaper that the Tokyo-based company plans to start selling the new TVs by the end of the year.
Mainstream 3-D TVs now on sale, such as those from rivals Panasonic Corp. and Sony Corp., require glasses. But there are already screens that don't require glasses, mainly intended for store displays. They require the viewer to stand in specific spots for the 3-D effect to emerge, and the image quality is much lower than that of screens using glasses.
AP
S Korea blocks N.Korea twitter account
2010-08-20 | 10:27:49 am
South Korea has blocked North Korea's new Twitter account from being accessed in the South, saying the tweets contain "illegal information" under the country's security laws, officials said Thursday.
North Korea announced last week saying it has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel in an apparent effort to boost its propaganda war against South Korea and the United States.
The Twitter account gained more than 8,500 followers in a week, though it has posted just 30 tweets linking to reports that praise North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and lambast South Korea and the U.S. over their ongoing joint military drills.
North Korea, one of the world's most secretive countries, blocks Internet access for all but the elite among its 24 million citizens but is believed to have a keen interest in information technology.
AP
RP remains to be the Texting capital of the world
2010-08-19 | 10:59:56 am
Social media news blog Mashable.com released a research that claims that the Philippines remains to be the "text messaging trend" capital of the world.
Based on gathered data from news paper companies Reuters and the New York Times, and research firms CTIA.org, and UPI.com, Pew Research, Matzav.com, Kvue.com, and Portion Research, it showed that an average Filipino Mobile Subscriber sends over 600 text messages a month.
The said Text Messaging Statistics varies by source, "but are generally consistent" says researcher Shane Snow.
"The cost of a cell phone and SMS plan compared to that of a computer and a broadband connection has made texting extremely popular in developing countries "unlimited messaging" plans have made it the communication medium of choice for teens everywhere beating interpersonal communication he adds.
DWIZ...
Wikileaks not scared of Pentagon
2010-08-16 | 09:35:59 am
WikiLeaks will publish its remaining 15,000 Afghan war documents within a month, despite warnings from the U.S. government, the organization's founder said Saturday.
The Pentagon has said that secret information will be even more damaging to security and risk more lives than WikiLeaks' initial release of some 76,000 war documents.
"This organization will not be threatened by the Pentagon or any other group," Julian Assange told reporters in Stockholm. "We proceed cautiously and safely with this material."
In an interview with The Associated Press, he said that if U.S. defense officials want to be seen as promoting democracy then they "must protect what the United States' founders considered to be their central value, which is freedom of the press."
"For the Pentagon to be making threatening demands for censorship of a press organization is a cause for concern, not just for the press but for the...
Wikileaks to release Afghan war documents
2010-08-13 | 10:28:11 am
WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange said Thursday his organization is preparing to release the rest of the secret Afghan war documents it has on file. The Pentagon warned that would be more damaging to security and risk more lives than the organization's initial release of some 76,000 war documents.
That extraordinary disclosure, which laid bare classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010, has angered US officials, energized critics of the NATO-led campaign, and drawn the attention of the Taliban, which has promised to use the material to track down people it considers traitors.
The Pentagon says it believes it has identified the additional 15,000 classified documents, and said Thursday that their exposure would be even more damaging to the military than what has already been published.
AP
Blackberry banned in Saudi Arabia
2010-08-09 | 10:54:23 am
Preliminary agreement between the maker of the popular BlackBerry smart phone and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which government officials say grants them some access to users' data, will avert a ban on the phone in that country.
The pact involves placing a BlackBerry server inside Saudi Arabia, Saudi telecom regulatory officials said, and that likely will let the government monitor messages and allay official fears the service could be used for criminal purposes.
Bandar al-Mohammed, an official at the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission, told The Associated Press that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. has expressed its "intention ... to place a server inside Saudi Arabia."
Even though RIM encrypts e-mails, the deal would open messages to Saudi surveillance, said Bruce Schneier, an author and chief security technology officer at British telecommunications operator BT.
RIM could be setting a...
Google survey page for users unavailable in China
2010-08-04 | 10:03:40 am
A Google question-and-answer page for Chinese users was inaccessible from mainland China on Tuesday less than a month after the search giant's Internet license was renewed amid a dispute over online censorship.
The company found no technical problems with the Hong Kong-based service, said a Google Inc. spokewoman, Courtney Hohne, in an e-mail. Phone calls to China's Internet regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, were not answered and the agency did not respond to questions sent by fax.
Beijing encourages Web use for education and business but tries to block material deemed subversive and closely watches sites where China's public can leave comments. Regulators block access to social networking sites abroad such as Facebook that pro-democracy and Tibet activists have used to criticize the communist government.
Google's future in China has been uncertain since the company announced in January it no longer wanted to...