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Infosys's Kakal to join L&T Infotech as COO
BANGALORE: Infosys senior vice-president Chandrashekar Kakal, whose resignation was announced by the company on Thursday, will join Mumbai-based IT services firm L&T Infotech as its chief operating officer (COO), said sources in the industry.
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Microsoft admits to snooping on Hotmail to track leak
LOS ANGELES: Microsoft, which has skewered rival Google for going through customer emails to deliver ads, has acknowledged it had searched emails in a blogger's Hotmail account to track down who was leaking company secrets.
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Symantec fires CEO Steve Bennett
NEW YORK: Security software maker Symantec fired president and CEO Steve Bennett's employment and named director Michael Brown as his temporary replacement.
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Google unveils new desktop maps for Indian cities
BANGALORE: Google, the world's largest search engine provider, has unveiled a new tool to search, navigate and explore Indian cities, streets, landmarks, restaurants and events through its desktop maps.
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Twitter now supports in-line video playback
NEW DELHI: Twitter is now focusing on streamlining multimedia content, making it an integral part of its user interface.
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Video of the Day:
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Must See Tricks 4 Computer(Click on Image)
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Infosys's Kakal to join L&T Infotech as COO
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BANGALORE: Infosys senior vice-president Chandrashekar Kakal, whose resignation was announced by the company on Thursday, will join Mumbai-based IT services firm L&T Infotech as its chief operating officer (COO), said sources in the industry.
Kakal, who leads the India business unit, will leave Infosys on April 18. He is likely to join L&T Infotech towards the end of April.
When TOI contacted L&T Infotech, the company spokesperson said, "We do not comment on market speculation." Repeated phone calls and a text message to Kakal did not elicit a response.
L&T Infotech, an IT services and solutions company, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the $14-billion construction and engineering major Larsen & Toubro. The company provides end-to-end solutions and services in sectors including BFSI, energy, utilities, consumer electronics and healthcare space.
IT industry body Nasscom ranked L&T Infotech No 8 among IT services companies in India in 2012-13. That year the company had revenue of about Rs 4,000 crore, with a growth of 22%, significantly higher than the industry average. The company expected to touch $1 billion in revenue this year, but it's not clear if that target would be achieved. It was planning to make acquisitions this year though no acquisition has been announced so far. The last major acquisition was of Citigroup's Canadian IT outsourcing arm Citigroup Fund Services Canada for $40 million in February 2011.
The firm has a dual CEO structure. The joint CEOs Vivek Chopra and Mukesh Aghi have completed 1.5 years at the helm. Former Wipro exec Sudip Banerjee led the company between 2008 and 2011.
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Featured Technology Talk
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Becoming Microsoft CEO beyond wildest dreams: Satya Nadella
BANGALORE: Becoming Microsoft CEO was beyond his wildest dreams, Satya Nadella said in a recorded video telecast at a conference organized by the computing giant here on Thursday.
"Having grown up in India, the idea that I would have the opportunity to talk to all of you as CEO of Microsoft was beyond my wildest dreams. Admittedly, my interests at that time were a bit more focused on cricket than on technology," he said, and went on to add, "It is amazing though, to think of the advancements in technology over the past few years and the opportunity for developers in India today."
Nadella, who was appointed CEO of the $78-billion company in February, talked about the enormous opportunities in cloud computing. He believes India is a cloud-first and mobile-first country, with cloud emerging as a potential game-changer to deliver applications on smart devices at a fraction of the cost of traditional computing. "We are at a pivotal time in our industry - living in and developing for a mobile-first, cloud-first world," he said
With over 100 million smartphones and 12 million PCs expected to be sold in the country this year, companies are increasingly relying on the power of cloud to deliver modern applications on connected devices. "Organizations require modern applications to deliver cloud-scale, while integrating with existing systems through hybrid cloud capabilities," he said.
Nadella said Microsoft's Azure is a powerful platform for the entire Indian ecosystem of IT professionals, developers and startups to bring their applications to market worldwide. "It helps Indian customers to leapfrog to the cloud and accrue significant cost savings," he said. Microsoft has 10,000 partners and engages with 1.6 million developers in India.
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Microsoft admits to snooping on Hotmail to track leak
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LOS ANGELES: Microsoft, which has skewered rival Google for going through customer emails to deliver ads, has acknowledged it had searched emails in a blogger's Hotmail account to track down who was leaking company secrets.
John Frank, deputy general counsel for Microsoft, which owns Hotmail, said in a statement on Thursday that the software company "took extraordinary actions in this case." In the future, he said, Microsoft would consult an outside attorney who is a former judge to determine if a court order would have allowed such a search.
The case involves former employee Alex Kibkalo, a Russian native who worked for Microsoft as a software architect in Lebanon.
According to an FBI complaint alleging theft of trade secrets, Microsoft found Kibkalo in September 2012 after examining the Hotmail account of the blogger with whom Kibkalo allegedly shared proprietary Microsoft code. The complaint, filed on Monday in federal court in Seattle, did not identify the blogger.
"After confirmation that the data was Microsoft's proprietary trade secret, on September 7, 2012, Microsoft's Office of Legal Compliance (OLC) approved content pulls of the blogger's Hotmail account," says the complaint by FBI agent Armando Ramirez.
The search of the email account occurred months before Microsoft provided Ramirez with the results of its internal investigation in July 2013. The email search uncovered messages from Kibkalo to the blogger containing fixes for the Windows 8 RT operating system before they were released publicly. The complaint alleges Kibkalo also shared a software development kit that could be used by hackers to understand more about how Microsoft uses product keys to activate software.
Besides the email search, Microsoft also combed through instant messages the two exchanged that September. Microsoft also examined files in Kibkalo's cloud storage account, which until last month was called SkyDrive. Kibkalo is accused of using SkyDrive to share files with the blogger. Kibkalo has since relocated to Russia, the FBI complaint says.
Frank said in his statement that no court order was needed to conduct the searches. "Courts do not issue orders authorizing someone to search themselves," he said. "Even when we have probable cause, it's not feasible to ask a court to order us to search ourselves."
Hotmail's terms of service includes a section that says, "We may access or disclose information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to... protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers."
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has taken a defiant stand against intrusions of customer privacy, in the wake of National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden's revelations of government snooping into online activities.
General counsel Brad Smith said in a blog post in December that Microsoft was "especially alarmed" at news reports of widespread government cyberspying. Microsoft also has a long-running negative ad campaign called "Scroogled," in which it slams Google for scanning "every word in every email" to sell ads, saying that "Google crosses the line.
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Symantec fires CEO Steve Bennett
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NEW YORK: Security software maker Symantec fired president and CEO Steve Bennett's employment and named director Michael Brown as his temporary replacement.
It's the second time in less than two years that Symantec has fired its CEO. Bennett became president and CEO in July 2012, when Enrique Salem was fired after three years in charge of the company. The Mountain View, California, company behind Norton Antivirus software did not cite a precise reason for Bennett's ouster Thursday.
"This considered decision was the result of an ongoing deliberative process, and not precipitated by any event or impropriety," Symantec chairman Dan Schulman said in a press release.
Symantec Corp shares fell $1.43, or 6.8%, to $19.48 in after-hours trading. The stock is trading near 52-week lows and is down about 15% over the past year. Symantec has been going through a reorganization that includes cutting executive and middle-management jobs, splitting its sales force and focusing on the most promising products.
The company backed its outlook for the fiscal fourth quarter, which ends this month. Brown, who is temporarily taking over as CEO, has been on Symantec's board since July 2005. He is the former chairman and CEO of data backup company Quantum Corp. Bennett, meanwhile, has resigned from Symantec's board.
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TECHNOLOGY
"Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth."
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Tokyo police to probe leak of Toshiba chip technology
Tokyo police will probe a suspected leak of Toshiba Corp technology to a South Korean company that relates to the top Japanese chipmaker's flagship memory chips, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Thursday.
The paper also said police had obtained a warrant for the arrest of a former engineer at a Toshiba-affiliated chipmaker who was suspected of improperly providing technical data to SK Hynix Inc.
A Toshiba spokesman said the company could not comment on the matter while it is the subject of a police investigation. Tokyo police declined to comment.
A Hynix spokesman said the company was checking the report and had no further comment.
This would mark Japan's first criminal investigation into a leak of advanced technology from the IT sector overseas, the paper said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, asked about the report at a regular news conference, said it was extremely important for Japan to protect its advanced technology and prevent it from leaking overseas.
Yomiuri quoted investigators as saying the former employee was suspected of providing information relating to Toshiba's NAND flash memory technology to SK Hynix Inc after he started working at the South Korean company.
NAND memory chips, used to store data in smartphones and tablets, are a key source of profit for Toshiba, whose key competitors in the business include South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and U.S. chipmaker SanDisk Corp .
Toshiba's shares fell 1.3 percent on Thursday to 454 yen, compared with a 0.5 percent rise in Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei average.
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Famous Scientist
Per Martin-Löf
Per Erik Rutger Martin-Löf (born 1942) is a Swedish logician, philosopher, and mathematical statistician. He is internationally renowned for his work on the foundations of probability, statistics, mathematical logic, and computer science. Since the late 1970s, Martin-Löf's publications have been mainly in logic.
In philosophical logic, Martin-Löf has wrestled with the philosophy of logical consequence and judgment, partly inspired by the work of Brentano, Frege, and Husserl. In mathematical logic, Martin-Löf has been active in developing intuitionistic type theory as a constructive foundation of mathematics; Martin-Löf's work on type theory has influenced computer science.
Per Martin-Löf holds a joint chair for Mathematics and Philosophy at Stockholm University.
His brother Anders Martin-Löf is now emeritus professor of mathematical statistics at Stockholm University; the two brothers have collaborated in research in probability and statistics.
The research of Anders and Per Martin-Löf has influenced statistical theory, especially regarding exponential families, the expectation-maximization method for missing data, and model selection.
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Google unveils new desktop maps for Indian cities
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BANGALORE: Google, the world's largest search engine provider, has unveiled a new tool to search, navigate and explore Indian cities, streets, landmarks, restaurants and events through its desktop maps.
"Our new tool will help a user find a way to a specific locality in a new city to travel by any transport mode, including walking and biking, as the map not only shows the route, but also the distance and travel time," India Google Maps director Suren Ruhela said in a statement here.
Similarly, the latest maps are loaded with a wealth of information to preview imagery of places a user would like to visit such as landmarks, museums and places of interest. The tool will also enable users to save home and work locations to maps. One can check travel time to office by typing 'work' in the search bar. The map will highlight the destination with the route marked in blue with directions from home or market," Ruhela said.
Besides providing route maps, the desktop tool offers information on social, cultural and musical events for viewing them live.
"The map adapts with every click and search to highlight information that matters most. "When users click on points of interest like a park, museum, or restaurant, the map will highlight similar results to show options users may not have known in their city," Ruhela observed.
"Under 'upcoming events', we offer schedules of concerts, plays or dramas in a theatre and sports matches in a stadium in the city the user lives in or visits," the statement noted.
Real-time traffic reports alert users where an accident, road closure or untoward event occurred to plan well for commuting by own vehicle or public transport and to avoid being caught in a gridlock.
"Details of public transit such as train, bus and Metro service, including arrival and departure timings, help users to plan when to travel at ease," the statement added.
Though a few hundreds of people climb Mount Everest every year, the latest maps also enable users to visit the world's top peaks from their desktops and explore landmarks with the imagery carousel.
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Twitter now supports in-line video playback
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NEW DELHI: Twitter is now focusing on streamlining multimedia content, making it an integral part of its user interface.
The mico-blogging site has rolled out a new platform that will allow users (content providers) to host videos and allow other users to watch it on their iOS and Android smartphones without having to leave the Twitter app. The videos will be displayed in-line along with the tweets.
According to a report by the New York Times, the NBA (National Basketball Association) is the first one to use the feature. Twitter intends to offer this technology to 60 other companies, part of its Amplify video advertising programme, in the coming weeks.
"Video will begin to feel like a native experience," said Kevin Weil, vice-president of product for revenue at Twitter. "We're making it easier for people to do what they want to do."
Since Twitter hosts and manages videos directly from its servers it will be able to speed the playback and control the user experience in a better way, the report adds.
Presently, Twitter displays video links with tweets and even a thumbnail image of the video in card view, when you click on a tweet. However, the video opens in the web browser or another app, barring Vine videos that play within Twitter.
For videos hosted by Twitter, thumbnails will appear in the timeline and videos will play within the native Twitter apps. A number of third party Twitter apps already support this feature even for videos hosted on different platforms.
Twitter had started offering previews of Twitter photos and videos from Vine prominently in Tweets after an update in October 2013. With the rollout of in-line videos, the timeline will become more visual with multimedia content at the front and centre.
Playback of videos will allow content partners to display video ads and leverage them in a better way as users won't be discouraged on clicking the video previews. It will also mean that Twitter users will spend more time inside the Twitter apps. However, media companies that want to drive traffic to their sites will have to be careful while using the feature. Also, we're not sure if Twitter intends to rollout previews for other video hosting services like YouTube and Vimeo.
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Tips to make your browser secure
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MUNICH: Web browsers are the key to the internet. Without them the internet is an impenetrable black box.
Browsers may be among the most commonly used applications, but they also offer the greatest number of attack options for dangerous content on the net.To keep viruses, worms and other malware away from your computer when surfing,it's crucial to configure your browser for security.
The firewall on a DSL router is a good first step for protecting the computer during surfing, says Marco Rinne from the computer portal chip.de. But that doesn't hold true if your browser is out of date: “Internet Explorer 6 and 7 or Firefox 2 no longer satisfy current security standards,” he says. For optimal protection, he therefore urgesusers to keep theirbrowsers updated.
There are numeroussecurity tools already present in Firefox and Internet Explorer. The pop-up blocker,for example, prevents more than justannoying ads. It alsothrottles other windows that can be used to sneak malicious software onto PCs. Phishing filters protect personal dataagainst theft.
Firefox offers additional configurationoptions underthe Settings item in the Security tab of the Options dialog box: thisincludes the ability to block risky or forgedwebsites.It's also a good idea to prohibit websites from installing add-ons on their own. Similar settings are possible under Internet Explorer in the Security tab of the Internet Options dialog box, accessible from the Tools menu.
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the most commonly forgotten item for travelers is their toothbrush
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Cartoon of Technology
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Wearable transmitter turns your palm into a touch interface
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The world could be at your fingertips, thanks to a new wearable, gesture-based gadget.
Fin enables users to control up to three devices such as smartphones, car radios and smart TVs using swipes and taps. The ring-shaped technology is worn on the thumb, and communicates with different devices using Bluetooth.
Fin currently has five programmed gestures; in its final iteration, users will be able to create custom ones on an app that will come with the device.
"People in today's world are becoming more busy, but still they are wasting a lot of time interacting with their smart devices," said Rohildev Nattukallingal, founder of RHL Vision Technologies, the start-up behind Fin. "Fin removes this interaction gap by allowing users to quickly interact with those devices."
The portable gadget can control the volume on a television, and even lets users text or dial a number without touching their phone. Fin's creators say they hope this natural interaction can help people who are visually impaired.
Fin can last for up to a month on one charge if it's in power-saving mode, and is only used for eight hours a day, according to Nattukallingal. Fin will retail for $US120, and is expected to be released in September. Its creators also plan to release a software development kit, so developers can create their own apps for Fin. The device will be sold in five different colours. There is currently no information on an Australian price or release date, though users will likely be able to order the device online.
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“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force."
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