Though temporarily, PayPal has given a mini cardiac arrest to several India-based PayPal users by shunning payment transactions to and from India. Apart from that, these users can’t even transfer their funds to local Indian banks to withdraw their balance. All this was conveyed by a standard mailer that every India-based PayPal user received.

Here’s a standard mail sent to Indian users:

Hello USER,

Your payment of AMOUNT has been sent back to the sender of the payment.

We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.

If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select Goods, and (c) provide a shipping address.

If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.

We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we re sorry for any inconvenience.

Thank you,

PayPal

Nayar’s post indicates that the situation is temporary and the issue is to address the questions about the service that PayPal’s business partners and other stakeholders have.

Over the weekend, we met some bothered India-based PayPal users who were literally clueless on whether their funds would be recoverable ever. Advertising professional Kenroy Rodricks said, ” I’ve about $1,000 stuck in PayPal account which I can’t transfer or perform any transactions with. PayPal is my only gateway where I send and receive payments from clients abroad.” We’re sure that Nayar’s assurance to restore the payments as soon as possible will give a ray of hope to many such India-based PayPal users.

Let’s not forget a fact here that PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002. Yes, it’s the same eBay that first bought Skype and 65 per cent stake of Skype to an investor group. We may not be surprised if PayPal undergoes the same process. What really freaks anyone out where books like ‘The Secret of Hacking’ Third Edition covers topics – How Hackers Hack Paypal account and credit card Hacking (fully untracable), are sold offbeing sold over the web. (Courtesy : techtree.com)

It did not accuse Beijing directly, but said it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn.

This could result in closing the site, and its Chinese offices, Google said.

Chinese rival Baidu called the move “hypocritical” and financially driven. In US trade on Wednesday Baidu’s shares were up 10%, and Google’s down 1.5%.

Google said the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were the primary target of the attack, which occurred in December.

The search engine has now said it will hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering had yet been made.

Google launched google.cn in 2006, agreeing to some censorship of the search results, as required by the Chinese government.

It currently holds around a third of the Chinese search market, far behind Baidu with more than 60%.

Email targeted
In a blog post announcing its decision, Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond said: “A primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”

The company said its investigation into the attack found two accounts of its online mail service – Gmail – appeared to have been accessed.

However, the attack was limited to accessing account information such as the date the account was created and subject line, rather than e-mail content, it said.

It said it had also discovered that the accounts of dozens of US, China and Europe-based Gmail users, who are “advocates of human rights in China”, appeared to have been “routinely accessed by third parties”.

It said these accounts had not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but “most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on users’ computers”.

At least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses were similarly targeted, it added.

‘Makes me sick’
In a blog, the chief architect of Baidu said Google’s decision to quit was for financial reasons, rather than a human rights issue, as Google had failed to dominate the Chinese search market.

“What Google said makes me sick,” he said. “If you are to quit for the sake of financial interest, then just say it.”

Google’s decision to concede to China’s demands on censorship in 2006 led to accusations it had betrayed its company motto – “don’t be evil” – but Google argued it would be more damaging for civil liberties if it pulled out of China entirely.

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones said Google had also seen a significant amount of internal dissent over its decision to operate under censorship.

In 2008, it signed the Global Network Initiative agreement with rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, pledging better protection of online privacy and freedom of speech against government interference.

Those commitments, however, are weighed against the commercial opportunities that China provides as a fast growing market.

Nearly 340 million Chinese people now online, compared with 10 million only a decade ago.

Last year, the search engine market in China was worth an estimated $1bn and analysts previously expected Google to make about $600m from China in 2010.

But unlike most markets, Google comes second in search in China.

It has 31% of the market compared with about 60% controlled by market leader Baidu, which has a close relationship with the Chinese government. Yahoo has less than 10%.

Microsoft has a tiny share of the Chinese market with its new Bing search engine, but in December the technology giant said it was committed to China, calling it “the most important strategic market”.

Courtesy : BBC.co.uk

Microsoft Word

A ban on Microsoft selling certain versions of its flagship products Word and Office has begun.

The software firm was made to change elements of the software by US courts after a patent dispute with Canadian firm i4i. Microsoft said that it had complied with the court’s ruling and would now offer “revised software” in the US. The court ruling means that Microsoft must also pay i4i damages of $290m (£182m).

However, the firm said on 8 January that it had filed another appeal against the injunction. The firm wants a panel of 11 judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to review the case in the hope of overturning the original judgment.

Microsoft has already challenged the ruling once. But in December last year, a panel of three judges rejected its arguments and upheld the original decision of a Texas court that ruled that Microsoft had infringed a patent belonging to i4i.

The disputed patent relates to the use of XML, a language that allows formatting of text and makes files readable across different programs. XML is used in recent versions of Microsoft’s word-processor Word.

Microsoft has now removed the disputed feature from all available versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office on sale in the US from today. “This process will be imperceptible to the vast majority of customers,” the firm said in a statement.

Despite the firms compliance, Microsoft has said it will still challenge the case.

Kevin Kutz, director of public affairs at Microsoft, said the latest appeal had been filed because the firm believed the decision in December conflicted with “established precedents governing trial procedure and the determination of damages”.

“We are concerned that the decision weakens judges’ authority to apply appropriate safeguards in future patent trials,” he added.

Courtesy : BBC.co.uk

Genetically altered mice

It involved 96 mice, most of which had been genetically altered to develop beta-amyloid plaques in their brains, which are a marker of Alzheimer’s disease, as they aged. The rest of the mice were non-demented. All the mice were exposed to the electro-magnetic field generated by a standard phone for two one-hour periods each day for seven to nine months.

Their cages were arranged at the same distance around a centrally located antenna generating the phone signal. The researchers, led by Professor Gary Arendash, said that if the phone exposure was started when the Alzheimer’s mice were young adults, before signs of memory impairment were apparent, their cognitive ability was protected. In fact, the Alzheimer’s mice performed as well on tests measuring memory and thinking skills as aged mice without dementia.

If older Alzheimer’s mice already showing memory problems were exposed to the electro-magnetic waves, their memory impairment disappeared. Professor Arendash was the author of a previous study that said coffee could protect against Alzheimer’s. He said: “It will take some time to determine the exact mechanisms involved in these beneficial memory effects. “One thing is clear, however – the cognitive benefits of long-term electro-magnetic exposure are real, because we saw them in both protection and treatment-based experiments involving Alzheimer’s mice, as well as in normal mice.”

Memory benefits

The memory benefits of phone exposure took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years. The researchers conclude that electro-magnetic field exposure could be an effective, non-invasive and drug-free way to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease in humans. They are currently testing whether different sets of frequencies and strengths might produce a more rapid and greater cognitive benefit.

Chuanhai Cao, another author of the study, said: “Since production and aggregation of beta-amyloid occurs in traumatic brain injury, particularly in soldiers during war, the therapeutic impact of our findings may extend beyond Alzheimer’s disease.” The authors say previous studies have linked a possible increased risk of Alzheimer’s with “low-frequency” electro-magnetic exposure like the energy waves generated by power and telephone lines.

They say mobile phones emit “high frequency” electro-magnetic waves that are very different because they can have beneficial effects on brain function, such as increasing brain cell activity.

Organs normal

They did carry out autopsies on the mice and found no evidence of abnormal growth in the brains of the Alzheimer’s mice following months of exposure to the electro-magnetic waves. They also found all the major peripheral organs, such as the liver and lungs, were normal. Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “This research has been carried out in mice that mimic some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s in people, so we don’t know if any similar effects will be seen in humans.

“Although the researchers hope their findings will translate to people, much more research is needed to find out if there could be any beneficial effects of long-term exposure to electro-magnetism, and to guarantee its safety. “We don’t recommend spending 24 hours a day on a mobile phone – we don’t know the long-term effects, and bills could go through the roof.” Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said the results were “exciting and quite convincing”.

“However, this research in mice is at an early stage and a lot more work is needed before we can say anything about the possible preventative or treatment effects of this type of radiation on people with Alzheimer’s disease.” (Courtesy : bbc.co.uk)

Rob Hutchinson, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, said around 40 to 50cms (16 to 19 inches) of snow could fall in Wales in a 48- hour period beginning last night.He said it was unlikely that Yorkshire would see that level of downfall, but could not rule out the potential of more snow tomorrow, particularly over the Pennines, South Yorkshire and the north Midlands.

Forecasters warned of widespread icy roads until late this morning in north east England, and Yorkshire and the Humber .Mr Hutchinson said last night: “Initially we will see rain and sleet falling, but that will increasingly turn to snow overnight and the worst hit area of Britain is going to be Wales, particularly on the high ground. “Higher parts of the West Midlands will also suffer, and this is looking like a significant snowfall event, which will set in late on Monday night and continue well into Wednesday or even later in the week.

“There are still some question marks over how far this weather band will progress northwards and it looks like a large part of Yorkshire may just about escape the worst of it, but we are not certain.”A roaring easterly wind is expected which will bring scattered sleet and snow showers in many parts of Yorkshire for the next few days so it is going to be pretty nasty out there.” Temperatures are expected to plunge to minus 3C in many areas of the region on Thursday night, New Year’s Eve, and minus 8C in Scotland, with widespread snow showers predicted.

New Year’s Day will also be chilly, with most parts of Yorkshire struggling to get above freezing during the day, and forecasters predicting London will do well to reach 4C. Several football matches were postponed yesterday and inspections revealed that pitches at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster and Chesterfield’s b2net stadium were frozen. Sheffield Wednesday’s clash at Blackpool was called off because of the freezing conditions, and racing at Catterick was also abandoned owing to snow. A New Year’s Day fun run has also been cancelled because of wintry conditions.

The Beverley Lions’ Club called off the run round the streets of Beverley for health and safety reasons.Last night, the Welsh Assembly government said contingency plans were ready to keep main roads open in extreme weather and added its stock of salt for motorways was available as a reserve supply to help local councils grit roads.Passengers due to fly from Cardiff Airport were advised to check flights were on schedule if there was snow. (Courtesy : yorkshirepost.co.uk)

Neustar, the company that provides DNS services under the UltraDNS brand name, confirmed an attack took place Wednesday afternoon, taking out sites or rendering them extremely sluggish for about an hour. A representative who answered the customer support line said the attacks were directed against Neustar facilities in Palo Alto and San Jose, California, and Allen Goldberg, vice president of corporate communications for Neustar, confirmed that at about 4:45 p.m. PST, “our alarms went off.”

Goldberg said the company received a disproportionately high number of queries coming into the system, and analyzed it as an attack. Neustar deployed “a mitigation response” within minutes of the attack, he said, and brought matters under control within an hour. The response limited the problems to Northern California, he said.

In addition to the high-profile sites, dozens of smaller sites that rely upon Amazon for Web-hosting services were also taken down by the attack. Amazon’s S3 and EC2 services were affected by the problems, according to Jeff Barr, Amazon’s lead Web Evangelist, who retweeted a report to that effect without clarification and confirmed it in later tweets.

For a brief period Wednesday evening, “ultradns” was the top search term on Google, likely as frantic technicians at Web sites attempted to figure out what was going on with their sites.

Web sites need DNS providers to translate the character-based URLs that people can remember to the IP addresses that Web sites actually use to list themselves on the Internet. When a DNS provider is overwhelmed with malicious requests for IP addresses, the system can overload and prevent legitimate users from reaching their destinations.

Amazon’s Web Services Health Dashboard declared an all-clear around 6:40 p.m. PST, saying that DNS resolution had returned to normal. Amazon and several other big sites seemed to recover around 5:40 p.m., but some other sites continued to report problems until around 6 p.m.

Needless to say, the timing of such an outage could not have been much worse, as holiday procrastinators rushed to make sure they could get one-day shipping for gifts to be delivered before Christmas Day on Friday.

Wolf Austad, a CNET reader, wrote in around 5:00 p.m. PST Wednesday to report that a last-minute gift purchase for his wife from Amazon.com had gone awry. He later reported that his transaction was stored in Amazon.com’s history once he was able to get back into the site. However, “now I need to explain to my wife why she is getting her gift on the 26th,” he wrote in an e-mail.

UltraDNS suffered a similar attack earlier this year, which took out Amazon, Salesforce.com, and other sites. Goldberg described Wednesday’s attack as smaller than that one, in that it affected fewer customers.

However, Amazon is no small customer. Goldberg declined to comment on specific customers affected by the outage, and said Neustar had not yet determined the source of the attack.

One expert thought the attack might have been more widespread.

“This was wider than just UltraDNS,” said Bill Woodcock, research director at Packet Clearing House, which operates domain name servers and supports Internet exchange points around the globe.

“It’s difficult to tell at this point how much is a DDoS attack and how much is collateral damage from the attack that is being felt in other ways,” like a domino effect, he said. “There were routing problems at some major European exchanges at the same time that caused major Internet service providers’ routers to encounter a higher load and pass fewer packets.”

(Courtesy: CNET.com)

It was one of many to take Google to court for digitising its books without explicit permission. Google was also ordered to pay 10,000 euros a day until it removes extracts of the books from its database. Google expressed disappointment at the ruling.

“French readers now face the threat of losing access to a significant body of knowledge and falling behind the rest of internet users,” said a spokesman for the firm. Serge Eyrolles, head of the French publisher’s union Syndicat National de l’Edition, said he was “completely satisfied with the verdict”.  “It shows Google that they are not the kings of the world and they can’t do whatever they want,” he said. Google wants to scan millions of books to make them available online.

This court case will be seen as a victory for critics of the plan who fear Google is creating a monopoly over information. Publisher Herve de La Martiniere launched his court case three years ago but Google continued to scan books during this period.

La Martiniere, the French Publishers’ Association and authors’ group SGDL who started the court battle initially demanded that Google be fined 15m euros (£13.2m). The book publishers claimed that scanning books was an act of reproduction and, as such, was something that should be paid for. Google’s plans to establish a digital library have hit several buffers.

It agreed to a settlement with US authors and publishers but is renegotiating after the US Justice Department concluded that the deal violates anti-trust law.
(Courtesy: bbc.co.uk)

The search engine giant said last month that it hoped to buy the Silicon Valley start-up for $750m (£449m) in stocks. Google’s group product manager Paul Feng wrote in a blog post that the company “doesn’t see any regulatory issues” with the proposed deal.He admitted that the scrutiny meant the deal would not be closed immediately. It took months for the FTC to approve Google’s earlier purchase of another internet advert company, DoubleClick.

“Closer scrutiny has been one consequence of Google’s success,” added Mr Feng.

Admob was founded four years ago and sells adverts designed to run on mobile phones.
(Courtesy: bbc.co.uk)

Each living story resides at a permanent URL, making it easier to follow the latest updates to the stories that interest you, as well as review deeper background materials that are relevant for a story’s context. Living Stories automatically track your interaction with the story, making sure that you are always presented with the news you need, the way you want it.

You can read full articles and browse multimedia without ever leaving the Living Story page. Just expand the content you want to see, and minimize it when you’re done. Whether you want a short update, deep analysis, feature stories, video, or important quotes, everything related to the story is on the Living Story page.

She said, “It’s important to realise that you can choose goals that are attainable and work progressively toward them. You don’t necessarily need to lose 50 pounds to improve your heart function.”The study showed that weight loss lead to improvement in four key measures of heart and vascular health — decreasing thickness of heart muscle, improved pumping and relaxation functions and decreased thickness of the carotid artery walls.(Courtesy: indianexpress.com)

“He suffered a big trauma to his face with two evident wounds on the upper lip, one external and one internal which needed surgical suture,” doctor said. He also said that Mr Berlusconi was still not quite sure about what happened to him.

The attack was condemned by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano while conservative Gianfranco Fini said: “This is truly a bad day for Italy, and it’s the duty of all the political forces to ensure that Italy does not go back to the years of violence.”

The Californian search engine is part of a consortium that confirmed its plans to install the new Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC) yesterday, the centrepiece of a $400m (£245m) project that will create the highest capacity system ever built.
Google is undertaking the scheme with a number of Asian telecommunications companies, including Japan’s KDDI and India’s Reliance Globalcom. The agreement to build the submarine cable was first proposed three years ago, but negotiations finally came to a close on Wednesday as officials signed what they promised was a groundbreaking deal.

“We will now be uniquely positioned to provide our customers voice, internet and data services across the entire Asian continent,” said Punit Garg, the chief executive of Reliance.

When it opens for business in 2012, the SJC will run 3,000 miles from Singapore to Japan – with branches reaching out to Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand and Guam. In total, it will consist of more than 5,000 miles of cable, sunk deep under the seabed.

The move is intended to boost the amount of capacity available for phone calls and internet traffic by bringing new. In turn, this should ease any potential congestion and make it easier for communications traffic to route around the world.

The SJC is set to break records by allowing up to 17 terabits of data to be sent every second – the equivalent of around 250m telephone lines, and large enough to allow the contents of every single book in the British Library to be transferred 20 times per second.

And as if that was not enough, the line is also upgradeable and could eventually run as fast as 23Tbps – space for another 88m phone lines.

It is not the first time that Google has made significant investments in the physical infrastructure that underpins the internet.

Recently, the company took a leading role in developing a parallel project to build the $300m Unity cable, which will run a high-capacity line from Japan to Los Angeles.

Demand for connectivity has grown drastically in recent years, thanks to increased internet traffic. Research company TeleGeography pinned annual growth between 2002 and 2007 at around 63% per year, and expects demand to double each year until 2012.

Earlier this year a new line running into east Africa was finally completed, promising to bring improved broadband to countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. (Courtesy: guardian.co.uk)

Elin, 29, has agreed to stay with the billionaire star for the sake of their two young children, reports The Sun. Sources have revealed that the former Swedish model Elin has drawn up a strict list of rules for Woods to follow if he wants to win her back. A friend said: “The easy thing for Elin to do would be leave him, take the children and get a divorce. She’d never worry about money again.
“She was close to walking out for good. She decided to stay for the kids’ sake – but on her terms.”They have agreed to try and rebuild their marriage, but Elin will be the one calling the shots. It will be a long time before he’s travelling the globe playing golf unless Elin’s by his side. “Tiger will have to work long and hard to ever get her to trust him again. Quitting golf shows he is willing to sacrifice something he loves so much to protect his family.” (Courtesy : indiatimes.com)

On this matter Google senior business product manager Josh Cohen said, “Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free,Now, we’ve updated the programm so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing.” Google users may start seeing registration pages appear when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using the program, according to Mr Cohen.

Currently, users can avoid paying fees to newspaper websites and can access news from google at any time.