A team from Chicago University’s Booth Business School conducted an experiment using BlackBerry devices to test the will power of 205 people between the ages of 18 and 85 in the German city of Wurtzburg.

Participants were asked seven times a day over the course of a week to identify desires they were experiencing and the strength of said desires.The team sifted through thousands of responses and came up with some telling results.

Though the need for sleep and leisure topped the list of “self-control failure rates”, checking in with social media, email and work came ahead of the urge to have a Camel Light, while sipping on that glass of 12-year single malt scotch.“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” the Discovery News quoted lead researcher Wilhelm Hofmann as telling the Guardian.“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs — long-term as well as monetary — and the opportunity may not always be the right one.

“So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time,” Hofmann added.

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 Additional Civil Judge Praveen Singh also posed a query to the counsel appearing for petitioner Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, as to whether the blog service-providing companies can be made a party to the case for any content posted by the users on the blogs.

 The court, which will further hear the matter at 12:30 pm today, also asked Google Inc as to why it was not coming up “properly” with a reply and brushed aside its contention that it had received the copy of the judgement and other documents related to case only on last Friday.”Why are you (Google Inc) not coming properly with your reply?” the court said. “Don’t tell me you have been served only on Friday. After all this hullabaloo that has been created in the last few months you should have been prepared,” it stated.

 The court also asked the petitioner to supply the copies of all the documents relied upon, to all the opposite parties. The court had on December 20 last year, in a ex-parte order issued summons to 22 social networking websites asking them to remove “anti-religious” or “anti-social” content in the form of photographs, videos or text which might hurt religious sentiments.It had on December 24 set February 6 as deadline for the websites for the same.

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In its blog post, titled ‘Tweets Must Flow’, the San Francisco-based micro-blogging company has said that it could “reactively withhold content from users in a specific country” if legally required to do so.

The proposed move came amid reports of a legal clash between India and global Internet giants, including Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook, over pre-screening user contents and removal of offensive materials from their websites.

A Delhi court had last month asked 21 social networking websites to remove derogatory content by February 6 this year.

In its blog, citing France or Germany which ban pro-Nazi content as examples, Twitter said yesterday, “As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.”

However, the micro-blogging service with over 100 million active users, said the removed content would be available to the rest of the world. Earlier when it used to delete a tweet, it would disappear worldwide, media reports said.

Along with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, which is currently banned in China, is said to have played a pivotal role in uprisings that swept the Middle East region, particularly in countries like Egypt and Tunisia.

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 Google and Facebook are among 21 companies whose executives have been summoned to appear in person in a lower court in Delhi on March 13 for allegedly hosting obscene and objectionable content.”I’m hoping there will be a balanced debate around it and eventually the right thing would happen,” Google’s chief business officer Nikesh Arora said.

 The companies have challenged the summons in the high court. The next hearing is due on February 2.”We cannot censor the Web. We cannot censor the ability of people to express themselves around the world,” Arora told a news chaneel on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos.”You are asking not just censor the Web in India, you are asking to censor the entire world wide web. The Web has no borders.”I think the idea of censoring everything and pre- clearing everything is going to fundamentally, sort of, taint the growth of the Indian economy in India and vis-a-vis the world,” he added.

During the last hearing in court, Google and Facebook had argued that there was no way for them to screen content before it was posted online.

Google had also said the Indian subsidiary could not be held responsible for an act by its parent company.

The legal trouble for companies including Orkut, Yahoo and YouTube is based on a petition filed by Vinay Rai, a Delhi resident who has pointed the court to obscene depictions that he found online of Hindu deities, the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus Christ.

 The research throws new light on the disease and reveals an important common link with other brain diseases, potentially opening the way to new therapeutic approaches for those who suffer from them.

 The findings came from researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill University, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported.The disorder, Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay (ARSACS), first identified in the 1970s, primarily affects the cerebellum, the brain area for coordination of movement. It also strikes at an early age, according to a university statement.

 The symptoms include poor motor coordination, spastic stiffness, muscle wasting, uncoordinated eye movements and slurred speech. Most sufferes are wheelchair-bound by their early 40s and have a reduced life expectancy.”This finding is the first important advancement in the 10 years since the identification of the mutated gene because it gives an indication of the underlying cellular mechanism of the disease, and is a vital first step towards developing therapeutic strategies for ARSACS,” said Bernard Brais, neurologist at The Neuro, McGill University.

 In 2000, scientists identified the gene associated with the disease, called SACS, which produces a massive 4,579 amino acid protein called sacsin, but until now the role or the function of the sacsin protein has been unknown.

 The research led by scientists Brais and Peter McPherson Paul Chapple at Queen Mary, University of London, indicates that that the sacsin protein has a mitochondrial function, and that mutations causing ARSACS are linked to a defective mitochondria in neurons (nerve and brain cells).

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It may sound like another Rajinikanth joke, but a new website dedicated to the superstar runs ‘without an internet connection’! Visitors to www.allaboutrajni.com are greeted with a warning that “He is no ordinary man, this is no ordinary website. It runs on Rajini Power” and are advised to switch off their internet connection to enter the website.

Only when the web is disconnected, one is allowed to explore the site. Netizens can trace the story of the legend from the beginning, read inside scoops from his films and get a glimpse of behind-the-scenes action, while browsing through famous Rajini jokes about impossible feats only he can achieve.

“The unbelievable spectacle of running a website without the internet is a tribute to Rajinikant’s larger than life image,” claimed Webchutney’s creative director Gurbaksh Singh, who developed the site for Desimartini.com.

With a heady mix of foot-tapping music, vibrant splash of colours, quirky quotes and illustrations, and icons in true Rajni style and lingo, the unique website reflects Rajini’s signature style. Singh told PTI that the website is based on a complex algorithm running in the back-end that keeps an eye on the propagation of data packets between two terminals.

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Bangalore:

The proposed solar-based UAV would have much longer flight duration as high as 15 days ? compared to conventional UAV, according to sources in the Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a lab of the Defence Research and Development Organisation.”We are looking for collaboration with a foreign partner to develop this UAV”, an ADE official said.

ADE has also developed Mini UAVs of two kg class, which is undergoing flight trials, and micro UAVs of 300 mm size.

Both of these UAVs have been demonstrated to the users which included police from various states, paramilitary forces in addition to the three services. The orders in bulk are expected, sources said.

ADE has successfully developed Pilotless Target Aircraft Lakshya-I which can fly at a speed of 300 km/hr for 45 minutes. Three services have already placed order for more than 50 aircraft. Later, Lakshya-II was developed which flies at higher speed of 700 km/hr at altitudes as low as 25 metres with complete digital electronics. User trials were completed and this would be inducted shortly into the service.

Nishant UAV was developed with payload capacity of 60 kgs and endurance of four hours. This was accepted by the services, which have placed the orders for more than ten aircraft, the sources said.

“ADE has now developed modified and advanced Lakshya which has undergone trials with the users and we are working with the users for their applications,” the official added.

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Apple Inc suffered a setback in the Chinese market today as a court rejected its lawsuit against a local company for alleged infringement of its ‘iPad’ trademark, as a result of which it may have to sell the product under a new name in China or cough up USD 1.6 billion.

Apple may have to sell its popular iPad tablet computers under a new name in the Chinese mainland in future if it does not first purchase the trademark from a Chinese tech firm as a result of the verdict, official media here reported.

The Municipal Intermediate People’s Court in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese city neighbouring Hong Kong, earlier this week rejected a lawsuit by Apple accusing Proview Technology (Shenzhen) of infringing on its ‘iPad’ trademark.Proview Technology (Shenzhen) is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-headquartered Proview International Holdings Limited, which also has a branch in Taipei.Proview Taipei registered the ‘iPad’ trademark in a number of countries and regions as early as 2000 and Proview Shenzhen registered the trademark on the Chinese mainland in 2001, long before Apple launched its iPad tablet.

Apple bought the rights to use the trademark from Proview Taipei in 2009 with a payment of 35,000 pounds (USD 54,616).However, Proview Shenzhen reserved the right to use the trademark on the Chinese mainland.The two sides have been entangled in a legal battle ever since. Proview Shenzhen, once a famous flat-panel display producer, is now on the brink of bankruptcy due to debts owed to banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Li Su, the President of Beijing-based Hejun Vanguard Group, a leading management consultancy firm, has been entrusted by banks to assume the post of “debt restructuring consultant” for Proview Shenzhen. “Apple’s actions are strange.They had not obtained the rights to use the ‘iPad’ trademark when they began to sell the iPad on the Chinese mainland in September last year,” Huang Yiding of the Hejun Vanguard Group’s public relations department was quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.”Their copyright infringement is very clear. The laws are still there and they sell their products in defiance of laws. The more products they sell, the more they need to compensate,” he said.

China, where a plethora of Apple products are assembled, is also a major market for iPhones and iPads.

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Speeding was fingered as a possible cause  of what is believed to be Japan’s most expensive ever road accident when up to $4 million-worth of supercars ended up in a crumpled heap on a highway.

Eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini — plus a Toyota Prius were among thevehicles involved in the crash, which witnesses said happened when a speeding car slid across a wet road surface.

Television footage showed mangled Ferraris — many of them racing red — and debris spread over some 400 metres (yards) of the east-bound side of the Chugoku Expressway, the main trunk road in southern Honshu.A pack of about 20 supercars was travelling in convoy on Sunday morning on a stretch of wet highway when the leading Ferrari slid into a guardrail, police said.Those behind slammed on their brakes, but for many of them it was apparently too late.”I’ve never seen such a thing,” highway patrol lieutenant Eiichiro Kamitani told AFP by telephone. “Ferraris rarely travel in such large numbers.”Kamitani said 10 people — five men and five women — sustained slight injuries, in the accident. “It is highly possible that they were driving in couples.”"Many of them were probably on their way to Hiroshima,” some 130 kilometres (80 miles) to the east, for a gathering of supercars there, said Kamitani.”Speeding was possible but we have yet to determine the exact cause,” he added.

The Prius and a second Toyota also caught up in the 14-car smash were not thought to be part of the supercar pack. The three other vehicles involved in the accident were all Mercedes-Benz.An unidentified male eyewitness told the TBS network: “A group of cars was doing 140-160 kilometres (85-100 miles) per hour. One of them spun and they all ended up in this great mess.”The speed limit on that section of the highway was 80 kilometres per hour.”The front car crashed into the left embankment and bounced off toward me,” another man told public broadcaster NHK.One of the Ferraris was reported to be a F430 Scuderia, a model with a top speed of 320 kilometres per hour.

Kamitani said the lead Ferrari was being driven by a 60-year-old self-employed man from Chikushino, near Fukuoka, on the southern island of Kyushu.Japanese media said the total cost of the pile-up could run to 300 million yen ($3.8 million), with new Ferraris retailing at more than 20 million yen each and Lamborghinis costing anything up to 30 million yen.

Supercars are not necessarily owned by the super-rich in Japan. Many owners are young people who save up their earnings to satisfy their dream, according to media.

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And no, it isn’t the first time. The website had gotten hacked a couple of months ago, too, by the same outfit,

stealing all the sensitive data like names, email addresses and phone numbers of the subscribers, claiming that the details were safe with them and they just wanted the government organization to better their security.

According to Telecom Talk, the hack was first spotted at 2:21 am on December 4th, 2011, and the group comprises of five hackers by the aliases x-c0p, nginx-adm1n, enc0der, k3rnel and sm0ky.

The website is currently loading just fine, but we think it’s high time the telecom operator concentrated more on cyber security.

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