Internet to be replaced by " Grid " .

The Internet could soon be made obsolete by "the grid.” The lightning-fast replacement will be capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, the grid will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spinoff from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the Web, could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players, and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies “could revolutionize society.”
“With this kind of computing power, future generations can collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.

The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day -- the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider, the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realized LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs -- enough to make a stack 50 miles high. Ironically this meant that scientists at Cern -- where Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet in 1989 -- would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.

This is because the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and which lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 in two years.

The Grid
While the Web is a service for sharing information over the Internet, the new system, Grid, is a service for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet.

It will allow online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players, and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call. In search of new drugs against malaria, it analysed 140m compounds -- a task that would have taken an Internet-linked PC 420 years

Google Squared

Google, already the king of Internet search, rolled out an experimental new search product called "Google Squared".

Google Squared does not provide a list of links to Web pages, like with a traditional Google search, but presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a "square."


Users of google.com/squared can then build, modify and refine their "square" through further Web searches.

"Unlike a normal search engine, Google Squared doesn't find webpages about your topic -- instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet," Google said in a preview of the product last month.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Google said Google Squared could be useful when a user needs to make multiple searches to find the information they want.

"It essentially searches the Web to find the types of facts you might be interested in, extracts them and presents them in a meaningful way," Google said.

"If your square isn't perfect at the beginning, it's easy to work with Google Squared to get a better answer," Google added.

The Mountain View, California-based Internet search giant cautioned that Google Squared remains experimental and the technology behind it "is by no means perfect."

Nokia popularity dips

According to a recent report, mobile phones market leader Nokia is steadily losing its hold over the rather important teen segment thanks to the uninspiring, bland designs that most Nokia phones sport.

Nokia seems to have failed to introduce an attractive handset that teenagers could carry around. The survey carried out by Social Networking site Habbo Hotel was conducted over the period of a few months and saw the participation by 112,000 teenagers from across 30 countries. The results from the survey showed that while Nokia still remains popular, its popularity has dipped almost 8 percent from last year. The drop in popularity has helped Nokia's Korean rivals Samsung and LG to capitalize with phones like the LG Cookie that offers the user a touchscreen experience at a not so hoigh price.
Yes, Nokia too was fairly successful with its touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic, which has sold over 2.6 million units so far, but post that the only other addition is the N97 which is hardly a teen phone. The Koreans on the other hand have been constantly releasing new, cheaper handsets while Nokia refuses to update its now old 5800 with spruced up features or even a nw sibling.
The surprise part of the survey was that even though Sony Ericsson might be in trouble now, the brand is still popular amongst teenagers. It amazingly stood as the first choice for 18% of the students. This however was a drop of 3% over the past year. Nevertheless, it is heartening to see that the company has a hardcore fan following amongst teens. The 18% preference puts it at the third place as Samsung has now moved up to 19% in the teen segment.

Death of Internet

Video killed the radio star. But could it also kill the Internet? New research from American analyst firm Nemertes Research Group says that by 2010, increasing Internet traffic, particularly video applications like YouTube and Hulu, will fatally clog the tubes.

This isn’t the first such prediction that has been made in the recent past: Brett Swanson of the Discovery Institute, a think tank, warned in 2007 of a coming surge of data that “today’s networks are not remotely prepared to handle”. So are the increasingly dire predictions of the demise of the Internet on the mark, or have rumours of the Net’s death been grossly exaggerated?

It is true that with the advent of Web 2.0, Internet usage has shifted to bandwidth-heavy applications like YouTube and Skype. The amount of traffic generated by YouTube in 2006 was more than that of the entire Internet in 2000. At 50-60 percent a year, the current growth of Internet traffic is enormous. However, several experts believe that the Internet is in no danger of collapsing under the weight of its own success.

Andrew Odlyzko, a computer scientist at the University of Minnesota who specialises in analysing historical trends in networking, believes that global Internet traffic is and will remain manageable with modest capacity updates.

There is some evidence to support that conclusion. For one, telecom companies in both Britain and America are already investing significant amounts in order to upgrade Internet infrastructure, including the last mile cable, to increase capacity. Secondly, the Internet was originally developed to withstand all kinds of catastrophes and has proven to be remarkably robust. It has coped with massive growth over the past 15 years. There’s no reason to suppose this can’t continue.

Anyway, engineers are preparing for the worst by working to replace the Internet with a superfast ‘grid’. So, even if capacity updates fail to keep pace with demand, an alternative will be in place. No one is suggesting that the Internet wouldn’t face operational difficulties if it was left just as it is.

The debate is over whether the rate of investment in capacity upgradation is fast enough to cope with rising demand. Studies like this can provide an impetus for telecom majors to invest in infrastructure. As of now, though, it’s safe to assume that the Net will be with us for a while more.

Finally Dream Comes True - To Become an IITian

Since my childhood i have been seeing IIT Kgp on my way from Kharagpur railway station to native home. I always use to admire the huge IIT campus . I also used to hear that its the best engineering college in the country. So from my childhood days i had the dream to become an IITian and study in one of country's best college.

To fulfill my dream i started preparing for IIT-JEE in class XI and XII. Its the toughest exam in the country and i knew that getting through it will be very difficult . But i still decided to give it a try so that in future i dont have to repent for the fact that i didnt even try to achieve my dream. I did better than what i expected in the exam , but it wasnt enough to make me an IITtain. After the results i was upset , but i had the satisfaction that i did try my best.

After that i decided to take admission in a private engineering college - "Techno India" in kolkata. At that time i decided that though i failed to do the under graduation from IIT , i will try my level best to do post graduation from IIT. Also my cousin inspired me a hell lot to pursue Mtech from some IIT.

And finally the moment arrived when the result of GATE (All india test for post graduation in Engineering) was announced. I expected to get an IIT and i was over joyed. Finally it looked like that i will become an IITian. The preparation for GATE was easier than IIT JEE but the number of seats for MTech are also lesser than BTech.

After the results started a tedious job of applying in the IITs. It was an extremely tiring phase for me. I had to apply in several IITs. Making DDs and speed posting them was a very tedious job for me to do. Also i had to take admission in IITD first because i was uncertain whether i will get my preferred IIT(IIT Bombay) or not . Lots of critical decisions had to be taken during this time. It took a hell out of me. I found out that i had to work harder in the post result/examination phase than pre-examination phase (ie .. preperaing for the exams) !!

Finally i got the IIT i wanted. My name appeared in the second list in IITB. I was overjoyed and was over the moon. I got the IIT that i targeted and aspired to study in.Its the best in the country and every engineer dreams to study there.Two my friends also got in IIT Bombay. That makes it even more sweater. We all are going to study Mtech with each other!! Now i can relax because the Admission process is finally over for me.

I know its going to be very difficult for me to study in IIT. I will have to work harder than my capabilities to survive there but my dream of becoming an IITian suggests me to join the IIT.

Looking forward to my education @ IIT Bombay..................

Chrome and Firefox are safer and more secure than safari , opera and IE 7 , Reason - Frequent Updates

A new study has revealed that users who use Google's Chrome or Firefox are more "secure" than folks who use other browsers like Safari or Opera.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

and Google Switzerland have revealed that the built in update mechanisms which keep the browser up to date by automatically downloading and installing updates, offer a far more secure browsing experience as compared with products that need a user prompt to initiate an update.

The study noted that only about 45 percent of Internet users were using the most secure browser version when visiting Google's servers

. It also revealed that as much as 83 percent of all Firefox users were using the latest version of the browser. As for Google Chrome, just 21 days after an update, a very high (97 percent) percentage of users were on the latest version.

On the contrary, a dismal 53 percent of users had updated to the latest version of Safari after three weeks of its release. As for Opera, the figure was even lower at 24 percent. Imagine! 76 percent of Opera users remain vulnerable to threats posed by the security holes that were plugged by the latest updates.

While expert users may scoff at the study, automatic forced updates are one of the best ways to remain protected. However, those who wish more freedom to control their "updates", it's just a matter of designing user friendly preferences that lets the user choose how frequently or when he wants to update.

Most Frequent Virus Attacks are done using PDF

For all those who rely on PDFs for most of your work or studies, here is something you should be careful about. Security software maker F-Secure has discovered that PDF is the most common file type in targeted attacks.

F-Secure conducted a comparative study of file types which were the most vulnerable during 2008 and 2009. The study discovered that Adobe Acrobat Reader was 28.61 percent vulnerable to target attacks in 2008. However, this figure almost doubled to 48.87 percent in 2009.
In 2008, it identified about 1968 targeted attack files. The most popular file type was DOC, i.e. MS word representing 34.55 percent.
So far, in 2009, F-Secure has found 663 targeted attack files and the most popular file type is now PDF. Why has it changed? Primarily because there has been more vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat Reader than in the Microsoft Office applications.

News for Infosys ( Infy ) Joinees 2009

We had a seminar for Infosys joinees 2009 in our college . One of the Infy HR personal told us that the benchmark for performance will be higher this time. That means we have to work harder in this time of recession . Also he said that the training period will be between 4-6 months . The first phase wiil cover the basics(the length of first phase will vary for CS and non-CS students). After the first phase both the CS and non-CS students will be considered same. 2nd and 3rd phase will foucs on specific technology like .NET , Java , Mainframe etc. He also said that Campus connect students(CCP) find it easy during the first phase. And the performance in the CCP online test wouldnt affect the joining dates etc.

Its going to be extremely tough for Infy joinees this time. Not only infy but all the companies are going to make it very difficult for us in this time of recession . Already TCS has decided to layoff many of its employees and infy has also done the same. So things not looking too bright for us.:-(