US intelligence agency FBI has turned its guns towards social networking sites for monioring individuals. It appears that law enforcement officials may use the social networking site as a new source of surveillance. The US Department of Justice sent out a PDF that confirmed that they plan to use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter as a new way to monitor individuals.

While it is not clear exactly how the government will track criminals on the social networking sites, many believe that they will use fake friend requests to gain information about their targets. Also, in the PDF that was released, the Department of Justice revealed that Facebook is quite open with the government when it comes to releasing information. On the other hand, Twitter has more of a reputation for only releasing information when an individual is facing legal proceedings.

This is obviously not the first attempt by the government to use the internet to follow criminals. In the past, the FBI has followed sexual predators online.

SAN FRANCISCO : Social-networking star Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United States for the first time last week, industry analysts showed.

Facebook’s homepage finished the week ending March 13 as the most visited site in the country, according to industry tracker Hitwise.

The “important milestone,” as described by Hitwise director of research

Heather Dougherty, came as Facebook enjoyed a massive 185 percent increase in visits in the same period, compared to the same week in 2009.

By comparison, visits to search engine home Google.com increased only nine percent in the same time — although the tracker does not include Google property sites such as the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.

Taken together, Facebook.com and Google.com amounted to 14 percent of the entire US Internet visits last week, Dougherty said.

Google has been positioning challenges in recent months to Facebook and the micro-blogging site Twitter by adding the social-networking feature Buzz to its Gmail service.

In what could signal an escalating battle between Facebook and Google, the leading social-networking service celebrated its sixth birthday earlier this year with changes including a new message inbox that echoes Gmail’s format.

Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, according to tracking firm comScore.

Dell has accused five Asian firms that make liquid crystal display panels of illegally colluding on prices.

The world’s third largest PC maker filed a complaint against Hitachi, Sharp, Toshiba, HannStar, and Seiko in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday, according to a Reuters report. Damages sought by Dell have not yet been determined.

Dell is only the latest major buyer of LCD panels to allege price-fixing by several of the industry’s largest suppliers. In October, AT&T, which purchases LCD panels for its cell phones, accused LG, Samsung, and AU Optronics of price fixing, and in December Nokia filed suit claiming the same thing.

For Sharp and Hitachi, this is also familiar territory. Early last year, Hitachi Displays, LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes plead guilty and paid $585 million for their roles in an LCD price-fixing scheme related to displays sold to Dell, Apple, Motorola, and others. Executives from Chunghwa, Hitachi, and LG executives were sentenced to jail and fined.

Craig Lundberg is the first British soldier to trial the revolutionary BrainPort system that allows his tongue to do what his eyes cannot. Now, acting as a guinea pig for the latest virtual eyesight system, Craig has regained some semblance of sight.
It just gives me a sensation on me tongue to identify objects, he says. So the best way to sort of explain is, someone drawing a very detailed 2D picture on me hand and I get the object of someone drawing on me hand. The BrainPort vision system consists of a postage-stamp-size electrode array for the top surface of the tongue, a base unit, a digital video camera, and a hand-held controller for zoom and contrast inversion. Signals from the camera are sent to the flat lollipop-shaped sensor in the mouth that stimulates the tongue in the shape of the image picked up by the camera. It can even distinguish between different shades of light, reflecting them with varying strengths of pulse. Lundberg lost his sight in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Basra, southern Iraq, in 2007.

Internet celebrates the 25th birthday of the dotcom domain name today.
On 15 March 1985, the first company to add dotcom to its name was a computer maker named Symbolics. Today, 100,000 dotcom sites are registered every day and there are nearly 86m active sites. And the man behind the company looking after the dotcom domain is predicting changes in the way the internet is being used.
In 1985, a total of six dotcom domain names were registered. Now, as well as the millions of active sites currently operational, there have been another 113m that have come and gone over the last quarter of a century. Today, people go online to dotcom sites to shop, connect with people, engage with government, be entertained, learn new things, exchange ideas and plan holidays.

Microsoft said on Friday it is testing a patch to fix a new hole in Internet Explorer 6 and IE 7 following the release of exploit code on the Internet.

With the announcement it seems increasingly likely that the company will be issuing a patch for the hole before the next Patch Tuesday in about four weeks, if the testing of the patch goes quickly.

Microsoft warned about the hole, which it said was being targeted in attacks and could allow an attacker to take control of a computer, in an advisory on Tuesday. The next day, Israeli researcher Moshe Ben Abu released exploit code for the vulnerability after using clues in a McAfee blog post to find existing exploit code and pinpointing the weakness from there.

“We have seen speculation that Microsoft might release an update for this issue out of band. I can tell you that we are working hard to produce an update which is now in testing,” Jerry Bryant, senior security communications manager lead at Microsoft, wrote in a post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog.
“This is a critical and time-intensive step of the process as the update must be tested against all affected versions of Internet Explorer on all supported versions of Windows. Additionally, each supported language version needs to be tested as well as testing against thousands of third party applications,” he wrote. “We never rule out the possibility of an out-of-band update. When the update is ready for broad distribution, we will make that decision based on customer needs.”

Microsoft included workaround information in its initial advisory on the hole, which does not affect IE 8, and on Friday updated Security Advisory 981374 to add more information on workarounds following Ben Abu’s work.

“With today’s update, we have added a Microsoft Fix It to automate this workaround for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers,” Bryant said. “As always, customers should test this thoroughly before deploying as certain functionality that depends on the peer factory class, such as printing from Internet Explorer and the use of Web folders, may be affected.”

Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong warned that Google will ‘pay the consequences’ if it continues to go against Chinese law. Google announced in January that it would no longer comply with China’s internet censorship laws.
“We need to preserve our nation’s interest, our people’s interest, we cannot be relaxed with any information that will cause harm to the stability of our society, to our system, and to the health of our under-age young people,” he said.
Google began operations in China in 2006 to widespread criticism.
Relations between China and Google cooled in January after what Google described as a sophisticated cyber attack in which the webmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were targeted.
Since then, the firm has been in talks with Chinese officials about how to provide an unfiltered service but still remain within the law. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said this week that he hoped the results of those consultations would be revealed soon.

Microsoft said on Friday it is testing a patch to fix a new hole in Internet Explorer 6 and IE 7 following the release of exploit code on the Internet.

With the announcement it seems increasingly likely that the company will be issuing a patch for the hole before the next Patch Tuesday in about four weeks, if the testing of the patch goes quickly.

Microsoft warned about the hole, which it said was being targeted in attacks and could allow an attacker to take control of a computer, in an advisory on Tuesday. The next day, Israeli researcher Moshe Ben Abu released exploit code for the vulnerability after using clues in a McAfee blog post to find existing exploit code and pinpointing the weakness from there.

“We have seen speculation that Microsoft might release an update for this issue out of band. I can tell you that we are working hard to produce an update which is now in testing,” Jerry Bryant, senior security communications manager lead at Microsoft, wrote in a post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog.
“This is a critical and time-intensive step of the process as the update must be tested against all affected versions of Internet Explorer on all supported versions of Windows. Additionally, each supported language version needs to be tested as well as testing against thousands of third party applications,” he wrote. “We never rule out the possibility of an out-of-band update. When the update is ready for broad distribution, we will make that decision based on customer needs.”

Microsoft included workaround information in its initial advisory on the hole, which does not affect IE 8, and on Friday updated Security Advisory 981374 to add more information on workarounds following Ben Abu’s work.

“With today’s update, we have added a Microsoft Fix It to automate this workaround for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers,” Bryant said. “As always, customers should test this thoroughly before deploying as certain functionality that depends on the peer factory class, such as printing from Internet Explorer and the use of Web folders, may be affected.”

PAKISTAN KARACHI : People with diabetes should get regularly checked for kidney disease as they are more at risk of damaged kidneys.

Being diabetic does not mean that a person will get chronic kidney disease (CKD) but they need to control their sugar levels and follow a proper treatment plan.

Doctors shared this information while speaking at the World Kidney Day symposium at Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) centred on this year’s global theme, Protect Your Kidneys, Control Diabetes.

CKD is a slow, often silent disease in which kidneys gradually lose the ability to remove waste products from the blood. One in three people with diabetes may get CKD, but, as Dr Asma Ahmed, Consultant Endocrinologist, AKUH, pointed out that controlling diabetes reduces the risk of developing kidney disease by 21 per cent.

But in Pakistan, half of all people with diabetes are unaware of kidney disease and the risks of their developing the condition.

The World Health Organization, according to Dr Ather Hussain, Consultant Nephrologist, AKUH has estimated that 175 million people worldwide had diabetes in 2003, and the figure will almost double by 2030, with developing nations at greatest risk.

Early detection of kidney disease among diabetics, strict control of blood sugar and the use of high blood pressure medication can slow the progression towards CKD. But if the disease is left undetected or untreated, people may develop end stage renal failure and be treated through dialysis or in severe case undergo a kidney transplant.

Dr Waqar Kashif, Consultant Nephrologist, AKUH, discussed the relationship between high blood pressure and kidney disease.

In 1994, the National Health Survey of Pakistan revealed that 18 per cent of adults above 15, and 33 per cent above 45, had high blood pressure, and less than 3 per cent were able to maintain normal blood pressure.

“Currently, in Pakistan, approximately one third of patients on dialysis have kidney disease as a result of long standing uncontrolled high blood pressure. Patients who have diabetes, in addition to high blood pressure, have higher chances of developing diabetic kidney disease.”

Dr Kashif suggested that the ideal blood pressure for people wishing to stay healthy should be less than 140/90, but in someone who has kidney disease or diabetes, the BP should be much lower. Also, lifestyle changes such as reducing weight, quitting smoking and maintaining a balanced, healthy, low salt diet, can benefit those with CDK.

Dr Raziuddin Biyabani, Consultant Urologist, AKUH, spoke about kidney stones.

He said a peculiar problem in Pakistan is silent stones or neglected stones.

Stones are more likely to form when people don’t drink enough water, particularly in hot climates like in Pakistan, eat a diet rich in protein and have a family history of kidney stones.

Dr Biyabani pointed out that kidney stones are often only detected when a person has severe back pain, accompanied by fever, bloody urine, or even vomiting. Blood or imaging tests can then be used to determine the size, location and type of stone and the treatment options currently, open surgery is rarely required to treat stones.

A person with kidney stones has an up to 50 per cent chance of it recurring within 5 to 10 years, and a 75 per cent chance in 20 years. To reduce the possibility of stones recurring, Dr Biyabani suggested increasing fluids, changing diet, decreasing protein and salt intake and in some cases, medication.

Information about kidney disease in children was shared by Dr Arshalooz Rahman, Consultant Pediatrician, AKUH. Dr Rahman pointed out that paediatric kidney diseases can usually be detected by routine tests and, if treated on time, promise a full recovery.

However, to catch problems early on, community-based screening programmes that monitor high blood pressure, body mass by comparing weight and height, and urine should be made available to detect kidney disease in children, especially those that are overweight. Lifestyle changes at this stage can often lead to a full recovery.

The experts agreed that attention needs to be drawn to the early detection and prevention of CKD and its complications.

K Sudhakar, the famed car designer and enthusiast of automobiles from the Twin Cities of India’s southern Andhra Pradesh has conjured up scrap materials from various sources for a unique office set up, with almost every facility shaped as a vintage car.
This innovative enthusiast who is much fascinated by vintage cars noted that he has designed the office table, sofas, and teapots, all in the shape of his cherished designs of vintage cars.
He candidly mentioned that it took him nearly three years to set up his dream office, where everything is in shape of vintage cars.
He has designed an office cabin in such a manner that the 1908 Ford car model can be converted into an office table, all within mere three seconds. Even, the sofas of his innovative office boast of headlights and wheels of oldie-goldie cars.