Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

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Any views on this guys?

Apple passes Microsoft to be biggest tech company

Apple passes Microsoft to be biggest tech company

Apple has pushed past arch-rival Microsoft to become the world's biggest technology company.

Changes in the share price values of the two in Wednesday's choppy trading left the total value of Apple at $222bn (£154bn).

Microsoft is now valued by investors at $219bn.

However, Microsoft still enjoys higher profits than Apple. Its most recent annual net profit was $14.6bn (£10bn), compared with $5.7bn for Apple.

Microsoft also reported bigger full-year revenues of $58.4bn, with Apple on $36.5bn.

Apple's shares closed Wednesday trading down 0.4% at $244.11, while Microsoft fell by 4% to $25.01.

iPhone boost

The value of a listed company, known as market capitalisation, is calculated by multiplying the number of shares in a company by the current share price.

Apple, which makes computers, iPods, iPhones and now iPads, almost went out of business in the 1990s.

Full...

Google launches smart TV service

Google launches smart TV service

Search giant Google has launched a TV service that unites live television with the web.

The "smart TV" service allows people to search both live channels as well as content from websites such as YouTube.

Special TV sets - or normal TVs connected to a Google box - will also allow people to access the web and download applications.

The first TV sets will be produced by Sony and should be available in the Autumn.

"Video should be consumed on the biggest, brightest, best screen in your house - the television," said Rishi Chandra of the firm. "That's not the PC, or mobile."

He said that there were currently 4bn TV users worldwide and that around $70bn (£50bn) was spent annually on adverts in the US alone.

"There is no better medium to reach a wider and broader audience than TV," he said.

Full story : HERE

Registration of engineers and technicians receives government backing

Registration of engineers and technicians receives government backing

The Engineering Council welcomes proposals by Lord Sainsbury's Technician Working Group for the creation of a Technician Council to promote registration of Engineering Technicians (EngTech) and Incorporated Engineers (IEng) - and their equivalents in science, health and ICT.

The proposals were requested by Lord Mandelson in the 'Skills for Growth' White Paper in November 2009. The Government had recognised that intermediate skills were inadequately represented in the working population and insufficient status was awarded to engineering, science and health professionals at this level and above.

Read the article here.

-Ken

If this is made mandatory, do you think that this is a good or bad thing?

Britons spend more than 'one day a month online'

Britons spend more than 'one day a month online'

British web users are spending 65% more time online than three years ago, according to a survey of net habits.

The average surfer spends 22 and a quarter hours on the net each month, according to the UK Online Measurement company (UKOM).

The lions' share of that time is spent on social networks or blogs, which accounts for nearly a quarter of users' time online.

Instant messaging (IM) has been one of the victims of social network growth.

Three years ago 14% of online time was spent using IM but that has fallen to just 5%.

But e-mail, also predicted to suffer as more people used Facebook and its rivals, is still healthy and accounts for 7.2% of time compared to 6.5% of time three years ago.

Networking, communication and playing games remain the most popular online activities.

Full story : HERE

Google admits wi-fi data collection blunder

Google admits wi-fi data collection blunder

Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted wi-fi networks.

The issue came to light after German authorities asked to audit the data the company's Street View cars gathered as they took photos viewed on Google maps.

Google said during a review it found it had "been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open networks".

The admission will increase concerns about potential privacy breaches.

These snippets could include parts of an email, text or photograph or even the website someone may be viewing.

In a blogpost Google said as soon as it became aware of the problem it grounded its Street View cars from collecting wi-fi information and segregated the data on its network.

It is now asking for a third party to review the software that caused the problem and examine precisely what data had been...

'Historic' day as first non-Latin web addresses go live

'Historic' day as first non-Latin web addresses go live

Arab nations are leading a "historic" charge to make the world wide web live up to its name.

Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called "country codes" written in Arabic scripts.

The move is the first step to allow web addresses in many scripts including Chinese, Thai and Tamil.

More than 20 countries have requested approval for international domains from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

It said the new domains were "available for use now" although it admitted there was still some work to do before they worked correctly for everyone. However, it said these were "mostly formalities".

Full story : HERE

Infected XP owners left unpatched

Infected XP owners left unpatched

Some of the latest security updates for Windows XP will not be installed on machines infected with a rootkit virus.

A rootkit is sneaky malware that buries itself deep inside the Windows operating system to avoid detection.

Microsoft said it had taken the action because similar updates issued in February made machines infected with the Alureon rootkit crash endlessly.

The latest updates can spot if a system is compromised by the Alureon rootkit and halt installation.

Full story : HERE

Smartphone maker Palm up for sale

Smartphone maker Palm up for sale

Handheld device maker Palm is in the market for a buyer, as sales of its latest smartphones fail to catch up rivals such as Apple and BlackBerry.

Palm was a trailblazer for handheld devices but its latest offerings, the Palm Pre and the Pixi, have not sold as well as hoped.

Full Story: Here

Thanks to GiddyG for the link

Microsoft Creates New Certification

Microsoft Creates New Certification

by Emmett Dulaney

3/24/2010 -- While details remain difficult to find, Microsoft is in the process of creating a new Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) certification as an entry-level certification for Windows Server 2008 small business administrators. This operating system is popular as witnessed by Microsoft awarding Windows Server 2008 credentials last year to 60,000 professionals worldwide (300,000 were given new certifications by Microsoft on all products during this time period).

The three new certificaitons (and related exams) slated to become available are:

1. MTA Server Administration (Exam # 98-365, TA: Windows Server 2008, Server Administration Fundamentals)
2. MTA Networking (Exam # 98-366, TA: Windows Server 2008, Networking Fundamentals)
3. MTA Security (Exam # 98-367, TA: Windows Server 2008, Security Fundamentals)

See...