The net's new tiger, China, is creating a faster, more secure system that is way ahead of the West
THE net is getting creaky and old: it is rapidly running out of space and remains fundamentally insecure. And it turns out China is streets ahead of the West in doing anything about it.
A report published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society last week details China's advances in creating a next-generation internet that is on a national level and on a larger scale than anything in the West.
At the root of the problem are "two major gaps in the architecture of the internet", according to a report from the New England Complex Systems Institute,
compiled in 2008 for the US Navy and released to the public this week.
First up is the internet's inability to block malicious traffic as a
whole. While malware can rapidly replicate and distribute itself across
the net, organisations can only respond to individual instances of
online aggression.
China is already coming up with better
defences. One of the most important aspects of its next-generation
backbone is a security feature known as Source Address Validation
Architecture (SAVA).
Many of the existing security problems stem from an
inability to authenticate IP addresses of computers that try to connect
to your network. SAVA fixes this by adding checkpoints across the
network. These build up a data.........For more details visit NEWSCIENTIST
A squabble between a group fighting spam and a Dutch company that hosts
websites said to be sending spam has escalated into one of the largest
computer attacks on the Internet, causing widespread congestion and
jamming crucial infrastructure.
Millions of ordinary Internet users have experienced delays in services
or could not reach a particular website for a short time.
However, for the Internet engineers who run the global network, the
problem is more worrisome. The attacks are becoming increasingly
powerful, and computer security experts worry that if they continue to
escalate, people may not be able to reach basic Internet services, like
e-mail and online banking.
The dispute started when the spam-fighting group, called Spamhaus, added
the Dutch company Cyberbunker to its blacklist, which is used by e-mail
providers to weed out spam ...........read for more details THE HINDU
All government organisations should have a plan to shift to a network
that supports new version of internet addresses, IPv6, by 2017-end,
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday said.
“By 2017, we should be a smart knowledge society. We will use IPv6 for
rural emergency healthcare, tele-education, smart-metering, smart-grid,
smart-building, smart-cities which has tremendous potential for
socio-economic development of this country,” Mr. Sibal said while
unveiling the roadmap.
The government has started issuing IPv6 addresses.......The Hindu
What is IPv6?
Internet has been growing extremely fast so the IPv4 addresses are
quickly approaching complete depletion. Although many organizations
already use Network Address Translators (NATs) to map multiple private
address spaces to a single public IP address but they have to face with
other problems from NAT (the use of the same private address,
security…). Moreover, many other devices than PC & laptop are
requiring an IP address to go to the Internet. To solve these problems
in long-term, a new version of the IP protocol – version 6 (IPv6) was
created and developed.
IPv6 was created by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a
standards body, as a replacement to IPv4 in 1998. So what happened with
IPv5? IP Version 5 was defined for experimental reasons and never was
deployed.
While IPv4 uses 32 bits to address the IP (provides approximately 232
= 4,294,967,296 unique addresses – but in fact about 3.7 billion
addresses are assignable because the IPv4 addressing system separates
the addresses into classes and reserves addresses for multicasting,
testing, and other specific uses), IPv6 uses up to 128 bits which
provides 2128 addresses or approximately 3.4 * 1038 addresses. Well, maybe we should say it is extremely extremely extremely huge:
IPv6 Address Types
Address Type
Description
Unicast
One to One (Global, Link local, Site local)
+ An address destined for a single interface.
Multicast
One to Many
+ An address for a set of interfaces
+ Delivered to a group of interfaces identified by that address.
+ Replaces IPv4 “broadcast”
Anycast
One to Nearest (Allocated from Unicast)
+ Delivered to the closest interface as determined by the IGP
A single interface may be assigned multiple IPv6 addresses of any type (unicast, anycast, multicast)
IPv6 address format
Format:
x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x – where x is a 16 bits hexadecimal field and x represents four hexadecimal digits. (http://www.9tut.com/ipv6-tutorial)
Smartphones based on Open Source Technology will be hitting the market this year.
The well known players of open source are Linux and Mozilla challenging the top players Apple's iOS and Googles Android.
The Mozilla Foundation, developer of the Firefox browser and a new
mobile operating system, claims to have 17 operators on board and plans
Firefox OS phones in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro,
Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela. .............ANI
Lava Mobiles launching Zolo, its first quad-core Android phone, Xolo Q800. The device is priced at Rs 12,499.
Xolo Q800 comes with runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean based phone and
comes with a 4.5 inch IPS panel display with qHD (540 x 960 Pixels)
resolution.
It has a 1.2 GHz quad core Mediatek chipset and 1 GB RAM. The Q800 has 4 GB ROM.
It has an 8 megapixel
autofocus camera with backside illumination CMOS sensor for better low
light photography at the back.
Xolo Q800 has 3G (up to 21 Mbps speed which is again much higher than
almost all other phones from Indian brands), WiFI, Bluetooth, A-GPS,
Proximity sensor, and Accelerometer. The Xolo smartphone has a 2100 mAH
battery.
The Nokia 301
is classic Nokia from top to toe, from its iconic numbered keypad to
the immediately recognisable design, but this classically designed
feature phone has a few surprises up its sleeve.
Expected Price of Nokia 301 in India is between Rs.4500 - 6000.
The Nokia Look
Before we look too deeply at the features of the Nokia 301, it’s worth dwelling on its fabulous looks. For a relatively affordable feature phone, it’s a stunning looking handset.
Strikingly, it shares much of the same design and colour language of
the Nokia Lumia smartphones. It’s also made out of a premium-feeling
material similar to that used for the Lumia devices and feels equally
solid, durable and natural to hold.
There are some design touches too. The camera detailing on the back,
with its metallic bezel, has strong echoes of the camera on the Nokia Lumia 800.
The iconic Nokia numerical keypad sits flush below the screen, so the
screen and the keys appear to be almost completely seamless.
I also love how the glossy finish on the keys and the screen contrasts with the matte finish on the rest of the phone.
SIM City
Regular readers will know that I’m a recent convert to the idea of having a Dual SIM phone. I’ve got the Easy Swap Dual SIM variant of the Nokia 301, although it is also available in a single SIM version.
Access to the second SIM on the Nokia 301 is through a slot on the
side of the phone (the first SIM lives as normal underneath the
battery). On the opposite side there’s another slot for the micro-SD
card.
The extra SIM can be super useful for when you’re going on holiday,
need to use two phone numbers without carrying around a second phone or
just want to take advantage of deals from different operators.
Camera-tastic
One of the real glories of the Nokia 301 is the 3.2-megapixel camera,
which is packed with features to get your creative juices flowing.
This is a good example of Nokia’s imaging know-how trickling down
from its flagship devices to feature phones. Among the camera’s features
are.
Panorama (a first for a feature phone)
Self-portraits with voice guidance to make sure you’re in the frame!
Sequence shooting mode, which takes a burst of shots for you to pick the best one
Self-timer countdown before the camera takes a photo
Video camera
Photo sharing via Bluetooth, Nokia Slam, eBuddy or email
Photo editing and effects
As ever, the key is just how easy all these camera features are to
use. My favourite is definitely the voice-guided self-portraits – such a
simple idea, you wonder why no one had ever thought of this before!
We’ll be looking at the camera features on the Nokia 301 in much more detail in the weeks ahead.
Feature packed feature phone
While the Nokia 105 was, rightly, getting a lot of plaudits at MWC for being such an affordable device, the Nokia 301 also offers you tremendous value for money.
It’s a 3.5G device with HD call quality and battery life in excess of
30 days on standby – 39 days in fact for the single SIM variant of the
Nokia 301.
In addition, you can access social networks, like Facebook, WhatsApp
and Twitter, send and receive emails, play games, download apps from the
Nokia Store, listen to the radio
(with a connected headset), play music and videos, personalise the home
screen and access the Internet with the Nokia Xpress Browser.
Keep in mind that the Nokia 301
is priced at about 65 euros. For that sort of money, it’s pretty
awesome that you get all those features in such a gorgeous looking
phone.
Memory: Up to 256MB, 64MB RAM (plus up to 32GB microSD card)
Connectivity: 2.0 mm Charger Connector, 3.5 mm AV Connector, Bluetooth 3.0
Battery:
Single SIM – standby 2G/3G: 37/39days,
Dual SIM – standby 2G/3G: 31/34days
Talk time – 2G/3G = 20/6hrs
Facebook, eBuddy, WhatsApp and Twitter are all preloaded to the home
screen and the email app supports a lite version of Mail for Exchange
for syncing your calendar, contacts and emails.
The design is striking. The Nokia 301 might sport a traditional
‘candybar’ shape, but its inherent colour and clean lines mean it’s
ultra-modern at the same time. It comes in yellow, cyan, magenta, white
and black varieties and single SIM or dual SIM versions.
Spec-tacular
In terms of the specifications, two more things stand out. It has a
terrific battery life – up to 39 days on standby, when using the single
SIM version on a 3G network. Then, it supports HD Voice, for much
clearer calls when used with an operator network that supports the
protocol.
A glance up at the picture above and with the word "Lumia" missing
from this device's name you may think we've travelled back in time, but
oh no the Nokia 105 is very much part of the here and now.
While
smartphones having been ruling in the roost in places such as Europe and
the States, feature phones still play massive part in the mobile phone
ecosystem in developing countries where demand for low cost, basic
handsets is high.
The Nokia 105 takes over from the Nokia 1280 as the
entry point into Nokia's mobile world, and it's got some pretty big
boots to fill as the 1280 managed to shift 100 million units in three
years.
There
is a twist though. Nokia isn't just targeting the emerging markets this
time round, it plans to bring the 105 to Europe as a companion phone
which can offer rugged, cheap functionality and standout battery life.
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z price and release date information has been
revealed for Japan, and the device will be available for ¥85,470
starting March 22 via NTT Docomo. A point to be noted is that this
information pertains only to the LTE version.
The Wi-Fi variant will be put for sale from April 13 in the aforesaid country as per Xperia Blog.
It further states that this edition wouldn’t have an antenna and hence
will not support 1-Seg TV or NOTTV. The manufacturer has been promoting
the slate as an ideal companion to its phone equivalent. The device will
be launched dipped in shades of either black or white.
The maker claims that Mobile Bravia Engine 2
used in the display adds new dimensions like contrast enhancement,
color management, noise reduction and a sharpness filter. These would
apparently bring forth a TV-like viewing experience to users. The
elimination of a layer of air from the touchscreen’s construction
results in less reflection and an increase in sensitivity.
Having
achieved the standards of IP55 and IP57, the tablet is crafted in such a
manner that makes it resistant to both water and dust. The glass used
for the front panel is a tempered one that has been covered with an
anti-shatter film.
The device is kept light, weighing just 495 grams and
possessing a thickness of only 6.9mm.Other specifications of the slate
include the Jelly Bean platform, a 1.5GHz quad core CPU, 2GB of RAM and a
battery that’s complemented by the Stamina mode software.
Pre-orders
for the Xperia Tablet Z will be accepted by the carrier from March 9.
Another piece of information that has been exposed is that prospective
buyers in the rest of the world can expect the slate to be released in
the second quarter. It was earlier disclosed that customers in the US would be able to pick up the tablet in spring for $499.
Specifications of the tablet:
8.1MP Exmor R rear camera, 2.2MP lens on the front panel
Hewlett-Packard has introduced ElitePad business tablet targeting the
enterprise segment. Starting at a price range of Rs 43,500, the
10.1-inch tablet weighs 630 grams with a width of 9.2 mm.
Relatively a late entrant to this segment where BYOD (bring your own
device) is becoming an important trend, HP said it has come out with a
ElitePad Smart Jackets, which offers several add-ons such as a spare
battery.
Priced a little over Rs 5,000, this spare battery provides an additional
11-hour back-up. The standalone tablet offers eight hours of battery
life.
“The tablet can double as a PC if one gets a docking system and a
keyboard. You can use an existing keyboard too. Virtually, it replaces a
notebook and a desktop PC,” Sunish Raghavan, Country Category Head
(Personal Systems – Commercial), HP’s Printing and Personal Systems,
said.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday after showcasing the
tablet, he said the ElitePad ecosystem would also include an Executive
Tablet Pen that lets users write on the screen and save it as typed
text. You can print a document remotely from anywhere in the world to a
printer of your choice.
Minister for IT and Communications Kapil Sibal flanked by Secretary, IT,
J. Satyanarayana (left), and CEO of NIXI Govind at the launch of
National Internet Registry services in the Capital on Thursday. — Ramesh
Sharma
New Delhi, March 7: Using Internet
services will become cheaper with the Government on Thursday launching
National Internet Registry (NIR) in the country.
This
will enable Internet service providers to buy Internet protocol (IP)
addresses from this registry in India, instead of buying it from
international agencies.
Till now, companies wanting
to get an IP addresses in the country had to apply to APNIC (a regional
Internet registry based in Australia), which was time consuming and also
expensive.
By setting up a local NIR, buying IP addresses will get
cheaper by around 70 per cent. This also allows Indians can buy the IP
addresses in Indian rupees instead of paying in dollars.
“For
example, if an IP address was costing $2,000 (Rs 1.08 lakh), now it can
be bought at around $800 (Rs 43,200). This will ultimately make the
Internet services cheaper to end consumers as the service providers can
sell the IP addresses cheaper to its customers,” an Internet service
provider said.
While launching the registry
Communication and IT Minister Kapil Sibal said,” Setting up of NIR will
not only reduce cost in procuring IP address but will also facilitate
faster access to information for cyber crime investigators and
Government authorities.”
The Department of Electronics and Information
Technology (DeitY) had entrusted the operations of NIR to National
Internet Exchange of India earlier, which was recognised by the Asia
Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) in March last year.
Globally,
IP addresses are controlled by the US-based Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Though, ICANN will remain the mother
source of getting the IP addresses and will sell it through APNIC,
India will buy the IP addresses from NIR only.
In just a little over an hour, Facebook will be showing off what we think is a redesign to the frontpage News Feed on the social network. We received an invitation
to the event last week, and it mentioned to “come see a new look for
News Feed,” so that really can only mean one thing. However, what new
features will they introduce, and how drastic will the redesign be?
Facebook has been focusing a lot on its Timeline profile pages and
it’s new Graph Search feature, so today’s News Feed update will be one
of the first focused redesigns of the News Feed in a long time. According to TechCrunch,
Facebook is said to be launching content-specific news feeds that will
consist of multiple categories like Instagram photos and Music feed that
will show what friends are listening to, as well as recommend new
albums to listen to.
It’s also said that larger images and image-based ads in both the web
and mobile version of the news feeds will be introduced. Facebook has
certainly been focusing its efforts in photo sharing, so more emphasis
on photos could definitely be a main part of the News Feed update, and
more-prominent photos on the frontpage could very well be in the cards
for the social network.
All-in-all, we could see a complete revamp of the frontpage News
Feed. Since Facebook has been mostly ignoring it for a few years now,
the layout has become somewhat dated, and the company maybe looking at
shaking things up. Of course, what we’re mostly yearning for is faster
loading speeds, which we’re sure that Facebook will also introduce with
the redesign. Stay tuned later today to see what Facebook has been
cooking up.
The Galaxy S IV announcement — or so we think that’s what we’ll see
— is just 10 days away, and the rumors are simply not stopping, nor
should we expect them to. The latest one to feast your eyes on is the
supposed implementation of eye-tracking technology in the Galaxy S IV,
which will allow users to scroll web pages or apps with their own
eyeballs.
According to the New York Times, the new phone will watch
where your eyes are looking and will scroll down the page for you when
your eyes reach the bottom. It’s said that Samsung has trademarked the
term for this technology and are calling it either “Eye Scroll” or “Eye
Pause.” Eye Scroll sounds a lot better, but we’ll see what Samsung does
come March 14.
The anonymous source, who is a Samsung employee and was not
authorized to speak to media (tisk tisk), didn’t say what technology was
being used to track eye movement, and we probably won’t know exactly
until the Samsung press conference. However, the source said that
software features of the Galaxy S IV will outweigh the importance of the
hardware overall.
However, Samsung’s chief product officer, Kevin Packingham, noted
that he disagreed that the software would take attention away from the
hardware, saying that the rumored device is “an amazing phone.” Of
course, we’ll ultimately find out come March 14, but unless the Galaxy S
IV comes with better hardware specs than the HTC One or other recent
devices, hardware may not really be a huge deal.
Software giant Microsoft, on Monday, launched the latest version of its
Office 365 solution for businesses in India, which will enable them to
access emails and other productivity tools from a variety of devices.
“The new Microsoft Office 365 is a comprehensive suite with Word,
PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote and Access. It provides seamless
sharing of data across multiple devices like desktops, laptops, mobiles
and tablet PCs and since the solution is cloud-based, users can access
their mails and files while on the move,” Microsoft Corporation India
Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik told reporters here. The service would allow
businesses as well as individuals to take full advantage of the cloud ,
he added
The solution also includes the updated Microsoft Lync Online, Exchange
Online and Yammer, which Microsoft acquired last year. Office 365 can be
installed on up to five devices for a single user under the Office 365
licensing guidelines. Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription-based
software service.
It is priced at Rs. 4,199 per year for an individual user, while
enterprise users will need to shell out between $6- $22 per month,
depending on what solutions the organisation opts for.
“Office 365 is one of our fastest growing businesses globally. It was
launched in mid-2011 and now every fifth Microsoft enterprise customer
globally uses Office 365 The number of small and medium businesses has
grown by over 150 per cent year-on-year," Microsoft Corporation India GM
(Office Division) Ramkumar Pichai said.
The national free roaming service slated to get implemented from March this year has reportedly
been postponed till October this year.
Kapil Sibal, Minister of
Communications and Information Technology, has recently announced that
the implementation of the Free National Roaming for operator services
across the country will come into action by the October.This will be
the second time that the Government has postponed the time of
implementation of this service ever since it had mentioned it in the
National Telecom Policy 2012.
Ever since the release of the National Telecom Policy last year,
Indian operators have been opposing the move of freeing roaming charges
as they have their own concerns about revenues from the service. The
industry still has not been able to garner fruits from 3G services and
generates a major chunk of revenues from voice service.
Roaming charges
include 9 percent of the revenues thus generated by the operators and
abolishing it would lead them to lose a big portion of the revenues.
Essentially, it has reportedly been due to the industry’s dependence
on revenues generated from voice that the Government has given the
operators some more time and pushed to abolish the roaming charges till
October.
Moreover, COAI has also been reported to be against the move and has
said that this move will hit the telcos in big way, and will be
discriminatory as well as destructive for the operators.Also, if forced
in to action, this free roaming policy would also lead to an increase
in tariffs by the operators, as they will fill the revenue gap created
by free roaming by inflaming the tariffs of other services.
