Boat made of plastic bottles arrives in Sydney

Monday, 26 Jul, 2010

 

David de Rothschild, front right, skipper of the Plastiki, a boat made out of 12,500 recycled plastic bottles, shakes hands with Ian Kiernan, the Founder and Chairman of Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World, in Sydney, Monday, July 26, 2010. The Plastiki arrives in Sydney four months after it set out from San Francisco on a journey across the Pacific Ocean meant to raise awareness about the perils of plastic waste. — AP Photo

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Storm halts work at Gulf of Mexico spill site

Storm halts work at Gulf of Mexico spill site

SYDNEY: A boat made out of 12,500 recycled plastic bottles sailed into Sydney Harbour on Monday, four months after it set out from San Francisco on a journey across the Pacific Ocean meant to raise awareness about the perils of plastic waste.

The crew of the Plastiki, a 60-foot (18.2 meter) catamaran that weathered fierce ocean storms during its 8,000 nautical miles at sea, left San Francisco on March 20, stopping along the way at various South Pacific island nations including Kiribati and Samoa.

“This is culmination of four years planning, so it’s a very exciting day,” Plastiki spokeswoman Kim McKay said.

The boat, skippered by environmentalist David de Rothschild – a descendant of the well-known British banking family – was being towed to the Australian National Maritime Museum for a welcome ceremony.

“We hope that Sydney-siders will turn out in force to help us celebrate,” de Rothschild said in a statement.

The six-member crew lived in a cabin of just 20 feet by 15 feet (6 meters by 4.5 meters), took saltwater showers, and survived on a diet of dehydrated and canned food, supplemented with the occasional vegetable from their small on-board garden. The boat is fully recyclable, and is powered in part by solar panels and windmills.

The Plastiki’s name is a play on the 1947 Kon-Tiki raft sailed across the Pacific by explorer Thor Heyerdahl.

The crew briefly stopped in Queensland state last week, after battling a brutal storm off the Australian coast.

De Rothschild said the idea for the journey came to him after he read a United Nations report that said pollution – and particularly plastic waste – was seriously threatening the world’s oceans.

-www.dawn.com

BlackBerry phones could threaten security: UAE

News Paper: Dawn News

Monday, 26 Jul, 2010

 

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said in a statement carried late Sunday on the state news agency that BlackBerry devices operate “beyond the jurisdiction” of national laws because the data they carry is managed by a foreign company. – 

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates’ telecommunication watchdog says BlackBerry smartphones are a potential threat to the country's national security and it is seeking changes in how the devices operate.

Authorities’ alarm over the phones comes a year after the Middle East country’s biggest state-run mobile operator was caught encouraging unwitting BlackBerry users to install software on the devices that could allow outsiders to peer inside. The government has never made fully clear what happened in that case.

The latest comments from the Emirati regulator raise questions about the gadgets’ legality in the country, home to the Mideast business hub of Dubai.

They also highlight the government’s efforts to control the flow of information in the Arab Gulf nation, which actively censors websites and other forms of media seen as harming national security or conservative local values.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said in a statement carried late Sunday on the state news agency that BlackBerry devices operate “beyond the jurisdiction” of national laws because the data they carry is managed by a foreign company.

“As a result of how Blackberry data is managed and stored, in their current form, certain Blackberry applications allow people to misuse the service, causing serious social, judicial and national security repercussions,” the regulator said.

“Like many other countries, we have been working for a long time to resolve these critical issues, with the objective of finding a solution that safeguards our consumers and operates within the boundaries of UAE law,” it added.

The TRA said the devices were launched in the UAE before “safety, emergency and national security legislation” regulating their use was enacted in 2007. It did not specify what changes it is seeking.

Efforts to reach TRA officials by phone were unsuccessful. The agency’s media office sent a copy of the statement carried by the official WAM news service but would give no further clarification.

A Dubai-based spokeswoman for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. said the Canadian company did not yet have any comment.

Just over a year ago, RIM criticized a directive by UAE state-owned mobile operator Etisalat telling the company’s more than 145,000 BlackBerry users to install software described as an “upgrade ... required for service enhancements.”

RIM said tests showed the update was in fact spy software that could allow outsiders to access private information stored on the phones. It strongly distanced itself from Etisalat’s decision, and provided details instructing users how to remove the software

 -www.dawn.com

India develops 35-dollar ‘laptop’ for schools

News Paper:Dawn News
Friday, 23 Jul, 2010

Indian Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal unveils ‘laptop’ computer device in New Delhi. India’s ministry of human resource development launched a 35 USD laptop as part of their new venture to provide high quality education to children across the country, according to a government official on July 23. – Photo by AFP

NEW DELHI: India has come up with a 35-dollar touch-screen “laptop” a computing prototype that it aims to make available to students from elementary schools to universities.

The gadget, developed by the elite Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, is part of a push to give students a better education and technical skills needed to boost India’s economic growth.

The first users are expected to be university students with introduction of the Linux-based computing device targeted for next year.

The ministry is going to install broadband Internet at all of its 22,000 colleges so students can use the 1,500-rupee device, government spokeswoman Mamta Verma told AFP on Friday in New Delhi.

The tablet gadget, which can be run on solar power, is equipped with an Internet browser, video-conferencing capability and a media player, among other facilities.

“This is part of the national initiative to take forward inclusive education,” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters on Thursday.

“The solutions for tomorrow will emerge from India,” he said. Sibal said the cost of the motherboard, chip, processing and other components cost a total of around 35 dollars but the government may subsidise 50 per cent of the price for students.

Sibal said the government, which hopes the cost of the device can eventually fall to 10 dollars, is in discussions with global manufacturers to start mass production of the device.

India, whose 63 per cent literacy rate lags far behind many other developing nations, such as China with 94 per cent, is making efforts to improve its troubled education system, which lacks investment in schools and teachers

-www.dawn.com

Iran says scientist provided information on CIA

Wednesday, 21 Jul, 2010

American authorities have claimed that Shahram Amiri willingly defected to the US but changed his mind and decided to return home without the $5 million. – AP Photo

TEHRAN: A semiofficial news agency is quoting an “informed source” as claiming that an Iranian nuclear scientist who returned home last week from the United States provided “very valuable” information about the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA.

American authorities have claimed that Shahram Amiri willingly defected to the US but changed his mind and decided to return home without the $5 million he had been paid for what a US official described as “significant” information about his country’s disputed nuclear program.

The unidentified source is quoted by Fars news agency as saying Iran’s intelligence agents were in touch with Amiri while he was in the US and that they won an intelligence battle against the CIA

 -www.dawn.com

Australian laser system to track space junk

Dawn News
Tuesday, 20 Jul, 2010

 

This handout illustration image created by Australia’s Electro Optic Systems aerospace company shows a view of the Earth from geostationary height depicting swarms of space debris approximately 50,000 of the half-million or more debris objects greater than 1cm in Low Earth Orbit. Debris on the eastern side of the image are in the Earth’s shadow and so not visible to the eye. – AFP Photo

SYDNEY: An Australian company Tuesday said it had developed a laser tracking system that will stop chunks of space debris colliding with spacecraft and satellites in the Earth’s orbit.

Electric Optic Systems said lasers fired from the ground would locate and track debris as small as 10 centimetres across, protecting astronauts and satellites.

“We can track them to very high precision so that we can predict whether there are going to be collisions with other objects or not,” Craig Smith, the company’s CEO, told AFP.

Smith said the technology improved upon existing radar systems because it could detect tiny objects, left behind by disused rockets and satellites, which can still devastate hardware because they are travelling at ultra-high speeds.

He said there were an estimated 200,000 objects measuring less than one centimetre floating in orbit, with another 500,000 of a centimetre or larger.

“It ranges from bus-size bits of rocket bodies all the way down to a little half-a-millimetre fleck of paint,” Smith said from the company’s headquarters in Canberra.

“The trouble is that they’re all travelling at about 30,000 kilometres an hour. So unless you're in the same orbit you have hyper-velocity impacts, which can be devastating to a satellite.” Electric Optic Systems said it had developed the technology thanks to a four million dollar grant from the Australian government.

Smith said the company has received interest in the lasers, developed at Canberra’s Mount Stromlo Observatory, from around the world.

But he said the system would work best with a network of tracking stations placed at strategic points around the globe.

“A network is better than a single station of your own because particularly in lower earth orbit things are not always coming over your head when you want them to be,” said Smith.

-www.dawn.com

China satisfied with Google search engine tweaks

 

Google’s market share in China continued to slip in the second quarter, falling to 27.3 per cent from 29.5 per cent in the first, according to data from research firm iResearch. – File Photo

News Paper: Dawn

BEIJING: China is satisfied that US Internet giant Google Inc is complying with Chinese laws after it tweaked the way it directs users to an unfiltered search page, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The comments from a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology official largely echoed previous Chinese statements, but are still likely to be seen as good news for the company as Beijing has been coy about its long-term future in China.

Google is trying to achieve the delicate balance of ending self-censorship of searches, while holding onto its business foothold in a country where control of information has been key to ensuring the Communist Party’s decades in power.

Google’s market share in China continued to slip in the second quarter, falling to 27.3 per cent from 29.5 per cent in the first, according to data from research firm iResearch.

Before its high-profile spat with Beijing, Google was slowly gaining ground on China’s top search engine Baidu. At the end of last year, Google’s market share was 32.8 per cent.

Guxiang, a company that operates Google's websites in China, had committed to “abide by Chinese law,” and ensure the company did not provide illegal content, said Zhang Feng, head of the ministry's communication development division.

“After examination, we have concluded that it has basically met the requirements according to the relevant laws and regulations,” Zhang told a news conference.

Google unexpectedly warned in January it might quit China over censorship concerns and after suffering a hacker attack it said came from within the country, but eventually terminated its Google.cn search service and started rerouting users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site.

In early July the company ended automatic redirection, saying Beijing was unhappy about the system and would not renew Google’s operating license if it continued.

Visitors are now invited to click through to the Hong Kong page instead of being sent straight there. China's firewall remains in place however, meaning most sensitive sites turned up on searches are inaccessible from within the country's borders.

Google’s move was seen as a sign that the firm would fight to hold onto as much of its China business as possible, and Beijing said earlier this month it had renewed its Chinese operating licence after the company “made improvements”.

Guxiang accepted that government regulators will have the right to supervise content provided by the firm, Zhang said, declining to comment on directly on Google’s provision of the link to its uncensored Hong Kong page.

“As for the question of Hong Kong, this is an operational act made by the company itself,” he added, without elaborating.

China’s decision to allow Google to continue operating in China apparently resolved a months-long censorship dispute that had threatened the US company’s future in the world's top Internet market by users.

The move also removed another thorn in US-China relations and reflects Beijing’s desire to be seen as friendly to major foreign firms in spite of ideological differences, analysts said. – 

-www.brecorder.com

Innovation shines in Pakistan’s first entrepreneurial challenge

News Paper: Dawn
 

KARACHI: Novel ideas with traces of business opportunities were presented in Pakistan’s first entrepreneurial challenge in Karachi.

Several commercially viable ideas from 13 universities were submitted, from which five were short listed and three were awarded cash prizes at the “IBA Invent” challenge.

Students across Pakistan presented commercial projects based on research, development and market needs. Students presented innovative ideas about custom made furniture; community based mushroom cultivation and marketing, desalination tanks for agriculture, wireless charger for small devices and electricity back up systems.

After a panel of judges reviewed the proposals, workable, innovative and commercially feasible projects were awarded cash prizes.

A handheld power backup device, “UJALA”, invented by NED university students receieved a cash award of Rs.5 lakhs. Students from LUMS got a second prize of Rs.3 lakhs for “SHAFAAF”, a project meant to desalinate water for irrigation. “Khoombi” a strategy for community based cultivation and marketing devised by FAST, Lahore, was awarded the third prize of Rs.2.5 lakhs

The Dean and Director of IBA, Dr Ishrat Husain, said that knowledge-based services were the future of Pakistan.

-www.dawn.com