Biomolecular computers can now ‘think logically’

September 22nd, 2009 SYDNEY - Technology experts worldwide are finding it "almost impossible" to defeat the Conficker worm, which has infected more than 5 million computers and could even knock down the internet in all countries. The worm, which was first detected in November last year, spreads rapidly to computers through a flaw in the Windows operating system.

September 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - More and more discarded US computers are enjoying a lease of life in developing countries, says a comprehensive study. The findings may heighten growing concerns about environmental pollution with toxic metals that can result from dismantling and recycling computer components in developing countries.

August 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Engineers at Ohio State University, US, have found a way to double the production of the biofuel butanol, which might someday replace gasoline in automobiles. The process improves on the conventional method for brewing butanol in a bacterial fermentation tank.

August 4th, 2009 BEIJING - In the last year, China has suffered a loss of a billion dollars because of hackers, and what has left authorities in Beijing very worried is a report that the training of hackers has become an industry, and generated an estimated income of 238 million Yuan in the same period. According to a China Daily report, hackers have stolen people's bank account numbers and passwords and damaged the Internet users' computers and servers.

July 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Fake Internet postcards circulated through electronic mails worldwide carry links to a deadly virus known as Zeus Bot, according to a new study. Gary Warner, computer forensics director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), who led the study, said, Zeus Bot has been named America's most pervasive computer virus, reportedly affecting some 3.6 million computers in the US.

July 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - What is being expected to prove the most powerful computer of its kind in the world became operational at the University of Florida this week. The supercomputer has been named by its designers 'Novo-G'.

July 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The world's fastest and most powerful supercomputer, named Novo-G, has become operational at the University of Florida. Novo-G gets the first part of its name from the Latin term for make anew, change, alter and the second from G for genesis.

July 23rd, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - By opting for the free and open software platform (FOSS) for the state-sponsored IT@School project, Kerala's General Education Department has saved Rs.11 crore. The project's Executive Director K.

July 9th, 2009 Diplomats still struggling with laptop lapsesWASHINGTON — Nearly a decade after a State Department laptop containing highly classified information disappeared in an embarrassing security lapse, the agency is still unable to account for all of its portable computers, a government report said Wednesday. The State Department's inspector general said Wednesday that a review of a sample of 334 laptops belonging to four departmental bureaus found that 27 were missing at the time of the audit and that 172, including nine of 14 classified laptops labeled "secret," were not protected with encryption software, potentially risking sensitive information.

June 23rd, 2009 BEIJING - Chinese government officials will soon be required to think twice before connecting their flash-disks loaded with State secrets into unsecured computers, as they are likely to come under tighter surveillance to prevent leaks of confidential information. The top legislature was informed on Monday during briefings on amendments to the Law on Guarding State Secrets, that a tougher law was needed to cut access to the Internet or other public networks from secure computers, China Daily reports.

June 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Computers are helping to create one of the most literate and engaged generations the world has seen, an expert has claimed. Carl Whithaus, associate professor of writing at UC Davis, has revealed that computers along with traditional print-based literacy methods have proved to be a boon to academic achievement.

May 14th, 2009 Former agent gets probation for Hollywood wiretapsWASHINGTON — A former FBI agent has been sentenced to one year of probation for using the bureau's computers to dig up information on Hollywood executives involved in a prominent wiretapping case. The former agent, Mark Rossini, was not working on the wiretapping case against Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and was not authorized to look up the files.

May 1st, 2009 LONDON - Plans to introduce computers in England's primary school curriculum will ruin kids' handwriting skills, experts have warned. As per a government report by former chief schools inspector Sir Jim Rose, computers should be used in every lesson.

April 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A revolutionary 'photochromic' material developed by Japanese researchers changes colour instantaneously when exposed to light. The development could open the way to a wide range of new products including improved sunglasses, more powerful computers, dynamic holograms, and better medicines.

April 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Ancient Egyptians mixed herbs into wines to create medicinal remedies, researchers have found. Deep inside the tomb of Scorpion I, archaeochemist Patrick McGovern and colleagues found that 5,000-year-old wines were spiked with natural medicines-centuries before the practice was thought to exist in Egypt.