The Indian Air Force (IAF) will have a central network in the next two years to process data that will help during critical operations, Chief of Air Staff PV Naik recently said. “I am looking at two years’ time to have a net-centric environment to process data in real-time for combat operations and optimal performance”, Naik told reporters on the margins of an air force event at Bangalore, dropping jargon with the alacrity of an Su-30K dropping cluster bombs on terrorist camps in POK (not that they actually do that, mind you).
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In a predictable response to Indian officials’ allegations of trying to crack into government computers, China said that reports of attacks by Chinese crackers were “without basis”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said at a press briefing in Beijing that China is one of the biggest victims of cracker attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website. Attacks on China from outside the country rose 148% in 2008, Ma was quoted as saying.

Earlier, MK Narayanan, India’s National Security Advisor, said his office and other government departments were targeted by hackers on 15th Dec, as reported by London-based The Times. “People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese. It is difficult to find the exact source, but this is the main suspicion. It seems well-founded”, the report quoted Narayanan as saying.

Source: IANS

China’s population of Internet users, already the world’s largest, soared nearly 30% last year to 384 million, as the number of people surfing the web by mobile phones more than doubled. The 28.9% growth rate was below 2008’s eye-popping 41%, but still among the world’s highest, despite government controls highlighted by this week’s dispute with Google over internet censorship.

The number of people going online via mobile phones rose 106% to 233 million, spurred by the launch of 3G services that support video and other web products, said the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Centre. It also said 8% of web surfers use only mobile phones to go online. Online commerce in 2009 totalled 250 billion yuan ($37 billion), CNNIC added.
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Online marketplace operator eBay Inc will report its fourth-quarter results tomorrow. According to data from market research firm comScore, e-commerce sales from 1st Nov to Christmas Eve rose 5% over 2008. During the same period, overall retail sales rose 3.6%, according to MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse. This growth compares with a drop in sales on and off the web a year earlier.

eBay tried to lure customers by focusing on holiday deals from sellers that included free shipping and guaranteed returns on new items. It also promoted products that were new but not the latest models, emphasizing another way shoppers could get name-brand products at savings. Also during the quarter, eBay wrapped up the sale of its Internet phone service Skype in November for about $2 billion to an investor group that included the founders of the service. Just before that, eBay settled a legal fight over critical software with Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis that cleared the way for completion of the deal. eBay sold 70% of Skype for about $1.9 billion plus $125 million it will get at a later date. It is keeping the remaining 30%.
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The Chinese managed to hack Google accounts of human activists and many businesses thanks to flaws in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) browser, according to recent reports. Google has threatened to close its operations and offices in China after hacking and phishing attempts to break into Gmail accounts of US, China and Europe based Chinese human rights activists. The company, which agreed to censor Google.cn on its launch in 2006, has also said it is “…No longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn”.

Recent reports quoted security researcher McAfee Inc as saying that Chinese cyber attacks on Google accounts were engineered by using an unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. According to McAfee, phishers fooled users into clicking on a link to a website. This website then secretly downloaded malicious software onto their computers. The spyware allowed the hackers to take remote control of the computers.
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Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project — the Defense Department’s costliest weapons program ever — according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks. Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force’s air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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Internet addiction is on the rise in the world’s largest Net market, and now Chinese doctors have officially defined it as an ailment. Users who spend six hours or more per day online, and exhibit at least one symptom including difficulty sleeping or concentrating, yearning to be online, irritation, and mental or physical distress are classified as meeting the definition of addiction.
By this definition most Indians online are already addicts.
Source: PC World
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If you want to access your MSN messenger with out having to install the MSN messenger software, you might want to check out Web messenger. It’s an online program that runs off your browser letting you access to MSN’s messenger service. The site is free to use and best of all it’s by MSN themselves which means its the real deal.
Web link: webmessenger.msn.com

Fed up of your current anti-virus and firewall try the new and improved Comodo Internet Security. The software is free for the non Pro version and includes an active firewall, Anti-virus and protection from malware and trojans. Check out the Web link for more information or click on the download link to directly download a 32bit Windows XP/ Vista version of the software.
Web link: Comodo Internet Securityl
Free Download: Free copy of Comodo Internet Security

If you hate your daily online routine of visiting several Web pages to access all your information like emails, news, updates, etc. Then www.mysurfpad.com is the site for you. It lets you put all your favourite links and tools on one easy to access page.
Web site: www.mysurfpad.com

A Japanese man has enlisted hundreds of people in a campaign to allow marriages between humans and cartoon characters, saying he feels more at ease in the “two-dimensional world.”Comic books are immensely popular in Japan, with some fictional characters becoming celebrities or even sex symbols.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
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Someecards.com is possibly to probably the best site on the Web for free, funny ecards. It has an array of greeting cards for every occasion - from important to utterly pointless. Send greetings for apology, birthday, baby, breakup, congratulations, encouragement, farewell, flirting, friendship, get well, sympathy, thanks, thinking of you, wedding, workplace, and holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Click on the link to start sending someecards.
Website: someecards

Google has introduced Google Earth for iPhone and iPod touch. It may be small, but it brings all the power of Google Earth to the palm of your hand, including all of the same global imagery and 3D terrain. You can even browse any of our 8 million Panoramio photos or read Wikipedia articles. Video after jump.
Source:googleblog.blogspot
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Times Of India reported this interesting bit of news. Reliance Communications has entered into a strategic alliance with Acer, Asus, HCL, Intel and Lenovo to offer free laptops with internet connectivity to customers. The scheme will enable customers to get free laptops powered by Intel’s “Atom” with high-speed internet data card service of Reliance, RCom’s president, Mahesh Prasad said.
“The growth of internet services in India is one of the key visions of Reliance Communications. The next phase of growth of internet penetration in the country is linked to the growth in PC and Laptop penetration,” Prasad said.
Customers can avail the package with monthly installment as low as Rs 1,500 per month for a contract of two years.
Web link: Times of India

This is an early test release of the mobile version of Firefox called Fennec. It was built so new additions like better touch screen support and other features that are appropriate for mobile phones and other handheld devices could be added to the already popular architecture of Firefox. The current version is available only on one mobile device the Nokia n810, but if you are curious enough to check it out try the versions for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
Web link: Fennec
Download: Fennec alpha 1 for Windows

UCLA scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings demonstrate that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.
The study, the first of its kind to assess the impact of Internet searching on brain performance, is currently in press at the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and will appear in an upcoming issue.
Source:ULCA
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University of New Mexico (UNM) graduate student Josh Karlin has built and posted an Internet Alert Registry (IAR) that automatically sends an e-mail to registered Internet service providers when there is trouble with traffic in their section of the World Wide Web. The registry is free and any Internet service provider can sign up for the warnings. What actually prompted Josh Karlin to take up the task was the disappearance of You Tube Web site disappeared from the Internet in February last. The site vanished when a telecommunications company in Pakistan had rerouted traffic to and from the Web site into an Internet black hole.
Web link:NSF
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The new Opera 9.6 has a few new features like the new Low Bandwidth Mode for Opera mail that uses as little bandwidth as possible and new Opera Scroll Marker that makes it easier to continue reading when you scroll through a Web page. At the end of the page it will indicate the previous position of the bottom of the screen so you can easily see where to continue reading. A longer list of updated features can be seen on the Opera 9.6 Web link. The browser is available in local Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil and Telegu.
Download: International, Hindi, Tamil and Telegu
Web link: Opera 9.6

There is a new way to hop around the world for travelers whose budgets can’t keep up with their wanderlust, and the perks may be more than financial. For adventurous travelers only, Couchsurfing.com is a Web site that connects travelers to people who are willing to host strangers in their homes for free. You might expect that to be a small group, but you’d be wrong. The site has more than 670,000 members in 231 countries, with 5,000 new members signing up every six weeks.More after the jump…
Source: Daily Press
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If you are one of those people who are sticking by their old version of Microsoft Office, you might want to check this site www.zamzar.com. Along with a variety of online conversion options for images, spreadsheets, audio and video. The site also offers conversion for new office formats to older ones and even open source ones. Visit the site and check it out.