The Indian parliament is considering a law that would imprison offenders whose use f mobile phones had resulted in rude and socially unacceptable behaviour. The Indian nation has one of the highest number of cell phone users, now estimated at about 277 million subscribers.
Some of the specific cases involving cellphones include banning them at funerals and religious temples, the jamming cell phone transmission in areas f educational facilities, traffic-related cell phone usage restrictions,and imprisonment of public service workers for making private calls during work. There is even a proposal to forbid any cameras on mobiles in order to protect women. Although such suggestions sound radical, there is a significant number of people and institutions which support such an approach.
We’ve all heard of Japan’s efforts to creating a human-like robot for various earthly purposes, but now Japan is working on a walking robot for the moon. The bot is intended to be completed by 2020 and be able to work with astronauts on these space missions. It will take about 2 years for more specific details to become known as far as the technologies and financing that will be needed for the project. The public will also have an opportunity to comment on the proposals.
The research group currently working on this venture is also advocating for research on army satellites, a satellite that would forecast and monitor natural disasters, and more. Friday’s offer has become known just as the country of North Korea has been finalizing its attempt for launching a rocket over Japan. The Japanese and other governments do not believe the North Korean assertions that this will be a communications satellite. Since the first launch of a Japanese satellite in 1970, Japan has been advocating for space exploration. In January, Japan launched the 1st satellite to track how greenhouse gases are released and influence global warming. In Asia, China and India are now on a quest of their own space exploration programs.
In the latest battle with Google Street View, angry UK townspeople embraced in a human chain to stop the company car from taking pictures of their residence. This took place in Broughton, a suburb in the northwest part of London. The police arrived after steamed residents blocked the vehicle. The concerns of the residents are that these pictures amount to privacy invasions and even burglaries could result from this technology. The last six weeks had resulted in three break-ins in Broughton, and consequently, the residents are concerned that the burglary trend will rise with this technology.
The Google Street View vehicles are quite recognizable since they have a round camera mounted on the roof. The contentious service is designed to map every street, to show a map from a person’s point of view as opposed to the typical maps that are from a satellite point of view. The technology can be viewed on computers or mobile phones and gives more of a three dimensional idea of what locations look like.
It is common in certain countries to have Internet providers pay a majority or the entire cost of a laptop if the owner signs up for a wireless Internet plan. An issue is raised in cases where the computer owner halts the payment of his Internet bills. Although service can be dropped by the provider, the company is still owed money, often a large sum of it, and a legal recourse is expensive.
A new modem technology is now intended to confront the matter. The company manufacturing the modem is from Sweden and it has years of experience in modems for laptop computers.Basically, what the technology does is to transmit a signal that is disabling to the machine, so it cannot even be turned on.The modem will work on various 3G-enabled computers.
The modems can do other things, such as a lock down of computers that get stolen, or alert the owner if there is a vital email, call, or other urgent appointment that needs to be addressed immediately, even if the laptop is off. Lenovo, which was formerly owned by IBM, intends to offer its newest computers with this modem.
Netflix, who seemingly does not recognize that we’re currently going through a worldwide economic recession has made the decision to up the fees on its Blu-ray DVD rentals a surprising 22 percent. While it’s quite the increase it will thankfully only apply to those customers who use Netflix’s Blu-ray services, and regularly DVD rentals prices will not be affected. Of course, this will be quite annoying to those who enjoy the Blu-ray offerings from Netflix, as they will all see a price increase. For example, if you are currently signed up with the company’s $17 monthly plan expect to see your charges go up by four dollars.
So of course many are wondering why Netflix would increase prices during these times. Well, according to the company the increase is needed in order for them to be able to buy a larger amount of Blu-ray discs to meet demand. This increased inventory should then allow them to decrease Blu-ray wait times as well as offer a greater selection of Blu-ray discs.
It was always obvious that eventually every body’s favorite little microblogging platform, Twitter, would seek to monetize their services. Well that seems to finally be happening as Twitter now openly admits that they are currently readying to start making money from their popular service. According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter plans to go about earning this cash by offering their business users a paid account option in order to increase the effectiveness in user Twitter for business reasons.
Of course now many are wondering what features a paid account will allow its users. Unfortunately, Twitter has not confirmed anything, however its now widely rumored that the paid accounts will allow Twitter business clients the ability to authorize representatives, as well as provide them with enhanced tracking options in order to view what folks are tweeting about them. This should provide a good way for businesses to make the most out of their Twitter usage.
For those of you who are unlike Twitter, and already have a little green in your pockets, you may want to take a break from tweeting and check out some photo novelty for Christmas. The holiday of the year sure is coming up fast, so it’s best to find your gifts now.
Most of us who own a GPS device have noticed from time to time that the units do not always give the most accurate or efficient driving instructions. A British driver has noticed this after he claims that his global positioning unit has caused his car to reach the edge of a cliff. The name of the poor chap is Robert Jones and he apparently followed the directions of the device with a blind faith that it cannot be wrong.
He didn’t notice that the path he was on was actually for walking and the software makes it appear as if it is for driving. The car was a BMW and it nearly fell down a 100-foot cliff in West Yorkshire. The car was stopped from completely falling due to a fence right by the cliff’s edge. Mr. Jones, now is obligated to go to court and face the allegations of driving dangerously.
We have all heard of the Amazon Kindle ebook by now, but it turns out that there could be some intellectual rights issues raised which question who really invented the device. The issue was raised by the company Discovery Communications. Discovery is mostly known for the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet TV networks. It is laying claim that the ebook is impinging on a Discovery registered patent that dates back two years ago. The claim is that Amazon.com was “willful” in encroaching on Discovery’s patent. Discovery is contending that the patent addresses the security concerns of ebook files. Consequently, a lawsuit against Amazon has been filed.
The spokesperson For Discovery had announced that the company is looking to be compensated fairly for royalties, damages, and legal affairs. It is important to note that the suit does not seek an injunction, in order to halt the sales of the device. The Amazon.com spokesperson did not wish to offer a comment.
I have been a fan of Mozilla’s Firefox browser for quite some time now, as I have been using the browser for at least a few years now. While, like most people, I started out my web surfing with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser and didn’t really have a problem with it, once I tried Firefox I just couldn’t go back. That’s because I love the added speed, customization and add ons that the Firefox browser has long provided. While I have tried Opera as well as Google Chrome, neither of them have ever won me over like Firefox.
For those reasons, I was very pleased today when I learned that Mozilla has unveiled a Beta version of their new mobile browser, which is named Fennec. While the name is not the most appealing I have heard, I have been seeking a new mobile browser for a while now. Opera Mini is decent, but it does have a few too many bugs for my liking, and often fails to open pages properly. Mozilla just seems to do things right, so their new browser Fennec should be very useful for those who already love FireFox. Fennec supports most of the FireFox applicationons and conveniently offers user friendly scrolling and zooming features. While I’m still just getting used to Fennec, I would suggest giving it a try if you also do a lot of mobile web browsing.
Apple Inc. is known for having rumours circulating about upcoming new prooduct relases. Since CEO Steve Jobs’ departure as a result of a medical condition, no novel ideas have been offered by the company. The latest rumour to be presented is a device that contains a touchscreen of up to 10 inches in size. Certain insiders are stating that the device is a netbook, which is a popular and affordable, more compact edition of a laptop computer.
Others believe the device will resemble an iPod Touch designated more as a movie player, video game console, ebook reader and online browser. Such a prediction would lead one to believe that the device is destined to compete with devices such as the Sony’s PSP and Amazon’s Kindle. We will have to wait and see if any of these predictions indeed become reality.
