Obama calls WikiLeaks' "deplorable": White House

President Barack Obama told Turkish and Mexican leaders on Saturday that WikiLeaks' actions were "deplorable" as the U.S. administration kept up damage control efforts over the website's embarrassing release of masses of secret U.S. cables.

In Obama's separate calls with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Mexican President Felipe Calderon , the leaders all agreed that WikiLeaks' campaign would not harm their countries' ties with Washington, the White House said.

The leaks touching on U.S. relations in virtually every part of the world have threatened to increase tensions with allies, spurring U.S. officials to seek to prevent foreign friends from reducing engagement on sensitive matters.

Documents relating to Turkey showed U.S. diplomats casting doubt on the reliability of their NATO ally and portraying its leadership as divided.

In Obama's call to Erdogan on Saturday, the two discussed "the enduring importance of the U.S.-Turkish partnership and affirmed their commitment to work together on a broad range of issues," the White House said.

"The president expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks and the two leaders agreed that it will not influence or disrupt the close cooperation between the United States and Turkey," it said.

Obama made similar comments to Calderon, which the U.S. leader used to praise his Mexican counterpart for the outcome of an international climate change conference in Cancun .

"The presidents also underscored the importance of the U.S.-Mexico partnership across a broad range of issues," the White House said. "The presidents discussed the deplorable actions by WikiLeaks and agreed its irresponsible acts should not distract our two countries from our important cooperation."

According to U.S. State Department documents made public by WikiLeaks, a top Mexican official said the government was in danger of losing control of parts of the country to powerful drug cartels.

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Facebook hosts inaugural "Hackers Cup"

Facebook is challenging software hotshots around the world to show their mettle in the online social networking king's first "Hackers Cup."

Facebook is taking its tradition of all-night "hackathons" to a higher level with an international coding competition promising top contenders cash, glory, and a free trip to the company's Northern California headquarters.

The contest consists of a set of online rounds that kick off in January and a final round in March held at Facebook's campus in the Silicon Valley city of Palo Alto .

Facebook will pay for the top 25 contestants in the online rounds to come to California for the final stage of the competition.

The first place finisher is promised 5,000 dollars and will no doubt catch the eye of recruiters at Facebook. Details about the contest can be found at a Hackers Cup page at Facebook.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Google Earth integrates Street View's 3D maps

By combining two services, Google has now made it possible to pick points on the globe, look at them from outer space, and then zoom all the way in for a street-level view.

Google has done this by pulling its Street View out of browsers and integrating it with Google Earth. The combination will be available with the new version 6 of Google Earth, reported the company in its blog.

Until now, Earth's global perspective allowed people to view continents and countries with satellite imagery, while Street View allows detailed views of cities, streets and residential areas. The images for View were obtained by cars that travelled around the world with special round-view cameras mounted on top.

Unlike Street View, which can be accessed via a browser, Google Earth has to be installed as a separate programme. But now, once that's done, people can head from a virtual outer space view all the way down to the front door of a house. Google says the transition will be seamless.

Of course, Street View isn't available for every house on Earth. For cities that haven't been catalogued yet, the new Google Earth can only zoom in to an aerial city view.

The new Google Earth also includes historical maps - a bombed-out post-war London, for example. Additionally, it has integrated 3D models of trees, meaning people touring virtual cities can also check out the foliage and take a walk around it.

Google says it has "dozens" of kinds of trees it can recreate digitally and that more than 80 million of them have already been added to Google Earth. Images from Street View are used to help decide where to put the trees and what kind of trees to install.

The new version of Earth is available for PCs using at least the XP system. Mac users need to have at least the Leopard 10.5.0 operating system installed. It is also available in Linux . The standard version of Earth remains free.

Google has been trying for years to create an ever more detailed image of the world, digitalising the Earth with a combination of satellite images, pictures, geodata, user entries, webcams, municipal documents and more.

But this collection of data for its own ends has put Google in the cross hairs of data privacy experts. The company earns most of its money from online advertising.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us