Verizon Wireless to unveil iPhone Tuesday: Source

Verizon Wireless, the top US mobile provider , plans on Tuesday to unveil a version of the Apple Inc iPhone for its service and will kick off sales of the device a few weeks later, a source told Reuters.

Verizon Wireless will offer the iPhone to its customers under its existing wireless service price plans, said the source, who asked not to be named as the plan has not yet been announced.

Apple and Verizon Wireless declined comment on Saturday.

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, will announce pricing for the device at an event to be held in New York on Tuesday.

The agreement between Verizon Wireless and Apple marks the end of AT&T's iPhone exclusivity. AT&T Inc, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service, has been the only operator to sell iPhone since it launched in 2007.

Since AT&T has been heavily dependent on iPhone for customer growth in the last few years, some investors have worried that it could face a mass exodus of subscribers once its bigger rival starts selling iPhone.

AT&T's reputation for network performance problems, particularly in cities such as New York and San Francisco, could exacerbate the problem.

But some analysts have said that the loss of customers will be tempered by the fact that most of AT&T's iPhone customers subscribe via family plans, which are trickier to exit as they involve more than one customer.

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iGate-Apax consortium likely to announce Patni deal on Monday

After delays, the consortium of US-based IT firm iGate and venture capital fund Apax Partners is liley to finally announce tomorrow its deal to buy a 63 per cent stake in Patni Computer Systems for an estimated $ one billion.

After cancelling the announcement last week, the iGate-Apax consortium is expected to make the announcement tomorrow in Bangalore.

When contacted, iGate officials declined to comment on the details of the announcement. However, sources in-the-know said it is likely to be related to the iGate-Apax consortium's estimated $ one billion bid to buy a majority stake in Patni Computer.

Under the deal, the iGate-Apax consortium is expected to acquire the entire 46 per cent stake of Patni Computer System's main promoters, the Patni brothers -- Narendra Patni, Ashok Patni and Gajendra Patni -- along with General Atlantic's 17 per cent stake in the firm.

According to industry analysts, the consortium will pay Rs 500-550 for each share of Patni Computer to be acquired, besides a non-compete fee to the promoters.

On Friday, shares of Patni closed at Rs 460.10 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, down 0.69 per cent from the previo US close.

Patni, a mid-sized IT services firm, provides solutions to verticals like insurance, telecom, utilities and retail. Patni's revenues for the year ended December, 2009, stood at Rs 1,751.33 crore ($ 391.79 million, at an exchange rate of Rs 44.70 per US dollar).

iGate's revenues, on the other hand stood at $ 74.8 million for the quarter ended September, 2010, and $ 193.09 million for the whole of 2009.

Closure of the deal would mark the culmination of several efforts by Patni's promoters and General Atlantic to sell their stake since 2007. Earlier attempts to sell a stake failed because of disagreements between the brothers and the high valuation expectations of the sellers.

iGate had also expressed interest in buying Satyam Computer Services , after the multi-crore scam perpetrated by founder Chairman B Ramalinga Raju broke out. Satyam has since been rebranded Mahindra Satyam, following its acquisition by Tech Mahindra .

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

Junk emails register dramatic drop

The number of junk emails being sent globally has registered a dramatic drop, especially over the recent Christmas period, says the security firm Symantec.

According to Symantec , 200 billion spam messages were sent on every single day during the summer. However, during and since Christmas, the amount has dropped to 50 billion messages per day.

Paul Wood , senior analyst at Symantec, said: "We do see spikes and falls in the volume of spam on a daily basis but what we haven't seen before is a drop of this magnitude, which is unexpected and unexplained."

Wood told BBC News that during the Christmas period, three of the largest spam producers had cut back on their activity, reports the Telegraph.

One of these botnets, the networks of infected computers responsible for circulating the majority of spam, called Rustock, dramatically cut back its activity in December.

At its peak, Rustock accounted for 47 percent to 48 percent of all spam sent globally. However, in December, Rustock accounted for only 0.5 percent of global spam.

"There have been huge drops in spam levels before," Wood added. "Usually they have been associated with the botnets being disrupted. As far as we can tell Rustock is still intact."

Spam accounted for 90 percent of all email sent during 2010, but most of it was filtered by email services' junk detectors.

Spamming is a major business with an estimated value of $100 billion last year.

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

Top four cyber threats for 2011 revealed

From Internet superweapons to Facebook crimes, security experts have predicted some new web attacks for 2011.

Here are the top four security concerns that cyber experts see coming over the digital horizon:

Cyber War's newest superweapon: Stuxnet and Copycats Stuxnet was first discovered in July 2010 by a security firm in Belarus, but made headlines only when Iranian state media announced the Middle East nation had been the target of a coordinated attack.

"The idea that a piece of malicious code can target physical systems and create real-world impacts is something that's been speculated in the industry for quite some time and certainly was largely understood to be possible," ABC News quoted Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager for cyber security firm Symantec, as saying.

When Hacktivists attack Another recent online development that experts expect to see increase in 2011 was played out on an international scale at the end of 2010.

Shortly after the information sharing website WikiLeaks published a portion of over 250,000 classified US diplomatic documents, the website's founder, Julian Assange, was arrested on sexual assault charges. While he was in custody in England, some major financial institutions including Mastercard, Paypal and Visa discontinued a service that was helping to raise money for Assange's defense.

Wikileaks'' supporters shot back in an unprecedented manner: nearly 50,000 people downloaded simple programs used to launch a massive denial of service attacks against the companies they deemed at odds with Wikileaks.

The loosely organized "hacktivists" managed to take down the web pages of several of their targets, and their spontaneous attempt may be the first major showing of a new way to express political beliefs at a grassroots level.

Cyber security firm McAfee predicts in a new paper that not only will politically motivated attacks be "far more numerous in 2011," but also the company said brand new kinds of attacks would appear.

Mobile devices: Two ways for criminals to take advantage On a more personal level, experts warned that as more and more people own internet-capable mobile devices in 2011, they're also increasing their exposure to cyber and real-life criminals.

First, McAfee showed that the GPS functions on many smart phones that allow users to tell their friends where they are via Facebook and Twitter also tell criminals exactly where they are-and where they are not.

"It then becomes child's play to craft a targeted attack based upon what the bad guys have just learned from these services," McAfee said.

While this is not a new phenomenon, McAfee reported mobile tracking will be a "huge focus for cybercriminals and scammers in 2011 and beyond."

Second, both Security News Daily and Symantec list the technical vulnerabilities of mobile devices on their list of dangers for 2011.

Spammers Adapt to Social Media Finally, experts said 2011 is going to see a change in perhaps the most annoying security concern online: spammers.

A curious thing happened in Dec. 2010: Normally the amount of email spam would be at its highest levels during the holiday season, but instead it dropped dramatically, according to a study by web security provider Commtouch. Part of the reason, McAfee said, is that spammers are altering their strategy.

Rather than bombarding users with countless emails, they bombard users through social networking sites-with multiple links and requests from programs like Facebook and Twitter-attempting to trick users including clicking on links to malicious code.

"This shift will completely alter the threat landscape in 2011," said McAfee.

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