A smart house that alerts when residents fall ill

The prototype of an energy-efficient house has been programmed to send alerts if its residents fall ill.

InterHome is the first in the UK which can monitor the health of its occupants, text residents if the house is being burgled, or the door has been left unlocked.

"We developed it further with elderly people in mind so that the house can send alerts if the person has a fall or a stroke," said Johann Siau, senior lecturer at the University of Herfordshire's School of Engineering and Technology.

Researchers have developed a prototype which can be strapped to a person's wrist and is embedded with sensors which take readings of body temperature and pulse.

"This opens up a platform for us to add new types of technologies around assisted living," said Siau, according to a statement from the university.

InterHome incorporates modular custom design units and draws on standard home automation systems which have been adapted so that the house "learns" and "adapts" to its users' lifestyles.

IAF may get 'Star Wars' helmet from EADS

A hi-tech helmet, reminiscent of movies like "Star Wars" and "Firefox" as it helps fighter pilots operate aircraft through a seemingly fictional vision-and-voice command, has been offered to India by European consortium EADS.

The helmet also enables pilots to view enemy planes by just turning their heads and picking targets for the aircraft to shoot down. It has been offered under the $10.4 billion combat plane tender.

"Designed and developed by British aerospace major BAE Systems, the helmet is part of optional purchases India could make if it chooses to go with the Eurofighter Typhoon plane in the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) tender," an official of Cassidian, EADS' defence and security arm, said here Friday.

"We have given this option to the Indian Air Force (IAF) if it decides in favour of our aircraft," the official said.

The helmet-mounted symbology system, released last July by BAE, is getting ready for use by Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots flying the Eurofighter Typhoon this year. It may soon be worn by Spanish, German and Italian fighter pilots flying the Eurofighter Typhoon.

CSS Corp to recruit 1,500 technical staff next financial year

IT major CSS Corp plans to recruit about 1,500 employees in the next financial year, a top company official said here today.

The US-headquartered company currently has around 5,000 employees, serving at various locations.

"Next (financial) year, we will add close to 1,500 employees", CSS Corp CEO Nick Sharma told reporters here.

"Globally we have over 5,000 employees, (and) of the planned 1,500 recruits, 80 per cent would be from India", he said.

The company has also announced its global expansion with the setting up of a new unit in Mauritius on February 9.

CSS Corp is already operating in four countries -- India, US, The Philippines and Poland.

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

Now, a confession app on iPhones, iPads

A US company has come up with a confession app that claims to be the first of its kind to be approved by the Catholic Church.

Patrick Leinen, of the three-man team Little iApps, a company “with a Roman Catholic twist”, said his team had wanted to engage Catholics with new media in response to the Pope’s World Communications Address last year, in which he spoke of its potential benefits.

Confession: A Roman Catholic App for iPhones and iPads is touted as the “perfect aid for every penitent”, and it has been designed to be taken into the confessional.

It creates a customised and password-protected “examination of conscience” based on a person’s age, sex, vocation and the time elapsed, in days, weeks, months or years, since the last confession.

It also has seven acts of contrition to choose from, all for 1.99 dollars.

“Our bishop was very excited about it. We were able to work with several priests in order to get that examination of conscience created, so it was kind of fun,” Stuff.co.nz quoted Leinen as saying.

‘Googleganger’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year

The term “googleganger”, which describes a person, who emerges among online search results for one’s own name, has been named as word of the year by the Macquarie Dictionary.

The term is a noun, meaning “a person with the same name as oneself, whose online references are mixed with one’s own among search results for one’s name”.

Dictionary editor Susan Butler said it was a neat and witty blend of the words Google and doppelganger.

“People find it really tempting to put their names in and see what pops up,” Stuff.co.nz quoted her as saying.

“Part of the fascination of the game is to find people who are so different to yourself that it’s quite startling to imagine yourself as them,” she said.

Butler’s googleganger is a Florida author who wrote East to the Dawn, a 1997 biography of pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart.

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

Vodafone accuses Egypt govt of co-opting network

Mobile operator Vodafone accused the Egyptian authorities on Thursday of using its network to send pro-government text messages to subscribers, as telecom firms became further embroiled in the crisis.

Another mobile boss, the chief executive of Orascom Telecom, protested against President Hosni Mubarak's rule in the main Cairo square on Thursday and said any damage to his company arising the unrest was a price worth paying.

Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile operator by revenue, was told by the government last week to switch off its network in Egypt after the anti-Mubarak protests broke out.

Other operators were also forced to cut their service and rights groups have heavily criticised the development.

Vodafone said at the time that it had no choice and on Thursday it stepped up its attack, saying it was being forced to send text messages without making clear the attribution.

Verizon may restrict heavy iPhone data users

Verizon Wireless warned customers it may clamp down on heavy users of its wireless data services before an anticipated deluge of Apple Inc iPhone customers.

During the first day of online sales of its new iPhone, the company appeared to be facing heavy demand for the phone on its website, as some customers who tried to buy the iPhone were instead presented with error messages.

Verizon wireless is expected to benefit from strong pent-up demand for the device as AT&T Inc's more than three-year hold on U.S. sales ends.

One perceived advantage of buying the Verizon Wireless iPhone was its offer, at least initially, of unlimited data services for a flat monthly fee of $30. AT&T eliminated its unlimited data plan last year.

But some consumers may be less excited about this if Verizon Wireless starts slowing Web download speeds for the heaviest 5 percent of its smartphone data users, as a document on its website suggests, analysts said.

"Neither one is rolling out the red carpet for heavy data users," said Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart. "It makes Verizon Wireless equally unattractive."

Egypt online users debate merit of more protests

Egyptian web activists were divided over whether to stay on the streets during the "Friday of Departure", the planned mass rally that organisers hope will be the breaking point of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

Activists had used Facebook, Twitter and other social media to rally supporters online, coordinate protests and share tips on how to dodge arrest and deal with teargas.

But the Internet has been almost entirely shut down for most of the protests, only to start operating after Mubarak gave some of the biggest concessions in his term, leaving many online users, like most Egyptians, divided on whether to return to ordinary life or to continue demonstrations.

A bloody confrontation gripped central Cairo where armed government loyalists fought pro-democracy demonstrators on Wednesday and Thursday, prompting Facebook users to set up groups calling on all camps to stay at home on Friday.

One group, which had gathered more than 180,000 members in a few hours, asked Egyptians to "calm down and try to focus on rebuilding". The main page calling for the "Friday of Departure", in contrast, had a little over 40,000 members.

Internet addresses depletion reflects wired world

Thirty years after the first Internet addresses were created, the supply of addresses officially ran dry on Thursday.

But don't panic. The transition to a new version of addresses is already well under way and, for most people, should occur without even being noticed.

At a special ceremony in Miami on Thursday, the organization that oversees the global allocation of Internet addresses distributed the last batch of so-called IPv4 addresses, underscoring the extent to which the Web has become an integral and pervasive part of modern life.

Every computer, smartphone and back-end Web server requires an IP address -- a unique string of numbers identifying a particular device -- in order to be connected to the Internet. The explosion of Web-connected gadgets, and the popularity of websites from Google Inc to Facebook, means that the world has now bumped up against the limit of roughly 4 billion IP addresses that are possible with the IPv4 standard introduced in 1981.

The solution is IPv6, a new standard for Internet addresses that should provide a lot more room for growth: There are 340 undecillion IPv6 addresses available. That's 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses.