Mythology comes to life in new online game

The well-known classical mythologies of Greece, Egypt and Asian countries has come to life in a new online game launched recently.

Made by UTV True Games , an international publisher of multi-player online games, 'Mytheon' is a role-playing game (RPG) with strategic game play where players experience classic mythology coming to life as they challenge legendary gods to define their own fate.

The setting and storyline incorporates popular mythologies from around the world -- starting with Greece and Egypt and expanding into Asian and other mythologies.

Players will embark on rousing journeys through the extensive lore of ancient Greece and slowly delve into exotic mythologies from the far-flung corners of history.

Players assume the role of 'stonecasters' where their only path to victory against the larger-than-life gods lies in mastering and casting magical stones.

Cyber criminals target Japan disaster donators

Cyber criminals have taken over social media websites and e-mails to target consumers donating for Japan’s disaster relief.

E-mails are reportedly arriving in the form of a humanitarian organization looking to set up a foundation and asking for money to help Japan’s victims.

The FBI, the Better Business Bureau and the attorneys general in states including in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Texas and Kentucky have started sending warnings to beware of such scammers.

The Department of Justice, which set up the National Center for Disaster Fraud after Hurricane Katrina, is now looking into reports of fraudulent relief efforts.

It has been informing people that request for donations may pop up as door-to-door collections, flyers, mailings and telephone calls, as well in cyberspace.

According to The Fox News, Internet security company McAfee has put a guide for consumers to stay safe while making donations.

Blood chip diagnoses diseases within minutes

A self-powered, low-cost chip can test blood samples and diagnose diseases like tuberculosis and HIV within minutes, scientists say.

The device has been developed by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), Dublin City University and Universidad de Valparaiso (Chile). It is able to process whole blood samples without the use of external tubing and extra components.

The researchers have dubbed the device SIMBAS, or Self-powered Integrated Microfluidic Blood Analysis System, the journal Lab on a Chip reports.

“The dream of a true lab-on-a-chip has been around for a while, but most systems developed thus far have not been truly autonomous," said Ivan Dimov, post-doctoral researcher in bioengineering at UCB, who led the study.

"In our device, there are no external connections or tubing required, so this can truly become a point-of-care system," he added, according to a statement from the university.

Smartphones can't replace TVs

A new study has found that mobile media technologies such as smartphones aren't taking people away from relying on traditional media sources such as newspapers or television.

Instead, mobile media are filling the spaces in people's daily routine in which other media sources are either unavailable or inconvenient to use.

That suggests mobile media use is taking a different path to popularity than did technologies like television, said John Dimmick, lead author of the study and professor of communication at Ohio State University.

"Typically, what happens with new media is that they compete with and displace older media to a certain extent, like television did with radio," Dimmick said.

"But at least early in its development, mobile media isn't taking us away from older media -- it has its own separate niche," he said.

Dimmick conducted the study with Gregory Hoplamazian, a graduate student at Ohio State, and John Christian Feaster of Rowan University in New Jersey.

Their study involved 166 participants aged 19 to 68, who agreed to keep a time-space diary of their media use over the course of a day. During the day assigned to them, they recorded where and when they accessed a variety of media technologies, including mobile media technologies such as smartphones, as well as television, newspaper, desktop and laptop computers, radio and others.

Using the data from the diaries, the researchers analysed when and where participants were most likely to use different technologies to access news content.

Overall, mobile media was still a relatively minor player in the way people accessed news - it accounted for only about 7 per cent of all media sessions, Dimmick said.

Computers were the most popular method for accessing news, with about 24 per cent of all media sessions occurring on desktops and 15 per cent occurring on laptops. Television accounted for about 29 per cent of all media sessions. Newspapers and radio each accounted for about 9 per cent of sessions.

The study was published in the current issue of the journal New Media and Society. Do you like this story?

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Online gaming spreads to Asia's poorer nations

With his eyes fixed on the screen and his fingers flying over the keyboard, Cambodian teenager An Sopheak is lost in a world of ancient Chinese fighter heroes.

All around him, dozens of other, mostly male, faces are equally engrossed in their online fantasy game in this dark Internet cafe in the Cambodian capital.

The scene is a familiar one across Asia, but it's a relatively new sight in Cambodia, one of the region's poorest nations with one of the lowest rates of Internet usage.

"I feel so cool when my hero gets stronger," said 16-year-old An Sopheak, taking a short break from Justice X Wars II, known as JXII, the country's most popular game.

Cambodia, with a population of some 14 million people, had just 78,000 Internet users in 2009, according to the most recent United Nations data, but web access is improving rapidly.

As more Internet cafes have opened up, online gaming has taken off among Cambodia's urban teens, most of whom have no Internet at home.

Wipro, Infosys, TCS recall staff from Bahrain over unrest

Many Indian IT companies have decided to evacuate their employees from Bahrain, rocked by protests for several weeks. There are around 3,50,000 Indians in Bahrain. Wipro, Infosys, TCS and other companies have a substantial presence in the country.

Anand Sankaran, senior vicepresident and business head (India & Middle East), Wipro says: "The company has 1,100 employees in the Middle East, of which 50 are in Bahrain. We've already brought back 25 persons living and working in sensitive areas of that country."

Many Indian companies in Bahrain have been trying to get their employees and families out over the past three days. An Infosys spokesperson said the company had less than 20 employees there and they returned to India a few days ago.

TCS had 20 people in Bahrain, including dependents, and all were brought back to India, said a spokesperson.

Minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed told STOI from New Delhi: '' There is a law-and-order situation in Bahrain and security forces are sorting it out. Indians are safe, and there is no cause for concern. I'm in touch with the Indian envoy to Bahrain, Mohan Kumar. Indians there have been asked to approach their association and its volunteers for help in an emergency.''