Apple bought Indoor Mapping firm WiFiSlam for 20 Million Dollar

The American multinational corporation Apple in the month of March 2013 bought the indoor GPS mapping firm wifiSLAM for 20 million dollars.

The acquisition is being seen as a challenge to Google’s dominance of mobile mapping software.

WifSLAM’s technology, which is focused on mapping indoor spaces could allow Apple to pinpoint the location of users inside buildings to within 2.5 metres — an asset that could be of high value to advertisers wishing to target mall shoppers.

Wifislam's technology works by using smartphones topinpoint its location (and the location of your friends) in real-time to 2.5m accuracy using only ambient WiFi signals that are already present in buildings.

It can also be seen that Google already has an extensive catalogue of public floor plans which it used to map the interior of public buildings for users of its Google Maps service.

Apple tried to challenge the domination of Google Maps when it released its own mapping software with the launch of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 in 2012. However the software was extensively criticized for being imprecise and confusing resulting Apple to issue an apology to users and recommend using third-party products.

NASA’s Swift Satellite Discovered one of the Youngest-known Supernova Remnants

NASA's Swift satellite in the Month of March 2013 discovered one of the youngest-known supernova remnants which is believed to be less than 2500 years old - in our Milky Way galaxy.

The Supernova Remnants were discovered while performing an extensive X-ray survey of our galaxy's central region. Looking after the coordinates of its sky position it has been designated G306.3-0.9.

As per the analysis by the scientist it was indicated that G306.3-0.9 is likely less than 2500 years old, making it one of the 20 youngest remnants identified.

It has been estimated that Astronomers have previously catalogued more than 300 supernova remnants in the galaxy.

To further investigate the object, the team followed up with an 83-minute exposure using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and additional radio observations from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), located near the town of Narrabri in New South Wales.

Using an estimated distance of 26,000 light-years for G306.3-0.9, the scientists determined that the explosion’s shock wave is racing through space at about 2.4 million km/h.

The Chandra observations reveal the presence of iron, neon, silicon and sulfur at temperatures exceeding 28 million C, a reminder not only of the energies involved but of the role supernovae play in seeding the galaxy with heavy elements produced in the hearts of massive stars.

About Supernova Explosion:-

A supernova explosion occurs once or twice a century in the Milky Way. The expanding blast wave and hot stellar debris slowly dissipate over hundreds of thousands of years, eventually mixing with and becoming indistinguishable from interstellar gas.

Earlier in 2011, Swift imaged a survey field near the southern border of the constellation Centaurus. Although nothing unusual appeared in the ultraviolet exposure, the X-ray image revealed an extended, semi-circular source reminiscent of a supernova remnant.

A search of archival data revealed counterparts in Spitzer infrared imagery and in radio data from the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope in Australia.

UK opened Mobile Visa Application Facility in Goa

The UK Government on 12 March 2013 opened its first ever Mobile Biometric Clinic (MBC) in Goa.

The Mobile Biometric Clinic is meant to save the time of locals from travelling to distant places like Mumbai to apply for visa to the country. Mobile Biometric Clinic is an initiative by the UK Border Agency providing convenience to the citizens of Goa with the localised option of applying for a UK visa.

About Mobile Biometric Clinic (MBC):-

• MBC is a new and optional service, which for an additional fee allows applicants who are residing in Goa to submit their UK visa application and biometric data using a mobile facility in the state.
• The new MBC service offers the option to do things closer from home.
• The MBC uses the UK Border Agency’s mobile Biometric Enrolment System (BES) equipment to take biometric data (finger scans and digital photograph).
The service is delivered by the UK Border Agency’s commercial partner, VFS Global.

Earlier in the month of February, the UK prime minister had announced a new same day visa service for businessmen.

Soon, the web will have .Bharat in local languages

More than three years ago ICANN, the global body that oversees the operation of the domain name or website address system, cleared the ground for the introduction of a broader web address regime covering local languages.

The World Wide Web will soon allow addresses with domain names such as .Bharat or its equivalent in Indian languages. Sanskrit and Malayalam addresses can have the domain name of ‘.Bharatam’. Tamil websites can use ‘.India’ and Urdu, ‘.Hindostan’.

The naming regime is likely to be rolled out in a few months time. But getting players involved in domain registration implement the measure is a challenge. Popularising the use of local languages for website addresses may be another hitch.

It was more than three years ago that the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global body that oversees the operation of the domain name or website address system, cleared the ground for the introduction of a broader web address regime covering local languages.

In India, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, in consultation with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), had proposed a policy by which the Devanagari script-based languages (Marathi, Hindi, Konkani, Sanskrit and Nepali) and Gujarati, Oriya, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese and Bangla would be made part of the new regime in phases.

Eventually, all official languages, including those using Perso-Arabic scripts such as Urdu, Sindhi and Kashmiri, were to be covered.

ICANN had technically cleared the possible use of the .Bharat top level domain name for Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and Tamil a couple of years ago.

India Ranked Third on the List of Spam Spewing Nation in the World

India ranked third on list of countries which distribute spam all over the world, after US and China, as per the new report of SophosLabs. SophosLabs is the Sophos’s global network of threat analysis centres.

In the study, US was single highest ranking country, but Asia ranked at number 1 position in the list of the continents with 36.6 percent of overall spam of the world. US sent 18.3 percent of the junk emails overall in the world. In last few months of 2012, India topped the spam spewing nations’ list, but eventually fell back to the third position. Second position was held by China.

In the study, the spam sent from December 2012 to February 2013 was tracked. China and India took second and third positions respectively with 8.2 percent and 4.2 percent of the spam of the world.

Other countries which ranked high included South Korea, France, Italy and Peru. Peru was ranked at fourth position with 4.0 percent of the spam. With 3.4 percent each, France, South Korea and Italy ranked fifth. Russia and Taiwan shared eighth position with 2.9 percent. At tenth, eleventh and twelfth position were Spain (2.8 percent), Germany (2.7 percent) and Iran (2.6 percent).

In order to prevent spamming, the PC users can keep the anti-virus software updated and regularly run the malware checks. Apart from this, updating passwords regularly can also help.

Fun Facts About Bears

Bears are a familiar animal in the Americas, Europe and Asia. These species are the polar bear, brown bear, American black bear, Asiatic black bear, the spectacled bear, sun bear, sloth bear and giant panda bear.

Most bears have large, stocky bodies with short legs and a long snout. A bear’s fur can vary from the bright white of the polar bear to the reddish-copper hue of the brown bear. All bears have a heavy build but they are very efficient at climbing and swimming.

Bears are classified as omnivorous animals and have a varied diet. Most species of bears in the northern hemisphere go through a type of hibernation in winter.  Their body temperatures drop slightly and heart rate slows.  During this time, bears don’t wake—never eating, drinking or defecating. They live off the fat they accumulate eating during the warmer seasons.

Other facts about Bears:-

Bears can stand on their hind feet similar to a human and sit up straight with remarkable balance.
Bears have an incredible sense of smell, even better than most dogs.
The sun bear, an endangered species, is the smallest of the bears at 3.5 to 4.5 feet long. They are named after a crescent shaped marking on their black fur that looks like the rising sun.
The most widely distributed bear is the brown bear. They are very large, typically weighing 700 pounds.
While most bears are omnivorous, the polar bear feeds mainly on fish and meat, while the giant panda bear nearly exclusively eats bamboo.
The giant panda has a big appetite spending 12 hours every day eating bamboo.
Brown bear mothers can give birth while they are hibernating. Baby bears are born hairless, toothless and blind.
Some prehistoric cultures revered the animal as the spirit of their ancestors. Modern day bears have a prominent place in many children’s books and as teddy bears.
Bear are often hunted for their meat and fur. Six of the eight bear species are endangered or vulnerable.

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Developing Largest Magnet of the World

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, which is the state-owned centre of India, announced that it was developing the largest magnet of the world. This largest magnet would weigh 50000 tons.

The magnet is said to be much bigger than the one which is found at Compact Muon Solenoid detector at CERN in Geneva. This magnet will play a crucial role in the India-based Neutrino Observatory which will come up almost 4300 feet below the cave in the mountain in Tamil Nadu.

The Head of the atomic research centre's nuclear physics division announced that the magnet to be developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre would be the largest in the world in terms of its dimensions.

The magnet will be iron-based and will weigh 50000 tons. The weight of the magnet at CERN ranges somewhere between 4000 and 5000 tons.

12 apps to make your iphone work smarter

LONDON: The chances are, if you’ve bought an iPhone, that you think pretty highly of Apple – or at least highly enough to opt for its iOS software over rivals Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. With that in mind, filing lots of Apple-made apps that come preloaded on an iPhone into a junk folder and replacing them with those made by other companies may sound counterintuitive. But that’s what an increasing number of iPhone owners are doing.

Why? In some cases, the alternatives are better. For example, 10 million people downloaded the Google Maps app in the first two days after its release in December 2012, which followed earlier publicity about problems with Apple’s own Maps application.

De-Appling an iPhone isn’t just a response to big problems, however. Apple tends to release a major update of its iOS software once a year, and then minor updates throughout the year which rarely tinker with its preloaded apps. That annual update cycle means plenty of room for clever developers to come up with apps whose features go beyond what’s available in Apple’s software.

Apps such as Mailbox and Haze have brought slick swipebased controls to email and weather respectively; Camera+ has features that keen photographers love; Sunrise Calendar is a cleverer take on diary management; and Opera Mini will save you lots of money on roaming data charges, for example.

People are also choosing alternatives to Apple apps because they’re using devices from other companies, and want the stuff they buy to be available on those too. An ebook bought from iBooks store will work on iOS devices, but one bought from Kindle store will be readable on a range of devices through that firm’s apps. Buying MP3s from 7digital reduces the pain of porting music collection to non-Apple devices.

Microsoft Launched New Version of Office 365 for Businesses in India

Microsoft, the Software giant launched new version of Office 365 for the businesses running in India, on 4 March 2013. Office 365 will facilitate sharing the data seamlessly across the computers and mobiles with the help of cloud computing technology.

Because the solutions offered are cloud-based, therefore the users can also get accessibility to the files and mails through various devices such as mobiles, laptops and desktops. Cloud computing is the technology that helps in sharing the technological resources, digital information as well as software. Because the cloud-computing is Internet-based, therefore the solutions and data are accessible from anywhere with the help of a browser.
 
With a group of solutions, the companies can make use of the Office 365 for 330-1200 Rupees per month, per user. It is possible to install Office 365 on up to 5 different devices for one user under the licensing of Office 365. This group of solutions includes PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Excel, Access and OneNote.

Features of Microsoft Office 365

• The service is social just like SharePoint. It can integrate with Lunc and Yammer for providing a social platform which brings together teams and people for collaborating and sharing the organisational knowledge as well as information.
• Flawless capability of the group of solutions across various devices such as PCs, mobiles and tablets makes the value of Office 365 more compelling.

Launch of Office 365 is the part of comprehensive cloud services strategy of Microsoft. Some of the enterprises that are making use of Office 365 include Tata Elxsi, Adhunik Group, Dabur India, FICCI, AEGON Religare, Tata Communications, Godrej and many more.

Baby born with HIV infection cured

A team of medical researchers announced on 3rd March 2013 what they said was the first case of a “functional cure” in an infant infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The researchers presented their findings at a scientific conference in Atlanta.

“Prompt antiviral therapy in newborns that begins within days of exposure may help infants clear the virus and achieve long-term remission without lifelong treatment by preventing such viral hideouts from forming in the first place,” said the lead author, virologist Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre in Baltimore, Maryland.

The newborn girl received treatment with a class of drugs called antiretrovirals within 30 hours of birth Remission of HIV infection followed the treatment.

The researchers believe the unusually early treatment of the infant, whose mother was HIV positive, may have prevented the formation of so-called viral reservoirs, which are dormant cells that can fuel infection and have made it impossible, so far, to cure the disease.

Standard clinical medical tests were unable to detect HIV replication in the baby’s blood within four weeks of treatment.

Antiretroviral therapy continued through her 18th month. A 10-month gap followed, apparently because the mother stopped bringing the child for treatment. When medical care resumed, standard blood tests were still unable to find HIV antibodies.

Microsoft to shut down Windows Live Messenger Service from 15 March 2013

Microsoft in the Month of January 2013 announced plans to shut down its Messenger service which is formerly known by Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger. The plan would involve enabling users to move down to Skype from 15 March 2013.

Over 100 million users of the service were notified by email over short period of time except those in mainland China where Microsoft have extended the life of Windows Live Messenger in that particular area for an undisclosed period of time.

It will be evident from 15 March 2013 that Messenger users will be unable to sign into Messenger and use the service. From the proposed date Microsoft encourage to download Skype from where one can exchange instant-messages and have chats with your Messenger friends. The only advantage is that one can use his or her Windows Live login ID for login to Skype.

Skype started testing Windows and Mac releases last year in the month of September 2012 which allowed users to use their Windows Live accounts to login to Skype and send and receive instant messages and check if their friends were online across the whole array of Windows sites such as Xbox, Outlook, Hotmail, and Messenger.

Windows Live Messenger had a flourishing community as it is demonstrated by the sheer number of emails distributed.

Facebook Acquired Advertising Technology, Atlas Advertiser Suite from the Microsoft Corp

Facebook Inc on 28 February 2013 announced that it agreed to buy advertising technology called Atlas Advertiser Suite, from the Microsoft Corp. The advertising technology of Microsoft Corp allows to measure ad-effectiveness on the website. Buying this ad technology from Microsoft Corp will help Facebook in competing with Google Inc for the purpose of advertising revenue on the Internet.

Atlas Advertiser Suite will be purchased by Facebook Inc. Atlas Advertiser Suite is the ad management and measurement platform which was acquired by Microsoft from digital ad agency aQuantive for 6.3 billion US Dollars in 2007.
Facebook was doubted since long in terms of effectiveness of the ads and since then, it has also introduced various partnerships and tools for proving effectiveness of paid advertising on its network.

Facebook’s director of monetization product marketing declared that purchasing Atlas was not about creation of extensive ad network, but the ultimate goal of the social networking site.

At present, Google is the market leader in US markets in terms of online display ads with 15.4 percent market share. Facebook follows next with 14.4 percent market share.

Air India Received its Third Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Air India on 9 October 2012 got its third Boeing Dreamliner from the new North Charleston Facility of the American manufacturer. Air India is the first airline in the world to take delivery of a Dreamliner from the US Based manufacturer.

In September 2012, Air India took delivery of its first of the 27 Dreamliners on order. The aircraft is equipped with 18 business class seats and 238 in the economy class.

Air India has currently deployed the Dreamliners on domestic sector to familiarise the pilots with aircraft landings and takeoff procedures. The Boeing 787 fleets of airplane with unmatched efficiency and technology is going to help Air India turnaround plan.

The first commercial service of Dreamliner started from 19 September 2012 between New Delhi and Chennai, thereafter followed by New Delhi-Bangalore sector.

Dreamliner is the first commercial jet made primarily of advanced composite materials. It offers amazing passenger comfort features which includes cleaner air, higher humidity, bigger windows that dim electronically and more overhead storage space.
The aircraft's fuel efficiency is 20 per cent better than other airplanes in its class, which also results in 20 per cent lower carbon emissions.

About Boeing 787 Dreamliner:-

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a long-range, mid-size wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Its variants seat 210 to 290 passengers. It is the world's first major airliner to use composite materials for most of its construction. Boeing, 787 consumes 20% less fuel than the similarly-sized 767. Its distinguishing features include a four-panel windshield, noise-reducing chevrons on its engine nacelles, and a smoother nose contour. The 787 shares a common type rating with the larger 777 twinjet, allowing qualified pilots to operate both models, due to related design features.

Digitisation apace in 38 cities

With less than a month to go for the March 31 deadline for the second phase of the pan-India digitisation plan, more than half of the homes across 38 cities have now installed a digital set top box (STB), according to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The 55 per cent digitisation target has been achieved in 38 cities that are set for digitisation by March 31.

According to data collected from direct-to-home (DTH) operators, a total of 87.7 lakh STBs had already been in Phase –II cities as of February 22. This is against the target of 1.60 crore STBs the Ministry had set.

Out of a total of 87.7 lakh STBs, DTH connections accounted for 40.7 lakh and cable STBs accounted for 46 lakh.

Task force:-

A task force had been set up exclusively for Phase-II cities, by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, to oversee the digitisation process.

Provisional registrations had also been issued to 30 independent multisystem operators in a bid to speed up the process of cable TV digitisation.

Mozilla rolls out Firefox OS

The first wave of Firefox OS devices are expected to be available worldwide in the coming months.

HP has announced its comeback with the announcement of Slate 7.

 

If you are experiencing fatigue after being in a closed proprietary web ecosystem — like that of Apple’s iOS or Microsoft’s Windows 8 — then the announcement from Mozilla earlier this week could be of interest to you.

Advocates of open web standards had much to cheer at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with the announcement of the first commercial build of the Firefox OS open mobile ecosystem. The first wave of Firefox OS devices are expected to be available worldwide in the coming months. The open web device initiative has already found support with key telecom operators around the world.

A press release issued by Mozilla on the launch of Firefox OS on February 24 read: “Firefox OS smartphones are the first to be built entirely to open Web standards, enabling every feature to be developed as an HTML5 application. Web apps access every underlying capability of the device, bypassing the typical hindrances of HTML5 on mobile to deliver substantial performance. The platform’s flexibility allows carriers to easily tailor the interface and develop localised services that match the unique needs of their customer base.”

Mozilla has said it was working with Alcatel (TCL), LG and ZTE to build the first Firefox OS devices, with Huawei to follow later in the year, all powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.

“Firefox OS brings the freedom and unbounded innovation of the open Web to mobile users everywhere,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla. “With the support of our vibrant community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online.”

HP returns to tablet PC:-

HP burnt its fingers in the tablet PC segment with its TouchPad fiasco. But it has announced its comeback to the segment at the Mobile World Congress with the announcement of Slate 7, a 7-inch tablet running Android’s latest Jelly Bean mobile operating system. Powered by an ARM Dual Core Cortex-A9 1.6 GHz processor, the HP Slate7 will be a Wi-Fi only device. It features a 3 MP rear-facing camera and a VGA front-facing camera. It is expected to hit the U.S. retail stores in April.

Internet Explorer 10 available for Windows 7:-

Microsoft made its latest iteration of web browser Internet Explorer 10 available for Windows 7 from Tuesday last. It was in a preview mode till now. The browser is available with support to 95 languages worldwide and has already rolled out with Windows 8.

In a post on Microsoft’s official IE Blog, Rob Mauceri, Group Program Manager, Internet Explorer, wrote: “As with Windows 8, IE10 on Windows 7 improves performance across the board with faster page loading, faster interactivity, and faster JavaScript performance, while reducing CPU usage and improving battery life on mobile PCs. Measurements in our performance lab showed, IE loads real world pages up to 20 per cent faster in top sites for news, social, search, ecommerce, and more.”

Among other interesting features, IE10 allows users to browse the Web in total privacy using a ‘Do Not Track’ option.

Tamil Nadu:- City goes hi-tech for road safety

Screens installed at the Vytilla Mobility Hub in Kochi as part of Motor Vehicles Department's road safety drive.

From 2nd March 2013 evening,  12 screens installed at the Vyttila Mobility Hub will beam real and simulated videos of accidents and the trail of death and destruction they leave behind.

Cartoons will also be screened to create awareness of road safety in children. The Kerala Motor Vehicles’ Department (MVD) has initiated the Rs.18 lakh project sponsored by State Bank of Travancore.

Bus arrival display:-

Shibu K. Itty, the project’s nodal officer and Joint RTO of Adoor, said the screens would soon display the arrival timings of buses plying different routes. Based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) tag on each bus, the bay where a bus is parked will be displayed. “The utility will be extended free of cost to the society managing the hub. The contractor of the display screens will integrate the two systems.”

The 32-inch vertical screens will show stills and videos of how road accidents take place and how they can be prevented. “We have shortlisted numerous accident videos which were caught in closed circuit TV cameras and other cameras. This project will enhance the safety awareness of commuters and bus crew. Safe driving habits too will be screened. The contents will be updated based on feedback from the public,” Mr Itty said.

The screens will also run programmes explaining the procedure for obtaining driving licence and news bulletins from the MVD. Narrowcasting technology – digital delivery of visual content through a centrally-managed network of displays, has been adopted for the purpose. The service will be controlled from the MVD’s head office. The utility can be used for video conferencing.

Control centre:-

The MVD has sought a 5,000 sq. ft. space on the hub premises to set up a nerve centre for enforcement and video surveillance. At present, the control room is located at Kakkanad.

Mr. Itty was recently entrusted with the task of negotiating with the hub society to set up the amenities. “Once we get the space, we will be in a position to inspect records of buses and even their general fitness at the hub. Our fee counters too can begin functioning here, so that vehicle owners need not depend on agents to pay different fees and taxes.”

More Sleep Equals Smarter Children, Study Suggests

A new study by researchers from the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology reinforces how necessary sleep is for a child’s brain, even more so than adults.
Researchers wrote about how children’s brains turn learned material into active knowledge as they sleep and how their brains do it even more effectively than an adult’s.
Past studies have shown sleeping after learning helps long-term storage of the material learned, because during sleep, memory is turned into a form that makes future learning easier. When you are sleeping, implicit knowledge becomes explicit and becomes more easily transferred to other areas.
According to the researchers, children need to get deep sleep for longer durations because of the massive amounts of data they take in each day.
The team studied the ability of a child to form explicit knowledge through an implicitly-learned motor task. During the study, children between eight and 11-years old learned to guess the predetermined series of actions. After a night of sleep, or a day awake, the team tested the children’s memories.
Researchers found after a good night’s sleep, all age groups that took part in the study were able to remember a larger number of elements from the row of numbers than those who had remained awake in the interim.
“In children, much more efficient explicit knowledge is generated during sleep from a previously learned implicit task,” said Dr. Ines Wilhelm of the University of Tübingen’s. “And the children’s extraordinary ability is linked with the large amount of deep sleep they get at night. The formation of explicit knowledge appears to be a very specific ability of childhood sleep, since children typically benefit as much or less than adults from sleep when it comes to other types of memory tasks.”
A child’s brain isn’t the only thing that benefits from a good night’s rest. So does their attitude. A study found kids who averaged about 27 minutes more sleep at night had fewer behavior issues .
Dr. Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, said as children have trouble coping with day-to-day issues, more sleep affects their relationship with teachers, as well as their peers. She suggested parents shut off their television or electronic devices about a half hour sooner before bedtime than what is already being practiced in the house. Both studies suggest more sleep doesn’t just lead to a less-bratty child, but a smarter one.

Samsung launches cheaper, WiFi-only Android Galaxy Camera

Samsung Electronics has announced the launch of the WiFi-only Galaxy Camera. Like the original Galaxy Camera, this new WiFi-only Galaxy Camera runs Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS and includes dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity.

The Galaxy Camera (Wi-Fi) has all of the features that the original Galaxy Camera offers but without a 3G/4G connection. This makes the Galaxy Camera (Wi-Fi) more affordable for a user who does not need the always-connected benefit of the Galaxy Camera.

With the Galaxy Camera (Wi-Fi), users can use the dual-band Wi-Fi technology embedded in the device to share photos with family and friends through email, social networks, right from the device. They can also back-up pictures instantly to cloud services when connected.

It has a 21x super long zoom lens and a 16 megapixel BSI CMOS. It features a 4.8-inch(121.2mm) HD Super Clear Touch Display. The GALAXY Camera (Wi-Fi) comes preloaded with photo and video editing tools - Photo Wizard and Video Editor. It is powered by a 1.4GHz Quad-Core processor.

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 10 browser for Windows 7

Microsoft announced the general availability of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7, providing availability of IE10 to millions of customers worldwide. It hopes the latest version of its market-leading browser will win back customers who have migrated to Google Inc's Chrome and help it establish a toe-hold in the fast-growing mobile browser market.

The world's largest software maker, whose Internet Explorer browser elbowed out Netscape Navigator in the early days of the web, said IE 10 is 20 per cent faster at downloading sites than its predecessor IE 9 and allows for touch-screen commands.

The browser has been available since late October for users of Windows 8, Microsoft's new touch-friendly operating system, but now becomes available for the 700 million or so users of Windows 7.

Microsoft is hoping PC and laptop users will like the new browser enough to consider buying Windows 8 tablets rather than Apple Inc's iPad, which does not run Internet Explorer.

Various versions of Microsoft's venerable Internet Explorer franchise still dominate desktop browsing, with 55 per cent of the PC browser market all together. But it has in recent years lost share to Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome, which now account for 20 per cent and 17 per cent respectively, according to tech research firm NetMarketShare.

IE 10 running on Windows 8 has got generally good reviews, and has been hailed as the best version of Internet Explorer yet, but it has not been considered decisively superior to Chrome or Firefox.

In the smaller but faster-growing mobile browser market, Apple's Safari is the runaway leader with 61 percent, owing to the popularity of its iPhones and iPads while Google's Android browser has 21 per cent.

Tablets running Windows 8, including Microsoft's own Surface devices, have not sold strongly since they were launched last October, restricting IE 10's popularity so far. Only 2.3 per cent of computer users are running Windows 8, according to NetMarketShare.

New york: Burger King Twitter account hacked, used to advertise McDonald's

Hackers breached the Twitter account of fast-food chain Burger King, posting the online equivalent of graffiti and sometimes making little sense.

Burger King Worldwide Inc suspended its Twitter account about an hour after it learned of the attack, company spokesman Bryson Thornton said in an email.

"It has come to our attention that the Twitter account of the BURGER KING brand has been hacked," the company said in a statement. "We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings."