Researchers propose using undersea internet cables to detect tsunamis

We've heard of a few inventive ideas for detecting tsunamis, and it looks like a group of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (or NOAA) have now come up with another: put all those undersea internet cables to a second use. While they haven't moved beyond computer models just yet, the group has apparently found that voltmeters attached to the end of an undersea cable are able to detect the small electric field stirred up by tsunamis, which measure around 500 millivolts. As New Scientist reports, however, the idea does have some considerable limitations, including that it wouldn't be able to pinpoint the exact location or direction of a tsunami, and that any such system would first need to filter out noise caused by other natural events and even the cable itself. Other researchers also caution that it's just as important to develop a system to quickly pass on a warning to potentially affected areas once a tsunami has been detected.

NEW PORTABLE OPERATING SYSTEM FROM A 20 YEAR OLD STUDENT.

Niket Chandrashekar, a 20-year-old engineering from New Horizon College in Bangalore, has a portable Operating System that can be stored and operated on just about any device with a storage option - even a mobile phone. Developed almost entirely using open source tools and with Wine (a Windows emulator for Linux, which allows Windows programs to run on that operating system), this OS is based on the Linux kernel.

The OS known as LinuXP supports many windows Vista and 7 applications. It can also recover lost and accidentally deleted files, locate and install drivers for printers and other devices connected to it. The amazing portability of this OS means that you can carry your work along with the OS on pen drives or mobile phones and simply plug it into any PC or laptop to start working from anywhere.

When asked about how he thought about creating this innovative OS, Chandrashekar said, "I was thinking of creating a smaller program that can work like an OS while studying certain innate limitations of the existing operating systems".

"Since the whole of this software - with whatever work one has done on it - can be saved in portable storage devices without changes to the format or design, you can retrieve them on any laptop or desktop without having to worry about things like formatting. Also, even while used on someone's device, you can make sure the data it carries is safe," he added.

When asked if there is any licensing or IP concern in using this software, Chandrashekar said there is none. "It took about seven months for me to develop this software, which can step in and perform the tasks of an OS, in case the system does not have one and contains important files," he added. The OS also has utilities that let you not only lock folders, but also hide them, thus protecting your data from unauthorized access. A few months ago, he had created a free software with similar functionality for XP, and now it comes with LinuXP. Chandrashekar plans to put LinuXP online soon for anyone to be able to download and use it.

Scientists from the University of Utah have calculated that 1.2 million years ago, at a time when our ancestors were spreading through Africa, Europe and Asia, there were probably only around 18,500 individuals capable of breeding. They remained an endangered species for around one million years!!

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Opera and Firefox downloads soar after IE alerts

After Microsoft confirmed that a hole in its Internet Explorer browser was used in the on Google and at least 33 other outfits, a trio of security-conscious nations - Germany, France, and Australia - went so far as to warn their citizens against the use of IE. And that led to a very good week for the likes of Opera and Mozilla.

Following an from the German government, Opera saw German downloads of its desktop browser more than double. And in Australia, where a similar warning was its downloads leaped 37 per cent.

Meanwhile, Mozilla saw a "statistically significant rise" in the number of downloads originating from both Germany and France, the third nation to the use of IE. In the chart below - supplied by Mozilla - the orange area shows an estimated 300,000 extra downloads in Germany over the past four days:

According to a Mozilla spokeswoman, the outfit has also seen an uptick in website traffic from France, but she says the added traffic will take another day to two to register with the outfit's download stats. An Opera spokesman tells us that unlike Mozilla, his company has not seen a significant download uptick from the French.

Google declined to provide recent Chrome download stats for such countries, suggesting we check with third-party research firms at the end of the month.

Today, Microsoft it will release an emergency patch for the IE vuln, but it did not say when. Typically, Microsoft releases patches on the second Tuesday of each month, but in certain rare situations it will release them "out of band."opera and mozilla increases their customers

"Given the significant level of attention this issue has generated, confusion about what customers can do to protect themselves and the escalating threat environment Microsoft will release a security update out-of-band for this vulnerability," George Stathakopoulos, the general manager of the company's Trustworthy Computing Security group, said in a blog post Tuesday morning.

"We take the decision to go out-of-band very seriously given the impact to customers, but we believe releasing an update out-of-band update is the right decision at this time."

Microsoft says that attacks against the vuln are only effective on Internet Explorer 6 and that such attacks have been "very limited." But independent research says that IE 7 and 8 can also be exploited.

Opera was quite clear on how it sees the matter: "Security issues continue to plague Internet Explorer users, and the latest recommendations from the German and French governments against using the browser are in line with what the security experts have been saying for years." ®