Mumbai-based mapping company Genesys International beats Google street view

Who needs Google Street View! Even as the global search major struggles with Indian authorities to get permissions to take images of Indian city streets, a small Mumbai-based mapping company has done all that Google had planned, and perhaps more, for the top 54 Indian cities.

Genesys International, founded in 1995 by brothers Sohel and Sajid Malik, have captured numerous images of almost every street in these cities, and stitched the images together to create 360-degree panoramic views of the streets, almost exactly the way Google has done in many other parts of the world.

On Tuesday, the company launched the service under the brand Wonobo (wonobo.com). The site suffered from latency on Tuesday, and there were many complaints online about the slow download speed. But the company said the speed will improve in a day or so as they get everything in place.

So how come they were able to do something that Google has not been able to yet in India ? Sajid Malik told TOI that one advantage Genesys had was in having worked with the government for many years for their mapping services. "For street view, the government, including the defence ministry and the Survey of India, threw a lot of regulations at us. We painstakingly fulfilled their requirements , including not taking pictures in sensitive areas," he said. The company has so far been in the services business, creating map content for others such as Navteq (provider of electronic navigable maps), Nokia and Bing, and was involved recently in creating digital maps of Dubai, Mecca and Medina.

Wonobo street view is being launched initially for 12 cities — Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore , Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Costal Goa, Kolkata, Agra and Pune. The remaining will be launched over the following weeks.

Wonobo's main street view service provides a satellite map and the street view on your screen. You can click on any part of the map and get the corresponding street view You can look all around a point on a street. You can click or drag on the street view to go down a street.

There's a search box to find locations. With the help of field staff, Wonobo has tagged some 10 million points of interest That includes 4 million business locations. You can walk into some of these locations — like Novotel hotel in Mumbai — and look all around. Though the company is not charging Novotel now, these are potential revenue sources. For many of the small businesses tagged, it's their first web presence. "Any merchant can mention his suite of services, show real-time prices or available inventory, and showcase interiors. One of our revenue sources will be based on such hyper-local engagement ," Sajid said. Random checks TOI did on Wonobo showed that some of the images are a little dated, some important roads have not been covered yet, some of the tagging could have been better done. The company said their effort is to ensure that images are no more than six months old.

Inventors of Computer Hardware

Key board— Herman Hollerith, first keypunch
devices in 1930’s

Transistor— John Bardeen, Walter Brattain & Wiliam
Shockley ( 1947-48)

RAM— An Wang and Jay Forrester (1951)

Trackball— Tom Cranston and Fred Longstaff (1952)

Hard Disk— IBM , The IBM Model 350 Disk File (1956 )

Integrated Circuit— Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce
( 1958)

Computer Mouse — Douglas Engelbart (1964)

Laser printer— Gary Starkweather at XEROX in1969

Floppy Disk— Alan Shugart &IBM( 1970)

Microprocess­or— Faggin, Hoff & Mazor – Intel 4004 (1971)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 Programming Languages That Will Change The IT World

Dart

This was created by Google to counter the weakeness that comes on JavaScript when it works with web applications in large numbers. The Dart language, Google hopes, will become the new vernacular of web programming. It uses uses C-like syntax and keywords. One significant difference, however, is that while JavaScript is a prototype-based language, objects in Dart are defined using classes and interfaces, as in C++ or Java. Dart also allows programmers to optionally declare variables with static types.


Ceylon

This language is being developed by Gavin King who has denied that the language being developed at Red Hat, is meant to be a "Java killer." Among King's gripes are Java's verbose syntax, its lack of first-class and higher-order functions, and its poor support for meta-programming. In particular, he's frustrated with the absence of a declarative syntax for structured data definition, which he says leaves Java "joined at the hip to XML." Ceylon aims to solve all these problems.

Go

Google is understood to have created a programming language called Golang, or Go. This, say some tech analysts, might just end up replacing Java altogether. This language is a general-purpose programming code that works on everything from application development to systems programing. While it is still a work in progress, and the language specification may change, developers can actually start working with it today itself.

F#

This has been popular for a long time with computer scientists and academia. F# (pronounced "F-sharp"), is a Microsoft language that has been designated to be both functional and practical. Given the fact that it is a first-class language on the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR), it can access all of the same libraries and features as other CLR languages, such as C# and Visual Basic.

Opa

Web development is too complicated. Even the simplest web app requires countless lines of code in multiple languages: HTML and JavaScript on the client, Java or PHP on the server, SQL in the database, and so on. Opa doesn't replace any of these languages individually. Rather, it seeks to eliminate them all at once, by proposing an entirely new paradigm for Web programming. In an Opa application, the client-side UI, server-side logic, and database I/O are all implemented in a single language, Opa.

Fantom

Should you develop your applications for Java or .Net? If you code in Fantom, you can take your pick and even switch platforms midstream. That's because Fantom is designed from the ground up for cross-platform portability. The Fantom project includes not just a compiler that can output bytecode for either the JVM or the .Net CLI, but also a set of APIs that abstract away the Java and .Net APIs, creating an additional portability layer.

Zimbu

This particular language takes its particles and components from languages across the board and is the brainchild of Bram Moolenaar. He was the creator of the Vim text editor. The language is slated to be fast, concise, portable, and easy-to-read. Its syntax is unique and idiosyncratic, yet feature-rich. It uses C-like expressions and operators, but its own keywords, data types, and block structures. It supports memory management, threads, and pipes. Portability is a key concern. Although Zimbu is a compiled language, the Zimbu compiler outputs ANSI C code, allowing binaries to be built only on platforms with a native C compiler.

X10

This is a parallel processing language that works was once a specialised niche of software development. However, with the increase in multicore CPUs and distributed computing, today's programming languages aren't keeping pace with the trend. This is why IBM Research is developing X10, a language designed specifically for modern parallel architectures, with the goal of increasing developer productivity "times 10." X10 handles concurrency using the partitioned global address space (PGAS) programming model. Code and data are separated into units and distributed across one or more "places," making it easy to scale a program from a single-threaded prototype (a single place) to multiple threads running on one or more multicore processors.

haXe

haXe (pronounced "hex") is more than just any random portable language. It is a multi-platform language, which is capable of targeting diverse operating environments, that range from native binaries to interpreters and virtual machines. It can be used by developers and then compiled into object code, JavaScript, PHP, Flash/ActionScript, or NekoVM bytecode today.

Chapel

This is a brilliant language to work with in a world characterised by high-performance computing. The languge was designed with supercomputing and clustering in mind, and is part of Cray's Cascade Program, an ambitious high-performance computing initiative funded in part by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Chapel's syntax draws from numerous sources. In addition to the usual suspects (C, C++, Java), it borrows concepts from scientific programming languages such as Fortran and Matlab. Its parallel-processing features are influenced by ZPL and High-Performance Fortran, as well as earlier Cray projects.

Top Ten Password Cracking Methods

1. Dictionary attack

"This uses a simple file containing words that can, surprise surprise, be found in a dictionary. In other words, if you will excuse the pun, this attack uses exactly the kind of words that many people use as their password..."

2. Brute force attack

"This method is similar to the dictionary attack but with the added bonus, for the hacker, of being able to detect non-dictionary words by working through all possible alpha-numeric combinations from aaa1 to zzz10..."

3. Rainbow table attack

"A rainbow table is a list of pre-computed hashes - the numerical value of an encrypted password, used by most systems today - and that’s the hashes of all possible password combinations for any given hashing algorithm mind. The time it takes to crack a password using a rainbow table is reduced to the time it takes to look it up in the list..."

4. Phishing

"There's an easy way to hack: ask the user for his or her password. A phishing email leads the unsuspecting reader to a faked online banking, payment or other site in order to login and put right some terrible problem with their security..."

5. Social engineering

"A favorite of the social engineer is to telephone an office posing as an IT security tech guy and simply ask for the network access password. You’d be amazed how often this works..."

6. Malware

"A key logger or screen scraper can be installed by malware which records everything you type or takes screen shots during a login process, and then forwards a copy of this file to hacker central..."

7. Offline cracking

"Often the target in question has been compromised via an hack on a third party, which then provides access to the system servers and those all-important user password hash files. The password cracker can then take as long as they need to try and crack the code without alerting the target system or individual user..."

8. Shoulder surfing

"The service personnel ‘uniform’ provides a kind of free pass to wander around unhindered, and make note of passwords being entered by genuine members of staff. It also provides an excellent opportunity to eyeball all those post-it notes stuck to the front of LCD screens with logins scribbled upon them..."

9. Spidering

"Savvy hackers have realized that many corporate passwords are made up of words that are connected to the business itself. Studying corporate literature, website sales material and even the websites of competitors and listed customers can provide the ammunition to build a custom word list to use in a brute force attack..."

10. Guess

"The password crackers best friend, of course, is the predictability of the user. Unless a truly random password has been created using software dedicated to the task, a user generated ‘random’ password is unlikely to be anything of the sort..."

How to "Delete administrator Password" without any software

Method 1
Boot up with DOS and delete the sam.exe and sam.log files from Windows\system32\config in your hard drive. Now when you boot up in NT the password on your built-in administrator account which will be blank (i.e No password). This solution works only if your hard drive is FAT kind.

Method 2

Step 1. Put your hard disk of your computer in any other pc .
Step 2. Boot that computer and use your hard disk as a secondary hard disk (D'nt boot as primary hard disk ).
Step 3. Then open that drive in which the victim’s window(or your window) is installed.
Step 4. Go to location windows->system32->config
Step 5. And delete SAM.exe and SAM.log
Step 6. Now remove hard disk and put in your computer.
Step 7. And boot your computer

Top 10 Virus

1. Surreptitious Sircam

Sircam appeared in July 2001 on PCs running Windows 95, 98, and Me. The worm appeared in e-mail in-boxes with an attachment; the body of the message was in Spanish or English. Typical greetings included "Hi! How are you?" and "Hola como estas?" If you launched the attachment, Sircam installed itself on the infected computer, then grabbed random documents and sent them out to e-mail addresses it captured from your address book. It also occasionally deleted files and filled the infected computer's hard drive with gibberish. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove Sircam.

2. Red Raider

Code Red burned brightly in the summer of 2001, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers--mainly on corporate networks. Code Red slithered through a hole in Internet Information Server (IIS) software, which is widely used to power Internet servers, then scanned the Internet for vulnerable systems to infect and continue the process. The worm used contaminated PCs as weapons in denial of service attacks--flooding a Web site with a barrage of information requests. The original target was the official White House Web site, but government officials changed the site's IP address to thwart the attack.

The worm exploited a weakness in the IIS software (which has since been fixed with a patch from Microsoft) that allowed an intruder to run arbitrary code on a victimized computer. Multiple variants of this worm now exist. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to protect your system from Code Red.

3. Bad Benjamin

Benjamin--a new breed of worm--was let loose in May 2002, and it affected users of the popular file-sharing program Kazaa. The crafty worm posed as popular music and movie files. Kazaa users thought they were downloading a media file to their machines, but they got the imposter instead. It then set up a Kazaa share folder and stuffed it with copies of itself posing as popular music and movie files, which other Kazaa users would download. It congested the system's network connection and would ultimately fill up a hard drive. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove Benjamin.

4. Numbing Nimda

Nimda (also known as the Concept Virus) appeared in September 2001, attacking tens of thousands of servers and hundreds of thousands of PCs. The worm modified Web documents and executable files, then created numerous copies of itself. The worm spread as an embedded attachment in an HTML e-mail message that would execute as soon as the recipient opened the message (unlike the typical attached virus that requires manual launching of the attachment). It also moved via server-to-server Web traffic, infected shared hard drives on networks, and downloaded itself to users browsing Web pages hosted on infected servers. Nimda soon inspired a crowd of imitators that followed the same pattern. Visit Symantec's Security Response for the Nimda removal tool.

5. Tennis Anyone?

The Anna Kournikova (or VBS.SST@mm) worm, appearing in February 2001, didn't cause data loss, although in the process of boosting the profile of its namesake, the Russian tennis player, it did cause embarrassment and disruption for many personal and business users. The worm showed up in Microsoft Outlook users' e-mail in-boxes with an attachment (supposedly a picture of Kournikova). The attachment proved hard to resist. The result? Clicking the bogus attachment sent copies of the worm via e-mail to all addresses found in the victim's Outlook address book. Kournikova also brought about a number of copycat variants. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove Kournikova.

Most worm creators have never been identified, but a 21-year-old Dutchman, Jan de Wit, admitted to unleashing this worm. The admitted virus writer is appealing a 150-hour community service sentence handed down in September 2001 by a judge in the Netherlands.

6. (Expletive Deleted) Explorer

The Explorer.zip worm appeared in the summer of 1999, following in the footsteps of Melissa. The worm deleted Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files and randomly altered other types of files. Like Melissa (see below), Explorer traveled via e-mails that appeared to be from someone the recipient knew. The message included a file that, if activated, showed a fake error message to the user. Unlike Melissa, this virus did not use Outlook to gather e-mail addresses. Instead, it watched the in-box of the infected computer and then sent automatic replies to senders, using the same e-mail subject as the original message.

7. Maniacal Magistr

Magistr is one of the most complex viruses to hit the Internet. Its victims, users of Outlook Express, were hooked by an infected e-mail attachment. The virus, discovered in mid-March 2001, sent garbled messages to everyone in the infected user's e-mail address book. Attached were files pulled at random from the infected PC's hard drive plus an executable file with the Magistr code. This virus was not as widespread as many others, but it was very destructive. Magistr overwrites hard drives and erases CMOS and the flashable BIOS, preventing systems from booting. It also contained antidebugging features, making it hard to detect and destroy. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove Magistr.

8. Malevolent Melissa

The Melissa virus swamped corporate networks with a tidal wave of e-mail messages in March 1999. Through Microsoft Outlook, when a user opened an e-mail message containing an infected Word attachment, the virus was sent to the first 50 names in the user's address book. The e-mail fooled many recipients because it bore the name of someone the recipient knew and referred to a document they had allegedly requested.

So much e-mail traffic was generated so quickly that companies like Intel and Microsoft had to turn off their e-mail servers. The Melissa virus was the first virus capable of hopping from one machine to another on its own. And it's another good example of a virus with multiple variants. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove Melissa.

9. Klez the Conquerer

The Klez worm, which blends different virus traits, was first detected in October 2001. Klez distributes itself like a virus, but sometimes acts like a worm, other times like a Trojan horse. Klez isn't as destructive as other worms, but it is widespread, hard to exterminate--and still active. In fact, so far, no other virus has stayed in circulation quite like Klez. It spreads via open networks and e-mail--regardless of the e-mail program you use. Klez sometimes masquerades as a worm-removal tool. It may corrupt files and disable antivirus products. It pilfers data from a victim's e-mail address book, mixing and matching new senders and recipients for a new round of infection. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove Klez.

10. Love Hurts

LoveLetter is the worm everyone learned to hate in spring 2000. The infection affected millions of computers and caused more damage than any other computer virus to date. Users were infected via e-mail, through Internet chat systems, and through other shared file systems. The worm sent copies of itself via Microsoft Outlook's address book entries. The mail included an executable file attachment with the e-mail subject line, "ILOVEYOU." The worm had the ability to overwrite several types of files, including .gif and .jpg files. It modified the Internet Explorer start page and changed Registry keys. It also moved other files and hid MP3 files on affected systems. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove LoveLetter.

Microsoft software licenses growth cushions pain of PC sales decline

 SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp's strategy of selling more long-term software licenses to big business customers is helping to cushion the blow from plummeting PC demand and a faltering start for its Windows 8 system.

Personal computer sales fell 14 per cent in the first three months of the year, just as Microsoft tries to ramp up sales of the latest iteration of Windows. But the company's ability to keep hold of big customers rescued its third-quarter results.

 "Microsoft has successfully transitioned into an enterprise software company and these results show that, because the strength of server and tools and the actual way they sell licenses to business is making up for the missing PC sales," said Kim Caughey Forrest, an analyst at Fort Pitt Capital.

Effectively, Microsoft no longer relies on a new PC to make money from software. Only 20 per cent of the company's product revenue comes from computer makers paying license fees to put Windows on their machines. About 45 per cent comes from multiyear licensing agreements with customers - generally big companies paying millions of dollars for three-year access to Microsoft's Windows and Office software.

The strength of that model is reflected in Microsoft's total unearned revenue balance - a measure of the strength of its long-term business - which rose 13 per cent from a year earlier and now stands at $17.1 billion.

"The fact that volume licensing or just the unearned revenue growth is 13 per cent year on year, those are impressive numbers," said Sid Parakh, an analyst at investment firm McAdams Wright Ragen. "That's saying that customers are in fact buying into a longer-term roadmap."

Parakh points out that the dire PC numbers collated by industry trackers Gartner and IDC do not reflect sales of Microsoft's Surface tablet - even though they are modest - or users upgrading their software without buying new computers. So even though the rise of new mobile devices is supplanting desktop PCs, the ubiquity of Microsoft's products is not fading.

On top of that, its other business-focused units are performing strongly. The server and tools unit, which makes server software and runs the data centers that enable remote or "cloud" computing, increased sales 11 per cent in the quarter, helped by rapid growth in multiyear licensing.

The unit that makes Office - which still owns the corporate software market - posted a 5 per cent increase in sales, after discounting some deferred revenue - also helped by growing multiyear deals.

That helped mask the indifferent performance of the Windows unit, which is still the most reliant on a healthy PC ecosystem. Excluding gains from deferred revenue, Microsoft's flagship unit showed no growth at all, disappointing investors hoping for a stronger showing from the new Windows 8 system.

Meanwhile, strong Xbox sales and slow improvement in its nascent phone software business, alongside a narrower loss in its perennially money-losing online unit, produced figures that broadly pleased investors.

"Entertainment had a good number and the Windows number didn't crater, but it was weak," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said. Overall, the company beat Wall Street estimates only because the average analyst forecast dropped more than 10 per cent over the last two weeks, spurred by the steep drop in PC sales numbers.

 Shares of Microsoft rose 1.5 per cent following the results, though that may offer little comfort to long-term investors in the stock, which analysts say is mired in essentially the same place it was 11 years ago. The S&P 500 is up 37 per cent over that time.

Microsoft also announced yet another key executive departure, this time Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein.

He is at least the seventh top Microsoft executive to leave the company in the last five years, and while Klein was never seen as a candidate to succeed Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, his departure is still another headwind for the company.

"The CFO departure is a little bit troubling. We've had a lot of executives leaving Microsoft recently," said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. "Investors are generally disappointed by the company's under-performance."