The era when the IT department decided which laptops and phones workers would use in the office is ending: today employers are starting to embrace the idea that staff should be able to use their own laptops and smartphones in the workplace.

As many as a quarter of employers in the UK run bring-your-own computing schemes, where staff are given allowances or discounts to buy their own computers or phones to use in their day job, while employees in many other organisations will be using their own hardware to access work systems or store company data, whether the CIO likes it or not.

Allowing workers to use their personal devices at work has its risks, ranging from letting viruses and data-stealing trojans inside the corporate network to letting sensitive data out.

Dr Richard Clayton, security researcher at Cambridge University, warned that consumer tech poses a malware threat to businesses, as consumers are often less diligent than corporate IT managers at updating their antivirus suite and patching their software against the latest vulnerabilities.

“About one in 20 machines have something bad on them and almost none of their owners are aware that their machines are infected,” he said.

“In an organisation where all of the defences are around the edges of the corporation once you get a breach then the thing runs wild because there’s almost no protection inside.”

Bringing consumer machines into the workplace also increases the chance of corporate data loss – as staff carry sensitive corporate data around with them on their personal laptops and smartphones, theres an increased risk of that data falling into the wrong hands if the device is lost or stolen.

“If someone loses their laptop, an individual might just go and buy another one and not tell anyone, and the IT manager has no way of knowing that the data has been lost,” said Guy Bunker, security consultant and member of the security user group the Jericho Forum.

Once sensitive data is outside of the company firewall, the organisation has lost control of where that data might end up.

For example, today there are many services that allow consumers to back-up their data in the cloud – where data is copied to a third party’s datacentre and is accessible over the internet. If a member of staff backs up corporate data using a cloud service, the organisation’s IT department has no way of checking whether the third party can be trusted not to access or share that data. Fortunately none of the security issues surrounding the consumerisation of IT are insurmountable – an organisation can make consumer devices as secure as those bought in-house by putting the right security policies and technologies in place.

“The mantra is don’t do anything you wouldn’t do normally,” Bunker said. “Look at your audit and compliance and security and data loss prevention requirements and say ‘Can I make sure that the consumer devices will be as secure as if I own the hardware myself?’ “If you can’t guarantee that then think again – it doesn’t mean that you can’t do this because we know that some huge companies already do do consumerisation of IT. “It just means sitting back and thinking ‘I need to make sure that when they get their machines there’s a security stack on it which I can audit against’.”

Multiview Video Coding (MVC) is the new standard for 3-D movie compression. While reducing the data significantly, MVC allows at the same time providing full high-resolution quality.

At the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam from September 10-14, 2010, researchers will showcase how 3-D movies can be transmitted via Internet and digital television channels such as via satellite. Blockbusters like Avatar, UP or Toy Story 3 will bring the 3-D into home living rooms, televisions and computers.

There are already displays available and the new Blu-Ray players can already play 3-dimensional movies based on MVC. The first soccer games were recorded stereoscopically at the Football World Championships in South Africa.

What is missing is an efficient form of transmission. The problem is the data rate required by the movies — in spite of fast Internet and sat-ellite links. 3-D movies have higher data rate requirements than 2-dimensional movies since at least two images are needed for the spatial representation. This means that a 3-D screen has to show two images — one for the left and one for the right eye.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI in Berlin, Germany have already come up with a compression technique for movies in particularly HD quality that squeezes movies while maintaining the quality: the H.264/AVC video format. What H.264/AVC is for HD movies, Multiview Video Coding (MVC) is for 3-D movies. The benefit is reducing the data rate used on the transmission channel while maintaining the same high-definition quality.

Videos on the Internet have to load quickly so that the viewer can watch the movies without interruptions. Thomas Schierl is a scientist at the HHI in Berlin and he explains that “MVC packs the two images needed for the stereoscopic 3-D effect so that the bit rate of the movies is significantly reduced.” These 3-D movies are up to 40 percent smaller. Thomas Schierl and his colleagues are working to establish the MVC codec for television transmission over satellites or the Internet. “New TV sets will start off by only playing 3-D movies from the Blu-Ray disc that is now coming into the third dimension. The next step to bring 3-D into living rooms will be made possible via broadcast or IPTV channels running via DSL or cable.”

You will be able to experience 3-dimensional movies in your living room in future without any 3-D glasses because the MVC format has the technical features to code and compress several views. After all, everybody enjoying the movie with you on the sofa has a different viewing angle. That is why they need a separate view — their “own” 3-D movie — for his or her individual seat. MVC compresses all of these views into one compact file or stream and one receiver, one set-top box decodes this information and passes it on to the television.

It will also be possible to play the MVC-coded movies on older televisions and set-top boxes and Thomas Schierl tells us how: “The first view corresponds to the signal that the existing television can receive and we would hide the second view in the same stream so that only the new receivers can use it. They are invisible to older tele-visions.” That is especially interesting to movie lenders and television stations because they do not have to worry about compatibility. And even mobile radio and mobile phone manufacturers can join the trend towards 3-D with the MVC standard. In the meantime, there are even displays the size of a mobile phone that allow a good 3-D impression.

The experts from the HHI show how the MVC-Codec functions transmitting television via DVB-S2 satellite from September 10-14, 2010 at the IBC in Amsterdam.

According to an estimation, seven percent of the world’s annual oil production is used to produce and manufacture plastic, and the amount is more than the oil consumed by the entire African continent.

Thankfully, a Japanese company called Blest, has invented a way to recycle plastic. The company has created a small, safe and easy to use machine that can convert several types of plastic back into oil, writes Carol Smith of Our World.

By burning the plastic, we generate toxins and a large amount of CO2. If we convert it into oil, we can save CO2 and at the same time people’s awareness about the value of plastic garbage will also be increased, said Akinori Ito, CEO of Blest.

The company uses a temperature controlling electric heater rather than flame to burn the plastic, therefore, the conversion technology is very safe. The result is a crude gas that can fuel things like generators or stoves and, when refined, can even be pumped into a car, a boat or motorbike.

One kilogram of plastic produces almost one liter of oil. To convert that amount takes about 1 kilowatt of electricity, which costs approximately 20 cents. The company makes the machines in various sizes and has 60 in place at farms, fisheries and small factories in Japan and several abroad.

According to Ito, the company wants to produce a product that anyone can buy. The smallest version of the machine costs $9,500.

Much of the world’s electronic waste is being shipped to China for recycling and the cottage industry that has sprung up there to recover usable materials from computers, cell phones, televisions and other goods may be creating significant health and environmental hazards.

Scientists from China and the United States have identified numerous toxic elements in the emissions from an e-waste recycling workshop in southern China, which uses low-tech methods to separate reusable electronic components from the circuit boards. It is not an isolated case, the scientists point out; such methods are used all over China.

Results of their study have been published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

“The most immediate problem is the health of the workers and the people who live in the city,” said Bernd R. T. Simoneit, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University and one of the authors of the study. “But this may also be contributing to global contamination. For example, previous studies have found carcinogens in wind-carried dust from Asia.”

Simoneit is a widely published scientist who has been involved in numerous studies identifying chemical “signatures” for emissions, including coal smoke, biomass burning, petroleum-based fuels and even the burning of municipal refuse.

By using mass spectrometers and other sophisticated instrumentation, the researchers can pinpoint the contributions of specific emissions to the atmosphere. Their work in China was conducted in Shantou City, a town of 150,000 people located in southern China’s Guangdong Province.

They collected samples during four working days, when workers were removing the electronic components by heating the circuit boards over grills on stoves burning coal briquettes. The workshop had 24 stoves along three walls, and an estimated five tons of circuit boards stacked along the fourth wall for processing. Workers would use the grills to melt the solder, and then remove reusable portions of the circuitry.

The research team included five Chinese scientists and Simoneit, who has dual appointments in OSU’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and the Department of Chemistry. The researchers found that through this “roasting process,” numerous organic chemicals, heavy metals, flame retardants and persistent organic pollutants (or POPs) were emitted into the air via the smoke. The chemical signature created by this process of roasting or toasting circuit boards “is unmistakable.”

“The next step is to see to what extent this is harming the environment and creating a health hazard for both the workers, and people living in the path of the emissions — either through inhalation, or exposure to the skin,” Simoneit said. “Some of these chemical compounds may be carcinogens; others may be just as harmful because they can act as ‘environmental disruptors’ and may affect body processes from reproduction to endocrine function.”

The Chinese authors of the study are affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and include lead author Xinhui Bi, with ZhenZhen Wang, Xinming Wang, Guoying Sheng and Jiamo Fu.

Simoneit also is working with scientists in India to identify chemical signatures from the burning of wire and other materials, which is done to recycle copper and other minerals. And he is working in Saudi Arabia on a different problem — helping develop “green chemistry” methods for recycling that country’s massive urban waste to create methane.

Diamond could be the next key component in making computers, as scientists in California are working on diamond-based computers. This new set of computers would store information millions of times more than the existing silicon-based systems and processes that information dozens of times faster, according to the scientists. Commercially available technology has been used by the researchers in order to pattern large sheets of diamonds with tiny, nitrogen-filled holes. These diamond sheets, according to scientists, could be the basis for a supercomputer.

Nitrogen has been in diamonds for as long as there have been diamonds; it’s why some diamonds have a yellow hue. For years scientists have used these natural, nitrogen-infused diamonds to study various aspects of quantum mechanics.

“We’ve used well-known techniques to create atomic-size defects in otherwise perfect diamonds,” Discovery News quoted David Awschalom, a scientist at the University of California.

Though the process of using the diamond-based computing has not been determined yet, there is a possibility that applications could range from designing more efficient silicon-based computers to drug development and cryptography.

Astronomers have discovered what they claim is a vast solar system of seven planets, orbiting a sun-like star, 127 light years away from Earth.

An international team has confirmed the presence of the five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more in the planetary system which is believed to be the largest ever detected beyond the sun.

The distance of the planets from their parent star follow a regular pattern, similar to that seen in our own solar system, say the astronomers.

“We have found what is most likely the system with the most planets yet discovered. This remarkable discovery also highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet research: the study of complex planetary systems and not just of individual planets. Studies of planetary motions in the new system reveal complex gravitational interactions between the planets and give us insights into the long-term evolution of the system,” said Dr Christophe Lovis, who led the European Southern Observatory scientists, was quoted by The Daily Telegraph.

The parent star, known as HD 10180, lies in the southern constellation of Hydrus 127 light years away. The astronomers patiently studied it for six years using a planet-finding instrument called the HARPS spectrograph, attached to ESO’s 3.6 metre telescope at La Silla, Chile.

From 190 individual HARPS measurements, they were able to detect tiny wobbles in the star’s motion caused by the gravitational tugs of its planets.

The five strongest signals corresponded to planets with Neptune-like masses, between 13 and 25 times that of the Earth. These planets, with orbit periods ranging from six to 600 days, are separated from their star at 0.06 to 1.4 times the distance between the Earth and sun.

Dr Lovis added: “We also have good reasons to believe that two other planets are present. One would be a Saturn-like planet (with a minimum mass of 65 Earth masses) orbiting in 2,200 days. The other would be the least massive exoplanet ever discovered, with a mass of about 1.4 times that of Earth. It is very close to its host star, at just 2 per cent of the Earth-sun distance. One ‘year’ on this planet would last only 1.18 Earth days. The planet would be rocky, like the Earth, but probably far too hot to sustain life. With at least five Neptune-sized planets circling inside an orbit equivalent to that of Mars, the HD 10180 system has a more populated inner region than our solar system”.

So far astronomers have found 15 systems containing at least three planets. The last record holder was 55 Cancri, which has a total of five planets including two gas giants.  The findings have been submitted for publication to the “Astronomy and Astrophysics” journal.

TVS Gold Bharat Keyboard

TVS Electronics has launched a new keyboard, the TVS Gold Bharat Keyboard, with the new Indian Rupee symbol on it. TVS-E has now become the first and only Indian company to incorporate the new Indian Rupee symbol on its keyboard, which is priced at Rs. 1,495.

The keyboard has the dimensions of 490(L) x180(W) x20(H) mm and supports USB and PS2 for connectivity. The long life mechanical switch supports up to 50 million keystrokes and is compatible with Windows and Linux. TVS claims that the keyboard is highly reliable as it has a 200,000 hours mean time between failures. The TVS Gold Bilingual keyboards support Indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, and Assamese etc.

S. S. Raman, Managing Director, TVS Electronics said on the launch of the keyboard, “We are proud to depict the Indian Rupee symbol in our keyboard and we are the first and only Indian manufacturer to do so. As the core Indian company, we believe in “Taking IT to the heart of India” and this is our humble dedication to the nation this independence day. We are also facilitating faster and comprehensive rollout across all the products.”

iT717 - Dual SIM, Touch Phone

Lemon Mobile has unveiled its latest touchscreen phone, the iT717, for the Indian market. The iT717 is a dual SIM (GSM+GSM) phone and is available at a price of Rs. 4,499.

The iT717 has dimensions of 101.4 x 49.5 x 15.5mm and weighs 100 gram. It comes with an internal memory of 20MB which can be expanded up to 8GB. The phone is loaded with a 3.2 MP camera and has integrated music player and FM Radio.

The connectivity options of the phone include Bluetooth, USB, and WAP and GPRS for internet. Packed with an 1100 mAh battery, the phone offers a talk time of up to 5 hours and standby time of up to 8 days. It comes with a few integrated softwares like Opera Mini, and Nimbuzz Instant messenger.

A meteor discovered in the Saharan desert has indicated that the age of our solar system is much older than previously thought.

Analyses of the meteorite indicate that the solar system is at least 0.3-1.9 million years older than some previous studies projected – making it 4.568 billion years old. The small difference means that the gas and dust that gave rise to the solar System should have around double the amount of a certain iron isotope, iron-60, than previously suggested.

“This suggests that one or more supernovae happened before the Sun’s formation, explaining all these elements and their respective abundances,” Nature quoted Audrey Bouvier from the University of Arizona in Tempe, as saying. The analysis involves comparing the ratio between two isotopes of lead (Pb), lead-207 and lead-206.

The iron abundances discovered in meteorites bolsters the case that our solar system grew up surrounded by giant, heavy stars and was shaped by their activities. Before the solar system existed, massive stars lived within a cloud of gas and dust. These stars emitted huge amounts of ultraviolet light, whose photons exert a pressure that pushed outward in a sphere, carving out a cavity from the nebular gas and dust.

As this cavity expanded, its edge squeezed together the surrounding debris – increasing its density and mass, which in turn attracted more particles because of an increased gravitational pull. This led to a snowball effect of accumulation, creating protostar. The protostar lived within its own bubble of gas and dust, creating an evaporating gaseous globule or EGG. When the massive stars exploded as supernovae, they sent an element-rich rain to rapidly mix with the materials inside the EGG. After millions of years, our Solar System coalesced from the rocky grains and asteroids now saturated with supernovae iron.

“This research points to the fact that there are more materials out there to study, which means there are more secrets to uncover,” said planetary scientist David Kring.

Now, people can be identified from their images posted on the internet, as a software firm named Face.com has developed a facial recognition technology. The software, which is yet to be released, can help identify people on social networking sites and online galleries by comparing their images against known pictures of them The software works by creating an algorithm of the face, which is a measurement of the arrangement of features including the eyes, nose and mouth, according to the developers. The company further claimed that while scanning typical images which appear on social networking sites, the software is 90 percent accurate.

According to Gil Hirsch, Chief Executive of Face.com, the company has launched a service that allows developers to take its facial recognition technology and apply it to their own applications. The technology is already being used by 5,000 developers, Hirsch added.

Supporters of the software, including the Red Cross, have said it could be used to track people lost in humanitarian disasters. However, there are some negative concerns too. According to Simon Davies, Director of Privacy International, the technology will make people uneasy by affecting their privacy on the Internet.