Google to shut down social networking service Orkut in September

Google to shut down social networking service Orkut in September!

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc will shut down its early social-networking service, Orkut, which was launched ten years ago but has failed to put Google ahead in what has become one of the Web's most popular businesses.

Google said it will shut down Orkut, which is widely used in Brazil and India but hasn't caught on more broadly, on Sept. 30, to focus on its other social networking initiatives.
The company declined to say how many users Orkut has.

"Over the past decade, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken off, with communities springing up in every corner of the world. Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut's growth, we've decided to bid Orkut farewell," Google said in a post on the Orkut blog on Monday.
Orkut was launched early in 2004, the same year that Facebook Inc, now the world's No.1 social network with 1.28 billion users, was founded.

The service's shutdown comes as Google's social networking plans remain in question. In April, Vic Gundotra, the head of Google's social networking services, left the company.

Gundotra oversaw the 2011 launch of Google+, a social networking service similar to Facebook. Gundotra said in October that 300 million users visit the Google+ web page every month.

Google has increasingly sought to position Google+ less as a social networking "stream" that competes with Facebook, and more as a means of establishing a unified "user identity" system to improve Google's various Web properties. Last year, for example, Google began requiring users of its YouTube site to sign in with their Google+ identity before posting comments about videos.

The company said it would preserve an archive of all Orkut "communities" that will be available from Sept. 30.
"If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account," Google said.

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"TOP WATER SLIDES OF THE WORLD"

"TOP WATER SLIDES OF THE WORLD"

Summit Plummet, Florida

Disney’s Blizzard Beach hosts this ski themed slide with a 120-foot slope.

 Wildebeest, Indiana

The Wildebeest is the longest water slide in the world, lasting a whopping two-and-a-half minutes.

Tantrum Alley, Dubai

Tantrum Alley consists of two large downhill waterslides and three funnels.

Scorpion’s Tail, Wisconsin

This slide is ten stories high with an initial drop that plummets at 50-feet per second.

Atlantis, Paradise Island

The Leap of Faith slide has a 60-foot drop from the top of the iconic Mayan Temple, propelling riders through a clear tunnel submerged in a shark-filled lagoon.

King Cobra, New Jersey

Located at Six Flags in New Jersey, the King Cobra offers a tube-racing journey and ends with a 25-foot plunge at a 50-degree angle.

Città del Mare, Italy

At this Italian resort, guests can slide right into the Mediterranean Sea.

 Insano, Brazil

Currently holding the record for World’s Tallest Water Slide, the Insano stands at 135-feet tall and travels at 65 mph.

Jumeirah Sceirah, Dubai

When guests get to the top of these tandem slides, they step into a capsule and await for the floors beneath to open and drop down the 340-foot slide at 50 mph.

L2, Austria

The L2 is located in Austria and is dubbed the first double loop water slide in the world.

Master Blaster Water Coasters, Dubai

Located at Atlantis The Palms Resort in Dubai, these crazy slides take its riders through the park for a thrilling adventure.

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Most Advanced Football “The Brazuca” Made in Pakistan

Most Advanced Football “The Brazuca” Made in Pakistan

Even though Pakistan has never played in a football world cup, no other team would have had the chance to play it, if Pakistan did not produce the ball! So when Brazil and Croatia played the tournament in Sao Paolo on June 12th, they used a ball made in Pakistan, called the "Brazuca". 

About 70 percent of the world’s hand-sewn footballs are made in Pakistan. In the 1980s, Sialkot gained international celebrity status when it produced the Tango ball used in the 1982 FIFA World Cup. Today Sialkot’s hand-stitched balls face competition from the machine-made balls produced in China. But despite tough competition, the manufacturers have managed to bring back the world cup football production to Pakistan.

While one factory has received the order of producing the ball to be played in the world cup, others have received much bigger orders to manufacture world cup promotional balls. Talon sports, a Sialkot sports goods factory have received an order to produce six million balls.

But with big orders comes bigger responsibility. Workers at talon sports are putting their hearts and minds - day in and day out - to meet the target.

Chaudhry saleem, chairman of talon sports gives all credit to the brazilian football legend, Pele, winner of three World Cups, in 1958, 1962 and 1970.

The workers seem quite satisfied with the big order, for now, they don’t have to worry about making their ends meet.

Despite witnessing financial crisis in the past, the football industry in Sialkot is going strong. Over Forty million foot balls, worth about $210 million are produced in Sialkot every year.

Sialkot is known as one of the leading sports goods industries in the world. This factory can produce over 30,000 footballs in a single day. The manufacturers say that with the help of international sporting brands they can be able to achieve bigger targets.

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You Can Now Buy the Super-Private Blackphone for $630

You Can Now Buy the Super-Private Blackphone for $630

Jamie Condliffe

Gizmodo

Paranoid? Or just privacy conscious? Well, the Blackphone is an Android handset that promises to keep your secrets safe, and now you can buy one for $630.

The super-secure phone has been in the works for some time. While its specs were revealed at the start of the year—a 4.7-inch HD IPS display, 2GHz quad-core processor, 16GB of storage, an 8-megapixel camera, LTE—it's now available to buy.
The Android smartphone comes pre-subscribed to, and pre-installed with, a bunch of privacy and anti-surveillance services. That centers mainly on Silent Phone for encrypted VoIP; Silent Text, for encrypted messaging; and Silent Contacts, for an encrypted contact list other apps can't peek at. All of these are available on iOS and vanilla Android for a price, but a Blackphone comes with two years of service included.
The phone costs $630 off-contract. The earliest pre-orders are now shipping, and general sales start on July 14th. So, if you're worried about who sees your data, you know what to do. [Blackphone]

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Facebook scores record 1 billion

Facebook scores record 1 billion interactions for World Cup

Esteban Israel

Reuters

 

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - With 1 billion posts, likes and comments in just the first half of the World Cup,
the soccer tournament is already the most talked-about event in Facebook Inc's decade-long history, data obtained by Reuters showed.
The soccer conversation measured between June 12 and June 29 involved 220 million people and 1 billion interactions, the Facebook data showed. And since the ball will be rolling for another two weeks, the tournament is set to break new records as the biggest social media event to date.
"People are having conversations on Facebook about what they watch in a really unprecedented scale," Nick Grudin, the company’s director of partnerships, told Reuters.
"In addition to sharing and connecting with friends, people are engaging in real time with the media and the public voices they care about most."
Facebook is the latest social media company to capitalize on TV-related traffic around big events like the World Cup, a trend started years ago by the microblog website Twitter Inc.
People use Facebook to comment about things they watch live, an interaction that could turn into a source of ad revenue for the company.
Facebook’s record numbers were possible because of widespread mobile penetration. Seven out of 10 users globally connect to the network from mobile devices, which represent roughly 60 percent of the company’s ad revenue.
There is also soccer’s global appeal. The first week of the World Cup alone saw 459 million interactions on Facebook, more than this year’s Super Bowl, the Sochi Winter Olympic Games and the Academy Awards combined.
The 1 billion mark was reached after traffic accelerated as the World Cup moved into the knockout round. On Saturday, more than 31 million people put up 75 million posts, likes and comments about Brazil’s nail-biting victory over Chile, which propelled the home team to the quarter-finals.
"This Cup has been a catalyzing cultural moment for people around the world," Grudin said, "and we see it reflected on Facebook."

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LA school officials shift from free iPads to laptops and hybrids

LA school officials shift from free iPads to laptops and hybrids

An iPad for every student was the plan. Then, some students were too smart for their own good, quickly enabling their for-learnin' iPads to access to anything on the web, including Twitter, Facebook and all that other fun stuff. LA's school district now plans to differentiate what it offers its students, authorizing purchases for one of six different devices, including laptops and hybrids such as Chromebooks, Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 and Lenovo's Yoga Touch. This fall, teachers and students will test these laptops to see if they fit. "The benefit of the new approach is clear," said Los Angeles school board member Monica Ratliff, talking to the LA Times. "Why would we treat all our students - whether they are a first-grader or a high school freshman - as if they all had the same technology needs? They don't."

Last year's iPad scheme rolled out to 47 schools, but alongside those aforementioned security filter woes, distribution of the tablets soon fell behind schedule. Worse still, educational materials were apparently often incomplete. (In the new scheme, materials from three different publishers are also being trialled) Given the touchscreen keyboards, iPads were apparently difficult to use while sometimes exam problems were often obscured due to the screen size. iPad distribution across LA's school district remains on hold, although some school are still scheduled to receive them later this year.

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Look ma, no hands - Swedish start-up launches touchless selfie app

Look ma, no hands - Swedish start-up launches touchless selfie app

STOCKHOLM - Selfie fans, your life just got a little easier. A Swedish tech start-up has launched an app for Apple devices that lets people take photos of themselves without having to touch their screens.
Using touchless technology which it says is ideal for taking "selfies" or "groupies", Crunchfish's GoCam app lets users trigger photos or videos from a distance with just hand gestures.
Photos can be triggered from a distance of up to 3 m (yards), it says.
The company, based in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, says the free GoCam app will be initially available in Sweden and Australia.
While gesture recognition has become more popular thanks to products such as Microsoft's Kinect for video games, the power-hungry technology has yet to become mainstream in computers or mobile devices.

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Serious Security Threat Lurks on 86 Percent of Android Phones

Serious Security Threat Lurks on 86 Percent of Android Phones

Kate Knibbs

Gizmodo 

A bug in the Android KeyStore left an estimated 86 percent of Android phones vulnerable to major security breaches, according to an advisory IBM researchers published last week.

KeyStore is like the janitor's closet for Android; it's where all cryptographic keys and other sensitive information lives. So it's a bad place for a vulnerability. The security flaw is what the researchers call a "classic stack-based buffer overflow," and it could allow attackers to execute code to steal phone lock credentials, and then all sorts of sensitive data on the phone, including banking information.
The researchers discovered the problem nine months ago, but waited until the Android Security Team came up with a patch for Android KitKat, which is now available. That still leaves Android users without KitKat (estimated to be 86.4 percent of Android's userbase) open to this kind of attack.
Nobody (as far as we know) actually exploited the vulnerability, so Android is testing its luck. To actually carry out an attack, would-be malicious hackers would have to overcome Android's software protections, including coding and data executing prevention. But just because it hasn't been done yet doesn't mean it can't be done.
The fact that this kind of major vulnerability can go undetected until IBM researchers point it out is pretty scary. It's also unlikely to be the last of its kind, another reminder that even sophisticated operating systems can have big scary holes in their security.
You can read the full report from the researchers below.
Android KeyStore Stack Buffer Overflow (CVE-2014-3100) from IBM Security Systems

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Scientists discover one of the most Earth-like planets yet

Scientists discover one of the most Earth-like planets yet

Ellis Hamburger

The Verge 

 Sci-News.com is Gliese 832c's mass means it likely has a far denser atmosphere than Earth does, which could make the planet's weather hot and volatile. If this is the case, the planet might be more like a super-Venus than a super-Earth. "If the planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme," the University of South Wales' Professor Chris Tinney said. Even so, Gliese 832c is one of the most Earth-like planets we've ever encountered.
"[Gliese 832c is] one of the top three most Earth-like planets according to the [Earth Similarity Index] (i.e., with respect to Earth's stellar flux and mass) and the closest one to Earth of all three — a prime object for follow-up observations," writes Abel Mendez Torres on the Planetary Habitability  Lab's blog. "It's just a stone's throw from Earth in the cosmic scheme of things," adds Space.com's Mike Wall.

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Ufone Ramzan Offer: Call Sehar Till Iftaar for Rs. 4 Per day

Ufone Ramzan Offer: Call Sehar Till Iftaar for Rs. 4 Per day

Ufone has introduced this new offer with which its prepaid customers will be able to make unlimited on-net and Ufone to PTCL and Vfone calls from Sehar till Iftaar against a daily charge of Rs. 4 per day

Offer details:

• Free unlimited calls from 4 AM till 7:30 PM Daily
• Free calls can be made from:
• Ufone to Ufone
• Ufone to PTCL
• Ufone to Vfone
• Daily charges: Rs. 4 plus tax per day (Rs. 4.78 including taxes)

How to Subscribe:

• dial *4# to activate Ufone Ramzan Offer.

Terms and Conditions:

• This offer is valid from the 1st Ramzan to the 27th of Ramzan, 2014
• This offer is only available for use between 4:00 AM and 7:30 PM daily
• No FUP (Fair Usage Policy) is applicable on this offer
• This offer is valid for all prepaid customers
• This offer will automatically re-subscribe at 12:00 AM daily, for which a balance of Rs. 4.78 must be available in the customers’ account
• In case of subscribing between 7:30 PM and 12:00 AM, the offer charges will be collected at 12AM. At that time, a balance Rs. 4.78 must be available in the customers’ account.
• 10 paisa + Tax/call will be charged.
• 19.5% FED on usage and other charges on bill apply.

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Flashcall Goes Free for Businesses During Ramadan

Flashcall, a service that focuses on connecting consumers with brands through missed calls, has come up with an irresistible offer for businesses in Ramzan. Now businesses can sign up to explore the immense potential of toll free consumer interaction through missed calls without any contract or monetary obligation.

For those who aren’t familiar, Fashcall is service that allows customer initiates the communication through a missed call – that is free of charge – and then businesses can responds to the customer by any possible means suitable to them (call/SMS or anything else).

Flashcall’s this Ramadan offer includes unlimited and unrestricted access to flashcall panel, two free numbers for the campaign, real time analytics and reporting. Any third party service, however, will be charged with usual rates.

Elaborating the offer, Jawwad Jafri, CEO of Flashcall, said “We are seeing immense interest in flashcall from industry and the use cases that businesses are developing for us are surprising even for us. The concept of missed call is so simple that every business owner or brand manager takes no time in relating it to their business objectives. However, we saw that committing a cost to digital solutions becomes difficult for some managers. We have therefore decided to lower the barriers for the players who are still sitting on the fence and let them experience the simplicity of our consumer model and the power of our analytics during this offer. ”

Flashcall recently managed to generate a lot of buzz during Startup Weekend Islamabad, where it was used for live voting as well as subscription services.

This Ramzan offer is geared to further fuel this interest. It works across industries and has solutions for customers, employees and senior management. Some of the solutions in which Flashcall is actively engaged involve:

• TV Channels
  • For ratings of their programs (alternate to people’s meter)
  • Interactive Q/A with audience during programs
• Financial Institutions
  • For personalized services (bank account details, last payment, payment due)
  • Lead generation ( to use as CTA in brochures and reduce cold calling)
• FMCG brands
  • Consumer engagement campaigns
  • Measuring their media plan effectiveness
• NGOs and Social Sector
  • Building a support base and communicating & mobilizing them
• Online stores
  • Cash on Delivery verification
  • Deals to drive traffic

To sign up for this free offer, you can visit www.getflashcall.com and sign up free!

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PTA Now Capable of Measuring Quality of Service for 3G and 4G Networks

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) organized a two days training for its staff in collaboration with NEMO Anite (Finland based Company) at PTA HQs from 26^th to 27^th June 2014.

The aim of this training was to impart knowledge and skills to PTA officials so that they can effectively monitor the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters in 3G/4G environment.

Earlier in 2006, PTA procured NEMO outdoor equipment to measure the QoS of GSM mobile networks. Now, Anite has provided an upgrade of its NEMO QoS Monitoring Platform to PTA for 3G/4G.

The NEMO Invex (Tool Model) enables outdoor drive test measurements and benchmarking to ensure QoS of the Cellular networks. Anite has an established position in mobile benchmarking, drive test measurement, and optimization solutions for perfecting the air interface of wireless networks.

Saybi, the local partner of Anite, has also supported the training, with the aim to impart the 3G/4G QoS knowledge and hands on experience on NEMO Invex 7.0.

On this occasion, Chairman PTA, Dr. Ismail Shah, thanked Saybi Anite for provisioning of an upgrade model to PTA. He further stated that this solution will enable PTA to monitor licensed QoS Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of 3G / 4G networks in the country to ensure that quality standards are met and users get the services at anticipated quality standards.

With this upgrade and training, PTA officials have been up skilled on 3G/4G and LTE technologies.

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