Websites to Google: 'You're killing our business!'

NEW YORK  -- Google made one of the biggest changes ever to its search results this week, which immediately had a noticeable effect on many Web properties that rely on the world's biggest search engine to drive traffic to their sites.
The major tweak aims to move better quality content to the top of Google's search rankings. The changes will affect 12% Google's results, the company said in a blog post late Thursday.
"Our goal is simple: to give users the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible," said Gabriel Stricker, Google spokesman. "This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content -- both good and bad -- comes online all the time. Recently we've heard from our users that they want to see fewer low quality sites in our results."
Typically, Google's algorithm changes are so subtle that few people notice them. But these most recent changes could be seen immediately.
How to test the change: The IP address 64.233.179.104 displays Google search results as they would have appeared before the recent algorithm change, according to several webmasters posting to the WebmasterWorld.com forum.
Google would not confirm that IP address uses the older algorithm, but comparing searches of trending topics on google.com with searches using the special Google IP address reveals how the search engine now seems to be favoring certain content.
The changes appear to be affecting so-called "content farms" the most, which are websites that amass content based on the most-searched terms of the day. Demand Media, AOL, Mahalo and the Huffington Post have all been accused of such tactics, including a notable "story" from HuffPo about the Super Bowl that Slate.com media critic Jack Shafer called "the greatest example of SEO whoring of all time."
Tests using trending topics show Google's tweaks in action.
The current top Google result for a search of Charlie Sheen rant target "Haim Levine" is a New York Daily News page, followed by a story from gossipcop.com. The old algorithm would have featured two Huffington Post stories at the top, with the New York Daily News story not appearing appear until the second results page.
A controversial decision: Any change to Google's algorithm is a zero-sum game. Some websites win, some lose.
Comments from site operators lit up on the WebmasterWorld.com forum starting on Wednesday. Many webmasters complained that traffic to their sites dropped dramatically overnight, and others expressed concern that they can't adapt quickly enough to Google's changes to its algorithm.
"Why is it that every single time the search engine result page starts to stabilize and sales return, Google has to throw a monkey wrench in the system again?" asked commenter backdraft7. "Hey Google, this is not fun anymore - YOU'RE KILLING OUR BUSINESSES!"
"My God. I just lost 40% of my traffic from Google today," said commenter DickBaker. "Referrals from Yahoo, Bing, direct sources, and other sources are the same, but Google dropped like a rock."
There are many legitimate ways content creators optimize their sites to rise to the top of Google's results. But Google has been cracking down on what it regards as inappropriate attempts to do so: The company recently penalized Overstock.com and JC Penney in its search results after the companies were found to have set up fake websites that linked to their own, causing Google's algorithm to rank them higher.
When it comes to site content, the lines get very fuzzy. Operators like Demand Media (DMD) -- which now has a market valuation of $1.9 billion, more than the New York Times Co. is worth -- sit right on the ever-shifting boundaries.
"Sites of this type have always been controversial," said Daniel Ruby, research director at Chitika, Inc. a search advertising analytics company. "On one hand, they often do produce extremely informative, well-written articles. On the other hand, they put out countless articles on a daily basis, and some claim they exist only to generate the top result on as many keywords as possible."
Demand put out a very carefully worded response to Google's changes.
"As might be expected, a content library as diverse as ours saw some content go up and some go down in Google search results," Larry Fitzgibbon, the company's executive vice president of media and operations, wrote in a blog post. "It's impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term -- but at this point in time, we haven't seen a material net impact."
So will Google's changes have a lasting effect on search quality? Perhaps. But it's an arms race: Any time the company adjusts its algorithms, those determined to beat them immediately adjust.
"Content originators make money, and Google makes money," said Whit Andrews, analyst for Gartner. "Their interests will always be in conflict, and as long as there is greed, people will try to game system." 

Chinese telecom company Huawei open to US investigation

Huawei is one of the largest markers of network switching equipment

Huawei, a Chinese telecom equipment maker, has said it would welcome a formal investigation by US authorities after a takeover bid was halted on security concerns.

Huawei made the appeal in an open letter on its website.
Last week, a US security panel rejected Huawei's purchase of American computer company 3Leaf systems.
Huawei was founded by ex-Chinese army officer Ren Zhengfei, and there are concerns it still has military links.
'Misperceptions' The company has played down any ties to either the military or China's government.
In its letter, Huawei said that "over the past 10 years, as we have been investing in the US, we have encountered a number of misperceptions".
It said that these included unfounded and unproven claims of close connections with the Chinese military, disputes over intellectual property rights, allegations of financial support from the Chinese government and threats to the national security of the US.
"We sincerely hope that the United States government will carry out a formal investigation on any concerns it may have about Huawei," the company said in the letter.
Blocked deal Huawei, which has also had earlier US deals blocked on security concerns, bought 3Leaf in May 2010 for $2m (£1.2m).
However, a review by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States said the deal should not go ahead.

Google blunts Facebook phone app on Android

The number of people accessing Facebook from their mobile has risen sharply

Google has stepped up its data battle with Facebook by blunting the social networking site's app on its phones.

An update for its latest mobile operating system will see users' Facebook contacts disappear from the phone's address book.
Google said it took the action as it was no longer willing to exempt Facebook from its data-sharing rules.
The decision has been seen as indicative of growing tensions between the two internet giants.
The contact-altering update applies to the Gingerbread version of Google's Android mobile operating system - currently only available for the Nexus S and Nexus One handsets, which are manufactured for Google.
Makers of other Android-based handsets are expected to make the Gingerbread upgrade available to their users in the coming months.
If those mobiles use the same version of Gingerbread as the Nexus phones, more owners would find Facebook contacts wiped from their address book.
Originally, Facebook's Android app allowed users to populate the phone's address book with Facebook contacts.
However, that data could not be exported from the handset, instead it was controlled by Facebook - something Google has said it can no longer tolerate.
"Since Facebook contacts cannot be exported from the device, the appearance of integration created a false sense of data portability," Google said in a statement.
Facebook contacts will, however, remain accessible via the app.
More than 200 million people accessed Facebook via a mobile device in 2010, according to its own figures - up from 65 million in the previous year.
Advertising data Google would benefit enormously from being able to export a user's Facebook contacts, said Mike Davis, a senior analyst at Ovum.
"There's an awful lot of information you can derive from analysing a contacts list," he said.
That information could be used to improve the targeting of adverts that Google publishes, he added.
The spat highlights the growing tension between Facebook and Google, said Mr Davis.
But, he predicted that Facebook is "unlikely to buckle" to Google's data sharing demands at this stage.
In late 2010, the two companies engaged in a similar data quarrel over the sharing of contact data between Facebook and Google's Gmail web-based email system.
Facebook did not respond to requests for comment at the time of writing.

Microsoft says phone update failed 1 in 10 users

Samsung user Alex Roebuck took this picture of his 'bricked' phone

Microsoft has revealed that 1 in 10 users who tried to install a software update on their Windows mobile experienced problems.

The company had previously said that only a "small number" of handsets were affected.
Owners have reported a range of issues following the download, from phones crashing, to becoming completely unusable.
Microsoft pulled the update soon after the problem came to light.
On Microsoft's website, company blogger Michael Stroh wrote: "Has the update process gone perfectly? No—but few large-scale software updates ever do, and the engineering team here was prepared.
"Of course, when it's your phone that's having a problem—or you're the one waiting—it's still aggravating."
The problem appears to have affected only Samsung handsets, in particular the Omnia 7 model.
Bad connection Microsoft said that most of those affected had either a bad internet connection or too little storage on the computer that the update was being installed from.
The company's blog posting directs users to an online troubleshooting guide, as well as suggesting they visit its Windows Phone forum.
Many of the postings on that site detailed users' attempts to restore their phones.
Lphilly79 wrote: "I disconnected the phone, removed the battery, and the phone booted up again into the original ROM (v7004).
"No obvious changes were made and everything is seems ok, exactly the way is was before the upgrade attempt."
One member, called Eliuzhi, appeared to have had less luck: "Now my phone is bricked I can not do anything!"
Microsoft has said that it will issue a new update as soon as it has identified how to fix the problem.
The company is currently trying to grow its share of the lucrative smartphone market, having lost ground to Apple, Google and Blackberry.
It recently announced a tie-up with Nokia that would see the handset manufacturer running Windows Phone on its smartphone devices.

Enigma genius Alan Turing papers saved for the nation

A last minute donation from the National Heritage Memorial Fund has saved the papers of the computing genius Alan Turing for the nation.

The collection of scientific papers and material relating to Turing's work on wartime codebreaking was in danger of going abroad.
He was one of the founding fathers of modern computing and a key figure in breaking the German Enigma code.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund's £200,000 donation filled the gap.
The papers were put up for auction last year and an internet campaign swung into action.
The aim was to save the papers for the museum at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, where Turing worked breaking codes during the war.
IT journalist

End Quote Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent

Internet search firm Google also pledged cash but the money raised was £200,000 short of the seller's reserve price.

The Fund says the papers will stand as a permanent memorial to a man who played a crucial role in the war.
Turing is famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during World War II, helping to create the Bombe machine which cracked messages enciphered using the German Enigma code.
He committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41, two years after being prosecuted for having a sexual relationship with a man.
In 2009 thousands of people signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to Turing.

  Turing's Bombe machine is viewed by many as the progenitor of the modern computer

The then prime minister Gordon Brown responded by saying he was sorry for the "appalling" way Turing was treated for being gay.
Mr Halfacree told the BBC: "These papers are extremely significant."
During Turing's short life he only published 18 papers and offprints of 15 of them, which were given by Turing to his friend Professor Max Newman, are included in the collection.
Mr Halfacree said: "There are handwritten notes by Turing on them and one of them has the signature of his mother on it."

Intel launches high speed Thunderbolt connector

Future versions of Thunderbolt will use fibre optics

Chip manufacturer Intel has announced it is to roll out a new technology for connecting computers and peripherals.

The system, known as Thunderbolt, promises transfer speeds twice as fast as USB 3.0.
However it won't reach its theoretical maximum because Intel has opted to use copper wires rather than fibre optic cables.
The company said it would gradually move to higher speeds over time.
Apple will become the first manufacturer to use Thunderbolt, on its Macbook Pro computers.
The Cupertino firm is said to have been a major driver of its development, although it remains to be seen how may other manufacturers will adopt the new standard.
Light Peak Intel has been working on the technology for several years.
It was first announced, under the codename Light Peak in 2009.
At launch, its top speed will be limited to 10 Gigabits per second - twice as fast as USB 3.0, but still well below the theoretical maximum using optical cables.

Intel claims that future versions will be able to reach 100 Gb/sec.

The faster data transfer rates are likely to be welcomed by those consumers who use high-definition video, said Sarah Rottman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research.
"This isn't an innovation that consumers have been asking for, but it's one they'll appreciate," she said.
"Especially when transferring video, as that's when [USB] starts to feel slow."
The system also promises to reduce the number of cables a user has connecting their computer setup.
It is able to carry multiple signal types at the same time, enabling power, display and peripherals to use a single cable.
However, in the short term, users may need to invest in special adaptors to connect their older devices onto Thunderbolt sockets.
Its arrival on the consumer market also raises questions about the future of other connector standards, such as USB and Firewire.
Thunderbolt's most high profile supporter, Apple, is expected to gradually transition to a single connector, according to Karen Haslam, editor of Macworld UK.
"In the long run there will be no need for Apple to support these multiple formats with individual ports - existing products can run through an adaptor," she said.
Not everyone is convinced that Thunderbolt will become the lone standard.
Ian Chiu, editor of the website Everythingusb.com told BBC News that the cost of components could put off some manufacturers.
"I don't really know how Intel will make Thunderbolt appealing to all the other first-tier PC manufacturers," he said.
"HP, Sony, Dell, Acer, Asus make most of their money from the low-end and medium-end notebooks.
"On the other hand, Apple's Macbook Pro line-up is targeted at the prosumers, professionals and other people who aren't so price conscious," said Mr Chiu.

LinkedIn says China has unblocked its service

 

LinkedIn believes it is now available again in China

 

 

Business networking site LinkedIn says access to its services appears to have been restored in China, a day after it was blocked there.

"We will continue to monitor the situation," a US spokesman for the site said.
Shortly before the site went offline on Friday, one user set up a forum, discussing the idea of a "Jasmine Revolution" in China.
The phrase has been used to describe the popular revolts in the Middle East.
The Agence France-Presse news agency says that one of its journalists in Beijing was able to access the LinkedIn site on Saturday.
Last weekend, a number of pro-democracy demonstrations were held across China, with police making a handful of arrests.
The protests are thought to have been organised in response to calls made on the website Boxun.com, access to which is banned inside mainland China.
Shortly afterwards, a LinkedIn user named Jasmine J created a group called Jasmine Voice.
In one posting, they wrote: "OMG, some pro-democracy fighters really did something here after the triumph of Egypt."
'Jasmine' blocked China already exercises strict control over what citizens can view online, with many websites and politically sensitive subjects blocked. Access to Facebook and Twitter is barred.
But LinkedIn, which is used by a relatively small number of professionals, is accessible via domestic internet servers within China.
However the authorities there appear to have increased the level of filtering in response to the wave of popular uprisings across the Middle East.
Searches for the word "jasmine" are now blocked on the country's most popular website, Sina.com.
Internet users inside the country reported that some sites were also blocking information on Jon Huntsman, the US ambassador to Beijing.
Mr Huntsman was seen attending one of last weekend's pro-democracy rallies.
Campaign group Reporters Without Borders criticised the escalation in Chinese net censorship, accusing the authorities of trying to stamp out "all forms of freedom of expression".

Amur tigers in population crisis

A wild Amur tiger is a rare sight

The effective population of the critically endangered Amur tiger is now fewer than 14 animals, say scientists.

Approximately 500 Amur tigers actually survive in the wild, but the effective population is a measure the genetic diversity of the world's largest cat.
Very low diversity means any vulnerability to disease or rare genetic disorders is likely to be passed on to the next generation.
So these results paint a grim picture for the tiger's chance of survival.
The findings are reported in the journal Mammalian Biology.
The Amur tiger, or Siberian tiger as it is also known, once lived across a large portion of northern China, the Korean peninsula, and the southernmost regions of eastern Russia.
During the early 20th Century, the Amur tiger was almost driven to extinction, as expanding human settlements, habitat loss and poaching wiped out this biggest of cats from over 90% of its range.
By the 1940s, just 20 to 30 individuals survived in the wild. The new study has identified that this recent "genetic bottleneck" - when the breeding population of tigers was so critically low - has decimated the Amur tiger gene pool.
A more genetically diverse population of animals has a much better chance of survival; it is more likely, for example, to contain the genetic resistance to a variety of diseases and less likely to succumb to rare genetic disorders, which can be "cancelled out" by healthy genes.
'Worryingly low'
Scientists in Russia, Spain and Germany worked together to analyse DNA samples from 15 wild Amur tigers in the Russian Far East.
They took blood samples from the animals and screened them for certain "markers" - points in the DNA code that show that an animal had parents that were genetically very different from each other.
The results revealed evidence of the genetic bottleneck during the tigers' recent history, when the variety of genes being passed on dramatically reduced.
Genetically speaking, the Amur tiger has not recovered from this.
"Our results are the first to demonstrate a quite recent genetic bottleneck in Siberian tigers, a result that matches the well-documented severe demographic decline of the Siberian tiger population in the 1940s," the researchers wrote in the paper.
"The worryingly low effective population size challenges the optimism for the recovery of the huge Siberian cat."

Libya unrest: Foreign ministers meet to discuss crisis

The local representative of the Red Crescent described the situation as "a humanitarian crisis"

Foreign ministers from around the world are gathering in Geneva to discuss their response to the mounting humanitarian crisis in Libya.

Tens of thousands of migrants - many from Egypt - are stranded near Libya's Tunisian border in need of food and shelter, UN officials say.
Rebels are closing in on embattled Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in his stronghold in Tripoli.
The US has publicly backed anti-Gaddafi groups in eastern Libya.
Speaking on her way to the Geneva meeting, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was "reaching out to many different Libyans in the east".
Opposition forces controlling eastern cities including Benghazi, where the uprising started 10 days ago, say they have formed a national council to act as the political face of the anti-Gaddafi movement.
Mrs Clinton said she would discuss co-ordinated responses on both the humanitarian and political fronts with many of her counterparts from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa at the UN human rights council meeting in Geneva.
At least 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in nearly two weeks of violence in which eastern cities have fallen to anti-government forces.
Humanitarian crisis? About 100,000 people have fled anti-government unrest in Libya over the past week, the UN estimates.

Col Gaddafi is facing the biggest challenge to his 41-year rule, but still controls the capital Tripoli

The exodus of Egyptian workers from western Libya began on Wednesday, but has since been intensifying, says the BBC's Jim Muir at the Ras Jdir border crossing with Tunisia.
Although more aircraft and ships are due in Tunisia to accelerate the evacuation of migrant workers, the country's authorities are no longer able to cope with the influx, Liz Eyster of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) told the BBC.
"They've been accommodating people in shelters, schools and places of their own," she said. "But we're now aware of the fact that they're very much stretched and they need the support of the international community."
The local representative of the Red Crescent described the position as "a humanitarian crisis".
"The entire world should mobilise to help Egypt repatriate its nationals," Monji Slim told AFP news agency.

One stranded refugee said: "All the people here are demonstrating because they want to go to Egypt. All countries are sending aircraft to rescue their people - Turkey, Korea, India, Bangladesh - everyone is arriving and leaving except for Egyptians."
A number of countries have been evacuating foreigners by air and sea.
On Sunday a Greek ship carrying hundreds of migrants - mainly from Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain - docked at the port of Piraeus near Athens.
'Revolution' Col Gaddafi is facing the biggest challenge to his 41-year rule, but still controls the capital Tripoli.
However the centre of Zawiya, about 50km (30 miles) to the west, was being held by the anti-government camp on Sunday. Pro-Gaddafi forces are surrounding the city.
"This is our revolution," some demonstrators, quoted by Reuters news agency, chanted.

Gaddafi's sons told ABC News there were no attacks on protesters

A number of protesters stood on top of a captured tank while others crowded around an anti-aircraft gun, Reuters added.
Late on Saturday, the UN Security Council unanimously backed an arms embargo and asset freeze on senior Libyan government officials.
It also voted to refer Col Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.
In a telephone interview with a Serbian TV, he said the sanctions were null and void.
"The people of Libya support me, small groups of rebels are surrounded and will be dealt with," he added.
Col Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam denied that his father had any assets abroad.
"We are a very modest family and everybody knows that," he told ABC News. "They are saying we have money in Europe or Switzerland... It's a joke."
He also denied widespread reports that Libyan troops and mercenaries had fired on civilians.

Tracking device can tell you where your kids are

London: Would you like to have the security of being able to find your children whenever you want? Then read this.

A wristwatch with a built-in tracking device can tell you exactly where your kids are - and allow you to speak to them at the flick of a button.

Edinburgh-based former acting Lance Corporal Dean Corrigan, 32, has designed a device that contains a GPS system so parents can monitor children's whereabouts within two to three metres through a computer or a mobile phone app.

It also contains a sim card so it can receive calls from a number of pre-programmed phone numbers.

The Loc8er device was developed when Corrigan was serving in the Army as a physical training instructor.

"As a soldier I always think about situations on the ground and practical solutions. The radio system wasn't that good for soldiers on the ground when I was in the Army and it got me thinking about GPS, which means you always know where everyone is," the Scotsman quoted him as saying.

"Then I realised it could work for kids, because even if kids have mobile phones there's no way of knowing where they've gone or where they were last."

However, child safety groups have expressed concern that using GPS to track a child could be an extreme measure and say parents should communicate with their children rather than rely on technology.

Increase in micro earthquakes after Chilean quake: Scientists

Washington: Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology studied seismographs from the earthquake that hit Chile last February and found a statistically significant increase of microearthquakes in central California in the first few hours after the main shock.

The observation provides an additional support that seismic waves from distant earthquakes could also trigger seismic events on the other side of the earth.

It has been well known that microearthquakes can be triggered instantaneously by distant earthquakes. However, sometimes the triggered events could occur long after the passage of the direct surface waves that take the shortest path on the earth surface. There are several other explanations out there about how such delayed triggering occurs. Some involve the redistribution of pore fluids and triggered aseismic creep, while others simply consider them as aftershocks of the directly triggered events. But the group from Georgia Tech found something different.

"From our research, we''ve concluded the delayed triggering that occurs in the first few hours after an earthquake could be caused by multiple surface waves traveling back and forth around the earth multiple times," said Zhigang Peng, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

In a previous paper, also published in Geophysical Research Letters last December, Peng''s research group found that the direct surface waves of the Chilean earthquake triggered seismic activity in central California. In this new study, Peng''s group looked beyond the direct surface waves and focused on secondary and tertiary waves that return after traveling across the globe multiple times. In addition, they went beyond earthquake information published in the U.S. Geological Survey catalog and instead studied the seismographs.

"So when you look at the events that have been reported in the catalog, you won''t see this effect," said Peng.

"But if you look at the seismographs, you''ll see many small events and notice that they occurred mostly when those multiple surface waves arrived," Peng added.

The results may be found online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Russia launches vital navigation satellite

Moscow: Russia on Saturday successfully launched a satellite vital to the deployment of its own navigation system after the failure of an earlier attempt prompted the Kremlin to sack two top space officials.

The Federal Space Agency said in a statement that the high-tech Glonass-K satellite reached its intended orbit about four hours after blasting off on top a Soyuz-2 rocket from Russia's northern Plesetsk launchpad.

"We have established and are maintaining steady telemetry communications with the space craft," a spokesman for the Defence Ministry's space forces told the Interfax news agency.

"The on-board systems of the Glonass-K satellite are functioning normally," the official said.

The launch was watched closely by Russian space and military officials after the last attempt to put three Glonass satellites in orbit failed spectacularly on December 5.

The three orbiters would have completed Russia's own navigation system and enabled the military to finally target its missiles from space -- a technology that has long been available to NATO countries.

But an error prevented the Russian craft from reaching its set distance from Earth and the satellites ended up plummeting into the Pacific off the US state of Hawaii.

A furious President Dmitry Medvedev fired two top space officials after a probe placed the blame on a simple fuel miscalculation.

The three satellites would have completed a Glonass system whose research had been started by the Soviet Union in 1976 before being interrupted and then picked up again by the country's president-turned premier Vladimir Putin.

The country's de facto leader has vowed to place Glonass readers on every car made in Russia by 2012 and hailed the system as an example of how the country can claw back its Soviet-era technological might.

Russia refuses to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) developed in the United States out of fears that its military's access to the technology might be cut off in times of war.

Discovery to dock with International Space Station

Cape Canaveral (Florida): The US space shuttle Discovery is approaching the International Space Station today as part of its final odyssey into orbit, carrying to researchers a new module and a robot.

The shuttle, which blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center here on Thursday, is set to dock with the ISS at 2:15 pm local time (0045 IST tomorrow). Its 11-day mission includes two spacewalks.

"It has been a pretty tremendous day in space flight for us," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations.

The end of the shuttle programme will create a gaping hole in the US space programme during a period of belt-tightening and budget freezes, and will leave Russia's space capsules as the sole transit option to the ISS.

"Bittersweet" was the word of the day at Kennedy Space Centre as astronauts, engineers and space fans crowded in to get a glimpse of history by watching Discovery's crowning launch 27 years after it first flew into space.

"There is no doubt the space shuttle is an engineering marvel," said NASA chief technologist Bob Braun.

"But it is an older vehicle. It is 30 years old; it was designed probably a decade before that," he said. "I think we all recognise we need to go to the next chapter.

But any time you go to that next chapter, it is bittersweet."

The Discovery crew plans to deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module, with extra storage space and an area for experiments, as well as some spare parts and the Express Logistic Carrier, an external platform for large equipment.

The shuttle will also bring the first humanoid robot to the ISS. The Robonaut 2, or R2, is a joint project of General Motors and NASA and will stay behind as a permanent resident of the space station when Discovery leaves.

When Discovery wraps up this tour, the oldest surviving shuttle will have flown more missions than any of its cohorts and toted 180 people into space, including the first female shuttle commander and the first African-American spacewalker.

The other two shuttles are scheduled for their final flights later this year: Endeavour on April 19 and Atlantis on June 28.

Discovery has broken new ground multiple times since it first launched in 1984. It transported the Hubble Space telescope, was the first to rendezvous with the Russian Mir Space Station, and delivered part of the Japanese Kibo lab to the ISS.

ISRO tests rocket motor, delays satellite launch

Chennai: After 16 successful launches of its workhorse rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in the last 17 years, the Indian space agency is now testing a key component to re-qualify its on-flight performance parameters to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is testing the gas motor which is fitted in the second stage/engine powered by liquid fuel for high temperature tolerance levels.

The test has forced ISRO to postpone the launch of its remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 and two other payloads by nearly a month. Remote sensing satellites like Resourcesat send back pictures and other data for various uses. India is a major player in providing such data in the global market.

The rocket was scheduled for launch this week.

According to ISRO officials, the gas motor powers the rocket's second stage control actuators for maneuvering the engine's nozzle - the process is called gimballing. The process enables the rocket to maintain a steady course on its way up.

The motor is powered by the hot gases tapped from the rocket.

"During earlier PSLV rocket launches, we had noticed the temperature of the hot gases at the motor inlet being higher by 20-30 percent while the expected temperature is around or less than 300 degree celsius," an ISRO official told IANS.

On last mission, Discovery docks with ISS

Houston: NASA's space shuttle Discovery has docked with the International Space Station on its final visit before hanging up its wings for good at a museum.

The space shuttle along with six astronauts docked with the space station as both spacecraft flew 354 kms above western Australia.

The crew's arrival marked the end of a two-day orbital chase that began with the shuttle's last launch on Thursday.

"What took you guys so long?" the space station's commander Scott Kelly joked with Discovery's crew as the shuttle drew near.

NASA had tried to launch Discovery in November, but fuel tank cracks held the mission up until repairs were completed.

"Yeah, I don't know. We kind of waited until like the last two seconds," Discovery's commander Steven Lindsey told Kelly. "You guys look great, so we're on our way."

Discovery is flying on an 11-day mission to deliver a new storage room and a humanoid robot assistant called Robonaut 2, along with supplies and spare parts, to the space station.

Two spacewalks are also planned during the mission.

Commander Steve Lindsey floated onboard the space station at 4:36 pm EST (local time).

Lindsey was followed by mission specialist Nicole Stott, Steve Bowen, Mike Barratt and pilot Eric Boe and mission specialist Alvin Drew.

After the welcome ceremony and a safety briefing, the shuttle and station crews will begin transferring cargo from Discovery to the space station.

The arrival of Discovery's crew doubled the number of people at the space station from six to 12. The joint-crew includes astronauts from the US, Italy and Russia.

The two space crews will spend the next seven days working together to move cargo between their two vehicles.

Discovery's arrival also marked a historic space first: For the first time since construction began on the International Space Station in 1998, spacecraft from four of the five major partners (the space agencies of Russia, Japan, Europe and the US) are docked at the orbiting laboratory.

The remaining partner, Canada's space agency, does not have station-visiting spacecraft, but it did build the outpost's robotic arm and Dextre maintenance robot.

Altogether, the docked spacecraft and space station weigh 1.2 million pounds.

NASA and its partners hope to stage a space photo session by cosmonauts flying around the station in a Soyuz spacecraft if time allows during Discovery's flight.

Before Discovery hooked up with the station, Lindsey flew the shuttle to a point about 600 feet below the orbiting laboratory and deftly guided the 100-ton spaceship through a slow back flip.

As Discovery turned, astronauts inside the orbiting lab took hundreds of high-resolution photos of the shuttle.

The images will be beamed back to Mission Control on the ground so that teams can assess how the shuttle's heat shield fared during liftoff, ascent and the two days in orbit.

During launch, a camera on Discovery's fuel tank spotted four pieces of foam debris, some of which appeared to strike the orbiter during its ascent, but NASA officials said the impact should pose no problems for the spacecraft or its crew.

A review of the photos taken of Discovery's heat shield will help them make a final call, NASA officials said.

Discovery is no stranger to the orbital flip maneuver. In 2005, Discovery became the first space shuttle ever to perform the maneuver during the STS-114 mission - NASA's first flight after the loss of shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003 due to heat shield damage.

The space flip and photo session have been a standard part of shuttle missions ever since.

After the pre-docking flip, Lindsey pulled Discovery in front of the station and slowly backed the shuttle into its docking port.

Discovery, which will be retired later this year along with the rest of the US shuttle fleet, is scheduled to return to Earth on March 7.

PTI

Houston: NASA's space shuttle Discovery has docked with the International Space Station on its final visit before hanging up its wings for good at a museum.

The space shuttle along with six astronauts docked with the space station as both spacecraft flew 354 kms above western Australia.

The crew's arrival marked the end of a two-day orbital chase that began with the shuttle's last launch on Thursday.

"What took you guys so long?" the space station's commander Scott Kelly joked with Discovery's crew as the shuttle drew near.

NASA had tried to launch Discovery in November, but fuel tank cracks held the mission up until repairs were completed.

"Yeah, I don't know. We kind of waited until like the last two seconds," Discovery's commander Steven Lindsey told Kelly. "You guys look great, so we're on our way."

Discovery is flying on an 11-day mission to deliver a new storage room and a humanoid robot assistant called Robonaut 2, along with supplies and spare parts, to the space station.

Two spacewalks are also planned during the mission.

Commander Steve Lindsey floated onboard the space station at 4:36 pm EST (local time).

Lindsey was followed by mission specialist Nicole Stott, Steve Bowen, Mike Barratt and pilot Eric Boe and mission specialist Alvin Drew.

199 govt websites defaced in last 6 months: Kamat

New Delhi: The government today said 199 government websites have been defaced by foreign hackers in the last six months.

"The website of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was defaced by a foreign hacker "Pakistan Cyber Army" on December 3, 2010. In addition to this, a total of 198 government websites were defaced by foreign hackers in the past six months," Minister of State for Communications and IT Gurudas Kamat said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

He added that several measures have been taken to detect and prevent cyber attacks .

This includes audit of all new government websites and applications and engaging National Informatics Centre (NIC) to improve safety posture etc.

Replying to another query, Kamat said a total of 420 cases were registered under the IT Act 2000 in 2009.

"A total of 217, 288 and 420 cases were registered under IT Act, 2000 during 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively, thereby showing an increasing trend.

A total of 339, 176 and 276 cases were reported under cyber-crime related sections of IPC during 2007, 2008 and 2009, respectively," he said.

A total of 2,565, 8,266 and 10,315 security incidents were reported to and handled by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) in 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively he added.

Google search formula gets more discerning

San Francisco: Google has changed its secret search formula in the United States to be more discerning when it comes to which websites are worth recommending and which should sink in the rankings.

The move announced late Thursday was part of an ongoing duel between the search titan and low-quality websites that feature only content copied from elsewhere on the Internet or use techniques to trick their way high in results.

"Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them," Google principal engineer Matt Cutts and Google fellow Amit Singhal said in a blog post.

"But, in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking."

They said the search formula change affects 11.8 percent of search queries, dropping low-quality websites in results while elevating high-quality websites with original content such as research, analysis, or in-depth reports.

"We do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem," Cutts and Singhal wrote.

"Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that's exactly what this change does."

Google said that it has been working on the issue for more than a year and engineers spent several months crafting the algorithm change, which was implemented in the United States and will be rolled out elsewhere over time.

The change at the world's most popular search engine was a hot topic among website operators, with some happy that Google knocked "content farms" down a few notches and others complaining of unfairly dropping in rank.

Content farms are in Google crosshairs because such websites are known to pack pages with copied or superficial material crafted to capitalize on attention-getting topics.

Such websites want to attract as many people as possible in hopes of making money off online advertising.

"They may have whacked eHow good, but they did it in part through a crude duplicate content filter," someone with the online name 'Content ed' said in a busy chat forum at webmasterworld.com.

"I'm seeing long established sites getting killed because they have been ripped-off, copied and rewritten/repurposed to the point that Google can't tell who was the original."

Demand Media runs eHow, answerbag and other websites referred to by some as "content farms" because they are crammed with articles seemingly geared more to score high in search rankings than be top sources of information.

"As might be expected, a content library as diverse as ours saw some content go up and some go down in Google search results," Demand Media executive vice president of operations Larry Fitzgibbon said in a blog post.

"It's impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term," he continued. "But, at this point in time, we haven't seen a material net impact on our Content & Media business."

Demand Media websites focus on "useful and original" content, Fitzgibbon maintained.

Google to launch YouTube movie service in UK

Google's YouTube plans to launch an unlimited subscription service for movies, similar to Netflix and Amazon's offering, the New York Post said.

The search giant, which has been talking with Hollywood studios for months, is looking to launch the streaming service first in Europe -- particularly the UK -- before expanding to the United States, the paper said citing executives briefed on the plan.

Google has earmarked $100 million for content deals with studios and other premium content providers in its plan to expand its offerings.

Google was not immediately available for comment.

Now Facebook plays part in college admissions too

Houston: Perfect score is not the only criteria for getting admission into a reputed college now, but off late Facebook too has become an important selection tool.

Four out of five college admissions officers use Facebook to recruit students, according to last year's survey by Kaplan Test Prep.

"We found that 82 per cent of admissions officers reported that their school is using Facebook to recruit students," Russell Schaffer, Kaplan's Senior Communication Manager, told All Facebook.

The website Student Advisor reports at least one case of an applicant being rejected because of something in his or her social media profile.

And one interviewer has said she is "absolutely" prejudiced by what she sees online about candidates.

"I think it's always better to be safe than sorry," Allison Otis, who conducts interviews for Harvard College, posted in a thread on the website Quora.

"When you apply to college you spend such a long time crafting an image through your applications and essays that to be careless about your online data is just silly".

Otis said she regularly searches Google for students' names and looks through their Facebook and Twitter profiles.

The content of a prospective student's Facebook profile is fast becoming more important than their grades, extracurricular activities, or teacher recommendations, but it’s not that huge of a surprise that the social network is playing a role in the admission process.

After all, if recruiters check Facebook when hiring future employees, there's really no reason why schools can't do the same for students. Sometimes your online profile can be the tiebreaker.

It's also important to note that the high number likely also includes college representatives finding interesting students online and encouraging them to apply to their school.

If you're a student, there are two ways to take advantage of this information.

On the one hand, you can try to make your Facebook profile as exemplary as possible. This is quite difficult given that you have to stay on top of what your Facebook friends tag you in and so on.

The other option is to simply lock down your Facebook’s privacy settings.

You should probably already be doing this regardless of whether you are applying to a college, university, or new job.

Facebook is much more of a private social network than competing services: if you don't want anyone but your friends to see your Facebook posts, then change your settings!.

A Facebook profile obviously doesn't hold as much weight as grades, test scores, extracurricular activities, teacher recommendations and essays.

But when you're looking at a tie between equally talented students, social media content could be the tiebreaker.

Dean Tsouvalas, editor of StudentAdvisor, recommends in a recent blog post that students use social media to their advantage.

He suggests following the school's Twitter feed or "liking" its Facebook fan page. Students also can post a video resume on YouTube or blog about volunteering efforts or other extracurricular activities and provide a link on their applications.

Quake-hit Christchurch braces for windstorm

Christchurch: Earthquake-scarred Christchurch braced for a violent windstorm as intense aftershocks rocked the city on Monday, creating treacherous conditions for rescuers scouring the rubble.

The battered city also faced a new danger when cracks opened in a cliff overlooking suburban streets, forcing more residents to flee their homes in the wake of last Tuesday's 6.3-magnitude tremor.

The death toll from the disaster reached 148 on Monday but police have already said they expect the final tally to exceed 200, with more than 50 still listed as "unaccounted for" in the rubble of New Zealand's second largest city.

A windstorm was forecast to whip through on Monday afternoon, officials said, meaning rescuers searching for bodies and possible survivors would have to retreat from ruins already on the brink of collapse.

"(It) will of course, if you have gale force winds, impact on structures, it will affect rescue operations in the area where we have loose masonry," Mayor Bob Parker said.

"We're hoping the weather won't be as violent, in terms of wind, as it could be, but we need to be prepared."

In the suburb of Sumner, two roads were evacuated and an access road was closed off after cracks appeared in a cliff, threatening to send the rockface tumbling onto streets below.

Egypt uprising 'repudiates' al Qaeda: McCain

Cairo: Two senior US lawmakers said on Sunday during a visit to Cairo that the Egyptian revolt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak showed change in the region was possible without extremism.

"This revolution is a repudiation of al Qaeda," Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said after talks with Arab League chief Amr Mussa.

"This revolution has shown the people of the world, not just in the Arab world, that peaceful change can come about and violence and extremism is not required in order to achieve democracy and freedom," he told reporters.

McCain and Connecticut Independent counterpart Joe Lieberman are the first members of the US congress to visit Egypt after Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising.

Before the revolution, it was thought "there were only two choices: on the one hand a secular dictatorship, on the other hand a fear of a religious extremist dictatorship," Lieberman said.

"There is a third way that Egypt has shown the world and that is a peaceful democratic future that is inclusive of the widest range of people," he said.

Before resigning, Mubarak handed power to a military council that has vowed to pave the way for a free democratic system.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has set up a panel to oversee constitutional amendments and pledged free and fair Presidential and Parliamentary Elections after a transitional period.