Mar
30
Historical Perspective
Filed Under Local News, Technology | Leave a Comment
In order to keep abreast with latest techniques and trends, training of professionals in their respective fields is always considered important in progressive broadcasting organizations. Pakistan Television with the help of German Government set up its first Central Training Institute (CTI) in 1967. CTI was housed temporarily in the premises of Television Cen• Prepare tre, Chaklala, Rawalpindi. Subsequently, it grew and developed and in 1978 Engineering Training Cell was established.
• In house training for PTV Engineers was offered. Production of TV programmes depends on craft oriented professional Producers, Engineers, Set Designers and Cameramen. To cater the required needs of technical training for Producers, Cameramen and Designers, Programme Training Cell was established in 1984.
• The main project of the academy was approved in 1981 with an estimate of Rs.33.9 million from the Government, whereas PTV had to contribute Rs.9.7 million in form of old/used equipment, both programme and engineering cell were working in rented buildings before moving to the present premises.
• In 1988, Engineering and Programme divisions were relocated in the existing building. It is carefully planned building which provides excellent facilities to the participants and creates an enabling academic environment for learning and development.
• PTV training academy is a semi autonomous unit under the administrative control of Pakistan Television Corporation and Ministry of Information & Media Development. It is managed by PTV. A Director is appointed by PTV as Director Training Academy to look after the policy matters at PTV Headquarters level. General Manager is head of the unit with financial and administrative powers.
• To improve professional standards of PTV personnel in all areas while helping in career planning.
• To prepare training materials and promote international exchange of expertise as part of Resource Development.
• To analyse the performance of PTV for self improvement.
• To introduce new concepts and formats in TV operations.
• FUNCTIONS :
• Basic training and foundation planning of producers, engineers, cameramen, designers, makeup artists, admin, finance, anchors and technicians.
• Refresher courses and updating of knowledge base at various levels
• Introduction of new concepts in programme productions, camera techniques, news, current affairs, design etc.
• Introduction to new formats in engineering.
training materials.
Profile Of PTV Academy
Government Approval
1981
Construction Started
1983
Construction Completed
1988
Location
H-9, Islamabad.
Approved Cost Of Project
Rs. 33.9 Million
Covered Area
35,000 Sq. Ft.
Facilities
Tv Studio
2,000 Sq. Ft.
Class Rooms
03 Nos.
Computer Lab
01 No.
Technical Area
-
Admin & Accounts Offices
-
Cafeteria
-
Library
-
Hostel
12 Rooms For 24 Participants
Mar
24
Apple’s iMac G5
Filed Under Science, Technology | Leave a Comment
The Apple iMac G5 is the third installment in the iMac series of personal computers. Its initial difference from the previous iMac versions in the series lies in its physical structure. Whereas the previous versions may have followed a brick like design, the iMac G5 takes a new sleeker form with added curves on its edges. This makes the new version look even better.
The iMac G5 is equipped with two firewire ports and three USB ports on its back panel. Two other USB ports are located in the keyboard for additional attachments. It is powered by Apple’s PowerPC G5 processor with 512 MB of RAM and 160 GB hard drive. It is equipped with an nVidia GeForce FX 5200 graphic card and a DVD-R SuperDrive. It has an LCD widescreen that is available in 17-inch or 20-inch screen monitor.
Another notable feature of the iMac G5 is its built-in camera known as iSight. Located above the monitor, the camera can be used for videoconferencing and even to snap some pictures or record video clips. The iSight also functions as a webcam. Its wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse also do away with cables and wires to make its simple set up quite interesting and appealing to look at.
Mar
19
Supermarket data breach still unsolved
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
PORTLAND, Maine - It was during the card approval process that more than 4 million customer accounts at grocery stores in the Northeast and Florida were exposed to fraud, even though the company meets the latest standards for data security, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Hannaford Bros. Co. doesn’t yet know how the breach - which began Dec. 7 and ended March 10 - occurred, said Carol Eleazer, vice president of marketing for Hannaford, based in Scarborough.
About 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers were exposed and at least 1,800 stolen during the seconds it takes for that information to travel to credit card companies for approval after customers swiped their cards in checkout-line machines, Eleazer said.
On Tuesday, many customers were not yet aware of the problem. Others who’d read or heard about it didn’t seem alarmed.
Shopper Mary Kellett said she’ll continue to shop at Hannaford - and use her credit card. She’ll also be more vigilant checking her card statements.
“Nobody’s really found a perfect a way to prevent this,” she said as she loaded bags of groceries into her car in a Hannaford parking lot in Portland. “But I’m still here shopping today.”
It’s virtually impossible to make credit card transactions 100 percent secure, even if companies use state-of-the-art technology and accepted security practices, said Avishai Wool, chief technical officer at AlgoSec, a computer network security company in Reston, Va.
“That’s like asking if you can have a 100-percent secure home that cannot be broken into,” Wool said. “I don’t think you can. If the bad guys spend enough money and have the appropriate equipment, they can go through anything.”
The breach affects all 165 Hannaford stores in New England and New York, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent stores in the Northeast that sell Hannaford products. Hannaford and Sweetbay are owned by the Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize America.
The Hannaford case is among the largest security breaches on record but is still much smaller than the tens of millions of credit cards that were exposed at TJX Cos. of Framingham, Mass., which has 2,500 stores and includes the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains.
Hannaford stores, Eleazer said, do not use wireless systems, which are believed to have been the entry points for other recent large-scale data thefts at retailers, including the TJX case.
The TJX breach is thought to have started when hackers intercepted wireless transfers of customer information at two Marshalls stores in Miami - an entry point that eventually gave hackers undetected access to TJX’s central databases for a year and a half.
For merchants to accept credit cards, they have to meet industry standards that credit card firms impose on merchants to protect data.
The standards are administered by the PCI Security Standards Council in Wakefield, Mass., and include making retailers maintain firewalls to protect data inside their computer systems, encrypt data when it travels across public networks, and generally restrict access to cardholder data.
The standards also require companies to track and monitor all access to cardholder data, restrict physical access to cardholder data and use and update antivirus software.
The standards are constantly being updated, said Bob Russo, general manager of PCI Security Standards Council.
“You have to think of this as an arms race,” he said. “We have to stay out in front as much as we can.”
Hannaford’s transaction system was found to be in compliance with the standards as recently as last month, Eleazer said.
“And yet we were the victim of this attack. Which further proves that, regrettably, in the wired world in which we live, vulnerabilities inevitably exist,” she said.
The U.S. Secret Service is investigating, and Hannaford continues to evaluate its technology infrastructure. None of the exposed data contained customers’ names, addresses or phone numbers - just account numbers, Eleazer said.
Still, the problem is “testament to the fact that breaches have turned into a global epidemic,” said Slavik Markovich, chief technology officer of Sentrigo Inc., a database security company based in Woburn, Mass.
“Overall, this type of attack, lasting several months and resulting in large-scale data theft and actual cases of fraud demonstrates once more that enterprises are being proactively targeted by organized crime,” Markovich said in an e-mail. “Weak links anywhere in the data chain that leave the data vulnerable to theft are exploited
S0urce: Yahoo News
Mar
19
Facebook adds privacy features
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
PALO ALTO, Calif. - Facebook Inc. is tweaking the privacy settings on its popular online hangout to let users exert greater control over which of their friends are allowed to see personal details they post.
The Palo Alto-based company said it would add features Tuesday night that will give its 67 million active users the option of selecting individual users who can or can’t access certain parts of their pages.
For example, someone who uploads a racy batch of photos or lists his cell phone number or personal e-mail address on his Facebook page can now bar some people on list of friends from seeing any of that information.
Previously, the only ways to block people from seeing specific content was to deny their friend requests outright or to create a limited profile. The second solution had the downside of blocking entire groups of people from a wide swath of content.
Facebook announced the new features Tuesday as it tries to combat criticism that it doesn’t give users enough control over what posted information their friends see.
The company also is stepping up efforts to portray itself as privacy-conscious after many users rebelled over a marketing tool called “Beacon” that tracked purchases Facebook members made on other Web sites and sent alerts to their Facebook friends about the transactions.
Facebook now allows users to turn off Beacon. The new privacy features announced Tuesday don’t extend to Beacon, however, so users who opt into that program still can’t specify which friends receive Beacon alerts.
Facebook also demonstrated a new instant messaging function Tuesday that lets Facebook friends chat with one another and is scheduled to launch in coming weeks.
S0urce: Yahoo News
Mar
19
Sony Ericsson makes profit warning
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
STCOKHOLM, Sweden - Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson on Wednesday warned that falling growth in the market for mid- and high-range handsets would have a negative impact on its sales and profits in the first quarter.
The joint venture between Sweden’s LM Ericsson and Japan’s Sony Corp. said shortages in certain components for mid-priced phones also were expected to affect sales growth in the period.
The company is due to release its earnings for the first quarter on April 23, and said it expects to report around 22 million shipped phones - leading to lower net sales compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Pretax profit was expected to be between 150 million euros and 200 million euros ($235 million and $315 million), down from 362 million euros in the quarter a year ago because of higher research and development costs.
The company added, however, that it still expects its gross margin for the three-month period to stay relatively stable compared with the same period in 2007.
Sony Ericsson President Dick Komiyama said “the market is proving to be challenging. This has been more pronounced in the mid- to high-end replacement sector of the market in Europe, where Sony Ericsson has stronger than average market share.”
He added that for the last year, his company has focused on expanding its portfolio and its presence in new markets in a move to reduce its reliance on the European high-end sector for growth.
“This strategy will continue, and our objective remains to become a top three player globally by 2011,” he said.
Komiyama said his company expects to start seeing the positive effects of recent mobile phone and platform launches in the second half of 2008
Mar
19
Toshiba losing money in HD DVD business
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
TOKYO - Toshiba lowered its earnings forecast for this fiscal year on Wednesday, blaming the reduction in part on 45 billion yen ($460 million) in costs associated with pulling the plug on its HD DVD next-generation video business.
Toshiba also said it would rack up a 65 billion yen ($666 million) operating loss in its HD DVD business.
Last month, Toshiba acknowledged defeat in the battle to establish an industry standard for high-definition video, handing victory to the competing Blu-ray disc format. Toshiba said it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders.
The Japanese electronics maker lowered its group profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31 to 125 billion yen ($1.26 billion), down from the initial forecast for 180 billion yen profit. Toshiba Corp. had earned a 137 billion yen profit the previous fiscal year.
Toshiba also lowered its sales projection for the fiscal year ending March 31 to 7.7 trillion yen ($78 billion) from the earlier 7.8 trillion yen.
A decline in prices for flash memory chips, devices for mobile phones, digital music players and other gadgets, also contributed to the sales drop, the company said.
The move to discontinue its HD DVD business ended the format war over high-definition disc formatting that began several years ago. Blu-ray - backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios - emerged the winner.
The decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format dealt the final blow, although Toshiba executives had repeatedly said they were confident of HD DVD as a technology.
Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox in adopting Blu-ray as the standard.
Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation had signed on to make HD DVD movies.
Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. Both formats play on high-definition TVs.
HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasts bigger recording capacity.
Only one video format was expected to emerge as the victor, much like VHS trumped Sony’s Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.
Toshiba shares gained 3.3 percent to 690 yen ($6.97) before the earnings revision was announced.
S0urce: Yahoo News
Mar
19
Grant to help expand rural telemedicine
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - In rural areas, where accessing health care is often a challenge, the doctors and patients of the future will increasingly be linked by virtual interstates.
That’s the vision of Dr. Dale Alverson, who predicts clinics, hospitals and private doctors’ offices will routinely be hooked into a computerized network for telemedicine, allowing specialists to review records of faraway patients, analyze tests remotely and consult doctors elsewhere.
“I believe, in the end, telehealth will be part of doing business in the health field, just like we use the telephone,” said Alverson, medical director of the Center for Telehealth at the University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center. “It won’t be looked at as something unique or special; it’s just what we do. … Just as for many of us now it’s second nature to use the Internet and the Web for health information.”
A $15.5 million grant from the Federal Communications Commission to the Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research at the Health Sciences Center will be used to design, build, operate and evaluate a Southwest Telehealth Access Grid, a broadband network largely serving rural areas that typically lack such technology.
The grant to increase the bandwidth will be a boon to New Mexico, said Gary Bauerschmidt, UNM’s director for information technology services and co-chairman of the network design and modeling committee.
“There’s a lot of sites that have no connectivity or very poor connectivity,” he said. “Telehealth is such an advantage here. Doctors just can’t travel around our state, and when you get to the reservations, it’s even more challenging.”
The grid of telehealth networks will support rural systems and connections to more than 500 sites, primarily in New Mexico and Arizona, along with several Indian Health Service sites in Colorado, California, Nevada, Texas and Utah.
“What this really means is a network of networks, a virtual electronic highway that allows you as a patient to access health care at a distance,” Alverson said.
Eventually, telemedicine could make virtual house calls, he said. With an aging population and a related increase in chronic disease, “the shift is more to getting the care to the patient where they live,” Alverson said.
Telemedicine isn’t new. The Health Sciences Center has had programs for a dozen years and already connects to nearly 100 sites in 50 communities. It offers telemedicine services in behavioral health, substance abuse and developmental disabilities, among others.
But the grid offers a chance to expand.
“The idea with the FCC is not only to support our region, but eventually to connect these regions for a national telehealth network,” Alverson said. The Southwest initiative was one of 69 nationwide the FCC funded.
A grid would not only improve the network for patient care and training health professionals, it would also allow people to switch into emergency mode for disasters or emergencies such as a flu pandemic, he said.
Leonard Thomas, chief medical officer for the Albuquerque area Indian Health Service - which serves 86,000 largely rural residents from southern Colorado to El Paso, Texas - said the IHS is maxing out its current infrastructure for telemedicine.
A grid would let the Albuquerque area IHS offer more than the teleradiology, teleopthlamology and telepsychology it now has. There are about 60 telemedicine services the network could make available, Thomas said.
“There’s a whole array out there that our providers could definitely use,” he said.
Alverson expects demand to increase as people see the network’s value.
“Telehealth doesn’t replace the value of physical interaction,” he said. “It can’t do everything, but it goes a long way to augment” doctor-patient relationships.
Telemedicine offers virtual travel to bring the patient to specialized care, allowing doctors to spot problems earlier, make adjustments in the patient’s care and avoid trips to faraway specialists, Alverson said.
For example, specialized cameras can screen for eye diseases associated with chronic conditions such as diabetes. Screenings can detect problems early, allowing intervention to prevent blindness.
Through telemedicine, screenings done in rural areas can be reviewed by urban specialists. Patients who need additional care could travel for it, while those who don’t could avoid hours away from home and work, Alverson said.
“It’s not only keeping people healthier in their community, but it’s also keeping them in that community,” he said
S0urce: Yahoo News
Mar
18
Minn. can’t bar kids from violent games
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
MINNEAPOLIS - A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an injunction against a Minnesota law that targeted at children under 17 who rent or buy violent video games.
A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with a lower-court judge that Minnesota went too far when it passed its law two years ago because the state couldn’t prove that such games hurt children.
The law would have hit kids under 17 with a $25 fine if they rented or bought a video game rated “M” for mature or “AO” for adults only. It also would have required stores to put up signs warning of the fines.
Game makers and retailers swiftly challenged the law, arguing it was an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum ruled in their favor in July 2006.
But the appellate opinion, written by Judge Roger l. Wollman, showed the judges weren’t entirely happy about it.
“Whatever our intuitive (dare we say commonsense) feelings regarding the effect” of violent video games, precedent requires undeniable proof that such violence causes psychological dysfunction, Wollman wrote.
“The requirement of such a high level of proof may reflect a refined estrangement from reality, but apply it we must,” he wrote.
Source: Yahoo News
Mar
18
Breach exposes 4.2M credit, debit cards
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
PORTLAND, Maine - A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed more than 4 million card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain announced Monday.
Hannaford said credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique card numbers were exposed, placing the case among the largest data breaches ever.
The breach affected all of its 165 stores in the Northeast, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent groceries that sell Hannaford products.
The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so far relating to the breach. No personal data such as names, addresses or telephone numbers were divulged - just account numbers.
Hannaford became aware of the breach Feb. 27. Investigators later discovered that the data breach began on Dec. 7; it wasn’t contained until March 10, said Carol Eleazer, Hannaford’s vice president of marketing in Scarborough.
“We have taken aggressive steps to augment our network security capabilities,” Hannaford president and CEO Ronald C. Hodge said in a statement released Monday. “Hannaford doesn’t collect, know or keep any personally identifiable customer information from transactions.”
The company urged its customers to monitor their credit and debit cards for unusual transactions and report any problems to authorities. It also told customers to beware of e-mails and calls from people claiming to represent Hannaford and seeking any personal information.
The U.S. Secret Service, whose duties include investigating electronic crimes such as data breaches, confirmed it’s investigating but declined to comment on the scope of the crime.
“The company did contact us, and we are investigating,” said agency spokesman Malcolm Wiley.
MasterCard, the second-biggest U.S. credit card association after Visa, issued a statement before Hannaford’s disclosure: “Because this incident is the subject of an ongoing law enforcement investigation, we cannot disclose additional details regarding the incident or otherwise comment at this time.”
Calls to Visa were not returned.
Beth Givens, director of the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said holders of debit cards involved in the Hannaford case are most at risk of fraud. Banks generally cover costs from fraudulent charges on credit cards, but a criminal could potentially drain a victim’s bank account and leave them with the task of convincing a bank they deserve to be reimbursed.
“Any time a debit card number is exposed, the affected individuals need to be contacted immediately, and their accounts should be closed down,” Givens said.
Mark Walker, an attorney for the Maine Bankers Association, said his organization sent an advisory to member banks Friday after learning of the breach. Only a few had reported suspicious activity involving the credit and debit cards they had issued customers, Walker said.
“I had expected there would be more than we’ve heard of,” Walker said. “But it’s still too early for us to tell.”
Bruce Spitzer, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bankers Association, criticized the delay in public notification of the source of the breach.
“Visa and MasterCard have stipulated in their contracts with retailers that they will not divulge who the source is when a data breach occurs,” Spitzer said. “We’ve been engaged in a dialogue for a couple years now about changing this rule…. Without knowing who the retailer is that caused the breach, it’s hard for banks to conduct a good investigation on behalf of their consumers. And it’s a problem for consumers as well, because if they know which retailer is responsible, they can rule themselves out for being at risk if they don’t shop at that retailer.”
Paul Stephens, of the San Diego-based consumer advocacy organization Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the delay in disclosure “puts consumers in a difficult position because they have no way of knowing whether their accounts may have been impacted.”
Eleazer defended Hannaford’s actions.
“We moved with all deliberate speed to get out to customers with information that we could have confidence in,” she said. “This is a complex undertaking.”
The case ranks among the largest breaches on record involving retailers, but far fewer cards were exposed than in the largest hack. That one began in 2005 - and was disclosed last year - at TJX Cos., the Framingham, Mass.-based operator of more than 2,500 discount retail stores including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls.
TJX reported at least 45.7 million cards were exposed, while banks’ court filings put the number at more than 100 million, but there has been no estimate of the total fraud
Source: Yahoo News
Mar
18
Source: Yahoo News
Filed Under Technology | Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday handed Microsoft Corp. a defeat by refusing to rule on the software giant’s request to halt an antitrust suit against it.
The suit was brought in 2004 by Waltham, Mass.-based Novell Inc., which said in court papers that Microsoft “deliberately targeted and destroyed” its WordPerfect and QuattroPro programs in order to protect its Windows operating system monopoly.
Novell alleged that Microsoft targeted the programs because they could run on alternative operating systems and therefore could enable alternatives to Windows to gain market share.
Microsoft argued in court filings that Novell did not compete in the operating systems market, and therefore cannot claim to have been harmed by alleged anticompetitive conduct by Microsoft in that market.
A federal district court and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., sided with Novell and allowed the suit to proceed. Microsoft’s lawyers said that decision expands the application of antitrust laws “far beyond their intended scope.”
Plaintiffs in antitrust suits can seek damages that are triple the actual harm.
A federal court ruled in 2001 that Microsoft had illegally protected its Windows operating system monopoly. As part of a settlement with the federal government and 17 states the following year, Microsoft agreed to court oversight of its business practices. A federal judge in January extended that oversight to November 2009.
The federal government’s antitrust lawsuit focused on Microsoft’s anticompetitive actions against Netscape and Sun Microsystems Inc. Novell argues that its software is similar to Netscape’s Navigator browser and Sun’s Java: neither competed directly with Windows, but Microsoft saw them as benefiting potential competitors.
Novell sold WordPerfect and QuattroPro to Corel Corp. in 1996.
Despite the suit, the two companies later became business partners. In 2006 Microsoft agreed to pay Novell $240 million to license its Linux enterprise software and to spend $94 million over five years to market both Novell’s software and Windows to its corporate customers. Microsoft also agreed to pay Novell $108 million under a patent agreement.
The deal also required Novell to pay millions in royalties to Microsoft.
The Supreme Court’s decision allows Novell’s lawsuit to continue. Microsoft said it would defend itself in lower court. “We believe the facts will show that Novell’s claims, which are 12 to 14 years old, are without merit,” David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesman, said in an e-mail.
The case is Microsoft Corp. v. Novell Inc., 07-924. Chief Justice John Roberts, who owns Microsoft stock, recused himself from the decision