GCSE/IGCSE and AS/A Level ICT-Applied ICT

(Reuters) – More than a million BlackBerry users may have key services in Saudi Arabia and the UAE cut off after authorities stepped up demands on smartphone maker Research In Motion for access to encrypted messages sent over the device.

BlackBerry’s Messenger application has spread rapidly in the Gulf Arab region but because the data is encrypted and sent to offshore servers, it cannot be tracked locally.

“Certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns,” the United Arab Emirates’ Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a statement.

The UAE said it would suspend BlackBerry Messenger, email and Web browser services from October 11 until a fix was found, while industry sources said Saudi Arabia had ordered local telecom companies to freeze Messenger this month.

Sunday’s moves cap wrangling with regulators over the issue, which first surfaced in 2007.

India raised similar security concerns last week, and Bahrain in April warned against using BlackBerry Messenger to distribute local news. As far back as 2007, France cautioned officials about using the services.

Indian security officials were concerned that BlackBerry’s encrypted data could be used to coordinate acts against the state. They have clamped down on mobile phone operators in the wake of 2008 attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai.

The UAE, home to Gulf financial hub Dubai, said it would halt BlackBerry services until an “acceptable solution” was developed and applied.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6700C920100802

The UK’s Metropolitan Police is to investigate Google over its capture of data from unsecured wi-fi networks, following a complaint from human rights group Privacy International.

It is likely that the police will interview Google staff in the UK. It is one of many ongoing global investigations into Google.

Police say the initial investigation will take around 10 days, after which it will be passed to a specialist team if it is established that Google was in breach of Ripa or the Wireless Telegraphy Act.

The firm has admitted it collected data from unsecured wi-fi networks, although it said this was accidental.

The data was captured by Google’s Street View cars as a result of code, designed by an engineer for a separate project, being accidentally incorporated into the system.

It captured data in 30 countries, many of which are now investigating Google. France and Germany have demanded to see the data that was collected to determine exactly what was stored.

In the US, Connecticut’s Attorney General is leading a 30-state investigation and has demanded Google “come clean” about how the code came to be incorporated in its Street View system.

Google ordered an independent audit of the code, which revealed unencrypted data had been written to hard drives.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, welcomed the police investigation.

“An evidence-based approach to this complex matter is sorely needed now,” he said.

“We hope that this difficult process will give Google pause for thought about how it conducts itself. Perhaps in future the company will rely less on PR spin and more on good governance and reliable product oversight,” he added.

Google said that it is co-operating fully with all investigations and has apologised for the error.

In a blog post it said that it was “quite simply a mistake.”

“The engineering team at Google works hard to earn your trust, and we are acutely aware that we failed badly here,” the blog read.

BBC

I’ve seen this on bbc.co.uk. Best ever graphical information about supercomputing. You can use this graphic to explore the world’s fastest number crunchers or find out more about alternative supercomputer powers .

The data used to generate the interactive treemap visualisation come from a draft of the June 2010 TOP500 Supercomputing list. This ranks most of the world’s fastest supercomputers twice a year. There may be minor differences between this list and the final published list.

The graphic allows you to see the visualise the list by the speed of each machine; the operating systems used; what it is used for; the country where it is based; the maker of the silicon chips used to build the machine and the manufacturer of the super computer.

The maps were produced using the Prefuse Flare software, developed by the University of California Berkeley.

You can see this amazing graphics from here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10187248.stm

This is the more advanced version of the LittleDog robot, created by the University of Southern California. The robot is completely autonomous and trained by machine learning algorithms. The video is real-time, i.e., not sped up.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUQsRPJ1dYw[/youtube]

I created this tutorial for A level students those preparing for CIE Applied ICT exam.

In this tutorial i will show you how to solve AS Level Applied ICT November 2008 Question Paper 2. You can download this paper and supporting files from CIE website here: http://www.cie.org.uk/qualifications/academic/uppersec/alevel/subject?assdef_id=731

This is the first part of the tutorial from question number 1 to question number 5. I’ll upload the rest soon.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK6cZ9iRYz0[/youtube]

Recently i have been working on compiling and collecting resources about GCSE/IGCSE examinations. So I’ve created an e-book by using Wikipedia Book Creator to help people those preparing for GCSE/IGCSE exams.

Here is the quick link to download this e-book:

GCSE AND IGCSE HANDBOOK (PDF)

Today i’ve seen this video on youtube showing how you can view your friends live chats and pending friend requests on facebook. This was one of the biggest security hole on facebook which has been made public.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny8ui4delEo[/youtube]

After a short time Facebook announced that they have fixed the problem.

Here is the update from Facebook:

“For a limited period of time, a bug permitted some users’ chat messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends by manipulating the “preview my profile” feature of Facebook privacy settings. When we received reports of the problem, our engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat function. We also pushed out a fix to take care of the visible friend requests which is now complete. Chat will be turned back on across the site shortly. We worked quickly to resolve this matter, ensuring that once the bug was reported to us, a solution was quickly found and implemented.”

According to the information that has been posted on CIE website that there will be some changes in the future syllabus of IGCSE ICT (0417).

Section 1

There is a new learning outcome:

g) describe recent developments in ICT

Section 2

The description of Chip readers and PIN pads has been updated to read:

- Payment cards, ID cards, door control systems, public transport tickets

The description of Optical Character Reader has been updated slightly to read:

- Inputting text to a computer ready for processing by another software package such as word processors, spreadsheets, databases etc.

The description of Light pen has been updated slightly to read:

- Where desktop space is limited, it is used instead of a mouse or for drawing applications where a graphics tablet might be too big.

Section 3

The description of DVD RAM has been updated to read:

- Same properties as DVD RW but quicker access and data can be overwritten more easily. Similar to floppies in nature but has 3000– 6000 times more storage and uses optical technology.

- HD DVD has been removed from the syllabus

The description of Blu-ray has been updated to read:

- Capacities of 25Gb, 50Gb and 100 Gb. Used for storing films (movies). 25Gb equates to 2 hrs HDTV, 13hrs standard definition TV. It is possible to playback video on a disc while simultaneously recording HD video. (Will be) used for storage of PC data.

Sections 9 – 15

These sections have been reworded and reorganised in response to the feedback and queries received from centres and to clarify exactly what is expected of candidates. The small changes in substantive content that have been made are described below.

Section 11

The definition of a database field structure has been altered slightly so that it states that the candidate should define an appropriate database record structure and assign appropriate field/data types.

Candidates are asked to enter and amend data rather than just enter data. The syllabus also specifies that data should be entered with 100% accuracy.

Section 15

This section has been substantially reorganised, in particular the examples of HTML code have been removed from the syllabus. The set of skills that candidates might be tested on has not changed, with the following exception; candidates are being asked to:

- Understand the need for low resolution images for data transfer.

Section 16

As well as ensuring consistency, candidates are now ask to understand the need for consistency.

You can get the current and future IGCSE ICT syllabuses from CIE website here:

http://www.cie.org.uk/qualifications/academic/middlesec/igcse/subject?assdef_id=969

Hugo Chavez is on Twitter now!

Hugo Chavez on Twitter

His first tweet was a simple message to say he was off on a working trip to Brazil in Spanish.

“Epa que tal? Aparecí como lo dije: a la medianoche. Pa Brasil me voy. Y muy contento a trabajar por Venezuela. Venceremos!!” which means “Hey how’s it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I’m off to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!”

I love also his short bio on Twitter:

“Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Soldado Bolivariano, Socialista y Antiimperialista.”

Mr Chavez have more than 80.000 followers when i last checked.

http://twitter.com/chavezcandanga

Micro-blogging service Twitter can be used to predict the future box-office takings of blockbuster films, according to researchers at Hewlett Packard (HP).

The computer scientists studied 3 million messages – known as tweets – about 25 movies, including Avatar.

They found the rate at which messages were produced could be used to accurately predict the box office takings before the film opened.

Further analysis of the content of the messages could predict ongoing success.

“Our predictions were incredibly close,” Bernardo Huberman, head of the social computing lab at HP, told BBC News.

For example, he said, the system predicted that zombie film The Crazies would take $16.8m in its first weekend in the US. It actually took $16.06m.

The team forecast that romantic drama Dear John would take $30.71m in its first US weekend. It took $30.46m.

The unpublished research has been posted on the Arxiv website.

Social sentiment

The team were able to make their first-weekend revenue predictions by analysing the torrent of tweets about a particular film in the run up to its release.

“We developed algorithms to analyse these tweets and measure the rate at which they were produced, said Dr Huberman.

“Our intuition was that the faster people tweet, the more likely they are to go and see it.”

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8612292.stm