'Netra' for internet surveillance will shortly launch by Government

KOLKATA: The government will shortly launch 'Netra', the defence ministry's internet spy system that will be capable of detecting words like 'attack', 'bomb', 'blast' or 'kill' in a matter of seconds from reams of tweets, status updates, emails, instant messaging transcripts, internet calls, blogs and forums.

The system will also be able to capture any dubious voice traffic passing through software such as Skype or Google Talk, says a telecom department note seen by ET. "Intelligence Bureau and Cabinet Secretariat are currently testing 'Netra', which will be deployed by all national security agencies," the note says. "The specifications of the 'Netra' system can be taken as frozen following tests by the Intelligence Bureau and Cabinet Secretariat, and can be considered for providing multiple user access to security agencies," it adds.

The 'Netra' internet surveillance system has been developed by Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics (CAIR), a lab under Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO).

To hasten its deployment, the home ministry will shortly approach DRDO to allocate additional manpower resources to Bangalore-based CAIR, which is also working with the government's telecom technology arm, Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) to formalise a strategy for tracking internet use.

The 'Netra' deployment strategy was recently discussed by an apex inter-ministerial group headed by DoT's member (technology) and included top officials of the Cabinet Secretariat, home ministry, DRDO, CAIR, Intelligence Bureau, C-DoT and Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). The panel also deliberated on ways to respond to computer security incidents, track system vulnerabilities and promote effective IT security practices across the country.

During the meeting, it was also decided that 300 GB of storage space for intercepted internet traffic would be given to a maximum three security agencies, including the IB and Cabinet Secretariat, while an extra 100 GB would be assigned to the remaining law enforcement agencies, the minutes of the inter-ministerial panel meeting showed. Deployment of 'Netra' by security agencies is slated to pave the way for a national internet scanning & coordination centre, which India plans to establish along the lines of existing facilities in the UK, US, China and Iran.

Tablets and apps might be doctor's orders of the future

If you have ever sat in a doctor's waiting room, next to someone with a hacking cough and with only a pile of out-of-date Reader's Digests for company, then you may have asked whether the system was fit for 21st Century living.
The NHS seems under increasing pressure, from GP surgeries to accident and emergency rooms. It feels as if the healthcare system is in desperate need of CPR - the question is will technology be the thing that brings it back to life?
Daniel Kraft is a trained doctor who heads up the medicine school at the Singularity University, a Silicon Valley-based organisation that runs graduate and business courses on how technology is going to disrupt the status quo in a variety of industries.

Tricorders were a must-have on the Starship Enterprise

 

When I interview him he is carrying a device that looks suspiciously like a Tricorder, the scanners that were standard issue in Star Trek.
"This is a mock-up of a medical tricorder that can scan you and get information. I can hold it to my forehead and it will pick up my heart rate, my oxygen saturation, my temperature, my blood pressure and communicate it to my smartphone," he explains.
In future, Dr Kraft predicts, such devices will be linked to artificial intelligence agents on smartphones, which in turn will be connected to super-computers such as IBM's Watson, to give people instant and accurate diagnoses.
"It may say, 'Daniel, this is looking bad - you need to go to the emergency room', or it might say this is probably just the flu because there is a lot in the neighbourhood and your symptoms are consistent with that."
No such device is yet on the market but in the US there is currently a $10m (£6m) prize on offer to design one that is suitable for use in the home; 300 teams are competing.

Devices can enable doctors to closely monitor a patient

Devices can enable doctors to closely monitor a patient

Wearable devices such as Nike's FuelBand or Jawbone's Up are making people ever more aware of their health.
 
Wristbands
 
These days it seems as if there is an app for every medical condition. Diabetics can monitor their blood sugar levels via their smartphones, there are apps to track diet, pregnancy and menstrual cycles. It is even possible to get smartphone-enabled blood pressure cuffs.
Dr Kraft is wearing four wristbands, monitoring a range of things including his heart rate, his sleep pattern and how many steps he takes each day.
Such devices, he says, make him the "CEO of his own health" and he thinks that doctors will increasingly be prescribing such tools instead of handing out pills.
"I might prescribe you exercise. I might say, 'Here's a band and I want you to wear this and I want to see that you are improving your exercise.'"
Last year, the UK's Department of Health said that it was looking at the possibility of doctors prescribing apps, although they are currently unregulated, leading some medical experts to question what role they should play in healthcare.
In September the US Food and Drug Administration said that it would regulate only the small number of apps that act like medical instruments.
 
Surgery via Glass?
 
"Such tools can be valuable but there are privacy issues about whether patients want to share their data with their doctor as well as how accurate such data is," said Mary Hamilton, managing director of consultancy Accenture's technology labs.

Google Glass could prove a useful tool for surgeons

 

Accenture and Philips recently conducted a proof-of-concept demo in which a surgeon wore Google Glass, allowing him to simultaneously monitor a patient's vital signs and react to surgical procedural developments without having to turn away from the patient.
Such devices could also be used to instantly bring up patient data when a doctor conducted his ward rounds, says Ms Hamilton.
If wearable technology and the data it generates does get integrated into the health service, GPs will know exactly whether a patient is following doctor's orders.
"If you do a good job your healthcare premiums might get lowered or the NHS might give you an incentive like tickets to a concert," says Dr Kraft.
Insurance firms such as PruHealth are already offering lower premiums for those who can prove they have healthy lifestyles.
 
Citizen scientists
 

Citizen scientists are offering new ways to solve medical problems

 

Last year, speaking at a health conference, tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Sun Microsystems Vinod Khosla made the extraordinary claim that in the future 80% of what doctors do will be replaced by technology.
He likened current healthcare to "witchcraft" and argued that machine learning would be a much more efficient, accurate and cheaper diagnosis tool.
The shift is already happening, says Dr Kraft. "There are robotic anaesthesiologists coming online and applications to take pictures of a skin lesion that can do a better job than dermatologists."
Meanwhile IBM's Watson is giving human doctors a run for their money when it comes to diagnosing cancer.
In February the super-computer was made available to rent to any hospital or clinic that wanted to get its opinion on oncology-related matters - and with its ability to take in and analyse vast quantities of data, it may just be just the extra medical mind that doctors need.
But it isn't just machines changing the way medicine is conducted.
When 14-year-old Jack Andraka discovered a new way of testing for pancreatic cancer just by searching Google and borrowing some lab space from nearby Johns Hopkins University, it was an indication that the old way of doing things might be over.
Prof Raymond McCauley runs the US's first ever bio-hack lab, where members of the public are invited to come in and "play around with DNA" and conduct other experiments.
"Things that were major government and academic projects a few years ago are now things that junior high school students are doing in their basements," he says.
Whatever the future for healthcare there is little question that the system is in desperate need of an overhaul.
"Healthcare today in many ways is broken," says Dr Kraft.
"There are lots of challenges with costs, ageing populations, fragmented big data but we have the opportunity with many of these new and exponential technologies... to help reinvent elements of health and medicine.
"Then we can actually do healthcare rather than what we are doing today, which is sickcare."

Revenge porn site owner arrested in San Diego

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Bendable screens is future of Smartphones

SAN FRANCISCO: This may be remembered as the year smartphones became boring.

Although high-definition displays on smartphones have gotten bigger and their cameras have gotten better, the pace of gee-whiz innovation has dawdled.

Smartphone and software makers are working on ways to snap out of this technological lull, although it probably will be at least another year or two before breakthroughs revolutionize the design and function of mobile computing devices.

In a foreshadowing of things to come, LG Electronics is boasting about the G Flex, a new phone with a curved display. Previously available in Korea and Singapore, the concave device arrived in Hong Kong on Friday.

"We want to claim this as the future of smart devices," Ramchan Woo, the head of LG's mobile product planning division, said during a recent demonstration in San Francisco.

If such visions are realized, smartphones and tablets will be equipped with display screens that can be rolled up like a scroll or folded like a wallet.

Making the devices even easier to carry around will be important if software makers want to deepen the bond between people and their phones. That could happen as smarter tracking tools and voice-recognition technology let smartphones understand habits and thoughts like a family member.

The future smartphone "will be small enough to carry with you at all times without thinking about it, and it will be essential enough that you won't want to get rid of it," Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo said. "It will become a context engine. It will be aware of where it is, where you are going and what you need."

The G Flex provides a peek at the shape of things to come. Despite its name, the G Flex isn't pliable. The device is slightly bowed from top to bottom, allowing it to curve toward a person's mouth when used for phone calls. It also has a curved battery, something LG says is a first for smartphones. LG applied a "self-healing" protective coat on the G Flex to automatically repair any minor scratches.

More than anything, the G Flex is meant to begin the smartphone's evolution from the primitive state of flat screens. In theory, the curved-screen technology will lead to bendable screens, which will then pave the way to foldable screens. If that progression plays out, it would be possible to fold a larger smartphone so it can easily fit into a pocket.

For now, though, the G Flex's size makes it too cumbersome for most people to lug around. It has a 6-inch screen, measured diagonally, making it among the largest phones out there. The cost also will limit its appeal. LG introduced the G Flex in its home country of South Korea last month for $940. LG wants to sell the G Flex in the US, but hasn't set a date or price or reached distribution deals with any wireless carriers.

Another Korean company, Samsung Electronics, also is selling a concave smartphone there. Unlike the G Flex's vertical bow, Samsung's Galaxy Round curves horizontally from left to right when it's held upright. With a price tag of about $1,000, the phone is more an expensive novelty than a mainstream product.

Like LG, Samsung is setting the stage for bigger things to come. Samsung vice chairman Kwon Oh-hyun told analysts last month that the company believes it can produce a mobile device with a foldable display by 2015.

Samsung appears to be working on two slightly different concepts, according to two analysts who saw prototypes of what's in the company's product pipeline during last month's meetings. Reporters weren't given a chance to see the prototypes.

One featured a tablet-sized display panel that could be folded in half in the screen's mid-section, according to the analysts. The display was thin and could be folded in only one direction. The rest of the panel was firm and flat, the analysts said. Another version had a more flexible screen capable of bending anywhere.

An Apple blueprint for making a device with a curved display was granted a US patent this week, a development likely to feed recent speculation that the iPhone maker is working on a concave model. The Cupertino, California, company declined to comment.

Other device makers may show off products with curved screens in Las Vegas next month at CES, where tech companies often unveil their latest innovations.

Building smartphones with more pliable screens will pose several challenges for manufacturers. The battery, smartphone chips and other key components will have to become flexible, too, so they can bend with the device. Flexible screens also will probably be made of plastic, a material more likely to degrade or fail when exposed to high temperatures, oxygen or water.

The push to turn smartphones into more intelligent devices appears to be further along than the attempts to transform the display screens.

Both Apple and Google, the maker of the Android operating system and the world's dominant search engine, already offer voice recognition technology and virtual assistants that enable smartphones to engage in rudimentary conversations and offer helpful tips. The ultimate goal is for smartphones to become so intuitive and efficient that they reflexively cater to their owners' needs.

"You'll be speaking to the phone, asking it to do things, and it will be responding and actually doing what you intend," said Dennis Woodside, CEO of Google's device-making subsidiary, Motorola Mobility.

The technological advances could border on the supernatural, according to IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. He expects the future relationship between people and their phones to be akin to fictional billionaire Tony Stark's connection with the computer-controlled armour that he dons to become Iron Man, a comic-book hero popularized in a trilogy of movies starring Robert Downey Jr.

If Llamas is right, future smartphones will become a person's navigator, security blanket, counselor and talisman. Without a smartphone to come to the rescue, a person may even feel reduced to being a mere mortal.

Instagram adds direct messaging

Photo and video sharing app Instagram has added direct messaging to its service in a nod to the success of rivals such as Whatsapp and Snapchat.

Instagram Direct lets users send a picture or video to up to 15 people, without it appearing to the public.
Only someone a user "follows" on the service could send them a direct image, founder Kevin Systrom explained.
He dismissed suggestions that the app may soon add a Snapchat-style "disappearing" photograph option.
But the new Instagram features do borrow various popular aspects from its rival:

• images and video can be sent to individuals or a group
• the sender is notified when the content has been viewed
• small amounts of text can accompany the message

Only images and video from people a user already followed on Instagram would be automatically shown, Mr Systrom said, but other users could send content that would appear only when the recipient agreed to view them.

 

Jack Kent Analyst

He added that Instagram would not monitor messages for explicit or offensive content - but that the usual reporting methods would apply to private messages as well as those shared publicly.

Mr Systrom did not elaborate on whether the feature would be used to deliver advertising directly to user's private inboxes.
IHS mobile analyst Jack Kent told the BBC that making money from the feature would be a secondary concern to Instagram - which is owned by Facebook - at this stage.
"When you look at Facebook's wider strategy with new services and features, the first goal isn't necessarily monetisation," he said.
"It's building on maintaining scale. With these new features, it's about maintaining and growing the audience."
Messenger threat Instagram was bought last year by Facebook for $1bn (£629m), at a time when it shared only photographs, often with "artistic" filters applied.
Gradually, the app has grown - the most significant addition being the option to share 15-second video clips, emulating Twitter's short video service, Vine.
It has also added advertising into users' feeds.

Snapchat's Evan Spiegel is reported to have rejected a $3bn takeover offer from Facebook

But it is instant messaging that has Instagram and Facebook looking over their respective shoulders.
According to reports, one of the most popular apps, Whatsapp, has grown to boast 350 million active users worldwide - compared with Instagram's 150 million.
Other competitors, such as Viber and Kik, have also gained rapid popularity. Snapchat, an app in which messages "self destruct" after 15 seconds or less, reportedly turned down a $3bn takeover offer from Facebook.
Furthermore, some studies have suggested that teenagers are moving away from Facebook, frustrated that a social network that was once dominated by their peers now attracts their parents.
Mr Kent said Thursday's Instagram announcement was all about maintaining and growing an audience by incorporating features users are have started to use elsewhere.
"Instagram so far has been built on public profiles," he said. "But more recent successes in the social networking space have been around private interaction."
Twitter, which has had direct messaging since its inception, recently expanded its offering to allow the private sending of images and other media.

Bots take up 61% of web traffic

If you are visiting this page the chances are that you are not a human, at least according to research.

A study by Incapsula suggests 61.5% of all website traffic is now generated by bots. The security firm said that was a 21% rise on last year's figure of 51%.
Some of these automated software tools are malicious - stealing data or posting ads for scams in comment sections.
But the firm said the biggest growth in traffic was for "good" bots.
These are tools used by search engines to crawl websites in order to index their content, by analytics companies to provide feedback about how a site is performing, and by others to carry out other specific tasks - such as helping the Internet Archive preserve content before it is deleted.
Fuzzy data To generate its report, Incapsula said it observed 1.45 billion bot visits over a 90 day period.
The information was sourced from 20,000 sites operated by its clients.
Dr Ian Brown, associate director at Oxford University's Cyber Security Centre - which was not involved in the study - said the figures were useful as an indication of the growth in non-human traffic, even if they were not accurate to the nearest decimal place.
"Their own customers may or may not be representative of the wider web," he told the BBC.
"There will also be some unavoidable fuzziness in their data, given that they are trying to measure malicious website visits where by definition the visitors are trying to disguise their origin."
Impersonator bots Despite the overall growth in bot activity, the firm said that many of the traditional malicious uses of the tools had become less common.

A rise in botnet traffic may force website operators to invest in more servers

It said there had been a 75% drop in the frequency spam links were being automatically posted. It suggested this was in part down to Google's efforts to make it harder to carry out the practice.
It also said it had seen a 10% drop in hacking tool bot activities, including the use of code to distribute malware, to steal credit cards and to hijack and deface websites
However, it noted that there had been an 8% rise in the use of "other impersonator bots" - a classification including software that masquerades as being from a search engine or other legitimate agent in order to fool security measures.
It said these bots tended to be custom-made to carry out a specific activity, such as a DDoS attack - forcing a server to crash taking a website or service offline by flooding it with traffic - or to steal company secrets.
Activity by "good bots", it added, had grown by 55% over the year. It suggested this might be because the legitimate services were sampling the net more frequently. This might, for example, allow a search engine to add breaking news stories to its results more quickly.
Dr Brown noted that these extra visits were likely to put website operators under more strain, meaning they would have to buy more computer servers to handle the extra traffic. But he played down the risk.
"While the trend will increase the costs of website operators, I think that, at this scale, it's something they can cope with," he added.

Southampton University supercomputer

The supercomputer will allow academics to work on more projects at faster speeds

A £3.2m supercomputer, one of the most powerful in the UK, has been installed at the University of Southampton.

The Iridis4 has 12,200 processors, each of which can perform a trillion calculations per second - a measurement referred to as a "teraflop".
The IBM machine also has a million gigabytes of disk space and 50 terabytes of memory.
Home computers generally have between 500GB and 2TB of disc space and about 4GB to 6GB of memory.
There are 1,024 gigabytes in a terabyte.
The university said the new machine would allow academics to work on more projects at faster speeds.
'Top 10' Pro vice-chancellor Prof Philip Nelson said: "Staying ahead of the game in high performance computing [HPC] is vital to help the university stay competitive.
"Simulation and computation enabled by HPC are recognised globally as the third pillar of modern research and this investment will ensure we remain world leaders in this field."
Iridis4 will be used for a range of research, including engineering, archaeology and medicine, as well as computer science.
The world's most powerful computer is China's Tianhe-2, which can perform 33,860 trillion calculations per second.
The university said its new computer ranked among the top 10 in the UK.
The most powerful is at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in Warrington.
Others are based at the University of Edinburgh, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the United Kingdom Meteorological Office.