Wednesday, October 6, 2010

BlackBerry

Recently, BlackBerry is in news. Here we are going to discuss what BlackBerry means.
BlackBerry is a line of mobile e-mail and smart phone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) since 1996.
BlackBerry functions as a personal digital assistant with address book, calendar and to-do list capabilities. It also functions as a portable media player with support for music and video playback and camera picture and video capabilities. BlackBerry is primarily known for its ability to send and receive (push) Internet e-mail wherever mobile network service coverage is present, or through Wi-Fi connectivity. BlackBerry is mainly a messaging phone with the largest array of messaging features in a smartphone today. This includes auto-text, auto-correct, text prediction, support for many languages, keyboard shortcuts, text emoticons, push email, push Facebook and MySpace notifications, push EBay notifications, push instant messaging with BlackBerry Messenger, Google Messenger, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger; threaded text messaging and a customizable indicator light near the top right of all Blackberry devices. All notifications and conversations from applications are shown in a unified messaging application which third party applications can access also. Many of these applications would have to be running in the background of other phones to be used. BlackBerry's push gives BlackBerry devices their renowned battery life. All data on the phone is compressed through BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS). BlackBerry has about two thirds less data transfer than any other smart phone, while supplying the same information.
BlackBerry commands a 20.8% share of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the second most popular platform after Nokia's Symbian OS. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies.
The first BlackBerry device was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager. In 2002, the more commonly known smart phone BlackBerry was released, which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, Internet faxing, Web browsing and other wireless information services. It is an example of a convergent device.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Cyber Attacks

Cyber attacks are the newest form of warfare!! It is true. An article published in The Hindu dated 04/10/2010 by Mr. Peter Beaumont confirms this. The article says an attack aimed at an Iranian nuclear plant and a recently revealed 2008 incident at a US base show the spread of cyber weapons. The gist of the article is reproduced below:

A deliberate computer worm attack was happened in the computer system of the U.S military's central command which would take 14 months to eradicate. The Modus Operandi was, worm infected memory sticks were scattered in the bathroom at a military base of U.S with a hope in the human error. Somebody picked up the memory stick and used in the computer system which resulted in infection of worm to the computer network.

Like wise an attack of worm has happened in an Iranian nuclear reactor which delayed the commissioning of the reactor.

The full story is available in The Hindu daily, dated 04th October 2010.