Microsoft To Offer Free Internet Across India Using “White Space” Tech

Microsoft to offer free Internet across India, Technology firm Microsoft has announced its plans to bring internet connectivity across India free of cost,the firm has proposed to use the “white space” – the unused spectrum between two TV channels – to provide free connectivity to large sections of the Indian population.
In the field of telecommunications, “White Space” refers to the unused spectrum between two TV channels. These unused frequencies are believed to hold the key for providing wireless broadband Internet access across the country. Devices which can be used in such white spaces are called “white space devices” (WSDs). Microsoft plans to use this white space technology to provide free last mile internet access to users in the most far-flung and hitherto inaccessible areas in India,according to the report.
The huge social networking giant (Facebook) and the most popular search engine (Google) are already working on their internet beaming drones and Project Loon (which involves placing balloon in high attitudes in the stratosphere) to provide internet access to remote areas across the country. Microsoft, not wanting to be left behind, will join them soon.

“Wi-fi has a range of only about 100 meters, whereas the 200-300 MHz spectrum band available in the white space can reach up to 10 km,” said Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India. “This spectrum belongs mainly to Doordarshan and the government and is not used at all. We have sought clearance for a pilot project in two districts.”

At present, Microsoft is looking forward to prove that their proposed technology is commercially viable. For that, it will require a green signal from various Indian regulatory bodies for the use of spectrum. Considering that the project, if successful, could mean internet access at a speed of upto 4Mbps at a cost of only Rs 130 per user, it does sound like a great idea
If the pilot projects in these two districts turn out to be successful, the project might be rolled out all over the country. This could be a huge shot in the arm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India campaign, Make in India initiatives and the Indian Prime Minister’s slogan of “IT+ IT= IT” (that is Indian Talent + Information Technology = India Tomorrow)
The new government which took over in May 2014 has shown keen interest towards the development of the IT sector. Under the leadership of the new Prime Minister, the government is working towards extending broadband access to 2.5 lakh panchayats across the country.
The ambitious Digital India project envisages providing broadband connectivity across the country by connecting 250,000 gram panchayats via optic fibre cables, thereby providing digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, digital governance and services on demand and digitally empowering all citizens.The plan was approved by the Modi Cabinet on August 30.

Why You Think Your Phone Is Vibrating When It Really Isn't

It happens to me maybe once or twice a month. Just the other morning I was in the elevator with my bike, riding up to our third-floor office. I felt a vibration in my pocket and reached for my phone. It wasn’t there. It was in my messenger bag, I quickly remembered as I tried to act casual.
I’m not alone in this experience. A handful of studies in recent years have examined the prevalence of phantom cellphone vibrations, and they’ve come up with impressive numbers, from 68 percent of the medical staff at a Massachusetts hospital to 89 percent of undergraduates at a midwestern university, to more than 90 percent of Taiwanese doctors-in-training in the middle of their internships.
“Phantom vibrations are this unusual curiosity that speaks to our connection with our phones,” said David Laramie, a clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills who did his doctoral thesis on people’s relationships with their mobile phones. Laramie’s thesis, published in 2007, was the first study to examine the prevalence of phantom vibrations and phantom ringing. Two-thirds of the people he surveyed had experienced one or the other. “It’s part of the modern landscape and our relationship with technology,” he said.
In 2012, the Macquarie Dictionary, the authoritative source of Australian English, chose “phantom vibration syndrome” as its “ Word of the Year .” (In what presumably was a coincidence, the readers choice award that year went to “First World problem.”)
OK, so it’s not among the most pressing issues of our day (indeed, the vast majority of people surveyed describe the sensation as not at all bothersome at all, or only a little bit bothersome). But it’s an intriguing phenomenon. Healthy people don’t often hallucinate. But lots of healthy people experience this particular hallucination. What could be causing it?
Hallucination may not be the most appropriate term, according to Laramie. “You’re misinterpreting something, but there is this external cue. You’re not totally making it up.” A compelling alternative, he suggests, is pareidolia. “That’s the phenomenon where you see a face in the clouds or hear ‘Paul is dead’ when you listen to the Beatles backwards.” (Or see the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich ). Essentially, it’s your brain getting a little bit carried away with its normally very useful talent for finding patterns in the world around you.
Laramie was inspired to study phantom phone phenomena by his own experience with phantom ringing. “Back then I had a certain ring that involved a pitch that was akin to sounds I bumped into in my life all the time,” he said. When he changed his ringtone, the phantom ringing stopped.
In his thesis research, he found the two biggest predictors of phantom vibrations and ringing were age (young people experienced them more) and the extent to which people relied on their phone to regulate their emotional state—checking their phone when they wanted to calm down, for example, or get an emotional boost. “My hunch is at this point it’s a generational thing,” Laramie said. Twenty- and thirty-somethings who grew up with cellphones and have them ingrained in their daily lives probably experience the effect more than older people or technophobes, he says.
For a more mechanistic explanation, I called Sliman Bensmaia, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago who studies the sense of touch. He was familiar with phantom vibrations, but says he didn’t realize how common they are. “I had no idea this is a thing,” he said. “But it’s happened to me on a few occasions, to the extent that I reached for my phone and was surprised it wasn’t there.”
There are two types of receptors in the skin that detect vibrations: Meissner’s corpuscles, which specialize in slow vibrations, and Pacinian corpuscles, which specialize in higher-frequency vibrations. Most cellphones vibrate at between 130 and 180 hertz, which falls in between the sweet spots of the two types of receptors. Those vibrations probably activate both types of receptors, but probably activate the Pacinian corpuscles more, Bensmaia says.
Like Laramie, Bensmaia thinks phantom vibrations are a result of the brain’s penchant for filling in the gaps to find patterns. A visual equivalent, he suggests, is seeing the outlines of furniture when you walk through your house in near-total darkness, or seeing the image of a Dalmatian in a field of black and white dots (it’s hard to see at first, but once you detect the pattern it’s almost impossible not to see it).
“What happens, I think, is that because your clothes are rubbing against your skin, you cause activity in the same receptors, and that activity is just similar enough to the activity caused by a vibrating phone that it triggers the learned association and the perception of a vibrating phone,” he said. It’s not clear exactly where in the brain that occurs, Bensmaia says, but it probably involves the primary somatosensory cortex and other higher-level areas that process the sense of touch.
If that explanation is right, you should only experience phantom vibrations where you commonly keep your phone, and probably not when you’re naked. Laramie says he’s had one or two people tell him they often experience phantom vibrations when they wear corduroy pants, which would seem to fit well with the pattern completion hypothesis, especially if the ridges slide across the skin at a frequency that approximates that of a vibrating cellphone. (It’s too hot in California to wear corduroys right now, but I pulled out a pair and did a quick calculation: at 14 ridges per inch, if an inch of fabric slid across the skin in a tenth of a second, say as you took a step, that would get you to 140 hertz, which is in the ballpark).
Now, if you happen to be one of the 5 to 10 percent of people who find phantom vibrations bothersome, it should be easy to reduce or eliminate them. If you stop using vibration mode or keep your phone in another place, your brain should soon learn to stop monitoring your thigh for vibrations. And whatever you do, don’t wear cords.

World leaders meet with multiple crises on agenda

Facing a world in turmoil from multiple crises ranging from wars in the Mideast and Africa to the deadly scourge of Ebola and growing Islamic radicalism, leaders from more than 140 countries open their annual meeting at the United Nations on Wednesday with few solutions.
The issue certain to top the agenda is the threat from Islamic terrorists intent on erasing borders, with the first U.S. and Arab airstrikes in Syria delivered Monday night in response.
Many diplomats hope that crisis won't drown out the plight of millions of civilians caught in conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza; the misery of the largest number of refugees since World War II; and global support for new U.N. goals to fight poverty and address climate change.
Looking at the array of complex challenges, Norway's Foreign Minister Borge Brende told The Associated Press: "It's unprecedented in decades, that's for sure."
He pointed to an unprecedented situation in which the U.N. and international donors are confronting four top-level humanitarian crises at the same time in Iraq, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Syria, which is now in the fourth year of a civil war which the U.N. says has killed more than 190,000 people
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will deliver his state of the world report at Wednesday's opening of the General Assembly ministerial session, gave a bleak preview to reporters last week: The world is facing "multiple crises," with all featuring attacks on civilians and having dangerous sectarian, ethnic or tribal dimensions.
In addition to the major conflicts, Ban said the world must not forget the continuing violence in Mali, the volatile situation in and around Ukraine, the chaos in Libya, the greater polarization between Israelis and Palestinians following the recent devastating war, and the advances of Boko Haram in Nigeria which "grow more alarming every day."
The secretary-general said he will call on world leaders to unite to uphold human dignity and the rule of law.
Soon after, U.S. President Barack Obama will step to the podium, and he is certain to dwell on the terrorist threat. Rights groups have called for him to explain how the campaign against the Islamic State extremist group is in accordance with international law.
Obama also will chair a Security Council meeting later Wednesday at which members are expected to adopt a resolution that would require all countries to prevent the recruitment and transport of foreign fighters preparing to join terrorist groups such as the Islamic State.
The opening of the annual U.N. meeting, which ends Sept. 30, follows the highest-level meeting ever on climate change, with some 120 world leaders responding to the secretary-general's call for increased political momentum to address the warming planet.
"For all the immediate challenges that we gather to address this week — terrorism, instability, inequality, disease — there's one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate," Obama said.
But Obama, along with China, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, said he would not propose targets to reduce carbon pollution beyond 2020 until early next year. The summit also exposed longstanding political divisions between rich and poor countries, raising questions about whether a new climate pact will be reached by the end of 2015.
Such divisions on a wide range of issues are certain to be addressed in the week ahead. This year's VIPs include Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, French President Francois Hollande, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Two prominent no-shows are Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf because of the Ebola crisis that has hit her country hardest and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who gave no public reason.
While the assembly's newly renovated chamber will be the scene of constant speech-making, most of the real "business" during the General Assembly takes place in private meetings and dinners. This year's side events cover a number of crisis countries including Iran, South Sudan, Myanmar, Yemen and Somalia, with a recently added high-level meeting on Ebola.
Iyad Madani, secretary general of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said there are "a multiplicity of crises" that are unpredictable, but "I think we are relatively a more peaceful world than in World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam or the Cold War."

SpaceX Falcon Rocket Launch Has Been Delayed Due To Clouds,Rains

CAPE CANAVERAL Fla - Space Exploration Technologies delayed its cargo run to the International Space Station for NASA on Saturday after thick cloud and rain socked in its central Florida launch site.
Liftoff of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon freighter was rescheduled for 1:53 a.m. EDT/0553 GMT on Sunday. Meteorologists expected a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather.
The mission is the fourth under the company’s 12-flight, $1.6 billion contract with NASA to fly cargo to the station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 260 miles (420 km) above Earth.
A launch on Sunday would come just two weeks after another Falcon 9 rocket blasted off to deliver a commercial communications satellite into orbit for Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Ltd.
"We are ramping up for that launch rate, and actually even more than that," Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of mission assurance, told a news conference on Friday.
"In the future, I anticipate that this will be the norm."
SpaceX has a backlog of nearly 50 launches, worth nearly $5 billion, on its manife
st for NASA and commercial satellite operators, said company spokesman John Taylor.
On Tuesday, SpaceX also won a second NASA contract, worth up to $2.6 billion, to upgrade and fly its Dragon capsules for astronauts – and potentially paying passengers as well. A crewed Dragon spaceship is targeted for a debut test flight in 2016.

Green Monsters: The Electric Bike Wars

The roar of a Harley-Davidson engine is as distinctive as the popping of a champagne cork. But what if you could have all the power and beauty of a hog with a silent engine that doesn’t devour gas? That’s the question Harley asked earlier this year when it unveiled Project LiveWire, its futuristic prototype for an electric motorcycle.
Harley-Davidson is hardly alone in the e-bike wars, where several companies are seeking to become the Tesla of motorcycles. And not just because it’s good for the environment.
Last year the major motorcycle brands–including BMW, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, KTM, Piaggio, Suzuki, Triumph and Yamaha–sold 561,000 bikes nationwide, up from 557,000 in 2012 but down a staggering 53% from the 1.2 million sold in 2006. This year motorcycle sales remained relatively unchanged, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council, which tallied 139,922 new units sold in Q1, 17 units higher than the same period in 2013.
And while no one thinks electric bikes will save the industry, they could be a key factor in attracting the next generation of motorcycle enthusiasts. “Everybody is very concerned with getting this new young rider,” says Mark Hoyer, the editor-in-chief of Cycle World. “And younger people are realizing these electric bikes are genuinely fast. In fact, with the kind of performance electric motorcycles have these days, anybody who rides would be impressed.”
Electrics have been a niche market since 2010, when companies such as Zero, Brammo, Energica and Mission started experimenting with 50-plus-mile-range rides that looked just like traditional motorcycles but boasted zero emissions and gearless, aggressive, twist-and-go acceleration. The idea was that silent, maintenance-light bikes would be perfect for both urban commuting and off-road cruising. And that they might attract new riders, particularly women, intimidated by the heavy clutches and grimy maintenance responsibilities associated with cafe racers and street bikes. There’s certainly room for growth: Even though their numbers have increased by double digits since 2003, women still represent only 25% of motorcycle riders nationwide, according to industry statistics.
There were some early attempts at e-bikes (especially from obscure Chinese brands) that felt more like glorified Vespas than high-tech Hondas. Within the last year, however, electric motorcycles have become significantly more powerful, smoother and longer-lasting. Zero, for instance, has drastically improved the suspension and power-train technology in its $17,000 SR, which hits 60mph in 3.3 seconds on a battery range of 130 miles and takes seven hours to charge in a 110-volt outlet. Brammo’s $11,000 Enertia Plus gets 434 MPG e with a top speed of 60mph, and the $30,000, 160hp Mission R racer has a top speed of more than 150mph with a sub-3-second, 0-60mph sprint time. Then there’s the new Italian firm Energica, led by its young CEO, Livia Cevolini, which debuted the $68,000, 134hp Ego 45 superbike (0-60mph in 2.9 seconds) earlier this year. That bike will charge fully in just 3 hours.
“I like to say the electric bike does all of the things I ride for without any of the drama,” says Scot Harden, vice president of global marketing for Zero Motorcycles. “I ride a motorcycle for the excitement, the thrill, the acceleration, the sense of control, the sense of freedom. The Zero Streetfighter gives me all of that. What it doesn’t give me is loud noise, vibration, heat, exhaust fumes, oil stains in the garage. Plus I don’t have any routine maintenance on the power train. I don’t have to work on it. I just basically ride it.”
But it was Harley’s LiveWire prototype that truly escalated the e-bike battle when it was announced this summer. A 74hp motorcycle that goes 53 miles between charges and takes less than four hours to recharge, the bike won’t actually be for sale–Harley claims it’s using LiveWire just to test consumer response–but it’s a significant move because of the cult status of the American heritage brand. (Harley accounted for more than 31% of motorcycle sales nationwide last year.)

But there are still valid reasons to think e-bikes will remain a novelty market rather than a sales savior. The most general among them: People buy motorcycles precisely because they’re loud, dirty, heavy and fast. In fact, Harley fabricated a distinctive sound for the LiveWire bike so as to uphold that covenant with hog loyalists. (“Sound is non-negotiable,” says Adam Kallen, the owner of Brooklyn-based Jane Motorcycles.) Beyond that, gas motorcycles are already quite fuel-efficient–a Ducati Monster 696 gets nearly 40 miles to the gallon–and the price premium associated with the lithium-ion batteries that power electric bikes remains prohibitive for most riders. Battery technology alone can add tens of thousands of dollars onto the price of a regular bike.
“There is not a lot of technology or luxury sport happening now,” says Cycle World ‘s Hoyer. “You see all the manufacturers focusing on low-cost bikes, building the entry-level ladder to their brand. Electrics will have to do the same–it’s just a question of who will do it right first.”
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World's Safest Banks In 2014

US investors looking for a broad choice of safe banks to deposit their savings in have to look across the Atlantic, to Europe.
That’s where the majority of safest banks are, according to a recent survey of the World’s 50 Safest Banks  by Global Finance. Specifically, all ten banks that topped the list were Europeans, including KfW of Germany, which occupied the first position; and Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten of Netherlands, which occupied the second position.
Only five American banks made it to the list, the same as last year— CoBank ACB, BNY Mellon, US Bancorp, Northern Trust, and Wells Fargo WFC +0.14%. The remaining were from countries scattered around the globe, mostly in Canada, Australia, Singapore, the Middle-East, South Korea and China.
For years, banks were a safe place to park cash, as governments implicitly guaranteed deposits. This premise changed in the aftermath of the Cyprus bailout, as depositors had to shoulder a big chunk of the bailout. That’s why now depositors must search for safe banks—banks with a low counter-party risk. “Counter-party risk is of prime importance to global CFOs and financial executives as economic uncertainty continues to trouble global markets,” says Global Finance publisher Joseph D. Giarraputo. “Global Finance’s Safest Banks ranking provides an independent analysis of each region’s banks that companies can use as a tool to benchmark their counterparties. The institutions that top our ranking of the Safest Banks are those that have shown their strength in times of turbulence.”

Wells Fargo, US Bancorp USB +0.62%, Northern Trust NTRS +0.33% and BNY Mellon, for instance, have all fared well during the financial crisis of 2008-9, and continue to display strong financials.
Financials of American Banks

Bank	Market Cap	Operating Margins (%)	Total  Cash	Total Debt
Wells Fargo	269.41B	43.80	328.82B	237.82B
US Bancorp	75.07	45.00	13.57	55.49
Northern Trust	16.22	27.24	22.48	5.96
BNY Mellon	44.76	26.01	189.38	54.28

Source: Finance.Yahoo.com
Still, Europe’s lead in the list may come as a surprise to many investors. Didn’t Europe just go through a debt crisis that hurt banks?
Yes, but that was mostly in Southern Europe. Northern and Central Europe escaped the crisis, especially Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland.
That’s where Europe’s safest banks are concentrated.
A few words of caution:  Investors should understand that the majority of European banks are semi-government institutions, and therefore, enjoy the protection of national governments—provided that these governments remain solvent and deposits stay below the official guarantee protection limits.

IBM now hires more in US than in INDIA

Over the past decade, IBM hired frenetically in India, and cut jobs in the US in an effort to be cost competitive with Indian IT services providers. Now, the Big Blue appears to be changing track, goaded perhaps by the Obama administration's social and tax pressures, and the US work visa restrictions.

However, other global IT services companies like Ireland-registered Accenture and France-based Capgemini are continuing to keep their hiring focus on India.

IBM's 'Jobs at IBM' website currently lists about 6,750 jobs, of which nearly a third, 2,150, are in the US. India follows way behind at a little over 700, and China is third with about 650. More striking are the entry level positions. Of the total of 446 entry level positions open as on September 2, as many as 172, or nearly 40%, are in the US. In India, there are a mere five.

An employee of the company in India said the internal job portal now shows certain IT positions with 1-2 years' experience reserved for US citizens. "I can't recollect such entry level positions earlier being reserved for US citizens," he said.

When contacted, IBM did not directly address the matter, but issued the following statement: "Managing resources and skills is an ongoing and critical component of our business model. IBM continues to meet the changing requirements of its clients, and to pioneer new, high value segments of the IT industry. To that end, IBM is positioning itself to lead in growth areas such as cloud, analytics and cognitive computing and investing in these priority areas. Investing in and hiring talent from over 100 college campuses in India continues to be part of the strategy."

READ ALSO: IBM to cut 15,000 jobs, India operations to be affected
US tech entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa said he would not know if the IBM hiring trends were accurate, but said it would not surprise him. "IBM, like other US companies, is surely under pressure from nativists to hire more Americans. The noise is only getting louder. But it may be that IBM is trying to balance its growth and that is what is behind such a strategy," he said.





The years of frenzied hiring has resulted in India now accounting for over a third of IBM's 4.3 lakh employees (these are estimates, given that IBM has stopped disclosing its headcount by geography). In the US, the number has dropped from a peak of 1.53 lakh in 2000, to an estimated 88,000 now.

Solar Storm Headed For Earth

Two solar flares have sent magnetic fields to our planet -- and scientists aren’t sure how they’re going to impact each other.


Solar Flare Eruption
An intense, X-class solar flare erupted from sun spot AR2518 on Wednesday afternoon.
NASA / GSFC / SDO

The sun has been regurgitating a lot of solar flares these days, and now, a couple will be knocking at Earth’s door this weekend.

The originator of these flares is a particularly complex sunspot called AR2518, which is currently facing our planet. Late Monday night, the spot produced a minor solar flare (class R1) that lasted for six hours, but then on Wednesday at 1:45 p.m. EST, it upchucked a whopping X1.6-class solar flare, which is pretty darn strong.

Both flares have launched large outbursts of magnetic fields, known as coronal mass ejections – or CMEs – at high velocity straight toward Earth, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. The CME associated with Monday’s flare is expected to hit tonight, while the more intense CME is expected to arrive Friday afternoon to evening. Earth experiences CMEs all the time without issue, but if they're strong enough, CMEs can cause geomagnetic storms and sometimes, extreme radio blackouts.

Although Wednesday’s solar flare was somewhat strong, the magnitudes of these incoming CMEs aren’t that intense, historically speaking. (Although, as the Sun is nearing peak activity on its 11-year solar cycle, we may be seeing more -- and stronger -- storms soon.) What makes this event so unique, however, is that Earth will experience two CMEs in close succession to one another – a situation that is pretty rare. That means scientists are being cautious about what to expect. “The two CMEs could be interacting on their way to Earth’s orbit, or beyond Earth’s orbit,” says Thomas Berger, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), meaning the flares could potentially amplify each other in some way.

Ultimately, no one really knows how these storms will impact each other. Given this uncertainty, NOAA has issued a moderate to strong G3 geomagnetic storm watch for Friday. The rating indicates that the incoming magnetic fields may cause some problems with radio communications, as well as voltage irregularities in northern latitudes of the United States. Grid operators and even FEMA have been notified, just in case.

Fortunately, NOAA doesn’t expect the impacts of the CMEs to be unmanageable. “There’s really no concern for electronics down here on the ground,” says William Murtagh, program coordinator of the Space Weather Prediction Center. Murtagh notes that some studies have implied that electronics at higher altitudes and higher latitudes, such as planes flying near the poles, might be more vulnerable to geomagnetic storms. The biggest concern with electronics on the ground would be a loss of power, but Murtagh says the storms aren't strong enough to cause such a blackout.

Still, they’ll be watching the events closely. Additionally, Wednesday’s eruption also produced an Earth-bound solar radiation storm, but that has only amounted to an S1 rating (the lowest on the NOAA scale). When solar radiation storms reach a level of S3 or above, NOAA will advise the FAA to start rerouting flights away from the poles to avoid radiation exposure. NASA mission control will also direct astronauts into more hardened portions of the International Space Station.

Meanwhile, there is one pretty awesome byproduct of these two solar flares. The storms could produce some pretty intense auroras, which may be visible in northern parts of the United States tonight and tomorrow. So if you living in Maine or the Dakotas (or even New York), make sure you have your camera handy. Chances are your DSLR will work just fine.

Gmail Passwords Leaked By Hackers

Russian hackers have leaked the email IDs and passwords of as many as 4.93 million Google accounts. The same Google account password is used across all Google products, such as Gmail, Drive, Plus, YouTube, Maps etc.

The account details have been posted on bitcoin forum btcsec.com by a user named Tvskit. On the forum, Tvskit has said that approximately 60% of the passwords are still active.

Google in a blog post, however, refuted the claim and said that only 2% of the passwords still work and also said that its automated anti-hijacking systems would have blocked many of the login attempts.

While acknowledging the leak, Google said that this is not due to a breach in its own systems.

It said: "Often, these credentials are obtained through a combination of other sources. For instance, if you reuse the same username and password across websites, and one of those websites gets hacked, your credentials could be used to log into the others. Or attackers can use malware or phishing schemes to capture login credentials."

3 Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing has become increasingly important in my recovery from depression and anxiety because I recognize that shallow breath contributes to my panic. In fact, at my worst hours, I would use a paper bag to keep from hyperventilating.
The practice of deep breathing stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), responsible for activities that occur when our body is at rest. It functions in an opposite manner to the sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates activities associated with the fight-or-flight response.
I like to the think of the PNS as the calm sister and the sympathetic nervous system as the non-sympathetic crazy sister on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
 You know that woman in the movie “Airplane” that’s wigging out (watch this clip), and there is a line behind her of people with weapons saying “Get hold of yourself.” The woman represents the sympathetic nervous system, and the long line of folks with bats, ropes, purses, etc. are members of the parasympathetic nervous system trying to calm the panicked passenger.
Of all the automatic functions of the body — cardiovascular, digestive, hormonal, glandular, immune — only the breath can be easily controlled voluntarily, explain Richard P. Brown, M.D. and Patricia L. Gerbarg, M.D. in their book, “The Healing Power of the Breath.” They write:
By voluntarily changing the rate, depth, and pattern of breathing, we can change the messages being sent from the body’s respiratory system to the brain. In this way, breathing techniques provide a portal to the autonomic communication network through which we can, by changing our breathing patterns, send specific messages to the brain using the language of the body, a language the brain understands and to which it responds. Messages from the respiratory system have rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior.
In their eight substantive chapters, the authors discuss several techniques of deep breathing to reduce stress and anxiety. They start off with three basic approaches which provide the building blocks for the others:

Coherent Breathing

 Coherent breathing is basically breathing at a rate of five breaths per minute, which is the middle of the resonant breathing rate range. I achieve this if I count to five inhaling and count to five exhaling. The five-minute rate maximizes the heart rate variability (HRV), a measurement of how well the parasympathetic nervous system is working. Brown and Gerbarg explain that changing our rate and pattern of breath alters the HRV, which causes shifts in our nervous system. The higher the HRV the better because a higher HRV is associated with a healthier cardiovascular system and a stronger stress-response system. Breathing at a rate that is close to one’s ideal resonant rate (around five breaths per minute) can induce up to a tenfold improvement in HRV.

 

Resistance Breathing

 Resistance breathing is exactly what its name suggests: breathing that creates resistance to the flow of air. Per the authors:
Resistance can be created by pursing the lips, placing the tip of the tongue against the inside of the upper teeth, hissing through the clenched teeth, tightening the throat muscles, partly closing the glottis, narrowing the space between the vocal cords, or using an external object such as breathing through a straw.
All that sounds a bit complicated to me. Breathing should be easy, right? So I simply breathe out of my nose, which, according to Brown and Gerbarg, creates more resistance than breathing through the mouth. I do think it’s interesting when they explain that singing and chanting – all musical sounds created by contracting vocal cords — are forms of resistance breathing, and that is why they provide that relaxed sensation you can get meditating (if you can meditate).

Breath Moving

 Breath moving is when the breath moves courtesy of your imagination. Brown compares this exercise to an internal massage. I’m not sure I’d go that far. I like the real deal. However, I do think sending your breath on a little journey around your body – as long as it doesn’t get too lost — does help you keep your concentration on the exercise and not on your to-do list because counting to five can get a little old. For example, here’s part of a circuit the authors offer in their book:
As you breathe in, imagine you are moving your breath to the top of your head.
As you breathe out, imagine you are moving your breath to the base of your spine, your perineum, your sit bones.
Each time you breathe in, move the breath to the top of the head.
Each time you breathe out, move the breath to the base of the spine.
Breathe in this circuit for ten cycles.
The history of breath moving is fascinating. According to the authors, the technique was created in large part by the Russian Christian Orthodox Hesychast monks around the eleventh century. The monks would teach the technique of moving the breath to the holy Russian warriors to help protect them from harm and to empower them as they defended their territory against invaders.

Hyderabad: Ganesha goes green, eco-friendly clay idols flood the market

The Pearl City is all set to celebrate the Ganesh festival in an eco-friendly manner and with the tallest Ganesh idol in the country this year.
The 60-feet high Ganesha in Hyderabad is drawing the attention of every passerby. The gigantic idol took almost three months and 200 artisans at the Khairatabad Ganesh Utsav Committee to complete. A gigantic laddu weighing five thousand kilos will also be offered to the Ganesha here.

"We are very happy to celebrate 60 years. Artists from different villages have arrived to complete this task," said the organiser of Khairatabad Ganesh Utsav committee, Raj Kumar
However, to suit the need of every household, idols in other different sizes have also flooded the market. The most popular of these are the clay idols. The eco-friendly Ganeshas are made from mud and are colored with natural, non-toxic dyes which are easily soluble in water. With the "Ganesha goes green" campaign, people are pledging to celebrate the festival in an ecofriendly manner.
"The campaign is to encourage people to use clay Ganesh idols that do not harm the environment," said Satosh Banpur, director of the campaign- Hyderabad goes green.
"We always make clay Ganesh idols and this year, we are buying one. I hope everyone will employ eco-friendly idols to save the environment," said Vijaya, a local resident.
Elaborate security arrangements have also been put in place to ensure peaceful festivities.

Gene studies of Ebola in Sierra Leone show virus is mutating fast

Genetic studies of some of the earliest Ebola cases in Sierra Leone reveal more than 300 genetic changes in the virus as it leapt from person to person, changes that could blunt the effectiveness of diagnostic tests and experimental treatments now in development, researchers said on Thursday.
"We found the virus is doing what viruses do. It's mutating," said Pardis Sabeti of Harvard University and the Broad Institute, who led the massive study of samples from 78 people in Sierra Leone, all of whose infections could be traced to a faith healer whose claims of a cure attracted Ebola patients from Guinea, where the virus first took hold.
The findings, published in Science, suggest the virus is mutating quickly and in ways that could affect current diagnostics and future vaccines and treatments, such as GlaxoSmithKline's Ebola vaccine, which was just fast-tracked to begin clinical trials, or the antibody drug ZMapp, being developed by California biotech Mapp Biopharmaceutical.
The findings come as the World Health Organization said that the epidemic could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to more countries. A WHO representative could not immediately be reached for comment on the latest genetic study.
Study coauthor Robert Garry of Tulane University said the virus is mutating at twice the rate in people as it was in animal hosts, such as fruit bats.
Garry said the study has shown changes in the glycoprotein, the surface protein that binds the virus to human cells, allowing it to start replicating in its human host. "It's also what your immune system will recognize," he said.
In an unusual step, the researchers posted the sequences online as soon as they became available, giving other researchers early access to the data.
Erica Ollmann Saphire of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, has already checked the data to see if it impacts the three antibodies in ZMapp, a drug in short supply that has been tried on several individuals, including the two U.S. missionaries who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and who have since recovered.
"It appears that they do not (affect ZMapp)," said Saphire, who directs a consortium to develop antibody treatments for Ebola and related viruses. But she said the data "will be critical to seeing if any of the other antibodies in our pool could be affected."
Saphire said the speed with which Sabeti and colleagues mapped genetic changes in the virus gives researchers information that "will also be critical" to companies developing RNA-based therapeutics.
That could impact treatments under way from Vancouver-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp and privately held Profectus BioSciences of Tarrytown, New York.
Part of what makes the data useful is the precise picture it paints as the epidemic unfolded. Sabeti credits years of work by her lab, colleagues at Tulane and the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation in developing a response network for Lassa fever, a virus similar to Ebola that is endemic in West Africa.
Several of the study authors gave their lives to the work, including Dr Sheik Humarr Khan, the beloved "hero" doctor from the Kenema Government Hospital, who died from Ebola.
The team had been doing surveillance for two months when the first case of Ebola arrived from Guinea on May 25. That case involved a "sowei" or tribal healer, whose claim of a cure lured sick Ebola victims from nearby Guinea.
"When she contracted Ebola and died, there were a lot of people who came to her funeral," Garry said. One of these was a young pregnant woman who became infected and traveled to Kenema Government Hospital, where she was diagnosed with Ebola.
With the Lassa surveillance team in place, they quickly began testing samples.
"We've been able to capture the initial spread from that one person and to follow all of these contacts and everything with sequencing," Garry said.
The team used a technique called deep sequencing in which sequences are done repeatedly to generate highly specific results, allowing them to see not only how the virus is mutating from person to person, but how it is mutating in cells within the same person.
What is not clear from the study is whether the mutations are fueling the epidemic by allowing the virus to grow better in people and become easier to spread. That will require further tests in the lab, Garry said

Rupee ends lower at 60.56 after Yellen speech

The rupee fell on Monday, retreating from a three-week high hit last week, as the dollar gained after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was seen as more hawkish than her European counterpart at a central bankers' meeting.
Most emerging Asian currencies eased on Monday after Ms Yellen called for a "pragmatic" approach to US monetary policy on Friday at a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Some caution also prevailed ahead of gross domestic product data for the April-June quarter on Friday and possibly current account deficit numbers sometime this week.
However, broader sentiment remained supported by solid foreign flows into bonds and stocks. On Friday, foreign funds bought debt worth $286.69 million, and around $49.95 million in shares, official data showed.
"It is the foreign fund flows that have supported the rupee, and will continue to do so in the near term," said Surendran A V, head of treasury at Dhanlaxmi Bank.
The partially convertible rupee closed at 60.5650/5750 per dollar compared with 60.4650/4750 in the previous session.
The falls in the rupee came after the US dollar rose to a near one-year high against a basket of six-major currencies. Most Asian emerging market currencies also fell.
The rupee also faltered after the Nifty edged lower on Monday after hitting a second consecutive record high as gains in blue-chips were offset by a slump in resources firms following the top court's ruling on coal allocations.
In the offshore non-deliverable forwards, the one-month contract was at 60.89, while the three-month was at 61.45.

Sony says PlayStation network back online, user information safe after attack

SAN FRANCISCO/TOKYO - Sony Corp's (6758.T) PlayStation Network was back online on Monday following a cyber attack that took it down over the weekend, which coincided with a bomb scare on a commercial flight carrying a top Sony executive in the United States.
Sony said on its PlayStation blog that its PlayStation network had been taken down by a denial of service-style attack, which overwhelmed the system with traffic, but did not intrude onto the network or access any of its 53 million users' information.

A Twitter user with the handle @LizardSquad claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday, and said the attack was meant to pressure Sony to spend more of its profits on the network.
"Sony, yet another large company, but they aren't spending the waves of cash they obtain on their customers' (PlayStation Network) service. End the greed," one post said on Sunday.
Sony's network business has been hit by attacks before, with a security breach in 2011 dealing a major blow to plans at the time for a looser network designed to allow for the connection of a range of Sony devices.
Since then it has invested heavily in the system and is now hoping the network can serve as a centrepiece of its plans to rebuild its business after years of losses in its flagship electronics operations.
Lizard Squad said it had also targeted the servers of World of Warcraft video gamemakers Blizzard Entertainment, whose website was down. It threatened to attack Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Xbox Live network, to which some users said they had problems accessing on Sunday.
"We don't comment on the root cause of a specific issue, but as you can see on Xbox.com/status, the core Xbox LIVE services are up and running," Xbox spokesman David Dennis told Reuters.
Blizzard Entertainment was not immediately reachable for comment, though its customer support Twitter account said the company's servers were stabilising.
BOMB SCARE
Lizard Squad also tweeted to American Airlines on Sunday to say they had heard that explosives were on board a flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley.
That followed an earlier tweet from a game player's forum telling the airline: "I'm gonna send a bomb on your plane be ready for me tomorrow".
A PlayStation spokeswoman in the United States said the FBI was investigating the diversion of the Dallas/Fort Worth to San Diego flight.
The FBI had no comment on the incident.
American Airlines said on its Twitter account that it was "aware of threats" made over the microblogging service and had alerted security.

Gaps remain in India's Ebola preparedness, says WHO

Thomson Reuters Foundation - India has been pro-active in preparing for an outbreak of Ebola, but authorities need to improve the surveillance of travellers and raise public awareness about the deadly virus, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
There are nearly 45,000 Indian nationals living and working in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria - where more than 1,300 people have died of Ebola in the worst outbreak of the disease in history.
There is also a large population of West Africans, mainly students, in India and there are concerns that the disease could be imported into the country.
Asheena Khalakdina, the WHO's Team Leader for Communicable Diseases, said while the risk of Ebola coming to India was low, it was important that authorities put in place the precautionary measures outlined by the organisation.
"No country is perfect. You can go to any Western country and every country has areas where they can make improvements and certainly India is not an exception, so we are working closely with the ministry of health to see where those gaps are," Khalakdina told a news conference.
India's health minister, Harsh Vardhan, announced measures on Aug. 6 which included in-flight announcements prior to landing, informing passengers to self-report at immigration.
The government has also set up facilities at airports and ports to manage travellers showing symptoms of the disease such as fever, intense weakness or bleeding. Those displaying symptoms are being tracked for up to four weeks.
State authorities have also been instructed to designate hospitals with isolation wards for response to possible cases and to stock protective equipment.
Almost 500 passengers - mostly in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu - are currently being tracked, a health ministry statement said on Wednesday.
An Ebola hotline has received 619 calls in its first 11 days, mainly from the public seeking information on signs and symptoms of the hemorrhagic illness, the statement added.
"We need to educate and communicate so that we are raising awareness so that everyone knows what Ebola is and what it isn't, how it is transmitted and how they can protect themselves," Khalakdina said.
"It's good that people are informed and informed in the right way so that we can control public fears. It creates a lot of anxiety and fears, especially if you don't know about it."

How to become a more compassionate person.

In the main article above titled "We We Care," we discussed discoveries about the process by which our brains create the feeling of concern for other people. The researchers have also looked at how we might be able to tinker with that internal system and boost our ability to care about others. For insights, scientists have turned to Tibetan Buddhist monks, who for centuries have been practicing meditation regimen specifically designed to make them more compassionate. If you want to give it a try, here are some simple tips, gleaned from meditation manuals.

1. Sit. Find a comfortable place where you can sit without distractions. Initially allot yourself 10 to 20 minutes, with the goal of eventually increasing the amount of time.

2. Breath. Use deep breathing to relax any tension that you feel in your muscles. Concentrate upon relaxing your abdominal muscles and shoulders.

3. Reflect. Once you begin to feel calm, reflect upon your own desire for happiness and freedom from suffering, and your desire to care about all beings.

4. Have a mantra. Slowly begin to repeat simple phrases that state your wishes, such as “May I respond with mercy and empathy to pain,” or “May I be filled with compassion.

Over time, you also should contemplate different levels of compassion. On the most basic level, you should think about problems and misfortunes that people experience, such as illness, hunger, and lack of shelter. Concentrate upon separating compassion—caring for others—from pity, which meditation expert Dusana Dorjee explains is a self-centered emotion that results from

shame and the desire to be seen as an altruistic person. Over time, you also should try to explore the second gradient of compassion, which involves concern for how other people suffer because of confusion and negative emotions. Finally, you may strive for the highest, “non-referential” form of compassion, which simply is an unconditional compassion for all beings, akin to the love that a mother feels for her child.

iPhone 6 Leaked in New Images

As the expected release of the next-generation iPhone nears, we are seeing more and more leaks each day. On Tuesday, new images of the alleged front and rear panels of the iPhone 6 (which is widely expected to come in 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions) appeared online, while a report pointed to lines of SDK code that indicated a new 828x1472 pixel resolution.
The alleged front and rear panel iPhone 6 images were posted by Feld & Volk, which makes customised luxury variants of the iPhone and iPad devices.
First spotted by MacRumors, the alleged front and rear panel iPhone 6 images of the anticipated 4.7-inch variant are in-line with what has been widely expected based on earlier leaks, with rounded corners and buttons indicating the iPhone 6 will take design cues from Apple's current generation iPod touch.

Further, the alleged iPhone 6 images again show the power button positioned on the right panel of the device, instead of on the top panel seen on existing iPhone models. Also seen are the new speaker holes at the bottom of the phone, alongside the Lightning port and 3.5mm audio jack. MacRumors also refers to an unlisted Feld & Volk image of the rear shell depicting the a 'round True Tone flash', and 'embedded Apple logo'.
A new screen resolution of 828x1472 pixels for the next-generation iPhone 6 has been tipped via iOS 8 files inside both the Xcode 6 beta 5 and the latest Xcode 6 beta 6 SDKs.
9to5mac notes the mention of a screen resolution of 414x736 pixels (16:9) was found inside the iOS 8's Springboard app, which refers to the iPhone home screen.
This particular file outlines for the system where icons, by default, will be placed on an iPhone's Home screen. This particular file, which was added in Xcode 6 beta 5 earlier this month and still exists in yesterday's Xcode 6 beta 6, is optimized for an iPhone with a resolution of 414 (width) x 736 (height). The iPhone SDK parses hardware resolutions via "point values," so the actual "Retina" resolution is in fact double (or potentially triple) whatever numbers the SDK presents.
Considering that iOS devices currently renders texts, images and other elements at '2X' the resolution in the SDK, the report speculates that Apple might debut the new iPhone 6 with 828x1472 pixels screen resolution.
If true, this resolution on the expected 4.7-inch display would give a pixel density of 359ppi, and on the expected 5.5-inch display a pixel density of 307ppi. As 9to5Mac notes, this fits in with Apple's 300ppi Retina threshold, first mentioned by Steve Jobs at the iPhone 4 launch. It would also mean more real estate, which as the report notes, translates to roughly two additional rows and 1 additional column at current iOS icon sizes.
A '3X' 'pixel-tripling' resolution, while previously considered possible, is now being considered unlikely to be implemented on the iPhone 6 - as it would indicate what's being called an unfeasible 1242x2208 pixel resolution in terms of battery life and developer adoption.
Further, the report notes the 2X Retina 'pixel-doubling' resolution implementation by Apple in previous generation iPhone devices, and the corresponding SDK values. The iPhone 5, iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s - all sport 4-inch (640x1136 pixel) displays, however, the SDK files only presented the half value - 320x568 pixels.
Previously, it was said that the Cupertino-based company was testing a higher screen resolution of 960x1704 pixels on at least one of the two iPhone models. This may still be implemented in the larger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 variant, and is in line with the current 16:9 aspect ratio (as is the newly-rumoured 828x1472 pixel resolution).

Of course, all such leaks must be taken with a pinch of salt, from alleged iPhone 6 component images to extrapolations from lines of SDK code, and much will become clear once Apple officially unveils its next iPhone. The Cupertino giant is expected to do so at a September 9 event.

Fastest growing careers in India

You want to know about the most wanted careers in India? The job market right now is a little awry, but it would soon get back with promising careers for the coming generation of geniuses.
Here is a peek into the future jobs with the maximum growth potential in the Indian market:
Event Manager: India has become a global arena for a myriad of events, meetings and conferences held every day across the country. If you are one of those pursuing a degree in communication, hospitality or public relations this is the place for you. The subcontinent is abuzz with new event management companies entering the industry by the minute and creating jobs, the jobs therefore, are plenty.
Annual salary: Rs 1.35 to 8.17 lakh per annum
Analytics Professional: Analytics is a profession which spans across various industries from healthcare, banks, e-commerce and marketing to information technology and biotechnology. It involves analyzing business strategy and devising or streamlining the organizational structure. All business want to stay ahead of their competition, this very factor creates jobs for the analytics professionals. A Bachelors or a Masters degree in business or finance is required.
Annual salary: Rs 1.79 to 9.80 lakh per annum.
R&D Professionals: Research and Development is a progressive field in India. R&D professionals are engineering technicians, who use their knowledge to assist engineers and other scientists to create, design and construct new products or equipments that will be then marketed and sold to the consumers or specific industries. R&D professionals are also responsible for testing and conducting experiments on the product, bringing together data and recording outcomes, to spot if the product is operational or would it be profitable.
Annual Salary: Rs to 30 lakh per annum.

Interior Designer: A new house needs building and designing, both these tasks were completed by contractors in old days. The scenario is changing with time, as people are employing interior designers to add a touch of beauty to houses and make them tastefully theirs. You can work under an agency, open your own or simply work as a freelance interior designer, it's pretty flexible.
Annual salary (greatly varies) estimate: Rs 91,000 to 5,58,000 per annum.
Civil Services: India is on the brink of change and the change maker is the young generation. One of the most sought after careers in India, civil services provides you with a platform to make a difference. A public sector profession it makes for one of the most well paying jobs in India. All you need to do is clear All India Examination for Civil Services, which is said to be a tough nut to crack.
Medical Professionals: There is a perpetual demand for doctors and specialized physicians; they are needed all the time no matter where the national economy is going. A doctor gets astonishing returns depending on his qualification. Surgeons earn the highest as they come with higher degrees and specialized practical experience.
The average salary estimate is around Rs 1.30 to 12 lakh per annum.

Huge asteroid that ‘could wipe out human life’ heading for Earth, scientists say

 Scientists have moved closer to being able to stop a huge asteroid colliding with Earth and potentially wiping out human life. Researchers at the University of Tennessee have discovered that blowing the space rock up could make the collision worse by causing several devastating impacts.

Instead, small changes could be made to its surface to disrupt the forces keeping it together and cause it to break up in outer space.

They were studying Asteroid 1950 DA, which has a one in 300 chance of hitting the planet on March 16, 2880.

Although the odds seem small, it is the most likely asteroid to collide with Earth and the odds are higher than being shot dead in the US.


Astroid 1950 DA (Photo courtesy Nasa)

The asteroid has a diameter of one kilometre and is travelling at 14.5km (9 miles) per second relative to the Earth, which it would hit at nearly 61,155km (38,000 miles) per hour.

The impact would have a force of around 44,800 megatonnes of TNT and cause a huge explosion, tsunamis and change the climate of the globe, devastating human life.

But with 35 generations to go until its possible arrival, scientists are confident that the disaster can be averted.

The University of Tennessee researchers said 1950 DA is rotating so quickly it "defies gravity" and is held together by cohesive forces, called van der Waals, never before detected on an asteroid.
The findings, published in the science journal Nature, could prompt a change in tactics defending our planet.



Asteroid 1950 DA could hit the planet on March, 16, 2880. (Getty Images photo)

Previous research has shown that asteroids are loose piles of rubble held together by gravity and friction but by calculating 1950 DA's thermal inertia and bulk density, the team detected the action of cohesive forces that stop it breaking up.

Ben Rozitis, a postdoctoral researcher, said if only gravity were holding it together, the spinning would cause it to fly apart.

The rotation is so fast that at its equator, 1950 DA effectively experiences negative gravity and if an astronaut were to attempt to stand on the surface, he or she would be thrown off into space.

The presence of cohesive forces has been predicted in small asteroids but definitive evidence has never been seen before.


Astroid 1950 DA (Photo courtesy Nasa)

"Following the February 2013 asteroid impact in Chelyabinsk, Russia, there is renewed interest in figuring out how to deal with the potential hazard of an asteroid impact," Dr Rozitis said. "Understanding what holds these asteroids together can inform strategies to guard against future impacts," he added.

An estimated 1,500 people were injured when an undetected meteor exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, releasing more than 30 times the explosive energy of the Hiroshima bomb.

It ripped through the atmosphere at 19 kilometres per second and was equivalent to between 500,000 and 600,000 tons of TNT, scientists found.

People directly under the flight of the meteor were knocked off their feet and many others suffered sunburn or eye damage as they looked at the intense fireball.

A shockwave following the impact knocked out thousands of windows and destroyed parts of buildings, injuring anyone nearby with flying debris.

High salt intake causes 1.6 million deaths worldwide

 A new analysis involving 187 countries has found that 1.6 million deaths due to heart diseases can be linked to high salt consumption. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a daily salt intake of 2 grams whereas the average global intake is 3.95 g, varying between 2.18 to 5.51 g in different regions. Excessive salt causes increase in blood pressure which in turn leads to various heart ailments including heart attacks and strokes.

The research was led by Dariush Mozaffarian, currently at the Tufts University in US, though he was at the at the Harvard School of Public Health while doing the research. The findings were published in the August 14 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

"High sodium intake is known to increase blood pressure, a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases including heart disease and stroke," Mozaffarian said. "However, the effects of excess sodium intake on cardiovascular diseases globally by age, sex, and nation had not been well established."

The researchers collected and analyzed existing data from 205 surveys of sodium intake in countries representing nearly three-quarters of the world's adult population, in combination with other global nutrition data, to calculate sodium intakes worldwide by country, age, and sex. Effects of sodium on blood pressure and of blood pressure on cardiovascular diseases were determined separately in new pooled meta-analyses, including differences by age and race. These findings were combined with current rates of cardiovascular diseases around the world to estimate the numbers of cardiovascular deaths attributable to sodium consumption above 2.0g per day.

In their meta-analysis of controlled intervention studies, the researchers found that reduced sodium intake lowered blood pressure in all adults, with the largest effects identified among older individuals, blacks, and those with pre-existing high blood pressure.

"These 1.65 million deaths represent nearly one in 10 of all deaths from cardiovascular causes worldwide. No world region and few countries were spared," added Mozaffarian, who chairs the Global Burden of Diseases, Nutrition, and Chronic Disease Expert Group, an international team of more than 100 scientists studying the effects of nutrition on health and who contributed to this effort.

The researchers found that four out of five global deaths attributable to higher than recommended sodium intakes occurred in middle and low-income countries.

"Programs to reduce sodium intake could provide a practical and cost effective means for reducing premature deaths in adults around the world," added John Powles, last author and honorary senior visiting fellow in the department of public health and primary care at the University of Cambridge.

The authors acknowledge that their results utilize estimates based on urine samples, which may underestimate true sodium intakes. Additionally, some countries lacked data on sodium consumption, which was estimated based on other nutritional information; and, because the study focuses on cardiovascular deaths, the findings may not reflect the full health impact of sodium intake, which is also linked to higher risk of nonfatal cardiovascular diseases, kidney disease and stomach cancer, the second most-deadly cancer worldwide.

'Candy Crush' decline continues for King, shares fall

Social and mobile game company King Digital Entertainment Plc reduced its 2014 forecast after reporting lower-than-expected second-quarter revenue on Tuesday, as gamers continued to spend less money on its "Candy Crush Saga" game.
King also announced a $150 million special dividend, or 46.9 cents per share, payable to shareholders of record on Sept. 30. Its shares, however, slipped 22 percent in after-hours trading after closing at $18.20 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company, which went public in March, said it has reduced its 2014 forecast and expects gross bookings in the range of $2.25 billion to $2.35 billion from its previous estimate of $2.55 billion to $2.65 billion.
"We have seen a step down in monetization in the latter part of Q2 and so we have adapted the view forward," Chief Executive Officer Riccardo Zacconi said in an interview.
Investors have worried that unless King delivers a set of consistent and long-lasting hits, apart from "Candy Crush Saga," it might suffer the same fate as "Farmville" maker Zynga Inc and "Angry Birds" developer Rovio Corp, which are struggling to retain players.
King's second quarter gross bookings, an indicator of future revenue, was $611 million, up 27 percent from the year-ago period, but less than the last quarter when it reported gross bookings of $641.1 million.
King has yet to see its other titles such as "Farm Heroes Saga" and "Bubble Witch 2 Saga" fully offset user losses of its "Candy Crush Saga" puzzler game that accounted for about 60 percent of second-quarter gross bookings.
"We expect 'Candy Crush' will decline, but have a very strong tail and a long tail," Chief Financial Officer Hope Cochran said in an interview. "We will be launching the 'Candy Crush' sister title in Q4, which will give more longevity to that title."
The company reported revenue of $594 million for the second quarter ended June 30 compared with $456 million in the year-ago period. This fell short of analysts' expectations of $608.3 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
It reported second-quarter net income of 52 cents per share compared with 39 cents per share in the year-ago period, and surpassing analysts' estimate of 49 cents per share. Non-GAAP earnings were 59 cents per share, which was in line with analysts’ expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company also said on Tuesday that it had acquired Singapore-based mobile game studio Nonstop Games for $6 million in cash upfront, and would pay $74 million over a four-year period if it reached certain revenue targets. Certain employees of Nonstop, which recently released strategy game "Heroes of Honor - War of Kings" for iOS devices, were given $10 million upfront, the company said

8 Morning Mistakes To Avoid

Are you always in a bad mood when you wake up? Do you skip breakfast? A few simple changes can transform your mornings

1. Waking up with a jerk and hitting the gym 

Mornings are slowdown time. Give yourself time to wake up quietly and move your muscles slowly. Says spiritual guru Mohanji, "When you wake up, turn to your right and get up from the bed. This balances the energy flow, which is latent during sleep." Yoga expert Abhishek Sharma says, "What we do soon after we wake up sets the tone for the rest of the day. Mistakes in the morning have adverse effects on the quality of our day, and over a period of time, lead to serious consequences on our health and well-being. Spend a few minutes in silence, take deep breaths, sip room temperature water."

2. Not stretching 

When we wake up, our muscles, particularly the spine, is a bit stiff. Waking up without stretching makes us carry this stiffness, which compromises our productivity through the day. Move gently after waking up. If you have tight hamstrings and calves, stretch them. Just three to four gentle stretches and a few deep breaths will help.

3. Starting your day with a cup of tea 

The secret of good metabolism is not to start your day with a cup of tea but something alkaline. Says yoga and fitness expert Mini Shastri, "Don't start your day with something acidic like tea or coffee with sugar and milk. Drink lime juice and water. Follow it up with white tea or quality green tea."

4. Checking your phone 

Author Julie Morgenstern wrote in her best-seller Never Check Email In The Morning And Other Unexpected Strategies For Making Your Work Life Work, "You don't have to immediately solve the world's problems in the first two hours after you wake up. Your energy should be first focussed on the most important jobs, not the least important. Check your emails only once you reach office. Checking them in the morning won't really make you productive. On the contrary, it'll put you in an unhappy mood." Corporate guru Azim Jamal starts his day with the hour of power or what he calls 20:20:20. "20 minutes exercise, 20 minutes meditation and 20 minutes of reading something uplifting," says Jamal.

5. Skipping breakfast 

A slew of recent reports link skipping breakfast to obesity, diabetes and weak immunity.

In fact, Harvard School of Public Health has said that missing breakfast puts extra strain on the body. Wellness expert Ramon Lamba says, "If you skip breakfast, you will end up making wrong food choices through the day. You don't have to have breakfast like a king, but you do need to eat something." In the morning, blood sugar levels are low because there's a long gap between dinner and breakfast time. If we do not eat something in about half an hour of waking up, the levels dip further making us lethargic. Another big mistake is to start the day with sugar in tea, biscuits, etc. Fitness expert Leena Mogre says, "Begin the day with a few soaked almonds, whole wheat bread, rotis or some fruit. This raises the blood sugar levels gradually."

6. Waking up grumpy 

Most people have cluttered and over-busy mornings. They abuse their maids, curse the traffic and everyone else around them. But the good news, according to mood researcher Allison G. Harvey, Ph.D, professor of psychology at the University of California, is that morning bad mood lasts only for about 20 minutes! Actress Manisha Koirala says, "I think the worst thing people can do is to begin their day with noise or being grouchy. It blocks positive energies. Tranquillity in the morning time is the most important thing. Before 10 am, try to listen to natural soothing sounds of nature - birdcalls, sounds of ocean, chanting of mantras."

7. Not planning the day ahead 

Do you pack your clothes and plan your meals a day in advance? Says Mogre, "The biggest mistake people make is not planning in advance. It may be unappealing to think about the next morning after a long day, but plan your meals and set your clothes aside. Prep up your breakfast, the night before."

8. Getting nicotine-or-caffeine `hit' 

A lot of people reach for their pack of cigarettes or that strong black coffee as soon as they get up. With the body away from any nourishment for several hours, and mornings being the best time for digestive juices to work - a cigarette or a strong coffee on an empty stomach can devastate the system over a period of time.

Don't give anything to your body before you drink a glass of water. A small fruit or even a non-sugary biscuit before that coffee would do wonders in protecting your digestive system.

Funnyman Robin Williams gave comedy a darker edge

Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams shot to fame for his madcap standup act and his offbeat alien Mork, but his most famous roles showed a depth of pain behind the comedian's mask.
The wildly popular 63-year-old funnyman, whose career spanned more than three decades, was known for rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness improvisations and impersonations.
On screen, his characters were often offbeat and eccentric -- from the zany alien Mork from the planet Ork, the television role in the 1970s that first catapulted him to fame, to the divorced dad who transforms himself into a elderly British nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire.
His skill at imitating voices was often showcased -- as in his portrayal of the genie in the 1992 Disney adaptation of "Aladdin," in which his character runs through a string of celebrity impressions.
But he also found success in darker roles, including an Oscar-winning turn as psychologist Sean Maguire, a Vietnam veteran and widower who counsels troubled genius Will Hunting.
'I was shameful'
But for all Williams Hollywood success and outsize public persona, the comedian faced private demons, including recurring battles with drugs, alcohol and mental illness.
He quit drinking and cocaine in the early 1980s, when his first son was born, but after 20 years sober, he started drinking again while filming in Alaska in 2003, he told the Guardian newspaper in 2010.
"It was that thing of working so much, and going 'Fuck, maybe (drinking) will help?' And it was the worst thing in the world," he told the newspaper, adding, however, he did not start taking drugs again.
It took him another three years to get back to sobriety, after a family intervention led him to rehab, he said, blaming his drinking for the breakup in 2008 of his 19-year-second marriage.
"You know, I was shameful, and you do stuff that causes disgust, and that's hard to recover from."
It was health problems -- and open heart surgery -- in 2009 that he credits with being the true turning point.
"It breaks through your barrier, you've literally cracked the armor. And you've got no choice, it literally breaks you open. And you feel really mortal," he said.
During the three-hour surgery, doctors replaced Williams' aortic valve, repair his mitral valve, and correct an irregular heart beat.
The actor was also reportedly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and in July, 2014, he checked into a Minnesota rehab facility for help maintaining sobriety after a grueling year-and-a-half of work.
A darker side
One of Williams' most famous roles was as radio disk jockey Adrian Cronauer, whose loud and drawn out "Gooooooood morning, Vietnaaaaaam" started each broadcast and was the title of the film.
The character bucks authority on the air, bringing US troops the 1960s rock music and lifestyle they missed from home, playing unapproved songs and riffing in quick-fire improvisations in between.
Although he brings humor to his portrayal of the character, the film, set amid one of the longest and deadliest US wars abroad, is hardly a comedy.
And even his more light-hearted films touch on deeper sadness, including slapstick "Mrs. Doubtfire," the cross-dressing character created by divorced dad Daniel Hillard in desperation to see his kids, who were living with a wife who sees him as irresponsible.
Williams was beloved as inspirational prep-school teacher John Keating, in the "Dead Poets Society," another character that defied authority with an unorthodox teaching style that ultimately gets him fired.
And in yet another dramatic role in "Awakenings," Williams played Malcolm Sayer, a doctor with a ward full of catatonic patients.
Sayer finds success with a treatment, shepherding his newly-awakened charges into an unfamiliar world decades after their mental freeze, but it is ultimately temporary.
But Williams left behind his darker side in films for children, including as the voice behind the genie in Disney's "Aladdin," singing the iconic, and award-winning, song "Friends Like Me," and in kids' romp "Jumanji" about a boardgame that comes to life.