Have you noticed how today’s mobile phone has evolved into a handheld computer? Please click here to read an article I wrote on this, which was published in the Science and Technology page of The Tribune on May 25, 2007

Net result

Utility, not novelty, helping Internet growth
by Roopinder Singh

MORE Indians are accessing the Internet than ever before, but the nation is way down the list in the number of users internationally. The US is the leader by far, followed by China, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Korea. India is now the ninth in terms of overall online population internationally, according to a survey by comScore World Metrix, a US-based company that compiles data on the Internet and its users’ behaviour. Click here to read more

As a one-year-old in 1982, it was declared the “Person of the Year” by Time magazine. Today, as it completes 25 years, the Personal Computer can boast of turning the world around and impacting lives as none before. Let’s scroll down the eventful years of the smart machine, which refuses to slacken its drive. Click here to read more.

Banning blogs, a big blunder

by Roopinder Singh

THE only thing worse than doing something wrong is to execute the deed ineptly. Some bureaucrats in the Government of India have managed to do both by stopping access to blogs on the Internet recently in the wake of the July 11 Mumbai bomb blasts.

The word blog is an abbreviation of Weblog, a Web page that is accessible to the public, and is often used as an online personal journal. You post a blog because you want to share information or express an opinion. The people who read your blog may do so because of curiosity, to get varied opinions on news, issues, and other matters, find persons with similar interests and ideas and for entertainment.

To read more, click here.

Cyber insecurity

Human vulnerabilities are exploited for IT crimes

by Roopinder Singh

Security, or rather the lack of it in the cyber world, has come into focus again. National secrets have been leaking out at an appalling rate and supposedly secure computers have become more of cyber sieves than repositories of data.

There has been a major leak of electronic data from the National Security Council Secretariat in New Delhi. Mukesh Saini, a former Navy Commander who served as the information security specialist at the NSC, is now being sought for questioning, while S. S. Paul, a systems analyst, has been arrested. Ujjwal Dasgupta, Director of Computers in RAW, is also under a cloud, as is the high-profile Indo-US Cyber Security Forum.

To read more, click here.