Microsoft Sets Sept. 15 Date for IE9 Beta Launch

On Thursday afternoon, Microsoft sent out invitations to the launch of Internet Explorer 9 beta on Sept. 15, in San Francisco. The invitation to the event, dubbed "Beauty of the Web," included an HTML5 invitation site with an animated word game taking advantage of that emerging set of Web standards.

Microsoft had previously disclosed that it would release an IE9 beta in September.

Since March, the software giant has released four "platform previews," which lacked a true user interface with conveniences like bookmarks, search, and history. And just last week, the fourth preview was released, with the accompanying blog post by Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch noting that it would be the last platform preview before the beta phase. He also noted that the previews had been downloaded 2.5 million times, and the accompanying test site of demos had received over 20 million visits.

It's expected that the September beta will be our first look at a new interface, about which Microsoft has been very tight-lipped. But speculation about a Chrome-like "tabs-on-top" look or incorporation of an Office-like ribbon toolbar has kept Web software pundits busy. Another idea being tossed around is that the user interface will resemble the Zune/Windows Phone 7 "Metro" look.

The Microsoft team working on IE9 has focuses on two objectives: speed and standards support. For speed the browser takes advantage of graphics hardware acceleration using the version of DirectX present in Vista and Windows 7, so XP users won't be able to take advantage of the new faster browser.

Compliance with upcoming web standards means support for HTML5, SVG, and CSS3. With the fourth platform preview, it seems Microsoft has got the internal workings pretty much nailed down, having integrated its new Chakra JavaScript engine directly into the browser code rather than as a separate script engine accessed via COM (Component Object Model) Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch claims that this approach "significantly improves performance for real world websites."

PCMag.com will be at the launch, so look for up to the minute coverage and testing at the time of launch. In the meantime, you can check out the fourth platform preview at ietestdrive.com. Microsoft hasn't given any indication of the date of IE9's final launch, but many expect it to be during the company's Mix web developer conference next April.

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Oracle Wields Java as a Weapon

I'll say this for Oracle, at least it's consistently contradictory. The executives will extol the virtues of their partners, then turn right around and kick them in the--well, you know--and deploy an "innovative" copy of their partner's free software.

Or they'll claim to love open source, then let a prominent open source project suffer death by ignoring.

Or they'll tout open standards, then turn around and use patents on a standard programming language, then sue one of the biggest users of that technology.

Yes, consistent indeed.

Last week, when Oracle announced it was suing Google for alleged infringement of Oracle's JavaLinux to the heavens. patents, my initial reaction was one of resigned realization: when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems last year, I always wondered if it was just to get control of MySQL, arguably Oracle's once-biggest potential threat. They weren't doing anything with OpenSolaris, after all, and just this week at LinuxCon, praised

Yesterday, I realized, was the other piece of Oracle business plan: buy Sun, get Sun's Java IP, and then start shaking down as many Java implementers with deep pockets as possible. Repeat.

As programmer Joe Cheng tweeted so eloquently last night: "One word: SCOracle."

There are, of course, many learned and experienced pundits offering early analysis of this lawsuit, so I won't belabor the point. Bruce Perens asks, what about the Java patent grant? And Joel West has an excellent play-by-play on his blog, tagging this as a likely negotiation ploy.

Instead of adding my voice to the rising cacophony of dismay, I want to put the question out there that's been bothering me quite a bit as I've watched Oracle kill or weaponize components of Sun:

What's going to happen to OpenOffice.org?

The open source office suite, once owned by Sun, is now part of Oracle's stable of properties. The question then becomes, will Oracle continue to feed and care for OpenOffice.org, or will it put the project out to pasture, as it seems to be doing with OpenSolaris?

OpenOffice.org doesn't need Oracle to survive, of course, but without corporate backing to keep the project's lead developers going, OpenOffice.org, the best platform for open document standards to date, would likely suffer.

So we should ask Oracle what they plan to do with OpenOffice.org.

Then figure they'll actually do the exact opposite.

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Amartya Sen hits out at Facebook; says no intention to join

After falling victim to identity theft on 'Facebook', Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has said he got no help from the managers of the social networking site in closing the "fraudulent" page of someone impersonating him. Sen said he never intends to open any account at a site where it is difficult to
check the "genuineness" of a participant.

According to a recent newspaper report, an 'impostor' pretending to be Amartya Sen had created a page on Facebook, which showed Sen as having 490 fans, and was liberally posting views that radically contradicted the political and economic views held by the Professor.

"I do not have any Facebook site of my own, and do not intend to open one. The story.....is indeed correct, and the site referred to there, where someone pretending to be me answered questions -- in first person -- as Amartya Sen, had nothing whatsoever to do with me," Sen said through email.

"The fraudulent Facebook page has been in operation, I understand, for some months now, but I came to know of it only two days ago when a young Italian enthusiast told me about this site, having been deceived himself in thinking it to be genuine," he added.

Disappointed that he never got any help from the Facebook managers in solving the issue, Sen said, "The managers of the Facebook system are not helpful in monitoring the veracity of the sites and communications. I got no help from them, and if the fraudulent site pretending to be from me has now been closed -- as I am told it has been...."

Efforts to get a specific response from the Facebook did not materialise.

The renowned economist, however, does not completely disapprove of social networking sites.

"I don't use Facebook not because I disapprove of them. The genuine ones could help communication across the world, of which I am entirely in favour. Indeed, I think such communications can be very useful in getting people closer to each other despite the geographical distances separating them," Sen said.

"If the honour system is respected, the Facebook can have good effects, without the possibility of distorting people's views -- as my economic and political assessments were distorted by that fraudulent site," he added.

Earlier, reacting to the revelation, Sen had said "I had no clue what he could be talking about, but there I was in what pretended to be a Facebook site run by me, with a picture of mine (real) and date of birth (real), replying to others with easy abandon -— telling them what to read and what to avoid, corresponding in first person."

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Amartya Sen hits out at Facebook; says no intention to join

After falling victim to identity theft on 'Facebook', Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has said he got no help from the managers of the social networking site in closing the "fraudulent" page of someone impersonating him. Sen said he never intends to open any account at a site where it is difficult to
check the "genuineness" of a participant.

According to a recent newspaper report, an 'impostor' pretending to be Amartya Sen had created a page on Facebook, which showed Sen as having 490 fans, and was liberally posting views that radically contradicted the political and economic views held by the Professor.

"I do not have any Facebook site of my own, and do not intend to open one. The story.....is indeed correct, and the site referred to there, where someone pretending to be me answered questions -- in first person -- as Amartya Sen, had nothing whatsoever to do with me," Sen said through email.

"The fraudulent Facebook page has been in operation, I understand, for some months now, but I came to know of it only two days ago when a young Italian enthusiast told me about this site, having been deceived himself in thinking it to be genuine," he added.

Disappointed that he never got any help from the Facebook managers in solving the issue, Sen said, "The managers of the Facebook system are not helpful in monitoring the veracity of the sites and communications. I got no help from them, and if the fraudulent site pretending to be from me has now been closed -- as I am told it has been...."

Efforts to get a specific response from the Facebook did not materialise.

The renowned economist, however, does not completely disapprove of social networking sites.

"I don't use Facebook not because I disapprove of them. The genuine ones could help communication across the world, of which I am entirely in favour. Indeed, I think such communications can be very useful in getting people closer to each other despite the geographical distances separating them," Sen said.

"If the honour system is respected, the Facebook can have good effects, without the possibility of distorting people's views -- as my economic and political assessments were distorted by that fraudulent site," he added.

Earlier, reacting to the revelation, Sen had said "I had no clue what he could be talking about, but there I was in what pretended to be a Facebook site run by me, with a picture of mine (real) and date of birth (real), replying to others with easy abandon -— telling them what to read and what to avoid, corresponding in first person."

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We won't allow technology harming security: Pilot

The Centre will ensure that no communication or information technology poses any threat to national security, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said on Saturday, referring to the BlackBerry controversy.

“Action is necessary as some of the services of Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the smartphone, have implications for our safety and security, particularly when we are fighting terrorism. National security is paramount,” he said here.

“We do not want any situation in which a technology can harm our internal security. For these reasons, the Home Ministry is considering a wide range of issues from time to time.” He hoped that the Canada-based RIM would cooperate with the law enforcement agencies and address their legitimate concerns.

The Centre had to take certain measures if a technology had implications for internal security, and the issue of BlackBerry services was one of them. “It is not an issue of imposing a ban; what we want is cooperation from them for the sake of security issues,” Mr. Pilot said.

The government has set an August 31 deadline for RIM and telecom operators offering its services to address its security concerns, failing which, it warned, it will shut down BlackBerry Enterprise Services and BlackBerry Messenger Services.

As for telemarketing calls and messages, Mr. Pilot said they had become a nuisance, and the government would soon come out with some kind of regulation.

“There are around 65 crore telecom users in the country, and these SMS and calls are an invasion of privacy, therefore a holistic view should be taken and strong steps initiated to address this.”

“Regulators, service providers and marketing services need to come together to make stringent laws on the subject… I believe that very soon some steps will be taken. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has even held a meeting and discussed the issue with all stakeholders, and soon something concrete will be done to check this menace.”

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3 more H1N1 cases reported from UP; toll reaches 145

With three more cases of swine flu -- two from Lucknow and one from Allahabad detected on Friday -- the total number of persons found infected with H1N1 virus in the state has reached to 145 this year. Of this, seven victims have already lost their lives.

In Lucknow, one Chaitali Biswas (30) and Aman Akash (20) tested positive for the virus at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) on Friday. A resident of Kolkata, Chaitali was on a visit to SGPGI where she went for a routine check up following symptoms of cold and fever. Akash happens to be the resident of Lucknow. Chief medical officer Dr AK Shukla said that the two have been quarantined.

In all, over a dozen patients are under close observation at SGPGI alone. This include five patients who have been admitted to the Tertiary Care Institute. Medical superintendent, SGPGIMS, Dr AK Bhatt said that the patients were being constantly monitored. Another seven patients have been quarantined and provided medicine `Tamiflu' and masks.

Meanwhile, Allahabad registered its first victim of swine flu on Friday when a 63-year-old woman hailing from Pratapgarh was found positive at SGPGI. The woman was further admitted to Army Hospital in an isolated ward where a team of doctors are treating her. She was administered with Tamiflu and the mask.

Medical officer, epidemic cell, Dr Rajendra Kumar told TOI that the woman had approached the hospital authorities three days back and doctors had sent her swab sample to SGPGI, Lucknow for test. On Friday, the woman was found positive for swine flu.

No case of swine flu has been detected from Varanasi this year. Ironically, the city, which receives a number of foreign tourists is yet to initiate screening of passengers at its airport.

"So far we have not received any instructions to start the screening at airport though sporadic cases of infectious swine flu are pouring from central and western part of the state,'' said Dr Shaukat Kamal, assistant director, National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD), Varanasi and nodal officer for swine flu in the region while talking to TOI on Friday. Only the health staffs and paramedics involved in the control programme have been vaccinated on a precautionary note in the region, he added.

It may be mentioned here that around 20,000 air passengers of international flights were screened for suspected swine flu cases at Babatpur Airport during the period of nine months (May 2009 to January 2010).

Dr RS Verma, chief medical officer, Varanasi, claimed that as many as two isolation wards (each with 10-beds) at DDU and SPG hospitals have been reserved for swine flu cases while a stock of around 7,500 Tamiflu tablets are ready to meet any emergency situation. Likewise, as many as 45 swine flu protection kit with gloves and face masks apart from 15 sample collection kits are also available with the department, he added.

No swine flu case was reported from Kanpur, even though one suspected case of swine flu was reported in July. The patient, thankfully, tested negative.

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22 superbug cases in just one hospital...

Twenty-two patients in three months in a single hospital. This statistic should serve as an answer to anyone who wants to understand why the NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1) is creating ripples — both within India and in the rest of the world.

Hinduja Hospital in Mahim isolated the super bacteria in 22 patients within a span of three months. This has happened within a year of the bacteria being isolated for the first time by European doctors in a Swedish patient who had travelled to New Delhi for an operation.

"If a single hospital can isolate such a significant number of bacteria with a new resistance gene in a short period of time; the data from all the Indian hospitals, if available would potentially be more interesting and shocking than the human genome project data, which is considered as a discovery more important than the moon landing itself," wrote Dr Abdul Ghafar K, consultant in infectious diseases at Apollo Hospital, Chennai, in an editorial in JAPI, one of the leading Indian research journals.

A senior microbiologist from Mumbai who doesn't want to be named believes that mutations in bugs — to create superbugs — can only occur in countries like India where antibiotics are routinely overused or abused.
But Dr Abhay Chaudhary, president of the Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists believes that the European conclusion that it originated from the Indian subcontinent is not substantiated. "Some of the extrapolations in the study which appeared in the study that appeared in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal are inappropriate," he said.

While the truth about NDM-1's origins remain debatable, there are few things most Indian doctors agree upon: widespread abuse and overuse of antibiotics and the subsequent resistance in the community. In his JAPI article in March, Dr Ghafur wrote, "Our country, India, is the world leader in antibiotic resistance; in no other country antibiotics been misused to such an extent."

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