0 DataWind to integrate GetJar app store in Aakash tablet

An app store was definitely a missing feature in the ultra low-cost Aakash tablet. But now the makers of the world's cheapest tablet, DataWind, have filled the gap by incorporating a GetJar app store that features more than 350,000 free applications.

“GetJar is an established partner with a very large selection of free applications that users can download onto their UbiSlate or Aakash tablets. We’re excited by the added value this brings to our end users,” says DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli, while announcing partnership with GetJar.

DataWind's partnership with GetJar will definitely bring more value to the upgraded Aakash tablet, which will be coming out with better specifications such as better processor and a capacitive touchscreen at the same price of the original Aakash tablet. The Aakash tablet is slated to receive a major hardware upgrade - dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, and the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS later this year.

“Low-cost tablets open the capabilities of applications and the Internet for millions of people. We are happy to help Datawind make free applications and our GetJar Gold program available to these new tablet customers,” Chris Dury, GetJar’s CEO adds.

DataWind is currently going through a tough phase as it finds itself embroiled in a spate of controversies. The Canadian company has already been criticised for its public tiff with IIT Rajasthan and its ex-vendor Quad Electronics. DataWind recently sued the Indian Cellular Association for making defamatory comments.

That being said, DataWind is still the vendor for the Aakash tablet. The company is hopeful it will start supplying the tablets to the government later this month.

The Aakash tablet project has been hit by a spate of snags since it was unveiled in October last year. The first lot of tablets supplied by DataWind was discarded by the government over poor specifications. The Canadian company will be providing an upgraded Aakash at same price of original device. Meanwhile, the government plans to open a new tender for the Aakash tablet and wants to rope in state-run bodies to push the project with escalating cos

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0 Thousands may lose Internet in July

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.

Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down.

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org , that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.

Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.

Last November, the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers.

This is what happened:

Hackers infected a network of probably more than 570,000 computers worldwide. They took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to install malicious software on the victim computers. This turned off antivirus updates and changed the way the computers reconcile website addresses behind the scenes on the Internet's domain name system.

The DNS system is a network of servers that translates a web address - such as gadgets.ndtv.com - into the numerical addresses that computers use. Victim computers were reprogrammed to use rogue DNS servers owned by the attackers. This allowed the attackers to redirect computers to fraudulent versions of any website.

The hackers earned profits from advertisements that appeared on websites that victims were tricked into visiting. The scam netted the hackers at least $14 million, according to the FBI. It also made thousands of computers reliant on the rogue servers for their Internet browsing.

When the FBI and others arrested six Estonians last November, the agency replaced the rogue servers with Vixie's clean ones. Installing and running the two substitute servers for eight months is costing the federal government about $87,000.

The number of victims is hard to pinpoint, but the FBI believes that on the day of the arrests, at least 568,000 unique Internet addresses were using the rogue servers. Five months later, FBI estimates that the number is down to at least 360,000. The U.S. has the most, about 85,000, federal authorities said. Other countries with more than 20,000 each include Italy, India, England and Germany. Smaller numbers are online in Spain, France, Canada, China and Mexico.

Vixie said most of the victims are probably individual home users, rather than corporations that have technology staffs who routinely check the computers.

FBI officials said they organized an unusual system to avoid any appearance of government intrusion into the Internet or private computers. And while this is the first time the FBI used it, it won't be the last.

"This is the future of what we will be doing," said Eric Strom, a unit chief in the FBI's Cyber Division. "Until there is a change in legal system, both inside and outside the United States, to get up to speed with the cyber problem, we will have to go down these paths, trail-blazing if you will, on these types of investigations."

Now, he said, every time the agency gets near the end of a cyber case, "we get to the point where we say, how are we going to do this, how are we going to clean the system" without creating a bigger mess than before.

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