ChatDD Blog

Bill Gates ain’t the richest man of the world anymore.

Carlos Slim Helu takes No. 1 spot on Forbes World’s Billionaires List.

1) Carlos Slim Helu

Net Worth: $53.5 billion

Source: Telecom

Residence: Mexico

• Telecom tycoon who pounced on privatization of Mexico’s national telephone company in the 1990s becomes world’s richest person for first time after coming in third place last year. Net worth up $18.5 billion in a year.

2) Bill Gates

Net Worth: $53 billion

Source: Microsoft

Residence: U.S.

• Software visionary is now the world’s second-richest man. Net worth still up $13 billion in a year as Microsoft shares rose 50% in 12 months, value of investment vehicle Cascade swelled.

Berlin….Germany scientists invented a new car. Which is controlled by a special function in the Mobile Phone. Berlin university professor “Raul Rojas” shown practical experiment of this Car. This car is same like other car but a special function is added in this car which is controlled by Eye Phone, which runs this car through local network signals.There is no need of driver in this car. Scientist experimented this car on Temple Hope Airport. Use of Automatic navigition system, Laser Sensor, On board Video Camera made tis latest car of this Century.

One million UK consumers have exceeded or come close to exceeding their broadband usage limit, research from consumer group uSwitch has found.

So-called usage caps, where internet service providers limit the amount of bandwidth users can have in any given month, are standard practice.

But the majority of users are still confused by the bandwidth curbs imposed on them, the research found.

For some who go over their limit the penalty is disconnection.

Bandwidth-hungry services such as iPlayer are proving popular

“With so much reliance on broadband, having the service disconnected could feel to someone as serious as having their electricity cut off,” said Tim Wolfenden, spokesman for uSwitch.

Small print

Its survey found that 56% of broadband providers who advertised services as “unlimited” did impose usage caps and were prepared to cut people off if they used their service to excess.

Only two out of the nine actually said what these limits were.

As a result, uSwitch found that 80% of UK broadband customers either wrongly thought that they had an unlimited broadband package or did not know what their limit was.

“Broadband companies should not be allowed to class their packages as unlimited if they are not,” said Mr Wolfenden. “As providers aren’t choosing to be fully transparent about this issue people need to be savvy when choosing their broadband and pay close attention to the small print.”

More expensive

Net suppliers argue that such caps are necessary if they are to continue to offer a good service to all at the prices consumers have come to expect.

The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISP), which represents UK ISPs, has strict rules on how such caps are passed on.

“An ISPA Member must not deliberately operate bandwidth caps unless it makes available to its customers and users in a clear manner the nature of the caps that apply,” said a spokesman for ISPA.

Fair usage policies are generally found in the terms and conditions of a broadband contract but, according to uSwitch research, only one in four people actually read it.

iPlayer
Read more…

Intel’s newest chips take “Extreme” to the extreme, with game-friendly features and superior power.

With Google increasingly dominating search, Yahoo has called on the wisdom of the crowds in its efforts to catch up.

Yesterday, the company invited companies or individuals to use its search engine technology to build whatever innovative web pages they can think of. This gives start ups a way in to the multi-billion dollar search market without having to invest the millions needed to build a search engine of their own.

Yahoo, in turn, will make money by serving ads on the results pages of the subsequent searches.

The questions is: what kind of specialised search engines do we need that aren’t available now?

A quick trawl round the office led to suggestions for a time-based search engine which allows you to find out when specific events occurred (when was the battle of Waterloo, for example) but also to search for events by the time at which they occurred. For example, find all references to Barack Obama between 1996 and 1999.

Another idea is a “What’s on” search engine that properly aggregates events and listings and can be searched by location, date and event. No site seems to have really nailed that yet.

And perhaps a way to search government-owned information might be useful. Who knows what nuggets might be unearthed from public records offices, were the information easily accessible?

That’s our ha’penny’s-worth. Anybody got any better suggestions?

Justin Mullins
New Scientist consultant