WASHINGTON: The Justice Department said it sued Oracle Corp, alleging it defrauded the federal government on a software contract in effect from 1998 to 2006 that involved hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

The lawsuit alleged Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices, ultimately leading to government customers receiving deals inferior to those Oracle gave its commercial customers, the department said.

Under the contract, the General Services Administration (GSA) used Oracle's disclosures about its commercial sales practices to negotiate minimum discounts for government agencies that bought Oracle's software.

The contract required Oracle to update GSA when commercial discounts improved and extend the same improved discounts to government customers.

The lawsuit was initially filed in federal court in Virginia by Paul Frascella, Oracle's senior director of contract services, the department said, adding it then decided to intervene in the case and to file a complaint under the False Claims Act.

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Intel Corporation has developed a research prototype representing the world's first silicon-based optical data connection with integrated lasers. The link can move data over longer distances and many times faster than today's copper technology; up to 50 gigabits of data per second. This is the equivalent of an entire HD movie being transmitted each second.

Today, computer components are connected to each other using copper cables or traces on circuit boards. Due to the signal degradation that comes with using metals such as copper to transmit data, these cables have a limited maximum length. This limits the design of computers, forcing processors, memory and other components to be placed just inches from each other.

Today's research achievement is another step toward replacing these connections with extremely thin and light optical fibers that can transfer much more data over far longer distances, radically changing the way computers of the future are designed and altering the way the datacenter of tomorrow is architected.

Silicon photonics will have applications across the computing industry. For example, at these data rates one could imagine a wall-sized 3D display for home entertainment and videoconferencing with a resolution so high that the actors or family members appear to be in the room with you.

Tomorrow's datacenter or supercomputer may see components spread throughout a building or even an entire campus, communicating with each other at high speed, as opposed to being confined by heavy copper cables with limited capacity and reach. This will allow datacenter users, such as a search engine company, cloud computing provider or financial datacenter, to increase performance, capabilities and save significant costs in space and energy, or help scientists build more powerful supercomputers to solve the world's biggest problems.

Justin Rattner, Intel chief technology officer and director of Intel Labs, demonstrated the Silicon Photonics Link at the Integrated Photonics Research conference in Monterey, California. The 50Gbps link is akin to a "concept vehicle" that allows Intel researchers to test new ideas and continue the company's quest to develop technologies that transmit data over optical fibers, using light beams from low cost and easy to make silicon, instead of costly and hard to make devices using exotic materials like gallium arsenide.

While telecommunications and other applications already use lasers to transmit information, current technologies are too expensive and bulky to be used for PC applications.

"This achievement of the world's first 50Gbps silicon photonics link with integrated hybrid silicon lasers marks a significant achievement in our long term vision of ‘siliconizing' photonics and bringing high bandwidth, low cost optical communications in and around future PCs, servers, and consumer devices" Rattner said.

The 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link prototype is the result of a multi-year silicon photonics research agenda, which included numerous "world firsts." It is composed of a silicon transmitter and a receiver chip, each integrating all the necessary building blocks from previous Intel breakthroughs including the first Hybrid Silicon Laser co-developed with the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2006 as well as high-speed optical modulators and photodetectors announced in 2007.

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LONDON: The average mobile phone carries 18 times more potentially harmful germs than a flush handle in a men's toilet, tests have revealed.

One of the phones in the test had such high levels of bacteria that it could have given its owner a serious stomach upset.

The findings from a sample of dozens of phones by Which? magazine suggest 14.7 million of the 63 million mobiles in use in Britain today could be potential health hazards, reports the Daily Mail.

Hygiene expert Jim Francis, who carried out the tests, said, "The levels of potentially harmful bacteria on one mobile were off the scale. That phone needs sterilising."

The most unhygienic phone also had 39 times the safe level of enterobacteria, a group of bacteria that live in the lower intestines of humans and animals and include bugs such as salmonella.

It boasted 170 times the acceptable level of faecal coliforms, which are associated with human waste.

Other bacteria including food poisoning bugs e.coli and staphylococcus aureus were found on the phones but at safe levels.

Which? researcher Ceri Stanaway said, "The bugs can end up on your hands which is a breeding ground and be passed back to your phone. They can be transferred back and forth and eventually you could catch something nasty.

"What this shows is how easy it is to come into contact with bacteria. People see toilet flushes as being something dirty to touch but they have less bacteria than phones.

"People need to be mindful of that by observing good hygiene themselves and among others who they pass the phone to when looking at photos, for example."

Which? has previously found that some computer keyboards carry more harmful bacteria than a lavatory seat.

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SecondMarket, a trading platform for private company stocks, has just released it’s Q2 2010 report. Overall transactions were down from Q1 – around $51 million in transactions were completed, less than the $70 million traded in March alone at the end of Q1.

Volume may be down, but prices are still going up. Facebook is now being offered at $65/share, and there are bids as high as $60. In April the price was $50/share.

Facebook accounted for 64% of total closed transactions, followed by Zynga with 12%. LinkedIn, Bloom Energy and Silver Spring Networks tied for third with 6% each. Twitter and MobiTV took most of the rest with 3% each.

SecondMarket also tracks buy side interest, even if no shares are listed for those companies. eHarmony, Groupon, Huffington Post and Skype all registered new interest. Funny, it looks like buyside interest in TechCrunch stock also increased by 100% in Q2, As far as I know, no one’s selling.

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NEW DELHI: A large number of IT companies are becoming more strict with departing employees and are asking them to serve the full notice period to ensure that business activities are not affected by a sudden shortage of manpower.

IT companies, whose revenues primarily depend on projects from their clients with a time-bound delivery, face serious risks to their businesses if skilled staff make a sudden exit, HR experts said.

"Now with the revival in the job market, companies want to hold on to their employees with critical skills and so they may be becoming stricter with regard to serving of full notice periods," Ma Foi Randstad President (Staffing/Selection & Training) E Balaji said.

"The trend of asking employees to serve the full notice period is being followed by many IT services companies. This is being done to reduce the risk on projects (from manpower resources perspective) and to get sufficient time to get replacement for a position," executive search firm GlobalHunt Director Sunil Goel said.

Notice period for employees generally refers to the amount of time specified in terms and conditions of employment that an employee must work between resigning from a firm and joining another.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing firm Elixir's Manager IT Practice Sitipragyan Rath Chadha said that it has become imperative for firms to review their relieving policies to manage higher employee turnover amid rising opportunities in the market.

"IT employees are usually deployed in time based projects and attrition can cause severe shortfall on deliverables, hence companies are focusing on evolving their policies regarding notice periods," Chadha added.

Experts said stricter relieving policies by firms may make it tougher for employees specially in middle and junior levels to make a shift.

Usually notice periods for middle and junior level staff is one month, while in some cases it may be three months.

"At leadership level, future employer do give flexibility to serve the full notice period in many cases if the buy-out is not possible. But future employers are not willing to wait for three months notice period being served by employees at mid and junior levels," Goel said.

Goel said companies are validating parallel resources, those who can join as soon as possible, and 90 days mandatory notice period can be an obstacle for many of the good job opportunities for many.

"Notice period does impact negatively on an outgoing employee with a good offer, but as more firms realise benefits of honouring notice periods, they will also keep positions on hold for deserving candidates," Chadha added.

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 NEW YORK: Microsoft Corp easily beat Wall Street forecasts with a 48 percent rise in quarterly profit, but its shares barely moved in the absence of powerful new signs of a rebound in global tech spending.

The world's largest software company said business customers are continuing to come back to the market for new personal computers, about 90 percent of which run on Microsoft's software, but it failed to match chipmaker Intel Corp's strongly optimistic tone last week.

Microsoft's stock has rallied in recent weeks, outperforming the Nasdaq composite index. But as Apple Inc has overtaken Microsoft as the world's largest tech company by market value about a month ago, analysts question where growth will come from after Windows 7 and Office 2010 run their course.

Microsoft said it sold 175 million licenses for its new Windows 7 operating system since its launch last October, a performance rated solid but unsurprising by analysts.

"It's a great quarter — but does that matter?" said Colin Gillis, analyst at BGC Partners. "We all knew the business refresh cycle was in place. This is the dilemma for Microsoft — how do they get the stock moving again?"

The company, which cut about 5 percent of its work force last year to keep a lid on costs, slightly lowered its operating expense target for the current fiscal year, which started on July 1.

It now expects to spend $26.9 billion to $27.3 billion this fiscal year, down from its March estimate of $27 billion to $27.5 billion.

Profit jump
Analysts say it may be tough for Microsoft's stock to advance in the short term. Investors are keen to see new phones running Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's attempt to make up lost ground in the mobile sector which will be in stores in the next few months.

The company hopes to excite consumers with a range of Windows-powered tablet devices and its untested Kinect motion gaming platform.

And its Bing Internet search engine is posting solid market share growth but remains miles behind Google Inc.

"It was strong in the areas that we thought they would be strong in, which is more of the business orientated operating systems," said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group, which owns about 431,000 Microsoft shares.

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NEW YORK Online blogging is a trendy communication tool not just for tech-savvy humans. Now your car can also send messages on Twitter and have more followers than even singer Lady Gaga and US President Barack Obama.

The car that can tweet is AJ, a future model of Ford Fiesta, which is a test bed for company engineers exploring the possibilities when an automobile is connected to the internet and all of its concomitant services.

"It's getting pretty dark; time to put the headlights on," was a typical entry posted by AJ when a team of engineers drove the car to California for an exhibition in May, The New York Times reported.

Followers also learned when AJ’s mood was "joyful" when "there's no traffic, and it's not raining and it's enjoying a winding road", said Joe Rork, an information technology architect with Ford.

Rork recalled the journey during a presentation in Manhattan and explained how AJ was sending the messages on its own.

The software behind AJ was an application called the "Auto"matic Blog. It tapped into the available data on the car, including telemetry information, like location, speed, acceleration and braking.

It also gleaned information from windshield wipers, steering input and GPS data and correlated it with live information culled from the Web.

AJ's software could combine, say, real-time traffic notices about congestion with its current situation (stop-and-go braking) and weather forecasts (storms ahead) and then send a Twitter entry like, "Stuck in traffic; not looking forward to next 50 miles, either."

Apart from Twitter application, the engineers also ran the location-based Foursquare software, through which the car could automatically check the team in at restaurants and tourist spots along the way (and send pictures).

The car is also being tested with a programme developed by University of Michigan students called Caravan Track, which allows a group of travellers to be automatically apprised of their friends' locations and conditions along the way.

Ford is already on track to add smartphone applications, including a Twitter feed, to its Sync-based cars later this year, the daily said.

It has also announced that it will enable other phone applications to connect to its cars, allowing third-party software programmes to use a vehicle's built-in controls, like buttons on the steering wheel, to control programmes, including music players running on connected Android phones.

The tests with AJ were a natural extension of this strategy to see what's possible when the car is connected and online all the time, according to Rork.

Since mainly off-the-shelf hardware was used, including a high-speed cellular data connection, a WiFi router and a Dell computer running Windows 7 in the trunk, any car could be turned into a Twittermobile, Rork said.

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A 32-year-old bright IT professional, a topper from Orissa, suddenly stopped attending work when his colleagues attributed his rise to sycophancy. This passing comment was enough to cause distress and send him to a psychiatrist’s clinic.

Dr Harish Shetty labels this a mid-life crisis. “I discovered that his relationships were based on utility or on awe and admiration. He was the golden child of the family who was never reprimanded. He wasn’t taught to share his feelings and was emotionally underdeveloped."

According to experts, men in their 30s from the IT industry are worst hit by the mid-life crisis as compared to the professionals from other fields with poor EQ (emotion quotient). They have difficulty keeping pace with technology in their professions. Analyses psychiatrist Rajendra Barve, “In trying to keep up with youngsters in their career, professional in their 30’s start feeling obsolete. The crisis also strikes the most who are successful academically and in their careers, but have a poor EQ level.”

Explains Barve, “These are Type A personalities, who are also more prone to heart problems. They are smart, intelligent, achieve too early, too soon. They work hard, rise fast, but lack the skills to handle a personal crisis or manage people. They also lack introspection skills.

Traditionally believed to strike in the 40s now mid-life crisis hits both men and women in the mid-30s. With many careers on a fast track, individuals tend to “burn out” earlier these days and are suddenly faced with crises earlier in life. It begins with individuals questioning their objectives in life and realising that they have been chasing the wrong goals which has been causing more stress than a sense of well-being and happiness.

Sometimes this is compounded by a diminished sex drive as well as a sense of physical and psychological aging. According to psychiatrist Samir Parekh, “Life is a constant transition and stresses have gone up, but coping mechanisms have not. Competition, high pressure jobs, high financial investments, a nuclear family make for difficult transitions in the 30s.”

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For all the grief Google gets for not understanding social networks, people often forget that it owns a pretty big one, Orkut. While Orkut is much smaller than Facebook worldwide, it does dominate in at least two large countries: Brazil and India. But that soon may change. India looks like it is about to fall to Facebook. In May, 2010, Facebook attracted 18 million unique visitors in India, compared to Orkut’s 19.7 million (comScore). In the past year, Facebook grew 177 percent from 6.5 million Indian visitors, compared to 35 percent growth for Orkut. When the June numbers come out, Facebook may very well surpass Orkut in that country. Indeed, Google’s own Trends for websites shows Facebook edging out Orkut in India last month. Facebook has been pouring a lot of resources into India, and is currently hiring 500 people there. It is a major global priority for the company. Brazil, however, is still safe for Orkut, with 29 million visitors a months versus only 8 million for Facebook. But Google is no longer pinning its social networking hopes on Orkut. It has moved onto other things like cloning Facebook with its not-so-secret Google Me project. Well, it might not be a complete clone, if the ideas of one Google researcher are any indication.

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SAN FRANCISCO – A new program being spearheaded by Microsoft Corp is designed to provide a trusted way for researchers to report stolen credit card numbers and other data they've found in the dark corners of the Internet.

Establishing that link is important because when a researcher finds stolen data, it can be hard to convince a bank or law enforcement that the information is legitimate. The lost time can mean the difference between someone's identity being used for fraud, and stopping a fraud before it occurs.

The program Microsoft is spearheading could greatly help researchers deal with data they've found online and submitted to affected companies, said Dan Clements, former president of CardCops, which specializes in tracking down stolen payment card numbers online.

When researchers find card numbers being sold or hawked online, "We send it to everybody immediately. We send it to companies, the government, the consumer — it's a blitzkrieg.

That way they have all the intel and can act accordingly," he said. "You could call it scattershot. It's the only way you can assure that we've done our job. But we have no way of knowing it's effective."

Clements said the speed of the new program — how quickly it leads to notifications for affected institutions and consumers — will be key to whether it is successful.

Some merchants and gambling websites have tried similar programs in the past. They created databases of stolen cards against which they'd check transactions, Clements said. But the programs fell apart, partly because the companies didn't work well together without a middleman, he said.

The new program is being managed by the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, a nonprofit organization that focuses on cybercrime and has law enforcement agencies as members.

The American Bankers Association and eBay Inc are also taking part in the new program, and banks, retailers and Internet security firms will be added over time.

Nancy Anderson, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said in an interview that the idea for the program came from problems Microsoft security researchers encountered in their attempts to alert banks and online retailers to fraud they've discovered.

"When these kinds of credentials are stolen, they may not get used immediately, so the goal here is to get the information to the institutions quickly, quickly, quickly, so the appropriate action can be taken before the damage is done," she said.

Clements said that one weakness of Microsoft's program is that it won't allow people to anonymously submit what they've found, which could discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.

He cited an example from CardCops that involved an insider at an e-commerce company who discovered his company was hacked and lost 50,000 credit card numbers.

The employee said management threatened to fire him if he disclosed the breach. Clements said CardCops allowed the employee to disclose the breach anonymously and sent the information to the banks and the government.

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