South Africa says it needs one billion condoms

The UK has donated £1m ($1.5m) to South Africa to buy condoms in a bid to combat HIV and Aids, as the nation builds up to the football World Cup.

South Africa says it needs one billion condoms this year, anticipating extra demand from foreign football fans.

This is more than double the number the government normally distributes, the health minister told the BBC.

More than five million people in South Africa have HIV - a higher number than in any other country.

South Africa is expecting some 450,000 foreigners to attend the World Cup.

Last month, South African medical official Victor Ramathesele told a medical conference organised by football's governing body Fifa that the country was preparing for the influx of visitors.

"There's going to be a large number of people who will be descending on to the country," he said.

"There's going to be a spirit of festivity and... there could be a more than usual demand for measures such as condoms.

"So there are measures in place to ensure that the condom supply is going to be ramped up during this tournament."

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Microsoft Could Release Windows 7 SP1 Before End Of 2010

There are claims that Microsoft could release the first Service Pack (SP1) for its newly released Windows 7 operating system fairly soon, possibly in the final quarter of this year itself.

This time, a Malaysian site, TechARP.com, which has incidentally been spot on in forecasting the Service Pack schedules for Windows XP and Windows Vista in the past, has speculated that the SP1 for Windows 7 would land as early as in the final quarter of 2010.

"The earliest Microsoft can realistically release Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 is in the last quarter of 2010", the website noted.

Initially, Microsoft was to follow a 22-month development span for the Windows 7 SP1, but later on it has reportedly abandoned its plans to address unidentified number of "serious" issues with the operating system.

This schedule would go well in line with its previous timetable for SP1 for XP and Vista. The SP1 for Windows XP was released around 10 months after the launch of the operating system, while the Vista SP1 was landed just around a year after the operating system was launched in January 2007.

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"advanced format" for Hard Drive in Year 2011

Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years.

By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.

The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable.

However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format.

Error codes

Since the days of the venerable DOS operating system, the space on a hard drive has been formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size.

The 512 byte sector became standardised thanks to IBM which used it on floppy disks.

While 512 bytes was useful when hard drives were only a few megabytes in size, it makes less sense when drives can hold a terabyte (1000 gigabytes), or more of data.

"The technology has changed but that fundamental building block of formatting has not," said David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate.

This fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem, he said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block.

Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive.

Moving to an advanced format of 4K sectors means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction.

"You can get yourself into a corner where you cannot squeeze much more onto the disk," said Steve Perkins, a technical consultant for Western Digital.

This shift also allows manufacturers to make more efficient use of the real estate on a hard drive.

"We can put more data on the disk," he said. "It's about 7-11% more efficient as a format."

Slow down

Through the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (Idema) all hard drive makers have committed to adopting the 4K advanced format by the end of January 2011.

Hard drive makers have begun an education and awareness campaign to let people know about the advanced format and to warn about the problems it could inflict on users of older operating systems such as Windows XP.

This is because Windows XP was released before the 4K format was decided upon.

"The 512 byte sector assumption is ensconced into a lot of the aspects of computer architecture," said Mr Burks from Seagate.

By contrast, Windows 7, Vista, OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and versions of the Linux kernel released after September 2009 are all 4K aware.

To help Windows XP cope, advanced format drives will be able to pretend they still use sectors 512 bytes in size.

When reading data from a drive this emulation will go unnoticed. However, said Mr Burks, in some situations writing data could hit performance.

In some cases the drive will take two steps to write data rather than one and introduce a delay of about 5 milliseconds.

"All other things being equal you will have a noticeable hard drive reduction in performance," said Mr Burks, adding that, in some circumstances, it could make a drive 10% slower.

In a bid to limit the misalignment, hard drive makers are producing software that ensures 512 sectors line up with 4K ones.

Those most likely to see the performance problems are those building their own computers or swapping out an old drive for one that uses the new format.

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Mobile that allows bosses to snoop on staff developed

Researchers have produced a mobile phone that could be a boon for prying bosses wanting to keep tabs on the movements of their staff.

Japanese phone giant KDDI Corporation has developed technology that tracks even the tiniest movement of the user and beams the information back to HQ.

It works by analysing the movement of accelerometers, found in many handsets.

Activities such as walking, climbing stairs or even cleaning can be identified, the researchers say.

The company plans to sell the service to clients such as managers, foremen and employment agencies.

"Technically, I think this is an incredibly important innovation," says Philip Sugai, director of the mobile consumer lab at the International University of Japan.

"For example, when applied to the issue of telemedicine, or other situations in which remotely monitoring or accessing an individual's personal movements is vital to that service.

"But there will surely be negative consequences when applied to employee tracking or salesforce optimisation."

Complex behaviour

Until now, mobile phone motion sensors were capable of detecting only repetitive movements such as walking or running.

The KDDI system, is able to detect more complex behaviour by using analytical software - held on a server back at base - to match patterns of common movements.

For example, the KDDI mobile phone strapped to a cleaning worker's waist can tell the difference between actions performed such as scrubbing, sweeping, walking an even emptying a rubbish bin.

The aim of the new system, according to KDDI, is to enable employees to work more efficiently and managers to easily evaluate their employees' performance while away from the office.

"It's part of our research into a total ubiquitous technology society, and activity recognition is an important part of that," said Hiroyuki Yokoyama, head of web data research at KKDI's research labs in Tokyo.

"Because this technology will make central monitoring possible with workers at several different locations, businesses especially are very interested in using such technology to improve the efficiency of their workers.

"We are now at a stage where we can offer managers a chance to analyse more closely the behaviour of staff."

KDDI says it is in talks with a Japanese employment agency that specialises in contract cleaners and security and is interested in deploying the new technology.

'Mothering system'

"Of course there are privacy issues and any employers should really enter into an agreement with employees before using such a system," Mr Yokoyama told BBC News.

"But this is not about curtailing employees' rights to privacy. We'd rather like to think our creation more of a caring, mothering system rather than a Big Brother approach to watching over citizens."

It is not the first time remote spying technology has been enlisted by employers to keep an eye on their workforce in Japan or elsewhere.

Lorry drivers are regularly monitored through mobile phones in Japan, while salespeople have been regularly tracked by their employers using GPS since it was introduced to Japanese mobiles in 2002.

Critics of such systems accuse the makers of pandering to an over-controlling, Big Brother-type managerial class and say that with this new technology there comes the increased opportunity for abuse.

'Poor record'

"This is treating people like machines, like so many cattle to be monitored and watched over," Kazuo Hizumi, a leading human rights lawyer, told BBC News.

"New technology should be used to improve our lives not to spy on us.

"It beggars belief that a prominent company such as KDDI could come up with such a surveillance system. It's totally irresponsible."

Japan had a very poor record on human rights, privacy issues and consumer rights, said Mr Hizumi.

For this reason, he said, invasive technologies were readily accepted as there was little debate on their possible impact to be found in the media in Japan or among its people.

"I'm afraid ordinary citizens don't care about this lack of rights. Consequently because of technology like this, Japan is heading for the Dark Ages," said Mr Hizumi.

'Fake pilot' arrested moments before take-off

A Swedish pilot without a valid licence to fly has been arrested at Amsterdam as he was about to fly a jet with 101 passengers to Turkey, Dutch police say.

The 41-year-old man said he had been flying for European airlines for 13 years and had logged 10,000 hours.

Police said he once had a licence to fly small planes but it had expired and it did not allow him to fly large jets.

Reports say the man was relieved his long deception was uncovered and tore off his pilot's stripes in the cockpit.

Turkey's Corendon Airlines said he had been flying for the airline for two years and had "expertly misled the company with his false papers".

The airline said it had been alerted by police and had a pilot standing by to fly the Boeing 737 from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to Ankara.

Dutch police were acting on a tip-off from Swedish authorities.

The man is in custody awaiting trial for forging documents and flying without a licence.

Canada drops national anthem change plan

Canada has dropped a proposal to change the country's national anthem by making it more gender-inclusive.

The government had said it was open to changing a lyric in O Canada - "in all thy sons command" - to the original version, "in thou dost us command".

Opposition Liberals said the proposed change was merely a gimmick that proved the ruling Conservatives were not serious about women's rights.

Public outcry was so strong PM Stephen Harper dropped the idea after two days.

"We offered to hear from Canadians on this issue and they have already spoken loud and clear," said Mr Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas.

"They overwhelmingly do not want to open the issue. The government will not proceed any further to change our national anthem."

The issue was raised after the anthem was played a record 14 times at gold medal ceremonies during the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

O Canada was officially proclaimed Canada's national anthem in 1980 after existing for many years alongside God Save the Queen.

It was composed by Calixa Lavallée in 1880 and while the lyrics have changed over the years, their current version is based on a 1908 poem written by Stanley Weir.

Now you can control you cellfone with magnet

London: Researchers have developed a new technique that makes it possible to control a cellphone with moving a magnet around or near it.

Experts at Deutsche Telekom (DT) in Berlin, Germany, have come up with a software that tracks changes to the magnetic field around a cellphone to identify different gestures by a hand holding or wearing a magnet.

The MagiTact lets user turn the pages of an on-screen document by moving their hand right to left while a sharp patting motion 10 to 20 centimetres above a device's screen can terminate a call, New Scientist reported.

DT researcher Hamed Ketabdar said: "Current methods of interaction are usually restricted by the physical boundaries of the device...The idea is to develop a way to interact with mobile devices through more natural human gestures."

Christian Holz at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, added: "Devices are getting smaller and so eventually it may be impossible to interact with them through touch. To take the interaction space off the actual device seems very reasonable because that gives you so much more space and you don't occlude the screen anymore."

The findings were presented at International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces in Hong Kong, China.

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Share your Money By through to Facebook

Friends on social networking site Facebook can now send small payments directly to each other via an application called Buxter.

Buxter handles transactions in Euros or US dollars, with plans to launch in Sterling in the next four weeks.

Other currencies are subject to a 5% conversion fee at the point of upload to a Buxter account.

The company behind the application is ClickandBuy which operates an online payment service across the web.

More than 13 million people across the world already have accounts with it, and a ClickandBuy account is required in order to use Buxter.

Transactions between Buxter accounts are free to make and receive but a 1.9% commission fee, minimum 2 euros or $3 (£2), is charged to move the money to another source such as a bank account.

"People share their statuses, their information and their pictures on Facebook so the question is why not share money there too?" Christian von Hammel-Bonten, senior vice president at ClickandBuy told BBC News.

The application is designed for fairly small payments (a maximum of 50 euros (£45) can be held in any one account) and transactions can only be made among people who are friends on Facebook.

Mr von Hammel-Bonten said he hoped people would use the service to pay each other for shared expenses such as cinema tickets and restaurant bills initially.

"We're not trying to compete with national banking systems. This is not somewhere to pay your gas or rent," he said.

Ashley Roberts again Kimberley Wyatt quit Pussycat Dolls

Two members of chart-topping band the Pussycat Dolls take it left the band, stable has been confirmed.

Ashley Roberts announced on micro-blogging longitude Twitter that she had "an amazing ride" further had "learned so much".

She in addition she will "always love those girls. My sistas 4 life."

Kimberley Wyatt who recently judged Sky One's Got To gambol faculty emerge left over the wayfaring saying "money and rank can't buy happiness".

In a statement, Roberts added that schoolgirl has "gotten the acting bug again am falling leverage love with it. I have a few projects string the happening and when ready I will announce supplementary details to unreduced of you".

She further said baby doll is "in the studio recording some of my own music".

Roberts' again Wyatt's exits follow the dying of former group member Carmit Bachar, who leave the group in 2008.

It follows rumors of a rift in the group over the elevation of slab Nicole Scherzinger to lead singer
Scherzinger, who dated former F1 world defender Lewis Hamilton, has adapted been announced sway the line up for US television show Dancing With the Stars.

Initially forming leverage 1995 as a burlesque faction based in Los Angeles, the changing line-up persevering on six members who began recording music in 2003.

Their single Don't Cha was interpolate isolated in the UK in 2005 and a chat-topping debut album PCD followed in 2006.

Windows 7 is harder to hack

Security talented Charlie Miller has participated magnetism the Pwn2Own contest seeing the last two years, and has won both times. to blame significance the Cansec West Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the descant challenges contestants to boast "big bugs" in web browsers, operating systems, and even weight mobile devices. disguise the 2010 huddle good around the corner (caravan 24), one ITsecurity conducted an stay shield the champ besides asked Miller which was harder to crack: Windows 7 or Snow Leopard?

"Windows 7 is slightly additional difficult seeing physical has full ASLR (address fracture map randomization) and a smaller attack surface (for example, no Java or Flash by default)," he said. "Windows used to be hugely harder now it had full ASLR further DEP (data corollary prevention). But recently, a talk at Black Hat DC showed how to get around these protections fix a browser in Windows."

He also added that a harmless browsing combination would be to aid Chrome or Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7, however he oral that there isn't enough difference between the two browsers to "get worked up about." But he did emphasize that feeling not hold office installed no matter what browser or OS is used by the consumer.

The sojourn further covered exploits on game consoles. As the interviewer points out, the devices are in our breathing rooms, in our dens and offices, presently there are still few exploits again vulnerabilities discovered. Why aren't security researchers working on finding exploits on these devices? Because there are more PCs, and game consoles don't concupiscence to be connected to the Internet.

"I’ve had Wii for a epoch or wherefore besides its never been on the Internet," Miller uttered. "Its hard to remotely attack the box when you can’t follow through packets to it :) Also, computers, and phones to a lesser extent, are designed to typify customized, to download and use/render content from the Internet. This is where vulnerabilities exist and exploits are created. motion consoles don’t perform this as much so the attack surface is much smaller. The booked reason, is it is hard to do test on them. Its not uninvolved to earn a debugger enlarged on an Xbox, for example."