Computer Gupshup

I am sure you would like that:

*    the character of the India Islamic Cultural Centre remains as envisioned by its donors and founder members.
*    the process of membership is made completely transparent.
*    the premises of IICC is not used by `office bearers' to advance or further their personal and business interests.
*    the information regarding donations and other financial matters   by the IICC is truthful and transparent.
*    the appropriate space in the premises is made available for devotional purposes.
*    there is accountability in each department of the IICC.
*    the electoral reforms whereby the positions of the President and/or Vice President is not held by the same person in two consecutive terms and all steps taken, including electoral rules & list is prepared by an independent committee.
*    no form of political activity is allowed from the IICC premises.
*    that the IICC premises is not used for individual commercial activity which involves money transactions.
*    that coaching facilities are provided to students appearing for the Indian Civil Services and other job oriented government exams under the banner of the IICC.
*    the IICC networks with similar cultural centers at  both  national and  international levels.

then please VOTE, SUPPORT and ELECT the whole panel of candidates headed by Mr.Salman Khursheed. Panel list is enclosed.

In Case you are a user of Noidascoop and not a member of  India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC) and know any member of  IICC, we request your self to kindly use your good offices in seeking vote and support for the undersigned.

I trust you will certainly VOTE for us.

Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,

S.M. Yamin Qureshi
Candidate for Member, Board of Trustees
Ballot Serial No.23
S.M. YAMIN QURESHI
B.Com., FCA
Off: 211, Delhi Chamber, Delhi Gate  Delhi-2
Res:  76-A/1, Okhla Main Bazar
New Delhi - 110025
Phone : 23262425, 23287038   
Tel. No. : 26923802, 26926673
Fax : 23269723               
Mobile : 9811116674
Email : yaminqureshi51@rediffmail.com

PANEL FOR
INDIA ISLAMIC CULTURAL CENTRE
ELECTIONS (NOVEMBER 2008 - JANUARY 2009)

S.No.    Name    S.No. in
Ballot Paper    Mobile No.

`1    President       
    Mr. Salman Khursheed    1    9811078272

`2    Vice President       
    Mr. Kamal Faruqui              1    9811057786

`3    Board of Trustees       
(i)    Mr. Moosa Raza, IAS     14    9811994370
(ii)    Dr. Mohammed Fakhruddin    6      9849007680
(iii)    Mr. V.A. Syed Ibrahim    22    9811692007
(iv)    Mr. S.M. Yamin Qureshi    23    9811116674
(v)    Dr. Khwaja M. Shahid    11    9811097114
(vi)    Prof. Abdul Aziz Ansari    1    9312708128
(vii)    Mr. Z.K. Faizan            5                9811866455

   
• Bhuvan, ISRO's free imaging service, can have commercial spinoffs
     
• ISRO hopes to boost its share in the satellite image market
     
• The size of this market in India is estimated to be over Rs 340 crore
     
• These images are used by urban planners and telecom firms

With a resolution of 10 metres offered by Bhuvan, one can clearly see a vehicle the size of a mini van. Google Earth's 200 metres resolution, on the other hand, is just about enough to make out big apartment blocks. Besides that, ISRO also plans to update the images each year. Google Earth does not offer such a service, making its images outdated for a rapidly changing country like India. Bhuvan will focus on the Indian subcontinent and, if all goes well, spread its operations elsewhere. The images will be sourced from ISRO's wide network of satellites that include the Cartosat series and the Indian Mini Satellite.

Bhuvan, says director of National Remote Sensing Centre V. Jayaraman, will be a visualisation tool that will organise available satellite images and overlay them with geographical details in GIS format from the government's database, like those about natural resources. Besides urban areas, the project will also map rural areas. He adds that Bhuvan will respect all rules put down by the Remote Sensing Data Policy. That may mean lowering the resolution of "sensitive locations".

Interestingly, the name Bhuvan was thought of as an effort to bring back attention to the earth after ISRO's recent successful moon mission. "Ultimately, we hope to allow users to mark locations on Bhuvan," states Jayaraman.

R. Siva Kumar, CEO of the government-backed National Spatial Database Infrastructure, says Bhuvan will make geospatial data more accessible and affordable. "With a bird's eye view it will certainly help an individual relate better spatially with his environment, like find out if he or she lives in close proximity to a sewer." The launch of Bhuvan will also benefit experts who would like to make use of free high-resolution images for urban planning and traffic management, besides several other applications.

But will Bhuvan be a worthy competitor for Google? P.K. Roy, editor, Cybermedia Group of publications, doubts so. "It will be difficult to replicate Google's success, for it is not just about providing the images. They need to be translated into a usable context and meaningful form, something that Google Maps and Google Earth have done extremely well," he says. The combined use of the two, allowing maps to be superimposed on satellite images, is becoming popular in India with the increasing use of internet-enabled phones. Google Map Maker was also launched in India in August 2008 and encourages users to identify locations they know on the map.

"We are living in times where mass participation is inevitable. Open mapping is here to stay," says T.P. Venu, senior assistant editor of Geospatial Today, a niche magazine published from Hyderabad. Whether Bhuvan becomes as popular as Google Earth will therefore largely depend on ISRO's capability to convince the growing internet community in India to use it.

At another level, Bhuvan is an attempt to rekindle interest in planned development using satellite images, where ISRO has a 90 per cent domestic market share.

A review of last reported financial results shows that growth has come mainly from selling more services to existing clients rather than adding new ones. Indeed, all the top five Indian IT companies by revenue got between 93% and 99% of their total revenue from existing clients in the second quarter this fiscal.

India's second largest software company by revenue, Infosys Technologies Ltd, added 40 clients in the second quarter of the current fiscal down from 48 in the year-ago period.

Rival Wipro Ltd added 28 clients compared with 59 in yearago quarter and Satyam Computer Services Ltd added 33 new clients in the second quarter slightly down from 37 in year-ago period. India's largest software services firm, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), did manage to add 51 clients, the same as in the year-ago period while HCL Technologies Ltd was the sole exception, adding 29 clients in its latest quarter, up from 19.

While the high percentage of repeat business suggests sticky customers, it also is a sign that expansion is becoming harder.

Speaking to analysts after announcing second quarter results, Infosys COO S.D. Shibulal had said: "Our repeat business this quarter was 99% plus, which shows that we are able to mine our existing accounts.

But, at the same time, it shows that we are not able to ramp up our new clients and that is something which we need to focus on." Said a TCS spokesperson: "Business from existing customers offers stability of revenues in a tough operating environment and long-term relationships help offer significant value to our existing customers as we come up with ideas to optimize business operations." Still, the company says, "it is also critical to increase our base of key customers simultaneously".

"Vendors are offering up to 40% discount on software applications, and up to 25% for IT infrastructure products," Suvanjay Kumar Sharma, vice-president of corporate strategy at Yes Bank told ET. "This is a good opportunity to buy IT products and solutions at a discounted price," he added. Yes Bank spends around Rs 60 crore annually on IT.

During year-ended March 2008, Indian companies spent around Rs 26, 544 crore ($5.6 billion) on buying IT services, according to research firm Frost and Sullivan. Companies selling software for running and integrating business processes, including SAP and Oracle, are also offering discounts to their customers, according to Forrester Research.

"As you may know, discounts depend on the size of a deal, but for deals above $1M in value, we are seeing bigger discounts than before," said Forrester Research vice-president Ray Wang. "We can see discounts that start from 50-70%, especially in this last quarter," Mr Wang added.

However, some customers such as Arun Gupta, who is the group chief technology officer at Shoppers Stop, say the vendor discounts have happened even in the past, when the economy was doing better.

Based on feedback from traders across the country, the study says the worst-hit would be footpath sellers, especially those who sell garments and household articles.

Also, during Dussehra and Diwali, white goods and bullion trade would in all likelihood not be as impressive as it was last year because little discounts to attract customers are being offered by consumer durables manufactures due to higher input cost. Inflation and loss of property and lives as a result of terror activities at various places have completely dampened the purchasing enthusiasm of common investors towards gold and silver.

According to feedback received by the Chamber secretariat in the past 10 days on buying trends, it has been found that because of security reasons e-shopping is going to grow by nearly 180 times in various metros including large townships like Lucknow, Chandigarh, Dehra Dun, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Udaipur and Jaipur.

ASSOCHAM Secretary-General D. S. Rawat said through e-shopping in the month of October-November 2007, shopkeepers in major hubs of economic activity effected sales of number of articles to an extent of Rs.5,500 crore. Since, one keeps a record of e-transactions as these take place through the established banking mechanism, the figure is realistic and cannot be described as exaggerated. The ASSOCHAM expects this to go up between 175-180 per cent to touch levels of over Rs.15,000 crore, Mr. Rawat said.

Just as Delhi e-shoppers' population was 30 per cent in 2007-08, in Mumbai it was 28 per cent with maximum e-shopping taking place in electronic gadgets, apparel and design purchases, railways and gift items. The number in percentage increase for e-shoppers in 2008-09 would touch at least 50 per cent in case of Mumbai while in Delhi it is expected beyond 60 per cent. Products that will gain popularity in e-sale could include gems and jewellery, books, accessories, apparel, gift products, music and movies, hotel room besides tickets for transportation.

His first stint as a blogger lasted all of three months.

Prasad blogged on a range of issues--the Gujjar community's agitation in Rajasthan, inflation, the Indo-US nuclear deal--but found that irrespective of his subject matter, the debate he sought to start would inevitably end up in complaints about the Indian Railways or the government.

"Dear Laluji, sadar pranam (salutations)!" read a comment on his post on the Gujjar agitation. "My husband Baba Sidhaye, (an) ex-western railway employee, is the first and only deaf and dumb by birth international cricketer in the world from India among 110 crore of Indian population. I would like to know: What your railway ministry has done to recognize his exemplary services to the nation and Indian Railways? I think that he is eligible for all the awards of government of India..." On 25 July, Prasad wryly remarked, "I would like to thank all those who have posted their comments on my blog. It has come to my notice that most of the comments are related to the functioning of railways, where people have pointed out various deficiencies in the services. We are studying all the suggestions and will try to implement them." He has not written since, though he may return to blogging later.

Prasad's blog is a case in point about why Indian politicians and political parties are reluctant to tap the growing number of Indian Internet users to further their agenda. As of September 2007, India had 49 million Internet users, according to a study by the eTechnology Group of IMRB International, a South Asian market research firm.

Access to a politician lies at the root of this reluctance, says Sanjay Sharma, managing director of QuBitTechnologies Pvt. Ltd, which has been running the official website of Indian Olympic Association president and Congress politician Suresh Kalmadi (www.skalmadi.org), the unofficial website of minister of state for information technology and communications Jyotiraditya Scindia (www.jyotiraditya.com) and an unofficial Congress party website, www.congress4india.com.

"The problem comes up when there is a flood of small and big requests. When you open up access to a politician, this happens and it is difficult to manage. Politicians have a group of handlers who restrict access and act as filters," Sharma says. "But when access is opened up, the equations get topsy-turvy and there is a fundamental conflict. The politician just wants to say things and find a way to filter access to him." Congress party's computer department chairman Vishvjit P. Singh, agrees. "The problem with interactivity is not only the bandwidth requirement but also that anyone can say anything they want." `Intolerant people'?

While the ministry of corporate affairs is working out the modalities of the proposal, it is understood that emails would be an accepted means of communication between a company and its shareholders.

The far-reaching proposals which has found mention in the new companies law Bill, is expected to introduce an era of next-generation company management where board meetings could be held at the click of a mouse. Officials say the proposals would ensure that crucial company meetings are not cancelled because of the absence of the requisite number of officials.

Welcome to the new e-age classroom. In a few schools in India, the Intel's classmate PC (CMPC) programme is revolutionizing teaching as well as learning. In some schools it's at pilot stage while in others the actual rollout has started.

The class starts with the teacher uploading a small video on the topic she is teaching. She keeps on adding her inputs during the video session which plays on each child's laptop via a WiFi (wireless fidelity) connection. The students are required to take the PCs home and bring them back fully charged.

After the lecture, the teacher gives a small group exercise and forms their groups electronically. Students needn't sit together to perform the group task. They can interact via chat windows. Each one can see what the group leader is doing on his PC and add inputs.

During the class, some students start talking. Immediately a message pops up on their screens in bold -- `keep your mouth shut!' Meanwhile, Amit tries to surf the internet for the latest cricket score. Instantly, a message pops on teacher's master PC and she disallows Amit's PC's from doing anything but the exercise.

In fact, the teacher's master PC's monitor is nothing but an interactive white board placed on the wall instead of a blackboard. The teacher uses the interactive white board to draw or write. And for that she does not need a chalk or pen. She can do it with her fingers. At about Rs 13,900 for a Linux-based PC and Rs 15,500 for a Windows XP-based PC, each student is equipped with a small, blue coloured notebook PC with a 2 GB or a 4 GB memory.

In the pilots for the Millenium School, Intel provided 1,500 CMPCs. "Initially it was challenge for teachers to transit from the traditional mode of teaching to a new method but the turnaround happened in a month's time and the results have been great," says Abhinav Dhar, president, K-12 initiative, Educomp.

The bottom line, says curator Ameeshi Tapuriah, is aesthetic or visual appeal and affordable prices. Her four-day show of contemporary art, 'Odyssey', featuring 26 artists, opened at the arts and culture hub Epicentre in Gurgaon Friday.

"What do you expect the people of a satellite township like Gurgaon to buy? Definitely not signature brands by masters. They cannot afford it. Our works are all priced between Rs 20,000 to Rs 80,000 barring a clutch of senior artists, whose works run into hundreds of thousands. It is this Rs 20,000-Rs 80,000 price segment, which is steering the mass market for art," Tapuriah said.

There couldn't have been a worse time for Ujjwal Sen's home computer to crash: The high school student from the suburbs of Mumbai was buried in applications to U.S. universities in May. With deadlines fast approaching, a worried Sen ran to a cybercafé down the street from his home. The 10-seat café, squeezed between a grocer and a hardware store, was always the backstop when the 16-year-old's computer went on the fritz.

Imagine Sen's horror when he discovered that it had been replaced by a pastry shop. Worse still, three other cafés in his neighborhood had closed down as well. Finally, after trudging two miles, Sen found a café, but was granted admission after a long interrogation about his background that only satisfied the owners when he produced his student ID card. "I never imagined that cybercafés in Mumbai would disappear, or entering them would be tough," says Sen.

His concerns aren't unfounded. The increasingly heavy curbs on friendly neighborhood cybercaf&eacutes are stunting the spread of the Internet. The crackdown comes as India is trying to increase household PC penetration, which is currently at just 2 PCs for every 100 households, says the technology trade group NASSCOM, and broadband connectivity, an abysmal 4 million connections, vs. China's 3.2 million new connections every quarter, according to BNP Paribas. Even Vietnam, with a population of just 84 million, is signing up 120,000 new broadband users per month, according to IDC.

Café Owners Now Need Licenses
Why the crackdown? Officials in states like Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, and Haryana in the north believe that getting tough with cybercafe acutes will help them nab "terrorists, hackers, pedophiles, and porn users," says Ashish Saboo, president of the Association of Public Internet Access Providers. India has long been a target of terrorist attacks both within and beyond its borders. In May 60 people died in a deadly bomb explosion aboard a passenger train in the city of Jaipur, while another 60 were killed in an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7.

• Turning Away Customers
  
• Shades of BlackBerry Eavesdropping
  
• Getting Rid of Pirated Software

Wassup is the most common question among friends and one that elicits `blank vacuity' to `inane comments' to `the meaning of life'.

But what happens when you have too-long a buddy-list and cannot ask all your friends this all-important life-changing-question?

Enter twitter. It's a Web 2.0 tool that basically `wassup's your friends all day long and lets you read their answers if you choose to subscribe (in twitter parlance).

Twitter lets you publish updates about your life in 140 characters or less (SMS limit) to family or friends who choose to follow you. All you need to do is answer the question, `what are you doing?'

It is a device agnostic message routing system which essentially means that one can send and receive messages (tweets in Twitter lingo) in a number of ways, including their website, mobile phones, instant messaging clients and downloadable desktop applications.

<img align="left" src="http://www.qbtpl.net/images/Twitter.jpg">Life happens between blogs and email
As Common Craft puts it, `Life happens between blog posts and emails' and it is precisely this life between the blog and email that twitter lets you publish.

While many people send out updates like "had an amazing cup of coffee" or "going for a jog", twitter is increasingly being used by people to share their thoughts and to provide links to things they have been reading or experiencing.

There are many benefits to twitter, other than keeping up with the lives of one's friends.For one, it is easy. With easy access to technology, we are pretty much a lazy race. Blogs of 300 words or more are difficult to pen with people turning to micro-blogging from the comfort of their mobile phones.

Saving men, helping the helpless a la' superman
Twitter recently saved a man from jail and got an unemployed person the job of his dreams. A man who was jailed in Egypt sent frantic tweets (updates) and his `followers' (contacts) mobilized forces to get him out of jail.

• Twitter in India
  
• Tweeting brands
  
• Tap into the global brain
  

Angered over his increasing extortion demand, the Computer Association of Ghaziabad met Superintendent of Police (City) Vijay Bhushan and demanded action against Bhati.

Traders at Shiva Tower - the largest IT hardware market of western Uttar Pradesh - complained of extortion by Bhati, who started work as a taxi-driver and later became an extortionist.

The ITES sector has matured considerably with its expansion into varied verticals, well differentiated service offerings and increasing geographic penetration. India's importance among emerging economies, both as a supply and demand centre is fuelling further growth of the sector. The IT / ITES industry continues to be one of the fastest growing industries in India, while India maintains its position as a strategic off-shoring destination for MNCs worldwide.

The ITES-BPO employee base has grown to 553,000 in FY (financial year) 07 from 415,000 in FY 06. Over the past decade, the Indian BPO segment has witnessed significant transformation. Starting with basic data entry tasks, the industry graduated to a high proportion of voice-based services and a range of back-office processing activities. The last 3-4 years have seen the scope of services expanding to include increasingly complex processes involving rule-based decision making and even research services requiring informed individual judgment.

The rapid expansion in the scope of BPO has been accompanied by an equally rapid adoption across a range of vertical industries. This wide range of services may be summarised into four broad categories comprising customer interaction services (CIS), finance and accounting (F&A), human resource administration and niche business services.

Key highlights of domestic BPO industry:

BPO demand in the domestic market has witnessed noticeable growth over the past few years. The annual revenue aggregate of the domestic market for ITES-BPO grew to USD 1.2 billion in FY 2006-07 from USD 0.9 billion in FY 2005-06, illustrating a significant increase in demand. While the high growth rate may be attributed to a small-base effect, the rapid adoption of BPO in the domestic market is receiving well-deserved attention.

The Indian economy is increasingly being integrated globally, businesses in India are beginning to face increasing levels of global competition and being pushed to deliver world class levels of product and service quality. ITES-BPO has emerged as an effective means of entrusting specialists with the task of consistently delivering the desired high-levels of quality - leaving the client organisations to focus on their core businesses.

Key growth drivers of Indian ITES-BPO exports:

Abundant talent- India's young demographic profile is an inherent advantage complemented by an academic infrastructure that generates a large pool of English speaking talent. Talent suitability concerns are being addressed through a combination of government, academia and industry led initiatives. These initiatives include national roll out of skill, setting up finishing schools to supplement graduate education with training in specific technology areas and soft skills and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with education agencies to facilitate industry inputs on curriculum and teaching and develop faculty development programme.

The price hike is attributed to rupee depreciation and increased taxes that have hit hardware companies.

Most manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, HCL Infosystems, Lenovo, Dell and Acer have production units in India. These units largely look at product configuration, value added distribution & customer services and reverse logistics in India, and the major components, like memory and LCDs, are imported. The rupee has fallen 8.3% in 2008 since January, the worst fall since 1993, when it depreciated by 8.75% in the same period. It was trading at Rs 39.90 to a dollar on March 31, 2008, but has depreciated to Rs 42.90 per dollar. According to analysts, the hardware companies have tight profit margins and therefore have been in a wait-and-watch mode on prices. They are slowly pushing the burden of rupee depreciation on channel partners and end consumers.

Analysts also add that firms might factor in the increased cost of logistics, due to inflation, in price revisions.

HP, which has been the market leader for notebook PC and desktop PC market, has extended a price hike of 13% to all components. George Paul, executive vice president, marketing, HCL Infosystems, says, "We announced the price hike on our various products from 5%-10%, but if the input prices go up, we will reconsider our price points." Analysts say companies like Lenovo and Dell are likely to follow suit.

The translation service (<a href="http://www.-">http://www.-</a> google.com/translate_t) throws up meanings or sentences that sound right for simple sentences like "I love you" or "How are you?" but fumbles away with literal dictionary words when one tries complex sentences, idiomatic usage or slang words - and it also errs on syntax. But the software operates on the principle of "More you use, the better it can get" because users can offer alternatives and press a button that could make the computer system "learn" and perfect usage over time.

"There is a need to reach people who may be English-fa- miliar, but Indic language proficient," Rahul Roy Chowdhury, Product Manager, Google India, told HT. "We'll work to make Google Translate in Hindi even better," said Chowdhury. Google already offers a transliteration service to convert Roman (English) scripts to Devnagari (Hindi) and some other Indian languages and free space on its Blogger.com site for Hindi and regional language blogs.

Imparting education surely has come a long way today, from gurukuls to virtual classrooms, where the teacher sits on his PC and teaches students across the globe while tutor and trainee are linked with a common site. Students preparing for competitions, medical or engineering tests in districts of Gurdaspur, Mansa, Abohar, Jind, Kaithal or the far off districts in Himachal, are now availing services of the best of teachers in these virtual classrooms.

D.C. Panday, who runs coaching institute in Chandigarh, says virtual teaching has helped him expand reach. An author of IIT entrance examination preparation books, Panday says he was flooded with e-mails from all over the country, requesting him to enrol students in his institute. "Since there is a limit on the number of students I can accept, the concept of virtual teaching has helped me. I now tell outstation students to opt for a virtual teaching session," he adds.

Harmanpreet Singh, founder and CEO of authorGen Technologies, which has developed a software called WiZiQ to help take virtual classes, says, "The concept has found acceptance in the region. In three months alone, we have witnessed 100 per cent growth in the users. All you need is a PC and a broadband connection, and you can start your teaching session".

The virtual classrooms have transcended the geographical boundaries as these newage gurus accept students from across the country as well as students from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and many other South-East Asian countries. Ask Gaurav Tekriwal, who conducts high-speed Vedic mathematics courses through WiZiQ platform for students in Hong Kong, the US, the UK, besides all metros within the country. "The reach of virtual classrooms is phenomenal. I can now sit anywhere in the world and conduct classes. We do not have a physical institute, teaching-learning is only through the computer," he says.

Its not just regular coaching that has found acceptance in e-learning. People like Kalyan Sarkar conduct motivational classes for clients across the world through a virtual class session. "People around the world are interested in upgrading their knowledge. And virtual classrooms serves a perfect platform," he says.

In fact, the concept has caught up well with the coaching institutes and many of them have launched a separate e-tutoring division. As the economies of scale improve, these e-tutors make a neat profit. For those, who are taking students in the US and the UK for reading, mathematics and science, they can easily make anything between $20-$90 an hour, with a one-on-one teaching session fetching more moolah.

Adds Harmanpreet, "As this is gaining acceptance, we have decided to launch a premium service with a payment module for the sessions and advanced features wherein we will be featuring specialised teachers in each field".

A significant number of people are using the social network sites for work-related tasks which include research on potential employees and generating new business, a report by global HR firm Manpower stated.

However, a majority is using these sites for personal reasons, with 83 per cent of people studied logging on to stay in touch with friends through them.

While 17 per cent use the sites to research for potential employers, 10 per cent for networking and generating new business and 17 per cent for other work-related reasons.

"Growth of this new medium is rapid. In future, due to huge Internet penetration and younger profile of our country expansion will further accelerate," Manpower India managing director Naresh Malhan said.

Experts believe in today's competitive world, it is important to target active as well as passive job seekers.

"About 30 per cent of the job market in the country is represented by passive job seekers, while about just 15-20 per cent are very active," HR service provider PeopleStrong CEO Pankaj Bansal said.

The passive market can be tapped through the networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook as people using it for personal reasons and not at present looking out for a new job may get attractive opportunities through the websites, Bansal said.

Technology is making it easier for companies to get to the population they want to get to, but they are not as adept as they need to be at finding the people they really want, Malhan said in a white paper on Technology Trends.

According to a separate Manpower report 'Virtual World of Work', use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited is the most popular among those under 35-year-old. About 74 per cent of those studied and aged 16-24 use such sites.

Some older people are also fans of these sites. One in five of those aged between 35-44 of age (19 per cent) and 21 per cent of those between 45-54 of age also make use of social networking sites.

The report also reveled that as the virtual world of work becomes increasingly attractive, people are expecting changes in the workplace over the next 10 years. The results reveals that 87 per cent think technology would play a bigger role in how people work.

About 85 per cent of those surveyed think people would hold more meetings via phone/Internet, while 81 per cent believe people would work from home on a more regular basis.

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.

The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

It also eliminates the need to seize a computer itself, which typically involves disconnecting from a network, turning off the power and potentially losing data. Instead, the investigator can scan for evidence on site.

More than 2,000 officers in 15 countries, including Poland, the Philippines, Germany, New Zealand and the United States, are using the device, which Microsoft provides free.

"These are things that we invest substantial resources in, but not from the perspective of selling to make money," Smith said in an interview. "We're doing this to help ensure that the Internet stays safe."

Law-enforcement officials from agencies in 35 countries are in Redmond this week to talk about how technology can help fight crime. Microsoft held a similar event in 2006. Discussions there led to the creation of COFEE.

Smith compared the Internet of today to London and other Industrial Revolution cities in the early 1800s. As people flocked from small communities where everyone knew each other, an anonymity emerged in the cities and a rise in crime followed.

The Crime Branch of Delhi Police today unearthed an Internet phishing racket allegedly run by a former BPO employee and two Nigerians, who siphoned off Rs 33.5 lakh from several bank accounts throughout the country.

Police said the accused would send e-mails, with a fake logo of the bank, to account holders informing them that there were "systemic errors in their accounts, which prevents them from conducting transactions over the Internet".

To "rectify the problem", the accused would ask customers to reply with their customer identification number and password.

They sent over a lakh bulk mails to account holders, and transferred money from the accounts of those who responded. "The accused hacked 23 accounts and withdrew Rs 33.5 lakh this way," said Anil Shukla, DCP, Crime Branch.