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PCs to predict crime
A
team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in the USA has
developed a computer program to predict crime, British science journal
New Scientist reported. The team, headed by information systems expert
Wilpen Gorr, used a database of 6 million crimes recorded over a decade
in three large cities on the US East Coast. According to the report, the
new program differs from typical police "crime maps" in that
it not only locates high-crime areas, but also identifies broad trends
and uses minor crimes such as vandalism as leading indicators for more
serious crimes such as burglary. In recent tests, the program was able
to predict month-to-month crime rates with margins of error of between
10 to 50 per cent depending on the stability of the leading indicators,
the researchers said. A final test of the program is planned before
September and a version for actual police use is hoped for by year’s
end.
Cyberbullying
Remember those classroom
taunts of ‘fatso,’ ‘elephant ears’ or worse? Imagine those
taunts being circulated around cyberspace for thousands to see. Children
in Australia are taking schoolyard bullying to new, hi-tech levels, with
cellphone text messages and e-mails replacing the traditional note
passing and name-calling, a parents group said. Cyberbullying can be
just as hurtful, allowing children to circulate cruel rumours about
their victims more widely than ever, said Sharryn Brownlee, president of
the New South Wales state Parent and Citizens Federation. "The days
of the nasty scribbled note could be over," she said. "(Cyberbullying)
is prevalent because it’s fairly repetitive, because it’s so easy
with new technology." After surveying 40 classrooms across
Australia’s most populous state, the federation found that while
bullying was more common in affluent areas or at schools where the
students had access to cellphones and computers, it was on the rise
everywhere.
Anti-virus virus
A French computer security
company said that a remarkable kind of virus was spreading around the
Internet which zaps a virus that last week disabled hundreds of
thousands of machines. The new virus, called Welchia, attacks Lovsan, a
version of the Blaster virus which exploits a loophole in Microsoft’s
Windows operating system, according to F-Secure France. Like Lovsan,
Welchia enters a vulnerable computer that is hooked up to the Internet,
F-Secure’s managing director, Alexandre Durante, said. "It then
deactivates the A version of Lovsan, thus disinfecting the machine. It
installs Microsoft’s software "patch" to close the loophole
exploited by Lovsan and then self-destructs when these tasks have been
carried out."
WPS to replace MS in
China
In an attempt to end the
monopoly of global software giant Microsoft, major Chinese ministries
today started upgrading its domestic software. Fifteen Chinese
ministries, including ministry of commerce, ministry of foreign affairs
and ministry of state security, will be the first users of the new
edition of WPS office  software,
the leading Chinese newspaper,
People’s Daily, reported. An official of the state assets supervision
and administration commission, Fei Lin, told the ruling Communist Party’s
mouthpiece, that his experience indicated the WPS outperformed
overseas-made office software in document typesetting. The government
began to encourage the use of locally produced software last year in a
bid to support the local software sector and protect state information
security.
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