Phishing attacks through social networks

Do you use Facebook or other social networks? Do you have a number of friends on such network?

There are increasing reports of Phishing attacks on Facebook or other social networks.

This phenomenon does not sound well for social networks.

Creative Junk Mail? "Swine Flu Vaccine" spam

The swine flu, now also known as H1N1 type A virus, is capturing news headlines across the globe. As of this morning, 44 human deaths have been confirmed due to this virus. 42 of these deaths are in Mexico, the remaining 2 in the good neighbor, the United States.

The e-mail spammers and fraudsters have also jumped on this bandwagon, with junk mail entitled "swine flu vaccine" trying to catch peoples eyes.

The real swine flu vaccine is still under development. It will be available soon, but not now!!!

Wolfram Alpha -- the Google Killer?

Wolfram Alpha claims to be an answer engine.

A search engine, like Google, returns a list of web links related to your search / query.
An answer engine, as prototyped by Wolfram Alpha, returns the "answers" to your query.
It is supposed to be better than Google.

Is it really going to live up to its hype? We will see.

Electric car is about alternative (not green) energy

Electric (plug-in) cars will primarily draw their energy from the electric power grid, instead of gasoline. A recent article published at the IEEE Spectrum raises concerns that electric power grid may not be as "green" as we think.

However, we should remember that one big advantage of the electric car is about "alternative" energy. There are many ways that you can generate electricity: solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, coal, etc. Some of them may or may not be eco-friendly. But at least people have a choice. If you like, you can replace old fashioned power generators with more environmentally friendly ones.

Going forward, green energy may not be the most important aspect of electric cars. A bigger factor that may determine their success (or failure) will be how economical they are compared to old-fashioned gasoline cars, and how much support can government (or the public sector) can help to accelerate their development.