Digital India Profile Pic Tool Confusion Was an Engineer’s Mistake, Facebook Says

After facing widespread criticism over the tri-color profile picture tool and its relation tointernet.org, Facebook has said that it was a Facebook engineer’s mistake.

Facebook’s recent tri-color profile picture tool to show support to the Digital India initiative is facing criticism as it was claimed that the company plans to use them to show support for the controversialInternet.org initiative.

However, in an expected move, Facebook has denied the charge and called it a Facebook engineer’s mistake.

For those who don’t know, yesterday it was revealed that the source code of the Facebook page showed that these pictures were named internetOrgprofilepicture and it was said that it could be used in the future by Facebook.

Denying the claims, Facebook has said: “There is absolutely no connection between updating your profile picture for digital India and Internet.org.”

“An engineer mistakenly used the words “Internet.org profile picture” as a shorthand name he chose for part of the code. But this product in no way connects to or registers support for Internet.org. We are changing the code today to eliminate any confusion.”

The mistake has been corrected by Facebook and the picture is now named digitalIndiaProfilePicture.

However, Facebook’s explaination sound fishy as every software engineer is given a description before doing a project. The fact that the string internetOrgprofilepicture comes to his/her mind on the Digital India project couldn’t be just coincidental.

Well, the truth remains to be uncovered but it would be harmless to assume that Facebook is definitely gaining something in return of this support to Digital India campaign.

It doesn’t prove anything but it says one thing loud and clear: Mark Zuckerberg will try to prove internet.org as one of many ways in which Digital India can be achieved.

Have something to add? Tell us in the comments below.

For the 3rd Time in Less than 2 Weeks, Facebook Went Down

Things aren’t going well at Facebook HQ. For the third time in less than two week, Facebook went down.

Today, at about 12:00 p.m. PDT (3:00 p.m. EDT), Facebook went down for the third time in less than two weeks.

Multiple users from all over the globe received “something went wrong” message and some users got a blank page with service unavailable message at the top left corner.

Facebook is generally very reliable, but three downtimes in a month are very unusual. The first outage earlier this month lasted for five minutes for most users and the second one took 10 minutes. It should be noted that today’s outage appears is the longest.

Update: After 45 minutes of outage, Facebook is back online.

Facebook has confirmed the problem via its developer site, “A Facebook-wide issue is causing the Facebook Graph API to be temporarily unavailable. We’re working with our core infrastructure teams to identify the issue and will update you when we have more information.”

Did you face the outage? Tell us in the comments below.

Here’s Why You Should NOT Change Your Profile Pic to Digital India Tricolor

If you check the source code of Digital India profile picture, you’ll realize that your new picture is being called as “internetOrgProfilePicture__prideAvatar” by Facebook. Read more to know why it sounds fishy.

t the Facebook HQ, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CEO took part in a public Q&A and vowed their support to the Digital India initiative. Both of them changed their Facebook profile pictures to Digital India filter and people are following the same course.

By converting your Facebook profile pictures into the hue of Indian flag, you are unknowingly casting your vote to support Internet.org. Internet.org  defies the basic idea of net neutrality (read free and open internet).

While Digital India program aims to transform the Indian economy and empower it digitally, Internet.org is a different story. At fossBytes, we support the Digital India initiative, but Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org policies are way too shady. The social network has faced much flak over the issue and we don’t support it either.

The Digital India profile picture tool, with the URL http://fb.com/supportdigitalindia, is there to support your support the “Digital India” campaign, but there’s something more to this story. Behind this, there’s a hidden story that hints that Facebook CEO is promoting hiscontroversial internet.org initiative.

If you check the source code of the Digital India profile picture page, you’ll realize that your new picture is being called as “internetOrgProfilePicture__prideAvatar” by Facebook. Just open this link, press ctrl+U to open the source code and search for the same.

Zuckerberg’s Internet.org is under the vigilant eyes for its anti-net neutrality nature. The mention of internet.org sounds fishy in the HTML source code as it counts as your approval to Internet.org and its anti-net neutrality nature.

Digital India is a great initiative, but this hidden agenda of Facebook is nothing less than evil. It’s possible that Facebook is using this stat as a measure to gain some information about your net neutrality stance and use this data in future.

It doesn’t prove anything but it says one thing loud and clear: Mark Zuckerberg will try to prove internet.org as one of many ways in which Digital India can be achieved.

Update: Later Facebook spokesperson tried to handle the situation with this statement: “There is absolutely no connection between updating your profile picture for digital India and Internet.org. An engineer mistakenly used the words ‘Internet.org profile picture’ as a shorthand name he chose for part of the code. But this product in no way connects to or registers support forInternet.org. We are changing the code today to eliminate any confusion.”

Read more on Reddit.

What are your thoughts? Tell us in the comments below.

Light-based Memory Chip is the First Ever to Store Data Permanently

A team of researchers has claimed to have created the first optical memory chip that would permanently store data and would fasten the processors by 50 to 100 times.

ou think your computer is fast? Think again. The current generation of computers operates with silicon-based electronic devices that use electrons as a carrier of the information. Well, except the likes of thequantum computers that use the physics of quantum mechanics at its core, most of the world’s computing and memory chips use the conventional VLSI/ULSI set ups.

Scientists, for quite some time now, have been advocating the use of “light” based computing and memory chips that could revolutionize the electronics world as we know it. Now a team of researchers led by a nanoengineering expert at the University of Oxford, Harish Bhaskaran, has claimed to have created the first optical memory chip that would permanently store data.

Earlier, the optical memory chip designs had failed due to its volatile nature. But the researchers’ team had bypassed the problem using an already available and widely used storage devices-CDs and DVDs. A thin layer of GST, an alloy of germanium, antimony, and tellurium is used on these devices to save data.

GST has a unique property of changing its atomic structure from the ordered crystalline to amorphous state when hit by laser pulses. Now light is reflected differently by both these atomic structures which is later on detected by low-intensity light as it tracks the difference on the GST surface, and that’s how the data is read back.

The researchers’ team build a chip using waveguide technology that channels the optical pulses on a silicon nitride device. After that, they tested the chip by coating it with a nanolayer of GST and shot high-intensity laser pulses at it. As the GST molecules changed their atomic structure from crystalline to amorphous, the low-intensity laser pulses reverted the process back i.e. from amorphous to ordered crystalline, making it a potential memory and rewritable device.

But what accounts as an achievement is that the scientists were able to store multiple bits (information) simultaneously as they sent multiple wavelengths of light through the waveguide. This means they could read and write multiple bits simultaneously, a property that is limited in the conventional storage devices.

As the team varied the wavelengths and intensity of the laser, they were able to store up to 8 bits of data at a single spot.

The experiment shows that the optical memory chips could make our computers 100 times faster with a more advanced photonic memory and better waveguide technology. And the pace at which the research is continuing, that future does not seem too far away.

What do you think of the new optical memory research? Tell us in comments below.

Source: Nature

How Much Does the Entire Internet Weigh?

How much does the internet weigh? No more spoiler here. Read more and find out. 

The data we upload on the web, the information we share, the chats we do with our friends and every other key typed and every mouse click – everything makes the internet a more vast and complex place.

And, they also continue to make our internet a “heavier” place. So, how much does the internet weigh? How much would all the data on the internet at any one moment weigh?

I was watching random videos on YouTube and I came across this amazing video on Vsauce, a YouTube channel. The video describes and calculates the weight of the internet, after taking the inspiration from reports that indicate that each book loaded onto Amazon Kindle e-reader makes the tablet slightly heavier.

There are lots of theories on the internet that calculate the weight to be as small as a fat strawberry- and some claim it to be as light as a teeny grain of salt.

Using Einstein’s formula e=mc², Professor John Kubiatowicz, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, calculated that filling a 4GB Kindle would increase by 0.000000000000000001 gram.

Also read: This Amazing Map Shows 885,000 km Internet Cables Hidden Under the Ocean

The Internet runs on electrons and that’s how data is stored. These electrons weigh very less. To make an ordinary email of 50 kb, it takes about 8 billion electrons. This sounds like a big number but it weighs just “two ten-thousandths of a quadrillionth of an ounce.”

In the video below, Vsauce explains how the entire internet weighs about 50 grams. These calculations are based on a decade-old data but it gives us a rough idea. Every year more and more servers are added, the internet gets a few grams heavier.

Watch it here:

Did you like this video? Have something to add? Tell us in the comments below.

Stealth Dark Matter Could Be The Key to Universe’s Missing Mass

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have come up with a ‘stealth dark matter model’ to try and understand the dark matter. The theory believes that the dark matter is composed of ‘now long decayed’ electrically charged particles and is bonded by a strong unknown force.

Dark Matter has always aroused curiosity unlike anything, not only amongst the astrophysicists but also the kids and science fiction fans. It is quite impressive that even after constituting over 80% of the Universe’s mass, we fall short of knowledge when it comes to the subject. Scientists had previously found the way to study Dark Matter by watching it collide with other celestial stuff.

In the recent developments, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have hypothesized the composition of the dark matter. The scientists believe that dark matter might be a congregation of electrically charged particles which are bound by strong unknown forces. Since, it has successfully evaded us till now, scientists are calling their new theory as theStealth Dark Matter model.

Dark Matter has outwitted humans for so long because it shows almost no reaction with the visible matter and neither it does emit, radiate or absorb light. However, its repulsiveness to itself has come to the knowledge.

The team of particle physicists known as the Lattice Strong Dynamics Collaboration is looking forward to validate their stealth dark matter model at CERN using Large Hadron Collider.

According to the theory, the dark matter produced huge amount of electrically charged unstable nuclear particles (analogous to quarks in the neutron) and these ‘now long decayed’ particles had interacted with almost everything in the early universe. The scientists acknowledge this interaction to the high temperatures at that time and since then, the dark matter had bonded under a strong unknown force as the universe cooled down.

Vranas, one of the scientists from the team remarks, “These interactions in the early universe are important because ordinary and dark matter abundances today are strikingly similar in size, suggesting this occurred because of a balancing act performed between the two before the universe cooled.”

The stealth dark matter model is fascinating because the dark matter is passive to electromagnetic radiations and to come up with a theory that speculates electrically charged particles as inherent to dark matter, is really absorbing.

The scientists are counting on the LHC to verify or maybe rule out their hypothesis as only the world’s largest particle accelerator could create conditions similar to that of the early universe and shed light on the dark matter complexity.

It should be noted that LHC has already been credited to several discoveries and affirmations of theorized particles such as Weyl Fermions, Higgs Boson, and Pentaquarks.

Only if the dark matter mystery could be resolved.

Satya Nadella: Microsoft Connecting 500,000 Indian Villages With Low-Cost Broadband

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced his company’s plan to bring Internet connectivity to 5 lakh villages in India, thus giving a major boost to Prime Minister Modi’s “Digital India” project.

As the Prime Minister Narendra Modi dined with Fortune 500 CEOs in New York, India was hoping for something fruitful to come out of the meeting. Mr Modi aggressively promulgated India’s “Make In India” and “Digital India” campaign in his visit and it worked.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, at San Jose, announced that his company is keen to be a part of Modi’s ambitious plan of digitizing the 1.3 billion strong country. Nadella said at the dinner hosted in honour of the visiting Prime Minister, that Microsoft will help the South Asian nation connect its 500,000 villages with the company’s low-cost broadband technology.

It is a major announcement since over 70 percent of India’s population lives in about 6 lakh villages. Nadella revealed his plans while addressing at the dinner,“We believe that low-cost broadband connectivity coupled with the scale of cloud computing intelligence that can be harnessed from data can help drive creativity, efficiency and productivity across governments and businesses of all sizes”.

Microsoft partnering with India on such a large scale could provide a huge boost to ‘Digital India’ mission. Nadella also hinted at investing in the infrastructure development in India as a part of the “Make In India” project.

Not just Microsoft, even Google had given Indians a chance to smile. Google’s CEO Sunder Pichai announced the company’s plans to bring high-speed public Wi-Fi service to 400 train stations in India which will later be extended to 300 more railway stations.

Mr. Modi also attended his first ever townhall Q&A session with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Modi’s visit to the US and especially Silicon Valley could be considered a success on many fronts. But will the Prime Minister be able to implement the progressive ideas of the west coast in India?

What do you think? Tell us in comments below.

Microsoft Challenges Google Cardboard With its New VR Kit

To challenge the affordable VR viewer Google Cardboard, Microsoft is bringing its own VR Kit. Read more to know about the same.

Google’s virtual reality kit Google Cardboard is pretty famous among DIYers as it provides a low-cost virtual reality experience on your smartphone. Along the similar lines, Microsoft is planning to launch its own affordable Microsoft VR Kit for Windows devices.

In a message on its Russian website, Microsoft is inviting developers to a hackathon in Russia to develop new VR apps. Redmond will be providing its unreleased VR Kit to the worthy suggestions

This hackathon will be held on October 17. It should be noted that Microsoft VR Kit is an entirely different product from the HoloLens.

In the past, Google Cardboard has made the specifications and cutout designs of the Cardboard open and people can use their smartphones to enjoy virtual reality. It’s expected that Microsoft will follow the same route as well.

Microsoft is trying to present Windows 10 as a single OS for the devices of all form-factor and Microsoft VR Kit, providing cheap VR applications, easily fits in this picture.

The VR Kit will appear at the Russian hackathon where apps in the gaming, education and enterprise category are being accepted.

Not much about Microsoft VR Kit is known right now and we’ll keep you updated as we hear more from Microsoft.

Highlights From Modi-Zuckerberg Facebook Townhall Q&A

Indian PM Narendra Modi attended his first ever Townhall Q&A session with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters. 

After a much-hyped visit to the United Nations General Assembly, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally reached the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California for the Townhall Q&A session with Mark Zuckerberg. This was his first visit to the Silicon Valley and this had raised the hopes of the country that is battling serious obstacles for entrepreneurship and the ease for doing business.

Seated comfortably during the townhall with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Mr Modi had a barrage of questions ranging from unemployment and women’s issues to social media and Internet expansion in India. Mark Zuckerberg himself asked the Indian PM of his mother’s role in his life. However, only a few could be answered due to limited time.

Here are some highlights from Mr Modi’s first Facebook Q&A session:

1. Social Media As Means Of Governance

Social media is now playing a pivotal role in helping the governments get real-time updates and knowabout the unpopular policies via netizens’ dissent. Mr Modi said, “Social media has the potential to show the government if it is taking a wrong path and then go for a course correction, it is a strength of a democracy.”

He also praised social media for spreading information as he said, “I did not have the fortune of much education, but social media helped me gain knowledge. It broadened my horizons.”

It should be noted that Modi owes his huge popularity and subsequent rise to power to his clever adoption of social media.

2. Make In India

Make In India is reckoned to turn India into a global technological centre. As soon as the project was announced by the PM, it created equal support as well as skepticism among the Indian masses.

The secret to Make In India, he said is, “The low-cost manufacturing, skill, man power, raw materials — these are what we have. I don’t think this is something that someone can ignore. In fact, it is a paradise for investors.”

Since its advent, between September 2014 and Aug 2015, India has received US$17 billion worth of proposals to “Make In India”.

3. India and Its Women Power

Modi made his views pretty clear with a strong statement, “All societies believe in god, but mostly they are male, only in India we have women goddesses- Durga, Kali, Amba.”

As for the country’s development he said, women must walk shoulder to shoulder with men. He also advocated the government’s policies on women’s reservation in the police and signifying their role in the armed forces, tech and medical institutes and as well.

The Prime Minister had his eyes drenched as he spoke of his mother when asked about her role his life by Mark Zuckerberg. He talked of his life when he was poor and how his mother made sacrifices for the family. He said that it is due to her blessings today that he is the most powerful man in the largest democracy of the world.

Overall, the townhall meeting went well and the PR team would be quite happy with their efforts, but the meeting lacked substance as the Q&A session avoided most of the contentious topics.

His government’s approach on Net Neutrality and the often radical ban practice of the government that seems inappropriate to them and many more like these were swept under the carpet.

Nonetheless, Mr Modi in Silicon Valley made an impact, and the country is hoping that something good comes out of this visit.

Watch the portion of Q&A session below:

The most amazing moment this morning was when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I talked about our families, and he shared stories of his childhood and the impact his mother had on his life. His answer is deeply moving and inspiring, and it's worth watching all the way through.
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday, 27 September 2015

This Amazing Retro Mini Apple Computer Is Based on Raspberry Pi

Charles Mangin has created an amazing retro mini Apple computer that runs on Raspberry Pi and Raspbian OS. You can buy it online or 3D print its parts by downloading its files.

Here’s a miniature Apple computer that look adorable and runs on our favorite DIY companion Raspberry Pi and its Debian-based OS Raspbian. Charles Mangin is the person who created this as it’s his hobby to create miniature retro computers.

This Apple Computer is way cheaper that the other Apple computers. You can either buy it online or build it yourself by downloading the specifications.

The mini Apple computer printed by him, features a USB plug-in and a working 2.5″ LCD display. This also comes with combo A/C plug on the back along with a micro-SD card.

The files can be downloaded from Thingiverse from the Apple IIc Raspberry Pi case – Model A+ and the Apple Monitor IIc – 2.5” LCD. Mangin himself prints, assembles, paints and sells these parts at Etsy.

Mangin also hints that he’ll be eventually making working miniature mouse and keyboard as well.

You can know more about this 1:4 scale throwback project here at 3dprint.com.

What Makes Tesla Model X One of the Most Anticipated Car Releases of the Past Decade

Tesla Motors will launch the first of its Model X crossover SUVs on September 29th,  2015,  in Fremont, California.

The Tesla’s Model X, which is arguably one of the more anticipated car releases of the past decade, will finally be launched on September 29th,  2015.

While the Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, in an interview with a Danish newspaper Borsen, spoke of the extremely tough competition in the market and how big car companies try to “squash ” small companies like Tesla, he’s equally optimistic about the possibility of  full autonomy technology in just 3 years to come.

While some may consider Model X as the vertically stretched version of the $100,000 Model S, there are two major differences. They are

1. Presence of a set of rear “falcon-wing” doors

2. Introduction of  a forward-facing third row of seats in Model X.

Here’s the list of key features of the Tesla Model X:

• Model X combines the space and functionality of a seven-seat sports vehicle
• Up swinging “falcon wing” doors
• Powered by two independent, digitally controlled electric motors
• 259 HP electric motor powers the front wheels
• 503 HP rear mounted motor powers the rear wheels
• Coverage- 90KWH with 240-mile range
• Can hit 60 mph in 3.8 sec with top speed of 155 mph

With this, we can expect that Tesla shall join the race with big shot car companies rather than being just a Silicon Valley start-up.  The estimated cost of Model X would be around  $75,000.

Stay tuned for more upcoming updates on Testa Model X !

References: Teslamotors

Happy Birthday Google : Some Fun Facts About the Company You Didn’t Know

Today is the 17th birthday of Google. It was the day when it was launched by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. To mark the occasion, we have come up with some lesser know fun facts about the company.

28 Words:

Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page still prefer to keep home page simple and it shouldn’t exceed 28 words.

Google Loves Dogs:

Google backs bringing dogs to work and a “company dog” called Yoshka. Yoshka escorts Urs Holzle, senior VP operations and Google Fellow to the Googleplex.

Google Loves Food:

Founders said that no Googler should ever be more than 100 feet from a micro-kitchen with snacks and food.

Google Loves Goats:

Google rents goats from a company called California Grazing for mowing its lawn and other weeds at Google HQ. The operation of 200 goats good for the environment, and according to Google, it is “A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.”

Google Loves Star Wars:

The Google homepage can also be viewed in the language of Klingon (from Star Trek), in case the aliens attack the world and need Google to navigate through the situation at https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-klingon

Google Loves Dinosaurs, LEGO, Flamingos and Everything:

At Google HQ there is a T-Rex skeleton – nicknamed “Stan” after a “real” dinosaur. There is also a to the scale replica of the SpaceShipOne, Android-themed models, pink flamingos, a large LEGO man, Google-coloured phone boxes and grown-up size ball pits.

First Tweet:

Google’s first ever Tweet in February 2009 was: “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.” In binary it means: “I’m feeling lucky.”

I am feeling Lucky:

“I am feeling Lucky” button is rarely used by users but a survey shows that users like to have this button on homepage.

The First Google Doodle:

The first Google doodle was a Burning Man symbol. Founders went to the Burning Man festival in 1998 and added the doodle to let users know they were away from the office that weekend.

elgooG, The Backward Search:

Google is written backwards as elgooG, you know you could search backwards too at http://elgoog.im

When is my birthday???

Last, but not the least, Google is always so confused about its own birthday. Funny isn’t it