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Wikileaks claims to have released some of the contents of CIA director John Brennan’s personal email account. Six documents published on the Wikileaks website include a draft security clearance application containing personal information. A CIA statement said the hacking of the Brennan family account was a crime carried out with malicious intent. A high-school student claimed he was responsible and told the New York Post that he had found work-related files. The newspaper said he was angry about US foreign policy. His Twitter account, where he is described as 13 years old, has published redacted images of what appears to be government information. Wikileaks announced in a tweet on Wednesday that it would release some of the information later in the day. The documents – made available a few hours later – also included a draft on national security challenges said to have been created in 2007. The last unfinished paragraph is headed “Damaging Leaks of Classified I...

Twitter chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey has said he will give a third of his shares in the firm to employees. The total stock is worth about 1% of the company, or $197m (£128m). The plan is to “reinvest directly in our people,” said Mr Dorsey, who was appointed as the company’s permanent leader earlier this month. Twitter did not comment further on the decision. Last week the company said it would lay off 336 workers, or 8% of staff. Mr Dorsey, who took over as temporary chief in July after Dick Costolo resigned, also tweeted “I’d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small.” Last week, former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said he bought a 4% stake in Twitter, making him the third-biggest individual shareholder. Mr Ballmer now owns more of Twitter than Mr Dorsey, who owns about 3%. One Twitter employee told via Twitter that “folks are ready to run through walls for him and the company. Before…and even more now...

Crocodiles can sleep with one eye open, according to a study from Australia. In doing so they join a list of animals with this ability, which includes some birds, dolphins and other reptiles. Writing in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the researchers say the crocs are probably sleeping with one brain hemisphere at a time, leaving one half of the brain active and on the lookout. Consistent with this idea, the crocs in the study were more likely to leave one eye open in the presence of a human. They also kept that single eye trained directly on the interloper, said senior author John Lesku. “They definitely monitored the human when they were in the room. But even after the human left the room, the animal still kept its open eye… directed towards the location where the human had been – suggesting that they were keeping an eye out for potential threats.” The experiments were done in an aquarium lined with infrared cameras, to monitor juvenile crocodiles day and night...

SIM cards of the State-run mobile phone operator Teletalk are widely used in illegal Voice over Internet Protocol(VoIP) business as it is not complying with BTRC’s directives to prevent illegal call termination and fake registration, said a letter from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. The letter was issued by the BTRC on October 16 asking the Teletalk authorities to properly implement the self-regulation Process (SRP) as per its directives to detect illegal SIM/RIM. During BTRC drives conducted from September 15 to September 21 through SIM Box Detection (SBD) system and SRP, the governing body discovered huge amounts of Teletalk SIM cards in the illegal business. During the one-week drive around 11,613 SIM cards of Teletalk were recovered and 38 SIM cards of Robi Axiata Ltd, 155 of Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd, 47 of Airtel Bangladesh Ltd, 23 of Grameenphone Ltd and 3 of Citycell cards were also found being used in the VoIP hubs. In 2012, Th...

An equal tariff structure is demanded for solar power projects based on clear and concrete policy. Munawar Misbah Moin, senior vice president of Bangladesh Solar and Renewable Energy Association (BSREA) said, “We want a declared fixed tariff, particularly for a solar PV projects having the size over 1 megawatt.” He said the tariff should be between 18 and 19 US cents as solar irradiation in Bangladesh is relatively lower compared to the one in India and the Middle East. Suggesting that the electricity tariff of a large solar project be fixed based on the size and duration of project implementation period; he said the same tariff should equally be applicable for all the parties for the sake of transparency and fairness. BSREA has been pursuing the government for facilitating private investors in solar and renewable energy sector with declaring incentives and policy to encourage investment. It placed a 15-point recommendation to the government to make the project implementation process f...

Facebook has indexed almost two trillion posts put on the site by its members to make it easier to find them. The change means that many older posts will now be added to results when people search for news or information. The move is being seen as part of Facebook’s attempts to keep people on the site rather than go elsewhere to keep up to date with events. It said options were available for people that did not want their older posts to be more widely accessible. Bigger audience Tom Stocky, Facebook’s head of search, said in a blog post that many people already turned to Facebook when trying to find out how friends and family were reacting to world events. About 1.5 billion searches are carried out on Facebook every day, he said. The changes that Facebook has introduced will mean members of the social network will now also see posts by strangers alongside those from news organisations and people closest to them. “Search results are organised to help you cut through the noise and quickl...

Most smartphones today pack huge, high-resolution screens, powerful processors and lots of memory to multitask and handle really complex tasks. This also unfortunately means that they struggle to handle a full day’s worth of heavy usage, and so power banks are now a must-have accessory. The same can be said for our laptops, and the need to tether them to the plug point grows as the battery ages. Most of our consumer electronics devices come with Lithium ion and Lithium Poly batteries that are geared for quick recharging, and not for long term life. Often, you’re better off replacing your battery instead of upgrading your laptop, because of how quickly the battery ages. Whether you’re using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, here are some general purpose tips on prolonging its lifecycle and usage between recharge cycles. 1) Keep it cool Exposing the battery to high temperatures can be more stressful than cycling. According to Battery University, which runs an extensive array of battery te...

Kerberos has a double lobe shape and may be the result of a coming together of two objects An image of Kerberos, one of the two tiny moons of Pluto, has finally been returned by the US space agency’s New Horizons probe. It shows the object to have two lobes, which may be the consequence of icy bodies bumping into each other and joining up. Kerberos’s larger lobe is judged to be about 8km across. The smaller lobe is roughly 5km in diameter. Styx, the other little moon in the system, is of a comparable size. Mission scientists say these satellites are brighter than they expected. Planetary bodies usually darken over time as a result of chemical changes triggered by sunlight and cosmic ray impacts. But these moons reflect about 50% of all incident light, which indicates their water-ice covering is very clean. Kerberos orbits about 60,000km from Pluto and is the second-outermost of five moons. It sits between Nix and Hydra, and beyond the orbits of Styx and the much larger Charon, the domi...

Most of us use Internet reviews before choosing a product or a travelling destination, and sometimes these are helpful and informative. However, after the Amazon scandal that caused the e-commerce company to sue over 1,000 people suspected of phony reviews, who can you trust? According to a study by Mintel, as much as 57 percent of consumers are cautious when they only see positive reviews, while some 49 percent are certain that companies incentivize online reviewers in various ways. Here are some pointers on how to avoid a mistrustful evaluation. 1. Doubt your instincts Cornell University researchers developed a computer algorithm that is able to sort out fake hotel reviews. It does so by filtering the language used in real appraisals and compares it with suspicious reviews. The software, named Review Skeptic, hits the spot in nine out of ten cases and outclasses the human evaluators by a longshot. “I was very surprised. We just cannot tell the difference much more than chance,” Clair...

The Number of fixed broadband users in Bangladesh is increasing. According to BTRC reports the number of subscribers of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTNs) crossed 1.9 million in September against the 1.3 million subscribers marking a 47% increase. Last year during the same period, the number was 1.232 million. But President of Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh MA Hakim said the numbers would be much higher if the ISPs provided actual figures. “The number of subscribers would be around 2.5 to 3 million if the ISPs actually gave the original numbers.” “If unregistered ISPs operating area based businesses were regulated properly, the number of subscribers would increase and they would also receive better service.” But this increase is nothing compared to the increase in mobile internet users By the end of September, the number of mobile internet users increased by 1.8 million in a month to cross 54 million. Subscriber base o...

Work for launching and manufacturing Bangladesh’s first satellite “Bangabandhu-I” is going to start in December 16 this year. French firm “Thales Alenia” has been chosen for the project. State Minister for Posts and Telecommunication Tarana Halim said, “Our first satellite ‘Bangabandhu-I’ will be launched into the space on December 16, 2017.” Four companies — Great Wall Industries Corporation of China, Thales Alenia of France, Orbital ATK of the United States, and MDA Corporation of Canada – had participated in the international tender called by the BTRC. Officials said MDA Corporation became the lowest bidder with US$ 22 crore while Thales Alenia proposed US$ 24.80 crore. But, the telecom regulator selected Thales Alenia which came up much better than MDA Corporation in terms of technical specifications. The Bangabandhu satellite will have 40 transponders, which would be able to serve SAARC countries, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as countries such as Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzsta...

The government has distributed more than Tk. 61 crore as compensation for the affected people in the land acquisition for the Rampal Power Plant which aims to generate 1,320-MW electricity. Government has acquired 1,834 acres of land in order to set up the coal-fired power plant at Rampal to create employment in the southern region, especially in Khulna division. Power Secretary Monowar Islam said the biodiversity of Sudarbans will not be affected by the Rampal coal-based power plant as it would be set up 69 kms from the world’s largest mangrove’s UNESCO heritage area and 14 kms away from the border of the forest. The secretary said these while was speaking at a views exchange meeting organized by the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Ltd at Rampal on Saturday. “The ultra-super critical technology would be used for the Rampal power plant and harmful substances along with smoke would not be mixed with the air,” he said in the programme. A 275 metre high chimney would be used in ...

Facebook has made a major update to its search feature, indexing the social network’s 2 trillion posts in a way that makes it much easier to dig out your friends’ old status updates. Searching for terms likes “posts about drunk” or “posts about ashamed” will now dig out status updates from friends, as well as updates from other Facebook members who have made their statuses public. It is also easier to search for users’ status updates from a bygone era. Facebook made friends’ posts more searchable in an update last year, but the new options make the process more easily-targeted. It comes as part of a big update of Facebook’s search box, which at present is only available to users who select “US English” as their language. The new features, called “Search FYI”, are designed to make it easier to find information on Facebook. If lots of users are talking about an event such as evidence of water on Mars for example, it will find posts around that subject. The search results will display lin...

A growing number of frustrated restaurateurs, food writers and diners, backed by Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner, are calling for TripAdvisor to put an end to fraudulent reviews. A campaign, started on Twitter last week under #noreceiptnoreview is asking the website, which hosts over 250 million reviews of restaurants and hotels, to insist that users can only post a review if they provide a scanned receipt. The growing unease over the validity of reviews on websites like TripAdvisor comes as evidence mounts that the system is being exploited by unscrupulous companies and individuals. Last weekend Amazon announced that it would take legal action in the US against more than 1,000 people who have been offering to write fake reviews for a fee. Days later came the allegation that an Australian holiday apartment company had bribed a customer to remove one negative review from TripAdvisor and was fudging the system to stop other reviews. Rayner, and other supporters of #noreceiptnorevie...

People know they should eat healthy foods if they want to maintain their bodies into old age, but a lot of the time we’re likely to focus on the health of the major organs that occupy our torso. However, a new study looking at the diets of elderly people says we can enjoy greater longevity if we eat foods that are good for our brain, and suggests that those who follow a Mediterranean-like diet – consisting of more fish and vegetables, along with less meat and dairy – may lose fewer brains cells due to ageing. “These results are exciting, as they raise the possibility that people may potentially prevent brain shrinking and the effects of ageing on the brain simply by following a healthy diet,” said Yian Gu of Columbia University in the US. Gu and her colleagues examined the diets of 674 people who were older than 80 years of age and did not have dementia. The participants completed questionnaires about the food they ate and had their brains scanned afterwards. The researchers divided th...

Facebook has promised to fix its iPhone app after it was found to drain a disproportionate amount of users’ battery life. The social network’s app was consistently found to be the most demanding, even when rarely used, when Apple’s latest version of iOS allowed users to check which apps drain the most battery. Ari Grant, an engineer at Facebook, said the company had “found a few key issues” that meant its app was using up battery life, even when its ability to refresh in the background was disabled. He said an update to the app released on Friday would help to fix the issues. Facebook came under fire from Matt Galligan, the co-founder of now-defunct mobile news app Circa, when he discovered that the app had been running for 3.4 hours in the background in the course of a week – or 15pc of total battery drain – despite its background app refresh function being disabled. Grant posted on Facebook to say engineers had found two major flaws with the app that meant it was sucking battery. The...

With 40 million fans, YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg could have his pick of broadcasters if he decided to move into television. But the man whose channel has more than 10bn video views plans to stick with his online community. Television is just another promotional channel for his online work, rather than the next rung of the entertainment ladder, he argues. “I started doing YouTube videos and that’s what I want to keep doing. It seems like maybe some traditional or old media feel intimidated by YouTube being a new medium,” Kjellberg said. “I feel like we are the lucky ones doing YouTube. So I’m going to keep doing what’s fun.” Kjellberg launched his YouTube channel in 2010, and has built a huge audience for his vlogs and “Let’s Play” videos, in which he plays a variety of games. In 2014, his videos were watched nearly 4.1bn times and according to documents filed in the Brighton-based Swede’s homeland, the 25-year-old earned $7.4m (£4.8m). Now, the traditional media world has...

Children who are born during summer are more likely to be heavier at birth and taller as adults than those born in the cooler months, according to a study that followed the development of 450,000 people. For women, there seem to be even more benefits, with the study finding that summer baby girls actually start their periods later than those born during the rest of the year – which is an indicator of female adult health. To be clear, this was an observational study and it only found a correlation between these health markers and the timing of birth, so we still have no idea what could be causing the link. But the researchers suggest that getting more sun – and therefore higher vitamin D exposure – in the second trimester of pregnancy might explain the effect. “Our results show that birth month has a measurable effect on development and health, but more work is needed to understand the mechanisms behind this effect,” said lead researcher John Perry, from the Medical Research Council in ...