Russia launches satellite navigation system

Moscow — Russia launched Saturday, one of the final satellites required to complete a navigation system based on space, that Moscow hopes will challenge the dominance of the United States system GPS (Global Positioning).

Glonass-K satellite, which was launched shortly after the local time 6: 00 a.m., reached the orbit, said Aleksei Reklos, space forces spokesman of the Ministry of defence.

The voice of the space craft into space "has gone according to plan. Constant telemetry communications were established with the craft of space, "he said.

After the embarrassing loss of three satellites last year, two more are planned to be launched in 2011 to complete the project of 2 billion dollars that said Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will give Russia "satellite navigation sovereignty."

Moscow is hoping that the GLONASS navigation technology that will create a revolution in the consumer technology in the domestic market, with applications that you plan to use cell phones and cars.

Three Glonass satellites were launched in December last year travelling out progress and crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, Moscow that cost about $ 160 million and set the program back a about six months.

Without Russia's Glonass, military fears that is at the mercy of the United States, which it says could freeze or blur your GPS signal in time of crisis — accusations that were widely used during a brief war 2008 between Georgia and Russia.

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GSMA to recommend SMS Spam Reporting System

The GSMA will recommend that operators to join a program that allows mobile subscribers to report spam using SMS short codes in an attempt to gather more data on a growing nuisance.

The GSMA along with his partner Cloudmark, which makes software for messaging security for operators, has completed a trial in December an SMS spam reporting system which analyzed SMS and aggregated reporting of abuse. AT&T, Bell Mobility, KT (Korea Telecom), SFR, Sprint, Vodafone and the Agency of Internet Security & Korean participated in the pilot.

Users may submit suspected spam using the short code "9,512," which spells spam numerically, said Alan Ranger, vice president for mobile marketing of Cloudmark.

"A lot of people felt really don't have a spam problem, but when we arrived, we found that it was quite serious," said Ranger.

The volume of spam was relatively low, but the attacks have shown a high enough level of sophistication. Most attacks were financially motivated, with other direct users to malicious Web sites, adult content or were simply for legitimate businesses, Ranger, he said.

For example, a scam was a series of messages that a user has informed that someone has had a crush them. If a person has answered, it would sign them for an alleged dating service billed to US $ 60 a month through the vector of person.

SMS spammers often Buy a lot of prepaid SIM cards and send messages until the balance is fully depleted. The problem has gotten so bad in China that most of the SIM cards are only allowed to send 1000 SMS, Ranger, he said.

Some of the worst locale for SMS spam are China and South Korea. A Chinese mobile user can get upwards of 30 spam SMS per day, while those in South Korea report thousands of spam SMS per day.

With the reporting service, spam is forwarded to the operator, who then passes the message to cloud-based system that identifies and Cloudmark blocks suspicious messages. Cloudmark will manage and sell spam reporting service, said Ranger.

"We are hoping to get as many of the networks worldwide, signed it," said Ranger. "At the moment when [users] they see spam, don't know what to do with it. In some countries have phone up the operator, which is the last thing a trader wants. "

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com

The metric system

Pilot fish works for IT Director of a non-profit organization and together with the usual things his Department also processes thank-you gifts for people who donate money.

"A year, the Organization decided to tie all the reviews of the performance metric for managers," says fish. "I sat down with my boss to discuss meaningful metrics that would make sense for the areas of reporting to me.

"Gift processing, suggested that we should have a metric to increase the number of gifts for my staff placed be higher compared to the previous year, with a stretch goal of 10 per cent more than 5 percent.

"I had to explain to you that we are only 100 percent of gifts arrive, not more and not less. It took several attempts to get her to understand why. "

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Lenovo earns first gold rating in the new green certification system

It seems that there is a certification of new types IT can look at when it comes to ratings for green IT.

Maker Lenovo notebooks known has earned the first gold rating for laptop under the UL environment sustainable production certification (CPS). The rating has been granted for the next ThinkPad420, a laptop that is expected to be launched later in the month of February.

The video below provides some perspectives, but some of the factors that have contributed to Lenovo earn this distinction were a focus on the use of low-halogen and post-consumer recycled content in the product, and the choice of a design that make this notebook than the average for dismantling for recycling or reuse after his life. Some expected to release the ThinkPads this year have more than 10 percent post-consumer content, while some ThinkCentre and Lenovo ThinkVision contain recycled up to 65 percent of things. Specific things that are examined during the review process of UL environment include product documentation, compliance with Energy Star 5.0 and production facilities. The evaluation programme is based on IEEE standard 1680 sustainability, who leads the process of certification of EPEAT green technology more familiar.

As I reported earlier this month, UL environment is spearheading the development of standards for mobile phones.

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues.