Women in high heels do not really attract men

Women giving up comfort for high heels to look more appealing to the opposite sex could be just wasting their time -- apparently men don't even notice.

Research shows that men cannot even tell if a woman is wearing high heels when they walk, said experts at Northumbria University, which studied the reactions of men to women who walk in high heels and others without heels.

It is part of a wider research project into attraction and the signals sent out by movement like walking and dancing, reports the Telegraph.

The study, led by evolutionary psychologist Nick De Neave at Northumbria, and researcher Kristofor McCarty, looked at women between 18 and 35 years and what signals are sent out when the they walk with and without heels.

Shilpa Shetty in kitten heels.

But male observers in the experiment could not tell which figures were wearing heels.

De Neave said: "Women are spending money on high heels, which can be dangerous, presumably to make themselves look good and add to what nature has given them."

The study is probing if the change in body posture brought about by wearing heels, such as the illusion of longer legs, tilting torso and more prominent rear, sends a signal which has an impact on men.

But according to the research, starting relationships definitely went beyond footwear.

De Neave said: "Everybody is attracted to somebody else and making relationships is very important to humans.

"Making key relationships and having children are some of the most important decisions people will make."

Exercise alone cannot bring about weight loss

A study has found that overweight people who believe exercise alone can make them thin are living under an illusion because only serious, long-term dieting can lead to significant weight loss.

The belief that exercise can be used to fight the obesity epidemic is wrong because it would require inordinate amounts of heavy physical training over long periods of time to have any significant impact on a person's weight, scientists said.
"The evidence is that exercise is not sufficient to reverse the obesity epidemic. The only way we're going to reverse it is to reduce the amount of food intake," the Independent quoted professor John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen as saying.
One in five people in Britain are classed as clinically obese and 61 per cent of the population is overweight.
Professor Speakman said popular ideas about obesity are wrong because studies have shown that levels of physical activity have not changed over the past 25 years, while obesity rates have risen dramatically.

India third most powerful nation: US report

India is listed as the third most powerful country in the world after the US and China and the fourth most powerful bloc after the US, China and the European Union in a new official US report.

The new global power lineup for 2010 also predicted that New Delhi's clout in the world will further rise by 2025, according to "Global Governance 2025" jointly issued by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) of the US and the European Union's Institute for Security Studies (EUISS).
Using the insights of a host of experts from Brazil, Russia, India and China, among others, and fictionalised scenarios, the report illustrates what could happen over the next 25 years in terms of global governance.

In 2010, the US tops the list of powerful countries/regions, accounting for nearly 22 percent of the global power.
The US is followed by China with European Union at 16 percent and India at eight percent. India is followed by Japan, Russia and Brazil with less than five percent each.
According to this international futures model, by 2025 the power of the US, EU, Japan and Russia will decline while that of China, India and Brazil will increase, even though there will be no change in this listing.

By 2025, the US will still be the most powerful country of the world, but it will have a little over 18 percent of the global power.
The US will be closely followed by China with 16 percent, European Union with 14 percent and India with 10 per cent.

"The growing number of issues on the international agenda, and their complexity, is outpacing the ability of international organisations and national governments to cope," the report warns.
This critical turning point includes issues of climate change, ethnic and regional conflicts, new technology, and the managing of natural resources.
The report also highlights the challenges proponents of effective global governance face.

On one hand, rapid globalistion, economic and otherwise, has led to an intertwining of domestic politics and international issues and fueled the need for more cooperation and more effective leadership.
But on the other hand, an increasingly multipolar world, often dominated by non-state actors, have put a snag in progress toward effectual global governance, it said.

Google adds extra security step to e-mail, apps

Google Inc. is making it tougher for computer hackers and other imposters to break into e-mail accounts and other password-protected services.

An additional security measure introduced Monday will require typing a six-digit code after an accountholder's Google password is entered. The codes will be sent to people's mobile phones.

The two-step process means it will take more than a password to get into an account, at least the first time that an attempted login is made from a particular computer. After logging in, users can ask Google to remember that their identity has been verified on that device and security codes won't be required to get into the account again.

The system is similar to that employed by some banks for online account access. The extra protection initially will be offered to companies and government agencies subscribing to a Google service that provides e-mail and other office applications. Google also is offering the added security to schools that rely on Google to run their e-mail systems.

People using Google's free Gmail service will have the option of making the security codes a part of their login process within the next few months. That could turn the security codes into a mainstream staple, given that Gmail had more than 185 million active accountholders worldwide in July, according to the most recent data from the research firm comScore Inc.

To make it easier to get the codes, Google has created a free security application for Apple's Inc.'s iPhone, Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and phones running Google's own Android software.

Google wants more companies, government agencies and consumers to feel comfortable about "cloud computing," — which involves storing vital information on remote servers reached through the Internet.

Many people pick simple passwords, which makes it easier for hackers to break into an account. Requiring a security code that's only sent to the accountholder's mobile phone erects a new roadblock.

Not even the security codes will be enough to protect people's personal information from some trespassers. For instance, Google has acknowledged it fired an engineer in its Kirkland, Wash., office after he abused his privileges to peer into the accounts of four minors.

Your email IDs, passwords on sale online(BE CAREFUL)

There’s a full-fledged underground marketplace on the Web for all things considered most secure: your email IDs and banking and passwords, online banking passwords, mobile numbers and related authentication details. And what’s more the ‘merchandise’ can be custom-ordered too. ET gives the ‘product’-wise rate list: credit card CVVs; dates of birth and fraudulent phone call service; flooding software, and a full trojan making set.

The underground e-Commerce crackers’ marketplace

CVV2 Data Sets

$1.50 - $3.00

The CVV2 data set consists of a credit card’s 16-digit PAN, CVV2 code, expiration date, billing address and embossed name.


SSN (Social Security Number)
DOB (Date of Birth)

$1.50 - $3.00 per query
SSN: $1.00 -$3.00
DOB: $1.00 -$3.00

These personal details are very often used by banks to authenticate an individual’s identity.

Online Banking Logins

$50 - $1,000 per account, depending on the account balance

After obtaining these credentials, fraudsters would normally attempt to cash the account out by completing wire transfers to accounts.

‘Fulls’ Data Sets

$5.00 - $20.00 per set

‘Fulls’ information includes the full details, username and password), mailing address, card number, CVV2 code, card’s expiration date, MMN, DOB, SSN.

Fraudulent Phone Calls

$10.00 - $15.00 per call (Prices vary according to the destination of the call)

Completed by Fraudster Call Centers, fraudulent phone services are offered to cybercriminals as a means to overcome language barriers for those who need to impersonate the account holder.

SMS or Phone-Flooding Services (aka Telephony DoS/ TDoS)

$25.00 - $40.00 per 24 hours of phone-flooding

Phone-flooding is usually performed in order to render a consumer’s mobile phone unavailable for incoming authentication calls or SMS text messages sent from the bank.

DDoS Attack Service

$50.00 per 24 hours of website-flooding.

A ‘Distributed Denial of Service’ attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users by overloading, or “flooding” its bandwidth with an overwhelming volume of web traffic.

CC Checking/ Verification

$0.40 per check
Prices may vary widely.
$20.00 for 50 checks

CC (credit card) checkers are used by cybercriminals to verify the validity of the compromised payment cards.

Bulletproof Hosting

$87-$179 per month

Bulletproof hosting is a hired service used by cybercriminals to host malicious content on web. Bulletproof sites are much harder for law enforcement to take down.

Track 2 Data (aka “Dumps”)

Classic/ Standard cards: $15 - $20
Gold/ Platinum cards: $20 - $80
Worldwide/ Business/ Corporate/ Signature: $30 - $40

‘Track-2’ information is found on a payment card’s magnetic stripe. By purchasing ‘dumps’, fraudsters can produce counterfeit payment cards that can be used in stores.

Zeus Trojan Kit

Backconnect $1,500
Firefox form grabber $2,000
Jabber (IM) chat plug-in $500

It is one of the most pervasive banking Trojans with an infection rate of thousands of computers per day. Zeus Kit: $3K - $4K

SpyEye Trojan Kit

Basic kit- $1,000
Firefox Injection tool $1,000-$2,000

One of the most advanced Trojans. It has its own IE and Firefox HTML injections, pre-defined bank triggers and a growing list of unique features. SpyEye has been 2010’s biggest Trojan innovation.


Source: RSA'S fraud action intelligence team; Online Fraud Report 2010

7 websites to make you seem more interesting than you are

So you checked. You don’t suffer from halitosis, no body odour problems, and you’re not even bad-looking , but you just can’t seem to make any breakthrough with people at social gatherings. Why? Well, it’s probably because you’re bad at conversations. You don’t know where to begin, and when you do, you mostly don’t have anything interesting to say.

Mostly, you’re the person nursing a drink at the periphery of a party conversation, nodding sagely, at least that’s the look you’ve been going for so far. But why stand at the edge when you can be bang in the middle of all the action; holding court, narrating anecdotes, and generally just appearing well-informed on anything and everything.

Here are seven websites, equipped with which, you can appear intelligent to almost anyone. Well, not everyone, but at least it’s a start...

www.thefreedictionary.com

This resource is one of the best places in Cyberia for any information of any sort. Besides dictionaries in English and 13 other languages, the site boasts of a thesaurus, a section for abbreviations, idioms, an encyclopaedia, as well as a literature reference library, and all supported by a nifty search engine. Daily visitors can also expect regular features such as word of the day, quote of the day, article of the day, this day in history, and so on. But my personal favourite has got to be the word game section , which includes Hangman and Spelling Bee. But I digress. Equipped with this resource, you can wax eloquent on practically anything under the sun.

www.acronymfinder.com

Every now and then, someone might try to appear smarter by spewing out an acronym or abbreviation at you with a condescending smirk. But if you have bookmarked Acronym Finder in you browser, that’s one less tactic they can use to make you feel stupid. Now, while it won’t keep you informed about everything there is to know, at least it will help you mitigate your losses. This site has more than 7,50,000 ‘human-edited’ definitions, abbreviations and acronyms about computers, technology, telecommunications, and the military. So bookmark it ASAP before people start ROTFL at your ignorance.

www.etymonline.com

This site is all about polishing you into a fairly decent wordsmith. You know you can’t have a conversation without being equipped with the right linguistic skills. Also, it always helps to know the root of words so you don’t trip while trying to appear smart. Enter Etymonline. This resource will help you understand the origin, development, and the ‘true sense’ of a word. In simpler language, if you need to know the basis of any word in English, then this is the place to go to. Heck, it even covers “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” . You might want to look that one up while you’re at it.

www.biography.com

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people . But how will you ever discuss people, if you know nothing about them? I suggest you make haste to this resource. Whether it’s Pope John Paul II or Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler or Winston Churchill, Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great, Princess Diana or Marilyn Monroe, you’ll find all their biographies here; complete with photographs, videos snippets, etcetera. And on those nights when you don’t have any social invites, visit Biography.com anyway. It definitely makes for interesting reading. True story.

wolframalpha.com

How do I put this mildly without sounding like a fanboy? Wolframalpha is a search engine with a difference. Enter your birth date as a search parameter, and the engine will throw up details like the number of years, months and days you have spent on this planet; famous personalities that were born on the same day; the phase of the moon on the day you were born, etc. Enter in a colour, say ‘pink’, and it will throw up its RGB value, its hexadecimal code, complementary colours and the like. But don’t take my word for it, go on, type in Mumbai and Tokyo in the box, and see what you get. Useless facts and statistics can be a great conversation opener.

www.pantheon.org and www.theoi.com

Everyone likes a story, and mythology has always a good subject to mine for conversations . So for your fill of gods and demons, check out Pantheon.org and Theoi.com; both excellent places to start. While the latter only covers Grecian divinity (and does it exceedingly well), Pantheon includes mythological characters from across the globe: From our own Ganesha to the Greek Zeus, the Roman Jupiter to the Nordic Freya, from the Egyptian Anubis to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl. The gods, it seems, have made these two URLs their personal domain. So if the exploits of the gods has always been your Achilles’ heel, then this site is your river Styx. Take a dip.

www.brainyquote.com

So you’ve tried a few Siddhuisms, and you’ve managed to get a few guffaws out of your soft-headed friends. But now it’s time to up the ante. If you’re looking to impress people with higher IQs than your cronies, you must take recourse to BrainyQuote. The site is a repository of quotations from humourists, playwrights, presidents, authors, humanitarians and practically everybody who is anybody. Like someone famous said and I don’t remember who, but you’ll probably find the quote on the site itself: “Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another’s wit”. I agree.

World's top 10 electricity producers, India 5th

The world is already in the grip of a major power crisis. With the developing nations' appetite and demand for more energy, the situation is likely to get even worse if steps are not taken to find alternate and clean/green sources of energy
Almost all natural resources that are used to generate power -- oil, gas, even water -- seem to have limited availability. Thus alternative sources of energy --  wind, nuclear, solar -- might be the way out for the developing as also the rich countries.
After the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, many nations pledged to reduce their carbon emissions. Developing countries, including India and China, believe it is the responsibility of wealthy industrialised nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States to cut more carbon emissions as they have already achieved a certain standard of living.
As India and China, and indeed other nations, grow towards attaining better lifestyles and living conditions for their populations, their appetite for electricity will only rise further.
The total electricity production in the world in 2008 stood at 19,950,3917,395,212 kWh (kWh, or kilowatt hour, is a unit of energy equal to 1,000 watt hours), while the total power consumption was 17,109,665,000 gigawatt hours. The per capita power consumption in the world was 297 watts: almost six times the Indian average.
So which are the world's largest producers and consumers of electricity?
1. The United States of America
The world's largest producer of electricity is indeed the United States of America. In 2008, America produced a gigantic 4,110,259,050,000 kWh of power.
The US is also the world's largest consumer of electricity. In 2007, it consumed 3,872,598,000 megawatt hours of electricity, but its per capita power consumption, at 1,460 watts, it is not the highest in the world.
Countries like Iceland (3,152 watts), Norway 2,812 watts, Finland (1,918 watts), Canada (1,910 watts), Qatar (1,757 watts), Sweden (1,692 watts), Luxembourg (1,549 watts), Kuwait (1,540 watts) among others have a much higher per capita power consumption than the United States does.
2. China
China, the world's fastest growing major economy, is undeniably a global economic powerhouse. In a testimony to its growing clout, China's nearly $5 trillion economy surpassed Japan to become the world's second largest economy in June 2010.
While the global financial crisis was a catastrophe for most economies, it was more an opportunity than a calamity for China. It is an energy-hungry nation, and its rapidly growing economy required more and more reserves to keep it going. That is why the Asian giant has been buying into natural resources and reserves globally.
Bolstered by massive stimulus measures and improving domestic output, China has clocked a staggering economic growth rate of almost 10 per cent for several years.
The Asian giant is the world's superpower in hydropower generation and its total electricity production in 2008 was 3,221,798,270,000 kWh, second only to the United States.
Even in power consumption, China ranks second in the world. In 2009, it consumed 3,650,600,000 gigawatt hours of electricity. At 277 watts, its per capita power consumption is almost five times that of India.
3. Japan
Japan, which is the world's third largest economy, produced 1,009,445,000,000 kWh of electricity in 2008 making it the world's third largest generator of power, ahead of Russia and India.
Japan's total electricity consumption in 2008 was 1,007,067,000 gigawatt hours, with a per capita power consumption of 868 watts. It is the world's third largest consumer of electricity.
4. Russia
Russia is the world's fourth largest producer of electricity. In the year 2008, the Russian Federation produced 982,998,790,000 watts of electricity.
Russians consume 840,380,000 gigawatt hours of electricity making them the fourth highest users of power. The per capita power consumption in Russia is 785 watts, which is more than 15 times what an average Indian consumes.
5. India
India faces a power crisis of such magnitude that it can be termed as one of the biggest threats to the nation's economic growth and progress. Today, decades after Independence hundreds of Indian villages still do not have electricity, especially in the rural areas.
Among the cities, with the sole exception of Mumbai, almost all Indian cities suffer daily power cuts, affecting industry, business, education and life in general.
And this, despite the fact that India has the fifth largest electricity-generation capacity in the world. It has an installed capacity of over 152 gigawatts (1 gigawatt is equal to 1 billion watts).
In 2008 (which are the latest figures available), India produced 787,546,450,000 kWh of electricity, which is about 4 per cent of the total power generation in the world. Only four other countries produce more electricity than India.
India is also the world's fifth largest consumer of electricity. In 2007, India consumed 568,000,000 megawatt hours of electricity, which works out to an average of about 51 watts per person.
Comparatively, the per capita electricity consumption in the United States is 1,460 watts, and in China it is 700 watts.
India has amongst the lower per capita power consumption rates in the world. Only Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Congo, Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sudan, Cameroon, Nepal, and some other sub-Saharan countries have lower power consumption than India.
6. Canada
Canada produced 614,227,000,000 kWh of power in 2008. It ranks as the sixth highest consumer of electricity in the world.
Canada, however, is the seventh largest consumer of power. In 2008, it consumed 536,054,000 gigawatt hours of electricity, at a per capita rate of 1,910 watts (37 times that of India).

7. Germany
Germany, with a 2008 electricity production of 589,042,000,000 watts, is the world's seventh largest producer of electricity.
At a consumption rate of 547,326,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2008, Germany is the sixth largest power consumer. Its per capita consumption is 822 watts.


8. France
France is the world's eighth largest producer of electricity. In 2008, it generated 539,022,000,000 kWh of electricity.
France's per capita power consumption is 851 watts, and it is the world's eighth largest consumer of electricity at 447,233,000 gigawatt hours.
9. Brazil
The BRIC nations have a huge power generation and consumption capacity. After China, Russia and India, Brazil too ranks among the top 10 power generators. In 2008, Brazil produced 448,913,750,000 kWh of electricity, making it the world's ninth highest power generator.
Brazil also consumes a hefty amount of electricity. In 2007, it consumed 403,029,000 gigawatt hours of electricity, making it the world's ninth largest user of power. Its per capita consumption is 226 watts.
10. South Korea
South Korea generated 415,970,000,000 kWh of electricity in 2008, making it the world's tenth largest power producer.
The Asian economic major is the world's 10th largest power user. It consumed 386,169,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2007, with a per capita usage of 879 watts.