Washingtonpost is running an amazing piece on the mechanics and economics of operating botnets:

Hackers are hijacking thousands of PCs to spy on users, shake down online businesses, steal identities and send millions of pieces of spam. If you think your computer is safe, think again

Also included is an interview of a botnet operator, known as 0x80 (X-eighty) :

In the six hours between crashing into bed and rolling out of it, the 21-year-old hacker has broken into nearly 2,000 personal computers around the globe. He slept while software he wrote scoured the Internet for vulnerable computers and infected them with viruses that turned them into slaves.

Google video added a new dimension to Bollywood piracy when it started showing recent hits for viewing or downloading. But a legal notice took care of the issue.

The website has promptly removed the illegal videos. Film distributors in the US are keeping tabs on the website.

More on the news here.

When Anil Chawla went back for an Alumni reunion at IIT-Bombay, after a gap of about 25 years, he was struck by the culture change that had swept his college. Digging further he found out the core of this change was Broadband and the personal computer, which having permeated the college life in Indian tech schools are having a disastrous effect on the students social life.

We were told that counterstrike is the favorite on the campus, with some students playing it for hours at a stretch every day. I was even introduced to someone as the invincible champion of counterstrike. I tried to talk to this so-called champion. It was a futile exercise - he did not know how to talk. His language capabilities were limited to monosyllables and some shaking of the head as a zombie probably would.

Anil Chawla wrote this to the Director-IITB.

Maglev technology is responsible for those super-fast trains we get to hear about running in Japan and China.

CNN is reporting that Maglev technology would soon be used to power elevators in Tokyo.

Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp. will employ so-called maglev technology -- capable of suspending objects in mid-air through the combination of magnetic attraction and repulsion -- to control the lifts, it said in a statement.

Wired is running an article on how Seagate has been able to increase hard drive densities by aligning bits of data vertically, rather than horizontally as is done currently.

The new approach that aligns bits of data vertically rather than horizontally enables Seagate -- and other drive vendors -- to further boost the density of drives without increasing the risk of scrambling data....By storing bits in a vertical, or perpendicular, arrangement, engineers are able to boost capacity by taking advantage of the real estate that is freed up.

Seagate's new drive, the Momentus 5400.3, was being shipped as of Monday, the Scotts Valley, California-based company said. The shift to perpendicular recording allows it to bump up the maximum capacity of its notebook drive to 160 GB from 120 GB.

Read more here.

Microsoft has unveiled its Virtual India Project, an online interactive map of India modeled on Microsoft's virtual Earth.

The map supports a resolution of 1:1M and 1:8000 specifically for Bangalore city. Standard features like tagging and view specific permalinks are included. Also included is a multi-lingual capability supporting English, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil.

The only spoiler could be your bandwidth, with the approx. 100kbps speed that my provider doles out in the name of broadband, it required a lot of patience to check out the nitty-gritty.

Find the online map here and more information on the project here.

The recent rush of VC funds in India would have most entrepreneurs salivating. However, not all ideas are up for grabs.

Vineet Buch, a venture capitalist at BlueRun Ventures gives his take on what looks promising in India in 2006.

In the list are more consumer Internet initiatives, mobile value-added services, component manufacturers, fabless semiconductors, clean technology and ofcourse good old software services with a sprinkling of products.

WiMax, it seems could be well be the technology which could propel
India into a wired future. WiMax promises a wireless solution to the "last mile" connectivity problem.

Anand parthasarathy reports on WiMax and more, from the recently held Indian Wireless Broadband summit.

Intel is the next in line to launch a sub Rs 10,000 PC.

Most similar products by other companies have not hit the high note in the market, largely due to the poor performance of such PC's. Interestingly, the PC by Intel will also be dust and water resistant and with a long battery life, the company claims.

Business Standard reports.

What happens when innovation inspires the poorest of the poor -
a motorcycle drive plough costing just Rs 25,000, a mini tractor which is both cost-effective and fuel efficient and an amphibious bicycle which runs as easily on water.

Niti Bhan gives her take on how innovation works for those at the bottom of the pyramid.