New Climate Technology Network, Finance Center to cut greenhouse gas emissions ... - International News Network

ISLAMABAD: A new Climate Technology Network would be established to generate investments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12 million tons of carbon dioxide in next 10 years in Asia and the Pacific region.

The new Climate Technology Network and Finance Center will expand the availability of low-carbon and climate-resilient technologies in Asia and the Pacific with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with core funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

?The countries of Asia and the Pacific need to rapidly deploy new technologies capable of decoupling their growth from high emissions of greenhouse gases, and they need to build their resilience to climate change impacts,? said S. Chander, Director-General of ADB?s Regional and Sustainable Development Department.

The technology finance center will be set up in Manila, Philippines, to be managed by ADB, while the climate technology network secretariat will be based in Bangkok, Thailand, to be managed by UNEP.

The new center will help mobilize financing for clean technology by folding technology considerations into national investment plans and strategies, and by piloting innovative financing mechanisms. The network, meanwhile, will provide complementary technical support and policy advice and be a forum for knowledge sharing.

A pilot technology marketplace to spur transactions in climate-friendly technologies will also be established.

Asia and the Pacific is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, with emissions from the energy sector alone up 183% since 1990, and has more people at risk who live in the region?s coastal cities, and in rural areas where livelihoods are heavily dependent on agriculture and other climate-sensitive sectors.

GEF is providing a grant of roughly $11 million to support the center. "The project shows GEF's commitment to technology transfer and innovative approaches that encompass both mitigation and adaptation.

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Apple Tells Google they have Better App: How can One Create an App Better than ... - Melodika.net (press release)

Apple is believed to announce their new Map app for mobile devices and will be using it to replace the Google maps program in their upcoming iOS6. Why now? "Because there is money to be made in mobile mapping technology, and for Apple, the pieces finally are in place to give Google the boot," states investorplace.com.

Google Maps has been a mainstay of the iPhone since 2007, but the Wall Street Journal says Apple's replacement plan was hatched years ago and accelerated when phones powered by Google's Android operating system overtook Apple in shipments. So Apple bought three companies, Placebase, C3 Technologies and Poly 9, which it used to create a mapping database.

The mobile apps market is a 30 billion dollar industry and growing and many businesses are recognizing this growth. There are many entrepreneurs that are taking advantage of the mobile trend and creating significant incomes by building what are becoming know as "App Empires."

One person who is making a name for himself in the app industry is Chad Mureta. An average guy who hated his job and ended up creating 3 app businesses that he ended up selling and making millions. This past week Chad was featured on CNBC and 60 minutes due to his remarkable story.

The best part of the story is that Mureta has taught others how to create an app business that makes money without doing any of the programming or regular app work themselves. Mureta has worked with some who have become millionaires and even taught a 10 year old boy how to create a successful App Empire.

Currently Chad Mureta is offering a complete training program which includes training videos, manuals, systems and even software to assist in the process. As a special bonus Mureta has put together a live event to further everyone's knowledge on creating an app business.

A reviewer from BarryRealMarketing.com states that, "Chad's program is like having a mentor to guide you every step of the way to creating an app business. From deciding which app is going to be a winner, to hiring a programmer to making the top sellers list in the App store are all covered in App Empire. For anyone that is serious about getting in to the app game needs to get Chad's program."

To learn more about Chad Mureta and his App Empire program should visit his official site here.

If one wants a review of the program, BarryRealMarketing.com has put together a quick review for those who are interested in learning more. Go here for the App Empire review.

 

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Communicating cars - The Register-Guard

WASHINGTON — As a safety demonstration, it was a heart-stopper: A Ford Taurus was seconds away from cruising through an intersection when suddenly a row of red lights pulsed on the lower windshield and a warning blared that another car was approaching fast on the cross street.

Braking quickly, the driver stopped just as the second car, previously unseen behind a large parked truck, barreled through a red light and across the Ford’s path.

The display at a recent transportation conference was a peek into the future of automotive safety: cars that to talk to each other and warn drivers of impending collisions. Later this summer, the government is launching a yearlong, real-world test involving nearly 3,000 cars, trucks and buses using volunteer drivers in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The vehicles will be equipped to continuously communicate over wireless networks, exchanging information on location, direction and speed 10 times a second with other similarly equipped cars within about 1,000 feet. A computer analyzes the information and issues danger warnings to drivers, often before they can see the other vehicle.

On roadways today, the Taurus in the demonstration likely would have been “T-boned” — slammed in the side by the other car. There were more than 7,800 fatal intersection accidents on U.S. roadways in 2010.

Called vehicle-to-vehicle communication, or V2V, more advanced versions of the systems can take control of a car to prevent an accident by applying brakes when the driver reacts too slowly to a warning.

V2V “is our next evolutionary step ... to make sure the crash never happens in the first place, which is, frankly, the best safety scenario we can all hope for,” said David Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

V2V technology holds the potential to help in most crashes that aren’t alcohol or drug related, Strickland said.

But a lot will depend on how drivers respond to the warnings, and that’s one reason for the Ann Arbor test. Overall, more than 32,000 people were killed in traffic accidents last year.

In addition to warning of cars running red lights or stop signs, “connected cars” can let drivers know if they don’t have time to make a left turn because of oncoming traffic.

When driving on a two-lane road, the systems warn when passing is unsafe because of oncoming cars — even vehicles around a curve that the driver can’t see yet.

In a line of heavy traffic, the systems issue an alert if a car several vehicles ahead brakes hard even before the vehicle directly in front brakes. And the systems alert drivers when they’re at risk of rear-ending a slower-moving car.

It’s also possible for connected cars to exchange information with traffic lights, signs and roadways if states and communities decide to equip their transportation infrastructure with similar technology. The information would be relayed to traffic management centers, tipping them off to congestion, accidents or obstructions. If cars are reported to be swerving in one spot on a roadway, for example, that could indicate a large pothole or obstruction.

The constant stream of vehicle-to-infrastructure, or V2I, information could give traffic managers a better picture of traffic flows than they have today, enabling better timing of traffic signals to keep cars moving, for example.

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Iran to crack down on web censor-beating software - AFP

Iran to crack down on web censor-beating softwareBy Marc Burleigh (AFP) – 5 hours ago 

TEHRAN — Iran's cyber police force is poised to launch a new crackdown on software that lets many Iranians circumvent the regime's Internet censorship, media reported on Sunday.

The operation will target VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, which use a secure protocol to encrypt users' data, foiling online blocks put in place by Iran's authorities, according to the head of the specialised police unit, Kamal Hadianfar.

"It has been agreed that a commission (within the cyber police) be formed to block illegal VPNs," he was quoted as saying in a report originally published by the Mehr news agency.

"About 20 to 30 percent of (Iranian internet) users use VPN," or more than seven million people out of the country's 36 million web users, he added.

Legal VPNs would only be used by "the likes of airlines, ministries, (state) organisations and banks," he said -- and even they would be monitored by the commission.

Iran has long tried to stop its population accessing millions of foreign websites authorities see as undermining the Islamic regime, including Facebook, Twitter, the online pages of the BBC and CNN, many torrent sites, blogs, and pornographic hubs.

"Some websites are obscene and others are officially hostile towards the Islamic republic's system. (Thus), in the interest of the people and in order to prevent the collapse of families... there is blocking of the Internet," Hadianfar said.

The Islamic republic's suppressing of the Internet has intensified since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was returned to office in a disputed 2009 election that sparked a wave of anti-government protests, mostly organised online.

Many Iranian Internet users are used to getting around the censorship through the use of either VPNs or IP proxy software.

But they are being increasingly hemmed in by more sophisticated measures being deployed by officials, who are planning a closed "Islamic Internet" that some believe could be designed to supplant the world wide web within Iran.

Iran's telecommunications ministry last month reportedly ordered the country's banks, insurance firms and telephone operators to stop using foreign e-mail accounts such as Gmail to communicate with clients, and instead adopt e-mail domains ending with .ir, which belongs to Iran.

Authorities have also several times recently slowed connections through VPNs to an excruciatingly slow speed to dissuade their use, and have occasionally halted all access to Gmail, Yahoo mail and other foreign communication services.

Such tactics have drawn criticism, even from within the regime, with politicians lamenting the obstacle they present for import/export merchants, students and researchers.

Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a sidelined pragmatic figure who now heads an advisory council to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted two weeks ago by the ISNA news agency as saying Facebook was a "blessing".

"We see that a Facebook page costing nothing can outstrip several television and radio outlets, and can influence millions of people," he was quoted as saying.

Trying to block the Internet -- and banned although widely-watched foreign satellite television channels -- was futile because users will always find ways around, he said.

"People cannot be stopped in their pursuit of information," he was quoted as saying.

Rafsanjani said some in Iran's regime may dislike that, "but if we think about the happiness of human beings, we see that if social media did not exist, movements against tyranny and oppression would be endangered."

The United States, Iran's arch foe and the genitor of the Internet, is seeking to tear open what President Barack Obama in March termed the Islamic republic's "electronic curtain".

He announced measures to encourage US software makers to market communication programmes in Iran. And in April, he ordered new sanctions targeting companies that help Iran and its ally Syria oppress their people with surveillance software and monitoring technology.

The New York Times newspaper reported early this month that Obama had also accelerated cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear programme, including the Stuxnet virus that destroyed hundreds of uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran's Natanz facility.

Iran has said a new computer virus dubbed Flame that hit servers run by its oil sector appeared to be linked to Stuxnet, and it has cast suspicion on the United States as the perpetrator.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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Wars sparked by autonomous programs? Cyber experts warn of &apos;intelligent weapons&apos; - Brisbane Times

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Increase generation capacity to tackle power shortages: PM Gilani our ... - The News International

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Divided families urge India, Pakistan to leave Kashmir - DAWN.com

Pakistani Kashmiri nationalists shout slogans as the march during a demonstration in Keran, about 90 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, on June 10, 2012.—AFP Photo

KERAN: Hundreds of Kashmiris on Sunday staged an emotional demonstration on the banks of a fast-flowing river to urge India and Pakistan to withdraw troops from the disputed Himalayan region.

On the Pakistani side, tearful relatives waved across the gushing Neelum – which separates the two countries – to their family on the Indian side, using loudspeakers to try to speak to them, an AFP photographer said.

But the deafening roar of the river – about 200 feet wide at the village of Keran – was too loud for the cries to carry across to the Indian side.

About 600 men and women gathered by the river in Keran, about 90 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Many migrated to Muzaffarabad in 1990 to escape violence.

The gathering, called by nationalists, was a rare occasion – the authorities do not normally allow such events on the river.

For Ashraf Jan, who left her mother and father to come to Muzaffarabad with her aunt in 1947, it was almost too much.

Overwhelmed with emotion, the 70-year-old had to be stopped by relatives from jumping in the furious river to try to reach her ageing parents on the Indian side.

“Let me go. I just want to see my parents and after that if I die, I will be in peace,” she said.

Indian police and military did not allow Kashmiris on the other side to come near the river bank and they were left to wave from a distance.

Kashmir was split in the aftermath of independence on the subcontinent when British rule ended in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim the entire territory, which is divided by a heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC).

The LoC is heavily guarded on both sides and strictly off-limits.

Though Kashmiris can cross the border via a special bus service started in 2005, it requires lengthy clearance procedures at both sides, meaning few go.

Arif Shahid, president of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Conference, urged India and Pakistan to divert their military spending to help poor people in both countries.

“India and Pakistan are wasting money on arms when millions of people have to sleep without any meal every night. They should withdraw troops from Kashmir and liberate us so that they are able to work for the welfare of their citizens,” Shahid said.

There are nearly a dozen Kashmir militant groups fighting for the divided Muslim-majority region to become part of Pakistan and over 47,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of a separatist insurgency in 1989.

But militant violence has dropped sharply in Kashmir since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004.

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