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In times of recession when pink-slips, lay-offs, dismissals and firings have almost become a part of day-today office-lingo, keeping one's job intact seems to be a common target for all office-goers. Blame it on the economic crunch or your bad stars, just about everybody is an eligible target for firing.

From cutting upon casual leaves to happily slogging over-time, being punctual about dead-lines to even giving maska therapy to bosses...undoubtedly, almost every professional seems to be going all out to retain their jobs. But why not try some Feng Shui magic to recharge your carrerlife. Here are some simple tips, ideas and changes that you can embrace to bring positive changes in your professional life so that it's not affected by the recession monster...

Keep the wealth intact

The easiest way to define job security is when there’s a regular flow of income. “So, to ensure that, it’s important to charge the West and South-East areas of your office, since these govern the flow of income and wealth” suggests Feng Shui expert Ritu Kapoor of Astroyogi.com .

“West can be energised by placing a red object in that direction. Colouring the handle of your door red, keeping a red foot-mat, vase or statue in the West can be easy solutions, " adds Ritu.

For charging the South East direction, Ritu suggests a water feature (preferably running) in that direction like a water fountain, artificial springs or an aquarium, else, water mixed with sea-salt can be kept in a bowl if keeping a running water feature is tough.

Stability wanted!

It is usually seen that when an employee is about to be fired, he is usually transferred between departments and bosses. Thus, gaining stability in your professional life and making a firm grounding in office becomes thea pre-requisites for job security.

It is the South-West area of your office that needs attention in this regard. “Make the South-West direction heavy by keeping boulders (stones) tied with red ribbon and a mystic knot embedded in it,” suggests Ritu.

“Make sure you have a solid wall behind your chair in the office as it will give you support and a firm backing,” suggests Feng Shui expert Ashok Mehta, adding, “if there’s a window instead of a wall, you can find solace by sitting on a high-back chair and if even that’s not possible, you can place a small stone or an artificial tortoise on the window sill.”

Source:TOI

A tiny pale deer mouse living on a sand dune in Nebraska looks set to become an icon of biology.

Within just a few thousand years, generations of the mice have evolved a sandy-coloured coat camouflaging themselves from predators.

Most striking is that these mice acquired the mutation for pale fur naturally, then rapidly passed it on.

That makes the fast-evolving deer mouse one of the best examples yet studied of "true" natural selection in action.

Deer mice are one of the most abundant and widespread mammals in North America.

Usually the mice have a dark coat, which enables them to blend in with dark soils and avoid being seen by predators such as owls and hawks.

But at Sand Hills in Nebraska, pale-coated mice abound.

"We decided to investigate the striking contrast between mice living on the pale Sand Hills and mice living on darker soils just a few miles outside," says Dr Catherine Linnen of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.

"We were also intrigued by the fact that Sand Hills had formed within the last 8,000 to 15,000 years, which implies the light colour of the Sand Hills mice became advantageous only recently."

Linnen and colleagues at Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley have now worked out exactly how the mice evolved so quickly.

They have published the details in the journal Science.

They discovered that the light coat colour is coded by a single gene, dubbed Agouti. This is expressed at a higher amount, and for longer, than the genes that code for dark hair.

Most animals known to quickly evolve new features do so by expressing a variation of a gene that already exists, rather than evolving a new type of gene altogether.

But the researchers found that the Agouti gene only appeared among wild deer mice in Sand Hills around 4,000 years ago, just a few thousand years after dark mice colonised their new home. That means it first evolved 8000 generations of mice ago.

They also ascertained that this new gene has since become very common among the Sand Hills mice.

"The light gene wasn't in existence, so the mice had to "wait" until a particular mutation occurred and then selection had to act on that new mutation," says team member Professor Hopi Hoekstra, also of Harvard University.

"It's a two part process. First the mutation has to occur and second, selection has to increase its frequency."

The researchers say it is the first time that it has been possible to document the appearance of a gene, its selection and subsequent spread through a population of wild animals.

And that has allowed them to estimate the "strength" of the natural selection pressure.

Having light coloured fur gives the paler Sand Hills mice a 0.5% survival advantage.

"It doesn't seem that much, but multiplied over thousands of individuals over hundreds of years, it makes a huge difference," says Prof Hoekstra.

"Ours is a very complete story," adds Dr Linnen.

"We've been able to connect changes at DNA level to the ability of deer mice to survive in nature."

In some respects, the dune-living deer mice are similar to the famous peppered moths of northern England.

For decades, the peppered moths (Biston betularia) have been heralded as one of the best-examples known of a wild animal adapting to its environment due to natural selection.

Originally, most peppered moths were lightly coloured, to blend with the lightly coloured bark of trees.

Due to widespread pollution caused by the Industrial Revolution, soot blackened the trees and newly conspicuous lightly coloured moths were picked off by predators, a selection pressure that triggered the rise of more dark coloured moths.

"In both species, changes in colour evolve rapidly due to selection by visually-hunting predators," says Prof Hoekstra.

But the study by Dr Linnen and Prof Hoekstra's team takes our undertaking of natural selection to a much deeper level.

The selection pressure on the moths was technically artificial, caused by pollution produced by people. Whereas the selection causing the pale mice is truly natural.

What is more, the scientists have found the gene responsible, and worked out exactly how long it took to evolve and take hold in the population.

"Despite the fact that the peppered has been an icon of 'evolution in action', we do yet know the genetic changes involved," says Prof Hoekstra.

"Once researchers find the pigmentation gene responsible for moth colour change, they can do the same types of analyses we have done. It will be really interesting to compare these estimates between mice and men."

China Unicom announced Friday that it had struck a deal with Apple (AAPL) to bring the iPhone to the world's largest cellphone market.

The announcement ends months of speculation and represents a coup for China Unicom, the country's struggling No. 2 carrier with 140 million subscribers. Apple's negotiations with giant China Mobile (nearly 500 million subscribers) broke down earlier this year.

"We believe China Unicom's high-speed mobile broadband network, coupled with … (the iPhone) will create new communication and different experiences for customers in China," said Unicom CEO Chang Xiaobin at a news conference.

A brief statement in the press release announcing China Unicom's interim earnings said that a three-year deal agreement with Apple had been reached on Aug. 28 and that the initial launch was expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2009. No details of pricing or revenue sharing were announced.

But according to earlier reports in the Chinese business press, China Unicom has agreed to buy 5 million iPhones for $1.46 billion.

According to these press reports, Apple is building two different iPhones for the Chinese market.

The first to win approval by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology does not receive Wi-Fi signals — a feature Apple agreed to remove in order to get around Beijing's restrictions on handsets with high-speed Internet capability.

But according to Dan Butterfield, editor of iPhonAsia, a second model has been submitted to China's Telecommunication Tech Labs for testing that is capable of receiving both Wi-Fi and WAPI, a Chinese standard for wireless networks.

The deal announced on Friday represents the biggest prize in Steve Jobs' two year campaign to blanket the world with iPhones.

As of June, Apple had sold 26.4 million iPhones in more than 80 countries.

China has some 700 million mobile customers. Its large and growing middle class has both disposable income and a sophisticated taste for high tech gadgetry. An estimated 1.5 million gray market and counterfeit iPhones have already made their way to China.

Sanford Burnstein's Toni Sacconaghi told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that he believes Apple will sell 2.9 million iPhones in China by the end of 2011, an estimate that seems low given reports of a 5 million unit pre-sale.

PROMONTORY (US): A mechanical failure forced a NASA contractor to call off the first test firing of the main part of NASA's powerful new moon rocket. The test wasn't immediately rescheduled as officials scrambled to learn the root cause of the failure.

Alliant Techsystems Inc called off the rocket burn with just 20 seconds left on the countdown clock. Operators cited failure of a power unit that drives hydraulic tilt controls for the rocket's nozzle. The rocket was anchored to the ground in a horizontal position for the test.

It was a setback for a carefully staged, $75 million event that drew thousands of onlookers. Alliant hoped the routine test would prove the performance of a new program for space exploration that, like the test rocket, may not fly because of NASA budget problems.

There was no indication anything was wrong with the rocket itself, which packs 0.45 million kilograms of chemical propellant, enough to boost a 98-meter-long vehicle 58,000 meters into the atmosphere.

At a news conference in Utah, officials said the power unit for the nozzle controls, which steers a rocket in flight, was robbed of fuel, apparently because of a faulty valve.

Banks have decided to put a Rs 10,000 cap per third party ATM cash withdrawal from October 15, besides limiting such transactions to five in a month.

Indian Banks’ Association, which is the industry lobby of Indian banks, has sent a circular to its 150 member banks directing them to implement the decisions from mid-October, a source close to the development said.

“IBA has sent a circular to all banks asking them to implement these decisions on third party ATM transactions from October 15,” the source said.

Early this month, the Reserve Bank had put a Rs 10,000 cap per withdrawal from ATMs not owned by the bank in which the customer has an account, besides limiting such transactions to five in a month.

The apex bank had sent a communication in this regard to Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).

IBA had submitted its recommendations to the central bank last month citing the financial burden faced by banks on account of huge number of third party usage and small-ticket withdrawals.

Since April 1, RBI had declared third party ATM usage, including cash withdrawals and account enquiries, free for all customers and said that banks can charge Rs 18-20 per month from other banks in case of third party ATM transaction.

With the number of third party transactions surging post-April, banks approached the Reserve Bank through IBA to revisit the current norms and make necessary modifications.

Though IBA had also recommended a minimum limit of Rs 1,000 on third party ATM withdrawals, this was rejected by the Reserve Bank to protect the interest of small withdrawers.

(CNN) -- Facebook has announced it is to overhaul its privacy settings to make it clearer for users to know who has access to their personal data.

The news follows an investigation into the privacy policy of the social networking site by Canada's Privacy Commissioner.

The social networking site has agreed to make changes that it believes will provide its users with greater transparency and control over their personal information and how it is used.

"These changes mean that the privacy of 200 million Facebook users in Canada and around the world will be far better protected," said Canada's Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart in a press statement.

In July Stoddart issued an initial report on an investigation into Facebook that followed a complaint from a privacy advocacy group, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa.

The main concerns highlighted by the report were the lack of clarity over privacy settings and how much personal information is shared with third-party developers of applications such as games and quizzes.

In response to the investigation Facebook has agreed to make "significant enhancements" over the next 12 months, WHO says. This would include clarifying its privacy policy so that users can clearly understand why personal information like date of birth is requested, the difference between deactivating and deleting an account, and how its advertising works.

Another key amendment is that Facebook will retrofit its application platform in order to prevent developers from accessing users' personal information -- unless users provide explicit consent.

"Application developers have had virtually unrestricted access to Facebook users' personal information. The changes Facebook plans to introduce will allow users to control the types of personal information that applications can access," Stoddart said in her statement.

Work on the planned changes will begin immediately, although Facebook has said some changes will take some time before they are visible. Updates to Facebook's privacy policy will require a notice and comment period for users.

It has also said the changes to how users share information with third-party applications will require time and resources, both for the updating and testing of the new Facebook application platform and for third-party application developers to reprogram and test their applications.

"We will be communicating regularly with developers about the changes and we're going to take our time to make sure the outcome is something users understand and that developers have ample time and notice to adapt," Ethan Beard, Director of Platform Product Marketing at Facebook, said in a statement.

Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook, added in a prepared statement that the changes would "provide even greater transparency and control for Facebook users.

"We believe that these changes are not only great for our users and address all of the Commissioners' outstanding concerns, but they also set a new standard for the industry."

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Software giant Microsoft apologized Wednesday for the apparent bad judgment that led to the head of a black model being swapped for that of a white model in an online advertisement.

The ad -- which showed three business people, one Asian, one white and one black -- was altered on Microsoft's Web site for Poland to place the head of a white man on a black man's body.

"We apologized, fixed the error and we are looking into how it happened," said Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman.

He said that because the company was still reviewing how the swap occurred he could not comment further.

On Microsoft's official page on the social network site Twitter, a posting calls the swap "a marketing mistake" and offers "sincere apologies."

The business Web site CNET.com, which first published reports of the swap, wrote that the change in models may have been made with the "racially homogeneous" Polish market in mind.

(CNN) -- Today's Internet is governed by the idea that crowds of people can create the news, share information and collaborate on online projects.

So when Wikipedia, the user-written encyclopedia that's built an empire on this ideal, decided this week to add a layer of oversight to its system, the Web erupted in debate.

The popular encyclopedia, which has drawn criticism for inaccuracies, says it will try assigning editors to some of its entries. These trusted volunteers likely would have to approve public edits before they're published to English-language stories about living people.

Some see the move as a shift away from Wikipedia's core values and a sign that crowds of people aren't able to produce a usable and accurate body of information.

Others see the change as a sign that these communities of online volunteers are getting more complex and they may need more rules.

Since Wikipedia was founded in 2001, a number of sites have popped up employing its basic philosophy that users can control the content of the Web.

Some, like YouTube and Digg, leave control almost totally in the hands of their online communities.

On the other end of the spectrum are sites like Flickr, the photo-sharing site, or CNN's iReport.com, which have structured community guidelines and are maintained by community managers to promote a respectful and productive experience for users.

The idea that a user-submitted content site like Wikipedia can be a free-for-all has passed, said Caterina Fake, the founder of Flickr. She cheered Wikipedia's decision, because without rules like those the site is testing, the encyclopedia would devolve "into chaos," she said.

"It would basically be like a wall of graffiti in a bathroom," said Fake, who runs a site called Hunch. "It's not going to be a very high level of discourse."

She also believes the changes will help Wikipedia address its problems with inaccuracies.

In January, for example, Wikipedia entries about Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd falsely stated both U.S. senators had died.

Wikipedia in the past has frozen some of its pages about people or events that have become sensitive. That leads Fake to argue that the changes to the Wikipedia editing process actually make the site more democratic.

"If you really want to participate in Wikipedia, it is open to you so long as your contributions are benefiting the community and everybody kind of collectively decides that your contributions are good," she said.

But others see the changes as a move away from Wikipedia's idealistic roots.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, lead writer at the blog ReadWriteWeb and author of a guide to online community management, said Wikipedia's shift is a sign that user-generated content sites are outgrowing their limits.

"As things get more and more popular online, some of these [Wikipedia-style] experiments realize they need to temper some of their experimental nature and learn from more traditional forms because they're just not sustainable," he said.

"It makes me shed a little tear, too, because presumably it will lead to a slowdown of new content creation, and it does seem like a departure from the essential nature of Wikipedia."

Mia Quagliarello, a community manager at YouTube, declined to comment on Wikipedia, but said that YouTube relies on its community to make decisions about what's important and useful.

Like on Digg, a site where people share and discuss news stories, YouTube gives its users mechanisms to vote videos up and down based on whether the content is worthwhile or offensive.

"We give them the tools to hopefully let the best comments bubble up to the top," Quagliarello said. "You can 'thumbs down' anything you don't think is productive."

John Abell, New York bureau chief for Wired.com, a technology site, said the change at Wikipedia is a cultural "tipping point" for online communities.

But it doesn't mean Wikipedia is failing at its mission, he said.

"They've made a leap here," he said. "I think it's a good leap, a necessary leap, a righteous leap. In the history of Wikipedia, this will probably be seen as a pivotal adjustment."

A spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the site, did not respond to CNN's requests for comment for this story.

Online communities -- particularly those like Wikipedia, which are run by volunteers -- evolve just like real-world societies, said Amanda Michel, an expert on citizen journalism and editor of distributed reporting at ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization.

"As these sites evolve, we should expect them to develop more sophisticated methods, whether they're social methods or technical methods, of quality control and of production," she said.

(CNN) -- The art of portraiture, once reserved for the rich, the royal and the holy, has found a new mass appeal online. Some avid social-network users are commissioning artists to create small digital images to represent themselves in the online world. Other Internet-savvy people use automated computer programs and Web sites to generate posterized likenesses of themselves.

Matt Held, a 38-year-old painter in Brooklyn, New York, has gained Internet celebrity for painting peoples' Facebook photos and then giving them to his subjects. And some identity researchers are trying to take the online portrait beyond images of people's faces entirely.

All of these efforts underscore the fact that tiny images, often no bigger than a postage stamp, have become stand-ins for peoples' identities online.

On the Web, people can recreate themselves in any way they choose.

Unlike in the real world, where portraits are largely reserved for museums and the mantels of self-centered celebrities, online portraits are either free or relatively inexpensive.

They're also essential for effective Internet communication, said Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

"In the physical world, there's a lot of effort people make in terms of how they look when they go out to walk down the street. Some people spend two hours to get ready going to the grocery store," she said. "In the physical world, there's the actual self, so you're not entirely dependent on a portrait."

On the Internet, though, people can create their appearance through images they choose to represent themselves, she said.

Donath is working with a group of students from the MIT Media Lab to take online portraiture beyond realistic-looking faces.

In the future, she says, people will create pictures of themselves with the data trails they leave online. Visit the "Personas" project and type in your name to see how this might work.

Donath said many people online are drawn to the fact that they don't have to look like the person they are in the real world.

But this is also a sticking point in the world of online portraiture, said Dan Schawbel, a personal branding expert and author of a book called "Me 2.0."

People should brand themselves online with a single professional photo that they display on all of their social networks so that strangers will be able to identify them, he said.

"Seeing the same thing again and again and again is going to make you remember it," he said, adding that photographs of human faces are more emotional and memorable than drawings or other obscured representations.

Erika Peterman would disagree.

The 39-year-old in Tallahassee, Florida, paid $100 for local artist Lee Bretschneider to draw a caricature of Peterman as a comic book hero. She uses that image on her blog and on Facebook.

"I do think an illustration is a way to unleash some fantasy aspect of yourself or maybe the way you'd like other people to see you," she said.

Peterman, who blogs about comics and has read them since she was young, said her stylized comic-book image says something about her and is more compelling than a standard photo. She said she's not trying to hide anything behind the drawing.

"I look how I look and I'm not fooling anybody," she said. "If the artist had me looking like Halle Berry, that'd be ridiculous."

Joel Watson, who illustrates an online comic book series from Dallas, Texas, said he's gotten so many requests from fans asking him to draw avatars for their online social networks that he can't keep up with the demand.

He said some clients came back to him several times wanting new drawings because they had shaved off their hair or somehow changed their look. Each of these efforts cost $50 to $100, he said.

Several free Web sites offer to posterize a person's Facebook or Twitter icons, or let users assemble cartoon versions of themselves.

The latest to catch on in a big way is a spin-off of the AMC show "Mad Men." On a site called MadMenYourself.com, people create stylized images of themselves as sleek advertising executives from the 1960s, in keeping with the show's theme.

Dyna Moe, the 31-year-old New York artist who created the character components for the site, said at first she was "creeped out" to see so many computerized versions of her drawings floating around social networks. On Twitter, where tiny square icons stand in for a person's identity, it also became difficult to tell who some people were because the Mad Men icons all started to look similar, she said.

It had a "hall of mirrors feeling," she said.

The Web site had 8 million viewers the first week it launched, she said.

MG Siegler, a blogger at TechCrunch, said his fans and friends found it jarring when he took down a photo from his social networks and replaced it with a "Mad Men" avatar.

"They're like, 'Oh, what's going on here? Is there some sort of life change that you switched up your icon for?' " he said.

"It's kind of funny that people do very much pay attention to them. I think people start to associate your identity with your [Twitter] icon," he said.

Held, the painter in Brooklyn, is completing a series of 200 Facebook portraits. He chooses his subjects from a Facebook fan page called "I'll have my Facebook portrait painted by Matt Held," where more than 6,400 people have signed up.

The project struck a surprising chord with people and helped pull him out of a lull in his career, Held said.

While people in his paintings can use the images online free, he sells the canvas works in galleries for $1,800, he said.

"Portraiture in itself has always been there, but I want to bring it out to the masses," he said. "There are so many people out there with awesome photos and awesome stories who I feel need to be painted."

Circumcision, which has helped prevent AIDS among heterosexual men in Africa, doesn't help protect gay men from the virus, according to the largest U.S. study to look at the question.

The research, presented at a conference Tuesday, is expected to influence the government's first guidance on circumcision.

Circumcision ``is not considered beneficial'' in stopping the spread of HIV through gay sex, said Dr. Peter Kilmarx, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, the CDC is still considering recommending it for other groups, including baby boys and high-risk heterosexual men.

UNAIDS and other international health organizations promote circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin, as an important strategy for reducing the spread of the AIDS virus. There hasn't been the same kind of push for circumcision in the United States.

For one thing, nearly 80 percent of American men are already circumcised _ a much higher proportion than most other countries. Worldwide, the male circumcision rate is estimated at about 30 percent.

Also, while HIV spreads primarily through heterosexual sex in Africa and some other parts of the world, in the United States it has mainly infected gay men. Only about 4 percent of U.S. men are gay, according to preliminary CDC estimates released at the conference this week. But they account for more than half of the new HIV infections each year.

Previous research has suggested circumcision doesn't make a difference when anal sex is involved. The latest study, by CDC researchers, looked at nearly 4,900 men who had anal sex with an HIV-infected partner and found the infection rate, about 3.5 percent, was approximately the same whether the men were circumcised or not.

Government recommendations on circumcision are still being written and may not be final until next year, following public comment. CDC doctors and many experts believe there is a good argument for recommending that baby boys and heterosexual men at a higher risk for HIV be circumcised.

The definition of ``high risk'' is still being discussed, said Kilmarx, chief of the epidemiology branch in the CDC's HIV division.

Circumcision is a sensitive issue laden with cultural and religious meaning, particularly when babies are involved, Kilmarx acknowledged.

``It's seen by many as more than just as medical procedure,'' he said. It's possible the government would just recommend better education for doctors and parents about the procedure's benefits and risks, he added.

The prospect of the government promoting circumcision of infants has already drawn fire from an advocacy group called Intact America. The organization, based in Tarrytown, New York, parked a motorized billboard this week outside the hotel hosting the HIV conference, displaying the message: ``Tell the CDC that circumcising babies doesn't prevent HIV.''

``It's removing healthy, functioning, sexual and protective tissue from a person who cannot consent. You're mutilating a child,'' said Georgeanne Chapin, the group's executive director.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Her identity revealed, a blogger who posted rants about model Liskula Cohen said she was the real victim in the case and plans to sue Google for violating her privacy. Rosemary Port and her lawyer said Monday that they will file a $15 million lawsuit against the search engine giant for not doing enough to protect her identity.

"I not only feel my client was wronged, but I feel now it sets precedent that anyone with money and power can get the identity of anyone that decides to be an anonymous blogger," said Salvator Strazzullo, Port's lawyer.

A New York Supreme Court judge ordered Google to reveal Port's identity after Cohen sued the company to acquire information about the anonymous blogger.

"I wanted it gone," Cohen said. "I didn't want it to be there for the rest of my life. And I knew the only way for it to be gone was to call my lawyer."In August 2008, Port, a user of Google-owned Blogger.com, created "Skanks in NYC." The site assailed Cohen, 37, a cover girl who has appeared in Vogue and other fashion magazines. The blog featured photos of Cohen accompanied by derogatory terms.

The judge rejected Port's argument that blogs on the Internet "serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions" and should not be regarded as fact.

Cohen's attorney, Steve Wagner, said he couldn't believe Port's nerve in suing Google.

"Her being a victim here? I have trouble understanding that in its entirety," he said.

Legal experts said Port is not likely to win her case.

Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's senior legal analyst, said Google was complying with a court order and that disclosing Port's name cannot be viewed as violating her rights.

"Google never promises anyone absolute anonymity," Toobin said. "There are all sorts of circumstances when Google cooperates with law enforcement."

Blogger.com requires only a valid e-mail address to register for a blog. After the court demanded Port's identity, Google handed over her e-mail address to Cohen's lawyers so they could track her down.

In response to CNN's request for an interview, Google issued a statement:

"Google does comply with valid legal processes, such as court orders and subpoenas, and these same processes apply to all law-abiding companies. At the same time, we have a legal team whose job is to scrutinize these requests and make sure they meet not only the letter but the spirit of the law."

Online activists have closely followed the model blogger's case.

Nick Thompson of Wired magazine said the case will force people to recognize that the blogosphere, however anonymous, is not above the law. On the other hand, it could deter some bloggers who fear the cloak of anonymity could be lifted at any moment.

"There will be people who won't publish things that maybe they should publish or that would be good for society," Thompson said.

Source CNN

(CNN) -- Be cautious if you plan to Bing Jessica Biel or Google Brad Pitt. A new report says you might get a virus The Hollywood actors are among the top 10 celebrity searches online that can lead to computer problems, according to a report released Tuesday by the computer security company McAfee.

The company named Biel the "most dangerous celebrity in cyberspace." One in five Internet searches for terms related to "Jessica Biel" leads to a Web page, photo, video or piece of spam that contains a cyber-security threat, the report said.

The former "7th Heaven" star and girlfriend of singer Justin Timberlake is followed on the "most dangerous" list by singer Beyonce, actress Jennifer Aniston and football hunk Tom Brady. Singer and reality TV star Jessica Simpson rounds out the top five.

Pitt, who topped last year's list, moved down to 10th.

The report shows that hackers use pop culture trends to spread viruses and malicious software, said Shane Keats, a research analyst at McAfee.

Biel is "very, very popular right now, so it says to me that the cyber criminals really do know who's hot and who's not," Keats said. "They really are smart. They can spot a trend as well as anyone else can -- as well as Paris Hilton can."

Risks associated with the searches range from "annoying to devastating," he said. But they don't mean people should be afraid of using the Internet.

Keats' advice? Surf Web sites you know and trust.

"You really can't go wrong if you stick to the really well-lighted parts of the Internet," he said. "As soon as you go off the big boulevards, you go off map and you have the potential to land in a dark alley."

Those "dark alleys" are where fake photos and harmful downloads are most likely to damage a person's computer, he said.

Keats acknowledged that computer viruses can come from many places and many types of searches. He said McAfee chose to highlight celebrity searches because they are popular and because they're a good teaching tool -- a way to make cyber security resonate with everyone.

McAfee makes anti-virus software that can be used to combat cyber attacks. Reports from computer security companies are often criticized as somewhat promotional.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has information on anti-virus software and tips on how to stay safe online.

The company said it surveyed 900 Web sites and 150 ring tones for its analysis.

It ranked celebrities based on the percentage of search results that were found to be damaging and on how harmful those sites turned out to be.

Biel's publicist did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

A news release from McAfee said the company was surprised to find President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama relatively low on the list. They ranked 34th and 39th, respectively.

Young Hollywood stars were popular on the list. Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan both were in McAfee's top 15.

(CNN) -- South Korea will try again Tuesday to get its first space rocket into orbit, state media reported.A series of delays have kept the rocket and its satellite payload earthbound, including a technical glitch that halted Wednesday's countdown less than eight minutes before blastoff.

The Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 is scheduled to launch from the Naro Space Center on the southern coast about 5 p.m. (4 a.m. ET) Tuesday.

South Korea spent 502 billion won (US $402 million) on the rocket, which is part of an ambitious plan to jump-start the country's space program, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.

Officials plan another rocket launch in April.

The long-term goal is to create an unmanned space probe that can reach the moon by 2025, the agency reported.

The rocket was originally scheduled to be launched in late 2005, before being pushed back to October 2007 and then 2008 due to "administrative and diplomatic reasons," Yonhap reported.

South Korea's space program suffered a blow Tuesday after a satellite launched from its first space rocket failed to reach proper orbit, a science official said.

"All aspects of the launch were normal, but the satellite exceeded its planned orbit and reached an altitude of 360 kilometers," said Ahn Byung-man, the minister of science and technology. The satellite should have separated at about 302 kilometers, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The cause of the failure was not immediately known. Korean experts were working with Russian scientists, who provided the technology for launch, to determine the reason, Ahn said.

The Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 lifted off from the Naro Space Center on the southern coast about 5 p.m. (4 a.m. ET) Tuesday.

A series of delays had kept the rocket and its satellite payload earthbound for nearly four years, including a technical glitch that halted last week's countdown less than eight minutes before blastoff.

South Korea spent 502 billion won (US $402 million) on the rocket, which is part of an ambitious plan to jump-start the country's space program, Yonhap reported.

Officials plan another rocket launch in April. The long-term goal is to create an unmanned space probe that can reach the moon by 2025, the agency reported.

The rocket was originally scheduled to be launched in late 2005, before being pushed back to October 2007 and then 2008 due to "administrative and diplomatic reasons," Yonhap reported.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) -- The Space Shuttle Discovery launch was scrubbed early Tuesday because of bad weather, NASA said he mission to the International Space Station was postponed until 1:10 a.m. ET Wednesday, NASA said.

"Basically, you go when the time is right," astronaut Cady Coleman told CNN. "And a space station mission has to go at a certain time. You have a window of time in order to catch up with the space station."

Commander Rick Sturckow and Pilot Kevin Ford are to guide Discovery to the space station.

One of Discovery's seven astronauts, Nicole Stott, is to remain on the space station as a flight engineer, replacing astronaut Timothy Kopra, who is to return home aboard Discovery as a mission specialist, according to the NASA Web page for the mission.

Also on board: The Leonardo logistics module, science experiments and the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT), named for fake newsman Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."

Colbert won an online poll conducted by NASA to name the newest space space station compartment, but Colbert and the space agency compromised to give the moniker to the treadmill. The new compartment was given the name Tranquility.

"I'm so proud my treadmill will be going into space to help trim down those famously fat astronauts. Lay off the Tang, Chubby!" Colbert said in a statement last week.

The mission will be Discovery's 37th to space, and the 30th shuttle mission dedicated to International Space Station assembly and maintenance, NASA says.

NASA plans to retire the the space shuttle fleet at the end of 2010 and wouldn't be able to send crews to the space station for at least several years after that. In the meantime, U.S. astronauts will have to hitch rides to the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The last two decades have seen mindboggling growth in technology space. There have been numerous innovations and many unknown companies have risen to take their position on the technology map. Alongwith these successes, there also have been numerous failures and cases of missed opportunities.

PC World recently came out with a list of Stupidest Tech Company Blunders. Here's over to them.

What led to Compuserve, the first major commercial online service in the United States, failing to become today's Web giant?

Founded in 1969, the company offered limited dial-in services in the mid-1970s. CompuServe dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by AOL.

In the year 1979, it offered online services and by mid-1980s CompuServe became one of the largest information and networking services companies. Compuserve was also the largest consumer information service in the world at one point in time.

However, with the rise of the World Wide Web in 1994, the company's core business started fading. The company also made an attempt to offer users internet access with CompuServe services, an experiment that failed miserably.

In comparison to Compuserve, AOL offered flat-rate "unlimited" pricing (versus CompuServe's hourly charges) and a simpler interface. The company also launched a massive CD marketing campaign. According to experts, what led to the company's downfall was the lack of the will to invest in converting its advantages into a sustainable lead.

In 1997, CompuServe was acquired by AOL and the CompuServe Information Service began operating as an online service provider and an Internet service provider. The original CompuServe Information Service, later rebranded as CompuServe Classic, was finally shut down on July 1, 2009.