Spammers fan swine flu fears

Using messages designed to exploit worries about the swine flu outbreak, spammers are trying to infect computers, steal information, and drive online pharmacy sales, reports InformationWeek.

Symantec on Tuesday reported that spam messages with provocative titles like "Salma Hayek caught swine flu!" and "US swine flu fears" are being widely distributed. Some of these messages contain no malware or malicious links and appear to be information-harvesting campaigns.

"The [swine flu] scare has spawned a spamming frenzy, like sharks smelling blood in the water," Symantec researcher Mayur Kulkarni said in a blog post.

WAP, dongle and cookie are some of the least understood words by the British public, according to a survey.

BBC News reports that the Gadget Helpline surveyed more than 5 000 users and came up with a Top 10 list of technology-related words people find most confusing.

The Gadget Helpline says companies should use language people understand, rather than resorting to jargon. The move is backed by the Plain English Campaign, saying it would help bring down the "walls of techno-babble".

Weeks before the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organisation alerted the public to a growing number of swine flu cases, a Seattle-based start-up already had a hunch something was up, says AP.

Veratect combines computer algorithms with human analysts to monitor online and offline sources for hints of disease outbreaks and civil unrest worldwide.

The idea fuelling Veratect and similar companies is that blogs, online chat rooms, Twitter feeds and news media and government Web sites are full of data that public health agencies could use to respond faster to problems like outbreaks of swine flu.

Microsoft has introduced a trial product to connect users to the people and places they care about, especially when crisis hits, according to BBC News.

The company said the main inspiration for Vine came from Hurricane Katrina.

The product is designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communications fail or falter. The Seattle Times has described this hyper local, personalised message and alert system as "Twitter + Facebook on steroids".

Intel says upgrading a company's four-year-old PCs today will pay for itself in 10 to 17 months, reports The Register.

But you might say the world's largest microprocessor manufacturer has a vested interest in such an upgrade. Those figures come from an Intel-commissioned study conducted by R&D services provider Wipro.

According to Robert Crooke, Intel VP and GM of the Business Client Group, among the survey's findings was: "If you're buying a new set of PCs based on Core 2 Duo technology, you can recoup that investment in 17 months. If you pay a little bit more for your desktop PC with VPro technology ... you can recoup that investment in 10 months because of the increased operational benefit."