A robot Salamander

Roboticist Auke Ijspeert designs biorobots, machines modeled after real animals that are capable of handling complex terrain and would appear at home in the pages of a sci-fi novel. The process of creating these robots leads to better automata that can be used for fieldwork, service, and search and rescue. But these robots don't just mimic the natural world — they help us understand our own biology better, unlocking previously unknown secrets of the spinal cord.
Video: http://www.ted.com/talks/auke_ijspeert_a_robot_that_runs_and_swims_like_a_salamander?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=talk&utm_term=technology

Apple pay

Both Bank Of America and Wells Fargo are working on integrating Apple Pay into their ATMs, according to a source familiar with the teams on the projects. Engineers at both companies have been placed on multi-month assignments to build the Apple Pay options. I’ve confirmed the identity of at least one engineer who publicly lists themselves as a Bank Of America employee.

Wells Fargo’s head of ATMs Jonathan Velline implied Apple Pay would come to its ATMs. He confirmed that “We’ve been working on the technology that allows us to hook to digital wallets, leveraging NFC on mobile phones to replace the card at the transaction at the ATM. Right now the wallet that we support is Android Pay.”

Velline continued “But we’re also looking at lots of different mobile wallets and evaluating which ones are going to be appropriate for our customers. We’ll likely add more mobile wallets throughout the year. We recognize our customers are going to have lots of different types of wallets based on their device, based on their bank, based on their OS, and we’re going to continue to find the right balance of which wallets we’re going to support. Right now the initial launch is with Android Pay, but that doesn’t limit us from considering other mobile wallets.”

When I pressed harder and asked if that meant Apple Pay would likely be one of those mobile wallets, he admitted with a laugh “I think that’s a good assessment.”

When asked about whether its ATMs would work with Apple Pay, Bank Of America’s Consumer Banking Products press representative Betty Riess told me “We already have number of mobile wallet programs…” implying Apple Pay could join them.

She confirmed that Bank Of America is “currently developing a new cardless ATM solution. This solution will enable customers to leverage NFC (near field communication) technology on their smart phone in order to authenticate and complete transactions at a Bank of America ATM.  We will roll out this capability in late February with associates at select ATMs in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Charlotte, New York and Boston followed by a broader roll out to customers mid year.” The Charlotte Observer reported news of the cardless ATMs yesterday but didn’t specify that Apple Pay would be involved.

Riess requested to double-check what she could say specifically about Apple Pay. When she called me back regarding the ATMs, she was more reserved, saying “At this point we’re not confirming which phones they’ll work with.” But the iPhone is by far the most popular phone in the U.S., so this all meshes with our source saying Bank Of America is working on Apple Pay for ATMs.

Apple also did not respond to a request for comment. Bank Of America and Wells Fargo competitor Chase recently announced it will be rolling out cardless ATMs this year.

While it’s unclear exactly how Apple Pay at ATMs would work, it would likely allow people to withdraw money without needing their debit card or credit card. That could be especially useful if someone lost or forgot their wallet or card.

Using NFC and Apple Pay could thwart fraud made possible by card skimmers like this one, from Krebs On Security

Users would likely tap their phone to the ATM’s NFC point, which would bring up the passcode or thumbprint verification screen on the phone. Once confirmed, users would be able to access some ATM functionality as if they’d inserted their card and entered their pin.

Working with Apple Pay could also save the banks money by protecting against fraud. It’s much easier to duplicate a credit card than an iPhone. Apple Pay can be set to require a fingerprint scan, which ATMs don’t offer. Apple Pay passcodes can also be long and complex, compared to the simple 4-digit pin codes used on debit cards.

Most importantly, Apple Pay would thwart the use of card skimmers. These devices fit over the front of ATMs as a fake facade, and then steal the information from cards inserted into them. Switching to NFC and mobile phones would prevent this since there would be no card involved.

These anti-fraud incentives and consumer interest in the convenience of using NFC to withdraw money could spur banks to race to integrate Apple Pay.

[Image Credit: Alex]

Source:http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/28/apple-pay-atm/#.tjvsevu:JwU3

“Xunpes” Linux Trojan

Dr. web security firm had found a new trojan that has been targeting Linux machine named “Xunpes”, Dr. web registered “Xunpes” in their virus database with name Linux.BackDoor.Xunpes.1. This trojan is capable of putting backdoor and dropper to perform malicious functions on the infected machine. The dropper was built using Lazarus, a free cross-platform IDE for the Free Pascal compiler and contains the backdoor in its body.

After dropper is launched, backdoor which is stored in unencrypted form in droppers’ body is saved into /tmp/.ltmp folder. The researcher had warned the second component of this trojan is responsible for all malicious activities on the infected machine. Once launched, the backdoor written in C decrypts the configuration file using the key that is hard-coded in its body. Its configuration parameters include a list of C&C servers and proxy servers addresses and other information necessary for the correct operation of the malicious program. After that, the Trojan establishes a connection to the server and waits for commands from cyber criminals.

Dr. web also reveals this trojan can be executed using 40 commands, to steal user information, key logging, and screenshots.

Moreover, the security analysts found that the Trojan can send record names in a specified directory and can transfer files to the server and that it can create, delete, and rename files and folders. Besides, the cybercriminals behind the malware can utilize it to execute bash commands, send information about the machine and the .default.conf record, close determined windows, and others.

2 days event at GYPC

"United Generation of Nepal for Sustainable Peace and Development"

For international youth day GYPC organization had created a 2 days event for youth from different colleges. In first day of the event participants from different colleges likes Orient, British gurkha, Global, Kings and Islington college registered their name in the desk. Event was started by Alisha singh thakuri co-ordinator of the program. 

In most of the other events I had attended, program usually start from introduction of the program but she start the program with the game where participants had to know other participants name. Game was funny and interactive among participants. I was able to get only 18 participant name from 45. From the game and starting of the program I had feelings of my 2 days going to be awesome. 

After completion of game she started to give small introduction about GPYC than introduce us Mr. Dhurba P. Lamichhane who is president of GYPC. He share past activities of GYPC and his knowledge and experience about what we youth can do for the nation. 

Next for some refreshment our co-ordinator call up some participants to show their skills & talents in front of the all participants some participants tell poems, crack joke, does caricature which make hall environment in the good mood. After some talent show up it was again time for some game this time it was team game "water game" where each team member have to pass the water from their palm to the end of the member who have to fill the two glasses that were kept behind end member of each team. After this fun game we had a guest Mr. Pradeep poudel who was former president of Na.Bi.sangh Nepal student union. His speech was little bit towards to political but still it was encourage towards the nation. He also address that being youth of our nation we must think 1st towards the nation rather than living in the abroad nation. After his motivational speech we were introduce miss kripa sigdel who was one of the active activities of GYPC organization. Being late for the participants the program was end for the 1st day and participants were call up for "international youth day" rally for 18 august in Brikuti Mandap, Kathmandu. 

Nepal budget 2014/15

In July 13, 2014 honorable finance minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat publish budget of Nepal 2071/72 (2014/15). This year budget focused on reducing poverty, economic growth, employment generation with the target of graduating Nepal from least developing country to developing country. This year budget was of NRs. 618100000.
Honorable Minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat put some Key points of Budget 2071 / 72 they are

Economic growth rate

Economic growth rate for fiscal year 2070/71 forcast is 5.2 per cent.

Aim to keep inflation within 8.5 per cent but could reach 9 per cent.

Tax

Tax exemption threshold increased to Rs 250,000 for individual income and up to Rs 300,000 for couple.

Health sector

“With the commitment to implement the new health policy, the government has allocated Rs 33.52 billion for the health sector in the fiscal year 2071/72 BS”, Finance Minister Dr Ram Saran Mahat announced.

Capacity of the government hospitals would be uplifted based on the concept of private public partnerships and a board with facilities would be arranged for the head of the nation, head of the government and other VIPs at Bir Hospital.

Arrangement will be made for free medicine distributions round the clock in the hospitals and health centres prescribed by the government as per the local necessity.

All sub-health posts will be upgraded into health posts and ICU wards will be established in five zonal hospitals while geriatric wards will be established in all zonal hospitals.

Non-practice allowance will be provided to doctors working in remote areas after preparing fixed standards.

Education

The government has allocated Rs. 86.03 billion for the development of entire education sector in the upcoming fiscal year.

“Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat informed this while presenting the budget for newfiscal year 2071-72 BS (2014-15 AD) at the Legislature-Parliament Sunday. The existing education act will be amended, emphasis on promoting technical and vocational education”, he said.

As stated by the government in its new budget, at least 200 community schools across the country will be taken in to merging in the next fiscal year as the government policy of merging schools with least number of students and close proximity.

Sport – Cricket stadium 

The government has allocated Rs. 200 million for the construction of the international cricket stadium at Mulpani in the Capital.

In its budget for the fiscal year 2014-15, the government has released the amount for the construction of cricket stadium.

Plans of constructing at least one sports ground in every electoral constituency within the next three years – 53 sports grounds in the upcoming fiscal year.

There aren’t any particular commitments towards any other individual sports nor the budgetallocation for the actual sports activities alone. However the total budget for the Ministry of Youth and Sports is Rs 1.48 billion.

Defence

The government has allocated Rs. 28.86 billion to defense in the budget for the upcoming fiscalyear. The government has planned to make timely revisions on the Army Act- 2006.

Giving continuity to the ‘Bunker to Barrack’ project related to management of accommodation toNepal Armies in its new budget statement today, the government has vowed to make the project implementation more effective.

The budget has stated that the construction of Mailung-Syafrubesi and Khulalu Simikot road inKarnali corridor will be handled by the NA so as to establish the NA role in infrastructure development.

Social security

The government has allocated a total of Rs 55 billion for government employees’ pension and other programmes run by different bodies under the head of social security.

“Integrated social security bill will be drafted and tabled in the Legislature-Parliament to do away with the duplication of the budget in different programmes and reach to the target groups”, Finance Minister Dr Mahat said.

Voters’ identity cards will be made basis for distribution of social security allowance until the national identity card was not prepared.

Seven different plans will be run for the management of social security fund records by preparing the biometric identity cards of the contributors.

2360 income generating and 850 infrastructure development programmes will be run through the Poverty Alleviation Fund and Rs 3.61 billion has been allocated for this purpose.

The health insurance programme of 39 diseases commenced from the current fiscal year will be expanded in 15 districts with at least three districts in each development region.

The government has also announced Rs 2,000 additional allowance for health treatment to the people aged 70 and the monthly allowance of women social mobilizers has been increased by Rs 1,500.

Peace and securities

Rs 37.08 billion allocated to the Ministry of Home Affairs for peace and securities management.

Information and communication sector

Rs 4.13 billion for development of information and communication as well as Tarini Prasad Koirala Memorial Village in Biratnagar.

Agro sector

The government has, stressed the need of moderinising and commercialising agricultural sector which contributes one third portion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The government has a policy of attracting youth community to agriculture, the backbone of country’s economy, with giving subsidy in the purchase of fertilizer, seeds, organic farming andagriculture tools and providing soft loans to farmers.

The government has allocated Rs. 2 billion for agro sector. The budget for the fiscal year 2014-15 AD unveiled by the government today has set a target of motivating youths in agriculture  by  discouraging them going abroad for jobs.

Urban Infrastructures

Rs 26 billion for road constructions under the central government.

Energy and Drinking water

1188 mega watt electricity within three years and 26 mw of Solar plant to be installed.

Any house hold installation of more than 1Kw solar systems can connect with grid lines and sell surplus electricity to Nepal Electricity Board through net metering. 100 per cent Tax exemption in any profit for 10 years on such sale of energy – 50 percent exemption there after for 5 years. And Rs 5million grant per mega watt installation will be provided once connected to the grid line.

Melamchi Project to receive Rs 4.64 billion more.

Half a Million rupees extra for Each Constituency

Addressing the demand of the constituent assembly members to some extent, the government has allocated half a million rupees for each costituencies on top of Rs 1 million previosly allocated for development programme.

It will focus on construction of suspension bridges, bridges on roads, expansion of road networks in 815 VDCs which are not connected to road link, upgradation of 55,000-km long roadways, and one district one national policy programme. The social security allowance will be provided through the bank.

Labour Bank

The government has announced plans to establish labour bank with joint investment of employers, employees and government.

National training development policy would be formulated and the institutes providing vocational skills and coordination will be made with the technical institutes of each election constituencies

(Source: http://arko.asia/news/nepal/budget-2071-72-fiscal-year-key-points/)

Visualization of Budget 2071/72 summary

OKFN meeting

Every Sunday meetup between community members of OKFN (Open Knowledge Foundation Nepal) taken place in smart samaj office at usual time. Today 20th July, 2014 it was special day because our OKFN members Prakash Neupane and Kshitiz khanal were back after attending OKF festival which was held in Germany from July 15-17.

All members are curious to know about the event they attend. Program was started by Prakash Neupane giving small brief about experience he had got from attending the OKF festival. After Prakash, Kshitiz start to tell his story about OKF festival what he has done there, what he learned and how we can initiate those idea here in Nepal. 

Next, members discuss about how members can make OKFN more strong and make openspending nepal to a platform so it can be useful for every local and international person. Prakash raise a question for making openspending nepal as a platform who are our target, who are our data generator and who are our intermediate person. Each individual members had same question and answer so members were divided into four groups with three members in each team.

Group A:	Kshitiz, Rajesh and Rajendra
Group B:	Suroj, Firoj and Pukar
Group C:	Utsav, Mausam and Subham
Group D	Prantik, Surendra and Milan

Data Generator	User	Intermediate	Group
VDC	GOvernment Official	Journalist	A
DDO	Civil society Org.	Our Network	A
M.O.F	GEneral public	NGO, INGO	A
Muncipality	Journalist	Political personal	A
NGO's, INGO's	NGOs. INGOs		A
Government budies	International MEdia		A
Research PErson	Data Enthusiast		A
MOF	GEneral public	Media House	B
DDO	Media House	Journalist	B
VDC	Journalist	Officials of Organization	B
Muncipality	Business Organization		B
NGO, INGo	NGOs. INGOs		B
business Office	Developers		B
DDO	General Public	Journalist	C
VDC	GOvernment Official	NGO, INGO	C
Muncipality	International MEdia	Local OFficer	C
M.O.F	Organizations		C
	Media		C
Muncipality	Public	Media House	D
DDC	GOvernment Official	Reporter	D
VDC	NGOs. INGOs		D
NGOS			D

Second, Group B listed M.O.F, D.D.O, V.D.C, Muncipality, NGO, INGO and Business office as data generator. Equally General public, Media House, Journalist, Business Organization, NGO, INGO, and Developers as user and Media House, Journalist and Officials of Organization as Intermediate.

Third Group C listed D.D.O, V.D.C, Muncipality and M.O.F as Data generator. Similarly General Public, Government Official, International Media, Organization and Media as user. After Journalist, NGO, INGO and local officer as intermediate. 

Finally Group D select Muncipality, D.D.C, V.D.C and N.G.O as data generator. Public, Government Official, NGO and INGO as user plus Media house and reporter as intermediate.  

As soon as the completion of group decision we had our key data generator for openspending Nepal are V.D.C, D.D.O, M.O.F and Municipality office. Likewise our main user are government officers and general public lastly the important part for openspending Nepal are intermediate bodies journalist and media house by whom they can help us to reach our platform and message to general public and government bodies. 

After completion and analyzing result we wrap up for the day and fixed our next meeting same day same time with pre-event data class discussion for Islington College. 

Open Data Day 2014

Open Data Day kickoff in kathmandu, Nepal at GPF building where open community like FOSS Nepal, Wikipedia Nepal, Open Knowledge Nepal, Mozilla Nepal and other community gather in the same place to celebrate it. In this day Mozilla Nepal team visualize the data with the help of thimble, Open Spending Nepal introduce portfolio of openspendingnepal.org like wise wikipedia Nepal was lauching their wiki school in the event. 

This event was taken lead by Wikipedia Nepal with the collaboration of other open community, in open data day we had quite numbers of visitor who are interested about concept of openness. I was in openspending team so I couldn't attend formal discussion but from the visitor we had found they are quite interested about "open community" in Nepal. 

In data day our main focus was to launched our portfolio openspendingnepal.org which will track every Nepal government spending and visualized in the simple matter so it can be understand by normal citizen to data geek. Likewise the data we will be visualizing will be from authentic website and concern department, data will be in readable format and can be used any where. In this website we had added some feature like about comment method where normal citizen can comment about spending and budget they get in their area where it is spend correctly or not so that later government can review these comment making their survey and giving full effort to the development of nation.