The world may be ready to handle a pandemic – WHO

Keiji Fukuda, interim director general of health safety and environment, also said that WHO had started preliminary work with the laboratories to develop a vaccine against swine flu, if necessary.

“I think the world is much better prepared than before to respond to this type of situation,” Fukuda said in a teleconference on outbreaks of swine flu in United States and Mexico.

“The last five years we have put in the best position to handle this situation,” said the manager.

WHO had reserves of 5 million sets of the antiviral treatment Tamiflu, made by Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG, which has proven to be effective in combating the virus, he said. Countries and regions also have reservations.

“If this scale, then I think clearly the demand for antivirals and then this will also increase both reserves and likely will require an increased production of this drug,” said Fukuda.

There was “no evidence” that people are being infected with the new strain of the virus have been exposed to pigs or pork, said in response to reports that some countries were banning imports of beef from Mexico.

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Design a digital camera can take photographs of three-dimensional

Fuji, the Japanese company in digital photography, a camera that is apronte, if fact, point to a new niche business: take three dimensional photographs.

The prototype model of the Japanese manufacturer has developed a model that includes two lenses and two identical light sensors. And carefully coordinated in a single image information taken by the two sensors, one could obtain a digital image with three-dimensional feeling. The system has been called by FujiFilm Real 3D “and can be used both for stills and video clips. Indeed has attempted to develop this type of cameras in the past, but failed to widespread acceptance by the consuming public. To display the image taken with this equipment, FujiFilm LCD panel offers a special camera and a prototype of a digital display that also provides a sense of 3D and has a bright 8.4-inch screen. The 3D camera prototype first appeared at last year’s special exhibition Photokina in Germany recently showed progress in other technical meetings. FujiFilm but said that the first model presented to the public in late 2009, Japan.

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Hackers come to the national grid electricity in the U.S., says Wall Street Journal

Hackers  of China, Russia and other countries have entered the electricity network in the United States and left it software that could be used to disrupt the system, published today by The Wall Street journal Journal.

According to the newspaper Financial, citing security sources who requested anonymity, the attack has been from countries like China, Russia and others, with the objective belief of “navigating the U.S. electric system and its controls.”

But it also notes that these intruders have not sought “to damage the grid or other key aspects of infrastructure, the sources warned that they could do during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have tried to trace the level of infrastructure in the U.S., as the grid, and the Russians,” said one source of information services to the newspaper, which also indicates that the spying on the network infrastructure this country is increasing and there were a large number of cases last year.

It also states that those who found these unwanted presences were the intelligence services of the country and not companies, so that these agencies are concerned that the “ciberatacantes” can get to take control of electrical installations, a plant nuclear or financial networks via the Internet.

The newspaper said that the authorities are investigating the intrusion and have already found software that could be used to destroy structural components, and according to their sources, in addition to the electrical grid, water systems and sewage treatment, among others, have been reviewed by those “ciberespías.

“In recent years we have seen several attacks against critical infrastructure overseas, and many of ours are just as vulnerable as those from abroad,” the congressmen said recently the director of U.S. National Intelligence, Dennis Blair.

The newspaper said that the government of President Barack Obama prepares for a costly plan to protect the power grid and other infrastructure that could be completed next week and that could be included in the computers of private networks.

During the administration of former president George W. Bush the Congress approved funding for 17,000 million secret to protect government networks, “the newspaper said one of its sources.

The Pentagon has spent the last six months in one hundred million dollars to repair the damage that has cyberneticians.

The paper recalls a case in Australia in 2000 when a disgruntled employee used the automated computer control system to release more than 750,000 liters of sewage into rivers and parks in the vicinity of a hotel.

The U.S. power grid is composed of three other separate networks that include the east and west, and the state of Texas, and in each there are thousands of transmission lines, substations and power plants, many of them connected Internet, which increases the vulnerability of the system against possible attacks from hackers and spies.

The newspaper said that Russians and Chinese have denied being involved in the spying, although their sources of intelligence services have managed to trace the track and got them.

“That is pure speculation. Russia has nothing to do with attacks on infrastructure in the U.S. or any other country in the world,” the spokesman told the newspaper of the Russian Embassy in Washington, Yevgeniy Khorishko.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, Wang Baodong, said that Beijing “is strongly opposed to any crime that destroys the Internet or computer network”, and has laws that prohibit it and showed his country’s readiness to cooperate countering such attacks.