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2013 F1 Cars Launched { Maranello, Italy / DPA }
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seven winners from seven different teams. “There will be three teams who will win all the races, and we have to be one of those teams,” the 31-year-old Spaniard said. The F138 is the 59th car to be built by Ferrari, which is the only team to have competed in every year of the Formula 1 World Championship. Alonso and team-mate Felipe Massa will be in a car which has a smootherlooking nose section, a change from the 2012 version. Motorsport federation FIA has allowed teams to hide the ugly-looking “step” nose, which was featured by several teams last year, under a laminate panel. The F138 name is a combination of the current year and the num-
{ San Francisco / DPA } here are many proposed solutions to overcome the inherent vulnerability of passwords - anything easy enough to remember is liable to also be easy to hack by a determined intruder. “We contend that security and usability problems are intractable,” write Google’s Eric Grosse and Mayank Upadhyay, in an article to be published later this month, in the journal IEEE Security & Privacy. “It’s time to give up on elaborate password rules, and look for something better.” Many technologists are advocating biometric devices—that would recognize your fingerprint, iris, voice or facial features—as a better way of making sure that digital users are who they say they are. Business users also commonly utilize digital tokens, that provide one-time passwords for every log-in session; or two-stage verification systems – that combine a regular password with a code sent over a second device, usually a smartphone. Tokens are easy to lose however, and Google believes that home users will not bother using them on a regular basis. But if the token took the form of something that the user always carried, and was easily accessible, then that behaviour might change. “Some more appealing form factors might involve integration with smartphones or jewellery, that users are likely to carry anyway,” the authors write. “We’d like your smartphone or smartcard-embedded ring to authorize a new computer via a tap on it, even in situations where your phone might be without cellular connectivity.” u
ber of cylinders in their V8 engines. Ferrari described the car as an evolution of the F2012, with a number of changes to improve aerodynamic performance. The team said there would be “significant modifications” in the weeks leading up to the first race, in Australia on March 17. In Silverstone, Briton di Resta took the covers off Force India’s VJM06 car, with a member of the team management. Like Ferrari, the car no longer has the stepped nose. Force India placed seventh in last season’s Constructors’ Championships. Lotus and McLaren have also launched their 2013 cars, while Red Bull takes the wraps off their car, and Mercedes present their model soon. u
{ Takehiko Kambayashi / Akita, Japan / DPA }
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nly 5 per cent of women feel safe in public places in New Delhi, a women’s rights organization in the Indian capital said, citing a recent survey. The City recently witnessed unprecedented protests over the gang rape and killing of a 23-year student on a bus in December, with demonstrators demanding measures to make New Delhi safer for women. The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) study interviewed 2,000 women and 1,000 men, aged 16 to 49, between October and November. Half of the women respondents felt public places—including streets, markets, parks and bus-stops—were unsafe “all the time,” day or night, said ICRW Asia Regional Director Ravi Verma. “The sense of fear among women might have gone up post the gang rape incident. There
Sound Advice
hen Hisao Sato began to counsel business managers in a region known for Japan’s highest suicide rate, what impressed him was the people’s tenacity to pull back from the brink. “At first they were very depressed, and some of them had already attempted suicide. But they gradually got their strength back as time went by,” said Sato. He established a non-profit organization for suicide prevention in 2002 in Akita City, 450 kilometres north of Tokyo. Hisao Sato Over the past 10 years, Sato has met about 2,000 people from across the country, with a focus on those depressed by business counter-measures. The government failure. “I take a lot of time for those also established a Centre for Suicide who come here, and try to give them Prevention in 2006, and offered more the comfort of knowing we will stay consultations and hotlines. The country as a whole has come to connected with each other,” said Sato, whose hair has grayed and who wears confront suicide, since the subsidies wire-rimmed glasses. “I also promise compelled government officials to to see them again the following take action, and also helped local week. And they come back.” “The communities, Sasaki said. On an efforts made through co-operation average, 76 people took their lives among volunteers, civic groups like every day in 2012, which means Sato’s and local government officials about 800 were having suicidal have been effective,” said Hisanaga thoughts on any given day of the Sasaki, Associate Professor for Health year, experts said. The increase in suicides has been Sciences at Akita University, whose research includes suicide prevention attributed to Japan’s protracted and mental health. Suicides among economic downturns. Many people business owners in Akita prefecture regard a bankruptcy as a personal have fallen nearly 70 per cent, from failure, rather than as a symptom of the level 10 years ago, according to the a temporary economic problem. “As they keep blaming themselves for local police. Japan has long been plagued by business failure, saying, ‘I’ve done suicide. In mid-January, Japan’s wrong’ or ‘I’ve caused trouble to National Police Agency said society,’ that totally impairs their that the number of suicides had judgment,” Sato said. In many cases bankruptcy declined to 27,766 in 2012, the first business owners to fall below 30,000 in 15 years. Sasaki prompts said 10 billion yen (113 million kill themselves, just as Samurai dollars) in government spending warriors used to practice hara-kiri, had had a significant impact. The a ritual form of suicide, to show subsidies were provided after the they accept responsibility for their Suicide Prevention Law was enacted deeds. One former Company President in 2006. Experts and citizens groups in Akita recalled having suicidal had repeatedly urged the government thoughts as his business deteriorated. to address the issue and draw up By that time, five business managers Takehiko Kambayashi
The End Of Passwords?
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95% Women Feel Unsafe In New Delhi { Siddhartha Kumar / New Delhi / DPA }
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errari said it was keen to get off to strong start to the 2013 season, as it unveiled the car it hopes will unseat Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel as Formula One champ this year. Ferrari were not competitive at the start of the 2012 season, although Fernando Alonso won a rain-affected Malaysian Grand Prix, the season’s second race. The Italian team hope the F138—launched at the team’s works in Maranello—will build on the reliability that enabled Alonso to finish second in the Championship. “The key objective is to immediately deliver a competitive car,” Team Principal Stefano Domenicali said. Meanwhile in Silverstone, England, Force India unveiled their car – though it remains open who will be the second driver alongside Paul di Resta. Alonso, who lost out on the 2012 title by three points, said that with fewer regulation changes, he expected the leading teams to dominate from the start unlike last season when the first seven races produced
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should be a zero tolerance against such harassment and crimes. Something needs to be done urgently, to reinstate the sense of confidence among women,” Verma said. Nine of the 10 women interviewed had experienced some kind of sexual harassment or violence – including lewd comments, obscene gestures, uninvited touching, flashing, and sexual assault. The Survey also found that 51 per cent of the men reported having perpetrated sexual harassment and violence against women, Verma said. The Survey report, which was submitted to the United Nations and to national ministries, found that although 78 per cent of respondents reported having witnessed sexual violence, only 15 per cent said they had intervened. “Forty per cent of the men fully or partially agreed to the statement, ‘If a woman is being teased in public space, it is usually her fault’,” the report said. u
whom he was acquainted with had already taken their own lives, he said. “I was also thinking about committing suicide, to take responsibility. But Mr. Sato told me not to do so, and reminded me of the decades of my work,” he recalled. “Mr. Sato saved my life.” Sato understands their feelings well, because he has been there too. He had run several companies in Akita for more than 20 years. But one of them went under in September 2000. He lost his house, personal assets, credibility and status. Sato’s relatives and friends also started to distance themselves from him, as bankruptcy carries a certain stigma in Japan, he said. When Sato stopped by at a friend’s house, the friend’s wife came to the door and he heard the friend say to her, “Tell him I’m not at home.” “That made me realize what bankruptcies mean,” Sato recalled. Sato was anxious about how he was perceived by others. When he went shopping at a supermarket, he was also worried whether he would bump into a creditor, banker or some local business owner. While Sato suffered depression and often had suicidal thoughts, one of his acquaintances committed suicide in May 2001. He thought the man, a local business manager, was the last person to do so. The man’s death made him determined to prevent more business managers—who have long contributed to the region’s economy—from killing themselves. The following year he set up his non-profit organization. Sato said the number of victims would not fall further without a change in people’s perception about suicide. “Suicide should be dealt with as a social problem, not as a matter of one individual,” he said. It is said that some people kill themselves because of their weakness. But Sato responds, “I tell those who come here, ‘In your life, there are times when you are made vulnerable. But the sun will be rising again. You will become strong again. That’s why you are a human being. That’s why you are great.’” u