The popular microblogging service Twitter is exploring new business models.

The newest idea is special deals for Twitter users. The deals would be financed by companies that use the Twitter account @earlybird for advertising, reported Twitter on its website.

Deals will initially be almost exclusive to American markets. But, over time, it’s possible that the deals could be expanded to other regions or focus on broader categories, like music or fashion.

Twitter, which lets users send messages up to 140 characters long, has grown rapidly to more than 12 million users. But the Californian start-up has had a hard time earning money. Plans for an advertising campaign met with sharp resistance from Twitter users.

The solution for this special way of offering deals is designed to toe the line because it would only focus on users who subscribe to @earlybird. If the idea proves popular, Twitter could grow into a serious competitor for special deal services like Groupon.

An experimental solar-powered aircraft took off from a Swiss airbase here in a bid to make history by flying round the clock and through the night.

Solar Impulse whirred along the runway at Payerne in western Switzerland in the early hours of Wednesday, reaching 35 kilometres per hour as lone pilot Andre Borschberg gently lifted into clear skies at 0451 GMT on a scheduled 25 hour flight, “This should be a great day of all goes well,” said team chief Bertrand Piccard, who made the first non-stop round-the-world flight in a balloon more than a decade ago.

“It’s clear that this is something that is completely different at least for aviation, but it’s also something completely different to what has existed in our society,” he added moments before take-off.

“The goal is to take to the air with no fuel. The goal is to show that we can be much more independent from fossil energy than people usually think.”

The ground control crew were due to decide about 13 hours later, shortly before dusk, whether Borschberg should press on through darkness.

The go-ahead will depend on the sun’s ability to charge up Solar Impulse’s batteries in the daytime and the threat of strong high altitude winds, joint flight control chief and former astronaut Claude Nicollier said.

South African doctor distributes anti-rape female condoms during World Cup

A South African doctor has developed a new female condom that she hopes will combat rape in the most painful way possible.

Dr Sonnet Ehlers has invented Rape-axe, a female device with jagged hooks that latch onto a man’s penis during penetration.

The doctor is distributing 30,000 of these condoms in South Africa during this year’s World Cup.

“It hurts,” Ehlers said. “He cannot pee and walk when it’s on. If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter.”

Rape-axe is inserted like a tampon and when embedded to a man the device can only be removed by a doctor.

False security?
Some have accused Ehler of creating nothing more than a new-age chastity belt.

“It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma,” said Victoria Kajja, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Uganda.

But Ehlers said that she had taken the proper research and development steps before launching the product. “I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe,” she said.

Ehlers also pointed out how women take extreme measures such as placing razor blades in their nether regions to prevent rape in South Africa.

“I believe something’s got to be done,” she said. “This will make some men rethink before they assault a woman.”

Cybercrimes are no longer the domain of the tech-savvy – just splash out 700 dollars and one can buy an attack kit online, reveals an internet security report.

Symantec, which monitors one-third of the Internet through its software, has discovered a marked increase in sales of crimeware – or attack kits – in the past 12 months.

Attack kits automatically create customised malicious code designed to steal any type of information.

An attack kit, Zeus, can be purchased online for 700 dollars in an underground economy forum.

The kit allows the user to access infected computers and steal email and banking details and passwords.

Last year, it sent out phishing messages to 1.5 million Facebook users and nine million phishing emails.

“The kits have lowered the entry point into cybercrime,” Fox News quoted said Symantec vice president and managing director Craig Scroggie as saying.

“They make it easier for an unskilled attacker to compromise a computer and steal information, whereas in the past you needed to have the skill to write these things.”

Scroggie said “tens of thousands” of the attack kits had been sold, helping create 90,000 unique variations of the Zeus toolkit.

Other known crimeware tools include the Fragus Exploit Kit and the Spyeye.

90 per cent Brits ‘happy’ with use of full-body scanners at UK airports

A poll has revealed that a majority of Brits are happy to use the new full-body scanners deployed at airports across the country.

According to Unisys, as many as 90 per cent of the 977 people surveyed in UK are happy to use the controversial scanners.

The survey also revealed that 91 per cent of the UK public would be willing to readily submit biometric data, such as iris scans and fingerprints, to identify them when travelling by air.

The figure of the scanner’s acceptance in UK is far higher than in any other of the 11 countries in the survey. In total 10,000 people took part in the poll.

Only 45 per cent of people in Hong Kong supported the use of the new scanners, while support was even lower in Mexico, with only 24 per cent in favour.

“With airport operator BAA also reporting positive responses to the full-body scanners, it appears that the early controversy surrounding the technology has died down and people are taking a pragmatic approach to their safety,” The Daily Express quoted Neil Fisher, Unisys Vice-President, as saying.

“The question is has the country done enough to subvert another terrorist plot? What we have done so far is react to threats as they occur, rather than take a holistic view of the threat,” he added.

Apart from the UK, Hong Kong and Mexico, the poll involved Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the USA.