The world urgently needs to overhaul its energy policy, away from fossil fuels to renewables before 2050, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned earlier this month.

Furthermore, according to the World Bank, just under 20 percent of the world’s population is still without access to electricity, most of them in Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, in the developed world, energy costs have soared, and cash-strapped consumers are increasingly looking to slash bills.

Some designers and manufacturers are starting to rise to the challenge presented by these problems by unveiling products that harness the power of the sun, making them not only clean but also a great way to save a few bucks.

U.S. car sales 4% during the month of March 2015, a loss of nearly 28,000 units compared with March 2014 in an auto market which grew by some 8400 sales. Only three of America’s ten best-selling cars in March reported year-over-year increases.
The other seven members of the top ten – Camry, Altima, Fusion, Civic, Accord, Cruze, and Focus – combined for an 11% loss of 25,000 sales.

Although there were no new entries to the fleet of passenger cars in March, a number of refreshed cars displayed at the New York Auto Show this week should prompt greater sales of those nameplates at this time next year.

The Chevrolet Malibu’s first-quarter volume slid 12% in 2015, but the new car looks to be a huge step forward. Honda Civic sales fell 6% over the last three months, but Honda is greatly modernizing the Civic for MY2016.

Nissan Maxima sales are down 50% this year, and while the new car is a wild thing to behold, it should fare better than the current car. Lincoln’s new Continental is set to replace the failure that was (and is) the MKS, sales of which are down 16% in 2015.

Indeed, the Toyota Camry’s 7% improvement over the last three months follows a swift refresh of the 2014 car. Similarly, sales of the second-best-selling Toyota Corolla have jumped 17% this year, the second model year for the 11th-gen Corolla.

Links to sources: http://www.campusviral.com/here-are-the-april-2014-big-8-us-auto-sales-numbersford-g-m-chrysler-toyota-honda-nissan-kiahyundai-volkswagen/

Malware writers are interested in Linux after all. Russian security firm Dr Web has reportedfinding a shadowy Trojan that sets out to steal passwords on the open source platform as well as OS X.

Technical details of Wirenet.1’s operation and technique for spreading are sparse for now, but the company reports that the backdoor program targets browser passwords for Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, and as well as applications such as Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Pidgin.

Under Linux it copies itself to the ~ / WIFIADAPT directory before attempting to connect to a command and control server hosted at 212.7.208.65 using an AES encrypted channel. That at least offers a simple way of blocking communication and any further payloads.

Dr Web made a name for itself earlier this year reporting on the infamous Flashback Trojanthat hit Mac users on an unprecedented scale.

It’s not clear whether Wirenet’s cross-platform capabilities extend to targeting Windows systems but it is possible that avoiding Microsoft’s OS is a way of keeping off the radar of security firms.

Cross platform malware is rare but not unheard of, the usual technique being to hook into Java in search of victims using OS X.

Malware specifically designed to steal credentials from Linux systems is almost unheard of but might, on the basis of this new discovery, become a little less so in future.

Should Linux users be worried? Probably not. the details of how this malware might grab root mode on a Linux system are unknown. Atacking Linux users would also be a pretty rarified activity unless it was part of a highly-targeted attack.

Links to sources: http://www.techworld.com/news/security/linux-users-targeted-by-password-stealing-wirenet-trojan-3378804/

India hasn’t had much success nurturing electronics manufacturing. Its inefficient labor markets, unreliable power supply, and creaky transportation infrastructure have discouraged investments from multinationals.

Even companies that assemble TVs in India, such as Samsung Electronics(005930:KS) and LG Electronics (066570:KS), import most of the valuable equipment and then slap them together in the country. “What happens in India is pretty low-end,” Menon says. And when it comes to semiconductors, “today we have zero capability. All the chips we use are imported.”

“India has one of the biggest domestic electronics markets, and that is set to get even bigger” —Niju V.

In Asia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) and South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix (000660:KS)dominate chipmaking. While some Japanese companies, notably Toshiba(6502:JP), are still in the game, others, including Panasonic (6752:JP), have decided to scale back because building state-of-the-art plants is so expensive. While foreign companies make chips in China successfully, local companies have tried, with little success, to build chip industries from scratch. Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International has struggled: Its stock dropped 20 percent on Feb. 17 and 18 after it forecast lower revenue.

Optimists argue that it’s too early to dismiss India’s chances. In China, costs are rising, so many multinationals are shifting elsewhere. India has advantages, says Anand Srinivasan, an analyst with Bloomberg Industries, including “a large labor pool [and] engineering talent that is cheaper compared to the Western world.” The demand is there, too. “India has one of the biggest domestic electronics markets, and that is set to get even bigger,” says Niju V., director of automation and electronics at Frost & Sullivan India. “And all of that will need a chip. If we don’t get on to it in the next 10 to 12 months, India will miss the bus forever.”

Links to sources: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-02-27/india-wants-to-build-its-own-chips-to-satisfy-electronics-demand