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For those of us without green thumbs, growing plants at home can be hard. But this new system allows you to hook up simple sensors to your hydroponic plants and receive helpful reminders when it’s time to care for them.

Converse with your plants
Ever wonder how your tomato plants are feeling? Or maybe you’ve always wanted to grow your own thriving garden full of flowers and vegetables, but didn’t know where to start? Well now there’s hope!

Bitponics is your shortcut to a green thumb. It’s designed to be an add-on to any existing hydroponics system, and it will simplify and automate your growing process. Once you tell it what you’re trying to grow, it will use a database of knowledge built up by the community to create a “growing plan” for you. Bitponics will automate anything that can be controlled by a power outlet, like water pumps and lights. No more need for a bunch of bulky mechanical timers crowding your power strip! For things we can’t automate (like flushing and refilling your reservoir), we’ll remind you by whatever means you choose: email, text, or in-app notifications. Our plug and play solution is designed to be as simple as possible to set up and won’t require a bunch of technical know-how.
Why Hydroponics?

Hydroponics is an innovative approach that’s ideal for environments where plants can’t normally grow, like apartments and harsh climates. It’s basically any method of growing plants without soil, and instead providing nutrients directly to the roots with a nutrient solution. The root systems don’t need to reach as far, so more plants can be grown in the same amount of space. But because you’re essentially creating the entire growing environment, it has a steeper learning curve compared to traditional soil gardening.

Our goal with Bitponics is to allow more people to grow plants, no matter where they are or how much experience they have. We want to make hydroponic gardening easy for everyone.
How will it work?

Bitponics is made up of two parts: a sensor device and your online account. Once you sign up, you enter in the details of what you’re growing and the type of hydroponic system you have. The next step is to generate a growing plan: Bitponics can either create one for you or you can create your own. The growing plan is the step-by-step roadmap for how to take care of your plants. It will tell you:

• Rival Big Pharmas Strike $285 Million Antibiotic Deal More...

Nepal will grant citizenship certificates to LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community, recognising their sexual orientation for the first time.

Nepal's Home Ministry has issued directives to this effect.

Now third-gender people will have separate head as "others" in their citizenship certificates, according to Home Ministry spokesperson Shankar Koirala.

"We have already issued directives to the Ministry of Law to add the "others" head in all necessary forms, documents and indexes," he said.

The decision to grant citizenship to gays and lesbians with their identity is being implemented over four years after the landmark decision of the Supreme Court to recognise the identity of the third-gender community while granting citizenship certificates.

Welcoming the decision, gay activist and lawmaker Sunil Babu Panta said that the decision will provide the community easy access to health and education facilities as well as employment opportunities.

"Now the discriminatory practices in schools, hospitals and workplaces against third-gender people will end", said Panta.

We have been facing various problems for years due to the lack of our separate identity but now we, all the third-gender people are happy and proud to have received citizenship with our separate identity, said Bhumika Shrestha, another young gay activist.

In the past, many people with different sexual orientation had been deprived from employment opportunity, education and even getting our passports to travel abroad due to the discriminatory practices, which has now ended, she pointed out.

Around 8 to 10 percent of the total population of the country belongs to the third-gender category though, many people have not disclosed their sexual orientation due to discrimination.

Cricket Kenya have confirmed that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has launched an investigation into alleged spot-fixing by a Kenya player during a 2011 World Cup pool match against Pakistan. Kenya bowled a record-equaling 37 wides in that match in Hambantota en route to a 205-run hammering.

Tom Sears, the Cricket Kenya chief executive, told Press Association Sport that his body was aware of an investigation into the alleged fixing. "We have been told to refer all enquiries to the ICC, we are in contact with them and are aware that there is an investigation," he said. "Apart from that we can't say much more other than we will co-operate fully with the ICC over this."

Petrol has become a sensitive political commodity not because the aam aadmi has enough money to own cars or two-wheelers, but because a deliberately flawed policy has made it so.

Here’s a counter-intuitive idea: we should be pricing cars and two-wheelers higher, not petrol.

In a nation of 1.21 billion people, cars and two-wheelers should not be privileged over public transport. But, thanks to the lobbying powers of the automobile majors, the Indian government has repeatedly succumbed to the lure of making India an auto hub at the cost of public transport.

A government ostensibly run for the aam aadmi is rooting for non-aam modes of transport.

From the launch of the Maruti in the early 1980s to the latest Audis and BMWs that have become status symbols in urban India, policy has been hijacked by the wrong ideas and the wrong people. We need a people’s car like Maruti only when more than half the population can afford one; we need Beamers like a hole in the head.

What India really needs is a policy that clearly favours public transport over private. Reuters

What India really needs is a policy that clearly favours public transport over private. But such is the power of the automobile lobby, that we hesitate to subsidise public transport, but are willing to spend Rs 1,40,000 crore in subsidising petro-fuels and gas (this was our effective subsidy bill in 2011-12).

Now compare this with the Delhi Metro’s Phase 1 cost of Rs 10,000-and-odd crore. Quite clearly, if we abandon the petroleum subsidies, we can subsidise public transport in all our metros and cities. This kind of subsidy would not dent the public exchequer much since it would be financed from higher taxation of private taxation.

Instead, consider how we have compounded our problems by privileging private transport.

Two-wheelers and four-wheelers (cars and SUVs), India puts out over 14 million personal transport vehicles every year. This means over 1.1 percent of India’s population is buying its own set of wheels every year. But this is not an adequate way of analyzing the problem. Assuming a household of five, it means 5 percent of India is shifting to private transport every year.

We are privatising our transport preferences and compounding our economic woes at the same time.

In Mumbai, and most metropolitan cities, municipal corporations are unable to maintain roads in line with the growth in the automobile population, making driving a stressful and hazardous affair even for those who can afford it.

While no one actually questions the need for much bigger investment in public transport, the policy stance adopted actually ends up promoting private transport at the cost of public ones.

This is how policy discriminates in favour of private transport.

One, on the plea that we need to move towards a unified value-added tax system, taxation on cars and two-wheelers has been consistently brought down over the last decade.

Two, most cities prefer to levy a one-time tax at the time the vehicle is bought on the ground that this is simpler to administer. This is economically unsound, since most vehicles are used for at least five years, and sometimes for more than a decade or even 15 years. Mumbai’s Premier Padminis and Kolkata’s and Delhi’s ubiquitous Ambassador taxis, manufactured in the last century, are still on the roads. The one-time vehicle tax is thus regressive – and pro-rich.

Three, two-wheelers are often levied a lower tax on the ground that they are driven by the middle class. However, the fact is that two mobikes occupy as much road space as a car when in motion – especially given their faster speeds. In Mumbai, two-wheelers face no city entry tolls – again, for no economic reason.

Four, the sheer growth in vehicular traffic makes mass public transport systems less viable. When you build metros in cities choked with cars and bikes, the cost of building a metro goes up since there is less space and time available for digging and construction during daytime. Metro projects invariably exceed cost estimates for this reason. Put another way, private transport is making public transport unviable. Like Gresham’s law, which says bad money drives good money out of circulation, bad private vehicles are (essentially) driving good public vehicles off the road.

The numbers show it: In the last 50 years, the share of public transport in India’s total automobile fleet has fallen from 11 percent to less than 1 percent.

So what is the remedy?
In order to promote public transport, five things are vital. Automobile taxes and other charges should be annual, and not one-time. The excise and sales taxes also need to be significantly higher. Conversely, taxes on buses and people carriers of various sizes should be at the lowest taxation slabs.

• Cars should be taxed based on the number of city miles they run, or the number of crowded areas they ply in. RFID (radio frequency ID) chips implanted in cars can tell you how many miles a car has run every month and road charges should be levied like electricity bills every month depending on usage. The principle: the more road you use, the more you pay. This would penalise excess use of cars – and help fund public transport.

• Taxation should be inversely related to fuel efficiency and polluting potential. The higher the fuel-efficiency, the lower the tax. The higher the pollution, the higher the tax.

• Annual taxation should rise during the life of a vehicle. Taxes should vary depending on the age of the vehicle – a lower tax for vehicles in the 0-3 years range, a bit higher for the next three years, and much higher after that. After 10 years, all vehicles should be scrapped or retested for pollution and minimum fuel-efficiency. This policy, combined with tax rebates for scrapping, will mitigate any reduction in automobile demand due to higher taxation.

• In overcrowded metros with low road ratios (Mumbai, for example), cars and two-wheelers should be banned during peak hours on the main trunk routes. Car usage should be restricted to, says, 8pm to 8am, with public transport getting pride of passage during the workday. This policy should be preceded by a very large induction of buses of various sizes to cater to every need: AC buses, regular buses, standees-only buses for short distances, minibuses, and minivans (for low-traffic graveyard shift hours). A Singapore-like system of auctioning car permits in metros with low road space would restrict car purchases to only those who really need it.

Let’s be clear: if we get our public transport policy right, the public would make little fuss over the price of petrol.

Apple's Sir Jony Ive Quashes Rumors Of Leaving Apple
Apple's chief of design Jony Ive was knighted yesterday in his native Britain, technically making him Sir Jonathan Ive, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. The event led him to speak to the media and Ive used an interview with the BBC to definitively quash some rumors swirling about his future at Apple: Asked where he wanted to go in the future he said "the same team I've been fortunate enough to work with for the past 15 years" to tackle the "same sort of problems." Ive also explained that Apple's goal is to remain producing the best products rather than simply trying to make money, which gives us an unusual insight into the company in the post-Steve Jobs era.

$78,000 Fine For Fake Angry Birds Android App Maker
A1 Agregator posted mobile aps to the Android marketplace that pretended to be big-name games like Angry Birds and other titles, but the software used Android's open systems to secretly send out a text message to a pre-arranged number, thereby triggering a premium SMS messaging service that cost users £5 (about $7.85). The UK's regulator in charge of premium rate services handed out a £50,000 fine ($78,300) to the firm, far more than the estimated £27,850 it made via the scam. The news comes as more attention is directed toward smartphone scams and security concerns because the devices are dominating the cell phone space and are taking over more functions in user's lives.

$200 Million Funds Ultrafast Broadband To Six Communities In U.S.
Startup Gigabit Squared revealed today, the New York Times reports, that it's raised $200 million to fund an experimental gigabit broadband network in six communities dotted across the U.S. Working with Gig.U, an university-centric enterprise aiming at building "islands" of ultrafast networks to improve economic and social conditions, the company will build the fast broadband infrastructure around six top research unversities and is in discussions with its first one. The entire endeavor is an attempt to push forward the technology where existing telecoms firms have perhaps proved reticent, which may mey explain why the U.S. is slipping down the list of most connected nations around the world.

The concept of Eurobonds as one tool to tackle the euro zone debt crisis has re-emerged onto the agenda this week. But how would they work and how could they help to solve the crisis?

First of all, any Eurobond, or e-bond, wouldn’t be the same as the existing eurobonds-with-a-small-e (note the potential for confusion). The latter are bonds which are issued in a different currency from the country in which they are issued (not necessarily in euros, either), and are often used by developing economies such as Nigeria and Ukraine to attract foreign investors.

A joint bond issued by euro zone countries, the Eurobond, could help some of its weaker members, as investors might be more willing to buy bonds from the entire region rather than, say, Italy or Spain. The bond market has been one of the key battlegrounds of the crisis, where countries such as Ireland and Greece have fought and lost the attempt to survive without bailout loans. A joint Eurobond could be, essentially, another way of allowing weaker euro zone economies to benefit from association with stronger economies. It could also bring the region’s fiscal integration closer.

There are still key differences between EU leaders over what form Eurobonds would take—and whether they should exist at all. Germany, anxious to avoid handing its taxpayers an even greater burden for the bailouts, especially ahead of elections later this year, is digging in its heels.

France’s new president, Francois Hollande, appears to be following his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy in supporting the idea.

Catalysts for euro zone leaders to decide in favor of Eurobonds could include either a messy Greek exit from the euro or a run on the single currency itself, according to Justin Knight, head of European rates strategy at UBS.

There seem to be two main ideas for how the Eurobonds would start: One is to integrate the current stock of debt and issue common debt. The second, which could be more palatable for the Germans, would involve a debt redemption fund and some sharing of fiscal policy.

“Last year, the German government moved away from muddling through to the realization that the euro zone has got to move towards some form of fiscal union or face a full break up. But the possibility of moral hazard would have to be eliminated first,” Knight said.

The idea can be traced back to the Blue Bond proposal put forward by economists Jakob von Weizsäcker and Jacques Delpla in 2010. It suggests that EU countries should pool their debt up to 60 percent of GDP, which would become its senior debt. Any debt beyond this should stay as national debt for individual countries, with procedures for an orderly default in place.

One of the solutions which was put forward when talk of Eurobonds first emerged last summer came from Knight. His idea, which took the Blue Bond proposal as its starting point, suggests that governments should issue debt only in the form of eurobonds, until their Eurobond debt reaches 60 percent of GDP. Beyond that, they issue debt individually, so that the joint bond is safeguarded.

Knight said that he has not altered his view of how this model for Eurobonds could work since August. He added that the risk of subordination of a country’s non-Eurobond debt could be avoided by having countries which default on their individual debts defaulting equally on their Eurobond debt.

An independent agent to issue the new bonds would be key to their success, Knight believes.

“What’s needed is a fiscal authority to work alongside the monetary authority of the European Central Bank , which has to remain independent,” he said. “This fiscal authority would probably have to be independent of the member states, with an elected official at the top of it. Fiscal policy making needs democratic legitimacy.”

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Yahoo Accidentally Leaks Private Encryption Key For Axis, Its New Search System
Last night Yahoo introduced Axis, a browser extension/ mobile app designed to turbo-boost Internet searching. It's a bold new front in the Search Wars. But it was accompanied by another, less savory release, discovered by Nik Cubrilovic, an Australian entrepreneur: Yahoo accidentally leaked its private encryption key for the Chrome version. This is part of the certificate that secure websites and browser extenstion bear to prove that they're legitimately software created by who you believe to be true. The exposure of the certificate could allow a malicious coder to release code masqueradeing as a legitimate Yahoo app but carry out whatever data-scraping or other intrustions the coder desired. Yahoo quickly apologized, and released a new version for Chrome that does not contain the offending certificate data, but the implications of the slip have yet to be concluded.

When it comes to finding a mate, gentlemen prefer a woman who looks dumb and sleepy enough for a one-night-stand, rather than look for charm and intelligence, according to a new study.

In the study, University of Texas at Austin graduate student Cari Goetz and her team focused on the so-called sexual exploitability hypothesis, which is based on the different ways in which men and women approach reproduction.

The goal of the study was to test out the hypothesis that a woman who appears silly or inert, or in other words more 'sexually exploitable,' is a turn-on for the average straight man, the Daily Mail reported.

In the evolutionary psychology sense, the word 'exploitable' simply indicates that a woman is willing or can be more easily pressured into having sex, even if she is a prostitute or a nymphomaniac.

The researchers began testing their model by asking a large group of undergraduate students to nominate some specific actions, body postures, attitudes and personality traits that might signal vulnerability, such as exhaustion, intoxication, or low intelligence.

In the end, the participants of the study had produced a list of 88 signs that a woman might by especially receptive to a man's advances.

Among the chosen red flags were: lip lick/bite; over-the-shoulder look; sleepy; intoxicated; tight clothing; fat; short; unintelligent; punk; attention-seeking and touching breast.

Next, Goetz and her colleagues scoured the Internet for publicly available images of women displaying each of these 88 cues.

Once they had pictures of women licking their lips, partying, wearing sexy clothing, etc., the researchers cross-checked them with a separate group of students who presumed that the photos indeed matched the cues.

The researchers then invited a fresh group of 76 male students and presented them with the images of presumably 'ripe-for-the-picking' women, asking them what they thought of each woman's overall attractiveness, how easy it would be to 'exploit' her using anything from a pickup line to physical force, and her appeal to them as either a short-term or a long-term partner.

The study revealed that the images of fat or short women had no effect. The participants of the study did not view them as either easy to bed or appealing as partners.

But when it came to reading the more psychological and contextual cues-pictures of silly or childish-looking women, or of women who looked sleepy or drunk, men rated them as being easy to 'score' with.

More importantly, the dumb-looking and inert women were also perceived as being more attractive than their more lucid or intelligent-looking peers, but only when it came to short-term relationships.

When the men were asked to judge the same liquored-up, silly-looking women in the photos as potential girlfriends and wives, they had entirely lost their appeal on them.

A follow-up study has also found that the more promiscuous men who happened also to have deficiencies in personal empathy and warmth were the ones most attuned to female 'exploitability' cues.

An article describing the findings will soon be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour.