Washington, August 29: A student from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), US, has developed a computer model, which shows that hundreds of lives could be saved through smarter hurricane evacuations.

Developed by Michael Metzger, the software could allow emergency managers to better decide early on whether and when to order evacuations — and, crucially, to do so more efficiently by clearing out people in stages.

The tool could also help planners optimize the location of relief supplies before a hurricane hits.

London, August 26: Researchers are developing a self-help software that allows astronauts to carry their counselors with them on a DVD, which would help them soothe their stress levels more effectively.

When astronauts in orbit stress out, they call Earth to chat with a NASA psychiatrist. But transmitting messages to Mars and beyond would take 20 minutes or so, requiring new approaches to mental health in space.

Astronauts and cosmonauts go through psychological screening before they are selected for duty, and they are trained to deal with the pressures of risky space missions.

Proposed crewed missions to Mars, though, would be a challenge even for these hardened space farers.

Bonn - Several security holes have been discovered in Firefox and other software from Mozilla. The Thunderbird e-mail program and the Seamonkey program suite have also been affected. Users should update their software as soon as possible once patches become available, recommends the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) in Bonn.

Hamburg - Software for uninstalling programs does not work completely reliably, a new test has shown.

For that reason computer users are advised to stick with the uninstallation function included in Windows and to reach for special software only if problems arise, according to Hamburg-based magazine Computer Bild. The magazine tested five programs and compared the results with Windows' Add/Remove programs function.

Only one piece of software, priced at 19 dollars, even received the grade of "satisfactory."

London, July 29 : With Google’s Street View Service under constant scrutiny over privacy issues, a team led by an Indian origin researcher from University of Colombia has come up with a new software that can swap human faces in street pictures taken for the popular mapping service.

Lead researcher Neeraj Kumar and his colleagues have developed software that arbitrarily selects 33,000 photos of faces from picture-sharing sites like Flickr. com and then picks the most suitable faces for each person in the shot. Only eyes, nose and mouth are used.

"It matches subject pose, lighting conditions and image resolution,” New Scientist quoted Kumar, as saying.

Washington, May 20 : A new study has revealed that many software designers int