Pakistan threatens to shutdown Google, YouTube

Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday warned that popular websites like Google and YouTube could be shut down in Pakistan if they did not cooperate with authorities investigating crimes and incidents of terrorism.

Malik made the remarks while interacting with reporters at the headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency in Islamabad.

He urged the websites to extend help to authorities to exterminate terrorism from the country.

The government would be compelled to block certain websites, including Google and YouTube, if they did not extend cooperation to authorities, Malik said.

The Taliban and other terrorist organisations were sharing intelligence through the Internet and it is imperative to curb these activities, he said.

Malik did not give details of the crimes and incidents of terrorism that the websites could provide information about.

TV news channels also quoted Malik as saying that he had issued an order for a case to be registered against the administrator of Google Pakistan.

The minister has faced criticism and ridicule from civil society and rights groups for several of his recent comments.

Malik had recently claimed that jealous girlfriends and wives, and not political groups or criminals, were responsible for a majority of target killings in the southern port city of Karachi.

Google reportedly planning to launch its own mobile

Google reportedly hopes to strengthen its presence in the world of mobile telephony with plans to introduce its own high-tech phone sometime in 2010, according to press reports.

Reports by the Wall Street Journal and other outlets cite sources close to Google stating that the company, known primarily for its online search functions, is expected to release a phone dubbed Nexus One that runs Google's Android operating system.

However, the company hopes to sell the phone directly to consumers, skipping mobile service providers, which often package their services with hardware from other companies. That means
customers will either have to use their existing mobile phone contract with the Nexus or arrange for a new one.

The new phones will reportedly be manufactured by Taiwanese phone maker HTC, reported TechCrunch, a technology blog. HTC already produces several phones that use Android.

With Google in the lead, the two companies developed Android, which relies primarily on Google's online services for mobile internet functions. However, until now, Google has always relied on
other companies, like HTC, Samsung or Motorola, to provide network support and hardware.

Google recently reported in a blog entry that it was letting some of its employees test a new mobile device, but provided no further details. The company is seen by many to be one of the up-and-coming players in the mobile phone market. Google believes it can leverage its strong position in online advertising to similar strengths within the mobile market.

wine flu: Google Closes Hyderabad office for two days

The swine flu scare forced IT major Google on Tuesday to shut down its Hyderabad office for two days as a precautionary measure.

A company spokesman confirmed that Google has announced two-day holiday for all its employees at the office here to enable them undergo screening for Influenza A(H1N1).

Over 1,000 employees of the firm were told to contact the Andhra Pradesh Chest Hospital after one employee was tested positive for the swine flu.

He was among the six employees of three IT companies who contracted the virus from a software engineer, who returned to the city from Houston on July 5, according to health authorities.

The 29-year-old techie, who approached the Chest Hospital on July 11 after he developed swine flu symptoms, spread the infection to employees of the IT companies with whom he worked.

The techie and six others were tested positive on Monday, spreading the swine flu scare in IT companies in Madhapur in Hyderabad. Employees of one company have already started taking medicines as a precautionary measure.

Health authorities said the swine flu symptoms in the techie could not be detected despite compulsory screening of all air passengers at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. This was the first cluster formation in the city.

With eight new cases including a two-and-half-year-old boy who arrived in Hyderabad from Dubai, the swine flu cases in the city has gone up to 31.