Top 10 countries for computer programming

Recently, HackerRank published a study showing which countries have the best developers. HackerRank is a free coding practice website that allows developers to enhance their coding skills by solving challenges. In other words, the HackerRank platform is the destination for the best engineers to perfect their skills and companies to find top engineers. The company has ranked 1.5 million developers based on the speed and accuracy with which people complete the challenges.
This study ranked which countries were best overall, which countries ruled in each type of challenge, which types of challenges were most popular, and which languages each country favoured.
The United States and India overall put up disappointing numbers despite having the most participants on the site with U.S. coming at 28^th position and India following a little behind at the 31^st position.

Let’s have a look at who’s made into the top list and why?
1 China

In HackerRank’s overall list, China clinched the 1^st position for the best performing computer programmers. When it comes to specific types of challenges, China is the best performing country in data structure, mathematics, and functional programming.
2 Russia
It is no surprise that Russia’s strong performance in HackerRank’s challenges has got them to this list. Russia is the most dominant country when it comes to algorithms, which is the most popular kind of challenge on the site.
3 Poland

Java is the preferred language among many of the HackerRank’s users. It is particularly remarkable to see Poland in the list, as it has won Java challenges on HackerRank’s site. Poland also offers coding classes in their schools like many of the other countries on this list.
4 Switzerland
Switzerland is one of the most dominant countries across the board, as it scores the top five in nine of them of the 15 top types of challenges on HackerRank. Switzerland was also the origin of Pascal, one of the first computer programming languages. Additionally, Switzerland was also ranked no. 1 in the Global Innovation Index’s 2016 report.
5 Hungary
Hungary tops the world in performance on tutorial challenges and comes in at a remarkable no. 5 spot in the rankings. Hungary was one of the first European countries to implement computer programming classes into their education system, in both primary and secondary schools.
6 Japan
Japan is making great strides in AI (artificial intelligence). So, it’s no surprise when it comes to HackerRank’s AI challenges that Japan is the best country in the world. For instance, early this summer, the University of Tokyo was apparently able to save a woman’s life using AI to diagnose her cancer.
7 Taiwan
Scoring high in database, algorithm, functional programming and data structure challenges, Taiwan comes in at no. 7. The survey found that Python is the dominant language.
8 France
French programmers dominate C++ challenges, according to the HackerRank study. One reason for this is that France started providing programming classes in elementary schools in June 2014.
9 Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is dominant in shell scripting challenges, which makes the country stand at the no. 9 spot on the list of best programmers. They also ran second in mathematics challenges on HackerRank.
10 Italy
When it comes to HackerRank’s database and tutorial challenges, this country is specifically impressive as it ranks second in both those areas. It is not only HackerRank that thinks extremely high of Italy. Apple announced a new school for 600 programmers at The University of Napoli Federico II on the coast of Italy
well its a suprise that usa and india are not on the top.

How Safe Is It To Charge Your Laptop With Your Friend’s Charger That Has Different Specifications

A charger or ‘power adapter’ is the soul of your laptop. Without a charger, your laptop has zero use. It mostly happens when you forget your charger at  home when you are out somewhere. Or your charger goes kaput due to an internal fault and your new charger will only arrive in a weeks time. These are some difficult situations that every laptop user faces. In such situations, there is no option but to borrow chargers from your friends or use an  old charger lying around.
Does using such a charger create problems? Does a charger of a different wattage and different make harm your device? Is it safe to use a power supply with a different configuration? These are some questions that every laptop users face and we will try to answer them in this article.

What if I use a different make power adapter to charge my laptop?

First and foremost you have to understand how a  power adapter works. A power adapter basically converts the normal local electric input voltage (110-120 Volts in the United States, Most other areas 220-240 Volts) into DC output that charges and runs our electronic devices. The normal DC output is 12 volts but it may differ in varying devices. Power adapters are a bit like canned food. Some manufacturers put a lot of information on the label. Others put just a few details. And if there is no information on the label, proceed with extreme caution.

The most important details for you to look out  are the voltage and the current. Voltage is measured in volts (V) and current is measured in amps (A).  (You’ve probably also heard about resistance (Ω), but this doesn’t usually show up on power adapters.)

The other important term to know is polarity. For direct currents, there is a positive pole (+) and a negative pole (-). For an adapter to work, the positive plug must mate with a negative receptacle or vice versa. Direct current, by nature, is a one-way street, and things just won’t work if you try to go up the downspout.
The next thing to match is the connector. Different laptop manufacturers come with different type of connectors supposedly to be able to market their chargers and other accessories.
So, if your charger is has gone kaput or you have forgotten it at home, here are a few things you should note while connecting your friends power adapter to your laptop.

1. The connector should be the same. Kindly check if the size and shape of the male connector on the power adapter matches with the female socket on your laptop
2. Once you get a charger with matching connector shape and size, kindly check the voltage and polarity. If you have forgotten your charger at home or someplace else, you can get the exact specifications of your power adapter online.
3. Make sure your friends charger has equal or higher Amps

If you have found a charger which checks the above three points, you should have no issues using your friend’s charger to charge your laptop. Remember, using a charger with the wrong voltage rating can potentially damage your laptop. This is typically caused by too high voltage. But using a charger with too high current won’t damage your laptop. Using a charger with too low current rating might fry the power supply, but not the laptop

Hackers Use Mirai Botnet 14 To Shut Down The Internet Of An Entire Country

Experts have been arguing about how hackers are conspiring to bring down the entire Internet infrastructure and plunge the world into ‘cyber darkness.’ Such a scenario has been actually predicted by a security researcher, Bruce Schneier. In fact, Schneier says that some unknown entity is already working on bringing down the whole Internet.
This was proved when a cyber attack against Dyn DNS provider, which brought down the Internet to the entire Mid-West and the Eastern United States on 21st and 22nd October and now hackers have managed to bring down the Internet services to the African country of Liberia.
An unprecedented cyber attack has knocked entire Liberia’s internet offline, as hackers targeted the nation’s infrastructure using the same Mirai botnets that shut down hundreds of the world’s most popular websites at the end of last month.

The attack, which is the same used to shut off sites including Twitter, Netflix, eBay and Reddit, fuels fears that cyber criminals are practicing ways to sabotage the US’ internet when the country heads to the polls on November 8.
Hackers used Botnet 14, a Mirai botnet, knocked an entire Liberian Internet offline. Though the task for the hackers was easy considering that Liberia has a population of about 4.5 million and only 10 percent of these have Internet access which is provided by two Internet service providers using a single optic fiber cable.

Security researcher Kevin Beaumont made a post on Medium detailing the Liberia hack attack and Mirai Botnet 14. He says that DDoS attack against the Liberian ISPs was one of the largest ever recorded. The attacks were launched in short bursts of few minutes, over the course of a week.

For those who missed it, Mirai botnet 14 starting communicating to us yesterday, along with continuing to hit Liberia. pic.twitter.com/Oq0uQNs4MT

— Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) November 3, 2016

Here is all you should know about Mirai botnets and how they operate

Beaumont has called the botnet Shadows Kill as warns security researchers before going in for the kill. “Over the past week we’ve seen continued short duration attacks on infrastructure in the nation of Liberia,” says K Beaumont “The attacks are extremely worrying because they suggest a Mirai operator who has enough capacity to seriously impact systems in a nation state.”
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the Liberia attack or the one against Dyn, but they are very similar in nature, according to experts.
“Given the volume of traffic, it appears to be owned by the actor which attacked Dyn,” said Beaumont.
The source code, or instructions for how to use, the Mirai botnet was released online earlier this year and is free to use for anyone with the technical understanding.  It remains to be seen what will be the next Mirai botnet ahead of the November 8 Presidential Elections and the busy holiday season.

            

Is Apple Working On An iPhone That Bends?

It looks like Apple is working on an iPhone that can bend in the middle. According to tech site Patently Apple, Apple has managed to get the patent for the bendable and foldable mobile screen technology that the Cupertino giant has been exploring since 2013.
The site explains that this new patent shows “a perspective view of an illustrative electronic device such as a future iPhone that bends along a flexible portion such as a flexible seam associated with a hinge.”
All the technical details are included in the patent such as how a bendable screen would work, but it seems like it is basically a new technology that would be centred on conductive carbon nanotube structures that are flexible and resistant to strong pressure and cracks.

From the patent:
Conductive carbon nanotube paths can form signal paths that are flexible and resistant to cracking. The carbon nanotube structures may be incorporated into signal cables such as flexible printed circuit cables, rigid printed circuit boards, printed circuits that include rigid portions with flexible tails (sometimes referred to as “rigid flex”), portions of display structures, portions of touch sensors such as capacitive touch sensor arrays for displays or track pads, camera structures, antenna structures, housing structures, internal device structures, electrical components, substrates, brackets, housing walls, other structures, or combinations of these structures.

While patents are filed all the time, it is not necessary that every patent is converted into a finished commercial product or even a prototype. Whether or not, we will be able to a foldable iPhone from Apple, only time will tell.