News.Scotland.Org

Scotland, Oct 3: Internet has gained popularity all over the world, particularly among youngsters. It is stuffed with information including both good and bad one. With the inclusion of videos and animation in the websites makes its more vulnerable to be misused and thereby mislead the school and college students.

So as to restrict this kind of malpractices, computer experts in Scotland have developed a new software to scan internet pages, which enables to stop pornography and offensive sites being loaded on to school and company computers. Bloxx, a Livingston based company developed this software that analyse the language and pictures to restrict the harmful content or visuals included in the websites.

The new software also allows restriction on the social networking sites to particular time limits of the day so they can be used during breaks. This added feature of this software enables the companies to cut down the online time wasting. A recent study conducted on the time lost through social networking sites, estimated this unnecessary expense costing UK companies about £130m a day. This study bring out the gravity of the situation.

In recent months “internet skiving” has emerged as a huge threat for the employers. Several government, corporate and school computers are being used to make illegal or offensive edits on the content of the popular web sites like Wikipedia. Rather than simply blocking pages the new software scans the pictures and languages for the signs of offensive material, including certain keywords like ’sex’, it scans all the words in the text to analyse the context and decide which site should be blocked.

While commenting on the functionality of the new software, the company spokesman said: “There are certain ways to analyse pages, which allow you to analyse what a page is really about. For example, a race-hate page often features the word ‘they’ a lot, and you can use that fact to help devise intelligent ways to screen out damaging material, even if no-one has ever seen the page before. Similarly, a pornographic picture can have certain characteristics which can be analysed by a computer, the tones of the picture for example, and these factors can be used to block them from loading into the computer.”

Earlier attempts to scan the internet pages involves having specialists known as “porn monkeys” who manually scans the websites and tries to find out the extend of ban to be implemented on a particular site or sites. Another tactic involved banning pages with single key words from coming through filters. The problem involved in this method is that internet is growing all the time and people are adding blogs all the time making it difficult to keep track of them in the traditional way.

Last week the new software was implemented by the shipping company Graypen, which employs hundreds of staff around the UK. In addition to wasting company time, the personal internet use consumes time, as connecting to websites will make the machine work slow. All together this new software will become a boon to the employer and bane to the employee.

October, 3

Scotland one of the tourist paradise also known as land of history, culture, tradition and rich ancient past attracts many to explore its unwinding beauty. The country’s heritage and glory needs serious concern, otherwise this shinning place will soon loose its age old heritage. This was expressed by country’s leading business minds; conserve the heritage industries and sites for our coming generations. Shonaig Macpherson, chairman of the National Trust for Scotland stated such heritage sites should be preserved. One of such example is the Dounreary nuclear plant’s dome which is under consideration for being scrapped or kept as a hotel or museum.

Steps should be taken to conserve these heritage sites for future, she added, “Our oil industry is undoubtedly an important part of Scotland’s history, yet there are no museum rigs to explore; our fishing industry has almost disappeared unnoticed yet it remains virtually uninterrupted.” Ms Macpherson expressed these views while speaking at the Vital Spark tourism conference in Avemore. She said heritage can be any such sites like castle, factory or tenement, monument or a landscape.

Time has come when we have to list there sites as heritage sites or else they will no more be there, she said sites like Heart Football Club’s Tynecastle ground in Edinburgh should be listed as heritage places. Even there were talks for demolishing the Tynecastle, Ms. Macopherson said that’s an essential part of Scottish heritage. It should be there rather to be knocked down.

Ms Macpherson added, communities play an important role in recognizing and conserving such sites of interest. But one should have an overview as to what should we protect. Sharing his views Bill Taylor, the conference chairman said, he was astonished as there has never been an oil heritage project in the Cromarty Firth. “There have been a few attempts but no-one has really done it,” he said. “However, we are going to look back in ten-15 years’ time at this whole industry which has propped this country up for 30 years, and there will be no evidence of it left’’. Its better to act now or afterwards we will regret of this mistake.

The highland regions should come up and showcase the richness they treasure in their region. The culture, literature, architecture, music, archaeology and many more such ingredients which gives the highlands a unique importance, said Prof Hunter. In all respect Scotland has been a centre for a variety of ancient and historic delights, but the only thing which is required is to keep these heritages as charming as they are for our future.