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Videogames could be key to keeping more disengaged youngsters interested in education, a new study has found.

LONDON: Videogames could be key to keeping more disengaged youngsters interested in education, a new study has found. 

The research, carried out by Lancaster University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), has shown how basing educational projects around video games can get hard-to-reach youngsters interested in learning. 

The project, run by Inspire Opportunities and carried out earlier this year, involved 15 secondary schools through the Wolverhampton area Local Education Partnership. More than 100 youngsters were involved. 

"If the level of outcomes from this project could be replicated across the UK, then 5,000 more young people would be likely to become interested in the video games and video effects industries each year," said leading academic Dr Don Passey, a Senior Research Fellow and a Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning at the university. 

The project found that young people, who were disengaged from learning and were likely to end up not in employment, education and training (NEET) can become re-engaged with the classes incorporating videogames.

 Microsoft research has found that a pair of collaborating viruses proves harder to clean from infected PCs as they foil the removal by regularly downloading updated versions of their malware partner.

LONDON: Microsoft research has found that a pair of collaborating viruses proves harder to clean from infected PCs as they foil the removal by regularly downloading updated versions of their malware partner.

According to BBC, the novel versions of the viruses are unknown to anti-virus programs which let the malicious programs persist and take over the machine so it can be mined for saleable data or used to send spam or to attack other machines. Microsoft malware researcher Hyun Choi said that two Windows viruses, known as Vobfus and Beebone, were regularly found together.

Vobfus could be installed via booby-trapped links on websites, travel via network links to other machines or lurk on USB drives and infect machines they are plugged into. If Vobfus gets installed in a system, it downloads Beebone which enrolls the machine into a botnet - a large network of infected machines and thus the two start downloading updates of each other. Choi said that even if Vobfus is detected and remediated, it could download an undetected Beebone which can in turn download an undetected variant of Vobfus adding that the two are intrinsically related.

He further recommended disabling the 'autorun' feature on Windows machines as Vobfus exploits this when it arrives via USB drives and said that people should avoid clicking links on external websites to avoid falling victim to booby-trapped URLs, the report added.

                    By    Swarna.S 

                            IT Club President,XII Commerce