Dislike! Half of people would never buy a Facebook phone if the social networking giant ever produced one, a new study has found.

In a poll conducted around the world, 50 per cent of those questioned said they would "never" switch to a Facebook phone.

However, if they had to be persuaded to do so, improved functionality would be the top reason for switching, followed by price and then design.

Five hundred people around the world were questioned in the survey conducted by a UK-based digital marketing agency, in a bid to gauge consumer appetite for a Facebook phone, 'The Telagraph' reported.

The social networking site is reportedly working with a manufacturer to produce its own mobile phone, the paper said.

Building its own device could allow the site to collect revenue from its existing advertisers more effectively by making sure their commercial content was distributed throughout the phone's different functions.

A mobile phone manufacturer has already produced the first phones to feature a dedicated Facebook button, and is looking for a way to differentiate its products from those of a rival manufacturer, the paper said.

However, Facebook's founder and chief, Mark Zuckerberg, denied reports that Facebook was considering building its own phone, arguing it "wouldn't make much sense for us", on the company's first earning call since going public. 

LONDON: Google said on Friday that it had not kept its promise to delete all the personal data, such as emails, which its Street View cars collected in Britain and other countries in 2010.

The US company admitted in May 2010 that its vehicles, which photograph neighbourhoods to create street level images, had accidentally collected data from unsecured wireless networks used by residents in more than 30 countries.

The failure to comply with a promise to delete all the data was notified to Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which said the fact that the data still existed appeared to breach an undertaking signed by Google in November 2010.

"The ICO is clear that this information should never have been collected in the first place and the company's failure to secure its deletion as promised is a cause for concern," the ICO said.

Google said the data came to light when it searched by hand its Street View disk inventory.

"Google has recently confirmed that it still has in its possession a small portion of... data collected by our Street View vehicles in the UK," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel said in a letter published by the ICO.

"Google apologises for this error."

Google said it was in the process of notifying relevant authorities in other countries.

The ICO told Google it must supply the data immediately so it could be subjected to forensic analysis before the ICO decided on the necessary course of action.

The web search leader was fined $25,000 in April for impeding a US investigation into Street View data collection.

Chennai: India’s premier nuclear research organisation, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), is planning to deploy its technology in treatment of sewage through radiation, and its conversion into bio-fertiliser.

The BARC wishes to share its technology with state governments and various municipal bodies, its director Sekhar Basu said.

“We are certainly interested in approaching the state governments and other organisations to spread the societal use of nuclear technologies,” Basu said, speaking to reporters here on Friday.

Through irradiation —the process of exposing an object to nuclear radiation— the harmful bacteria and other pathogens will be eliminated and the waste sludge when dried will be used as a bio-fertiliser, he said, elaborating on the process.

This system is being used in a sewage water treatment plant in Gujarat. The BARC will now start approaching the municipal organisations for radiation treatment of sewage, he said.

Basu said the agency will also start talking to agricultural universities in the country to propagate its seed varieties and techniques for preservation of farm produce.

The atomic research agency has also developed around 15 varieties of confectionary grade high yielding groundnut and black gram seeds.

The agency has developed micro-propagation protocols, a technique for large-scale rapid plant multiplication for banana, sugarcane, pineapple, potato, turmeric and ginger.

While the banana tissue culture production has been transferred to a couple of agencies, BARC is now working on sugarcane, pineapple and other farm produces.

On the disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors, Basu said BARC will commission a new facility in Tarapur in Maharashtra next year and that would facilitate burning of waste elements.

He said the longer and shorter life radioactive materials will be separated during the reprocessing of fuel.

“The isotopes with shorter life will be stored in underground facility and the longer life ones would be burned in fast breeder reactor like the one that is coming up in Kalpakkam (500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor),” Basu said.