Technology

Fallout from Solyndra Hurts Nuclear Startups

2011-11-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

Politicians are drawing parallels between the $535 million federal loan guarantee issued to bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra and loan guarantees that the U.S. Department of Energy is offering to utilities building new nuclear power plants. But while those nuclear startups could also go bust, experts say U.S. taxpayers are unlikely to take a loss on them. That's because the only reactor projects moving forward are those in a handful of southern states, where laws allow utilities to offload the risk onto state ratepayers.

A case study is the two-reactor expansion by Southern Company at the Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia—the only project in construction to be offered a federal loan guarantee. Southern Company is unlikely to default on its $8 billion loan guarantee because, under Georgia law, it is prebilling its customers for much of the cost.

This all but assures Southern Company of recouping the total expenditure, according to Peter Bradford, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission member and a nuclear policy expert at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment. "The risks in Georgia are fairly low because state utility commissioners have said customers will cover the full cost no matter what, whether the plant is canceled or experiences substantial cost overruns," says Bradford.

Utility-friendly laws in states such as Georgia and South Carolina are, however, an exception. The risk of default on nuclear loan guarantees would be higher in most U.S. states, because most states have competitive, rather than regulated, power markets. New nuclear plants are expected to generate power at 12 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is two to three times more than average U.S. power prices. "The economic setback of 2008 and the decline of natural gas prices—a decline that's now projected ... to last out into the 2030s—have pushed any semblance of economic justification for these plants way off over the horizon," says Bradford.

A Wish List for the Next GM Volt

2011-11-28T00:08:00.000-08:00

After a week of driving the new 2012 version of the Chevrolet Volt in the Boston area, I've reached three conclusions. It's an amazing car that's fun to drive. But it's not an ideal vehicle for city dwellers, and there are simple changes that would allow it to make a much more compelling case for electric vehicles.

The Volt is a type of plug-in hybrid vehicle that can go about 35 miles on a battery charge, followed by hundreds of miles powered by a tank of gasoline. Unlike other plug-in hybrids, it's designed primarily to be an electric vehicle, and this is where it shines. It's engineered for speeds up to 100 miles per hour on battery power (I didn't try that), with impressive acceleration and nimble handling that makes negotiating city traffic a breeze. But once the battery is depleted, it slips into hybrid mode, in which it gets a mediocre 35 miles to the gallon, about the same as the comparably sized gas-powered Cruze, and the ride is accompanied by the near-constant grumble of the engine.

The car is being marketed primarily as a fuel-efficient, green vehicle. GM representatives regularly remark how much driving it is like driving an ordinary gas-powered car. No doubt market surveys say this is a good approach. But the fact is that electric cars, by virtue of the instantaneous power the electric motors deliver, can be more thrilling to drive than conventional cars. At the same time, their quietness makes driving them relaxing. The power and quietness alone could be worth the extra price of the vehicle (it's about $33,000 after a federal tax rebate, compared to $17,000 for the Cruze). This is a performance car, and could easily be a luxury car with a few improvements to the interior.

In the Volt, some of the power is stifled by the default energy-efficient driving mode, which dials back the rate of acceleration. Another setting, sport mode, is better—the pickup is noticeably better. But drivers need to select this every time they get into the car, or it defaults to efficiency mode. Yes, plug-in cars can be very efficient and reduce gasoline consumption. But to make much of an impact, people have to buy them first. These cars are great to drive, and that should be emphasized. One way could be allowing drivers greater freedom to tune the responsiveness of the acceleration, rather than just selecting between sport and normal modes, and to leave it set the way they like it.

Light-Based Therapy Destroys Cancer Cells

2011-11-26T00:56:00.000-08:00

For more than two decades, researchers have tried to develop a light-activated cancer therapy that could replace standard chemotherapy, which is effective but causes serious negative side effects. Despite those efforts, they've struggled to come up with a light-activated approach that would target only cancer cells.

Now scientists at the National Cancer Institute have developed a possible solution that involves pairing cancer-specific antibodies with a heat-sensitive fluorescent dye. The dye is nontoxic on its own, but when it comes into contact with near-infrared light, it heats up and essentially burns a small hole in the cell membrane it has attached to, killing the cell.

To target the tumor cells, the researchers used antibodies that bind to proteins that are overexpressed in cancer cells. "Normal cells may have a hundred copies of these antibodies, but cancer cells have millions of copies. That's a big difference," says Hisataka Kobayashi, a molecular imaging researcher at the National Cancer Institute and the lead author of the new study, published this week in Nature Medicine. The result is that only cancer cells are vulnerable to the light-activated cascade.

The researchers tested the new treatment in mice and found that it reduced tumor growth and prolonged survival.

New Method for Making Neurons Could Lead to Parkinson's Treatment

2011-11-24T00:58:00.000-08:00

A new method of synthesizing dopamine-producing neurons, the predominant type of brain cell destroyed in Parkinson's, offers hope for creating cell-replacement therapies that reverse the damage.

The method provides an efficient way of making functional cells. When transplanted into mice and rats with brain damage and movement problems similar to Parkinson's, the cells integrated into the brain and worked normally, reversing the animals' motor issues.

The finding brings researchers a step closer to testing a stem-cell-derived therapy in patients with this disorder. "We finally have a cell that seems to survive and function and a cell source that we can easily scale up," says Lorenz Studer, a researcher at the Sloan Kettering Institute and senior author on the new study. "That makes us optimistic that this could potentially be used in patients in the future."

The research also highlights the challenges of generating cells for tissue-replacement therapy, showing that subtle differences in the way the cells are made can have a huge impact on how well they work once implanted.

A Social Network that Pays You

2011-11-22T00:56:00.000-08:00

For all the differences among them, the juggernauts of social media rely on a common business model: create free services, then sell ads against users' information. In a dramatic departure, a new social network plans to give its users a 50 percent commission—or even let them sell their own ads and keep all the revenue.

Chime.in is built around users' interests—think photography, politics, or travel—as opposed to friends, professional contacts, or news. The site's founders hope that by creating pages around those interests, the users will attract people with similar affinities, an attractive combination for targeted advertising.

"Because social is going to be so powerful, I feel that the people who are creating the engaging social content should have some stake," says Bill Gross, the serial entrepreneur who is the CEO of both Idealab, a startup incubator, and Ubermedia, a social media developer that launched Chime.in. "Right now that's sort of a heresy—but I almost like it that people think it's heresy. It gives me more of a lead."

Gross is no stranger to creating disruptive business models. The pay-per-click concept for advertising in search listings was born in 1998 at his startup Goto.com, a search engine that was later renamed Overture and sold to Yahoo in 2003 for $1.6 billion. "It took five years [to go from calling Overture] heresy to 'We want to own it,' " Gross recalls.

Sleep Sensor Hides Beneath the Mattress

2011-11-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

Gadgets and apps that track a user's sleep are growing in popularity, but they typically require a person to wear a headband or bracelet. Now a startup called Bam Labs is offering a sensor pad that can track heart rate, breathing, and movement to track sleep and other health measures from underneath the mattress.

"Using it is as easy as going to bed, and all your data is made available through our Web services and apps," says Richard Rifredi, president of Bam Labs, based in Los Gatos, California.

The company's sensor takes the form of a thin, self-inflating mattress pad, like those popular with backpackers. A sensor at one corner of the pad tracks air-pressure fluctuations caused by the tiny tremors caused by heartbeats or the more sizable shaking that occurs when someone turns over or gets out of bed. That data is transmitted by wireless to a box connected to the Internet, which in turn relays the data to cloud servers, where it is interpreted as heartbeats, breaths, and other movements. Processed data can be viewed using mobile apps for iOS devices or via an online dashboard, both of which show trends over time and calculate measures like quality and duration of sleep.

The company recently began offering a version of the product called Touch-free Life Care, or TLC, to senior-care homes, after several months of trials in such facilities. "In 2012, you'll see us also migrate to more acute-care situations and also to home users," .

Regimes Use U.S. Tech to Censor Citizens

2011-11-18T00:54:00.000-08:00

A company whose Internet-filtering servers were recently found to have been used by Syria's regime for censorship is facing a new research report that Myanmar, too, uses its technology—and that the Syrian use is wider than acknowledged.

The findings released today by the Citizen Lab, an Internet research center at the University of Toronto, are the latest evidence that commercial technology from the West—in this case from Blue Coat of Sunnyvale, California—is often used by repressive regimes, says Ron Deibert, the lab's director, who posted the findings today in a blog.

"Prior research by our group, and others like it, have highlighted the growing market for censorship, surveillance, and even offensive computer network attack products and services," Deibert says. "It is distressing that many, but not all, of the companies that sell this technology are based in liberal democratic regimes."

A spokesman for Blue Coat said he hadn't seen the report and pointed to the company's October statement about the Syrian matter. The company said in the statement that its "appliances apparently were transferred illegally to Syria."

Verizon Plans a Fast Lane for Some Apps

2011-11-16T00:53:00.000-08:00

Wireless provider Verizon has developed technology that would allow mobile apps to request extra bandwidth for short periods—to fix a choppy video call if a local cell tower is experiencing high demand, for example, or to ensure that a video plays smoothly.

The feature is intended to allow bandwidth-hungry apps to survive even as soaring wireless Internet traffic from smart phones and tablets strains the networks serving them. However, users or the companies that make data-hogging apps will have to pay for such turbo boosts, and the feature could face opposition from advocates of "net neutrality," the philosophy that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

Verizon demonstrated the new feature—which is still in development—at the company's Application Innovation Center in San Francisco last week. High-quality video streaming over a 4G cellular link became pixilated as the available bandwidth was throttled, to simulate what can happen when a lot of users request data in the same area. That was reversed when the application receiving the video used a new API to request a bandwidth boost.

"Maybe, for the first time in the world, programs can make the network coincide with their business and technology goals," says Hugh Fletcher, who leads Verizon's efforts to allow outside software to access data and features of the company's cellular network that are traditionally meant for internal use only.

Smart Phone Chips Calling for Data Centers

2011-11-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that the demands placed on data centers are growing rapidly—all those 800 million Facebook profiles have to be stored somewhere. Not surprisingly, the companies that operate these vast warehouses are concerned about the costs of using all that energy. In September, Google said that its global operations continuously draw 260 million megawatts of power, roughly a quarter of the energy generated by a nuclear power plant.

Last week, Hewlett-Packard announced it would partner with a Texas-based processor startup, Calxeda, to use extremely low-power ARM chips in a new generation of data-center servers. These chips are similar to the ones found in iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices, and use significantly less energy than Intel's traditional server chips.

"Every watt that you use on a CPU, you spend one more watt to cool it down," says Sergis Mushell, an analyst with Gartner Research. "If you reduce the box's [energy demands] by one watt, you save yourself two watts of power."

Scale that up to the size of a company like Google or Facebook, and there's a huge incentive to bring down those energy requirements.

Calxeda is one of many companies that licenses low-power processor designs from U.K.-based ARM Holdings, a company that was spun out of academic research done in the U.K. in the early 1980s. Calxeda is the first company to put ARM-based processors into data-center servers.

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2011-11-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

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As Linux Turns 20, Hopes and Wishes for Its Next 20 Years

2011-09-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

Birthdays and anniversaries are a natural time for reflection on what has been and what is yet to come. When they mark major milestones such as 20 years, however, there's a considerable temptation to think bigger.

So it's been in the Linux blogosphere, where our favorite operating system officially turns 20 today. Happy Birthday, Linux!

The celebrations began months ago, of course, thanks to the Linux Foundation's jubilant efforts, which culminated last week at the LinuxCon show. Now that the actual day is upon us, however, that 20-year anniversary is dominating the thoughts and conversations of bloggers far and wide.

Have Apps, Will Travel

2011-09-07T00:21:00.000-07:00

Travel apps open a whole new world for vacationers and business travelers alike. However, there are now so many travel apps that it's hard to determine which will render the best and most frequently updated information.

Muddying the issue further, app stores tend to list flight and hotel apps first and leave the fun and wonky and offbeat apps buried somewhere underneath. To liberate you from that app rut, here are some suggestions and "did ya knows" to make your next trip truly memorable.

Best Apps for Traveling Abroad

Momondos is a free iPhone app that sorts through more than 1,000 websites to find the best travel deals on everything from flights to high-speed rail.

Results for U.S. domestic flights are a bit sketchy, but it's great for making travel arrangements elsewhere in the world. This is a very lean, deep-search app with no trip itinerary functionality. It has a very handy filter that allows you to easily compare flights by price, departure times and other criteria, and thus easily figure out which you actually want to take (a huge plus for anyone who has ever had to toggle between multiple windows to compare flights on numerous airlines). Weirdly, you have to go to the actual website to make hotel reservations.

The Lonely Planet mobile app offers city and country guides with a lot of truly helpful detail. Here you find more than tourist traps -- little known area secrets, local favorite sites, and travel tips are featured. Download the city or country guide you want, and then use it online or off. Did you know that this app will guide you back to your hotel, group or to a new destination? No worries then, if you can't read the street signs or speak the local language.

The Rail Europe app is a digital itinerary, rail guide and alert system rolled into one. The free app allows travelers to choose the route, select a seat, and book tickets directly from their iPhone or iPod touch. The app uses geo-location technology to provide side-trip suggestions available by rail, calculating the time and distance to identify realistic rail journeys that will add to the overall vacation experience.

Video Clip Reveals Possible Chinese State-Sponsored Hack Attack

2011-09-05T00:21:00.000-07:00

Solid proof regarding the origins of high-profile international cyberattacks is typically elusive. However, when Western interests are targeted, suspicion often turns to China -- whether rightfully or otherwise.

Those suspicions were again aroused recently, courtesy of government-controlled China Central Television.

CCT ran a 20-minute documentary called "Military Technology: Internet Storm Is Coming." The clip included a brief segment featuring a hacking tool that appears to be used to attack a U.S. website.

While the subjects of the segment speak about theory, the video footage shows Chinese government systems launching attacks against a U.S. target, according to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of anti-virus firm F-Secure. He called the situation "highly unusual."

HP's Tablet Failure: Big Fun for FOSS Fanatics

2011-09-03T00:19:00.000-07:00

There may be life yet for the seemingly defunct HP (NYSE: HPQ) TouchPad. The company has discontinued its development of all webOS devices, leading retailers to drastically mark down prices on the TouchPads they have in stock. Some buyers have been able to score one for as little as $100 -- that's $400 off the initial asking price when the device entered the market a couple of months ago.

Those TouchPads aren't necessarily doomed to support a dead-ended OS, either. Open source hackers have launched efforts to port Android to the TouchPad, and at least one effort to port Ubuntu to the device is reportedly underway.

It's not clear whether TouchPads running Android will become mainstream devices -- after all, TouchPads are no longer being made. But at the very least, porting can provide hackers hours of fun, and it may result in a low-cost tablet that can live a long life with a vital and active OS like Android.

"People love to have a bit of hardware to toy around with,"Al Hilwa, a program director at IDC, told LinuxInsider. "The TouchPad is now so inexpensive that people may feel they're not putting much at risk."

Where the TouchPad Went Fatally Wrong

2011-09-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

TouchPad tablet never sold so well as when HP announced last week that it was ceasing production of the device.

Consumers have cleaned out the market's US$99-per-unit inventory of TouchPads.

At a time when Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) selling all the iPads it can mak and manufacturers are launching new Android tablets that are making headway in the market, why did the TouchPad crash and burn?

Many factors play into the answer, falling roughly into four categories: issues with HP's management; a lack of apps; the competition; and patience -- or the lack of it.

HP's Management and the TouchPad

Issues at the top level of HP management may have impacted the TouchPad's future.

First, there was the taint of the firm's previous leadership, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

The TouchPad runs on Palm's webOS, which HP acquired when it purchased Palm under the leadership of then-CEO Mark Hurd, who left under a cloud.

Second, HP's leadership, both C-level executives and its board of directors, seem intent on moving the company away from client products, including tablets, King told TechNewsWorld.

That combination essentially made the TouchPad "the Oliver Twist of tablets -- an unwanted foundling," he remarked.

Microsoft Slate Could Foretell the Shape of Tablets to Come

2011-08-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

Attendees at Microsoft's TechEd New Zealand show were reportedly treated to a preview of what may have been a new quad-core Windows slate device running on the not-yet debuted Windows 8.

The slate could be a giveaway at Microsoft's Build conference in September, according to a Smarter Geek blog post by attendee and IT consultant Alan Burchill. The information was treated with some skepticism, since other TechEd attendees didn't recall that claim, and one said the slate was running on Windows 7.

Regardless of the details, though, the device Microsoft showed probably won't be on shelves any time in the near future.

"I assume this is part of Microsoft gearing up for its developer conference in September. It would be a proof if concept, not a consumer-ready product," Sarah Rotman Epps, analyst at Forrester, told TechNewsWorld.

Buchill's post revealed two images of the thin-looking device that could be a predecessor to Microsoft's foray into the modern tablet market.

Microsoft didn't confirm or deny any part of the report.

The Next New Cyberdefense Strategy: Monitor Everything

2011-08-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

The definition of "cybercrime" is ever changing, as is the severity of attacks. 2011 has already been labeled the "year of the data breach," and yet many of the breaches are not the typical SQL injection attacks or database hacks. Instead, criminals are using legitimate website functions to steal data and sometimes money, from targeted organizations. Compounding the problem, as U.S. banks and other financial institutions are enabling customers and employees to make mobile transactions, security implications around both Web and mobile functionality have become a large concern for IT.

As the majority of today's applications and services are easily accessible via the Web -- website, intranet, mobile, etc. -- online security standards are a weakness that cannot be ignored. Although acts of cybercrime may not be classified as, "physical destruction," new threats crop up daily. Online institutions and the security industry need to band together to develop effective solutions that protect as many users as possible.

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2011-08-28T14:13:00.001-07:00

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2011-08-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

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GNOME 3 vs. Unity

2011-07-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

The face of the Linux desktop is drastically evolving. While the Linux communities struggle to bring more business and home users to the Linux desktop, existing users face choices about adopting redesigned desktop shells or finding suitable replacements. The fallout might well be the start of a Great New Linux Schism.

The Linux desktop has always been rife with choices. The big two in the ongoing contest for desktop environment users is GNOME and KDE. Both recently underwent massive redesigns. GNOME 2 morphed into version 3.0 with a radically different look and feel. KDE 4 is also graphically much different from the KDE 3 lineage. KDE 4's Plasma Desktop Shell brings considerable new eye candy and performance hikes.

But the XFCE desktop environment is a popular alternative. Plus, LXDE and more bare-bones systems such as FVWM and IceWM add to the growing options list confronting Linux users.

Not to be outdone, Ubuntu Linux operating system developer Canonical recently released version 11.04, known as "Natty Narwhal." This latest version marked the official roll-out of the redesigned Unity scheme as the default desktop. First designed as the preferred interface in its Netbook Remix version 10.04 release, an expanded Unity scheme is now Ubuntu's default desktop shell.

Perhaps the latest release of the widely used Fedora 15 distro will start a rush of users to the radically new GNOME desktop design. Canonical's developers have yet to integrate a new GNOME option in Ubuntu. This might force Ubuntu fans unhappy with Unity to defect to Fedora or other mainstream distros sporting the new GNOME 3.0 shell.

Or will the fledgling Unity shell cross distro lines and become a mainstream desktop alternative? Ultimately, the adoption of GNOME 3 over Unity may depend on ease-of-use perceptions and end-user hardware.

"I use GNOME on both old hardware and new, physical and virtual, and find that its performance scales well. I am somewhat daunted by the stated hardware requirements of Unity," Bill Weinberg, embedded and open source analyst and senior executive for LinuxPundit.com, told LinuxInsider.

Mozilla and Firefox 5

2011-07-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

Mozilla released Firefox 5 earlier this week, just three months after rolling out Firefox 4 and a month after it released version 5 in beta.

Version 5 has "more than 1,000 improvements," which include the "Do Not Track" privacy feature and support for the CSS Animations standard, among other things.

In its rush to make the Web better, however, Mozilla is taking criticism for not making it especially clear to users that it would stop issuing vulnerability patches for Firefox 4.

That has given rise to concerns that users who delay updating for various reasons may not realize they'll lack protection against the latest malware.

"Firefox 5 is the security update for Firefox 4, and we do not plan to release a Firefox 4.0.2," Johnathan Nightingale, the Mozilla Foundation's director of Firefox engineering, told TechNewsWorld.

Should Mozilla have more forcefully notified Firefox 4 users that they have to upgrade to version 5? Should it include automatic updates instead of just sending users a pop-up window reminding them to update their browsers?

LulzSec's Latest Lark Targets Ariz. Cops

2011-07-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Hacker community LulzSec has revealed it's broken into the Arizona law enforcement agency's servers and released hundreds of sensitive documents on the Internet.

"We are targeting AZDPS [the Arizona Department of Public Safety] specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona," LulzSec stated.

The highly controversial Arizona Senate Bill 1070 targets illegal immigrants and has drawn protests both within Arizona and outside of the state.

Arizona and the federal government are fighting a legal battle over the bill.

The documents LulzSec released on the Internet include the names and contact information of seven ADPS officials. Three of these have also had their home addresses and phone numbers released, and information about the wife of one of the three was also displayed on the Web.

Other sensitive documents released included some on counter surveillance as well as intelligence on Mexican gangs and on drug trafficking.

Arizona officials did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The Hackers Parade Marches On

2011-06-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

Many more verses have been added to the ballad of LulzSec lately. The hacker group has partnered with Anonymous for an agenda of world cyberchaos, vowed revenge on other hackers who disrupted an online gaming network -- this is after Lulz itself shot down a couple of other gaming networks -- and flipped off authorities who claimed to have caught one of their members.

Its attacks do tend to illustrate the many weaknesses in the online security systems we trust with protecting our data, but the group continues to insist it does it all for laughs -- the lulz, as it were.

First, LulzSec dispelled reports that it was engaged in a hacker civil war of sorts with Anonymous, a we-are-not-a-group group of cyberactivists and general pranksters. In fact, the two groups demonstrated a small measure of solidarity to declare war on the world, or at least the world's governments.

They jointly encouraged hackers around the world, regardless of nationality or affiliation, to start chipping away at government servers and other computer systems. They called on hackers to expose data, deface sites, shut down access, whatever it takes -- just grab whatever cybernetic banana peels you can get your hands on and start throwing them under the feet of any official state regime that's convenient. The goal seems to be general leakage and mayhem.

The whole operation smells a little like Wikileaks, last year's hacktivist operation of the moment. But Wikileaks at least appears to follow concepts like regimens and controls. It encourages its supporters to send data to a central source and then trust that the powers that be at Wikileaks will do the right thing with it -- "right" being a debatable term, of course.

LulzSec and Anonymous, on the other hand, seem to be leaning more toward online anarchy, encouraging everyone to act out on their own.

But watch where you point your guns, hackers. As far as LulzSec is concerned, it's open season on government systems, but woe to any and all who target online gaming networks. Like so many other sites recently, the Sega Pass online network fell victim to a hack attack, bleeding user names and passwords all over the place. All eyes fell on LulzSec, but this time the group denied involvement.

A Field Guide to the Delicious and the Deadly

2011-06-27T06:10:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid, I spent quite a bit of time rambling around the local woods in the Pacific Northwest, and if you spend much time outdoors, you're bound to stumble upon wild berries. Some of the berries you'll find are bright, shiny, and altogether appealing ... but also potentially poisonous. We usually had no idea, and since our parents warned us of consequences, including immediate or slow and painful death, we generally avoided most all berries.

Of course, we knew huckleberries on sight, and would always eat those. Occasionally we'd snag some blackberries along a river while fishing, but other berries that were rumored to be edible, well, we just avoided them anyway. Until one day, I realized, I pretty much assume every berry I see while out and about is poisonous.

I'm not sure this is a healthy way of viewing the world, but it certainly is safe. So when I found the app Wild Berries & Herbs HD, I snapped it up, despite the $8.99 price tag.

FTC to Look Into Copy Machine Privacy Breakdown

2010-12-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Federal Trade Commission has responded to an April 29 letter from Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., expressing concerns about sensitive data stored on digital copiers' hard drives. Markey's letter followed CBS News' April 19 airing of a report on its investigation into the matter.

The FTC said it was aware of the privacy issues and planned to take steps to inform manufacturers, resellers and office supply stores about the risks associated with digital copying and see that they were taking steps to provide options for secure copying.

"We will work with these entities to help ensure that they provide appropriate educational materials on this subject to their clients," wrote FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz. He also directed Markey to educational materials the FTC previously distributed on disposing of computer hard drives.

"We are also reaching out to government contracting officials to advise them of the risks associated with the use of digital copiers and ensure that the government is taking measures to protect the information we collect from the public," Leibowitz continued. The FTC routinely erases and destroys hard drives when it returns copiers, the chairman said.

European Racket Over Street View Privacy Spawns Probes

2010-12-29T04:36:00.000-08:00

European privacy advocates are scaling up their scrutiny on Google regarding its Street View cars' collection of data from unencrypted WiFi networks.

German prosecutors and the Czech data protection agency have launched separate investigations into the issue; Italy's privacy regulator is looking into whether Google treated the data correctly; and the European Union's Justice Commissioner has waded into the fray.

Meanwhile, Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly said the company plays hardball with governments on privacy issues.
Old-World Angst

Prosecutors in Hamburg, where Google has its German headquarters, are reportedly following up on a complaint against unnamed Google workers over the unauthorized interception of data.

Their examination, which will determine if the allegations warrant a full-blown investigation, could take up to two weeks.

Meanwhile, Czech Republic's data protection agency, known as "UOOU," has also reportedly launched an administrative investigation into Google's WiFi data collection.

Over in Italy, the country's privacy regulator has said it would verify whether or not Google treated the data acquired by Street View correctly.

Privacy authorities in the United Kingdom have ordered Google to destroy WiFi data its Street View cars captured in the country. A similar request by privacy authorities in the Irish Republic had Google destroy data captured from citizens of that nation.

The European Union has also stepped into the fracas -- EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding reportedly criticized Google for not following the EU's rules.

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2010-12-29T04:35:00.000-08:00

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War and Revolution

2010-12-18T00:33:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, Oracle effectively declared war on HP and went out of its way to disparage HP's products. I couldn't help but think back to Scott McNealy and his attacks on Microsoft nearly a decade ago. At that time, I scratched my head because Sun was basically a high-end hardware company and Microsoft a software pure-play, and it would have made more sense for the two to partner than to go to war.

After a decade of pounding Microsoft and doing a considerable amount of damage, Sun failed -- largely because HP, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) chewed Sun up. Sun had to restructure to be more effective against Microsoft and ended up commoditizing its own hardware products in the process, resulting in failure in the market.

Now look at Oracle and HP. Oracle is at the core a software company, and HP is a hardware company; however, HP is more complex in structure than Microsoft and is designed very similarly to IBM, with a few exceptions. HP lacks software, and it has printing, networking and PCs, which IBM lacks. So right now, HP really isn't in Oracle's space, and Oracle has no interest in much of the business that HP is in.

Oracle's more natural competitors are Microsoft and IBM in their class. Like Sun and Microsoft, it would seem more natural that Oracle should HP partner -- and historically they did, with an estimated 100,000 shared customers.

Little Tweets From Big Cheeses

2010-12-16T00:29:00.000-08:00

In October, Google's Rubin tweeted one other time, taking a shot at Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs with a cryptic definition of open source: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init --u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git; repo sync ; make."

Jobs had earlier criticized the downside of Android's open source system. Rubin's widely reported retort was another example of his whimsical yet effective approach to public relations. It also represents an ongoing public relations revolution that started with a migration to Web-based services such as Newswise and Eurekalert.

"Google sent a tweet rather than a press release in hopes that thousands of people would retweet, with potential impressions into the millions," said Jake Wengroff, global director for corporate communications at Frost & Sullivan. "Journalists, PR people, techies, analysts, consumers are all more likely to read and share a tweet, rather than a press release."

Although Rubin's tweets don't yet represent a new norm in public relations, they are no longer the exception, said Marino Organization public relations representative Joe O'Donnell.

"It is becoming more and more prevalent to release information via the social network, where you are targeting an engaged and substantial audience," O'Donnell told TechNewsWorld.

"It's to be expected that businesses will use all means possible to generate their buzz online, and Google is just setting the pace," added Vivian Hood, a vice president with Jaffe PR.

Commonly criticized for a national short attention span, Americans in particular have taken to Twitter and other social media platforms as "messaging has evolved into short, to-the-point bursts of information,"explained Rob Douthit, director of media relations at the University of West Georgia. "Where long, more contextual missives were the norm, social media is all about immediacy, and for organizations looking to disseminate timely messages, it has become an important factor."

A Kinder, Gentler WikiLeaks?

2010-12-14T05:32:00.001-08:00

The Wheres, Whats and Wherefores of OpenLeaks

A check with two Whois service providers showed the existence of two OpenLeaks domain names registered to different organizations.

According to Whois.de, 1and1.com's office in Chesterbrook, Penn., registered the domain name OpenLeaks.com on Sept. 26 and updated the registration Friday. This domain name expires Sept. 26, 2011.

1and1 was founded as a reseller of technology products, including an early online service, in 1988. It acquired Web host and Internet domain registrar Schlund + Partner in 1998 and has 70,000 servers installed in five data centers.

The company has sites in Austria, France, Germany, the Philippines, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom and Chesterbrook.

When called, the Chesterbrook office directed TechNewsWorld to email questions about OpenLeaks.com to marketing@1and1.com. The company acknowledged receipt of the email but did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The other registration is for OpenLeaks.org, and that domain is held by CINIPAC IBC, according to Domaintools.com.

CINIPAC IBC apparently registered the domain name Sept. 17, and that domain expires Sept. 17, 2011. CINIPAC IBC is located in Malaysia. Attempts to contact CINIPAC through the admin email address, abuse@cinipac.com, were unsuccessful.

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2010-12-14T05:31:00.001-08:00

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The Gawker Has Become the Gawkee

2010-12-14T05:28:00.001-08:00

Gawker said Gnosis had claimed responsibility for the hack.

The hacker or hackers claimed they had been working on cracking Gawker's database for about 17 hours, according to a report on Mediaite.

Gnosis dumped a database with more than 1.3 million rows of data, source code information, an upcoming redesign of the Gawker site, a text file containing background information and passwords, and a list of Gawker server kernel versions.

These were then released on The Pirate Bay site.

The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website that indexes BitTorrent files. It has been battling the entertainment industry and people associated with the site have been charged with or convicted of aiding copyright infringement.

In an exchange of emails with Mediaite, Gnosis said it had retrieved 273,789 passwords and that tight deadlines prevented it from getting more than 500,000. The passwords included those linked to email accounts within organizations like NASA, banks and several government domains, Gnosis' emails said. It claimed to have had access to all Gawker's emails for a long time, and also to have access to most of the infrastructure powering Gawker's site.

Gnosis said Gawker's servers run outdated kernel versions, its site is filled with lots of exploitable code, and its database is publicly accessible.

The hacker or hackers said they wouldn't explain how they got into Gawker's servers because that information could be used against them. Gnosis said it isn't involved with 4Chan.

Hackers associated with the site 4Chan broke into Gawker's site in July, triggering a challenge from Gawker publisher Nick Denton and his staff. This apparently angered the people behind Gnosis, who launched their attack in retaliation.

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2010-12-14T05:22:00.000-08:00

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Ugly Meter iPhone app 'a tool for bullies'

2010-11-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

A NEW iPhone app called the "Ugly Meter" is just what cyberbullies - including elementary school kids - need to target easy marks, online security experts said today.

The US99c app, now available for iPhone users on Apple's iTunes Store, uses facial recognition software that measures symmetry and other features. Downloaded more than 20,000 times and designed for users aged nine and above, the app scans a snapshot and submits a score of one to 10, FOXnews.com reported.

A 10 garners this message: "You're so ugly, when you walk by the bathroom, the toilet flushes."

A 9.4 gets: "You look like you ran a 100-yard dash in a 90-yard gym."

While the app's creators say they are just having some fun, some critics say the software can be malicious in the wrong hands.

It's "right on the borderline" of appropriate and inappropriate, said Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Washington-based Family Online Safety Institute.

"I can see that the guys who programmed it were having a bit of fun and all," Mr Balkam said. "If you're 25, 26 or 28, this sort of thing could be quite funny or amusing. But in the hands of a 14- or 15-year-old, it could be quite the reverse, and particularly if someone is submitting someone else's photograph and then circulated that photo around school."

"For impressionable young teens and tweens, it could potentially be quite damaging," he said. "It could be used in cyberbullying."

Dr Gwenn O'Keeffe, author of Cybersafe: Protecting and Empowering Kids in the Digital World of Texting, Gaming and Social Media, said she thought the app could theoretically have a "crushing impact" on some young users.

"There's a fine line between teasing and razzing one another," Dr O'Keeffe said. "And this is just hurtful. It could have crushing blows on kids with low self-esteem. There's just nothing good that could come from an app like this. There are other ways to have fun in life."

Dr O'Keeffe said Apple should consider removing the application from its online store, or perhaps make it unavailable to minors.

NASA preps '100-year spaceship' program to boldly go where none have gone before

2010-11-04T00:11:00.000-07:00

A SENIOR NASA official has promised to deliver a spaceship that will travel between alien worlds "within a few years".

Speaking at a conference in San Francisco on Saturday, NASA Ames director Simon Worden said his division had started a project with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called the "Hundred Year Starship”.

The project was kicked off recently with $1 million funding from DARPA and $100K from NASA and hopes to utilise new propulsion ideas being explored by NASA.

Star Trek fans, prepare to get excited - electric propulsion is here, according to Mr Worden.

“Anybody that watches the (Star Trek) Enterprise, you know you don’t see huge plumes of fire," he said.

"Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds.”
Mr Worden said the space program was "now really aimed at settling other worlds”.

“You heard it here,” he told the crowd at the “Long Conversation”.

“Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired.”

Mr Worden said he hoped to "inveigle some billionaires" such as Google founder Larry Page to help with further funding for the project.

Another possible source of propulsion being funded by NASA was by using microwave power from a planetary base to heat hydrogen propellants on board an orbiting spaceship.

"You don’t have to carry all the fuel," he said. "You use that energy from a laser or microwave power to heat a propellant; it gets you a pretty big factor of improvement. I think that’s one way of getting off the world.”

Mr Worden had an interesting take on how we would settle other worlds when we found them, suggesting it would be easier to adapt humans to an alien planet than changing the planet to suit humans.

Apple opts for speed as laptop lightens, MacBook and iPad 'hook up'

2010-11-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

APPLE'S iPhone and iPads have been such hits that the company is now looking for ways to bring some of their cachet to its laptops and desktops.

Offering glimpses overnight in the US of an updated Mac operating system, called Mac OS X Lion, Apple CEO Steve Jobs drew laughs when he introduced the new models by saying: "We asked ourselves: What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?"

The company highlighted features that borrow from the lighter-weight iOS that runs on its mobile gadgets and unveiled two new versions of its MacBook Air ultralight laptops.

Lion - Apple uses names of big cats to differentiate between versions - is expected to arrive mid-2011.

It will include a built-in store selling Mac software, similar to the iTunes store that sells apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Those devices have been successful in part because of the tens of thousands of games and other programs available as free or paid downloads in the app store.

Apple may be looking to a Mac app store to boost interest in its computers, which make up a tiny but growing percentage of the personal computer market.

In the second quarter, Macs accounted for about four per cent of PC shipments worldwide, according to the research group IDC.

Apple plans to vet Mac programs before they'll be sold in the store.

Software developers will be able to submit apps for review starting in November and the Mac store will be open for business in the next 90 days.

Lion also mimics the iPhone and iPad user interface in a few ways.

Mac users will be able to move from the main desktop to a "dashboard," or screen with a clock, weather report, calculator and other widgets, by swiping a multitouch mouse or trackpad.

People will also be able to drag one program icon on top of another to create a new folder, which smartly names itself based on the type of applications that are inside.

Before the event, rumors swirled that Apple would add a touch screen to its Mac laptops.

But the company stuck to its stated belief that it doesn't make ergonomic sense to make people reach out and touch a vertical surface.

Apple's new MacBook Air laptops have something else in common with iPhones and iPads, however - they store all their information in flash memory.

Apple did away with a CD and DVD drive in its first MacBook Air, and it ditches the hard disk drive in this edition, too. That will speed up the time it takes to boot up the laptops or wake them from a sleep state.

Bankrupt Sex.com draws $13 million offer

2010-10-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

AN offshore holding company wants to have its way with sex.com for $US13 million.

The world's "most valuable" internet domain name went up for grabs in July of this year after US-based Escom filed for bankruptcy.

Clover Holdings Limited, based on the Caribbean island of St Vincent, made the top offer for the name sex.com after Escom LLC revealed it was being forced to sell it due to bankruptcy, according to court documents.

Escom is reported to have bought the domain name for from $US12 million to $US14 million in 2006.

Sedo, which bills itself as the world's biggest trading platform for domain names, has said the sex.com sale "offers the new owner a unique opportunity to become market leader".

There were a dozen bidders vying to get sex.com, according to court paperwork online yesterday.

Little information about Clover was included in court documents.

Attorneys representing Escom are asking a California bankruptcy court to approve Clover as the winning bidder and clear the way for the sex.com deal to be consummated and domain-name trading platform Sedo to get its commissions.

"The proposed sale to buyer was the product of arms-length, good faith negotiations in which the debtor bargained for maximum possible purchase price for the assets," Escom attorney Jeffrey Dulberg wrote in a court filing.

"The negotiations involved substantial time and effort by the parties... and (the agreement) reflects given-and-take and compromises by both sides."

Dining in space will set you back $500 per day

2010-10-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

THE price of food rations on board the International Space Station has increased by nearly 50 per cent over the past year due to inflation, a Russian official says.

"Last year, the cosmonaut's daily ration in space cost about 11,000 rubles ($366), and today the cost is reaching 15,000 rubles ($500)," said Viktor Dobrovolsky, director of the food institute that supplies space cosmonauts, in an interview with the Interfax news agency.

The increase is caused by price inflation on natural products used in making the rations, and rising costs of required tests and analyses, he said.

Cosmonauts consume between 1.6 and 1.75kg of food per day. The menu is repeated every eight days, Mr Dobrovolsky said.

When in weightless conditions, cosmonauts generally consume moist and sticky products like buckwheat porridge, boiled eggs, pudding and ragout, since these foods stay on the forks and spoons without floating away.

Products that cause crumbs, like bread, are excluded since crumbs can scatter around the spaceship. Salt and pepper can only be used if salt is dissolved in water and pepper is mixed in vegetable oil.

Make Graphene

2010-10-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

Single-atom-thick sheets of carbon called graphene have some amazing properties: graphene is strong, highly electrically conductive, flexible, and transparent. This makes it a promising material to make flexible touch screens and superstrong structural materials. But creating these thin carbon sheets, and then building things out of them, is difficult to do outside the lab.
Now an advance in making and processing graphene in solution may make it practical to work with the material at manufacturing scale. Researchers at Rice University have made graphene solutions 10 times more concentrated than any before. They've used these solutions to make transparent, conductive sheets similar to the electrodes on displays, and they're currently developing methods for spinning the graphene solutions to generate fibers and structural materials for airplanes and other vehicles that promise to be less expensive than today's carbon fiber.

Whatever the end product, it's ideal to start with a high-concentration solution of graphene, but existing methods can't achieve this, says James Tour, professor of chemistry at Rice University. Graphene isn't very soluble, partly because of its dimensions, and partly because of its chemistry. Graphene is just one atom thick, but its surface area is huge. "If you want to work with graphene, you're working dilute, which makes sense, because this is a huge whopping molecule," Tour says.

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2010-10-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

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Google admits Street View cars 'mistakenly collected' URLs, emails, passwords

2010-10-27T00:04:00.000-07:00

GOOGLE has admitted it mistakenly collected personal information using its Street View cars, saying it has now implemented changes to improve its internal privacy procedures.

A recent review of the mistakenly collected data found that the company in some instances captured entire emails, URLs and user passwords, said Allan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research.

In a post on the official Google blog, Mr Eustace said the company was working to delete the data as soon as possible and Google was “mortified” the information had been mistakenly gathered in the first place.

A review of privacy controls was prompted after the company announced in May that its Street View cars had inadvertently captured the unencrypted data.

In response, Mr Eustace said the company has appointed a privacy director to oversee controls both for the company’s products and internal affairs, had improved training for engineers and other employees that handle collection of data and was beefing up its internal compliance regulations.

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2010-10-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

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Paid content takes hit as News Corp drops $32m Project Alesia 'digital newsstand'

2010-10-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

NEWS Corp has dropped a digital newsstand project that was part of an ambitious plan by the Rupert Murdoch-owned company to help publishers charge for content online.

The Wall Street Journal reported "Project Alesia" was intended to create a single online destination for a variety of publishers to sell news to users of Apple's iPad and other tablet computers.

Citing a "person familiar with the matter," the News Corp-owned Journal said the initiative had failed to attract a "critical mass" of publishers willing to participate.

The decision to abandon "Project Alesia" was first reported by British publication Brand Republic, which said it was dropped "just weeks away from launch".

According to Brand Republic, Alesia was intended to unite content from News Corp's stable of newspapers with those of other publishers.
The Journal said more than 100 people had been working on the project in Britain and News Corp had invested around $US31.5 million ($32.3 million) in the venture.

It said a number of News Corp executives working on the project in New York would be reassigned.

Mr Murdoch is a leading advocate of charging readers for online access to news.

The Wall Street Journal currently charges for full online access and The Times and Sunday Times, other News Corp titles, recently became the first newspapers in Britain to begin charging readers on the web.

Mr Murdoch has also been a big booster of the iPad, saying recently that it could be a "game-changer" for newspapers suffering from a fall in print advertising revnue, declining circulation and free news on the internet.

In June, News Corp bought Skiff, an electronic reading platform developed by US publisher Hearst Corp.

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2010-10-23T09:35:00.001-07:00

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Skylon

2010-10-04T00:06:00.000-07:00

THE UK's new space agency is aiming high in its first year, calling for interest in partners to develop a plane that can launch into space from a runway.

The UKSA was formed on April 1 this year at a cost of £40 million ($66 million) and drawing in some £230 million ($380 million) in funds from the several existing UK space organisations it replaces.

According to the UKSA website, it plans to grow the UK's current space program into a "£40 billion a year" enterprise, increasing jobs in the sector from 68,000 to 100,000 within 20 years.

It's had no problems getting press publicity for its first big project.
Named "Skylon", the revolutionary spaceplane looks like it should be driven by a Bond nemesis and promises to "slash the cost of space travel", according to The Sun.

The Skylon - a 90m craft with no external tanks or rockets - will be able to take off and land on a runway.

The engine is developed by Oxfordshire-based workshop Reaction Engines, which claims there will be global demand for up to 90 of the Skylons at around £700 million each.

"No other technology we know of is nearly as good," creator Alan Bond told The Sun.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Skylon - apart from the British optimism that it will be successful - is the fact that it will be pilotless.

Each flight will cost around £6.3 million and carry up to 24 passengers - just a touch over £260,000 per passenger.

Currently, it costs well into the millions to book a flight on a space craft, although Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic hopes to bring the costs down to around £125,000 by the time it launches.

THE UKSA is this week hosting a workshop aimed at attracting help to develop the Skylon commercially.

It says the Skylon could also be used for missions to the International Space Station and Mars.

Doctors use lasers to blast worm living behind man's eye for nine months

2010-10-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

A MAN from the USA state of Iowa lived with a worm behind his eyeball for nine months.

John Matthews from Bellevue, discovered his uninvited guest after becoming concerned when he noticed two spots obscuring vision in his left eye.

After tests at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, doctors discovered the invasive creature and rushed Matthews into a treatment room where they shot a laser into his eyeball to kill the worm.

"I could see it from behind, moving, trying to dodge the laser," he told the Telegraph Herald.

The Telegraph Herald reported that it took a second round of laser treatment before the worm was killed.

The worm's remains will be absorbed into Matthews' body, but he will suffer permanent damage to his retina.
Matthews said he either picked up the parasite on vacation in Mexico or it could have been a raccoon roundworm he caught while turkey hunting.

A film crew from Animal Planet came to Iowa to film a story about Matthews for the show Shape Shifters.

Donkey Kong

2010-09-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

The arcade whiz became a hero to retrogamers worldwide for his starring role in the 2007 documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which follows his successful quest to topple video game nemesis Billy Mitchell for the title of Donkey Kong world champion.

Mitchell - who was also the first person to achieve a perfect score in Pac-Man - had held the title since 1982, but lost it after a spiteful running public battle with Wiebe which formed the basis for King of Kong.

After the movie's release, Mitchell took his title back off Wiebe within months, but both he and Mitchell were amubushed by newcomer Hank Chien, who hit an all-time high of 1,061,700 points back in March this year.
The ever-competitive Mitchell claimed it back off Chien in August, controversially stopping play once he was 1100 points clear of Chien.

Asked why, he replied: “Some say I’m being cocky. Some say I’m being lazy. I say, I’m being Billy Mitchell."

Now he might regret "being Billy Mitchell" on that day, because Wiebe's new record - set on August 30 but not verified by video game scorekeepers Twin Galaxies until yesterday - stands at 1,064,500.

Space agency to stream aurora borealis online

2010-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

SKYWATCHERS can turn now their gaze to a computer for a glimpse of the northern lights.

The Canadian Space Agency this week launched an online observatory to stream the aurora borealis live over the internet.

"Armchair skywatchers everywhere can now discover the wonder of the northern lights live on their home computer screen," said the agency's president Steve MacLean.

"We hope that watching the dance of the northern lights will make you curious about the science of the sky and the relationship we have with our own star, the sun."

Auroras occur when charged particles from the Sun collide with gases in Earth's upper atmosphere, resulting in a ribbon of lights dancing across the night sky.

The launch of the website, called AuroraMAX, coincides with the beginning of aurora season in northern Canada, which generally begins in late August or early September and ends in May.

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Aurora enthusiasts will be able to catch the most frequent and intense auroras when the Sun reaches the most active period of its 11-year cycle, called solar maximum, in 2013.

In addition to nightly broadcasts of the aurora, the website will also explain the science behind the phenomenon and offer tips for seeing and photographing auroras.

As well, it offers an image gallery with photographs and videos of the auroras from previous nights.

BlackBerry tablet

2010-09-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

THE company behind the BlackBerry may unveil its iPad rival at a conference for developers next week, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal said Research In Motion could debut its new tablet computer at an event next week for developers who make software for the BlackBerry range of phones.

The company responded to an inquiry with a terse email stating its "standard policy is to decline comment on rumours and speculation".

A tablet computer unofficially referred to as the "BlackPad" is due for release by the end of the year, prompting talk that it will be introduced at the Devcon 2010 event in San Francisco next Monday.

The Journal cited unnamed insiders as saying the BlackPad would have a 7" touchscreen, built-in cameras, and link wirelessly to cellular networks through BlackBerry phones.

Research In Motion has been under pressure in recent times because of the popularity of Apple's iPhone and handsets running Google's Android software.

Apple earlier this year unleashed a new titan into the mobile arena in the form of its hot-selling iPad tablet and rival firms have been racing to field competing devices.

Credit Card with a Computer Inside

2010-09-24T00:59:00.000-07:00

A programmable credit card can display useful information, offer added security features, and even act as several different cards by rewriting its own magnetic strip.
Two types of programmable credit cards were unveiled this week at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara, California, by Dynamics, a startup based in Pittsburgh that's been developing the technology in stealth mode for three years. The company raised $5.7 million of funding last year.

The new cards are no bigger than the one in your wallet, and is actually slightly more flexible. It can display information at the press of a button, and can become several different cards by rewriting its own magnetic strip.

The "MultiAccount" card has two buttons on its face, each with an indicator light that can be pressed to record data to its magnetic strip. "One might switch the card to be your debit card, and the other your credit card," says Dynamics CEO Jeff Mullen. "These cards are exactly the same size and thickness of a conventional card, and the lithium-polymer battery inside can last four years under high usage. They're also fully waterproof, so you can put them through the washing machine."

Sensors Use Building's Electrical Wiring as Antenna

2010-09-22T10:58:00.000-07:00

Wireless sensors scattered throughout a building can monitor everything from humidity and temperature to air quality and light levels. This seems like a good idea--until you consider the hassle and cost of replacing the sensors' batteries every couple of years. The problem is that most wireless sensors transmit data in a way that drains battery power.
Researchers at the University of Washington have come up with a way to reduce the amount of power a sensor uses to transmit data by leveraging the electrical wiring in a building's walls as an antenna that propagates the signal. The approach extends a wireless sensor's range, and it means that its battery can last up to five times longer than existing sensors, say the researchers.

The technology, called Sensor Nodes Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure (SNUPI), sends a small trickle of data wirelessly at a frequency that resonates with the copper wiring in a building's walls, says Shwetak Patel, professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington. The copper wiring, which can be up to 15 feet away from the sensors, picks up the signal and acts as a giant receiving antenna, transmitting the data at 27 megahertz to a base station plugged into an electrical outlet somewhere in the building.

"The powerline has an amplification effect," says Patel. While many low-power sensors only have a range of a few feet, he says, his prototype sensors can cover most of a 3,000-square-foot home. In most wireless sensor schemes, Patel says, walls impede transmission of sensor data, but with SNUPI, "the more walls in the home, the better our system works." A paper describing the work will be presented at the Ubiquitous Computing conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September.

Adult website

2010-09-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

AN audit of politicians' internet use that claimed the scalp of a state minister ranked news.com.au as the most visited "adult website".

NSW Ports and Waterways Minister Paul McLeay resigned this week after results of the audit were revealed.

The audit supposedly showed whether NSW MPs had been visiting adult links such as gambling and pornography sites.

However Legislative Council president Amanda Fazio yesterday revealed the audit had incorrectly classified news sites as adult because they contained links to or advertisements for adult dating sites.

Both news.com.au and smh.com.au were classified as adult sites in the audit.

"The definition of what has been classed as an adult site is something we're reviewing," she said.

"What surprised us... the biggest (site) of what is classed as an adult site being hit by the parliament is the news.com.au site.

Samsung unveils Galaxy Tab tablet computer

2010-09-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

SAMSUNG today unveiled a new tablet PC named Galaxy Tab as the latest device to rival Apple's popular iPad.

The device offers users "a new galaxy of possibilities" with features such as mobile video conferencing and a video chat function, Samsung Europe executive Thomas Richter said at Berlin's IFA consumer electronics fair.

The Tab weighs 380grams and has a 7-inch (18cm) touchscreen, making it about three times as big as an Apple iPhone but a third smaller than an iPad.

Mr Richter said the Tab would come with Google's Android 2.2 operating system, which can run HTML5 and Adobe's Flash Player — unlike the iPad.

The Galaxy will allow users to browse the web and check email just as on a regular PC.

"The Samsung Galaxy Tab has been designed to enable consumers to maximise their online experience wherever that may be," said head of Samsung's mobile communications business, JK Shin.

The price of the device will depend on telecommunications operators, through which it will be available.

It will be go on sale next month in Europe and later in fall in the US and Asia, Samsung said.

The device supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G cell phone networks, making it a combination of smart phone and laptop.

It "turns out to be a perfect speakerphone on the desk, or a mobile phone on the move via Bluetooth headset," Samsung said.

The tablet PC also comes with two cameras, one with a flash on the back of the device, and a second one on the front for video conferences — a feature the iPad lacks, but other competitors such as Dell's Streak tablet PC also offers.

The company said the device's battery would support more than eight hours of continuous multimedia usage, or seven hours of playing video.

The tablet also comes with Swype, a third-party application already found on Samsung's Galaxy 5 series phone and available for some other Android-based handsets, which allows users to type on virtual keyboards by simply swiping fingers around from one letter to the next, lifting only between words.

Copenhagen Suborbitals rocket left standing in cloud of smoke

2010-09-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

THE first launch attempt of a homemade rocket built by two Danes has failed due to a technical glitch.

Eccentric engineer Peter Madsen founded Copenhagen Suborbitals with Kristian von Bengston two years ago with the aim of building the world's largest amateur space rocket.

The pair raised more than $71,000 through online donations and used volunteers to build the HEAT1X rocket and the micro spacecraft it was supposed to launch, called Tycho Brahe-1.

Tycho Brahe-1 would eventually carry one human passenger, in a half-seated position, into space and back down again.

Unfortunately for Copenhagen Suborbitals, live footage of the launch off the Baltic island of Bornholm yesterday appeared to show brown smoke coming out of the rocket after the countdown.

Experts interviewed by TV2 News said the likely cause was a failure of the ignition system.
After an inspection, the builders of the rocket decided against a second launch and did not set a date for a new attempt.

Mr Madsen and Mr von Bengtsson intend "to show that with little financial means anyone can send a rocket into space, which is a privilege not just reserved for rich countries".

The launch had been delayed several times because of bad weather.

The prototype contained a mannequin and was aiming for an altitude of between 10 and 30km.

The duo hope to send a person into space within three or four years, which would make Denmark only the fourth nation to do so.

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2010-09-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

KENYA'S telecommunications regulator has told mobile phone users to ignore rumours that receiving calls from some numbers appearing in red can cause brain haemorrhage.

A text message sent around since late Tuesday and seen by AFP said 27 people had died after they picked calls from numbers listed in the SMS.

"Please inform all your friends and relatives soon, it's urgent," read the text.

But the Communications Commission of Kenya said the message should be dismissed.

"Upon analysis of the messages, the commission has established the warnings are a hoax generated by unscrupulous people bent on causing fear and despondency among members of the public," it said.

"In addition, the alleged haemorrhage due to high frequency has no technical basis whatsoever."

The CEO of Kenya's largest mobile phone company Michael Joseph said the text message was "a popular urban myth that has been perpetuated, especially in some Asian markets".

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2010-09-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

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Google Scribe experiment takes over the writing

2010-09-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

GOOGLE'S overhaul of its search engine this week to offer instant results as users type appears to have had a quirky bonus.

Attentive web geeks have discovered an experimental Google Labs product that appears to be related to the search upgrade.

Called Google Scribe, the service suggests new words and phrases to you as you type, and can even finish off whole sentences if you let it.

The difference between it and the new search box is that Scribe can be used anywhere on the web you have to enter text.

The program seems to be designed to predict what users want to type before they type it — but it isn't always successful.

Left to its own devices, Scribe can begin churning out a type of bizarre word-association poetry with a noticeably technical bent.

We gave it a few classic opening phrases to start off with and then sat back and watched what happened.

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Solar Probe Plus to 'touch, taste, smell' sun on $180m NASA mission

2010-09-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

NASA has outlined details of its mission to send a probe deep into the sun's atmosphere.

Set to launch by 2018, the Solar Probe Plus will be protected by a carbon-composite heat shield that can withstand temperatures up to 1400C.

About the size of a small car, the probe will get within 6.5 million kilometres of the sun's surface.

“For the very first time, we’ll be able to touch, taste and smell our sun,” Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe Plus program scientist at NASA headquarters, said.

Last year, NASA invited scientists to submit proposals regarding exactly what the probe should do once it gets there.

According to Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington, of the 13 proposals reviewed by NASA, five were chosen "specifically designed to solve two key questions of solar physics - why is the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun's visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system? "
The selected missions will see the Solar Probe Plus:

- Capture 3D picture of solar winds

- Count and catch electrons, protons and ions from solar winds

- Use a mass spectrometer to take an inventory of the sun's elements, and

- Measure the sun's electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions and shock waves.

NASA has budgeted $US180 million for the mission, but claims the unprecedented analysis will enable it to better understand the sun and improve its ability to predict the severity of solar storms.

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2010-09-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

ROCKET planes could soon be racing through virtual racetracks in the skies above Australia.

As the Rocket Racing League gears up for a possible launch late next year, chief operating officer Mike D’Angelo said the league had every intention of holding races outside the US.

The RRL pits anywhere between two and 10 liquid oxygen-powered “X-racers” head-to-head around virtual 3D tracks, pushing speeds of up to 480km/h through closed circuit and drag racing formats.
Spectators can also view the tracks with augmented reality smartphone apps, or on giant screens at the events which overlay the skies with virtual obstacles.

Unlike the Red Bull Air Races, RRL ups the ante by racing several vehicles against each other on the same track at the same time.

It’s one of the keys to RRL’s success and a lot of the current testing is aimed at ensuring the action can be as close-in as possible.

Mr D’Angelo said the RRL was “already flying multiple vehicles in tandem, sometimes as many as three experimental flights a day”.

The closest so far seen by the public was at the Air and Rocket Racing Show in Tulsa in April, where two Rocket Racers flew within 13 seconds of each other.

By the time the league starts, X-Racers will be flying as little as seven metres apart.

While he said that the league's “internal development schedule” was on track, Mr D’Angelo wouldn’t commit to a rumoured late-2011 launch.

“We’re excited about the development of the vehicle systems and are fully focused on completing that before we start setting dates for races,” he said.

He could, however, make a much stronger commitment about the league’s intention to bring X-Racers to Australian skies.

“100 per cent ... stay tuned,” he said.

“For us … going global is absolutely a priority.”

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2010-09-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

MICROSOFT'S new Arc Touch Mouse is flexible, touch-sensitive and changes shape according to need.

Apple has indicated it is moving towards a mouse-free future, embracing touchscreen devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and introducing peripherals such as the Magic Trackpad.

Microsoft, on the other hand, firmly believes the mouse is the ultimate input tool for computers.

"This is not the first time that the mouse has been threatened – look at 10 years ago when people started buying laptops that had integrated pointers and touch pads," said Microsoft hardware group manager Brett Ostrum.

"Still, the mouse category continued to grow and grow.

"The reasons people need external mice will not change: comfort and precision. The Arc Touch Mouse just demonstrates again how committed Microsoft is to continuing to bring great new mice to consumers."

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The company has given the 30-year-old pointing device a makeover to bring it into the 21st century.

The Arc Touch Mouse is thin (15mm at its widest point) and flexible, making it ideal for on-the-go consumers who need to conserve space in their bags.

It has a "touch strip" that facilitates slow and fast scrolling with the touch of a finger, BlueTrack Technology so you can use the mouse on almost any surface, and it will last for up to six months on two AAA batteries.

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2010-09-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

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App Offers Guidance

2010-09-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

If you've ever accidentally shot a video sideways, or cropped the top of someone's head out of a frame, you might be glad to know about a new cell-phone app that automatically provides shooting advice to videographers.
Beyond just warning when the light is too low, or the color balance is off, the app issues alerts and guidance when a person has been framed poorly, or when the camera is being moved too jerkily. The software, which analyzes a video in real time, offers a peek at features that could become standard in future videocameras.

The new app, called NudgeCam, was developed for Android cell phones by researchers at FX Palo Alto Laboratory, a corporate research lab owned by Fuji Xerox. The app tracks faces in a video and provides on-screen tips for how to best size and position them inside the frame. It also warns if the camera is not being held level, or if the image is too bright or dark, or if the audio quality is bad.

"This is an approach to the media overload problem," says Scott Carter, who developed the app with colleagues John Adcock and John Doherty. "NudgeCam is intended to guide the capture of video so you don't have to edit and review so much footage."

The app provides the kind of standard advice taught at media schools, such as how a person's face should occupy a certain proportion of the video frame and should be positioned slightly off center. "These are well-known heuristics that are taught widely but are not integrated into the [video] capture devices we use," says Carter. The app can also be used to make templates to guide the capture of specific types of footage--for example, arrows direct a user to move the camera a particular way. Tags can also be added as reminders to be checked off during a recording, for example, so that the shooter ensures that an interviewee's gaze is steady.

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Nano Switches that Store More Data Head to Market

2010-09-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

An electronic component that offers a new way to squeeze more data into computers and portable gadgets is set to go into production in just a couple of years. Hewlett-Packard announced today that it has entered an agreement with the Korean electronics manufacturer Hynix Semiconductor to make the components, called "memristors," starting in 2013. Storage devices made of memristors will allow PCs, cellphones, and servers to store more and switch on instantly.
Memristors are nanoscale electronic switches that have a variable resistance, and can retain their resistance even when the power is switched off. This makes them similar to the transistors used to store data in flash memory. But memristors are considerably smaller--as small as three nanometers. In contrast, manufacturers are experimenting with flash memory components that are 20 nanometers in size.

"The goal is to be at least double whatever flash memory is in three years--we know we'll beat flash in speed, power, and endurance, and we want to beat it in density, too," says Stanley Williams, a senior fellow at HP who has been developing memristors in his lab for about five years.

HP makes memristors by laying down parallel metal nanowires onto a substrate, coating them with a layer of titanium dioxide, and placing a second layer of nanowires perpendicular to the first layer. Where the wires cross, a memristor is formed. HP expects the first devices containing memristors to offer about 20 gigabytes of storage per square centimeter, twice the projected capacity of flash at this time. The company has dubbed memristor-based data storage "ReRAM", which stands for Resistive Random Access Memory.

Robotic Storm Tracker Gets a Big Test with Earl

2010-09-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

As Hurricane Earl barrels toward the eastern seaboard of the United States, coastal residents don't know if they should evacuate in case the storm makes landfall. They rely on forecasters analyzing computer models, but those predictions differ. A new hurricane-monitoring mission that's now underway hopes to reduce this uncertainty by gathering atmospheric and environmental storm data never before obtained.

NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are conducting the largest tropical storm and hurricane monitoring mission to date. The mission involves simultaneously flying up to eight aircraft, each equipped with sophisticated instrumentation, to gather data from the time of a storm's inception to its dissipation.

"There is a lot about storms that we don't know--why does a storm rapidly intensify? How do things like aerosols, atmospheric moisture, and ocean currents affect a storm's development?" says Gerry Heymsfield, a NASA mission scientist. "The new measurements we are making will significantly enhance our understanding and ultimately improve forecast models."

Start-up company aims to harness the full potential of producing electricity from waste heat

2010-09-02T06:24:00.001-07:00

Currently, more than two-thirds of the fuel used to generate power in the United States is lost as heat, according to a 2008 report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The goal of cogeneration technology is to convert this waste heat into electric and thermal power. Although the idea has been around for more than a century, the US produces only about 9% of its power from cogeneration systems. In comparison, many European countries use cogeneration systems for a significantly larger portion of their electricity production, with Denmark producing more than 50% of its power using waste heat recovery systems. In the US, the Department of Energy has a goal for recycled waste heat to account for 20% of US electricity production by 2030.

Alphabet Energy's strength lies in its recent development of a thermoelectric chip that can be inserted into a wide variety of exhaust flues, engines, or other heat-producing devices to convert the waste heat into electricity. As heat essentially pushes electrons through the material, the device can be connected to the grid to feed in the electricity in real time. As the company explains, the device's key advantage is the novel material - a relatively abundant, low-cost material that has been modified by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to lower its thermal conductivity and increase its electricity output using a smaller amount of heat. Another advantage is that the thermoelectric chip is produced using similar methods used for producing the microchips used in electronic devices, which should lower production costs.

These improvements may allow Alphabet Energy to lower the cost of installing the system to less than half that of current systems, to under $1 per watt. At this cost, and depending on the properties of the heat generation system, the system could deliver a payback time of two to four years. In addition, since electricity generated from waste heat is 100% clean energy, Alphabet estimates that its technology will be able to offset more than 500 million tonnes of carbon annually.

Alphabet Energy plans on performing a pilot test at an industrial facility next year, and may start commercialization in 2012. One of the challenges the company faces is that waste heat is one of the few power sources that the US government does not currently subsidize. However, recently a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Democratic Representative Paul Tonko of New York have introduced a bill that would offer a 30% tax credit for installing waste heat recovery systems in industrial environments.

Alphabet Energy estimates that the technology for waste heat recovery systems could comprise a $200 billion global market. Other US companies are also working on waste heat recovery techniques, from small start-ups to corporations including General Motors and General Electric. Besides heat from factories and power plants, future systems could also harness the heat from laptop computers and cell phones, although that technology is still in development.

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2010-08-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

E Sunday Telegraph reports a survey of more than half a million children reveals technology is counter-productive in improving student achievement.

It found that introducing children to computers from 10 years of age could have a detrimental effect and was associated with "modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student maths and reading test scores".

The study, published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, flies in the face of popular belief and shows that expanding computer access does not reduce the digital divide.

Study co-author Jacob Vigdor said the findings suggest access to computers can harm children's learning.

"Students who gain access to a home computer between 5th and 8th grade tend to witness a persistent decline in reading and math test scores," he said.

"For school administrators interested in maximising achievement test scores, or reducing racial and socioeconomic disparities in test scores, all evidence suggests that a program of broadening home computer access would be counterproductive."

Researchers analysed administrative data for more than 500,000 Years 5-8 students from North Carolina.

Payday loans

2010-08-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

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Take a spin in the Auto-GCAS

2010-08-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

WHEN the Australian Defence Force takes delivery of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in 2015, it can expect the usual array of advanced weaponry and stealth technologies.

For the price tag of around $110 million and climbing per plane, it ought to, but the first major upgrade to our air force fleet in 30 years is not all about firepower.

Last week, Aviation Week reporter Guy Norris got a sneak peek of the JSF's extraordinary new secret weapon — crash avoidance.

He's unlikely to ever forget it. At times he was experiencing 1000km/h in runs through canyons less than 70m off the ground.

The point of it all was for the US Air Force to show off its new system for dealing with those unfortunate moments when the pilot forgets where they are or loses consciousness — the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System, or Auto-GCAS.

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Current systems are simply based on terrain awareness and warnings which alert pilots of impending collisions.

The big difference is that Auto-GCAS actually wrests control off the pilot and takes evasive action.

It won't save pilots' lives in a mechanical emergency or if they've detuned it in order to make a low pass, but all the scenarios Norris was put through replicated accidents that happened in combat situations.

One notable incident occurred when a USAF pilot pulled up out of a bombing run and turned the wrong way, plunging into the ground instead of up in the air.

Smartphones and appliances

2010-08-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

PHONE-crazy Australians are behind a huge leap in numbers of smartphones like Apple's iPhone being sold.

More than $500 million was spent on the gadgets in the three months to the end of June — a 92 per cent increase on the same time last year.

The smartphone boom has come at the expense of traditional mobile phones, with their sales tumbling almost 50 per cent to $200 million, the latest GfK TEMAX consumer electronics survey says.

However, the statistics reveal a general fall in consumer confidence, with overall sales down 5.2 per cent.

GfK spokeswoman Gwenno Hopkin said consumers' passion for social networking and surfing the net on the move was helping to drive the smartphone explosion.

"Smartphones are becoming standard now and people are looking for that kind of functionality in the phones on offer," she said.

Telstra to kill bill shock by cutting off net hogs

2010-08-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

TELSTRA'S 1.6 million iPhone and BlackBerry customers will have their internet access cut off if they overspend because the telco has had enough of customers refusing to pay.

The "app cap" would apply to all so-called smartphones on the Telstra network, barring users from the web until the following month.

"It stops the charge but it also stops the service," Telstra chief financial officer John Stanhope said yesterday.

He said, while Telstra "didn't want to intrude" into users' lives, it had been forced to act because it was losing tens of millions of dollars when customers failed to cough up.

"There is bill shock. People go, 'Wow, I didn't expect that size bill'," Mr Stanhope said.

But he also said Telstra was partly to blame because it wasn't doing a good enough job of explaining its plans and costs to new smartphone customers. He argued the app cap would benefit many customers by protecting them from big bills.
It was possible that customers would be able to set the cut-off limit themselves, he said.

And Telstra would also increase its efforts to "educate" users about plans.

Telstra expected to have the cap in place by the end of this financial year — by which time the telco was likely to have more than two million smartphone users because sign-ups were growing 30 per cent annually.

Rapidly rising revenue from mobile web access was one of the few bright spots in the annual financial result Telstra reported yesterday.

The real story behind Jenny's fake resignation

2010-08-18T00:08:00.000-07:00

IT'S the sort of thing everyone wishes they'd done, if only they had the guts.

And for a moment, everyone thought that a woman called Jenny had actually done it - resigned from her job, gotten back at her boss and turned into an internet celebrity all at once.

A collection of photos showing Jenny writing her resignation on a portable whiteboard took the internet world by storm this week, with nearly half a million people sharing it on Facebook.

The photos showed Jenny leaving several parting messages for her former colleagues, including her boss, with matching facial expressions to boot.

She described her time as a personal assistant as "a special hell", said she knew her boss had been describing her as a "hot piece of ass" and then revealed how much time he wasted playing Farmville at work.
The stunt earned her an army of fans who praised her for sticking it to the man and described her as a "girl next door" version of Angelina Jolie.

Which is all good and well, except that Jenny doesn’t actually exist. She was actually an actress named Elyse Porterfield.

The story was a hoax created by the owners of humour website The Chive, who told the world of their prank in a second collection of photos showing Porterfield again writing on the whiteboard.

"I'm an actress in LA," reads one message. The next says: "And this has been a hoax."

Panasonic's 'bonus Wii' offer

2010-08-16T00:04:00.000-07:00

ELECTRONICS giant Panasonic wanted to be the Santa of Christmas 2008, but its "free Wii" promotion has left the global corporation looking more like the Grinch.

The Federal Court, sitting in Adelaide, yesterday ruled the company breached the Trade Practices Act with its advertising campaign in November and December 2008.

At the time, it offered consumers a "bonus" Nintendo Wii console if they purchased one of Panasonic's Full HD Viera Plasma televisions.

But Justice John Mansfield yesterday said consumers were not told they had to provide the television's serial number within 14 days of purchase.

He said there was "no guarantee" consumers would receive their televisions within 14 days, due to the traditional Christmas rush.

That left purchasers, he said, with little or no time to claim their Wii.

"A consumer would have understood that there were conditions attached to the (promotion), but not that the conditions were such that they could not be met," he said.

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Panasonic was taken to court by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The commission alleged Panasonic's failure to inform customers about serial numbers and delays amounted to misleading and deceptive conduct.

BlackBerry info

2010-08-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also threatened to cut off popular BlackBerry services unless they get greater access to user information. Like India, they've cited security concerns in pushing for access to encrypted information sent by the cell phones that gets routed through the Canadian company's servers overseas.

India has asked for encrypted BlackBerry communications to be made easily available to its intelligence and law enforcement agencies, saying that the services could be used by militant groups.

The 10 heavily armed gunmen who rampaged through Mumbai, India's financial capital, in November 2008, killing 166 people, used cell and satellite phones to communicate with their Pakistan-based handlers, according to Indian officials.

Research In Motion had no immediate comment on India's announcement. It has said its discussions with regulators around the world are private.

The announcement came after a meeting of India's home secretary, an official in charge of domestic security, and representatives of security agencies and the government's telecommunications department, the ministry said in a statement.

Amazon Kindles Lose Weight

2010-07-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

The two six-inch-screen devices are smaller and lighter than Amazon's previous six-inch-screen Kindle, and they have more features.

The Kindle WiFi is priced at US$139, and the Kindle 3G + WiFi goes for $189. Both can be pre-ordered now and will ship Aug. 27, Amazon said.

More Pizzazz for Your Pesos

The two new devices are 21 percent smaller than the old Kindle, although they have the same six-inch screen size, Amazon said. They also offer 50 percent better screen contrast; crisper, darker fonts and a new Webkit-based browser.

With the new browser, Amazon has launched a beta program that gives owners of the new 3G + WiFi Kindle free 3G Web browsing.

Amazon has enhanced its PDF reader with dictionary look-up, notes and highlight capabilities. Further, page turns are reportedly 20 percent faster.

Owners of the 3G + WiFi Kindle get 3G wireless coverage in more than 100 countries and territories. The WiFi capability lets both new varieties of Kindle connect to hotspots at hotels and cafes. Connection to AT&T (NYSE: T) hotspots across the United States is free.

Amazon has doubled the storage for the new Kindles, and they can now store up to 3,500 books, just like the Kindle DX.

Blackberry Curve 9300

2010-07-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

You already know the Blackberry 9300? This smartphone brings 3G to the Curve family, and a possible expansion in inches (and also the resolution) of your display, compared to its predecessor, while the information is not as precise, provides that this model will have an improvement in your CPU, a keyboard will bring a little more rounded compared to 8900, besides having a rounding keys Send / End, and all this technology is available to them now, come to dialtosave.co . uk and get cheap Blackberry 9300 deals .

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Digital Photography

2010-07-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

Camera-phone owners can use new software to reprogram these devices--and capture images that would previously have been impossible to get.
Stanford University researchers have made software for the Nokia N900 phone that gives developers, and users, greater control over the phone's camera components than ever before. This software makes a variety of apps possible. Using the software, developers have already created apps that can capture both light and dark parts of a scene, stitch panoramic photos together automatically, and capture extremely sharp photos even in low light.

"My hope is that this will shift the camera industry," says Stanford's Marc Levoy, who leads the group that released the software this week at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles.

Digital photography is normally constrained by the software built into the camera by its manufacturer. A field known as "computational photography" expands the possibilities of digital photography. It does this by using software to provide the user with more control over a camera's components. Prior to the release of the new Stanford software, this kind of control has meant tethering that camera to a laptop. "That doesn't make it easy to try out our ideas in realistic settings," says Levoy.

Levoy and colleagues have also developed Frankencamera--an experimental, portable computational camera designed to be similar to a conventional one. Yet another way to expand the reach of this new approach to photography comes from smart phones--which feature powerful computers and increasingly capable imaging equipment.

"If other people in the mobile space start to experiment with these ideas, and users find that useful or cool, we will see similar apps in the biggest mobile app stores," says Levoy. "That will put pressure on the camera industry to open up to allow similar innovation using their platforms."

Tactical and operational equipment

2010-07-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

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Protein helps fix damaged DNA in yeast

2010-07-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

Researchers from Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology have discovered how a protein called Mec1 plays the role of "guardian of the genome," explained Marcus Smolka, assistant professor of molecular biology and genetics. The findings are detailed in the July 30 edition of the journal Molecular Cell.

Previous studies have shown that cells lacking Mec1 accumulate damaged DNA and become more sensitive to agents that interfere with replication. The researchers report that the Mec1 protein monitors and repairs the machinery responsible for replicating the DNA. At times, when DNA becomes damaged, the replication machinery can actually detach from the DNA -- like a train coming off a track -- but Mec1 coordinates the repair of the machinery and the DNA itself, allowing it to restart and continue replicating.

"Mec1 organizes the cell's response against things that jeopardize the integrity of the genome," Smolka said.

During the replication process, Mec1 accumulates at trouble spots such as lesions in the DNA or other blocks to replication. Mec1 is known as a kinase, a type of enzyme that modifies other proteins by adding a phosphate group to them (a process called phosphorylation), which then leads to a functional change in the protein. The researchers report that Mec1 adds a phosphate group to a protein known as Slx4, which then triggers Slx4 to anchor to the replication machinery. Slx4 then can employ a variety of tools to repair DNA and the replication machinery.

The findings are important because researchers have discovered counterparts (called orthologues) to Mec1, other related proteins with similar biological pathways in humans. Also, mutations to the human genes that produce Mec1 and related proteins can lead to cancer predisposition and neurological disorders. At the same time, cancer cells employ their own similar replication repair system, so understanding the process may help researchers design interventions that interrupt replication of cancer DNA.

Recently, other researchers discovered that the human version of Mec1, called ATR, phosphorylates a protein that is the human counterpart to Slx4. The next step, Smolka said, will be to see if after phosphorylation the human Slx4 also anchors to the replication machinery to repair any damaged machinery or DNA.

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2010-07-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

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HTC's Droid Incredible Costs $163 to Make

2010-07-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

The Droid Incredible, a smartphone manufactured by HTC Corp., has materials that cost $163.35, according to a teardown analysis of the phone conducted by iSuppli Corp.

The Incredible, which has been available for sale online from Verizon Wireless (VZW, VOD), is expected to make its debut at Verizon stores on Aug. 3 for $199 with a contract. It runs Google's (GOOG) Android operating system.

The iSuppli analysis released July 29 found that internally the Incredible is similar to a prior Android phone, the Nexus One, which Taiwan-based HTC built for Google. Google stopped selling the Nexus One on July 21. "There are so many commonalities between the Incredible and the Nexus One, and some of the other Android phones we're looking at, it's pretty clear the manufacturers are following some of the same basic design guidelines," says iSuppli analyst Andrew Rassweiler, who supervised the teardown.

For example, both use the same Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon wireless chip in combination with the same touchscreen controller chip from Atmel (ATML), a San Jose-based chipmaker. "What we think is that there's a reference design, which is like a basic recipe, suggesting that if you use this chip in combination with another chip, you end up with a cool smartphone," Rassweiler says.

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2010-07-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

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House committee supports

2010-07-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

A House committee on Thursday approved an amendment to a bill that would clear NASA to launch an additional shuttle flight next summer to deliver critical supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.

The move came as the House Committee on Science and Technology was reviewing its version of NASA's $19 billion 2011 funding package. The Senate version of the appropriations legislation already included the additional flight. But major differences remain in other key areas, including how much money goes to support development of a new private-sector manned launch industry, the timetable for development of a NASA heavy-lift rocket for deep space exploration, and plans for a new government-designed manned spacecraft.

Even so, Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said in a statement that the House legislation "sets a clear, sustainable, and executable path for NASA, especially in the area of human space flight."
The Obama administration earlier this year proposed canceling NASA's Constellation moon program, including the Ares I and Ares V rockets the agency had planned to build to replace the shuttle. The Orion crew capsule that would have been launched atop the Ares I rocket would be converted into a space station crew lifeboat.

At the same time, the president called for a transition to private-sector rockets and capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, allowing NASA to focus on development of new heavy-lift rockets and capsules for eventual flights to nearby asteroids and, eventually, to Mars.

But the president's plan would defer work on a heavy lifter until 2015, delaying deep space missions beyond low-Earth orbit until the middle of the 2020s in favor of near-term development of advanced technologies.

Supporters of the administration's space policy applauded the shift to private-sector launch services, arguing that increased efficiencies and innovation would open up the high frontier to more extensive--and routine--use. Under the administration's proposed budget, NASA would spend $6 billion over the next five years to spur development of private-sector launch services.

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2010-07-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

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YouTube repels Viacom's billion-dollar

2010-07-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

A JUDGE has thrown out a billion-dollar copyright suit the owners of MTV and Paramount Pictures filed against YouTube.

In what is a major legal victory for the video website, US District Court Judge Louis Stanton said that YouTube was protected against Viacom's claims of "massive copyright infringement" by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The 1998 legislation provides protection for internet firms from copyright violations by their users, and the judge ruled that YouTube's actions, such as quickly removing infringing videos when requested, were in line with the Act.

YouTube's owner, Google, welcomed the ruling, while Viacom vowed to appeal.

Viacom, which owns MTV, VH1 and Paramount studios, sued Google and YouTube in March 2007, arguing that they condoned pirated video clips at the website to boost its popularity.

The lawsuit was merged with a similar complaint by the English Premier League, which said football clips were also routinely posted on YouTube without authorisation.

"This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other," Google lawyer Kent Walker said.

Viacom's lawyer Michael Fricklas said the company was disappointed but was confident it would win on appeal.

"Copyright protection is essential to the survival of creative industries," he said.

"It is illegal for companies to build businesses with creative material they've stolen from others."

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2010-07-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

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How to choose the right-sized TV for your house

2010-07-08T00:04:00.000-07:00

APART from getting slimmer, the latest TVs are also becoming wider. The square box has been replaced with an almost wafer-thin widescreen display which has an aspect ratio of 16:9.

For some viewers who are looking to replace their old tube TV — or perhaps buy a second flatscreen for another room — one of the many questions being asked is just how big or small the panel should be to assure comfortable viewing.

The first thing to do is establish how far it will be between the panel and the couch — this is called the viewing distance.

This distance can then be taken and used to determine the maximum and minimum-sized TV to suit the room.

Those with the "go big or go home" attitude should take note of the distance they would be sitting from the screen before splashing out on the biggest screen they can afford.

Having a screen that's too big for the viewing space means you'll be sitting too close and see every pixel on the screen.

Desire deals

2010-07-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

HTC phones are appreciated worldwide for its design and performance, all you need at your fingertips. With a touch of your thumb, the touch screen slides to reveal a handy smart-sized keyboard, If you prefer using touch, the revolutionary TouchFLO ™ interface lets you scroll through emails, messages, music and images to the touch of a finger, making navigation extremely easy. A single tap on the screen activates the HTC Home ™ screen, providing an instant view of email, calendar, messages, missed calls, dynamic and updated information about weather and much more, The high-speed connection is always on and gives you the maximum use of the Internet - wherever you are. Experience a whole new sensation with the HTC Touch Dual ™, if you are looking for a phone with all this and more come to dialtosave.co.uk right now and has his choice of several options HTC phones with the best price and highest quality and security so that you can buy, Your operating system is Windows Mobile - as in all other devices from HTC. In practice, this means that the phone has programs like the Mobile Office suite with Word, Excel and Powerpoint, Internet Explorer browser, PDF viewer, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Media Player that supports audio and video.

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Nokia N8 smartphone

2010-07-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

WHEN does a phone become too much? When it plays high-definition movies on your TV, or when it tells you how to drive in your own voice?

In its war against the iPhone, mobile phone giant Nokia is relying on giving its customers as many features as heavenly possible.

Perhaps, even, more than they really want.

The new Nokia N8 smartphone is packed to the brim with hi-tech tricks that range from brilliant to bizarre.

Due to hit Australian shores later this year, it will sell for $749, which puts it in the same ball park as the iPhone.

Here's our list of the N8's five most opulent features. You tell us — is it over the top?

Personalised GPS

The N8 has turn-by-turn GPS, which is great. But what's a little scary is that you can record your own audio to be played back as you drive.
In other words, you can sit there with your phone, record your own lines for 57 different possible driving instructions, and then listen to yourself yelling at you when you make a wrong turn.

The voice on the demo unit we tried said, in a surfie's voice: "Speed camera ahead dude! Either slow down or say cheese."

Nokia said customers could replace it with a recording of their husband or wife telling them how to drive. That sounds great, Nokia.

HDMI output

Despite the fact that connecting a gadget designed for mobility to a giant TV set seems a bit silly, the N8 lets you output video in HDMI.

That's what you'd usually use to connect a Blu-ray player, or something like a PlayStation 3, to an expensive HD TV, and it's designed specifically to do it in super-high definition.

Most phones can't output video at all, let alone in HDMI. And why would they? Do your home videos really need to be shown in 720p?

No anti-virus software?

2010-07-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

AUSTRALIANS would be forced to install anti-virus and firewall software on their computers before being allowed to connect to the internet under a new plan to fight cyber crime.

And if their computer did get infected, internet service providers like Telstra and Optus could cut off their connection until the problem was resolved.

Those are two of the recommendations to come from a year-long inquiry into cyber crime by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications.

Results of the inquiry, titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime, were released last night in a 260-page report.

In her foreword, committee chair Belinda Neal said cyber crime had turned into a "sophisticated underground economy".

"In the past decade, cyber crime has grown from the nuisance of the cyber smart hacker into an organised transnational crime committed for vast profit and often with devastating consequences for its victims," Ms Neal said.

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2010-07-03T06:29:00.000-07:00

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Troublesome Surprise

2010-07-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

This month's Patch Tuesday arrived with a rather unwelcome security surprise.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) had expected things to be somewhat sedate; however, instead of two vulnerabilities that it expected needed patching, it got hit with four, including a new zero-day Internet Explorer exploit.

Further, Microsoft has had to update its Malicious Software Removal Tool to include Win32/Helpud, a Trojan that's been around since 2008. In addition, it's keeping an eye on a VBScript vulnerability that could allow remote code execution.
Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days Are Gone

On Monday, Microsoft issued its advance notification security bulletin for Patch Tuesday. This slated Bulletins MS 10-016 and MS 10-017 for release Tuesday.

On Tuesday, it added Bulletins MS 09-033; 981374, revived a warning about the Win32/Helpud Trojan first published in December 2008, and said it "continues to monitor" the threat landscape around Security Advisory 981169 about the VBScript vulnerability.

The expansion was unexpected. "Contrary to what we expected last week, the Microsoft March security announcement has a little surprise in it," Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer of Qualys, wrote in his blog.

He described Windows Producer as "a little-used multimedia add-on to PowerPoint".
Another Day in IE

A new Internet Explorer vulnerability, which could allow remote code execution, has surfaced.

Like the vulnerability that led to hack attacks on Google and more than 20 other large American companies -- a series of events that escalated to spark off a war of words between the United States and China -- this latest flaw is due to an invalid pointer reference, according to Redmond.

However, the two are unrelated, Microsoft spokesperson Jerry Bryant told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft's investigations show that IE 6 Service Pack 1 on Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and standalone versions of IE 6 and IE 7 are vulnerable. However, IE 8 and IE 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 are not affected.

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2010-07-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

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Android Becomes Flash

2010-07-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

Moving With FP 10.1 for Mobile

Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile was redesigned from the ground up with new performance and mobile-specific features, Adobe said.

It offers accelerometer support, letting mobile device owners view Flash content in landscape and portrait modes. Its Smart Zooming feature lets users scale content to full-screen mode.

Adobe has also optimized the platform jointly with "virtually all" major mobile silicon and platform vendors to optimize CPU use and battery performance.

A new Smart Rendering feature ensures that Flash content runs only when it becomes visible on the screen, to cut CPU use and battery consumption. FP 10.1 for Mobile has a Sleep Mode that automatically slows it down when the mobile device it's running down goes into screen-saver mode.

An Advanced Out-of-Memory Management feature lets FP 10.1 for Mobile effectively handle non-optimized, resource-hungry content. An automatic memory reduction feature cuts the RAM usage of by content by up to 50 percent. Further, FP 10.1 for Mobile pauses automatically when a phone call comes in or the device user switches from the browser to other functions. It resumes where it left off when the user switches back to the browser.
The Remaking of the Smartphone

"This addresses one of the big problems Flash has faced -- that it hasn't run very well or at all on cellphones," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "It opens up an era of cheap computing for cellphones," he said.

"Now, the PC will have to redefine its value, because the vast majority of the standard things we do for mainstream computing involve the Internet and don't require the PC anymore," Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat, pointed out.

"Mobile apps, which are changing the structure, the usage models and everything we've associated with the Internet, replace the browser, the website and content applications you're trying to get to," McGregor told TechNewsWorld. "With Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile, smartphones are drastically changing what we thought of the Web."

FP 10.1 for Mobile will enable smartphone owners to download rich Internet applications, games, data presentations and visualizations and other rich content on their devices. This will boost the fortunes of graphics processing unit (GPU) makers.

Google Voice

2010-06-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

Just over a year after its beta launch, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has opened its Google Voice service to all comers. During the invitation-only period, more than one million users signed up, according to the company.

It has spent that time taking feedback from those users and gearing up server capacity to take on significant growth, said Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, Google Voice product managers, in a post on the Google Voice Blog.

One important question, though, is how many more people actually want to use the all-in-one-number service.

"It's not like the beta was keeping anyone out," Carl Howe, director with the Yankee Group, told TechNewsWorld. As with past launches such as Gmail, Google Voice invitations were easy to get hold of.

"Up to this point, anyone who really wanted to use it could," he observed.
Resisting Change

Those on the very bleeding edge of communication services did indeed show some uptake on Google Voice, which allows users to distribute one phone number and route calls to that number anywhere they wish, including land lines and mobile devices.

"The real sizzle with Google Voice is the ability to have just one phone number," Josh Martin, senior analyst with Strategy Analytics, told TechNewsWorld. In addition, services such as personalized voice mail messages for different callers caught the eye of those with multiple phone numbers and groups trying to reach them.

The problem is that businesspeople and consumers switching to Google Voice had to accept and distribute a brand-new phone number to use the service.

"It's the same challenge people had years ago when changing wireless carriers," explained Martin. That is, while having access to new features might be tempting, the process of informing everyone in your life that you have an entirely new main number is daunting and can easily outweigh the benefits -- or at least delay someone's decision to switch.