|
Home News
Index 2004
Tech Notes August to December
January to July, 2004
Tech Notes
July, 2004
Nanotechnology needs regulation says Britain's Royal Society
The academy of leading scientists
and the Royal Academy of Engineering said more research is needed to
discover any negative, as well as positive effects, it may have. Prophets
of doom have painted a nightmare scenario of self-replicating robots
turning the Earth into a "gray goo." Fears have also been raised
of a risk in breathing in designer materials so small that they can slip
through membranes inside the body. Full
Story Reuters_ 7/29/04
Francis Crick, who
helped unlock DNA, dies
He helped discover the double
helix shape of DNA along with James Watson. Professor Crick died at Thornton
Hospital in San Diego, US, where he had been battling colon cancer. He
was 88. The British-born scientist won the Nobel Prize for his work on
DNA's structure, which he helped model in 1953 at the University of Cambridge. Full
Story BBC News_ 7/29/04
U.S. Energy Department
halts classified research
While teams at Los Alamos National
Laboratory searched for two missing disks, the Energy Department halted
classified research at facilities around the country that use disks like
those missing from the New Mexico lab. Suspension of operations, which
officially takes effect Monday, will be lifted once the inventory of
the disks is completed and new controls are established. Employees using
the disks will also undergo security training. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 7/26/04
New technology may
give voices to Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale
and others
California scientists perfect
techniques to recover the sound from recordings that are far too delicate
to be played. Full
Story BBC News_ 7/23/04
Rivers worked overtime
to cut grand gorges
The Potomac and Susquehanna rivers worked double-time to create gorges that
remain scenic wonders today, carving through bedrock at twice the usual rate. In
a report contained in the journal Science, researchers analyzed rock samples
from the gorges for 10-beryllium, a rare isotope that forms when cosmic rays
from the sun strike rocks and sediments at the earth's surface. Armed with
that information, they could estimate when the rivers exposed bare rock sufaces
and futher calculate how quickly the rivers cut through bedrock. "The
Potomac and Susquehanna have shown they can cut nearly a meter of solid rock
every thousand years," they concluded. "Pretty impressive for old rivers." Full
Story AP _7/22/04
New technology means unlimited Web sites: Hi there. What's
your URL?
Vinton Cerf of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) told
Reuters the next-generation protocol, IPv6, had been added to its root server
systems, making it possible for every person or device to have an Internet
protocol address. Cerf said about two-thirds of the 4.3 billion Internet addresses
currently available were used up, adding that IPv6 could magnify capacity by
some "25,000 trillion trillion times." Full
Story Reuters_ 7/20/04
Web aims to standardise
alphabets
The Internet Company for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which oversees
the system of web addresses and domain names says Asians will make up most
of the net's users within a few years. A conference in Malaysia focuses on
agreements for language standards and the characters in which they are written,
so that internet users who write in Chinese, Arabic, Tamil or other scripts
can communicate more easily. Full
Story BBC News_ 7/19/04
Renaissance possible
for nuclear power generation if longterm radioactive waste storage
problems can be solved
At the Cambridge-MIT Institute
(CMI) in the UK, scientists have been examining how the mineral zircon
(ZrSiO4) has managed to contain radioactive elements. Full
Story BBC News_ 7/18/04
Electronic Frontier
Foundation is an on-line civil liberties group seeking to strike down
patents seen as unwarranted and harmful to innovation
It's hard work. Only 614 of
the nearly 7 million existing patents have been revoked, according to
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The group's list, chosen from 200
suggestions solicited through its Web site, focuses on patents it contends
are being unfairly used to demand licensing fees from rivals or individuals. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 7/16/04
Queen Elizabeth II
knights World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee
The 49-year-old London-born scientist was made a knight commander, the second-highest
rank of the Order of the British Empire. The Web transformed the Internet from
a domain for scientists and academics into the fastest growing mass medium
of all time. Full
Story Reuters_ 7/16/04
Microchips implanted
in Mexican attorney general and other officials
Mexico's top federal prosecutors and investigators began receiving chip implants
in their arms in November in order to get access to restricted areas inside
the attorney general's headquarters, said Antonio Aceves, general director
of Solusat, the company that distributes the microchips in Mexico. More are
scheduled to get "tagged" in coming months, and key members of the
Mexican military, the police and the office of President Vicente Fox might
follow suit, Aceves said. Full
Story AP/MSNBC_ 7/14/04
Futuristic gadget lets police disable suspect vehicles with radio waves
The device, which is effectively
a stun gun for cars, has roused the interest of senior officers and is
being tested by the British Home Office. They believe it could offer
a safe alternative to high speed chases, which all too often result in
deaths. The zapper directs a beam of intensely concentrated radio waves
at the target car's computer-controlled fuel injection and engine firing
systems and makes it stall, safely bringing it to a halt. Full
Story BBC News_ 7/14/04
Geolocation technology
slices, dices Web, but AOL still a problem
The World Wide Web experience is becoming less and less worldwide: As so-called
geolocation technology improves, Web sites are increasingly blocking groups
of visitors and carving the Web into smaller chunks -- in some cases, down
to a ZIP code or employer. AOL still poses problems, as do anonymizing services
designed specifically to hide a user's true identity and location. Dial-up
users also can call another state or country to connect. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 7/12/04
Europe plans lab beneath
the Alps to detect elusive particles from the Sun's core
The ambitious project is in its earliest stages, with the main bodies that
fund particle physics in France and Italy agreeing to start its design. It
will be larger than Japan's Super-Kamiokande detector. The lab will study neutrinos
and observe the decay of protons, possibly helping physicists reach a unified
description of some of nature's fundamental forces. Full
Story BBC News_ 7/09/04
Hi-tech rays to aid
terror fight
A new way of identifying metal and explosives could provide a valuable tool
in the fight against terrorism. A system that that uses Terahertz light detects
both metal and non-metallic weapons could make passenger screening at airports
more effective and quicker. Full
Story _BBC 7/11/04
Do small devices equal
big threat?
Is that cell phone a Trojan horse? It might be, according to a recently released
report, "How to Tackle the Threat From Portable Storage Devices," by
The Gartner Group discussing the security risks associated with the proliferation
of small USB- and Firewire-enabled electronics and peripherals. As as
the cost of RAM chips and hard drives continue to fall, a wide and growing
variety of small and inexpensive devices are available with substantial memory
capacity. Collectively, these devices make possible the uncontrolled transfer
of large quantities of data into and out of business networks. Full
Story e WEEK _7/9/04
FCC boss launches
blog aimed at high-tech industry
U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has started
his own Web log, or blog, to reach out to the high-tech community and bypass
the scores of Washington lobbyists who typically skulk around his office. Powell
said he started the blog to encourage the high-tech industry to get involved
because its past practice of flying under the radar to avoid regulations would
no longer work. Full
Story Reuters_7/9/04
High-tech vehicles
to drive automotive chip demand
New gasoline/electric powered hybrid sedans encourage Japan's chip makers to
see a huge growth opportunity in the auto industry. As electronics become the
main driver of car innovation, chip makers will be among the top beneficiaries,
analysts say. Full
Story _Reuters 7/8/04
Nano-team spins tomorrow's
yarn
Ultra-strong, carbon nanotubes
are just a few billionths of a metre across.
A method to continuously spin carbon nanotubes, worth more per kg than gold,
has been developed by Cambridge-MIT Institute scientists. Potentially
stronger than steel, the light fibre could be very useful in areas of
space, molecular electronics, automobile, and military industries. Full
Story _BBC 7/8/04
Future of hydrogen
power may rest on glass
Researchers at Alfred University
in New York have a $2 million Energy Department grant that's part of
President Bush's FreedomCar program — a $1.2 billion initiative
to develop cars that run on hydrogen-powered fuel cells. They're working
on miniature, super-strong glass spheres, known as microspheres, to transport
hydrogen. Some day motorists may fill their tanks with them. Full
Story MSNBC_ 7/7/04
Microsoft gets U.S. patent to transmit power and data using
the human body
The Guardian reported the technology
could bring in a new class of portable and wearable electronic devices
such as earrings that deliver sounds sent from a phone worn on the belt,
and special eyeglasses with screens that flash up accompanying images
and video footage. Experts in the field told the newspaper they were
surprised Microsoft was granted the patent since IBM demonstrated data
can be transmitted through the human body as far back as 1996. Full
Story Forbes/UPI_ 7/6/04
A nicer, gentler Microsoft
As Microsoft enters more competitive
markets and faces increased grumbling over its litany of security flaws,
the company is trying what, for it, is an unusual tack: paying more attention
its customers. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 7/6/04
Vinci, Italy, birthplace of genius, revs up for opening
of Leonardo's museum
The museum is heaven on earth not just for thinkers but for tinkerers, a shrine
to the first high priest of do-it-yourself. Think solar-heated water, a helicopter,
submarine, a tank, a robot, a parachute, a suspension bridge, a mechanical
calculator and, of course, the automobile. Full
Story Reuters_ 7/5/04
Microsoft begins patching
security flaw in Internet Explorer browser
The update does not entirely fix the flaw that allows a new type of virus to
spread, but it changes settings in Windows operating systems to disable hackers’ ability
to deliver malicious code with it. The software update covers Windows XP, Windows
Server 2003 and Windows 2000, and Microsoft was working on ones for older systems. Full
Story AP/MSNBC 7/2/04
June, 2004
Boeing Co. sells its Commercial Electronics unit to British
aircraft maker and defense contractor BAE Systems PLC for an undisclosed
sum
The Irving, Texas-based unit, which produces electronic systems and equipment
for airplanes, will become part of BAE Systems North America's platform solutions
sector. In July 2003, Boeing announced plans to find a buyer for the unit in
order to focus on large-scale systems integration activities. Full
Story AP/Forbes_ 6/30/04
Steganography: Hiding
messages in music files or photos; It's technology for terrorists and
the paranoid
Steganography, as defined in Webster's Dictionary, is "the art of writing
in cipher, or in characters which are not intelligible except to persons who
have the key." More broadly, though, it has come to mean the practice
of hiding messages in picture or music files in such a way that they do not
change the look or sound of the "carrier." Steganographic software
is readily available on the Internet, some of it for free. Full
Story Reuters_ 6/29/04
Mysterious Microsoft
Explorer nemesis: Wide-scale attack didn't materialize, but experts
fear it'll be back
Computer security experts worked through the night beating back an alarming
Internet nemesis which threatened to steal personal information from Web users,
who had little chance to protect themselves. The danger from the new method
is very real, according to Microsoft Corp. and government officials. Both are
on the lookout for inevitable variations which are sure to follow. Full
Story MSNBC_ 6/25/04
Pouring the perfect
pint: UK student invents device that pours beer while football fans
cheer
Caledonian University product design student David Stevenson said his device
is "fool-proof" and enables football fans to watch replays of crucial
incidents during games, without worrying about accidentally pouring "a
big head" in the glass. The name of his invention? The Homer. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/27/04
Security hole in Microsoft
browser prompts warning not to use MS Internet Explorer
Microsoft is working on a patch to fix flaw that could let criminals take control
of a user's PC. Many popular websites, including banks, auction houses and
price comparison firms, have been compromised, experts say. Once downloaded
the malicious code redirects a browser to a Russian website which tries to
install a program that opens a backdoor into the PC. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/25/04
Comdex, once world's
biggest computer fair, cancelled
Poor attendance figures and a trend towards specialist IT shows means it will
be given a breather but the Computer Dealers Exposition likely will return
to Las Vegas next year, said organisers of the event. At its peak, the show
attracted more than 200,000 visitors with more than one million square feet
of floor space. A faltering technology sector and security concerns from IT
companies has left the show distinctly sparse. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/25/04
Computer pioneer Bob Bemer dies: He helped build ASCII and
then let you "escape"
Bemer, who died of cancer at his Texas home at age 84, worked for IBM Corp.
in the late 1950s and 1960s, where he helped develop the American Standard
Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is a format code used in most computers
in the world that allows them to read text as a binary number. Bemer is also
credited with writing the computer sequence that allows for the "escape" command,
a major innovation because it allowed users to move backward or sideways in
a program. He won the Computer Pioneer Award in 2002 from the IEEE Computer
Society for his work in making it easier for people to move text and images
on a computer screen. Full
Story Reuters_ 6/24/04
World's largest electronics
and computer firms set rules for compatible movie, music and other
sharing devices
Many of the 145 global companies, including Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp.,
are deeply wedded to proprietary ways of storing and processing digital media
content. The group, however, found consensus in common and existing standards
for audio, video and Internet communications. Products that meet the specifications
of the Digital Living Network Alliance will be awarded a logo that will let
shoppers know that such a device will work with other certified products. The
first compatible electronics could start appearing on store shelves by the
end of this year. Full
Story Reuters_ 6/23/04
In UK, surfing the
net while surfing the waves
A prototype surf board has been built by Devon "shaper" Jools Matthews
that houses a laptop, solar panels, and video camera. The world's first wi-fi
board uses a high-speed net connection point - hotspot - positioned on the
North Devon beach. Chip maker Intel commissioned the unusual surfboard to show
off how technology can be brought to the sea and sand. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/18/04
Chillow: Solving the
overheated pillow problem
If you’re one of those people who sometimes wake up in the middle of
the night and can’t find a cool spot to lay your head down –- here's
gadget for you! Chill + pillow = Chillow. It's a thin, flat foam pillow/insert
that’s made of super soft medical-grade materials that are hypoallergenic
and nontoxic. Chillow uses no electricity, batteries, refrigeration or
hocus pocus. Full
Story MSNBC_ 6/18/04
Scientists teleport
atoms for the first time
The feat was achieved by two teams of researchers working independently on
the problem in the US and Austria, the journal Nature reports. The ability
to transfer key properties of one particle to another without using any physical
link has until now only been achieved with laser light. Experts say the capability
to do the same with massive particles like atoms could lead to new superfast
computers, but it's still a long way from the transporters used by Jean-Luc
Picard and Captain Kirk in the famous Star Trek TV series. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/16/04
Hacker attack on Internet
services company Akamai Technologies Inc. disrupts access to Yahoo
Inc., Google, Microsoft and other large Web sites for up to 2 hours
A major "Internet performance
issue" was detected, according to Lloyd Taylor, vice president of
technology and operations for Keynote Systems Inc., which tests and monitors
Web sites. "The availability issues were limited to several large
sites, all of whom outsource their domain name server (DNS) services
to Akamai," he said. "These sites dropped to near-zero availability." Keynote,
which counts Akamai as a customer, said that disruption was the result
of some kind of attack, although they could not speculate who was responsible,
or how it was launched. Full
Story Reuters_ 6/15/04
Smarter technology to defend U.S. ports
To prevent terrorists from smuggling atomic bombs into U.S. ports. Lawrence
Livermore scientists are developing a unique bomb detector that uses subatomic
particles called neutrons to detect highly enriched uranium or plutonium. They
hope it'll be ready for scanning imported cargo containers as early as 2007. Full
Story AP/San Francisco Chronicle_ 6/14/04
Using thought alone,
patients control moves in video game
With some electrodes placed on the surface of the brain, four volunteers were
able to play a simple video game, simply by thinking the word "move," researchers
reported. Their findings add to work being done at several centers and are
aimed at finding ways to help people control computers or machines using brainpower
alone. Potentially, people paralyzed by disease or accidents could use such
devices to work, read, write and even possibly to move around. Full
Story Reuters_ 6/14/04
Inventor of "invisibility" cloak
plans 'invisible walls'
Susumu Tachi, who showed off the cloak at an exhibition in San Francisco earlier
this month, said he was hopeful of providing a way to provide a view of the
outside in windowless rooms. The cloak works by projecting an image onto itself
of what is behind the wearer. A computer generates the image that is projected,
so the viewer effectively sees "through" the cloak. The key to the
cloak, however, was development of a new material called retro-reflectum. There
are many potential uses of the cloak, ranging from espionage and military purposes
to helping pilots see through the floor of the cockpit to the runway below. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/14/04
Bill Bryson wins £10,000 Aventis Prize for popular
science books for A Short History of Nearly Everything
The judging panel said the writer communicated science "in an intelligent
and highly accessible way". Full
Story BBC News_6/14/04
Feature: Tim Berners-Lee, the pioneer who kept the World
Wide Web free, honored with the $1.2 million Millennium
Technology Prize from the Finnish Technology Award Foundation
Berners-Lee, a British scientist
working at a Geneva research laboratory,
conceived of the World Wide
Web in 1989 (originally, Mr. Berners-Lee called it a "mesh" before
changing it to a "web"). Before him, there were no "browsers," nothing
known as "hypertext markup language," no "www" in
any Internet address, no "U.R.L.'s," or uniform resource locators.
He and his colleague, Robert Cailliau, a Belgian, insisted on a license-free
technology. If his employer at the time, CERN, the European Particle
Physics Laboratory in Geneva, had sought royalties, Mr. Berners-Lee said
he thought the world would have 16 different "Webs" on the
Internet today. Full
Story New York Times_ 6/14/04 (logon required)
Famed Hewlett-Packard
Co. labs fellow Alan Kay to receive Kyoto Prize
In giving the 2004 Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology, the Inamori Foundation,
which bestows the honor, said Kay was chosen for "creating the concept
of personal computing and contributing to its realization." Kay, 64, has
a storied history in technology: participating in design of ARPAnet, the forerunner
of the Internet, helping to create an early version of today's laptops, co-founder
of famed Silicon Valley research lab Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC
and a creator of the Xerox Alto, which inspired Steve Jobs and his colleagues
at Apple Computer Inc. to create the Macintosh. Full
Story Reuters_ 6/11/04
Purdue University mathematician claims to have proved the
Riemann Hypothesis - called the greatest unsolved problem in maths
The hypothesis concerns prime numbers and has stumped the world's mathematicians
for more than 150 years. Now, Professor Louis De Branges de Bourcia has posted
a 23-page paper on the internet detailing his attempt at a proof. There is
a $1 million prize for whoever solves the hypothesis. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/10/04
X-ray displays that switch from 2D to 3D in an instant may
aid airport security luggage checkers
The displays by Sharp Labs mean staff can see realistic 3D images from X-rays
without wearing cumbersome glasses. 3D displays have already been used in the
likes of laptops, medical X-rays and mobiles, but being able to switch would
be a first for airport X-rays. It is one of four finalists for the eminent
MacRobert engineering award. The prize is given out by the UK's Royal Academy
of Engineering for technological and engineering innovation, on 10 June. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/9/04
"Invisible squeegee:"Eco
glass cleans itself with sun
A revolutionary kind of glass coating that needs little cleaning could mean
soap and chamois are banned for good. The Pilkington Activ glass has a special
nano-scale - extremely thin - coating of microcrystalline titanium oxide which
reacts to daylight.This reaction breaks down filth on the glass, with no need
for detergent. It's one of four finalists for the eminent MacRobert engineering
award, the prize given by the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering for technological
and engineering innovation. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/8/04
Britain honors 'father of the computer' 50 years after social
stigma caused his suicide
Alan Turing was one of the secret code breakers of the Second World War and
his work helped make the modern PC a reality. It was his idea of creating a
machine to turn thought processes into binary numbers which was one of the
key turning points in the history of the computer. He killed himself on 7 June
1954, by eating an apple he laced with cyanide because he was threatened with
jail for being gay. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/7/04
Technology of the future:
Brits vote for the practical--like that time travel gizmo for the morning
commute
The home smoke alarm, developed in the 1960s, beat the digital camera, mobile
phone and the microwave oven in a survey to find out the British public's top
10 innovations. The poll was conducted by researchers at Brunel University
in west London for the online bank Cahoot. MP3 players came nowhere in the
vote. Full
Story BBC News_ 6/3/04
Gas may have spurred
ancient global warming
A vast belch of gas from beneath the North Atlantic 55 million years ago may
have warmed the planet and hold clues to threats from an even faster modern
surge in greenhouse gases, scientists report in Nature. The apparent release
of hydrocarbons from subsea rocks in the Eocene epoch might also bolster theories
that spasms of volcanic activity could have triggered extinctions like the
demise of the dinosaurs 10 million years before the Eocene. The Eocene global
warming theory bolsters the idea that a buildup of gases can disrupt the global
climate. Full
Story Reuters_6/2/04
E-mail controls loom
in Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean government has proposed to require its internet service providers
to divulge details of e-mails deemed offensive or dangerous. Opposition groups
have asked the government to clarify its proposed addendum to providers' franchise
contracts. The internet is one of the few media left through which opposition
groups can spread their message as the government controls the radio and television
stations and newspapers are under pressure. Full
Story BBC 6/2/04
Department of Homeland
Security names Bermuda-based Accenture as prime contractor for multibillion-dollar "virtual
border" around the U.S.
The project, called U.S.-Visit, is designed to head off would-be terrorists
entering the country and will use the latest technology, including biometrics,
to identify people. The contract was awarded to Accenture, formerly Andersen
Consulting, over two competing contractors, Lockheed Martin and Computer Sciences. Full
Story NY Times_ 6/2/04 (logon required)
Before Eniac, there
was Colossus: Ancestor of today's computers rebuilt to mark D-Day
Colossus Mk2, a wartime code-breaker, crucially found the keys to break the
Lorenz code used by Hitler to encrypt messages to his generals. As part of
D-Day celebrations, 30 war coders gathered to see it once more. It was a prototype
machine which proved the concept of electronic switching. Full
Story BBC News 6/1/04
May, 2004
Flying into a silent
sky future: Cambridge-MIT Institute restyles aircraft to cut noise
No increase in noise around airports is a key requirement for expansion plans.
The research includes collaboration with key industry partners, like Rolls-Royce,
to fundamentally alter a number of the elements of engine technology that contribute
most to noise. Full
Story BBC News_ 5/27/04
Report: Sony Corp. to offer broadband TV by 2006 incorporating
powerful 'Cell' processor
Sony is developing the system with IBM Corp and Toshiba Corp , a Japanese business
daily said. The Cell processor will be up to 10 times more powerful than conventional
chips and able to shepherd large chunks of information through a high-speed
Internet network. Full
Story Reuters_ 5/24/04
This is your life: The rerun
Imagine being able to record
every interesting conversation you have ever held in your life, not
to mention all the photos and writing you have done. Top Internet
researchers attending the annual World Wide Web conference in New
York are wondering what it will mean when individuals can recall nearly
every waking moment. Among the major topics on the agenda of WWW2004 are
ways to make use of the treasure trove of personal data electronic
devices create every day. Full
Story Reuters_ 5/20/04
Mexico's largest
particle detector is being built inside a pyramid in ancient Teotihuacan
The equipment will detect muons, tiny particles that are created when cosmic
rays bombard the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists will track the muons to find
cavities in the pyramid that might be tombs of ancient kings. Full
Story BBC News_ 5/13/04
Public gets glimpse of technology's future
Robots, brain games, flying
machines and a semi-invisibility cloak draw big crowds at NextFest
tech expo. Full
Story San Francisco Chronicle_ 5/17/04
Cisco probing possible
theft of source code
Source code, the underlying blueprint of computer software, determines how
programs work. Companies like Cisco and Microsoft Corp. zealously guard their
source code because they consider it the lifeblood of their business. Some
industry officials said the damage to Cisco would be limited and the possible
theft was more an embarrassment than anything else. Full
Story Reuters_ 5/17/04
NASA's finances in disarray; Auditor PriceWaterhouseCoopers
leaves
The former auditor pointed to significant errors in NASA's last financial statements
and inadequate documentation for $565 billion posted to its accounts. NASA's
chief for internal financial management said the problem stemmed from a rough
transition from 10 different internal accounting programs to a new integrated
one, but PriceWaterhouseCoopers noted basic accounting errors and a breakdown
in NASA's financial controls. Full
Story Reuters_ 5/14/04
Globe grows darker as sunshine diminishes 10% to 37%
Defying expectation and easy explanation, hundreds of instruments around the
world recorded a drop in sunshine reaching the surface of Earth, as much as
10 percent from the late 1950's to the early 90's, or 2 percent to 3 percent
a decade. In some regions like Asia, the United States and Europe, the drop
was even steeper. In Hong Kong, sunlight decreased 37 percent. Full
Story New York Times_ 5/13/04 (logon required)
U.S. government to build world's fastest civilian computer
Viewing supercomputers as crucial to scientific discovery, the Energy Department
plans to build the world's fastest civilian computer. The supercomputer to
be built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee will be funded over
the initial two years by federal grants totaling $50 million. Full
Story AP/San Francisco Chronicle_ 5/11/04
Wanted: High-tech
fishing gear to protect marine mamals, fishing fleets
An unusual partnership
of scientists, the fishing industry and conservation groups, created
the Smart Gear Competition, a contest with a hefty $25,000 prize aimed
at reducing accidental deaths, known as "bycatch." The U.S.
Oceans Commission says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading
threat to marine mammals worldwide. And billions of pounds of "non-target" fish
also are wasted each year; those fish also are considered bycatch. Full
Story CNN_ 5/7/04
Technology, security meeting at airports but cost and privacy
may be deciding factor
The technology to screen for security risks without the knots that bedevil
and delay today's business travel is already on line at some of the world's
airports, but its widespread use hinges on cost and other issues. Electronic
scanners that check all 10 finger prints, sophisticated photo IDS and biometric
data stored in passports all are possible if uniform standards can be worked
out, along with privacy concerns and, of course, money. Full
Story Reuters_ 5/9/04
German net worm
arrests could crack cyber ring: Experts
Since January, a group of crafty programers going by the name "Skynet
anti-virus group" have been flooding the Internet with multiple variations
of the debilitating Netsky virus, some capable of hijacking unwitting Internet
users' PCs with the aim of using them to send out spam e-mail or attack Web
sites. But on Friday, German police made two arrests that security officials
hope could ultimately expose the murky underground of virus-writers and hackers
and crack into one of the most rapidly growing areas of cybercrime. One suspect
admitted writing the super-potent Sasser computer worm and another confessed
to programing a damaging outbreak known first as "Agobot" and later
as "Phatbot." Full
Story Reuters_ 5/8/04
Engineering marvels:
What will they think of next? Would you believe a space elevator?
If engineers get their way the coming decades will see the completion of tunnels
linking continents, offshore airports and the longest bridges the world has
ever seen. There is even talk of a space elevator - which will carry people
from Earth to the stars without the need for cumbersome spaceships. Full
Story BBC News_ 5/7/04
Allied Defense Group
subsidiary VSK Group announces $3 million electronic security contract
from Portugal Telecom
The contract calls for the protection of several hundred remote switching sites
and regional offices with VSK's electronic security products. Full
Story Press Release/PRNewswire 5/6/04
U.S. losing ground
in science and technology due to competition for foreign scientists
A National Science Foundation report says more and more foreign-born scientists
and engineers joined American scientific work force in the 1990s. The board
warned that a loss in the number of foreign-born scientists who want to work
in the United States would hurt the technology sector at a time when many of
its most-educated employees are nearing retirement. Full
Story AP/MSNBC_ 5/5/04
US team on a super-sensitive hunt for the mysterious "dark
matter"
This form of matter comprises more than 70% of the Universe's mass, far more
than the stars and galaxies we can see. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search uses
equipment at the bottom of a Minnesota mine to filter out all interference.
Writing in the Physical Review Letters, the team says that while a detection
has yet to occur, there is now a better idea of how much dark matter must exist. Full
Story BBC News_ 5/5/04
Biowhirlwind: New
technology kills diseases in water
Bioantigen, of Port Talbot,
Wales, and its German partners developed the new bug-busting device
which could help combat bio-terrorism. Its makers say it has attracted
interest from the British Ministry of Defence as well as leading scientists
from around the world. Full
Story BBC News_ 5/4/04
Sasser worm strikes
PCs, spurs hoax 'fix' that actually spreads Netsky virus
The fast-spreading "Sasser" computer worm hit personal computers
around the world on Monday, causing infected systems to reboot without warning
and disrupting banking and other business in one of the biggest virus-like
attacks on the Internet since last summer. The worm exploits a flaw in Microsoft
Corp.'s Windows operating system. By Monday afternoon, computer security companies
were also warning of a new twist on the virus: an email, claiming to be from
an antivirus company with an attachment purporting to fix Sasser infections,
that was actually a new form of the widespread, email-clogging Netsky virus. Full
Story Reuters_ 5/3/04
Talking Card Aims
to Beat Fraud
A California company, Beepcard, says its "talking card" is lining
up to be a serious contender in the fight against fraudulent credit card transactions.
Using biometrics such as voice recognition could eliminate it altogether. "Say
Your Password." Full
Story, BBC News_ 5/2/04
UK Atomic Shutdown
30 Years Early
The UK's Atomic Energy Authority is to decommission a former nuclear research
site 30 years earlier than planned. The site, at Winfrith in Dorset, is due
to be cleared completely by 2020, and much of the area will revert to nature. Government's
financial rules rather than engineering issues made the speed-up possible. Full
Story BBC_ 5/1/03
Early Human Fire
Mastery Revealed
Human-like species migrating out of their African homeland had mastered the
use of fire up to 790,000 years ago, the journal Science reports. The evidence,
from northern Israel, suggests species such as Homo erectus may have been surprisingly
sophisticated in their behaviour. Fire described as 'a very advantageous
technology' which empowered these humans. Full
Story BBC_ 5/1/03
Computer Helps Map
Ancient Rome
A Stanford University computer program is now being used to solve "the
biggest jigsaw in the world". the Forma Urbis Romae, a map of Rome carved
into stone slabs about AD 210 but later broken into so many fragments researchers
could only discern a small percentage of its data. With the new computer analysis,
experts are predicting a huge expansion in knowledge of the map and a new insight
into ancient Rome. Full
Story BBC_ 5/1/04
April, 2004
DNA Computer Detects,
Treats Disease in Test Tube
Scientists have come a step closer to creating a minuscule DNA computer that
may one day be able to spot diseases like cancer from inside the body and release
a drug to treat it. The microscopic computer is so minuscule a trillion could
fit in a drop of water. Full
Story Reuters _4/28/04
Mapsolute,
a leading European Internet mapping provider, today introduced its
new free North American Internet mapping portal, www.map24.com.
The key features of the
North American portal are its incredible speed and the ease-of-use
of the map itself. The map rendering is many times faster than other
North American map sites, making it much easier to navigate. Zooming
and panning is performed in an animated fashion. In addition, the
map is uniquely interactive, allowing users to click on embedded map
objects to get detailed information about individual points of interest. Full
Story Press Release_ 4/30/04
Lawmakers Vow to
Pass New Law Against Spyware
U.S. lawmakers vow to pass legislation to stop the proliferation of so-called "spyware" that
hides in users' computers and secretly monitors their activities. FTC
commissioner Mozelle Thompson said it would be difficult to craft a law that
would distinguish between spyware and legitimate software. Full
Story Reuters_4/29/04
UK Researchers Push
to Tap Radio Wave Technology
Using radio waves, microwaves, infra-red and x-rays - collectively known as
the electromagnetic spectrum - in innovative ways could bring in $Billions
of new business, according to a UK government study. Full
Story BBC News_ 4/29/04
Leonardo Da Vinci:
Inventor of the Car?
The Museum of History and Science in Florence -- the heart of Renaissance Italy
-- unveiled the first "automobile" built based on some of the sketches
from da Vinci's famous notebooks. The primitive-looking contraption runs on
springs instead of petrol and was probably intended to produce special effects
at courtly events, but it was still the world's first self-propelled "vehicle," the
experts said. Full
Story Reuters_ 4/23/04
Visit "Leonardo's
automobile" at the Museum of History and Science
German researchers
create mobile phone with text messages that your fingertips can
'read'
Benefits include being able to read messages with total privacy or under poor
lighting conditions. Tactile actuator arrays built into steering wheels or
control handles could provide car drivers or pilots with information as to
the right route or warn them in difficult situations. The scientists are also
looking to apply the process in the field of medical engineering, to reproduce
sounds for the deaf, or as a visual aid for the blind. Full
Story BBC News_ 4/22/04
Northern Ireland
opens £8m nanotech research institute at the University of
Ulster
Nanotechnology--making tiny machines out of molecules--has been criticised
by environmentalists who say that swarms of rogue "nanomachines" could
destroy the world. However, scientists believe it can become an important part
of our future. Full
Story BBC News_ 4/21/04
Governments scramble
to prevent global Internet disruptions
Experts said a flaw, disclosed by the British government, affects the underlying
technology for nearly all Internet traffic. Left unaddressed, they said, it
could allow hackers to knock computers offline and broadly disrupt vital traffic-directing
devices, called routers, that coordinate the flow of data among distant groups
of computers. Full
Story AP/MSNBC_ 4/20/04
3-D Internet search
engine for engineers
All users have to do is sketch what they're thinking of, and the search engines
can produce comparable objects. One search engine will serve huge industrial
companies whose engineers often waste time and energy designing a specialized
part when someone else has already created, used or rejected something similar. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 4/16/04
Sony Corp., Toppan
Printing Ltd. develop paper optical disc for next generation of
DVDs
The lower-cost disc can store up to five times more information than current
discs, because it is based on blue-laser DVD technology. Blue-laser DVD players
are expected to replace the current generation of red-laser DVD players in
a few years. Full
Story Reuters_ 4/16/04
Hackers hit some of the world's most powerful computer clusters
in an apparently coordinated cyberattack targeting research and
academic institutions
Stanford University, the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the University
of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications were among the
systems hit. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 4/15/04
EarthLink and eBay
unite to fight phish data-stealing
EarthLink's anti-phisher program will rely on a list of known fraudulent sites.
When a subscriber responds to the e-mail message, he will be linked instead
to a special Web page that warns the e-mail is a fraud. The site also will
provide a chance to report the hoax attempt. EarthLink and eBay are sharing
internal lists of fraudulent Web sites. Full
Story AP/CNN_ 4/15/04
Radio telescope
pioneer George Sutton Parks Jr. dead at 70
Mr. Parks led the construction of the 150-foot dish in the foothills behind
Stanford University in the early 1960s. It was initially used to study radio
transmission in the upper atmosphere and solar "winds," and to track
the Pioneer space probe in deep space. The Stanford dish remains in use. Full
Story San Francisco Chronicle_ 4/15/04
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, "Father of the Web," wins
one million euro Millennium Technology Prize awarded by the Finnish
Technology Award Foundation
In 1991, the British scientist came up with a system to organise, link and
browse net pages which revolutionised the internet. Full
Story BBC News_ 4/15/04
MI Technologies
appoints Dr. Carlo Rizzo European Operations Manager
In this new position, Dr. Rizzo will be responsible for all of MI
Technologies' sales activities in Europe including the solicitation of
orders, maintaining customer relationships and coordination of sales
representatives and distributors. Full
Story Press Release 4/12/04
The draw of lucrative technology patent licensing deals
swells the ranks of specialty businesses
These new companies, often run by former Silicon Valley executives, buy unused
patents from companies, broker deals between buyers and sellers of patents,
and act as patent "investment banks" to turn knowledge into new businesses. Full
Story Reuters_ 4/11/04
France to restore
550 public sector research posts and create more than 1,000 new
teaching posts at universities
The move follows high-profile protests by scientists and researchers over plans
to cut funds from basic research. The researchers warned that the funding crisis
would lead to a national brain drain. Full
Story BBC News_ 4/8/04
When American forces
in Afghanistan shut down al Qaeda terrorist training camps, experts
say the terror group moved its bases to the virtual world.
Israeli terror analyst Reuven Paz believes the Internet has become the primary
communication tool for al Qaeda. Full
Story CNN_ 4/8/04
GPS inducted into
2004 Space Technology Hall of Fame
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) began developing GPS
software in 1985. It uses a multitude of ground tracking stations and GPS satellites
to determine locations anywhere on Earth down to a few millimeters in accuracy.
The system can also work in reverse, tracking satellite orbits equipped with
positioning beacons with an accuracy of a few centimeters. Full
Story Space.com_ 4/7/04
Jordan's king puts
faith in hi-tech
King Abdullah of Jordan hopes to turn the country into the hi-tech capital
of the Middle East. Full
Story BBC News 4/4/04
March, 2004
Email from the clothes
dryer: Your laundry is done
Carnegie Mellon University
is testing e-Suds, a Web-based system that sends e-mail to students
when their laundry is done and allows them to log on to an Internet
site to check the status of machines. It was developed by USA Technoligies. Full
Story AP/MSNBC 3/31/04
Bill Gates: Computer
hardware to be nearly free in 10 years
The world's largest software maker is betting that advances in hardware and
computing will make it possible for computers to interact with people via speech
and that computers which can recognize handwriting will become as ubiquitous
as Microsoft's Windows operating system. Full
Story Reuters 3/29/04
Sir Michael Atiyah
and Isadore Singer have been awarded the £480,000 prize Abel
Prize for mathematics. The UK and US researchers developed
the Atiyah-Singer theorem that allowed physicists to devise new
theories about the cosmos. Full
story BBC News 3/26/04
Sony, Philips and digital paper pioneer E-Ink announce an
electronic book reader that is goes on sale in Japan in late April
for $375
Called Librié, the device will be the size of a paperback book and can
hold 500 texts in its onboard memory. It also can download fresh reading material,
including newspapers and magazines. Full
story BBC News 3/26/04
Opera Software is
developing a voice operated Web browser
The new browser incorporates IBM's ViaVoice technology, enabling the computer
to ask what the user wants and "listen" to the request. Opera declined
to give a launch date. Full
story AP/CNN 3/24/04
U.S. government
wants to approve some new online communication companies to ensure
they offer wiretapping tools
Critics, including some online businesses that are working with authorities
to make their services wiretap-capable, say the DOJ proposal isn't just unprecedented
and overzealous but also dangerously impractical. Full
story AP/CNN 3/23/04
Next generation
Internet
Known as Internet Protocol version 6, it took another big step toward
commercialization as its second phase of testing in North America wrapped up
last week. Full
story CNET News.com/MSNBC 3/23/04
Intel strips 'Gigahertz' from computer chip names
Taking a page from automobile marketers, Intel Corp. will now assign model
numbers to its chips and eliminate measurements of raw speed from its product
names. "It is confusing, and it's going to take a tremendous amount of
education on the part of Intel and Intel's customers for this to sort of get
assimilated into the marketplace," said Nathan Brookwood, who runs the
research firm Insight 64. Full
story Reuters 3/19/04
Ten organizations
submit applications for new Internet domains, including ".mobi" for
mobile services and ".xxx" for adult content.
The new domains could be approved as early as this year and would be the first
major additions since 2000. Full
story AP/CNN 3/20/04
Chemistry Nobel winner Sir John Pople dies
By 1952, he had formulated his basic plan to make mathematical models for studying
molecules without performing experiments. Full
story BBC News 3/18/04
'Mind-reading' system
created by NASA
The sensors have already been used to do simple web searches and may one day
help space-walking astronauts and people who cannot talk communicate. The sensors
could send commands to rovers on other planets or help injured astronauts control
machines. Full story NewScientist.com 3/18/04
Vietnam veteran
develops a skycam for a laptop-toting infantry: device can prevent
ambushes
After seeing how easily
photos could be transferred between digital cameras and laptop computers,
he came up with a way for soldiers to get a quick bird's eye view
of the battlefield. Full
story AP/MSNBC 3/18/04
A paper computer
is among the gadgets galore on show at the Cebit technology faire
This year some of the bullishness of previous years has returned thanks to
the growing success of wifi, renewed interest in mobile phones and the growing
role of the PC as the heart of the digital, hi-tech home. Full
story BBC News 3/17/04
Utah company launches
lower-priced cable TV alternative
USDTV collects feeds from broadcast stations and cable networks at a single
digital transmission tower, which then uses once-idle bandwidth -- bought from
the stations -- to spray the signals to standard UHF/VHF antennas. Full
story AP/CNN 3/17/04
South African scientist
wins world's richest prize
George Ellis, who studies the relationship between faith and science, was awarded
the $1.4 million Templeton Prize. Full
story AP/MSNBC 3/17/04
Guinness record
for Toshiba's stamp-sized hard disk drive
The electronics conglomerate's 0.85-inch HDDs, unveiled in January, have storage
capacity of up to four gigabytes and will be used in products such as cellphones
and digital camcorders. Full
story Reuters 3/16/04
Controling fluids
with specially fabricated silicon nanograss
Scientists at Bell Labs have discovered an entirely new method to control the
behavior of tiny liquid droplets. Full
story Space Daily 3/16/04
Computer privacy
protecting programs eliminated from U.S. research
Two cutting-edge computer projects designed to preserve the privacy of Americans
were quietly killed while Congress was restricting Pentagon data-gathering
research in a widely publicized effort to protect innocent citizens from futuristic
anti-terrorism tools. Full
story AP/MSNBC 3/15/04
Nanotechnology:
Tiny hope or big hype?
Show us the profits, the skeptics shout. Nanotechnology will amount to nanoprofits,
they worry as they tick off a list of technologies from artificial intelligence
to virtual reality that looked cool in the lab but have foundered commercially. Full
story AP/CNN 3/15/04
Space billboards:
Inventor patents device for advertising from space: Saturn,
your ad here
Orion, the Big Dipper and Andromeda could be joined in the heavens by ads for
soft drinks and cigarettes if a Russian inventor's device catches on. "Space
commercials could embrace huge areas and a colossal number of consumers," he
said. "This would literally be intercontinental coverage." Full
story AP/CNN.com 3/11/04
High-tech sonar
to help search for water taxi victims
Recovery teams returned to Baltimore Harbor's frigid waters Monday with state-of-the-art
sonar to help in their search for three people still missing from a weekend
water taxi accident. Full
story CNN 3/8/04
Miniature fuel cells
may oust batteries
A trick that boosts the power of miniature hydrogen fuel cells by up to 50
per cent has been revealed by US researchers. Such fuel cells could help keep
portable gadgets up and running - cellphone giant Nokia warned last week that
battery technology is not keeping pace with advanced phone functions. Full
story New Scientist 3/8/04
Award-winning video
captures water, oil, mixing
Steven Spielberg, eat your heart out. A team consisting of an art student and
mechanical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has made an award-winning
movie that captures for the first time the fluid mechanics phenomenon of two
things that classically don't mix, doing just that. Full
story Press Release 3/3/04
2004 Tech Notes August to December
News Index
Home
|
