Technology news

Nanobot lets DNA legs do the walking

2009-01-09T03:15:00.000-08:00

A TWO-legged molecular machine that can walk unaided along a single strand of DNA could one day shift cargo around nanofactories. That's the promise of a walking molecular nanobot made by researchers at the University of Oxford.

Molecular engines that walk along strands of DNA are nothing new, but none has featured as many successful features as the Oxford team's device. Unlike earlier attempts, their nanobot doesn't wander aimlessly back and forth, fall off its track or destroy its track as it walks. The team have also devised an ingenious way of powering the nanobot that allows it to move freely.

The walker consists of two connected feet, each made of a short sequence of DNA bases that attach to a complementary sequence on the DNA track. However, the sequence of bases on the track is designed so that the feet have to compete for a foothold. That means that as one foot steps down, the other is forced to lift off.

The power for this process is supplied by molecules floating nearby, which react together to release energy as long as a specific catalyst is there. The clever part of the design is that the DNA feet themselves act as the catalyst when they lift off the track.

The new walker is designed so that only the back foot can lift at any one time. The walker can put its foot back in the same place or move it forwards but it cannot take a backward step. This also ensures that one foot is always attached to the track.

This design solves some long-standing problems with walking molecules. In some designs, both feet can become detached at the same time, allowing the walker to float away; in others, the feet are just as likely to step backwards as forwards and so end up going nowhere.

There are challenges ahead, however. One is that the DNA track easily gets tangled, preventing the walker from moving. "At the moment, the nanobot has taken a single step but our ambition is to make it move 100 nanometres or more," says Andrew Turberfield, a physicist at the University of Oxford who led the research. To do that, the team will have to find a way to straighten the tracks.

So what else could the nanobot be coaxed into doing? "We can already stop and start our motor by controlling the amount of fuel we add, but we could add other control signals to make walkers interact with each other, and could easily attach a cargo to the region that links the two legs."

LG introduces 3G HSDPA wrist phone

2008-12-31T03:07:00.000-08:00

Korea-based LG has introduced its latest mobile device, the LG-GD910 wrist-phone featuring support for both 3G and HSDPA technology. The user interface is presented through a 1.43-inch color LCD touchscreen, while a video camera has been integrated into the watch face for video recording or conferencing. The device also offers text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities, Bluetooth, MP3 playback and voice dialing with speech recognition. The company claims download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps when using HSDPA.

The LG-GD910 is scheduled for an official debut at CES in January. European and Korean customers will have the first opportunity to purchase the new wrist phones, although pricing has not yet been announced.

[Akihabara News]

Sony’s Netbook “fits in a pocket”, Might Not Fit Netbook Category

2008-12-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

Actually, Sony has this “P-series” VAIO on their notebook section in the SonyStyle store, so maybe netbook isn’t the right term. Just ask Psion, if you don’t believe me. Eagle-eye reader Jose was browsing Sony’s online storefront and caught the new P hiding unsuccessfully at the front of the VAIO line. Not much to go on, but more than we had before although the picture is a TT-device placeholder. Looks like a 1.33GHz Intel CPU which could mean an Atom (dual core perhaps?), but might also be a variant of Intel’s Core Solo like the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC. She’ll come with Windows Vista Home Premium or Home Basic which is unlike most netbooks out on the market today.

Typical of Sony portable computers, the P will have a high-resolution screen. This one is eight-inches with a whopping 1600×768 res. That means you won’t have nearly as much scrolling as the typical 1024×600 netbook display. Of course, that’s assuming your eyes can handle the strain. I suspect many would-be owners will boosting up the DPI and font sizes. Storage comes in the form of a traditional hard drive up to a measly 60GB but you can opt for a 128GB SSD drive, which will likely bump up pricing a few hundred dollars.

First impressions of the limited specifications tell me that this isn’t a netbook in the traditional, expected sense… if you can call a first year product “traditional”. It doesn’t appear that Sony’s offering will compete on price in the netbook market as I’d expect a base starting price near the top-end of fully loaded netbooks. With options, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this small notebook command over a thousand dollars. That fits in with the “fits in a pocket” claim, because you won’t just need big pockets to afford this “netbook”, you’ll need a deep one to tote that 8-inch screen as well. I’m still convinced the form-factor is akin to a clamshell like the old HP Journada. Thanks Jose!

http://jkontherun.com/2008/12/25/sonys-netbook-fits-in-a-pocket-might-not-fit-netbook-category/

Microsoft Puts The Royal Navy Under Water

2008-12-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

The British Royal Navy has developed a modified version of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system for its warships. The first version, "Windows for Submarines," is being installed on the fleets nuclear submarines. Versions of this operating system is being adapted for surface ships as well.

The British selected a commercial operating system for this because it was cheaper to maintain, and easier to train sailors in its use. It took a lot less time to develop the new ship-wide network (everything is connected by commercial Ethernet cables and software) using Windows, and XP is one of the more stable versions of Windows (which runs on 85 percent of the worlds PCs). The security risks inherent in Windows (which attracts most of the attention from hackers) were tended to during the modification of Windows for navy use. How well the Royal Navy version of Windows stands up to the hackers, remains to be seen.

In contrast, the U.S. Navy uses Linux to run critical systems on its warships. The U.S. Army is using Linux for its networked FCS (Future Combat System) vehicles (which are still in development). The army is also converting many of its Microsoft Windows applications to run under Linux.

It's not just the better security Linux provides, but the fact that there are many versions of Linux to choose from, and the operating system is easier to modify (being an "open source" system, unlike the proprietary Windows.) Currently, the U.S. Department of Defense has over 200 Linux based software projects in development. The military uses custom made software for its most critical applications, and it's easier to create this stuff using Linux.

Government buildings emit more CO2 than all of Kenya

2008-12-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

Public buildings in England and Wales are pumping out 11m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, more than Kenya's entire carbon footprint, the Guardian can reveal.

Unpublished findings of an energy efficiency audit of 18,000 buildings including ministerial offices, police stations, museums and art galleries reveal that the 9,000 buildings audited so far produce 5.6m tonnes of CO2, with one in six receiving the lowest possible energy efficiency rating.

The carbon dioxide they produce is the equivalent of all the greenhouse gas emissions saved by the UK's wind power industry.

Ignorance among officials, inefficient equipment and poor energy management have been cited as reasons for the result, which was described as "lamentable" by environmental campaigners. It comes despite ministerial pledges to slash the carbon footprint of government offices by 30% over the next 12 years compared with 1999-2000 levels.

Officials expect the carbon footprint to double when the audit is completed. Almost half of those tested so far have received an energy efficiency rating of E, F or G, the lowest possible and the equivalent of a gas guzzling car.

Embarrassingly for Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, his department's head office in Whitehall Place is one of the worst offenders. It pumps out 1,336 tonnes of CO2 a year and received a G rating. The Houses of Parliament and the Bank of England together consumed enough electricity and gas to emit 21,356 tonnes of CO2 a year, the equivalent of more than 14,000 people flying from London to New York.

Almost 70% of public offices had a larger carbon footprint than a typical office, as defined by the government, and while only 55 of the 8,849 buildings examined so far received an A ranking, 1,514 scored a G. The data was released following a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

In response, environmental campaigners and opposition parties called on the government to invest in an urgent programme of refurbishment to reduce the carbon footprint of the public estate, and cut energy bills for the public sector which currently add up to around £4bn a year.

"This confirms that the leadership society needs from government on reducing carbon emissions from buildings isn't there," said Tony Juniper, an independent sustainability campaigner and former director of Friends of the Earth. "For the UK to have any chance of meeting the 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, which is now enshrined in law, there has to be radical change in this area."

Earlier this year, the government's own architecture adviser, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, said the majority of government departments were "failing to make their new buildings and refurbishments sustainable" and that those operating them had little idea how to improve their efficiency.

"These figures show there is a desperate need to sort out the public building stock," said Steve Webb, spokesman on energy and climate change for the Lib Dems. "If business and householders see the public sector is not taking energy efficiency seriously, they will wonder why they should do so themselves. Instead of making a £12bn VAT cut, the government should have spent some of that money making public buildings energy efficient, saving money and carbon in the long term."

Buildings consume close to half of the electricity and heat produced by the power sector, according to Sir Nicholas Stern's review of the economics of climate change. On current trends, Stern predicted CO2 emissions from buildings will rise 140% by 2050.

John Alker, public affairs manager of the UK Green Building Council, said: "Many of our public sector offices, schools and hospitals are the building equivalent of gas-guzzling cars.

The government has set a target to cut CO2 by 30% from its own buildings by 2020. Frankly, they should do more because their track record leaves a lot to be desired. We need a comprehensive programme of green refurbishment in the public sector, which is responsible for about a third of all non-domestic buildings."

But plans to "green" the Palace of Westminster as an example to the rest of the public sector, have been scaled back, the Guardian has learned. Designs for wind and tidal turbines and solar panels to produce electricity are now unlikely to come to fruition after calculations that the investment needed would not result in quick-enough savings on energy bills.

A spokesman for the Office of Government Commerce, which has responsibility for the energy performance of public buildings, said it had set up a centre of expertise to help the public sector improve energy efficiency and meet government targets. "A comprehensive delivery plan has been produced detailing departmental activities to achieve the targets for sustainable operations across Whitehall, and real progress continues to be made," he said.

P.s Visit this site http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/

AT&T, Verizon Finalize Asset Swap

2008-12-26T04:07:00.000-08:00

Following regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice, AT&T and Verizon Wireless have completed a wireless asset swap.

In July 2007, Verizon Wireless gained about 700,000 subscribers when it acquired Rural Cellular for $2.67 billion. Verizon's network is based on CDMA technology, but Rural Cellular uses both CDMA and GSM.

AT&T's network uses GSM technology, and the asset swap gives it some of Rural Cellular's licenses, network assets, and subscribers. The company said the deal should improve voice and data services in Kentucky, New York, Vermont, and Washington.

On the other side of the deal, Verizon receives licenses, networks, assets, and subscribers from AT&T in Kentucky. The wireless assets come from AT&T's 2007 acquisition of Dobson Communications. Verizon will also receive 10 MHz of personal communications service spectrum for wireless services in an unspecified number of markets.

The swap was agreed to more than a year ago, and it's finalized as the mobile carriers are battling for subscribers. AT&T is the largest U.S. carrier in terms of subscribers with 71.4 million, and it has a large portfolio of attractive smartphones like the BlackBerry Bold, the iPhone 3G, and the HTC Fuze.

But with its $28.1 billion acquisition of Alltel, Verizon is set to become the largest U.S. carrier. The mobile operator will have nearly 80 million subscribers when the merger is completed. Verizon also is boosting its selection of smartphones and is the exclusive U.S. carrier of the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm and the Samsung Omnia.

The U.S. market may not have much room for brand-new subscribers, and industry experts see carrier growth mainly coming from poaching customers from other operators or through acquisition. With its 6.2 million subscribers, U.S. Cellular could be a target in 2009, and it operates on the same CDMA infrastructure Verizon uses. But the economic downturn and the expected contraction in the mobile market may make next year tough for acquisitions.

iPhone Gets High-Profile Apps

2008-12-26T04:04:00.001-08:00

Apple's App Store continues to be popular with consumers, and it has attracted applications from high-profile organizations such as Hewlett-Packard, National Public Radio, and USA Today.

HP launched an application earlier this week that enables customers to wirelessly print photos from their iPhone or iPod Touch. The first application of its kind, the HP iPrint Photo app currently lets consumers print 4-by-6-inch photos over Wi-Fi networks on HP printers.

The app is fully compatible with Apple's Bonjour technology, as well as the multitouch interface of Apple's devices. It works only with JPEG images, but that could change in the future, HP said.

"Today's news demonstrates how HP is enabling customers to turn special moments captured on the go into high-quality photos," HP executive VP Vyomesh Joshi said in a statement.

Apps with a news focus have received a warm reception, and the App Store is already filled with news apps from the BBC, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and others. NPR and USA Today are the latest news organizations to get on the iPhone.

The free NPR Mobile enables users to browse and stream audio content from NPR's large library. Users can find full-length programs, segments, and programming that isn't available on local stations.

"Oftentimes, when I wake up in the morning, I half-hear a story on Morning Edition, and want to come back to it later in the day," the app developer wrote on NPR's blog. "With NPR Mobile, I've been able to do this, and hear the full story on my time."

USA Today's application is similar to other news publications, and users can read headlines from various topics. These headlines can be shared with others via text message, e-mail, or Twitter. The app also takes advantage of the iPhone's GPS to find the user's location for weather information, and it allows users to participate in interactive poll questions.

Enterprise IT is under increasing pressure to support mobile applications, partner with carriers, and develop new support models. An InformationWeek Report examines the technology trends and drivers and helps you determine the best strategies to ensure that your organization will be ready.

Stylus makes MacBook trackpad work like pen tablet

2008-12-26T03:57:00.001-08:00

Ten One Design has introduced Pogo Sketch, a new stylus made specifically for Apple's newest MacBook models and their trackpads. It costs $14.95 and is now available for pre-order.

The Pogo Sketch, cast in aluminum and made with an anodized silver finish, lets you use your MacBook's trackpad as you would a pen tablet—enabling you to sketch and illustrate in drawing programs and artistic applications more naturally and accurately than you could with your finger alone.

The Pogo Sketch features a tip that "acts as a bridge by transferring the signal from the display to the user’s hand," according to the manufacturer.

The Pogo Sketch also works with the iPhone and iPod touch.

The geek gifts you didn't get for Christmas 2008

2008-12-26T03:55:00.001-08:00

San Francisco - It's hard to be a geek at Christmastime. Sure, there are lots of cool tech toys and gadgets on display on store shelves, and a few may have landed under your tree this year. Perhaps Absolutely Mad: 50 Years of Mad Magazine on DVD, a Microsoft Xbox 360, an Apple MacBook Pro 2008 edition, a Garmin Nuvi 880, and one or more of the hot smartphones: the Apple iPhone 3G, the Palm Treo Pro, the RIM BlackBerry Storm, or the T-Mobile G1.

But it takes a geek to know what a true geek really wants, and chances are your friends and family aren't all that geeky.

So which true-geek items might they have given you? InfoWorld's band of mad scientists -- a motley crew of software, networking, datacenter, and hardware experts that habituates the InfoWorld Test Center -- offers recommendations on what they lust after ??? and know their fellow geeks do, too. Christmas may be over, but you can still give the gift of geek tech to yourself

[ Watch our geek gift guide slideshow. | Looking for a high-tech collectible? Peruse David Margulius' collectible tech gift guide. | Curious about last year's geek gift guide recommendations? Check them out! ]

In alphabetical order, here are our top 10 picks:
* Apple Time Capsule
* Botanicalls DIY Plant Twitter Kit
* Cathode Corner Nixie Watch
* EVGA GTX 200 Waterblock
* Eye-Fi Explore
* 4th Motion Gyroxus Full-Motion Game Chair
* MvixUSA MvixBox
* Sky Factory SkyV
* SRS Labs iWow for iPod Adapter
* Yoggie Gatekeeper Pico

And delve into our guide to collectible tech.

OK, we know you also really want a new mobile. If you didn't get one for the holidays, get the scoop on InfoWorld Test Center's top mobile picks.

Notebooks outship desktops for first time

2008-12-26T03:51:00.001-08:00

Worldwide notebook computer shipments topped those of desktops for the first time ever in the third quarter, research group iSuppli said on Tuesday, calling it a "watershed event" for the industry.

Shipments of notebook PCs surged nearly 40 percent to 38.6 million units, while desktop shipments fell 1.3 percent to 38.5 million.

Overall, PC shipments rose 15.4 percent in the quarter to 79 million units.

Acer Inc shipped almost 3 million more notebooks in the third quarter than in the previous quarter, with the majority being netbooks, iSuppli said. The Taiwanese company is now the third largest PC company by market share at 12.2 percent, less than two percentage points behind second-place Dell Inc.

Hewlett-Packard Co maintained its lead at No. 1, shipping 14.9 million units for an 18.8 percent market share.

Apple Inc lost nearly half a point of market share from the second quarter. The company's 3.2 percent share places it seventh overall in total shipments.

ISuppli raised slightly its 2008 unit growth forecast. It now expects 13 percent growth this year, up from its previous 12.5 percent forecast.

For 2009, the group expects unit growth of 4.3 percent.

RIM sues Motorola for blocking job offers

2008-12-26T03:50:00.001-08:00

BOSTON (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd is suing Motorola Inc, alleging that the mobile phone company improperly blocked the BlackBerry maker from hiring current and laid-off Motorola employees.

The suit, filed in state court in Chicago on Tuesday, comes three months after Motorola alleged that RIM violated an agreement reached in February that the two companies would not solicit each other's employees.

RIM asked for a court order to invalidate the agreement, saying in its complaint that the pact had expired in August and was no longer enforceable.

The Canadian company is also seeking unspecified damages for what it called "unfair competition" practices by Motorola.

Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch-Erickson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

"RIM entities continue to grow and hire new employees within the United States and globally against a backdrop of recent public announcements by Motorola that it has and will continue to make massive layoffs," said RIM's lawsuit.

In the lawsuit filed by Motorola on September 4, the Schaumburg, Illinois-based company asked a judge to bar RIM from using Motorola's confidential information, or soliciting or hiring any Motorola employees.

RIM officials could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit, Research in Motion Corp vs Motorola Inc, was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Chancery Division, Case Number 717-200S.

Paolini, Pullman with books coming to iPhones

2008-12-26T03:45:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK – Christopher Paolini's "Brisingr," Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and Peter Matthiessen's award-winning "Shadow Country" are among the dozen-plus books coming to the iPhone and to iPod Touch, publisher Random House Inc. announced Monday "We are pleased to be making this initial list of outstanding books by some of our top-selling authors available to a ground-breaking group of readers," Matt Shatz, Random House's vice president for digital books, said in a statement.

Random House recently announced it was adding thousands of books to its digital catalog and has said that e-sales more than tripled in 2008, although the electronic market remains a tiny part of the overall book market.

Several other publishers, including Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins, have been making e-books available on iPhones.

Nintendo says to offer videos on Wii (AFP)TOKYO (AFP) - Nintendo Co. said Thursday it will start offering videos through its blockbuster Wii game cons

2008-12-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

TOKYO (AFP) - Nintendo Co. said Thursday it will start offering videos through its blockbuster Wii game console, the latest new feature for the Japanese entertainment giant.

Nintendo said it would develop original programming which Wii users could access via the Internet and watch on their television. It is considering videos for both free and fees.

The game giant teamed up with Japan's leading advertising firm Dentsu Inc. to develop the service, which will begin in Japan next year, with an eye on future expansion into foreign markets.

Japanese rival Sony Corp. has already started using its popular PlayStation series for online movie sales and advertising by placing corporate messages inside games, which often have highly niche audiences.

One prominent advertiser was US president-elect Barack Obama, who placed campaign commercials inside a video game produced by Electronic Arts for Microsoft's XBox 360 console.

Nintendo and Dentsu said they were soliciting businesses to take part in the project to develop original Wii videos.

"Nintendo and Dentsu shall use the environment surrounding the Wii so that living rooms with Wii-ready TVs would become more of a fun area for communication among families and friends," the firms said in a joint statement.

Nintendo has shipped 34.55 million Wii consoles around the world, 80 percent of which are sitting near televisions in living rooms, the company said, adding that 40 percent of Wii consoles are linked to the Internet.

The Wii, launched ahead of the holiday season in 2006, is known for its innovative motion-sensitive controller which has appealed to people buying a video-game machine for the first time.

Nintendo already enables Wii players to use the game consoles to surf the Internet, shop online, organise digital photos and to communicate with Wii-using friends.

Nintendo in November launched in Japan the DSi, which comes with a built-in camera that lets allows the user to alter people's facial expressions.

Google, Apple, Microsoft Sued Over File Preview

2008-12-25T16:05:00.000-08:00

A small Indiana company has sued tech heavyweights Microsoft, Apple, and Google, claiming that it holds the patent on a common file preview feature used by browsers and operating systems to show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened.

Cygnus Systems sued the three companies on Wednesday saying that they infringed on its patent with products such as Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome, which allow users to view preview images of documents on the computer. Mac OS X, the iPhone and Safari also infringe, the company said in court filings. Apple uses this technology in its Finder and Cover Flow Mac OS X features, the filings state.

While Cygnus has sued three very high profile companies, there may not be the only vendors in Cygnus's sites. "They were a logical starting place for us," said Matt McAndrews, a partner with the Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, law firm, which is representing Cygnus. "We've identified many other potentially infringing products that we're investigating," he added.

Cygnus's owner and president Gregory Swartz developed the technology laid out in the patent while working on IT consulting projects, McAndrews said. The company is looking for "a reasonable royalty" as well as a court injunction preventing further infringement, he said.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Arizona, where Swartz resides, McAndrews said.

Google, Microsoft and Apple did not return messages seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Cygnus applied for its patent (# 7346850) in 2001. It covers a "System and method for iconic software environment management" and was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in March of this year.

Psion pushing takedowns over "netbook" name

2008-12-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sites using the term "netbook" to refer to the recent wave of mini notebooks are starting to receive cease and desist letters over its alleged infringement of a trademark for a Psion device with a similar name, say site owners reporting their problems to jkOnTheRun. The largely defunct PDA maker has claimed that various enthusiast pages are inadvertently using the name of its discontinued netBook and netBook Pro devices and is asking the sites to phase out use of the term by the end of March. Psion doesn't say what the consequences will be but warns that continued use will "damage" its trademarks. The accusations are controversial both through their attempt to link a generic term to a no longer produced device but also through their implications for Intel, which is largely credited with inventing the modern use of "netbook" and promoting its use. No action is yet known to have been taken against Intel, nor have any immediate links been made between Psion's Linux-based organizer and the newer, more abstract concept.

The current definition of the word refers to a very small notebook built primarily for accessing the Internet and which doesn't need large amounts of processing power or storage as a result. Psion's device shares similarities in its blend between PDA and notebook functions but is focused more on offline content and runs a relatively feature-limited operating system versus the full Linux or Windows XP operating systems on today's systems.

A superhydrophobic coating on aluminium foil with an anti-corrosive property

2008-12-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

Qian Feng Xu and Jian Nong Wang

A superhydrophobic coating with an anti-corrosive property has been fabricated on aluminium foil by a simple sol–gel method with polystyrene spheres (PS) included as a removable template. The effects of the size of PS on the surface structure and the superhydrophobicity have been researched. When the size of PS is 200 nm, the prepared coating shows a high static water contact angle (CA) larger than 150° but also a large adhesive force with the substrate, and the water droplet can be pinned on the substrate tilted at any angle. When the size of PS is 500 nm, the prepared coating has a CA as high as 160°, and the water droplet can roll off the substrate easily. Under this circumstance, the coated aluminium foil is also found to possess good chemical stability and, in particular, an anti-corrosive property. Thus the CA remains nearly unchanged after exposure to air for one year or immersion in an acid solution for 5 h.

Biologists learn structure, mechanism of powerful 'molecular motor' in virus

2008-12-25T15:42:00.000-08:00

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -

Structure of a
"molecular motor"
Download photo
caption below

Researchers have discovered the atomic structure of a powerful "molecular motor" that packages DNA into the head segment of some viruses during their assembly, an essential step in their ability to multiply and infect new host organisms.

The researchers, from Purdue University and The Catholic University of America, also have proposed a mechanism for how the motor works. Parts of the motor move in sequence like the pistons in a car's engine, progressively drawing the genetic material into the virus's head, or capsid, said Michael Rossmann, Purdue's Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences.

The motor is needed to insert DNA into the capsid of the T4 virus, which is called a bacteriophage because it infects bacteria. The same kind of motor, however, also is likely present in other viruses, including the human herpes virus.

"Molecular motors in double-stranded DNA viruses have never been shown in such detail before," said Siyang Sun, a postdoctoral research associate working in Rossmann's lab.

Findings are detailed in a paper appearing online on Dec. 24 in the journal Cell. The lead authors are Sun and Kiran Kondabagil, a research assistant professor at Catholic University of America working with biology professor Venigalla B. Rao.

"This research is allowing us to examine the inner workings of a virus packaging motor at the atomic level," Rao said. "This particular motor is very fast and powerful."

Other researchers have determined that the T4 molecular motor is the strongest yet discovered in viruses and proportionately twice as powerful as an automotive engine. The motors generate 20 times the force produced by the protein myosin, one of the two proteins responsible for the contraction and strength of muscles.

The virus consists of a head and tail portion. The DNA-packaging motor is located in the same place where the tail eventually connects to the head. Most of the motor falls off after the packaging step is completed, allowing the tail to attach to the capsid. The DNA is a complete record of a virus's properties, and the capsid protects this record from damage and ensures that the virus can reproduce by infecting a host organism.

Sun determined that the packaging motor is made of two ringlike structures, and both of these discs contain five segments made of a protein called gp17, for gene product 17. The researchers determined the atomic structure of these protein segments using a procedure called X-ray crystallography. They also used another technique called cryo-electron microscopy, which enabled them to see a more distant, overall design of the motor's ringlike structure.

One disc sits on top of the other, and each of the five segments of the top disc shares a gp17 protein with a corresponding segment in the bottom disc. The gp17 proteins have two segments, or domains, one segment in the lower disc and the other segment in the upper disc.

The lower disc first attaches to the DNA and is then drawn upward by the upper disc, pushing the DNA into the virus's capsid in the process. The top disc of the motor pulls the lower disc upward using electrostatic forces generated between oppositely charged objects, Rossmann said.

"These findings determined the relationship between the motor and DNA," Rossmann said.

The research data also showed that the motor is dynamic and apparently exists in two states: relaxed and tensed, the latter likely occurring when the top disk has attracted the lower disc.

Researchers at Catholic University of America supplied the gp17 and other materials, and the Purdue researchers studied the structure of the materials.

"By combining the structural data and the biochemical data of our colleagues at the Catholic University of America, we were jointly able to come up with a hypothesis of how this motor works," Rossmann said.

Because herpes and other viruses contain similar DNA packaging motors, such findings could someday help scientists design drugs that would interfere with the function of these motors and mitigate the result of some viral infections. The findings also could have other future applications, such as developing alternatives to current antibiotics, creating methods to deliver genetic material to patients for gene therapy or creating tiny "nanomotors" in future machines.

"But this is very basic research, and it's far too soon to talk more about possible practical applications of this knowledge," Rossmann said.

The research paper was written by Sun; Kondabagil; Bonnie Draper and Tanfis I. Alam, both postdoctoral fellows at CUA; Purdue electron microscopist Valorie D. Bowman; Zhihong Zhang, a CUA graduate research assistant; CUA graduate student Shylaja Hegde; and postdoctoral research associate Andrei Fokine, Rossmann and Rao, all of Purdue.

The research has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the Human Frontier Science Program.

Active Denial System Deters Subject Without Harm

2008-12-25T15:20:00.000-08:00

Active Denial System Deters Subject Without Harm

NIJ is leveraging a less-lethal technology developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for use in law enforcement and corrections. The technology, called the Active Denial System, causes people to experience intolerable discomfort. It makes them stop, turn away and leave the area.

How the Active Denial System Works

The Active Denial System emits electromagnetic radiation (radiofrequency waves) at 95 GHz. The system stimulates nerve endings and causes discomfort but does not cause permanent injury — the radiation penetrates less than 1/64th of an inch into a person's skin. Symptoms dissipate quickly when the device is turned off or the person moves away from the radiation beam.

No Long Term Effects

The Department of Defense tested the device on more than 10,000 people. People show no lasting or extreme medical symptoms, even when the waves hit their eyes. The human body's natural reactions to this stimulation make people turn away to escape the area.

Creating a Prototype for Law Enforcement

NIJ has created a small working prototype of the military Active Denial System that law enforcement and correction officers can carry.

Robot in frigid underwater dress rehearsal for future space mission

2008-12-25T07:45:00.000-08:00

UIC scientists help monitor device as it explores Antarctic lake covered by 15 feet of ice

A NASA robot tested last winter in an icy Wisconsin lake will complete a monthlong underwater mission in Antarctica on Thursday, having successfully explored dark, deep waters frozen off from the outside world tens of thousands of years ago.

Managed by a team from Chicago and Texas, the robot has hit its marks while patrolling Lake Bonney, a body of water locked under 15 feet of ice. The Antarctic lake is the nearest thing on Earth to outer space, and scientists hope lessons learned there will inform a future hunt for life in the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter's frozen moon Europa.

The robot overcame some technical surprises to gather information on the lake's internal structure—data many Antarctica experts once despaired of knowing—and spot a colony of microbes unlike any seen before.

Scientists named the robot ENDURANCE (for Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic ANtarctiC Explorer) in a nod to the ship Sir Ernest Shackleton was forced to abandon on his failed Antarctic expedition a century ago.

The device patrols under the ice like a $5 million Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner while a pair of scientists with tracking antennas follow it across the ice above like overprotective parents.

Its only way out of the lake is a single, cubicle-sized hole in the ice that is guarded by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago. A fiber-optic cable is the sole lifeline that connects the robot to scientists waiting by the hole in wood-floored tents.

ENDURANCE was built by Stone Aerospace in Austin, Texas, from a design used for Mexican waters. When it first explored cold water in February at Lake Mendota in Madison, Wis., the sonar was iffy, thrusters balked, and it barely found its way back to the starting point.

Even after the robot arrived in Antarctica, some of its crew wondered if it would even work, said co-investigator John Priscu of Montana State University.

But in Antarctica, it motored flawlessly to all its destinations—determining its own routes underwater, evading obstructions and returning by dead reckoning to the team of relieved scientists.

The mission was not without challenges. Engineers at the site modified equipment not designed for cold water, programmed "danger zones" into the robot's memory when it found dangling old ropes and lost science instruments, and found ways to work around the surprising buoyancy added by gas bubbles in the lake.

As it hovers under the ice, the robot spools out a series of instruments every few minutes that measure water temperature and dissolved materials as well as taking pictures of the ice above and the dark lake floor below. Days after it began, the robot found what looked like an outcrop of lichen-covered rocks—microbial colonies that researchers said were unlike any others known to exist in the lake.

"There's some things in these images that I've never seen before," said investigator Peter Doran of UIC.

It also revealed details of what is essentially an ancient salt lake trapped under lighter, cold freshwater and a thick slab of ice, Priscu said in an e-mail from Antarctica.

"At this stage of the game, I would have to call ENDURANCE a success," he said.

Unique Christmas tree

2008-12-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

It collected unique Christmas trees.

Christmas tree in pink at The Cathay, Singapore.

Art warped christmas tree

Book Christmas tree

Neon Christmas tree

Add a little Christmas cheer to your office desk with this innovative Christmas tree that lights up neon blue. It is made of tough plastic in the shape of a traditional tree with a star on the top, stands at 21cm tall including the base and is battery operated (needs 2 x AA batteries - not supplied) so easy to use. There are two modes to light the tree - either to stay bright blue or you can set it so the light sweeps up and down - cool!

With its wave-like architecture and all, vivocity is a shopping mall that has a one-of-a-kind look. it being singapore’s largest mall, naturally its flagship christmas tree has to be just as unique and majestic, deviating from the usual green or white trees.

decked out in silver and various hues of pink, this shiny tree is made completely out of christmas baubles and lights in alternating layers. say, doesn’t it resemble a giant multi-tiered cake?

i love the way its thick layers of christmas lights come alive at night, looking all magnificent and bright.

Eco Plywood Christmas Tree by Buro North

Besides the glamorous diamond tree, there’s also another shiny christmas tree that stands tall at bugis junction. this is the flagship tree of the mall, as the diamond tree is actually done up by soo kee jewelry.

this tree doesn’t have a single leaf. instead, it is made out of long narrow strips of shiny foil. it looks very unique! there are life-size pretty angels suspended around it, with gold wings to match.

interestingly, these angels have neither eyes nor mouths!

Photo credit: DuNnO - The Kit Lens Baby

love the bright star on top too, especially when it lights up at night. the multiple strings of christmas lights that rain down around the tree blend in perfectly well.

at night, the silver tree magically turns to gold. nice!

Upside Down Christmas Trees

Christmas time is great for those who love to decorate. It's a time to get out all of your holiday decor from years past to create a warm feeling in your home. However, it can be redundant to keep pulling out the same tree, lights and statues every single year.

This year, do something different. You can keep the holiday traditions alive, but spruce up your home with unique Christmas decor, like an upside down Christmas tree. Upside down Christmas trees are festive and make great Christmas gift as well.

Snow Crystal Photo

2008-12-23T02:55:00.000-08:00

Snow Crystal Photo

Snow close-up
The appearance of the Snowflakes under the microscope

The winter of 2008 has not yet been pleased with our snow, so invite readers to look at a selection of photographs Snowflakes, performed physicist Kenneth Librehtom (Kenneth Libbrecht) from the California Institute of Technology. The author has created a site snowcrystals.com, which paved the most successful shots. In addition to the unconditional aesthetic appeal of studying the appearance Snowflakes has scientific value and - it helps clarify the processes of condensation water and education of ice crystals.

snowcrystals.com

Artificial muscle can power your Ipod

2008-03-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

BOFFINS IN CALIFORNIA have developed a self-repairing artificial muscle that can generate enough electricity to charge an Ipod.

The top boffin in charge of the research, a scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, named Qibing Pei, told the Discovery Channel that the artificial muscle was made up of flexible carbon nanotubes, which acted as electrodes. This is quite an improvement on previous artificial muscle models which tended to be metal based and have frequent failure rates with reuse. Pei reckons: "We've made an artificial muscle that, when you apply electricity to it, expands more than 200 percent”.

The way it works, is that as the artificial muscle material contracts after expanding, the carbon nanotubes rearrange themselves, causing a small electric current to generate, which can then be captured and stored in a battery.

It is also robust. If any part of the carbon nanotube packs up, the area around it seals itself off by becoming non-conductive, thereby stopping the defect from affecting other areas. The clever muscle is also eco friendly and energy efficient, conserving up to 70 per cent of energy pumped into it. Some boffins have suggested that it could even be used to capture wind or wave energy in the future to charge electrical devices.

The research could also lead to the creation of moving robots, better prosthetics, and battery charging energy sources. A self-repairing Ipod would be nice.

Intel cheap laptops expanding to U.S., Europe

2008-03-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday sub-$300 laptops initially designed for poor children will soon be available to U.S. and European consumers in a move that could further push down computer prices.

PC makers in the United States and in Europe will sell a yet-to-be-unveiled, second-generation version of the Intel-designed Classmate PC for $250 to $350, said Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel's emerging market platform's group, in an interview with Reuters.

"This is a very big deal," said Laura Didio, an analyst with Yankee Group who follows the personal computer industry.

While the machines are intended for children, analysts said the launch will add momentum to the low-cost computing movement -- and will likely mean this year's bargain-basement laptops will have more power than in previous years.

"Particularly in a recession year, quality low-cost products are going to move well," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "But the key is for them to be quality."

He said while he hasn't yet seen the machines that will be on sale this Christmas, he suspects consumers will be able to get "a pretty decent" laptop for less than $600 and perhaps for less than $500.

Didio said retailers might throw in another $50 to $100 in rebates or other incentives.

Laptop prices have been under extra pressure since last year, when Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc (2357.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) introduced the $399 Eee PC, which has flown off store shelves from Asia to North America

The machine runs on the Linux operating system, and people used to Microsoft's (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Windows and Apple's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Mac OS X operating systems have had trouble adapting to the system, Enderle said.

The new, cheap laptops being developed from Intel's technology will likely run on Windows, he added.

The movement toward low-cost computing was also spurred by the XO laptop, the brainchild of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

The foundation began producing a laptop running on Linux at a cost of $188 in November. They sold them in the United States and in Canada for $400 through a charity drive that also provided one machine to a poor child overseas.

The chipmaker has conducted pilot tests of the Classmate PC at schools in Texas, Oregon and California, along with some schools in Australia, said Intel spokeswoman Agnes Kwan.

Intel said manufacturers in India, Mexico and Indonesia already have begun selling Classmate PC laptops on the retail market.

To date, Intel has sold fewer than 100,000 of the Classmate PCs, but plans to ramp up production in 2008.

Intel declined to identify the PC makers or discuss the features of the second-generation machine, which has not yet been released in developing markets, at the request of the companies.

It has already begun work on a third model, the Classmate 3, said Ibrahim.

The second- and third-generation models of the Classmate PC design give manufacturers flexibility to build a range of laptops with different memory configurations, screen sizes and peripheral devices including cameras, Ibrahim said.

Inventor Mary Lou Jepsen, a scientist who developed the XO Laptop, resigned from the One Laptop Per Child Foundation at the end of last year and started her own company Pixel Qi with the goal of building a $75 laptop by 2010.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1933198020080320?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=10150

EMI aims to join Nokia's music offering

2008-03-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

EMI said on Wednesday it was in talks with mobile handset maker Nokia to offer its songs as part of Nokia's new "Comes with Music" offering.

"We want to be part of it. I believe strongly that when it launches we will be there, with a full offering," Wemppa Koivumaki, head of EMI Finland, told a news conference.

Nokia is set to start selling phones under its "Comes With Music" brand in the second half of 2008, offering unlimited access to millions of songs.

The world's largest music label, Universal, signed up for the program last December.

NVIDIA Launches the Fastest Graphics Card on the Planet

2008-03-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

The NVIDIA GeForce 9800GX2 is the latest graphics card to revolutionise your PC experience. GeForce 9800 GX2 gives the best gaming performance in the world, HybridPower means a quiet, low power and more environmentally friendly PC and PureVideo HD takes your PC to the cutting edge of High Definition.

Bar None the fastest Graphics Card on the Planet

The GeForce 9800GX2 is at the cutting edge of technology; with 256 screaming fast processor cores and a 1GB total framebuffer, all running through PCI Express 2.0, means the GeForce 9800GX2 is designed from the ground up for Gaming at Extreme HD resolutions.

NVIDIA Hybrid Power – gives you power when you need it most

Combining a GeForce 9800GX2 with one of the latest motherboards featuring NVIDIA’s nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset makes your system ready for Hybrid Power. Not all applications require a high end GeForce discrete GPU, for times such as these an integrated GeForce GPU can run these applications perfectly while saving power and therefore the environment. The intelligent Hybrid Power system can also combine the power of the GeForce 9800GX2 with the onboard graphics for maximum performance.

PureVideo HD – make your PC the centre of your digital home

PureVideo HD makes High Definition content come to life on your PC – whether video’s are downloaded, streamed, or on Blu-Ray – even the most demanding HD content plays back effortlessly thanks to the best HD engine available on the market. But it is not only the speed of HD rendering that is improved, with PureVideo HD films comes to life with dynamic Contrast Enhancement and automatic enhancements to Greens, Blues, & Skin Tones

The NVIDIA GeForce 9800GX2 Makes all of the above possible, for the very best graphics on the planet there is no other choice.

Processor Cores
256 (128 per GPU)
Core Clock
600MHz
Shader Clock
1500MHz
Memory Clock
1000MHz
Memory
1GB GDDR3 (512MB per GPU)
Power Connector
8-pin + 6-pin
Board Power
197W
Thermal
Patent Pending Integrated Cooling Solution
Outputs
2x DVI-DL + HDMI

AMD cuts 5% of its workforce

2008-03-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Sunnyvale (CA) – Business news from AMD rarely have been good news from AMD lately. We remember bad news cbeginning to come in just about when Intel pushed its Core 2 Duo into the market in Q3 of 2006 and there is no end in sight yet: With the first quarter winding down, TG Daily learned that AMD is reducing its workforce by another 5%.

Since AMD has not officially announced the layoffs yet, there is no official explanation why these layoffs are coming now. However, our sources indicate that AMD may be preparing the analyst community for another not-so-great quarter, in which especially CPU sales have tanked. The TLB bug (and the following PR disaster) hurt Opteron sales anyway and this week Intel senior vice president Pat Gelsinger was telling journalists that the Tigerton Xeon MP processor is gaining market share and will bring “the biggest market share swing in years”.

Sources are now telling us that AMD decided to silently wipe 5% from its workforce of 16,719 people. As a result, about 800 to 850 people are laid off, while some people at AMD believe that the total number of employees should come down even further and end up closer to 15,000.

Official financial details are coming with the release of the Q1 result.

Apple bans music applications for IPhone

2008-03-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

FRUIT THEMED toymaker Apple has decided that it will ban any third party applications for its iPhone that feature music-playing capabilities.

When Apple announced that it would allow third-party applications for the Jesus phone there was much back slapping among Apple fanboys. "See," they smugly said. "It proves that Steve Jobs, peace be upon him, is not a control freak after all."

That, however, is looking wildly optimistic. In June, Apple will open AppStore, an update to iTunes that will enable users to buy and download these third-party applications much like they already do music and video. It is a fairly cool bit of software with a licence that is wide open in favour of those who sell the software.

However it means that Apple gets to decide which applications it will sell. And that means that Apple can decide to ban anything that hurts iTunes.

For example, will it allow a rival, such as Amazon, to run a third-party application that will deliver music to the iPhone? The same applies to eMusic.

What hints that Apple might be such a bastard? Well the new SDK beta does not allow developers to have access to any iTunes functionality.

This makes it impossible for plug-ins to be created for iLike, Last.fm, Qloud or OnTour to create iPhone-compatible widgets that might expand basic iTunes functions.

NPD: PS3, Xbox 360 sales still lag behind PS2

2008-03-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

Market research group NPD released video game console sales figures for the month of February, and the units with the fastest processors look to be selling the slowest.

Video game console sales in February 2008, according to research group NPD, showed a 19% increase in units sold year-over-year, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 selling the fewest among what is still, more than two years after its introduction, called the "next gen" console market.

This distinction is necessary because the sixth-generation PlayStation 2 console is not only still selling, but is actually selling better than its successors. The eight-year old system was reported by NPD to have sold 351,800 units last month. The PS3 sold 280,800 units, and the 360 sold 254,600.

The only next-gen console which beat the PS2 in sales was Nintendo's Wii, which moved a reported 432,000 units. Some argue that the Wii is barely a "next gen" console itself. The recently released Super Smash Brothers Brawl, a fighting game featuring Nintendo's licensed characters, illustrates this perspective. The highly anticipated game has none of the Wii's trademark gestural control features, and relies heavily on the last-generation Gamecube controller.

Sony's PlayStation 2 retails for around $130, and Nintendo's Wii sells for around $250. A 40 GB PS3 typically retails for around $400, and the xbox 360 console usually goes for $350.

NPD's report that video game sales were up for the month, paired with the distant leads held by lower-priced consoles, raise the question of whether price, more so than any of a console's other qualities, dictates its ultimate stature in the market.

IBM dreams of optical chips with tiny light pulse device

2008-03-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

White coats at IBM today said they have built the world's teeniest optical switch, measuring 100 times smaller than the cross section of a human hair.

Big Blue said its new nanophotonic switch device brings the company another step closer to creating computer chips that use light pulses instead of electrical signals on copper wires.

Once electrical signals are converted into pulses of lights, the tiny device ensures that optical messages are efficiently directed from one processing core to another.

IBM contends in a paper published in the journal Nature Photonics that the old wire way will become yesterday's news when on-chip optical interconnects are — cough — finally brought to light.

Specifically, the promise of optics will become more and more appealing as chip makers continue to increase processing cores at roughly the same speed that shaving supply companies add superfluous blades to their razors. Copper wires, they argue, could simply use up too much power and be incapable of transmitting the enormous amount of information between massively multi-core processors.

The researchers say each individual wavelength in an optical switch can transfer data at up to 40Gb/s. And because the switch is able to route different wavelength "colors" of light simultaneously, IBM claims aggregate bandwidth can exceed 1Tb/s. They envision using light will multiply the speed information is sent between cores by as much as 100 times, while using 10 times less energy.

The company said its tiny switch is ideally suited for on-chip applications because of the sheer lack of scale. Big Blue estimates that as many as 2,000 of the devices could fit side-by-side in an area of one square millimeter. (Which by the way means that if each device was mounted by an angel, a full 4,000 could dance on the head of a pin. Who says computer chips and ontology don't mix?)

IBM scientists assert that their optical switch is also rugged enough for the hardcore, heated world of semiconductors. The optical switch is capable of operating in an environment with changing "hot-spots" that move around depending on the processing function.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/18/ibm_nanophotonic_switch/

Toshiba's Dynabook SS RX1: world's first laptop with 128GB SSD

2008-03-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

Your 64GB SSD getting you down? Right, you should be so lucky. Regardless, Toshiba just updated their 12.1-inch Dynabook SS RX1 in Japan with a new 128GB SSD option. Build RX1/TAE bundles 128GB of solid state disk with internal, KDDI EV-DO data module, 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600 processor, 2GB of memory, Intel 945GMS Express graphics, a 1,280 x 800 pixel panel resolution, and choice of 6.2 hour or 12.5 hour batteries. How much? Try something like ¥400,000 or more than $4,000 when it pops for Japanese retail next month.

Researchers Chill Down Fan-Cooled PCs Even More

2008-03-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

New heat dissipation technology can boost the performance of chip-cooling systems by up to 200 percent.

Researchers at Purdue University and Intel have developed heat dissipation technology that can boost the performance of chip-cooling systems by up to 200 percent.

The researchers are developing ionic wind engines, devices that work with current air-cooling technologies like fans and heat sinks. The devices pass an electrical current to stir up stationary air molecules, leading to better air flow and dissipation of heat.

"To date, we have demonstrated that the technology can enhance fan cooling by more than 200 percent," said Suresh Garimella, professor at Purdue University, who is also a researcher on the project.

Current air cooling technology is attractive because of its cost advantages and ease of implementation, Garimella said. However, fans and heat sinks can't manage all the heat generated by chips.

Ionic Wind Technology

Ionic wind engines can be placed on a chip or a laptop to complement the current air-cooling technology to better manage heat dissipation, avoiding the need to switch to alternative, costlier cooling approaches like liquid cooling, Garimella said.

"The ionic wind technology we are developing is designed to work in addition to conventional fan-driven methods, not necessarily as a replacement for current systems," Garimella said.

Ionic winds are generated when electrically charged atoms stir up air molecules, which normally are stationary. When a current flows from a negatively charged electrode to a positively charged electrode, it collides with air molecules, producing positively charged ions that move back toward the negatively charged electrodes, creating an ionic wind. When the ionic wind gets the air molecules moving, the air flow on the chip surface increases, leading to better heat transfer and dissipation.

The engines are small enough to be fabricated on a chip or laptop and can be selectively placed depending on air flow, Garimella said. The researchers are trying to miniaturize the millimeter-scale devices to micron-scale dimensions.

Size reduction is just one problem facing researchers in putting the engines to practical use. Portable platforms pose a challenge as there is limited space for cooling systems, he said. Moreover, as chips become faster the amount of heat that needs to be removed increases, which increases the challenge to cool down a laptop and its surfaces, Garimella said.

"We are currently dealing with challenges to demonstrate the viability of the technology at the micro scale, and these must be overcome before the technology can be brought to market, at least for the chip-cooling arena," he said.

Garimella couldn't comment on when the technology will reach chips, but he noted some inherent advantages over alternatives like liquid cooling.

"Although liquid cooling typically provides higher heat removal rates, air cooling technologies are cheaper to implement and by using ionic wind engines, their cooling capacity can be enhanced," Garimella said.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143524-pg,1/article.html

World's most expensive iPod goes on sale

2008-03-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

The world's most expensive iPod has gone up for sale at a charity auction in London.

The popular music player was customised with hundreds of diamonds for a dazzling makeover.

Already a must-have item, the bejewelled version was the star of the auction, with an estimated value of £20,000.

The iDiamond shuffle is made of solid 18 karat white and pink gold and kitted out with 430 diamonds.

The one-off piece was created by jeweller, Thomas Heyerdahl, who says the process was painstaking and meticulous as there wouldn't ever be another one.

He said: "It's a special thing, making just one. If we had make this for commercial sale, it would be quite a different thing because then you have to take care of, much more things to make it work commercially."

A carbon-offset eco-holiday to a Himalayan retreat and a trip to a château in the Champagne region of France were also up for grabs at the auction.

After Verizon trial speeds up P2P, group eyes other tests of P4P technology

2008-03-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

After achieving much faster than usual download and data delivery rates in a field trial with Verizon and Pando, the P4P Working Group is now looking at doing trials with other ISPs and P2P network providers, said Haiyong Xie, a working group member who is also a Ph.D. student at Yale.

In results unveiled today at DCIA's P2P Market Conference in New York City, the P4P technology was shown to enhance download rates by 205 percent over unmanaged P2P downloads, and to decrease the number of hops needed in ISP internal data delivery from 5.5 hops to 0.89 hops.

The trial made use of Xie's implementation of P4P networking principals, Pando's application plattform, and network topology data from Verizon.

Essentially, P4P is designed to speed up P2P downloads by localizing network traffic and reducing the numbers of routers and transfers needed for distributing data.

"Before doing this field trial, we'd conducted simulations. But results of the trial prove that P4P also works in the real world," said Laird Popkings of Pando Networks, co-chair of the P4P Working Group, speaking with BetaNews at the event in Manhattan.

A similar field trial is still under way with Pando -- a company which partners with NBC Direct, for example, on P2P content delivery -- and Spanish-based ISP Telefonica. Results from the Telefonica trial are expected over the next week or two.

"But different P2P networks have different properties, as do different ISPs," said Xie, during another interview with BetaNews at the event.

"We're also interested in seeing how the P4P technology works with other P2P networks and with other ISPs," according to the Yale researcher.

Sourse: http://www.betanews.com/article/After_Verizon_trial_speeds_up_P2P_group_eyes_other_tests_of_P4P_technology/1205535534

Apple Denying iPhone Developers In Droves

2008-03-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

It appears that not anyone can sign up and become a registered developer for the iPhone. Apple is sending out rejection letters via e-mail. Twitterers are firing up their tweets in protest and anger.

According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, people interested in developing for the iPhone are being rejected by the thousands.

Erica Sadun writes, "If you've applied for Apple's iPhone Developer program, check e-mail for your rejection letter. The twitterati are reporting widespread disappointment and anger as thousands of iPhone developer hopefuls have received a 'Thank you but no thank you' message in their in-box. The e-mails are arriving with the subject of 'iPhone Developer Program Enrollment Status'."

Have any of you received such notice? A number people have responded to Sadun's piece with comments. More than a few were among those rejected by Apple.

One commenter said, "Denied! That sucks!!! What is or was the criteria? Since the application did not ask you anything important like what are you planning on working on... Are people who are getting accepted top-level ADC members?"

So what does it take, Steve? Do you need to be an official company to develop applications for the iPhone? Do you need to already be an ADC member? Can individuals apply? What are the criteria which you are using to judge these developers? Are you too worried about hackers?

It might be fair to make those criteria public so people who won't qualify don't register in the first place. After all, over 100,000 people have downloaded the SDK.

As my colleague Mitch Wagner pointed out earlier this week, the SDK could indeed be the iPhone's Achilles' heel. The negative press generated by rejecting developers will only further tarnish Apple's image and anger developers even more than they already are.

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/03/apple_denying_i.html

Wii Leads The Sales In Japan Too

2008-03-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

It seems like Wii is unbeatable. Shortly after the NPD Group released its data about the gaming sales in US during February, Media Create revealed that Nintendo Wii is the champion in Japan too.

According to Media Create, in the week ending March 9, Nintendo sold 57,068 Wiis in Japan, which is almost double compared to 21,008 PS3s sold by Sony. As for Microsoft, its Xbox 360 continues to struggle and it has sold only 2891.

So far, Microsoft has failed to impress the Japanese gamers, who bought only 257,800 Xbox 360 consoles during 2007, according to the data released by Enterbrain. In comparison, Nintendo Wii sold 3.6 million units, while Sony managed to sell 1.2 million PS3s.

Though, it is very possible that during the next week Xbox 360’s sales will be higher, because on March 6, Microsoft started to sell its Xbox 360 Arcade in Japan for only 27,800 yen ($260) instead 34,800 yen.

Xbox Arcade was launched in the US last year in October and it is sold for $279.99. The package includes five family-friendly games, a wireless controller, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to enable high-definition output if desired and 256 MB of memory useful for storing games and entertainment content. Unlike the Core version, the Arcade doesn’t have a hard drive.

On the handheld market, Nintendo DS was outsold by Sony’s PSP. Sony sold 53,924 PSPs, while Nintendo DS ranked second with 48,658 units.

As for the United States, PS3 had a good February month, despite being outsold by Nintendo Wii almost 2 to 1. While Wii sold 432,000 units, Sony managed to sell 281,000 PS3s and Microsoft was lagging far behind with only 255,000 units.

According to the analysts, PS3 sales were boosted by the recent victory of BluRay, and it remains to be seen is Sony will manage to keep the rhythm.

Though, earlier this month iSuppli analyst Pamela Tufegdzic predicted that 2008 will be the turning year for Sony’s PlayStation 3. "2008 will be a turning year for the PS3," said Tufegdzic for Reuters. "Sony is offering a better forthcoming software pipeline with blockbuster titles like "Gran Turismo 5", which will boost PS3 sales this year."

Also, Sony announced June 12 as the official release date of its exclusive game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots. It is believed that the new title will boost the sales of PS3, in the same manner as Halo 3 did for Xbox 360 during last year.

On the Xbox 360’s front, Microsoft is expecting the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar’s upcoming title, to boost the sales of its gaming console. Although, the game is not an Xbox 360 exclusive, GTA’s makers have promised some exclusive content to be available later this year.

So, after all it seems like the battle of the gaming consoles is still open.

Source: http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Wii_Leads_The_Sales_In_Japan_Too_15194.html

Intel to launch quad-core notebook CPU in 3Q08

2008-03-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Intel is planning to launch its first quad-core CPU for notebooks, the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, in the third quarter this year with pricing set at a new high of US$1,038 in thousand-unit tray quantities, according to sources at motherboard makers.

With the market demand for top-level notebooks still below average, Intel expects the quad-core notebook CPUs will not become standard in the performance/mainstream notebook market until the second half of 2009, and therefore should not impact the desktop PC market, noted the sources.

The Core 2 Extreme QX9300 will be manufactured at 45nm and have a core frequency of 2.53GHz. The CPU will come in a socket P package and support FSB speeds up to 1066MHz. The chip will include 12MB L2 cache and have a maximum TDP of 45W.

Asustek says two-thirds of Eee PCs will have Windows XP

2008-03-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Asustek Computer (2357.TW: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's top maker of computer motherboards, said nearly two-thirds of its Eee PCs shipped this year will be Windows-based as consumers embrace the company's low-cost laptop models.

The Taiwan company's branded business last year launched a 7-inch child-friendly Linux-based personal computer priced as low as $200, and new models with Microsoft's (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Windows XP will be priced around $390 to $400.

"About 60 percent of them (Eee PCs) will have Windows XP operating system," Asustek Chairman Jonney Shih said at a news conference.

The Eee PC has won Asustek much recognition worldwide and Shih said his company was keeping its previous target of shipping 5 million units this year versus 300,000 units shipped in 2007.

Sales have been the strongest in Europe, followed by Asia Pacific and China, said Lillian Lin, Asustek's head of marketing.

"There is a huge untapped computer market out there, and we want to get into the next 10 billion consumer market (with these lower cost computers)," said Davis Tsai, President of Microsoft Taiwan.

Industry analysts said the move would be beneficial to the Taiwan company, and Windows' software prices on low-cost models should be cheaper than that of the operating systems used on mainstream notebooks.

"A Windows Eee PC is more attractive to buyers because people are just not used to using Linux-based computers," said Alvin Kwock, analyst at JP Morgan.

Worth around $8.5 billion, Asustek separated this year its branded business from its contract manufacturing operations, which make laptops for Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Dell Inc (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Lenovo (0992.HK: Quote, Profile, Research).

Separately, Shih said Asustek was considering moving some of the firm's contract manufacturing facilities to Vietnam, following other larger contract manufacturers like Compal Electronics (2324.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) and Hon Hai Precision Industry (2317.TW: Quote, Profile, Research).

He did not give a specific time frame or investment figure.

Asustek's shares fell 2.66 percent on Thursday, in line with the drop on the benchmark TAIEX index .

Asustek competes with Acer Inc (2353.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) in own-brand laptops and with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co and Quanta Computer (2382.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) in its contract manufacturing operations.

Domestic telecom carrier Far Eastone (4904.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) also said on Thursday it was looking to invest in local telecom operators in Vietnam to support Taiwan businesses that were moving their facilities there.

Larger rival Chunghwa Telecom (2412.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) (CHT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the island's largest telecommunications carrier, said earlier this week that it plans to step up its investment into Southeast Asia as the telecoms market in Taiwan becomes saturated.

Tablet PCs will replace textbooks and other predictions from Bill Gates

2008-03-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Microsoft chairman predicts natural interfaces that will deploy speech and camera recognition and reshape computing. Print will be past tense.

WASHINGTON - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates today outlined a future of computing akin to a Whole Earth Catalog for technology. The computing systems of the future will be more natural, responsive and capable of easily recognizing objects and people. They will also be completely customizable, he said.

Television, for instance, will be based on the Internet and it "will be an utterly different thing," that's customizable and interactive, Gates said during a talk before the Northern Virginia Technology Council, an industry group gathered at a hotel located just steps from the White House.

Gates appeared Wednesday before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology to talk about policy issues, including education, basic research funding as well as to argue for the need for better access to foreign workers through the H-1B visa and other programs. But today he was back to more familiar themes.

One of those themes was building technology based on a concept he calls natural user interface. Building these interfaces is one of the "biggest challenges" ahead, Gates said, and one that is also "greatly underestimated." But it will deliver "new ways of interacting with these computing devices," he said.

This mode of interaction goes well beyond the mouse and keyboard. One example is the tablet computer, which Gates said is beginning to move into the mainstream.

Gates said his daughter goes to a school where she has a tablet PC, "no textbooks at all."

Tablet devices, with video and collaboration capabilities, are "far superior then what used to be done in print," Gates said.

Natural user interfaces will include voice recognition software so advanced that recorded content will be easily searchable. Gates also sees cameras giving computers vision.

"In the future, instead of having the computer on your desk, you will have the computer in your desk," Gates said, and that desktop will have the ability to recognize what the user is doing, as well as the objects and papers placed on it.

In the home, "intelligent surfaces" will be pervasive, he said, to help organize a trip, photos or just about anything. "It can be done without the hardware being significantly more expensive," he said.

Data centers will be automated with little human intervention, and software development will use models that involve less code, the Microsoft chairman said. Software is "much larger than the simple English description of what that business is up to." Software is expensive and hard to fix, and "we want there to be less lines of code," he said.

"These kinds of big breakthroughs are coming because the industry is investing in research and development," said Gates, who noted that R&D has become the most important part of his company.

In the audience were people from companies that are heavily involved in the government market, where they sell services that use Microsoft products. It was a friendly audience, but there were still tough questions.

Pointing out that security is "essentially an afterthought," in technology, Mark Boltz, a senior solutions architect at Stonesoft Corp., a network security provider, said Gates had spent "maybe 10, 20 seconds" of his talk on security.

Referring to new technologies, such as Microsoft's Surface, which uses tabletop-like surfaces to interact with people, Boltz wanted to know how they would be secured. Pointing to one consumer product, a digital photo frame that came preloaded with a Trojan program, he asked how something placed on an interactive coffee table might transmit a virus that would spread to other "smart" devices, such as a refrigerator. The audience laughed at that last point.

iPhone software 2.0 allegedly unlocked

2008-03-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Apple's not-yet available iPhone 2.0 software has already been cracked -- before it even has shipped. At least that's what a renegade group of developers claimed Tuesday.

The iPhone Dev Team claims to have cracked the software, meaning yet more pressure on Apple Inc. in the cat and mouse game between software developers and the owners of a million unlocked iPhones and the company and its network partners.

The developers claim to have decrypted and have jailbroken the new iPhone software, and have published a series of screenshots of third-party applications running on the device.

The jailbreak currently only works with hacked activation, meaning it won't work with AT&T iPhones yet.

Apple executives have characterized the buoyant global market in unlocked iPhones as a positive thing, suggesting strong pent-up demand for the product, which is as yet available in just four markets: U.S., U.K., Germany and France.

AMD starts shipping triple-core Phenom processors

2008-03-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

The chips are presently being shipped in volume to PC makers only, and Dell and HP have hinted at using Phenom in desktop PCs

AMD said on Wednesday it has started shipping triple-core Phenom processors, bringing desktops with the chip closer to release.

The triple-core processors are shipping in volume to PC makers only right now, AMD officials said. It declined further comment on chip availability and specifications.

Many major vendors, including Dell and Hewlett-Packard, have hinted at including the Phenom triple-core processors in desktops.

Dell has listed plans to use the chip in its OptiPlex 740 business desktop systems, with 1.5MB of L2 cache and 2MB of shared L3 cache, in an online brochure. Dell will ship the triple-core OptiPlex in the second quarter, a company spokeswoman said, declining further comment.

Hewlett-Packard has also listed a desktop on its Bulgarian-language Web site with AMD's Phenom Triple-Core 8600B processor that runs at 2.3GHz, with 1.5MB of L2 cache. HP officials were not available for comment.

Mesh Computer, a PC vendor in the U.K., has already started offering two desktops with the triple-core Phenom. The company is including an AMD Phenom 8400 Triple-Core processor, which runs at 2.1GHz, in the Matrix XXX Plus desktop. It is using AMD's Phenom 8600 Triple-Core, which runs at 2.3GHz, in the Matrix XXX Pro desktop.

AMD last year added the triple-core processor to its chip lineup and said it would be available in the first quarter of 2008. It is positioning the chip as a better choice than dual-core chips with the third core providing additional processing power to carry out computing tasks like antivirus scanning.

Free-electron laser benefits from "seed" light

2008-03-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

Researchers in France and Japan have developed a technique that not only reduces the size of a free electron laser (FEL) but also generates coherent light at X-ray wavelengths down to 32 nm for the first time. The technique, which involves seeding the laser with another light source, could be refined to produce fully-coherent pulses with wavelengths of 2–4 nm, opening up the “water window” crucial for studying biological samples.

Conventional lasers work by amplifying the radiation emitted when electrons move between certain energy levels in atoms or molecules. Things are different in an FEL: a beam of electrons is accelerated in a wavy, sinusoidal trajectory along a series of magnets collectively called an undulator. As the beam approaches the speed of light, the electrons emit spontaneous radiation known as synchrotron radiation.

The electrons are never fully detached from this synchrotron radiation — they interact and amplify it to produce self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) at a variety of wavelengths. The FEL can be tuned by changing the energy of the electrons and the position of the undulator’s magnets. However, this configuration presents a problem in that “spikes”, or fluctuating light pulses, appear at short wavelengths in the SASE temporal and spatial profiles. These spikes make it difficult to perform time-resolved experiments, which are important for many applications.

An external source

One solution to this problem is to seed the FEL with a coherent, external source. “The FEL properties are significantly improved because they reflect the coherent properties of the seed source,” team member Guillaume Lambert told physicsworld.com.

The method, which the researchers developed during experiments at the SPring-8 Compact SASE Source (SCSS) test accelerator in Japan, involves focusing intense infrared light from a titanium–sapphire laser onto a cell containing xenon gas. The “higher-order harmonic generation” (HHG) beam produced — the seed — is then refocused onto the FEL to produce light that is coherent in both space and time. This particular technique leads to a much more compact FEL source for generating light with wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to X-rays: the undulator length is reduced from nine metres in a normal SASE configuration to just four metres (Nature Phys. doi:10.1038/nphys889).

“Compared to conventional synchrotron sources, FELs provide a high degree of temporal coherence, pulses that last just tens or hundreds of femtoseconds [10–13–10–14 s] and a ten-billion times higher peak brightness,” explains Toru Hara of the Japanese team. Synchrotron radiation is widely used in biology for determining the structure of proteins, whereas fourth-generation light sources, like this FEL, will allow protein function within cells to be observed. This is because the light produced is not absorbed by water, which allows cells to be observed.

At 160 nm, the seed has the shortest wavelength ever produced in such experiments — and non-linear harmonics are produced down to 32 nm. Moreover, the technique is the first demonstration of seeding an FEL device with HHG. Earlier seeding in FELs has been performed with conventional lasers at 10.6 µm (far infrared), 800 nm (infrared) and 266 nm (ultraviolet). The researchers are now planning to measure the wavefront of the light produced with a view to investigating its spatial properties, and later this year will try to seed at 50–60 nm.

The HHG seeding technique will be implemented shortly on the SPARC and FLASH FEL facilities in Italy and Germany, respectively.

Xbox 360 could get Blu-ray - Sony

2008-03-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

A senior Sony executive has claimed Microsoft is in talks about bringing Blu-ray technology to Xbox 360 - but Microsoft says it has no plans to do so.

According to the Financial Times it all started when Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics US, made a speech at a "media dinner". He said Microsoft and Apple are both having a chat with Sony about how they can incorporate Blu-ray tech into their products.

The news comes two weeks after Microsoft's corporate vice president of Live, Software and Services, John Schappert, told Eurogamer that the HD-DVD add-on's poor attach rate - just 3 percent - might dissuade Microsoft from releasing another high-definition disc drive add-on.

We love teh gaymes iz not tru, said Microsoft in a statement. Or more specifically: "We have made no such announcement. Games are what are driving consumers to purchase game consoles and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available." That clears everything up then.

Later in his speech Glasgow said he's not worried about digital downloads overtaking Blu-ray, what with bandwidth limitations and the fact consumers like having discs anyway. "Downloading will build over time, but this will be over a period of years," he observed. He also predicted the cost of Blu-ray players will drop to USD 299 before the end of the year, falling to USD 200 by 2010.

Wi-Fi hotspots to disappear?

2008-03-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Hi-Fi hotspots will become as ill-used as the telephone box. That's the claim levied by mobile broadband advocate Ericsson yesterday.

Chief marketing officer Johan Bergendahl was speaking at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm, where he claimed hotspots will no longer be needed. "Hot spots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era," said Bergendahl.

Mobile broadband growing fast

He added that mobile broadband is growing faster than either mobile or fixed line telephony ever has. And that's being helped by some pretty aggressive pricing here in the UK - £10 a month for 3 on-the-go broadband is pretty impressive. Mind you, he clearly hasn't thought too much about the restrictions of HSDPA broadband.

Data allowances still mean that replacing your fixed line connection is some way off, while roaming charges and coverage are two more challenges. Indeed, Bergendahl urged providers to work together better.

However, this isn't to harpoon Bergendahl's comments: "In a few years, [mobile broadband] will be as common as Wi-Fi is today," he said in his keynote at the conference. Laptop manufacturers certainly wouldn't agree - they're falling over themselves to provide the capability in their notebooks despite Intel chucking integrated HSDPA out of the Centrino spec.

Instead, Intel is putting all its eggs into one WiMAX. It already has a lot to do to catch up with telcos eager to make good on their 3G investment.

Researchers Show Off Laser-Guided Robot

2008-03-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

The El-E robot looks like something you'd see in a Hollywood sci-fi flick: It's got two lenses spaced together just like eyes and a slender 5 1/2-foot-tall body. It spurts out wacky catch phrases when it accomplishes its goals.

But unlike android movie stars, the El-E isn't designed to behave like a human. Rather, its focus is interacting with us. It simply grabs stuff you point at with a laser.

"The entire world becomes a point and click interface. Objects become buttons. And if you point at one, the robot comes to grab it," said Charlie Kemp, the director of Georgia Tech's Center for Healthcare Robotics and the robot's designer. "It creates a clickable world."

The robot, which was unveiled Wednesday at an Amsterdam conference, will be tested this summer in a real-world setting involving patients with a degenerative disease. Its creators - from Georgia Tech and Emory universities - won't disclose the robot's cost, but there's hope it could be cheaper than service animals such as dogs or monkeys.

To command the El-E, the user points a laser at something for a few seconds. The robot responds with a beep and then zeros in on the target. Once there, it lifts a mechanical arm and grabs the object. It begins the return trip when the laser is pointed at the user's feet, and it looks for a human face before handing over what it grabbed.

Kemp said engineers are often too focused on making robots behave like people, ignoring other ways they can interact.

"How can you make robots that are actually useful? That was bugging me," he said. "And it's a hard question to answer - that's why I'm happy with this. We made technical contributions as well as something that actually helps users."

The robot successfully fetches its target objects off the floor 90 percent of the time, researchers said.

This summer's test will involve patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, which shuts down nerve cells responsible for movement.

"It will give these folks at least a level of independence," said Dr. Jonathan Glass, director of the Emory ALS Center and a part of the team developing the robot. "You don't have to feed it, and you can train it to do anything you want to do."

Other scientists have taken notice.

"It's very impressive work," said Oliver Brock, an assistant computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "It's a serious and successful attempt to build a robot that can actually coexist with humans and successfully perform a task."

El-E works by using dozens of sensors, lasers and cameras that help it find its target item and judge the grip needed to retrieve it. A mechanical crane that can grab items from the floor or shelves dominates its slender body. It rolls around on three wheels, and it's all powered by a lone Mac mini, which sits in its base.

Researchers hope the laser-directed robot could someday open doors, switch light panels and guide patients, but it still has a way to go.

The robot's arm can only carry objects up to 1.2 pounds, and it has yet to be tested with sick patients. And when it does malfunction, it can be a bit disarming.

On a recent trial run, the El-E took a winding path on its mission to pick up a coffee mug, halting several times during its short journey. When Kemp and his students finally figured out the problem was a low battery, it moved smoothly again, stuttering only a bit as it tightened its grip on the cup. It wheeled around and paused for a few seconds before detecting the user's face and delivering the mug.

"Bob's your uncle," it blurted out.

Mission accomplished.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news124554019.html

IBM, Hitachi team up to shrink chips

2008-03-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

Companies say the key to their two-year effort is to miniaturize the transistor

IBM and Hitachi Ltd. today announced plans to join forces in an effort to shrink processors.

The companies jointly said they have signed a two-year research agreement. They're trying to speed the pace of developing 32nm and 22nm devices and manufacturing processes. According to an IBM release, they will be focusing on miniaturizing transistors, which are the building blocks of processors, acting like a switch.

"By combining individual research strength and intellectual property, we reduce the significant costs associated with research needed to advance the next generation of chip technology," said Bernie Meyerson, chief technology officer for IBM's Systems & Technology Group.

Intel Corp. moved from a 65nm manufacturing process to 45nm late last year with the introduction of its Penryn family of chips. With the new process and a new transistor design, Intel was able to fit 820 million transistors onto a single chip.

In comparison, when Intel launched its first microprocessor -- the 4004 -- in 1971, it held a little more than 2,000 transistors.

This past December marked the 60th anniversary of the transistor, which some analysts have called the most important invention of the 20th century.

Engineers working on the joint IBM and Hitachi project will conduct their research at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's Albany NanoTech Complex.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9067678&intsrc=news_ts_head

Notebooks based on Intel's Atom to cost between $250 and $300

2008-03-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

More than 25 low-cost notebooks based on Intel Corp.'s upcoming Atom processor are in the works, including models from multinational PC vendors, according to the chip maker's top executive in Asia.

These Atom-based notebooks will be available in the middle of this year for about $250 to $300, said Navin Shenoy, general manager of Intel's Asia-Pacific operations, in an interview. "We'll see some slightly richer configurations that get up to $350," he said.

The Atom processor, formerly called Diamondville, is a small, low-power chip designed for inexpensive notebooks, a class of device that Intel and others refer to as netbooks. These machines are intended for first-time computer buyers in emerging markets, as well as users in mature markets who are willing to trade performance for a low-cost notebook that complements their existing computers -- a market that until now has been largely dominated by Asustek Computer Inc.'s Eee PC.

Atom will offer lower performance than Intel's Core 2 Duo processors for mainstream notebooks, but its performance will be good enough for browsing the Internet and sending e-mails, Shenoy said.

Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner was more specific about the processor's capabilities last month, telling reporters that a related chip, called Silverthorne, offers performance similar to Banias, the first version of Intel's Pentium M processor released in 2003. Silverthorne is designed for small, handheld computers that Intel calls Mobile Internet Devices, and will be available as part of the Centrino Atom chip package set for release during the second quarter.

The introduction of the Atom and the rush of vendors to build the chip into low-cost notebooks could mark the emergence of a new type of device, expanding on the early success of Asustek's Eee PC. But not everyone is convinced that there is much demand for low-cost notebooks, either as a secondary computing device or a substitute for a more capable, and more expensive, notebook PC.

Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific, is a self-described skeptic and doubts that low-cost notebooks will have more than a limited impact on the market for portable computing devices as long as performance and features are traded for lower prices. "I was never convinced that price was the best way to sell these products," he said.

But the marketing clout of Intel and top-tier PC vendors could alter this equation by creating additional demand among customers in both emerging markets and developing countries. "Intel pushing this gives it more legs," Ma said.

"There's going to be some experimentation," Shenoy said.

Most Atom-based notebooks will have screens ranging in size from 7 in. up to 10 in., Shenoy said, adding that some models will be equipped with screens that can swivel and lay flat against the keyboard, turning the device into a tablet computer. Devices will ship with either hard disks or solid-state drives that use flash memory and offer battery life ranging from three to five hours, he said.

"Some will be really sleek and thin; some will be a bit more ruggedized," Shenoy said, adding that Wi-Fi will likely be a common feature.

On the software side, Atom-based notebooks will ship with either Windows XP or some version of Linux. "I don't think you'll see a lot of Vista in this space for cost reasons," Shenoy said.

The availability of Windows XP on low-cost notebooks set to arrive during the middle of the year is noteworthy because Microsoft Corp. has stated that Windows XP licenses will not be sold after June 30. Microsoft officials in Singapore reaffirmed the June 30 deadline in a statement released through the company's public relations agency. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Windows XP will completely disappear after June 30.

"There are probably going to be certain exceptions here and there," IDC's Ma said.

New Eee PC will use Intel's new Atom

2008-03-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

Asus' head honcho has spilt more beans on details of the version two Eee PC model. It will use Intel's recently-branded Atom processor designed for sub-notebook machines just like the Eee and its growing band of rivals.

In an interview with Laptopmag.com, Jerry Shen said later versions of the Eee PC may even come with a built-in hard drive as opposed to solid state. New versions of the machine were announced at last week's CeBIT show for launch in the summer.

A Windows XP version will be available - the 8GB Eee PC 900, while storage now tops out at 12GB for the high-end model with Linux on board. That'll replace the current Eee PC 701 model.

The new machines will feature the 'Diamondville' derivative of the 45nm Atom processor. The chip is a 1.6GHz low voltage, single-core variant with a 512KB cache. A dual-core version seems likely to follow.

New colours also planned

What's more, the Eee will ship in other colours. Shen said there would be "a very new colour design" introduced in the early summer.

The new 900 will cost €399 and will boast an 8.9-inch screen. Asus said the model was on the way during its press conference at CES in January, when it also announced it was working with Intel to provide WiMAX support on the machine.

This won't be in available until later in the summer it seems, but will instead be in the third-generation machine late this year - also depending on partnerships with WiMAX or cellular providers.

Asus is quoting quite staggering sales figures for the machine. Some 350,000 have been sold since launch with a projected 3 to 5 million units to be sold this year. The diminutive lappy is certainly creating a lot of interest.

Any hard drive-based Eee won't appear until far later in the year, said Shen.

Source: http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/mobile-computing/notebooks-and-tablet-pcs/news/new-eee-pc-will-use-intels-new-atom?articleid=326404251

Intel to beef up solid state drives to 160GB

2008-03-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

Intel is planning to release high capacity solid state drives (SSDs) next quarter that could reach a capacity of 160GB. That's according to numerous reports, which claim that the new models will come in 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch formats.

They'll compete with existing flash memory drives from Samsung, which has promised a 128GB version of its 1.8-inch solid state drive later this year.

Price fall coming

"When Intel launches its products, you'll see that not all SSDs are created equal," Intel's NAND product chief Troy Winslow said. "The way the SSDs are architected, the way the controller and firmware operates makes a huge difference."

Pricing, which has been a major concern for most customers for quite some time, may not be such a huge barrier going forward. Winslow pointed out that "price declines are historically 40 per cent per year. And in 2009, a 50 per cent reduction, then again in 2010."

Solid state drives are quickly becoming popular; with the cost to consumers dropping and the gigabyte count rising, look for them in more products soon.

Source: http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/upgrades-and-peripherals/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd/news/intel-to-beef-up-solid-state-drives-to-160gb?articleid=488998083

A 16-bit parallel processing in a molecular assembly

2008-03-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Anirban Bandyopadhyay and Somobrata Acharya

International Center for Young Scientists, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan

Edited by Mark A. Ratner, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and approved January 15, 2008 (received for review April 4, 2007)

Abstract

A machine assembly consisting of 17 identical molecules of 2,3,5,6-tetramethyl-1–4-benzoquinone (DRQ) executes 16 instructions at a time. A single DRQ is positioned at the center of a circular ring formed by 16 other DRQs, controlling their operation in parallel through hydrogen-bond channels. Each molecule is a logic machine and generates four instructions by rotating its alkyl groups. A single instruction executed by a scanning tunneling microscope tip on the central molecule can change decisions of 16 machines simultaneously, in four billion (4^16) ways. This parallel communication represents a significant conceptual advance relative to today's fastest processors, which execute only one instruction at a time

Source: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0703105105v1

Britain makes camera that "sees" under clothes

2008-03-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

A British company has developed a camera that can detect weapons, drugs or explosives hidden under people's clothes from up to 25 meters away in what could be a breakthrough for the security industry. ADVERTISEMENT

The T5000 camera, created by a company called ThruVision, uses what it calls "passive imaging technology" to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays -- known as Terahertz or T-rays -- that they emit.

The high-powered camera can detect hidden objects from up to 80 feet away and is effective even when people are moving. It does not reveal physical body details and the screening is harmless, the company says.

The technology, which has military and civilian applications and could be used in crowded airports, shopping malls or sporting events, will be unveiled at a scientific development exhibition sponsored by Britain's Home Office on March 12-13.

"Acts of terrorism have shaken the world in recent years and security precautions have been tightened globally," said Clive Beattie, the chief executive of ThruVision.

"The ability to see both metallic and non-metallic items on people out to 25 meters is certainly a key capability that will enhance any comprehensive security system."

While the technology may enhance detection, it may also increase concerns that Britain is becoming a surveillance society, with hundreds of thousands of closed-circuit television cameras already monitoring people countrywide every day.

ThruVision came up with the technology for the T5000 in collaboration with the European Space Agency and from studying research by astronomers into dying stars.

The technology works on the basis that all people and objects emit low levels of electromagnetic radiation. Terahertz rays lie somewhere between infrared and microwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum and travel through clouds and walls.

Depending on the material, the signature of the wave is different, so that explosives can be distinguished from a block of clay and cocaine is different from a bag of flour.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080309/tc_nm/security_britain_technology_dc

WMAP Reveals Neutrinos, End of Dark Ages, First Second of Universe

2008-03-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

NASA released this week five years of data collected by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) that refines our understanding of the universe and its development. It is a treasure trove of information, including at least three major findings:

New evidence that a sea of cosmic neutrinos permeates the universe
Clear evidence the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog
Tight new constraints on the burst of expansion in the universe's first trillionth of a second

"We are living in an extraordinary time," said Gary Hinshaw of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Ours is the first generation in human history to make such detailed and far-reaching measurements of our universe."

WMAP measures a remnant of the early universe - its oldest light. The conditions of the early times are imprinted on this light. It is the result of what happened earlier, and a backlight for the later development of the universe. This light lost energy as the universe expanded over 13.7 billion years, so WMAP now sees the light as microwaves. By making accurate measurements of microwave patterns, WMAP has answered many longstanding questions about the universe's age, composition and development.

The universe is awash in a sea of cosmic neutrinos. These almost weightless sub-atomic particles zip around at nearly the speed of light. Millions of cosmic neutrinos pass through you every second.

"A block of lead the size of our entire solar system wouldn’t even come close to stopping a cosmic neutrino,” said science team member Eiichiro Komatsu of the University of Texas at Austin.

WMAP has found evidence for this so-called "cosmic neutrino background" from the early universe. Neutrinos made up a much larger part of the early universe than they do today.

Microwave light seen by WMAP from when the universe was only 380,000 years old, shows that, at the time, neutrinos made up 10% of the universe, atoms 12%, dark matter 63%, photons 15%, and dark energy was negligible. In contrast, estimates from WMAP data show the current universe consists of 4.6% percent atoms, 23% dark matter, 72% dark energy and less than 1 percent neutrinos.

Cosmic neutrinos existed in such huge numbers they affected the universe’s early development. That, in turn, influenced the microwaves that WMAP observes. WMAP data suggest, with greater than 99.5% confidence, the existence of the cosmic neutrino background - the first time this evidence has been gleaned from the cosmic microwaves.

Much of what WMAP reveals about the universe is because of the patterns in its sky maps. The patterns arise from sound waves in the early universe. As with the sound from a plucked guitar string, there is a primary note and a series of harmonics, or overtones. The third overtone, now clearly captured by WMAP, helps to provide the evidence for the neutrinos.

The hot and dense young universe was a nuclear reactor that produced helium. Theories based on the amount of helium seen today predict a sea of neutrinos should have been present when helium was made. The new WMAP data agree with that prediction, along with precise measurements of neutrino properties made by Earth-bound particle colliders.

Another breakthrough derived from WMAP data is clear evidence the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog. The data provide crucial new insights into the end of the "dark ages," when the first generation of stars began to shine. The glow from these stars created a thin fog of electrons in the surrounding gas that scatters microwaves, in much the same way fog scatters the beams from a car’s headlights.

"We now have evidence that the creation of this fog was a drawn-out process, starting when the universe was about 400 million years old and lasting for half a billion years," said WMAP team member Joanna Dunkley of the University of Oxford in the U.K. and Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. "These measurements are currently possible only with WMAP."

A third major finding arising from the new WMAP data places tight constraints on the astonishing burst of growth in the first trillionth of a second of the universe, called “inflation”, when ripples in the very fabric of space may have been created. Some versions of the inflation theory now are eliminated. Others have picked up new support.

"The new WMAP data rule out many mainstream ideas that seek to describe the growth burst in the early universe," said WMAP principal investigator, Charles Bennett, of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. "It is astonishing that bold predictions of events in the first moments of the universe now can be confronted with solid measurements."

The five-year WMAP data were released this week, and results were issued in a set of seven scientific papers submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.

Prior to the release of the new five-year data, WMAP already had made a pair of landmark finds. In 2003, the probe's determination that there is a large percentage of dark energy in the universe erased remaining doubts about dark energy's very existence. That same year, WMAP also pinpointed the 13.7 billion year age of the universe.

Additional WMAP science team institutions are: the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Columbia University, University of British Columbia, ADNET Systems, University of Chicago, Brown University, and UCLA.

Solar-Powered Recharger Ships

2008-03-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

Solar Technology's FreeLoader supports iPhones, iPods, and many other electronic devices.

Solar Technology has introduced a combined solar and battery-based recharging system for iPods and other devices, the FreeLoader 8.0.

The device ships with the capacity to charge many of the latest mobile gadgets: digital cameras, iPods, PDAs, PSPs and mobile phones, and even supports a direct connection to the iPhone and the iTouch.

Attractively-designed, Freeloader 8.0 has a durable casing and folds up small for transport in a pocket or handbag. The device can power an iPod for 18 hours, a mobile phone for 44 hours, a PSP for 2.5 hours and a PDA for 22 hours.

To ensure batteries never run flat, the Freeloader 8.0 can charge its own internal battery which holds its charge for up to three months and features extra sensitive solar panels which are more much efficient at absorbing light in the cloudy and dim conditions the UK endures.

Freeloader 8.0 is available in both Hot Pink and Cool Aluminium Silver and costs £29.99 (US$60).

Artificial black hole created in lab

2008-03-09T01:20:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows the score with black holes: even if light strays too close, the immense gravity will drag it inside, never to be seen again. They are thought to be created when large stars finally spend all their fuel and collapse. It might come as a surprise, therefore, to find that physicists in the UK have now managed to create an “artificial” black hole in the lab.

Originally, theorists studying black holes focused almost exclusively on applying Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of massive objects arises from the curvature of space–time. Then, in 1974, the Cambridge University physicist Stephen Hawking, building on the work of Jacob Bekenstein, showed that quantum mechanics should also be thrown into the mix.

Hawking suggested that the point of no return surrounding a black hole beyond which light cannot escape — the so-called event horizon — should itself emit particles such as neutrinos or photons. In quantum mechanics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle allows such particles to spring out of the empty vacuum in pairs all the time, although they usually annihilate shortly after. But if two particles were to crop up on either side of a black hole’s event horizon, the one on the inside would be trapped while the one on the outside could break free. To an observer, the black hole would look like a thermal body, and these particles would be the black hole’s “Hawking radiation”.

This is all very well in theory, but in practice Hawking radiation from a black hole would be too low to be detected above the noisy cosmic microwave background (CMB) left over from the Big Bang. Simply put, black holes are too cold. Even the smallest black holes, which according to Hawking should have the warmest characteristic temperature, would still be about eight orders of magnitude colder than the CMB.

Faced with the difficulty of observing Hawking radiation from astrophysical black holes, some physicists have attempted to make artificial ones in the lab that have a higher characteristic temperature. Clearly, generating huge amounts of gravity is both dangerous and next to impossible. But artificial black holes could be based on an analogous system in which the curved space–time of a gravitational field is enacted by another varying parameter that affects the propagation of a wave. “We cannot change the laws of gravity at our will,” Ulf Leonhardt at the University of St Andrews in the UK tells physicsworld.com. “But we can change analogous parameters in a condensed-matter system.” Leonhardt’s group at St Andrews is the first to create an artificial black-hole system in which Hawking radiation could be detected (Science 319 1367).

Fishy physics

The idea of using analogous systems to create black holes was first proposed by William Unruh of the University of British Columbia in 1981. He imagined fish trying to swim upstream away from a waterfall, which represents a black hole. Beyond a certain point close to the waterfall, the current becomes so strong — like an event horizon — that fish cannot swim fast enough to escape. In the same vein, Unruh then considered what would happen to waves flowing from the sea into a river mouth. Because the current gets stronger farther up a river, the waves can only progress so far upstream before being defeated. In this way, the river is a “white hole”: nothing can enter.

In the St Andrews experiment, which uses the refractive index of a fibre optic as the analogy for a gravitational field, there are actually both black and white holes. It relies on the fact that the speed of light of light in a medium is determined not only by the light’s wavelength, but also by the refractive index.

The group begins by sending a pulse of light through an optical fibre that, as a result of a phenomenon known as the Kerr effect, alters the local refractive index. A split-second later they send a “probe” beam of light, which has a wavelength long enough to travel faster through the fibre and catch up the pulse. But due to the altered refractive index around the pulse, the probe light is always slowed enough to prevent it from overtaking — so the pulse appears as a white hole. Likewise, if the group were to send the probe light from the opposite end of the fibre, it would reach the pulse but would not be able to go through to the other side — so the pulse would appear as a black hole.

Over the event horizon

Leonhardt and his colleagues proved that these black- and white-hole event horizons exist by monitoring the group velocity of the probe light, which never exceeded that of the pulse. More importantly, they have calculated that it should be possible to detect Hawking-radiation particles produced at either of the event horizons by filtering out the rest of the light at the far end of the fibre.

The detection of Hawking radiation would help physicists bridge the gap between quantum mechanics and general relativity, two presently incompatible theories. It might also help physicists investigate the mystery surrounding the wavelength of photons emitted at an event horizon, which is thought to start at practically zero before being stretched almost infinitely via gravity.

However, Renaud Parentani of University Paris-Sud in France thinks that, although it may be possible to glimpse radiation from an event horizon in future versions of the group’s system, the radiation might not possess all the expected properties of Hawking radiation generated by astrophysical black holes. For instance, the fibre-optic system is limited by dispersion, which means that the wavelength of photons produced at the event horizon will not be stretched very far. “What are the minimal properties required to induce Hawking radiation in a lab system the way we think it is induced by gravitational black holes?” he asks. “The answer, even on the theoretical side, isn't clear. But these experiments will encourage us to consider the question more deeply."

Source: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/33256

When you need internet...

2008-03-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

Ukrainian version Wi-Fi antenna 8)

Welsh boffins invent faster broadband

2008-03-06T15:04:00.001-08:00

BOFFINS BASED in Wales' Bangor University claim to have discovered a means whereby data can be downloaded over 100 times faster than today's typical broadband speeds.

According the university's Dr Jianming Tang, "Importantly, it works with the existing fibre optic technology we have, so there is no need to rip out the cabling which runs the country’s telecommunications network."

The discovery comes as a result of research into remote working for the EU-funded Alpha project. In certain parts of Wales almost a quarter (23 per cent) of people don't even have access to broadband.

To give an idea of the technology's speed, Bangor is claiming that it would be possible to download up to 15 typical Hollywood films in just one minute. But Dr Tang says it will offer a host of other possibilities in such fields as tele-medicine.

The research team also reckons that its technology may cut as much as 75 per cent off the cost of supplying broadband to consumers. Curiously, the same team hasn't been able to estimate how much the necessary black box would cost the consumer.

Critics of the system say that current communications aren't always asymmetric. That is, upload speeds are becoming just as important as download speeds.

A good example of a hugely asymmetric comms network was the UK's Prestel system. That worked well with certain industries such as travel and insurance but overall wasn't a massive success.

Here's an interesting piece of history for you. The Science Department of the university remained in an old coaching inn called the Penrhyn Arms until 1926.

That sounds like the INQ's kind of science department

XPS 720 Red (Vista)

2008-03-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

Offer Details

Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
22 inch SP2208WFP Wide Flat Panel with Webcam and Mic
Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
2GB4 Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz OC'd to 1066MHz-2 DIMMs
320GB3 - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
Dual nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB4
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer (D) Sound Card
1Yr In-Home Service,2 Parts + Labor,5 24x7 Phone Support

Tech Specs

Processors
Intel® CoreTM 2 Extreme Processor QX6800 (8MB L2 Cache, 3.20GHz, 1066MHz FSB)
Intel® CoreTM 2 Extreme Processor QX6700 (8MB L2 Cache, 2.93GHz, 1066MHz FSB)
Intel® CoreTM 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 Cache, 2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB)
Intel® CoreTM 2 E6700 (4MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz, 1066MHz FSB)
Intel® CoreTM 2 E6600 (4MB L2 Cache, 2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB)

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Genuine Windows® XP Professional
For more details on Dell systems that run Windows Vista, see www.dell.com/vista.

Chipset
The NVIDIA® nForce 680i SLITM MCP core logic enables two graphics cards to work together rendering a single image. All connected by PCI Express x16 bandwidth to help provide the ultimate visual experience. NVIDIA nForce® 680i SLITM Chipset for Intel (D)6
Engineered for Enthusiasts NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Intel Edition (D)
NVIDIA SLI technology 2x16
Dual DDR2 Memory Architecture X
NVIDIA SLI-Ready Memory
NVIDIA MediaShield Storage X
NVIDIA Native Gigabit Ethernet* X
NVIDIA FirstPacket technology
NVIDIA DualNet technology
NVIDIA nTune Utility X
NVIDIA SLI Certified Components X
PCI Express X
High Definition Audio X
USB 2.0 X

Memory
DDR213 is a memory architecture that enables systems to improve performance and reduce power consumption. The amount of RAM you have is one factor that determines how many programs can be executed at one time and how much data can be readily available to a program. It also determines how quickly your applications perform and how many applications you can easily toggle between at one time. Simply put, the more RAM you have, the more programs you can run smoothly and simultaneously. Up to 4GB89 Dual-Channel DDR213 SDRAM (667MHz or 800MHz, 2 or 4 DIMMs)
XPS 720 Supports up to 8GB9 of Dual-Channel DDR213 SDRAM (667MHz or 800MHz, 4 DIMMs) when a 64-bit Operating System is installed
XPS 720 supports EPP Memory for simplified memory overclocking>

Hard Drives
The XPS 720 supports up to four hard drives12, –providing a potential capacity of up to 2.75TB11 total. And with RAID 1 and RAID 0 options, you can configure your storage to meet your needs, whether it's for storing large quantities of files, backing up system information and files, or improving performance with data striping.

Dell can ship up to 3 hard drives installed.Up to 2.75TB11 Multiple Serial ATA Hard Drives
Up to 1TB311 Single Serial ATA Hard Drive

Optical Drives, Floppy Drive, and Media Reader
Blu-ray disc
Multiple DVD+/-RW, Combo, DVD-ROM configurations Available
Optional Blu-Ray drive, 16x DVD+/-RW drive; 48X Combo Available
3.5" Floppy Drive and 13-in-1 Media Reader Available
Graphics
XPS 720 Red
512 MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GT - SLI capable
768MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GTX graphics card - SLI capable
768MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8800 Ultra graphics card - SLI capable
XPS 720 Black
256MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8600 GTS graphics card - SLI capable
512 MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GT - SLI capable
768MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GTX graphics card - SLI capable
768MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce® 8800 Ultra graphics card - SLI capable

Sound Cards
Integrated 7.1 Intel High Definition Audio – Standard
Sound Blaster X-FiTM XtremeMusic (D)6 - Included

Physics Accelerator
AGEIA® PhysXTM physics accelerator (optional)
Note: Games must be designed to take advantage of the PhysX accelerator.

Weight & Dimensions
Width: Without Stand 8.6"(21.9 cm) / With Stand 14.0"(35.6 cm)
Height: Without Stand 21.9"(55.5 cm) / With Stand 22.5"(57.2 cm)
Depth: 23.4"(59.4 cm)
Weight: Typical configuration 47.8 lbs (21.7 kg) / Maximum Configuration 56.4 lbs (25.6 kg)

Externally Accessible
Video: 2 DVI and 1 S-Video
IEEE 1394 - 1 front & 1 back 6-pin serial connector
USB: 10 Ports (2 Front, 6 Back, 2 internal)
Audio: Audio – Front: headphone, microphone; Back: line-in, line-out, microphone, surround, center/LFE; integrated HDA 7.1 channel sound
Network: Integrated Gigabit10 Ethernet
Legacy: 2 PS/2 Ports
1 - S/P DIF out (optical)

Expansion Slots
PCI: 3 Slots
PCIe x1: 1 Slot
PCIe x16 (Graphics): 2 Slots
PCIe x8: 1 Slot

Chassis
Power Supply: 1KW (Red system) or 750W (Black system) - SLI, ATX2.0, EPS12V, SSI industry compatibility
Externally available: 2 Optical (5.25), 1 9-in-1 Media Card reader (2 x 5.25) & 1 Floppy (3.5)
Internally available: 4 x 3.5 (HDD)
Memory DIMM slots: 4 available
(H x W x D): 22.5” x 8.6” x 24.25” (with stand); 21.86” x 8.6” x 24.25” (without stand)
7-slot BTX motherboard (12.6" x 10.5")

XPS ONE

2008-03-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

Offer Details

20 inch widescreen display with Intel® Core™2 Duo E4500
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
8X Slot load CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
2GB* Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
250GB* Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Integrated Video
Integrated Audio - 2.0 Speakers
1Yr In-Home Service,* Parts Labor, 24x7 Phone Support

Design

Break the Mold
Even when space is at a premium, the Dell XPS One is a perfect fit. Just over 16" tall with a single cord that rests flush against the body of the computer, it sits comfortably in even compact workspaces.

Look Sharp
To help you stay in touch with friends and interact with the online community, the XPS One features a discreet 2-megapixel webcam and enhanced-capture, dual-microphone array with noise cancellation. LED lights tell you when the camera is on and stay dark when it’s not in use.

Sonic Sensation
Maximize your listening pleasure. The XPS One features integrated right and left speakers for incredible Hi-Def sound. And when you want to listen to music with the lights down low, a single touch dims the screen while the songs play on.

Entertainment Command Center
Use your XPS One as a media hub with:

Easy data transfer options, including an 8-in-1 media card reader, USB drives, IEEE 1394a data ports, integrated gigabit Ethernet and more
Integrated 802.11a/b/g/n Draft 2.0 Wi-Fi so you can share files, printer access and a broadband connection across multiple systems in your home
Internal BlueTooth 2.0 for wireless connection to Bluetooth-enabled peripherals like your PDA or cell phone
Standard DVD+-/RW drive so you can watch or burn video and audio discs or back up your data
Optional BluRay Disc Drive for additional storage and viewing high def movies

Asus shows new Eee PC with larger screen

2008-03-05T14:12:00.001-08:00

March 4, 2008 (IDG News Service) The anticipated new version of Asustek Computer Inc.'s low-cost Eee PC with a larger screen has made its debut at the CeBIT trade show.

The new Eee PC 900 model sports an 8.9-in. screen -- a couple of inches larger than the 7-in. display on the original computer -- and more storage capacity. It has a 12GB, solid-state disk (SSD) drive, which is 50% greater than the largest drive available on current machines.

SSDs are replacements for hard disk drives that store data on flash memory. They offer better performance and lower-power consumption but are more expensive.

Other features of the new computer include 1GB of memory, Ethernet connection, 802.11b/g wireless LAN, 1.3-megapixel camera and a card reader for MMC, SD and SDHC memory cards. About three and a half hours of battery life is expected from the computer's 4-cell battery, said Asus.

The machine is expected to go on sale in the middle of this year and will cost €399 ($606 U.S.).

Asus has high hopes for the expanded Eee PC range and hopes to sell between 3 million and 5 million of the machines this year. Since its launch last year, sales have totaled about 350,000 units.

The Eee PC first debuted at the Computex trade show in Taipei in June 2007. The basic model is currently available in four configurations with the main difference being the size of the SSD storage. The cheapest model packs just 2GB of space while the most expensive of the four has an 8GB SSD.

Bamboo laptop is star of computer show

2008-03-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

It's not often that computers are sold on their "spiritual warmth" and "refreshing fragrance" but the star of the world's biggest IT fair was something different. Instead of shiny plastic it was encased in laminated bamboo strips. The result, said its Taiwanese makers, Asus, was "both aesthetically pleasing and good for the environment".

The Eco Book was the answer, they said, to the growing concern about the use of plastics.

"Bamboo is the most sustainable raw material there is," said Jellent Sun, a senior director.

"It grows very fast and therefore we decided to combine bamboo with metal, and leave out the plastic." The resulting laptop is due to go into production in June.

The computer fair, CeBIT, which opened in Hanover yesterday, took on the green theme for the first time in its 36-year history. It was met with a mixture of praise and scepticism.

One company presented a notebook that claims it can "bring you to a healthier life", by "detoxifying, sterilising and exterminating the silent assassin viruses" in your working environment, thanks to its built-in ioniser.

"Admittedly the Anion computer is not going to save the planet," said Craig Martus of MSI, "but it will sweeten the air you breathe so that rather than being stuck in an office, you'll feel like you're in the mountains."

Until now it has been aeroplanes and cars which have taken the brunt of the criticism when it comes to environmental pollution. But now the IT industry is admitting that it has to cut users' energy costs - rising electricity bills are as much of an incentive as the environment - as well as improve its recycling capabilities.

"Green IT is hype," admitted Thomas Tauer of IBM Germany, "but it is an issue that will keep us busy for a long time".

The industry has coined such phrases as "ecolutions" - short for the rather long-winded eco-friendly and environmental evolution and solutions - "cooler

and cleaner," and "hi-tech, low carbon" in its attempt to plug the message that emissions can be reduced without computer users having to sacrifice functionality or style.

"Worldwide internet usage alone needs the equivalent of 14 power stations to run the required computers and servers, which means it's producing the same amount of carbon emissions as the entire airline industry," said Omur Canaltay, a marketing manager with Fujitsu Siemens.

He was presenting the world's first O-Watt monitor, which uses no electricity when in standby mode and is due to go on sale in the spring.

Use of similar products, he said, could reduce a family's electricity bill by 40%. Calculated on the grander scale of a multi-national company, the savings could run into millions.

The environmental pressure group Greenpeace was on hand to provide a healthy degree of scepticism about the industry's claims.

"We're here to cut through the corporate greenspeak and find out how much is real, and how much is just PR," said Omer Einaiem, Greenpeace International media relations specialist.

The organisation is using its presence at CeBIT to stress its appeal to the industry to eliminate toxic chemicals, boost energy efficiency and improve computers' life cycles so that old machines do not so readily land in unregulated and hazardous "recycling yards" in developing countries.

Today it will use the fair to present a list of the most environmentally friendly IT products on the market.

AMD debuts new integrated graphics chipsets

2008-03-05T13:52:00.000-08:00

Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) announced a new collection of chips that will add better graphics capabilities to the motherboards that connect the different parts of a personal computer.

AMD's new graphics processing units, called the AMD 780 series, are aimed at capturing a bigger piece of the integrated graphics chipset market by offering a big boosts in gaming and high definition video playback in mainstream personal computers at reasonable prices.

Such performance was previously available by slotting in dedicated graphic boards into the motherboard, which usually includes integrated graphics that are not aimed at high-end graphics users.

The AMD 780 series of graphics chips can be paired by AMD's dual- and quad-core processors on motherboards made by manufacturers such as Asus and Gigabyte.

AMD expects the motherboards using the AMD chipsets to cost about $80 to $120, less than motherboards using integrated graphics from rival Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research).

PCs using the AMD 780 series chipsets are expected to be available starting in the second quarter of this year, AMD said.

The company detailed the chipset at CeBIT, Europe's biggest information technology fair.

Separately, AMD also said it was on track with its 45-nanometer chipmaking process technology and that chips made using the technology will be in volume production in the second half of this year.

Bill En, an AMD manager in Sunnyvale, California, where AMD is based, said samples of its 45 nanometer products were available today.

"Intel is certainly earlier than us relative to the 45-nanometer product, but we're keeping things within a year in terms of our launch target, and we really feel that it will keep us competitive," En said.

Intel is already making chips with its 45-nanometer process technology.

AMD demos 45 nm processors

2008-03-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

Hannover (Germany) – AMD is ramping its 45 nm processors and visitors at the CeBIT tradeshow have a chance to see samples of 45 nm Opteron with Shanghai core and the 45 Phenom with Teneb at their first public demonstration

It isn’t like AMD is close to be releasing those processors, but the company wants to remind us that it is still working on these CPUs and they are still on track for a 2008 introduction. The manufacturer has not released any specifics about clock speeds and power consumption but spokesperson Gary Silcott told TG Daily that improvements have been made “across the board”.

The initial 45 nm CPU generation will continue to be produced using immersion lithography (in contrast to EUV down the road) and, other than Intel’s 45 nm chips, will not use high-k dielectric metal gate technology. AMD believes that it can be “competitive” without high-k at this time, but Silcott noted that high-k is an option to be introduced at a later stage of 45 nm production – and “definitely at 32 nm”.

Of course, one can speculate, why AMD decided to delay the introduction of high-k and the question may be raised whether high-k would have moved the introduction of AMD’s 45 nm processors from 2008 to 2009.

Interestingly, the naturally always concerned crowd of analysts has not yet reacted to the fact that AMD is seemingly and very carefully preparing a slightly delayed volume launch of its 45 nm processors. Back in July of 2006, or the time when Intel’s Core 2 Duo came out in full force, AMD president and chief operating officer Dirk Meyer said that the production technology gap to Intel would be narrowed. He told analysts that the 45 nm product generation would be launched 18 months after the first 65 nm products (which came at the very end of 2006). This timeline foresaw a volume launch of 45 nm processors by June 2008, which would have cut Intel’s time advantage from 12 months down to 6 months.

The mid-2008 phrase is long gone and AMD has been talking about a H2 2008 launch for some time now. Rhethorically, this isn’t that dramatically different, but AMD has certainly given itself much more time to launch this CPU in volume. And there is probably a reason why the company has changed its message. We don’t want to pin the company down on an exact launch month, but at least as of now, it does not appear that AMD will be able to gain lots of ground on its rival.

Officially, of course, AMD says that the message has never changed. It always has been H2 2008, we were told. Perhaps we are too picky.

AMD announced last October that it has begun with the sample production of 45 nm processors. First 45 nm SRAM silicon was shown by the company in May of last year.

Spring is Aurora Season

2008-03-05T04:17:00.000-08:00

What are the signs of spring? They are as familiar as a blooming daffodil, a songbird at dawn, a surprising shaft of warmth from the afternoon sun. And, oh yes, don’t forget the aurora borealis. Spring is aurora season. For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights. Canadians walking their dogs after dinner, Scandinavians popping out to the sauna, Alaskan Huskies on the Iditarod trail -- all they have to do is look up and behold, green curtains of light dancing across the night sky. Spring has arrived!

This is a bit of a puzzle. Auroras are caused by solar activity, but the sun doesn’t know what season it is on Earth. So how could one season yield more auroras than another?

“There’s a great deal we don’t understand about auroras,” says UCLA space physicist Vassilis Angelopoulos. For instance, “Auroras sometimes erupt with little warning and surprising intensity. We call these events ‘sub-storms,' and they are a big mystery.” What triggers the eruptions? Where is sub-storm energy stored? (It has to gather somewhere waiting to power the outburst.)

And, of course, why springtime?

To answer these questions and others, NASA has deployed a fleet of five spacecraft named THEMIS (short for “Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms”) specially instrumented to study auroras. Angelopoulos is the mission’s principal investigator.

Auroras are much more than just pretty lights in the sky. Underlying each display is a potent geomagnetic storm with possible side-effects ranging from satellite malfunctions in orbit to power outages on terra firma. Telecommunications, air traffic, power grids and GPS systems are all vulnerable. In a society that relies increasingly on space technology, understanding these storms is vital.

Launched in February 2007, THEMIS has already observed one geomagnetic storm with a total energy of five hundred thousand billion (5 x 10^14) Joules. “That's approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake,” says Angelopoulos. “This storm moved twice as fast as anyone thought possible,” crossing an entire polar time zone in 60 seconds flat!

THEMIS may have found the storm’s power supply:

"The satellites have detected magnetic ‘ropes’ connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun," says Dave Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras." Sibeck likens them to ropes because the magnetic fields in question are organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner’s rope. Solar wind particles flow along the ropes in whirligig trajectories leading from the sun to Earth.

Which brings us back to spring.

It turns out that magnetic connections between the sun and Earth are favored in springtime. It’s a matter of geometry: As Earth goes around in its orbit, Earth’s magnetic poles wobble back and forth. (The poles don’t really wobble, but the combination of Earth’s 23-degree polar tilt plus orbital motion makes the poles seem wobble from the solar point of view.) Around the time of the equinox, Earth’s magnetic field is best oriented for “connecting-up” with the sun, opening the door for solar wind energy to flow in and spark Northern Lights.

But wait, there are two equinoxes, spring and fall, with similar magnetic geometry. Indeed, autumn is aurora season, too. Geomagnetic disturbances are almost twice as likely in spring-fall versus winter-summer, according to historical records.

THEMIS is just getting started. The five spacecraft are on a two-year mission to explore Earth’s magnetic field and they are only now settling into their optimum science orbits. “With five satellites, we can map the complex ebb and flow of energy during geomagnetic storms better than any single satellite ever could,” points out Angelopolous. “There’s no telling what we might learn.”

One thing is certain, though. 'Tis the season for auroras -- and lots of data for THEMIS. Says Sibeck, “We welcome the spring!”

Just blink to control your Ipod

2008-03-04T15:16:00.001-08:00

A RESEARCHER at Osaka University's Graduate School of Engineering Science has come up with a way to control devices by intentional blinking and winking.

Kazuhiro Taniguchi developed a system - which he calls "Kome Kami Switch" or "Temple Switch" - using a single chip computer and a pair infrared sensors. The whole thing is so small that it can fit into a pair of eyeglasses.

As an initial demonstration, he's adapted the Kome Kami Switch to control an Ipod. Closing both eyes for one second starts or stops the Ipod. Wink with the right eye to skip to the next tune or wink with the left eye to skip back.

As a hands-free control system, the switch can be a "third hand" for medical personnel, rock climbers, motorcycle riders, astronauts and disabled people.

"You don't have to worry about the system moving incorrectly as the system picks up signals when you close your eyes firmly. You can use this when you're eating or chatting with someone," said inventor Taniguchi. "Normally you blink in an energy-saving manner, very quickly and lightly, but you would close your eyes more firmly to operate a device."

He foresees the system being used to control a wide variety of systems, from televisions, air conditioners and room lighting to cellphones, wheelchairs and robots.

Taniguchi is also working on a similar system that works by clenching teeth.

Neural Impulse Actuator - The Future of Immersive Gaming

2008-03-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

Sunnyvale, Calif.—March 3, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and components for enthusiasts and gamers, is pleased to announced the Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) has begun mass production and launch into channel is imminent. A prototype was debuted last year at CeBIT 2007 which generated a newfound excitement in the global gaming community.

OCZ saw an exciting opportunity to enhance the gaming experience and take PC gameplay to new heights. The NIA is not a replacement for a mouse but rather a pioneering new peripheral designed to provide an immersive experience for gamers. The NIA is the first commercially available BCI (brain-computer interface) specifically for PC gamers.

“Advances in hardware and software allow today’s games to offer consumers an exceptional entertainment experience, and we wanted to take the next step by immersing gamers into these environments with the innovative new NIA,” stated Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. “The NIA radically changes the ways that gamers can interact and control elements within games, and can be configured in a matter of minutes for any game that is already published or will be released.”

The commands are easily assigned with the NIA’s user-friendly software and are calibrated based on the individual’s physiology and personal preferences. Each of the Actuator’s signals can be assigned to a specific keystroke on the keyboard or a mouse button; consequentially, gamers can run, jump, and fire faster all without “lifting a finger.” Because the NIA converts EEG (electroencephalograph) signals into specified keystrokes, the device can be used with any software. Upon proper configuration, the NIA will allow users to control PC games without the use of a keyboard and minimal use of a mouse.

The final version of the NIA uses a sleek metal housing, a USB 2.0 interface, and streamlined headband with carbon “dry” interface sensors. Due to the anticipation surrounding the release of the NIA, OCZ will be demoing the mass production device and begin accepting orders at the CeBIT 2008 in Hannover, Germany.

Sony to stop making old-style cathode ray tube TVs

2008-03-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

TOKYO (AFP) -- Sony Corp. (SNE:46.69, -0.01, 0.0%) said Monday that it will end all production of its traditional-style cathode ray tube televisions by the end of the month, four decades after their launch, as consumers switch to flat-screen TVs.
Sony Corp. ended production of cathode-ray tubes in Japan in 2004, but continued to produce the old-style TVs under the "Trinitron" brand at plants in Singapore and Malaysia to meet limited demand in Latin America and parts of Asia.
Now it has decided to pull the plug on the remaining operations.
"We are going to end production of cathode ray tubes at the end of March," a Sony spokesman said.
The Singapore unit, Sony Display Device, employed 680 people as of last year. The group said it was trying to find the workers alternative positions.
Sony has sold a total of 280 million cathode ray tubes since it introduced the TVs in 1965, followed by the first Trinitron model three years later.
At the peak of their popularity, production of cathode ray tubes for both TVs and computer monitors topped 20 million units a year in 2000.
Sony's production of cathode ray tubes in the current fiscal year to March is expected to fall 40% from the previous year to 2.8 million units, while shipments of liquid crystal displays are set to top 10 million units.
Demand is booming in the flat TV market but intense price competition is forcing companies to seek ways to drive down costs.
Last week Sony announced a tie-up with fellow high-tech giant Sharp in LCD panels in the latest industry alliance triggered by the fierce rivalry.

Acer to acquire smart-phone maker E-Ten

2008-03-04T04:29:00.000-08:00

Acer Inc., the world's third-largest PC vendor, has signed an agreement to buy handheld device maker E-Ten Information Systems Co.

The acquisition will put Acer in a position to market and further develop a range of handheld devices, including smart phones and Global Positioning System devices. E-Ten has developed and sold several smart-phone models over the past several years, including its Windows Mobile 6.0-based Glofish smart phone with GPS capability, in addition to other handheld electronic devices such as GPS devices and pocket PCs.

The deal is an all-stock transaction valued at $9 billion New Taiwan ($291.3 million U.S.). Acer is offering to exchange one share of its stock for every 1.07 shares of outstanding E-Ten stock to pay for the deal. Both companies are based in Taiwan.

The boards of directors at both companies have already approved the deal, but they still face shareholder votes and approval by government regulators.

The companies expect the deal to close in the third quarter of this year.

Acer cited mobility products as the main reason for the purchase, especially smart phones.

"The acquisition of E-Ten will allow Acer to play a key role in the development of the dynamic, fast-evolving market of smart handheld devices as well as ultramobile devices in the future and will help bring Acer???s cutting-edge mobile solutions to an even wider audience," Acer said in a statement.

The E-Ten deal follows a string of acquisitions by Acer, including the purchase last year of PC maker Gateway Inc. and the recent deal to buy Packard Bell NV, a Netherlands-based electronics maker.

Pioneer to cease output of plasma panels, source says

2008-03-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Pioneer Corp is finalizing plans to stop all production of plasma display panels, an industry source said on Tuesday, confirming an earlier report in the Nikkei business daily.

Pioneer is likely to buy panels from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the source said.

(Reporting by Kentaro Hamada)

Emotiv EPOC™ Beta Evaluators

2008-03-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

Emotiv EPOC™ Beta Evaluators Needed :
Are you ready to experience the bleeding-edge of gaming? Emotiv is looking for a few good Beta Evaluators to help us fine tune our revolutionary product. Be the first to experience the interactivity of the Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset! As extra incentive, participants who fully complete a documented evaluation session will be granted a significant discount on their early edition direct-to-consumer Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset kit.

Sessions will be conducted in March and April 2008 in the Emotiv offices located in San Francisco, California. These sessions generally involve non-invasive product usability testing and brainwave recordings. Each session will be approximately 1 hour (we also require you to arrive 15 minutes before the session start time).

If you are interested, send Emotiv an email to: betatest (at) emotiv.com with the following information:
+ First and Last Name
+ Age
+ Gender
+ Phone Number
+ Email Address
+ Full Mailing Address (Street, City, State, Zip)
+ Occupation
+ Hat size (if known, otherwise a subjective head size: extra-small, small, medium, large, extra-large)
+ Dates that are you available in March and April 2008
+ Preferred time of day to participate (morning / afternoon / evening)
+ Are you a regular gamer?
+ Have you participated in product beta testing or usability testing before?
+ Tell us something interesting about yourself that would make you the ideal "Emotivated" candidate!
An Emotiv representative will contact you if you have been selected for the Beta Evaluations.

Please note, incomplete submissions will NOT be considered. You must be 18 or older to participate and will be required to sign Non-Disclosure and Beta Evaluator Agreements.

Intel picks "Atom" as name for new chip family

2008-03-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp has picked "Atom" as the new brand name for its latest microprocessor, the world's largest semiconductor company said.

The Intel Atom processor is the name for the new family of low-power processors, the brains of digital devices, that will power mobile Internet devices and ultra low-cost and small notebook and desktop personal computers.

Intel (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) sees a big market for the Internet-connected devices that can fit in one's pocket and for what it is calling the netbook, a low-cost PC costing around $250.

The Intel Atom processor is based on a new microarchitecture designed for small devices and low power consumption, Intel said. The chip is less than 25 square millimeters, and 11 of the chip's dies -- the slivers of silicon with 47 million transistors each -- would fit in an area the size of a U.S. penny.

The new chips, previously code-named Silverthorne and Diamondville, are made on Intel's 45 nanometer chipmaking technology and slated for introduction toward the middle of this year.

"Diamondville and Silverthorne both represent an attempt by Intel to sell chips profitably for a whole lot less," said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at market research firm Insight 64. "This is the first new processor design coming out of Intel since the Pentium Pro in 1995."

Atom joins other Intel brands including Core, Core 2, Celeron, and Xeon, names for other processors the Santa Clara, California-based company makes and sells.

Intel also announced the Intel Centrino Atom processor technology brand aimed specifically at mobile Internet devices. It was formerly code-named Menlow.

Centrino Atom includes the Intel Atom processor, a low power companion chip with integrated graphics, a wireless radio, as well as thinner and lighter designs.

Sean Maloney, chief sales and marketing officer for Intel, said that Atom is "a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry."

Intel also said that Atom has potential for new sales dollars in consumer electronic devices and other gadgets, and said it was well positioned for growth in all of those segments with Atom's low-power architecture as a foundation.

Panasonic says that its 100GB Blu-ray discs will last a century

2008-03-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

Panasonic says that its new 4-layer 100GB Blu-ray discs are so durable that you'll be able to retrieve the data in 100 years' time (which reminds us a lot of the claims they originally made about CDs, as one may recall). The company has been at work for the last few years making use of "tellurium suboxide palladium-doped phase-change recording films" (or Te-O-Pd, for those in the know) to improve the capacity of its Blu-ray discs. But the company has now achieved what appears to be the optimal ratio for durability and size: a 100GB disc that will last you a century. Of course, a few months ago Panasonic scientists completed a research paper showing a disc-making technique that kicked that timeframe up to 500 years, but could only hold 50GB of data. So that may indicate that if you have 1GB that you really need to be preserved for the next several thousand years, you may want to get some serious cash together and give Panasonic a ring. Of course, all of these developments assume that firstly in 100 years Blu-ray readers will have won the format war, and secondly, will still be around.

Mitsubishi develops corrosion-resistant DVD-Rs for the long haul

2008-03-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

Yeah, companies have been trumpeting their ability to crank out discs that will last long after Martians come and evaporate our minds here on Earth for some time, but for archive junkies out there, more is always better. On deck today is Mitsubishi's ARLEDIA DVD-Rs, which reportedly feature corrosion-resistant coatings made from gold and silver. 'Course, you can only write to these at 8x, but they are expected to last about twice as long as traditional recordable discs. Not like you'll be around to prove 'em wrong, though.

Sony working in the labs on another monster

2008-03-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

SONY BOFFINS have been working in the labs, late some nights, and their eyes beheld some frightful sights. Well, frightful to their rivals.

Because they’ve crudely cobbled together another monster. This basic technology for a next-generation hard disk (as the Nikkei.net describes it) can store One terabit of porn (or any other data) per square inch. That’s five times the density of existing hard disks! So your notebook could store 150 hours of high-definition video.

Having won the hard fought format war with Toshiba over next-generation DVDs (hip hip, Blu Ray!) Sony won’t change its strategy on Blu-ray disc optical media any time soon.

But storage capacity is a beast that needs constantly feeding. If you don’t keep finding new ways to expand it, it’ll turn on you and smash up your laboratory. Metaphorically speaking. Toshiba has already promised to develop a high capacity flash media storage product to satisfy our endless need for storage.

But how good is this new invention? It’s a basic technique for writing data based on magneto-optical hybrid recording. Data bits are written to disk medium using laser light concentrated on an almost microscopic area of disc. So it makes traditional storage more efficient. Blimey, is that it?

We could have thought of that.

They plan further developments – Oh, OK, fair enough, we couldn’t do that – to fine tune the reading and writing of data to disks.

Sony is looking for a development partner on this one. µ

The world largest computer fair opened chap Microsoft

2008-03-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer evening of March 3, launched the world's largest computer exhibition CeBIT, which officially opens March 4, AFP. Balmer called on exhibitors to devote special attention to climate change and to reduce energy consumption in the IT industry.

CeBIT 2008 declared as a "green" exhibition. A few months before the CeBIT became known that the major parties supported the initiative event Climate Savers Computing Intitiative (CSCI), the purpose of which is to reduce energy consumption by 2010, by 50 per cent. Participants in the initiative - Dell, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft and Lenovo.

It is expected that IBM will present a computational model of the zero-point pollution, and the Deutsche Telekom booth will be fully ensured energy from renewable sources.

The exhibition CeBIT has been in existence since 1970. She was held in Hanover. In 2008, it will last from 4 to 9 March. About his participation in CeBIT 5500 companies said. It is expected that in the opening night March 3 will be attended kanler Germany Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the head of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.

ATLAS completes world’s largest jigsaw puzzle

2008-03-03T11:02:00.001-08:00

Geneva, 29 February 2008. Today the ATLAS1 collaboration at CERN2 celebrates the lowering of its last large detector element. The ATLAS detector is the world’s largest general-purpose particle detector, measuring 46 metres long, 25 metres high and 25 metres wide; it weighs 7000 tonnes and consists of 100 million sensors that measure particles produced in proton-proton collisions in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider3 (LHC). The first piece of ATLAS was installed in 2003 and since then many detector elements have journeyed down the 100 metre shaft into the ATLAS underground cavern. This last piece completes this gigantic puzzle.

“This is an exciting day for us,” said Marzio Nessi, ATLAS technical coordinator. “The installation process is coming to its conclusion and we are gearing up to start a new programme of physics research.”

Known as the small wheel, this is the final element to complete the ATLAS muon spectrometer, and will be journeying 100 metres into its underground experimental cavern. There are two ATLAS small wheels; though small in comparison to the rest of the ATLAS detector, they are each 9.3 metres in diameter and weigh 100 tonnes including massive shielding elements. They are covered with sensitive detectors to identify and measure the momentum of particles that will be created in the LHC collisions. The entire muon spectrometer system contains an area equal to three football fields, including 1.2 million independent electronic channels. As particles pass through a magnetic field produced by superconducting magnets, this detector has the ability to accurately track them to the width of a human hair.

“These fragile detectors comprise the largest measuring device ever constructed for high energy physics,” said George Mikenberg, ATLAS muon project leader.

“One of the major challenges is lowering the small wheel in a slow motion zigzag down the shaft,” explained Ariella Cattai, leader of the small wheel team, “and performing precision alignment of the detector within a millimetre of the other detectors already in the cavern.”

Comprising 450 physicists from 48 institutions, the ATLAS muon spectrometer group includes members from China, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia and the United States of America. For them, this event marks the end of more than a decade of development, planning and construction of the muon spectrometer system. The shielding elements of the small wheels have been constructed in Armenia and Serbia.

The ATLAS collaboration will focus now on commissioning work in preparation for the start-up of the LHC this summer. Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to take a big leap on a journey that started with Newton's description of gravity. Gravity is ubiquitous since it acts on mass, but so far science is unable to explain why particles have the masses they have. Experiments such as ATLAS may provide the answer. LHC experiments will also probe the mysterious dark matter and energy of the Universe, they will investigate the reason for nature's preference for matter over antimatter, probe matter as it existed close to the beginning of time and look for extra dimensions of spacetime.

1 ATLAS is a worldwide collaboration comprising over 2100 scientists and engineers from 167 institutions in 37 countries and regions. These are Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

2 CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

3 The LHC is a particle accelerator, which will be the world’s largest and most complex scientific instrument when it switches on in summer 2008.

Source: http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR02.08E.html

NASA Baffled by Unexplained Force Acting on Space Probes

2008-03-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

Mysteriously, four spacecraft that flew past the Earth have each displayed unexpected anomalies in their motions.

These newfound enigmas join the so-called "Pioneer anomaly" as hints that unexplained forces may appear to act on spacecraft.

A decade ago, after rigorous analyses, anomalies were seen with the identical Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft as they hurtled out of the solar system. Both seemed to experience a tiny but unexplained constant acceleration toward the sun.

A host of explanations have been bandied about for the Pioneer anomaly. At times these are rooted in conventional science — perhaps leaks from the spacecraft have affected their trajectories. At times these are rooted in more speculative physics — maybe the law of gravity itself needs to be modified.

Now Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer John Anderson and his colleagues — who originally helped uncover the Pioneer anomaly — have discovered that four spacecraft each raced either a tiny bit faster or slower than expected when they flew past the Earth en route to other parts of the solar system.

'Humble and perplexed'

The researchers looked at five deep-space probes — Galileo to Jupiter, the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros, the Rosetta probe to a comet, Cassini to Saturn, and the MESSENGER craft to Mercury. Each spacecraft flew past the our planet to either gain or lose orbital energy in their quests to reach their eventual targets. (Galileo made two flybys.)

In five of the six flybys, the scientists have confirmed anomalies.

"I am feeling both humble and perplexed by this," said Anderson, who is now working as a retiree. "There is something very strange going on with spacecraft motions. We have no convincing explanation for either the Pioneer anomaly or the flyby anomaly."

In the one probe the researchers did not confirm a noticeable anomaly with, MESSENGER, the spacecraft approached the Earth at about latitude 31 degrees north and receded from the Earth at about latitude 32 degrees south. "This near-perfect symmetry about the equator seemed to result in a very small velocity change, in contrast to the five other flybys," Anderson explained — so small no anomaly could be confirmed.

The five other flybys involved flights whose incoming and outgoing trajectories were asymmetrical with each other in terms of their orientation with Earth's equator.

For instance, the NEAR mission approached Earth at about latitude 20 south and receded from the planet at about latitude 72 south. The spacecraft then seemed to fly 13 millimeters per second faster than expected. While this is just one-millionth of that probe's total velocity, the precision of the velocity measurements was 0.1 millimeters per second, carried out as they were using radio waves bounced off the craft. This suggests the anomaly seen is real — and one needing an explanation.

The fact this effect seems most evident with flybys most asymmetrical with respect to Earth's equator "suggests that the anomaly is related to Earth's rotation," Anderson said.

As to whether these new anomalies are linked with the Pioneer anomaly, "I would be very surprised if we have discovered two independent spacecraft anomalies," Anderson told SPACE.com. "I suspect they are connected, but I really do not know."

Unbound idea

These anomalies might be effects we see with an object possessing a spacecraft's mass, between 660 and 2,200 lbs. (300 and 1,000 kg), Anderson speculated.

"Another thing in common between the Pioneer and these flybys is what you would call an unbound orbit around a central body," Anderson said. "For instance, the Pioneers are flying out of the solar system — they're not bound to their central body, the sun. For the other flybys, the Earth is the central body. These kinds of orbits just don't occur very often in nature — it could be when you get into an unbound orbit around a central body, something goes on that's not in our standard models."

The researchers are now collaborating with German colleagues to search for possible anomalies in the Rosetta probe's second flyby of the Earth on November 13.

"We should continue to monitor spacecraft during Earth flybys. We should look carefully at newly recovered Pioneer data for more evidence of the Pioneer anomaly," Anderson added. "We should think about launching a dedicated mission on an escape trajectory from the solar system, just to look for anomalies in its motion."

Montana State University physicist Ronald Hellings, who did not participate in this study, said, "There's definitely something going on. Whether that's because of new physics or some problem with the model we have is yet to be worked out, as far as I know. A lot of people are trying to look into this."

Anderson and his colleagues will detail their latest findings in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080229-spacecraft-anomaly.html

New 'snapshots' aid quest for fusion energy

2008-03-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

This schematic drawing shows the system MIT physicists are using to study tiny implosions of hydrogen fuel. On the left, protons streaming away from the far-left implosion travel through magnetic and electric fields generated by the other implosion. On the right is the resulting image of the fields, with the compressed hydrogen pellet in the center. Image courtesy / Richard Petrasso

Physicists at MIT and the University of Rochester have devised a new way to take "snapshots" of the high-energy, high-temperature reactions seen as key to achieving the long-held dream of controlled nuclear fusion.

The work, which is reported in the Feb. 28 issue of Science, could one day help scientists harness nuclear fusion as an energy source. It could also shed light on basic questions about the physics of stars.

Nuclear fusion-the process by which atomic particles clump together to form a heavier nucleus-releases an enormous amount of energy (roughly one million times of that of a chemical reaction). When nuclear fusion occurs in an uncontrolled chain reaction, it can result in a thermonuclear blast-such as the one generated by hydrogen bombs.

Achieving controlled nuclear fusion, which could be a safe and reliable source of nearly limitless energy, is one of the "holy grails" of high-energy-density physics, according to Richard Petrasso, senior research scientist at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center and an author of the Science paper.

For decades, scientists at MIT and elsewhere have been working toward that goal by setting off miniature implosions that recreate the high temperatures and densities found in stars.

One way physicists create the implosions is by bombarding tiny pellets of hydrogen fuel with lasers. Inside the pellet, the compressed gas reaches about 100 million degrees, or about seven times hotter than the center of the sun. Under certain conditions, the gas's density can reach 1,000 grams per cubic centimeter (50 times the density of gold).

"It really creates conditions you can only find in the interior of stars," Petrasso said.

Until now, physicists have largely been able to study the implosions only by measuring the particles released by the imploding gas, such as protons, X-rays, neutrons and photons. Alternatively, they have also studied implosions with X-rays, creating images of the compressed pellets.

The new detection method allows scientists, for the first time, to take a snapshot of the electric and magnetic fields generated by the implosion.

The process requires two implosions: one to be studied, and a second that serves to illuminate the first implosion. The first implosion lasts about three nanoseconds (billionths of a second) and the second one can be timed to go off anytime within those three nanoseconds.

The second implosion generates a stream of protons that all have the same energy level, 15 million electron volts. Because protons are charged, their paths are influenced by the fields surrounding the first implosion. These protons can be recorded, just like photons, to create an image of the fields' effects. Photons, however, are unaffected by such fields and thus cannot detect their presence.

"It's a way of capturing images with protons instead of photons," Petrasso said.

Such images can help scientists figure out whether the implosions are close to symmetrical.

To achieve nuclear fusion, the implosion must occur with near-perfect symmetry. Such an event, also known as ignition, has never been demonstrated experimentally.

If ignition occurs, between 10 and 150 million joules of fusion energy would be released. (150 million joules is about the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline, released from something the size of a small pin head.)

Most of this work was conducted using a laser system at the Lab for Laser Electronics at the University of Rochester. The laser system, called Omega, is about the size of a football field.

The National Ignition Facility, where scientists hope to achieve ignition for the first time, is scheduled to open at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California in 2010. Assuming ignition is achieved in the 2010-2012 time scale, scientists will begin directly addressing how one might utilize this prodigious energy for electricity generation.

Lead author of the Science paper is Ryan Rygg, formerly a Physics Department graduate student and a recent PhD recipient at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) now at Lawrence Livermore. Other MIT authors are Frederick Seåguin and Johan Frenje, research scientists at the PSFC; Chikang Li, principal research scientist at the PSFC; and Mario Manuel, graduate student in aeronautics and astronautics.

Boffin stacks 16 PS3s to simulate black hole collisions

2008-03-02T00:57:00.001-08:00

When most of us arrived home with our newly purchased PS3, we couldn't wait to start annihilating aliens in Resistance: Fall of Man or kicking butt kung fu-style in Virtua Fighter 5. Not astrophysicist Gaurav Khanna - he used his to build a supercomputer.

Khanna now owns a total of 16 PS3 consoles, all linked together to provide the same computing power as a 400-node supercomputer. His set up, which he calls a 'gravity grid', is used to simulate the activity of very large black holes for the Physics Department at the University of Massachusetts.

Stacked Sonies: the 'gravity grid' set up

The project is an attempt to estimate the properties of gravity waves generated by the collision of two black holes. Gravitational waves are 'ripples' in space-time that travel at the speed of light. These were theoretically predicted by Einstein's general relativity, but have never been directly observed.

In order to run his simulation data on the consoles, Khanna had to load the PS3s with Linux. What makes the gaming console more effective than high-end computers for complex research algorithms is the Cell chip built by IBM to process high-end gaming functions.

Linux powered
"Linux can turn any system into a general-purpose computer, but for it to work for me I have to run my own code on it for astrophysics applications. The hard part of the job was to make sure my own calculations could run fast on the platform, which meant I had to optimise the written code so it could utilise the new features of the system."

The 16 PS3s haven't been physically modified. They're networked together using an inexpensive Gigabit Ethernet switch.

"Overall, a single PS3 performs better than the highest-end desktops available and compares to as many as 25 nodes of an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer," Khanna noted.

Magnetic atoms of gold, silver and copper have been obtained

2008-03-02T00:50:00.000-08:00

An international team led by Physics and Chemistry teams from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and directed by Professor Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia, has achieved, by means of a controlled chemical process, that atoms of gold, silver and copper - intrinsically non-magnetic (not attracted to a magnet) - become magnetic. The article has been published in the February issue of the prestigious international magazine in nanotechnology, Nanoletters (Vol.8, No. 2, 661-667 (2008)).

According to the research, in which researchers from the UPV/EHU as well as teams from Australia and Japan have taken part, the magnetism appears reduce the dimensions of the material to nanometric dimensions and surround it with previously selected organic molecules. The magnetism of these nanoparticles is a permanent one (like iron) which, even at ambient temperature, is quite significant. This amazing behaviour has been obtained not just with gold (a phenomenon which had already been put forward as experimentally possible) but, in this research, nanoparticles of silver and copper (the atoms of which are intrinsically non-magnetic) with a size of 2 nm (0.000002 mm) have also been shown to be magnetic at ambient temperature.

The contribution of this work, part of the PhD of Ms Eider Goikolea Núñez and led by Professors Mr Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia and Ms Maite Insausti Peña, is not limited to obtaining these amazing magnetic nanoparticles. In fact, by means of complex techniques, using experimental systems based on particle accelerators and nuclear techniques, both in Japan and in Australia, have clearly shown for the first time that magnetism exists in atoms of gold, silver and copper, metals which, in any other condition, are intrinsically non-magnetic (a magnet does not attract them).

This discovery goes beyond the mere fact of converting non-magnetic elements to magnetic ones. These properties appear in smaller-sized particles that have never been seen in classical magnetic elements. In fact, they can be considered as the smallest magnets ever obtained. Moreover, such properties do not occur only at low temperatures but they are conserved, apparently without any degradation, at temperatures well above the ambient ones.

This work poses new questions as regards what have been the accepted up to now as the physical mechanisms associated with magnetism and opens the doors to interesting applications yet to be discovered, some of which are related to the use of magnetic nanoparticles for the diagnosis/treatment of illnesses. Likewise, this article is destined to be a point of no return for research into fundamental questions about magnetism.

http://www.basqueresearch.com/berria_irakurri.asp?Berri_Kod=1652&hizk=I

Local Positive Feedback Regulation Determines Cell Shape in Root Hair Cells

2008-03-02T00:42:00.001-08:00

Seiji Takeda,1 Catherine Gapper,1 Hidetaka Kaya,2,3 Elizabeth Bell,1 Kazuyuki Kuchitsu,2,3 Liam Dolan1*

The specification and maintenance of growth sites are tightly regulated during cell morphogenesis in all organisms. ROOT HAIR DEFECTIVE 2 reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (RHD2 NADPH) oxidase–derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) stimulate a Ca2+ influx into the cytoplasm that is required for root hair growth in Arabidopsis thaliana. We found that Ca2+, in turn, activated the RHD2 NADPH oxidase to produce ROS at the growing point in the root hair. Together, these components could establish a means of positive feedback regulation that maintains an active growth site in expanding root hair cells. Because the location and stability of growth sites predict the ultimate form of a plant cell, our findings demonstrate how a positive feedback mechanism involving RHD2, ROS, and Ca2+ can determine cell shape.

1 Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich NR4 7UH, UK.
2 Genome and Drug Research Center, Tokyo University of Science, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda, Chiba 278-8510, Japan.
3 Department of Applied Biological Science, Tokyo University of Science, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda, Chiba 278-8510, Japan.

Plant growth experiment starts in Columbus

2008-03-02T00:34:00.000-08:00

WAICO investigates root waving and coiling in Arabidopsis seedlings

ESA astronaut Léopold Eyharts has activated the first experiment inside the European Columbus laboratory. The WAICO experiment, which investigates the effect of gravity on plant root growth, has started inside the module's Biolab facility.
WAICO, short for Waving and Coiling of Arabidopsis Roots at Different g-levels, looks at the growth of two types of Arabidopsis seed. In all, two different sets of seeds – wild type and genetically modified type - will be allowed to grow under varying levels of gravity, 0g and 1g, where g is the equivalent of gravity on Earth.

The tiny Arabidopsis seeds will be left to grow for 10 to 15 days, under controlled temperature, humidity and illumination conditions. Daily video images document how the roots grow in space. Using Biolab's telemetry capabilities, the video images are also made available on the ground for real-time observations.

As the seeds grow, the experiment's lead scientist, Professor Guenther Scherer from the Leibniz Universitat Hannover, Germany, will observe how the level of gravity affects the characteristic spiralling and coiling root growth seen on Earth.

The results of the WAICO experiment will contribute to a better understanding of plant growth processes and could help to increase the efficiency of agricultural processes on Earth.

With an eye on future plans for long-term human exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, WAICO could also contribute to our knowledge of growing crops in the space environment – providing astronauts with nutritional fresh produce during a voyage that could last as long as two years.

At the end of the experiment run, Biolab will automatically flush the cultivation box with a fixative, preserving the seeds in their final state of growth, ready for later analysis back on Earth. The astronaut will also document the plants' appearance at this time using high-resolution photography .

The seedlings are set to return to Earth with the next Shuttle mission, STS-123, targeted for launch on 11 March 2008 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM7HZJ26DF_index_0.html

Dell XPS 630 Desktop

2008-02-27T03:33:00.000-08:00

Key Specs

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 (2.66GHz)
Memory: 2GB RAM
Storage: 500GB hard drive
Optical Drives: Double-layer DVD±RW
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8800 GT
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium

Review

It was just a matter of time before Dell jumped on the trend toward mainstream gaming machines—and its first effort is a winner. The XPS 630 is the best example we've yet seen of an everyday, affordable desktop that also excels with gaming, making you feel like you're getting more than your money's worth.

At $1,269, the XPS 630 costs a little more than two other mainstream machines we've looked at lately—Gateway's FX7020 and the Cyberpower Gamer Ultra CF 3870—but it noticeably outpaced both in terms of performance.

Powering the XPS 630 are a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 processor, 2GB of RAM, and the nVidia GeForce 8800 GT graphics card—the secret weapon of most mainstream gaming machines. And, in a big step forward for Dell, all of those components are plugged into an ATX motherboard. With this system, Dell has finally abandoned its proprietary designs, allowing for easier internal access and greater expandability post-purchase. Rounding out the offerings, you get a 500GB hard drive, double-layer 16x DVD±RW optical drive, 19-in-1 media-card reader, and Vista Home Premium as the OS.

The XPS 630 couldn't trounce the Gateway and Cyberpower in all our productivity tests (though the Dell was respectable across the board). But it delivered some impressive scores in our gaming benchmarks, starting with a more-than-solid 10,487 in Futuremark's 3DMark06 at 1,280x1,024 resolution, and handsome ratings of 8,883 at 1,600x1,200 and 6,338 at 2,560x1,600. The Gateway just eked ahead of the Dell on the last one, but the Dell regained its ground with a startling 137.7 frames per second (fps) in Company of Heroes at 1,280x1,024, a still-mighty 99.2fps at 1,600x1,200, and a more average 46.4fps at 2,560x1,200.

The wide leads vanished in the demanding DirectX 9 (DX9) title Supreme Commander, in which the XPS 630 consistently fell just behind both the Gateway and the Cyberpower systems. In our DX10 Company of Heroes and World in Conflict trials, the Dell still led the way but by considerably smaller margins. The XPS 630 was dead last, however, in all our DX10 tests with the highest resolutions, showing unplayable results of 8.3fps in Company of Heroes (2,560x1,600), 1fps in World in Conflict (2,560x1,600), and 8.9fps in Call of Juarez (1,920x1,200).

(This serves as an important reminder: these systems aren't intended for all-out performance freaks; they're just supposed to bring the thrill and fun of 3D gaming to the masses who can't shell out thousands of dollars to play the latest title at full-detail levels.)

Gaming aside, the XPS 630 offers some other worthy features. Its toolless, trapezoidal chassis is unusually sexy for this price. (Ours was black, but red is also available for yet another dash of flair.) The XPS 630 is also highly customizable, from security software (a 15-month McAfee subscription is an option) to upgradability. If you've got a bit more room on your credit card, you can add another 8800 GT in a Scalable Link Interface (SLI) configuration (you can also outfit your system with ATI graphics cards in CrossFire mode, if you want), an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, more hard-drive space, a Blu-ray high-definition optical drive, and so on. The XPS 630 is not factory-overclocked, but Dell says its warranty covers overclocking for customers who choose to do so.

From what we've seen, the additions are not strictly necessary. As it stands, the XPS 630 is a well-tooled system that will bring you lots of enjoyment without breaking the bank.

Physicists Demonstrate Qubit-Qutrit Entanglement

2008-02-26T11:08:00.000-08:00

For the first time, physicists have entangled a qubit with a “qutrit” – the 3D version of the 2D qubit. Qubit-qutrit entanglement could lead to advantages in quantum computing, such as increased security and more efficient quantum gates, as well as enable novel tests of quantum mechanics.

The research team, composed of physicists from the University of Queensland, the University of Bristol, and the University of Waterloo, has published its results in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters. The researchers made qutrits with biphotons (two correlated photons), resulting in “biphotonic qutrits.” Then, they entangled these qutrits with photonic qubits (made with one photon) using a combination of linear optic elements and measurements.

A qutrit, just as it sounds, is the quantum information analogue of the classical trit. Due to its quantum mechanical nature, a qutrit can exist in superpositions of its three basis states. This is similar to how a qubit can exist in superpositions of its two states. Because of the qutrit’s 3D nature, though, it can carry much more information than the qubit. (A string of n classical bits holds 1n states, a string of n qubits holds 2n states, and a string of n qutrits holds 3n states.)

Many researchers have investigated the possibilities of entangling a qubit and qutrit, hoping to develop a valuable tool for improving quantum computing and exploring novel quantum phenomena, among other things. The authors’ result now makes such theoretical proposals experimentally testable.

“For me, the significance our paper is about how entangling systems to a qubit can be a great way to manipulate that system,” co-author Benjamin Lanyon of the University of Queensland told PhysOrg.com. “In our example, we use this technique to dramatically extend the range of possible transforms on qutrits – these higher dimensional quantum information carriers, which offer loads of advantages, but are otherwise really difficult to handle.”

In their study, the researchers show that qubit-qutrit entanglement can be a useful resource to manipulate the difficult-to-handle qutrits. The scientists built a non-linear qutrit polarizer, which involves creation of the entanglement and destructive measurement of the qubit. The result is to temporarily remove a single qutrit state from the qutrit’s superposition.

Lanyon explains that this is an example of a measurement-induced nonlinearity (MINL), which is known to be an extremely powerful tool to manipulate qubits and realize an optical quantum computer.

“Measurements on the output of optical circuits built from only linear elements (such as beamsplitters, phase shifters and mirrors) can give rise to a non-linear evolution of the input optical field, i.e. for all intents and proposes, the photons seem to have interacted,” said Lanyon. “This is surprising, since photons do not naturally interact in these systems, and the effect is called a measurement-induced nonlinearity. In the context of our study, the MINL gives rise to the non-linear evolution required to generate entanglement and remove a single logical state from a qutrit superposition.”

He also gave a visual description.

“Consider that there are a number of different paths that the photons could take through the optical circuit,” he said. “As in the double-slit experiment with electrons, the photons take all these paths at once, and, at the output, we end up with a large superposition. Now let’s make a measurement of the whole (or part) of the output state. Certain results mean that certain paths were not taken – and therefore we can get rid of paths this way, conditional on getting certain measurement outcomes. Very clever measurements can leave you with a path history that results in entanglement.”

The researchers also propose a number of extensions to their work. For example, a pair of entangled qubit-qutrit states could be used to create qutrit-qutrit entanglement, which would first require entangling the two qubits. High-brightness single-photon sources currently in development will help with these kinds of future experiments. The researchers also propose that using MINLs as a manipulation technique is not limited to photons, but can be applied to any type of bosonic quantum information carrier.

The scientists predict that higher dimensional entanglement will have applications including optimizing security in quantum information systems, and increasing channel capacity for quantum communication, among other uses.

Airline in first biofuel flight

2008-02-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

The first flight by a commercial airline to be powered partly by biofuel has taken place.

A Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet has flown between London's Heathrow and Amsterdam using fuel derived from a mixture of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts.

Environmentalists have branded the flight a publicity stunt and claim biofuel cultivation is not sustainable.

Earlier this month, Airbus tested another alternative fuel - a synthetic mix of gas-to-liquid.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson said the flight marked a "vital breakthrough" for the entire airline industry.

"This pioneering flight will enable those of us who are serious about reducing our carbon emissions to go on developing the fuels of the future," he said.

But he said fully commercial biofuel flights were likely to use feedstocks such as algae rather than the mix used on the passenger-less flight.

Virgin's Boeing 747 had one of its four engines connected to an independent biofuel tank that it said could provide 20% of the engine's power.

The three other engines were capable of powering the plane on conventional fuel had there been a problem.

The company said the babassu tree, native to Brazil, and the coconuts did not compete with staple food sources and came from existing mature plantations.

Both products are commonly used in cosmetics and household paper products.

'Gimmick'

One problem with flying planes using biofuel is that it is more likely to freeze at high altitude.
The technology is still being manufactured by companies GE and Boeing, but Virgin believes airlines could routinely be flying on plant power within 10 years.

Kenneth Richter, of Friends of the Earth, said the flight was a "gimmick", distracting from real solutions to climate change.

"If you look at the latest scientific research it clearly shows biofuels do very little to reduce emissions," he said.

"At the same time we are very concerned about the impact of the large-scale increase in biofuel production on the environment and food prices worldwide.

"What we need to do is stop this mad expansion of aviation. At the moment it is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in the UK, and we need to stop subsidising the industry."

Greenpeace's chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr, labelled the flight a "high-altitude greenwash" and said less air travel was the only answer.
"Instead of looking for a magic green bullet, Virgin should focus on the real solution to this problem and call for a halt to relentless airport expansion."

Airbus ran its test using the world's largest passenger jet, the A380.

The three-hour flight from Filton near Bristol to Toulouse on 1 February was part of an ongoing research programme.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7261214.stm

Hacker breaks link between iTunes and the iPod

2008-02-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

Software letting iTunes users copy music and video to mobile phones has been released by the hacker known as DVD Jon

A notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon is preparing for another run-in with the music industry after he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices.

The program allows people to drag and drop songs from iTunes into a folder on their desktop, which in turn copies the files to other devices such as mobile phones and games consoles via the web.

In doing so, the software breaks the copy protection - known as 'digital rights management' or DRM - that is built into all music that is bought from iTunes. Music bought from iTunes can be played only on the iPod.

DoubleTwist, DVD Jon's company, maintains that its service is legal, but lawyers said that Apple would almost certainly seek to shut it down because the law now specifically targeted technologies which attempted to circumvent measures such as DRM.

The hacker has previously enabled iPod owners to play music bought from websites other than iTunes.

DoubleTwist's new software will initially enable files to be copied to Nokia N-series mobile phones, Sony Ericsson's Walkman and Cybershot handsets, as well as any smartphone powered by Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system.

The program gets around Apple's DRM software by replaying a song in fast-forward and taking a copy of the audio track, using a process similar to that by which a CD is 'ripped' - or copied - to a computer.

About a hundred songs can be converted in half an hour, doubleTwist said, although there is a 5 per cent loss of sound quality - about the same as when a CD is copied.

A spokesman for the San Fransisco-based company said that its software was legal, because it only allowed a user who has already purchased music to copy it. "All we are facilitating are friends sending things to one another," Monique Farantzos, doubleTwists's chief executive and co-founder, told Reuters.

Lawyers today cast doubt on Ms Farantzos's claims, however, saying that the law had taken steps to protect Apple's efforts to control the way its music could be played, and that anyone circumventing measures such as DRM risked being found guilty of copyright infringement.

"I would be astonished if doubleTwist doesn't get a call from Apple," Paul Jones, a partner in intellectual property law at the London-based firm Harbottle & Lewis, said.

DVD Jon, whose real name is Jon Lech Johansen, has been an arch-enemy of the music and film indutries ever since he released software which broke the copy protection on Hollywood films, aged 16.

In 2003, Mr Johansen, now 24, developed the first of several programs which attempted to bypass the system developed by Apple for synchronising its iTunes store with iPods, leading to one of a series of run-ins with the firm.

IBM scientists look to DNA to build future chips

2008-02-23T12:43:00.002-08:00

DNA strings could become the template for nanotubes and nanowires by 2028

February 21, 2008 (Computerworld) Looking for a way to continually shrink computer chips while still squeezing more transistors onto them, IBM scientists are working on a whole new way to build processors -- using DNA.

For the past year and a half, researchers at IBM have been working on creating a new way to make the patterns used to lay out the transistors and wires that go on a chip. Today, semiconductor manufacturers use optical lithography, which uses light to transfer the pattern. The problem, according to Joe Gordon, senior manager for materials for advanced technology at IBM, is that it's difficult to shrink the pattern using today's techniques.

And since Gordon said 50% of the improvement in processor performance comes from shrinking the pattern, scientists need to come up with a new way to create the patterns.

That's where the DNA strands come into play.

"Right now, the industry road map is [that] we'll get down to 22 nanometer-size features on a chip," said Gordon. "We're looking at ways to go down beyond that. It's very clear it will be difficult to go smaller than that using the optical lithography we know today. Using DNA will help us do that."

Greg Wallraff, a staff scientist at IBM, explained that the researchers are laying single molecules of DNA onto the chip's surface and using them as a template for assembling electronic components, like nanotubes and nanowires. The DNA used by the researchers comes from a virus, he added.

Wallraff said the IBM research team is working with California Institute of Technology scientist Paul Rothemund, who has developed a way to assemble single molecules of DNA into complex structures. Building on that research, the IBM scientists are trying to wrangle the DNA into usable templates.

"People say DNA is the blueprint for life," said Wallraff. "The specific structure of DNA has unique features. It's basically programmable. You can design DNA into unique shapes, with specific attachment sites. Then we pour this DNA solution onto a silicon substrate, and the DNA assembles itself exactly where we want it to on the chip, and then we assemble the components on top of that."

The attachment sites on DNA, which is where the nanowires and transistors would attach on the template, can be made much closer together than with traditional pattern manufacturing techniques. With DNA, the attachment sites are 4nm to 6nm apart. Normally, they're about 45nm apart.

"Think of it as tiling a floor. These DNA pieces are like tiles," explained Gordon. "Each tile has some array of electronic components. Those tiles are placed on a chip in a larger array so there are thousands or millions on a chip. The second step, which we don't know how to do yet, would be to wire them all together. We've got sizes well below conventional lithography."

Once the nanotubes and wires are laid onto the template, the DNA would be extracted. Wallraff said millions of the DNA templates would be needed for a single chip.

Gordon noted that the research team is far from figuring out the whole process needed to make the DNA model work. "We don't have a good picture of exactly how you would do everything," he said. "How do we make the tiles stick together in the right places? Can we get the nanowires to attach to the tiles in the right places? Can we wire them up?"

Wallraff said the next steps will be connect all the tiles together and check the defect levels during assembly.

Actually using this pattern technique is probably 10 to 20 years away, he noted.

IBM scientists look to DNA to build future chips - ComputerWorld, 22.02.2008

In Germany, installed the most powerful supercomputer in Europe JUGENE

2008-02-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

In the city Yyulih Research Center in western Germany has been installed the most powerful supercomputer in Europe JUGENE, the website reported Informationsdienst Wissenschaft. In the world ranking the most productive computers JUGENE debuted in second place - the first line, like the previous few years, remains with the BlueGene / L.

At the official launch ceremony was attended by computer Prime Minister Juergen Ruettgers and Secretary of State Thomas Rachel. According to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of a research centre in Yyulihe, JUGENE is the most powerful supercomputer in the world, used for civilian purposes.

Supercomputer JUGENE able to perform 167 trillion mathematical operations per second. Supercomputer, which is the most powerful representative of a series of machines BlueGene / P, 65 is equipped with thousands of processors. The computer was created by IBM.

First place in the ranking of the most powerful supercomputing for a number of years keeps repeatedly improved machine BlueGene / L production of the same IBM. Peak performance supercomputer that is more than 596 trillion operations per second.

Research topics on the Juelich supercomputers:
O Pollutants in the Soil
O magma in the Earth's core
O Chemical reactions in the atmosphere
O Galaxies and the formation of stars
O Polymers in Solutions
O Lasers and Particle Physics
O protein folding in cells
O Biological membranes
O Aviation and Auto Engineering
O Fire protection and evacuation scenarios

Specifications of the Juelich supercomputer JUGENE:
O Architecture: IBM's Blue Gene / P
O Performance, theoretical: 223 teraflops
O performance, measured: 167 teraflops
O Processors: 65 536
O type of processors: Power PC 450
O Frequency: 850 megahertz
O Main memory: 32 terabytes
O bandwidth Storage: 13.6 GB / s
O Local network bandwidth: 5.1 GB / s
O Network latency: 160 nanoseconds
O Electric power: 560 kW

sourse - http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news248084

Building the WorldWide Hydrogen Super Highway...

2008-02-23T09:46:00.001-08:00

What is the Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Super Highway? It is a collection of vital municipal utilities bundled into what we call the Conduit Cluster providing a first of its kind full integration of solar powered hydrogen production and distribution with a high speed magnetic levitation ( MagLev ) public transit network built along the right of way of the US Interstate Highway Systems, and any other permissible right of way where such a machine would be of benefit. The Interstate Traveler, also known as the Interstate Traveler Rail, is accessed by Traveler Stations that are built within the right of way of the Interstate Highway within the land locked real-estate of the clover leaf interchanges providing maximum ease of access for people who live anywhere near the Interstate Highway.

What problem does the Interstate Traveler Solve? The newscasters tell us every day about the difficult times people are having all over the world. Everywhere there is over crowding, urban sprawl, public utility failures, traffic jams, car accidents, utility poles that are easily damaged by bad weather, and backed up sewer systems that contaminate local public waters. The science of all these problems being significant unto themselves as a business, a municipal responsibility and as a personal plight. The Interstate Traveler creates a more resilient solution to all of these problems in a single relatively inexpensive mass produced rapid transit rail system.

It has become ever more popular for new urban areas to be developed with underground utilities, and as the ever increasing population grows into new areas and redevelops old ones, there will be a need for both a highly efficient light rail system, and a need for massive upgrades in the basic public utility conduits such as electricity, water, and liquid waste.

Ultimately, we are creating a massive functional upgrade to the efficiency of the United States public infrastructure as a whole by implementing a nested domain address system for a National Public Transit Network.

sourse - http://www.interstatetraveler.us