Science and Technology

Free Song Promotion Is Expected From Amazon

2008-01-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

The major record labels lined up with Pepsi-Cola and Apple four years ago to give away 100 million songs through Apple’s online store, unveiling the promotion in a Super Bowl commercial with music from the band Green Day. The effort helped spread the word about Apple’s iTunes offerings.

Pepsi’s promotion is back this year on a much bigger scale — but with the star wattage provided by Justin Timberlake instead of Green Day, and Amazon in place of Apple.

The switch is an indicator of the continuing tension between the music industry and Apple. Pepsi’s earlier ad, set to Green Day’s version of the song “I Fought the Law,” prodded music fans to quit pirating music online and instead buy songs — legally — from Apple’s then-fledgling iTunes. Four years later, iTunes is by far the biggest digital music store, and the industry is taking a liking to Amazon’s rival music service, introduced in September.

Though iTunes blazed a trail in encouraging fans to pay for music online, record executives now complain that Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, wields too much clout in setting prices and other terms. At issue now is whether the labels can help popularize a more industry-friendly service and accelerate the pace of digital sales.

Behind this strategy is a growing desperation: sales of digital albums and songs are rising far too slowly to offset the rapid decline of the CD, the industry’s mainstay product. CD sales slid 19 percent last year; after adding in the 50 million digital albums sold last year and counting every 10 digital songs sold as an album, overall music sales were still down 9.5 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In trying to nurture Amazon’s service, the four major record companies have offered it one potential edge. One by one, they have agreed to offer their music catalogs for sale on the service in the MP3 format, without the digital locks that restrict users from making copies of the songs. (Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the second-biggest company and the last holdout, signed on last week. Sony BMG is a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann).

All of the companies except the EMI Group still require Apple to sell their music wrapped in digital rights management software, or D.R.M., which is intended to discourage rampant copying. Some consumers say D.R.M. creates confusing problems, like a lack of compatibility between most songs and the devices sold by Apple and Microsoft. In fact, it was Mr. Jobs who, in February, called on the industry to drop its longstanding insistence on the use of the software, saying it had failed to rein in piracy.

In any case, the industry is waiting to see whether — and how quickly — Amazon can grow into a credible alternative to iTunes, and whether Mr. Jobs will stand by as his service, which commands as much as 80 percent of digital download sales, is challenged.

“This is really a stare-down,” said one major label executive who was briefed on the new Pepsi promotion and who requested anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak about it.

Industry executives say the rivalry could intensify if the two services jockey over who will be given exclusive rights to some songs or special promotions. A senior executive at another record company, who requested anonymity out of concern about irritating Mr. Jobs, said he was prepared to keep copy restrictions on his label’s songs on iTunes for six months to a year while Amazon establishes itself. Apple insists on selling all single tracks for 99 cents, while Amazon sells them for 89 cents to over a dollar.

Danny Socolof, president of Mega, the Las Vegas marketing agency that developed the promotion, which is called “Pepsi Stuff,” said the industry’s collective shift away from D.R.M. would “unleash a new age in the music business, and it’s sorely needed.” He said Pepsi’s alliance with Amazon reflected in part the record companies’ “desire to increase the retail space” online “and help level the playing field.”

In the promotion, to be announced Monday, consumers who buy Pepsi drinks will receive points that can be redeemed for music downloads at a special section of the Amazon site. Amazon and Pepsi, a brand of PepsiCo, will give away up to a billion songs, along with prizes like DVDs and electronics, though only a fraction of the eligible Pepsi packages are expected to be redeemed.

The biggest of the four music companies, the Universal Music Group, has declined to join the offer, executives briefed on the situation said, over a pricing disagreement. (Universal, a part of Vivendi, will still sell music through the Amazon service.) The Warner Music Group is also expected to participate.

Amazon is expected to pay the record companies around 40 cents for each track that is given away in the Pepsi offer; Amazon’s usual payment ranges from 65 to 70 cents, executives briefed on the deal said.

Industry analysts said they expected Apple to treat the situation as a minor annoyance. And an expansion of the digital music market is likely to increase sales of iPods, which are more lucrative than the iTunes store and dominate the digital player market.

Forcing Apple to continue selling restricted music is “kind of like a couple of pebbles in the shoe,” said Michael McGuire, an analyst at Gartner. To Apple, he said, “maintaining parity is probably somewhat important, but in the end, they’re still selling iPods.” He noted that Amazon also sells many iPods.

An Apple spokesman declined to discuss the company’s competitors but pointed to Mr. Jobs’s letter of February, which said Apple would embrace a D.R.M.-free world.

It is far from clear that Amazon’s unrestricted music files will be an advantage. Russ Crupnick, an analyst at the NPD Group, joked that D.R.M. should stand for “doesn’t really matter.” Mr. Crupnick said he did not think many iTunes customers were bothered by copy restrictions or would defect to Amazon to buy unencumbered music.

But, he said, Amazon may find an opportunity to expand the overall market. “The much bigger target is all of the people who don’t do digital downloading yet. How do I convince them that digital music is a good thing to begin with? I think Amazon is in a good position to do that, but it’s a long struggle,” Mr. Crupnick said.

Others suggest that the struggle may be so long that the industry will decide to experiment with other ideas, like the offering of music free through ad-supported Web sites, or subscriptions attached to cellphones.

“I’ve never thought that the pay-per-song model was really a replacement” for the CD, said David Goldberg, a former general manager of Yahoo’s music service who works at the investment firm Benchmark Capital. But the industry may endure more suffering before an answer emerges, he said. “It’s going to be a very dramatic change in the business. It’s just a question of when, not if.”
Source :http://www.nytimes.com

Today's Mercury Flyby To Be the First Since 1974

2008-01-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

Right around noon today, if all goes as planned, a spacecraft called Messenger will swoop past the planet Mercury and begin two days of unprecedented picture-taking and data-collecting.

The flyby, the first visit to Mercury in more than 33 years by an emissary from Earth, will mark a key moment in a NASA mission that will ultimately place the first satellite into orbit around the tiny planet that sits closest to the sun.

The planetary science community is eagerly awaiting images and information that should shed light on some of the enduring mysteries about the planet -- such as where in the solar system it was formed and why its hard metal core is so large and its outer rock crust so scant, compared with those of Earth and the other rocky planets.

"Mercury is a difficult place to get to, and it's taken a long time to get back," said principal investigator Sean Solomon, who has worked on the mission for more than 11 years. "But now we're in place to learn things about one of our few sister rocky planets, and we're ready for some real surprises."

The desk-size spacecraft was launched in 2004 and has taken a circuitous path to Mercury, swinging twice by Venus and once by Earth for gravity assists. Messenger will make two more passes by Mercury to let the planet's gravity slow it down enough for it to swing into orbit in 2011.

Still, today's whisker-close flyby will be, NASA officials say, a high point of the mission. Not only will the spacecraft pass within a record 124 miles of Mercury's surface at a relative speed of more than 16,000 mph, but it also will quickly begin sending back its first observations of the physical and magnetic makeup of the planet, to be made by instruments that could answer some of the most basic questions about Mercury's character and history. It will be the closest pass by Messenger in the entire mission, and the nearest to the planet's equator.

"The biggest mystery of Mercury is why it has so much heavy metal -- a core very different in size from other planets," Solomon said. "We think we can begin to unravel the mystery once we know the chemical makeup of the planet's surface."

There are several competing theories on how Mercury came to be what and where it is. One is that the searing heat of the sun stripped the crust off a once-larger planet and left primarily the core. Another is that the planet collided with another celestial body during a time when the early solar system was cluttered with them. Under this theory, Mercury's outer crust and mantle were smashed away and the planet was knocked into its close-in orbit.

Because Mercury is so close to the sun, designing a spacecraft that could stand the heat and calculating a trajectory that would place Messenger into orbit -- rather than plunging into the sun -- were daunting tasks. Temperatures on the ceramic-cloth sunscreen that protects its instruments will reach 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The spacecraft's instruments were designed never to face the sun because they would otherwise quickly overheat and be destroyed, and even pointing them at Mercury will be done for very limited periods. On the side facing the sun, the planet reaches 1,100 degrees at the equator, and on the dark side, it drops to as low as 300 degrees below zero.

The name of the probe, Messenger, is an the acronym for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging. It is the first spacecraft to visit Mercury since Mariner 10 in 1974, at a cost of $446 million for the life of its mission. Reflecting the new technologies and logistical knowledge that made the mission and its unprecedented orbiting possible, the European and Japanese space agencies will also be sending spacecraft to Mercury soon.

The planet they will scrutinize has craters, volcanoes, and many unusual and unexplained features, including what might be frozen water in polar crevasses protected from the sun. Its mass is only 5 percent that of Earth's, but its metal core accounts for 60 percent of that mass (compared with about 30 percent for Earth and Venus, and 20 percent for Mars). Mercury also has an active magnetic field in its thin atmosphere, the only rocky planet other than Earth with that feature. And it contains one of the largest impact craters in the solar system -- the Caloris Basin, which is 800 miles in diameter, or about a quarter of the planet's diameter.
Source :http://www.washingtonpost.com

Google launches wire service for Google News

2007-09-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

Google has recently announced that they are launching a new service allowing direct access to wire services such as the Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP), UK Press Association (UK AP), and the Canadian Press (CP). In the past, content publishers have complained about, while at the same time benefiting from, the links on Google news and the brief overview of the content hosted on the site. Several newspapers and sites have threatened to sue Google over the issue, some having said outright that Google is attempting to kill traditional print media. Maybe now Google is looking to force the issue, scrubbing their index by removing duplicate links that most of these sites use to get listed.

“Our goal has always been to offer users as many different perspectives on a story from as many different sources as possible, which is why we include thousands of sources from around the world in Google News,” Josh Cohen of Google said in the announcement for the new wire service. “However, if many of those stories are actually the exact same article, it can end up burying those different perspectives,” he added.

Those cloned articles, known as reposted wire feeds, are what many sites use to gain traffic to their website, thus gaining readers and profit from advertising. There is nothing bad about this, but when those same sites blame Google for their lack of revenue or loss of readership, then there is an issue.

Not too long ago Google News faced all sorts of problems when print media attacked them. Several newspapers said Google News was to blame for the loss of print reporting and the shift to ad heavy news websites. Anyone who uses Google News to read news and visit sites online knows this to be false. If it were not for Google News, the rants of how bad the service was would never be seen or read. Yet, they complained. Regardless, Google moved forward with a year old deal they had worked out with the Associate Press. This time however, they added more to it. The bulk of the plan is content and duplicate detection.

“Duplicate detection means we’ll be able to display a better variety of sources with less duplication. Instead of twenty ‘different’ articles (which actually used the exact same content), we'll show the definitive original copy and give credit to the original journalist. (We launched a similar feature in Sort-by-Date and got great feedback about it.) Of course, if you want to see all the duplicates on other publisher websites with additional analysis and context, they’re only a click away,” Cohen wrote.

Google explained that by, “removing duplicate articles from our results, we’ll be able to surface even more stories and viewpoints from journalists and publishers from around the world. This change will provide more room on Google News for publishers' most highly valued content: original content.”

“The amusing back story here is that AP is owned by the newspapers, who are screaming the loudest about the collapse of the newspaper industry, and that Agence France-Presse (AFP), sued Google for alleged copyright infringement on the News site, despite the clear and present rules regarding Fair Use,” reads the Raving Lunacy blog.

“The question AP member papers should now be asking is not how Google could be so mean, but how they, themselves could be so blind about their relationship with the AP,” writes Steve Boriss over at thefutureofnews.com. “Being a member of the AP made sense when papers were necessary middlemen for people to get their news — papers would pay the AP for electronically-transmitted stories, then reprint them and sell them for a profit to a public that had no better access to the freshest news. But now that the Internet and Google News have essentially installed an AP News Terminal on the PC of everyone with broadband service, newspapers who are members of the AP are funding their own destruction.”

The original content is what gets the most views; there is no loss of fact there. The little websites who post only wire feeds in order to gain traffic will suffer; this includes the small local newspaper websites. Therefore, by removing much of the fuel for their recent attacks by the press they have both helped and hurt them. Sites will need original content to get listed on Google News. Those who serve only feeds will be lost to the fold. For the professional reporter, this is good news as their work will get the credit due and their publisher will get the readers they claim to have lost because of Google.

Another point that was mentioned in several articles about the recent move by Google is that most of the smaller local papers who complained about this deal with the AP and others covered world news in wire reports. If the local paper cannot cover local news, why are they worried about the world news feeds? Readers will want local headlines first, and will then skim over the wire reports for international news.

Say what you will but Google has just made a move that will ultimately help the way news is reported online, many have often complained that the wire reports were slanted and biased, so with a focus on original content that could add some balance to what you read online.
Source : http://tech.monstersandcritics.com

Google Shift on Handling of News

2007-09-03T16:48:00.001-07:00

Google is playing host to articles from four news agencies, including The Associated Press, the company said Friday, setting the stage for it to generate advertising revenue from Google News.

The news agencies — the Press Association of Britain, Canadian Press, Agence France-Presse and The A.P. — now have their articles featured with the organizations’ own brands on Google News. The companies have agreed to license news feeds to Google.

The five-year-old Google News service previously searched the Web to uncover links to news articles from thousands of sources, and clustered links on similar subjects together.

Josh Cohen, business product manager of Google News, said his company would consider eventually running advertising alongside the agencies’ articles.

The changes will not affect the ranking of articles in search results on Google News, Mr. Cohen said. If an Associated Press article ranked eighth among different versions of an article previously, it would still rank eighth under the new service.

To avert legal challenges, Google does not now run ads next to automatically generated links. Agence France-Presse recently dropped a suit against Google for using its text and photos on Google News without permission.

The four news agencies act as wholesalers supplying news to other news organizations, and do not try to attract customers to destination sites of their own. Google News has inevitably linked to the customers of the agencies instead.

For example, an article on Google News credited to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer could in fact have been originally from The Associated Press.

The changes will have little impact on news organizations that receive traffic directly from Google News, Mr. Cohen said.

Google’s licensing of articles from news organization partners is similar to the way rival news sites like Yahoo News or the MSNBC portal of Microsoft have licensed news from news organizations for more than a decade.

Jane Seagrave, vice president for new media markets at The Associated Press, which is based in New York, declined to comment on the terms of the deal, and on whether Google would run ads alongside AP articles.

Because of Google’s campaign to simultaneously reduce duplicate articles, the original wire service article is likely to be featured in Google News instead of versions of the same article from newspaper customers, sapping ad revenue to those newspapers.
Source :http://www.nytimes.com

NBC responds: nuh-uh

2007-09-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

This is turning into a regular soap opera. First NBC Universal says it's not renewing its iTunes Store contract with Apple. Then Apple responds with a press release saying NBC wanted to double the wholesale pricing for shows, which would push per episode prices to $4.99. Now NBC is back saying that isn't true, that they only wanted "flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers." Further they complain that Apple is more interested in making money on hardware than money for content provider (no, who would have thought that Apple wants to make money for itself rather than other people). Anyway they emphasize that NBC shows will be available until December, and they left open the possibility that a new contract might be negotiated in the meantime. In general I think it's unseemly for companies to air their dirty laundry in public like this, but I'm starting to get the sense that this is a negotiating tactic on both sides. Personally I have the sneaking suspicion that something will get worked out before December.

Source :http://www.apple.comwww.tuaw.com

Wii outguns opponents

2007-09-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

Nintendo’s Wii continues to dominate the gaming console wars, outselling Sony’s Playstation 3 three-to-one and Microsoft’s Xbox over twenty-to-one according to Enterbrain’s Japan sales figures.

The Wii has proven to be a very popular choice among gaming enthusiasts, consistently outselling its rivals the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Its popularity is closely linked to its lower price and innovative controls, which saw it becoming the fastest selling gaming console in markets like the UK.

According to the Japan sales statistics released by Enterbrain, Nintendo sold 245,653 Wii consoles, Sony 81,541 PlayStation consoles and Microsoft a mere 11,288 Xbox 360s.

Both Sony and Microsoft have announced price cuts in the hope that their gaming consoles will be able to compete more effectively against the Wii, but Nintendo’s product’s popularity seems to be based on more than merely price.
Source :http://mybroadband.co.za

US court allows navy to use sonar

2007-09-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

The US navy has won the latest round in a court battle over whether it can use sonar equipment which environmentalists say can kill whales and other mammals.

An appeals court overturned a decision banning the use of sonar equipment in tests to be held off California.

National security needs must be weighed against protecting the safety of marine mammals, the judges ruled.

Wildlife experts say noise pollution from sonar disorients whales, causing them to become stranded on beaches.

The navy argued that it had monitored waters off southern California for 40 years and had not seen any whale injuries from the use of sonar equipment.

It says the device is necessary to track submarines.

'At war'

The ruling the latest stage of a long-running battle between environmentalists and the US Navy over marine safety.

In a split decision, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a two-year ban on the equipment ordered in earlier August, in a case brought by a coalition of animal welfare groups.

It criticised the navy for not taking action to minimise harm done to whales during exercises in California, but said the district court that had imposed the ban had not proven that the move would prevent "irreparable harm to the environment".

"The public does indeed have a very considerable interest in preserving our natural environment and especially relatively scarce whales," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the ruling.

"But it also has an interest in national defence. We are currently engaged in war, in two countries."

In 2006, a UK government-commissioned report called for more research into the effects of noise pollution on marine animals.

It concluded that there were many noise sources in the seas, including seismic surveys for oil and gas, shipping, offshore wind farms, military sonar and scientific research.

The study identified 13 cases of strandings by whales and dolphins that appeared to be linked to noise, adding that most of the cases did involve naval vessels.
Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Nintendo Raises Profit Forecast on Sales of Wii, DS Players

2007-07-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

Nintendo Co., maker of the top- selling Wii game console, raised its annual earnings forecast to a record after reporting first-quarter profit surged fivefold as the company widened its lead over Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3.

Net income climbed to 80.3 billion yen ($668 million) in the three months ended June 30, from 15.6 billion yen a year earlier, the Kyoto, Japan-based company said today. Nintendo raised its profit forecast for the year ending March 2008 to a record 245 billion yen, 41 percent more than its April projection.

Nintendo, whose market value doubled last year, plans to build on the success of the Wii's motion-sensor remote controller with new products including a steering wheel and exercise pad. The company today increased its Wii sales target by 18 percent to 16.5 million consoles this fiscal year, compared with Sony's shipment forecast for 11 million PlayStation 3s.

``Nintendo continues to knock the cover off the ball in the video-game market,'' Daniel Ernst, a New York-based analyst at Soleil Securities Corp. with a ``buy'' rating, said prior to the earnings release. ``Nintendo not only creates great hardware that is low-cost to make and easy to play, but also great software.''

Sales, also driven by the DS portable and the ``Mario'' games series, more than doubled to a record 340.4 billion yen. Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, tripled to 90.6 billion yen.

Revenue will reach 1.4 trillion yen this fiscal year, 45 percent more than the April estimate, the company said. Sales of Wii software titles will rise to 72 million units, compared with an April forecast for 55 million. Nintendo plans to sell 140 million games for its DS portable, up from 130 million.

Six of the top 10 selling games in the U.S. in June were made for Nintendo's game systems, with ``Mario Party 8'' leading the pack, according to NPD Group Inc.

Record Share Price

Shares of Nintendo, the world's largest maker of handheld players, rose 3.5 percent to a record 56,800 yen on the Osaka Securities Exchange. The stock has gained 83 percent this year, compared with a 4.3 percent advance in the Topix index.

``The earnings results and upward revision have already been largely factored into the share price,'' said Junichi Misawa, who oversees $655 million including Nintendo stock at STB Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. ``The overall trend for the stock remains positive.''

Nintendo today raised its full-year dividend to 960 yen, up 37 percent from its previous plan.

The company revised its outlook on the yen projecting the Japanese currency to trade at an average 118 yen against the dollar and 155 yen to the euro this fiscal year, compared with 115 yen and 150 forecast in April. The yen traded at 118.05 per dollar and 157.33 against the euro as of March 31.

Demand for the Wii will probably continue to exceed supply this Christmas season, Nintendo said earlier this month. Tokyo- based Sony earlier this month offered a discount on the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp. is considering a price cut for the Xbox 360 to catch up with Nintendo.

Leading the Pack

The PlayStation 3, launched in late November, was outsold by the Wii by two to one in the U.S. as of May, according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group. In Japan, the margin is three to one, researcher Enterbrain Inc. in Tokyo said.

Nintendo's two-year-old handheld DS player, its best-selling machine, uses a stylus instead of button controls, making it easier for users to play Frisbee with their virtual pets, practice calligraphy and draw pictures. Nintendo is also capturing an older audience with a ``brain-training'' game and tutorials for cooking and languages.

Hit DS game titles include ``New Super Mario Bros.'' and ``Brain Age,'' a quiz game designed to test mental agility. Titles for the Wii include ``Wii Sports'' and the role-playing ``The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.''
Source :http://www.bloomberg.com

First native third-party applications running on iPhone

2007-07-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

Late last week, one "Nightwatch," an anonymous hacker familiar with the ARM processor family, wrote a "Hello, World!" program and ran it. Ordinarily, that wouldn't really be sufficient fodder for an Infinite Loop post, but this particular program is Kind of a Big Deal™. It was run on an iPhone—the first known non-native application to do so.

According to the iPhone Dev Wiki (http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page), Nightwatch's ARM/mach-o toolchain kit has successfully compiled its first non-AJAX iPhone application, a significant step forward in unlocking the secrets of the device (if not the device itself). Granted, it's rather a messy process at the moment, involving multiple installations of various and sundry open-source bits and the binaries that, once compiled, don't have much access to little things like OS X header files or whatnot. But the major hurdle, knowing it can be done, is now out of the way. Just don't expect to see Pocket Quicken in the next couple of weeks or anything.
Source :http://arstechnica.com

Search engines race to update privacy policies

2007-07-22T19:34:00.000-07:00

The major search engines are racing to outdo each other in updating their data retention policies in an attempt to assuage concerns that they keep consumer search data too long.

The latest to go public with their moves are Microsoft and Yahoo.

Microsoft and Ask.com also are proposing an industry effort to create voluntary standards for protecting consumer privacy with search and online ads, a move that is likely spurred by Google's plan to acquire a leader in the online ad market.

Microsoft is set to announce on Monday plans to permanently remove the Internet Protocol address and other identifying data associated with Web searches after 18 months unless the searcher wants the information stored for longer. The company will also store search terms separately from account information that personally identifies a user, such as name, e-mail address and phone number, gathered as part of other Microsoft services.

In addition, Microsoft is promising that it will give people the ability to opt out of behavioral ad targeting it offers on third-party Web sites and it will allow people to search and surf its Web sites without being associated with a personal and unique identifier used for such ad targeting.

Meanwhile, Yahoo is vowing to remove portions of IP addresses and personally identifiable cookie IDs within 13 months except when users want the data retained for longer or when the company is required to retain it for law enforcement or legal processes, said Yahoo spokesman Jim Cullinan.

Cookies are small files stored on a computer so that the computer can be recognized when it revisits Web sites, enabling the site to remember the user's preferences for things like e-commerce and sites that require a log-in.

The news comes days after changes at Ask and Google. On Thursday, Ask said it would allow people to search anonymously and would not retain a user's Web search history at all if the searcher didn't want it to. Searchers will be able to change their preferences using a new AskEraser tool, which will reside on the Ask servers and will work with all the major operating systems. Ask said it will retain the search log data for 18 months for people who don't want to be anonymous and then it will disassociate the search terms from the IP address.

Also last week, Google said it would have cookies expire after two years instead of 2038, although for anyone who visits Google even once in the next two years, the cookie expiration date will be extended another two years.

In March, Google said it would start anonymizing the final eight bits of the IP address and the cookie data after somewhere between 18 months and 24 months, unless legally required to retain the data for longer. That would make it much harder to identify the specific computers used for searches.

The risks associated with retaining search data were illustrated last year when AOL inadvertently exposed the searches of more than 650,000 users. The New York Times was able to discover the identity of at least one of the users, highlighting the risks associated with retaining search data logs.

Microsoft and Ask also said they would work together and are asking other companies and organizations to join them in creating industry guidelines for protecting consumer privacy in the areas of search and online advertising. They said they would provide an update on the effort in September.

The moves come amid discussion in the industry over privacy concerns related to Google's proposed $3.1 billion of online ad provider DoubleClick. Privacy advocates have questioned the deal; Microsoft opposes it on antitrust grounds; and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking into it.

"It's a topical area right now, and (the Google-DoubleClick plan) had some influence on us looking at this" now, said Brendon Lynch, director of privacy strategy at Microsoft. "We believe privacy is a very important aspect for our business going forward."

But where do Yahoo and Google stand on the self-regulation effort? Neither company would give a straight answer to that question.

"We're certainly open to having conversations about technical issues, but we don't think this is the right time to participate in that," said Yahoo's Cullinan, without elaborating.

A Google spokeswoman provided this statement: "Our goal is to improve privacy protection and data security for all Internet users by continuing to innovate in the area of privacy."
Source : http://news.com.com

Voters question candidates at CNN debate

2007-07-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

When Democratic presidential candidates square off for a debate in front of CNN's cameras Monday, don't strain your neck looking for Wolf Blitzer, Christiane Amanpour or any of the network's reporters. They won't be asking the questions. Those will come from animated computer programmers, off-camera gay soldiers and guys in Viking helmets.

The debate in Charleston, S.C., airing live at 7 p.m., will be the first among presidential candidates in which the questions are posed by actual voters submitting videos through the Internet -- and journalists and politicians agree it won't be the last.

'It's here to stay,'' University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said. ''You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.'' Adds Jon Klein, head of CNN's U.S. operations: ``What candidate could walk away from a chance to hear from actual Americans? What candidate wants to look afraid to do it?''

CNN and video-sharing website YouTube.com began asking voters to post questions on the site earlier this month. As the deadline approached Sunday night, more than 2,700 had been submitted. About 200 of them will go into a pool CNN reporters and editors will use to grill the candidates Monday.

CNN and YouTube will also collaborate on a Republican debate with the same format on Sept. 17 in St. Petersburg. The website will begin collecting questions for that date at 9 p.m. Monday.

CNN came up with the idea earlier this year while pondering ways to inject some creativity into coverage of presidential campaigns, which once lasted less than a year but have turned into grinding, 18-month-long forced marches.

''We're constantly trying to steer away from covering the election as a horse race and get into the issues,'' Klein said. ``What better way than to allow American voters to pose the questions?''

Actually, letting voters pose questions doesn't always work out too well, as anybody who has covered early-season primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire -- where campaigns consist mostly of visits to coffee klatches and small town-hall meetings -- can attest.

Queries can range from the maddeningly broad ('You hear somebody say, `Senator, give us your thoughts on the U.S. economy,' and you just drop your face into your hands,'' Sabato said) to the numbingly narrow. S.I. Hayakawa, running for the U.S. Senate from California, once infamously exploded at a question about a small town's upcoming vote on greyhound tracks: ``I'm running for the U.S. Senate. I don't give a good god---- about dog racing.''

But CNN reporters who've combed through the submissions say that while there's a lot of chaff, they've got more than enough wheat for a debate. ''I had some fears when I first heard about this,'' said Anderson Cooper, the CNN correspondent who will moderate the debate. ``But once I saw the questions, I relaxed . . .

``There are plenty of good ones. The people are actually living the question, in many cases. There's one about medical research from a man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Another woman asking about healthcare takes off her wig at the end of the video and reveals she's in chemotherapy.''

All question videos can be viewed at http://youtube.com/contest/DemocraticDebate. Some, like the one from a man in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who asks how the candidates can keep the Federal Reserve from inflating the U.S. money supply, sound little different than what you might hear on Meet The Press or any other Sunday-morning talk show.

Others, like the man wondering if high-performance sports cars should be banned, are peculiar. And some, like the man demanding Congressional hearings on UFOs as he sings I'm A Believer, sound more like they came from Saturday Night Live.

Some are barely questions at all: A stuffed blue duck asks, ''Do you feel the terrorists will come here?'' before exclaiming, ''Oh my God, there is one here right now!'' as the camera goes jittery.

Others use visual gimmicks to make serious points. A question about the military's don't-ask-don't-tell policy on gay soldiers comes from a disembodied, off-camera voice because the man asking it is a gay soldier. One about whether the war in Iraq is motivated by corporate interests includes a clip of President Eisenhower warning about the military-industrial complex. A cartoon character identifying herself as a computer programmer asks how candidates will stop high-tech jobs from moving off-shore.

If the cleverly staged questions were intended to catch the eye of CNN programmers, at least some of them worked.

'My favorite is the purring cat with the subtitle that asks, `How can you protect my food in the future?' '' said Klein, who adds with a nearly straight face: ``We're really interested in that feline demographic -- our ratings are low there.''

Whether the candidates will be amused at questions from faux Vikings and animated jobless people remains to be seen. Sabato, the University of Virginia political scientist, said the candidates need to get over themselves.

''The debates so far have just been terribly, utterly boring,'' he said. ``We could use a laugh or two. The funny stuff doesn't bother me at all -- those are legitimate questions that they're asking, regardless of how they do it.''

Sabato is an unabashed fan of the involvement of YouTube videos in the debate. ''Hey, if we're going to get more people -- especially young people -- into politics, we have to use the techniques with which they're familiar, and that means YouTube,'' he said.

``The day doesn't go by that I don't get two or three videos e-mailed to me by students. They watch those things the way us older people look at dead trees, constantly.''

In fact, YouTube is no stranger to politics. Most of the campaign organizations regularly contribute videos to the site: some plugging their own candidate, some apparently showing opponents flip-flopping on the issues. If you've heard reports that Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have changed their stands on abortion, it's largely because of YouTube video clips of their old speeches.

And YouTube may already have had a decisive effect on the presidential race when it became the home of a widely circulated video that showed U.S. Sen. Paul Allen, running for reelection in 2006, referring to an Asian-American man by a word that some of his opponents said was a racial slur. Allen, who if reelected would have been a strong candidate for the Republican nomination this year, was defeated.

Expanding YouTube's role in the campaign into a mainstream media outlet like CNN is part of journalism's fascination with so-called ''user-generated content'' -- that is, using new communications technology like cellphone cameras and Internet social-networking sites to involve the public in news-gathering.

Executives at Fox News, who are keeping a careful eye on the CNN debate experiment, say that even if it's a dud, the citizen-journalist is a big part of television news' future.

''Social networking and user-generated content are important phenomena right now,'' said David Rhodes, vice president for news at Fox News, ``and I think every news organization has to think about ways to incorporate those into what they're doing.''

Video shot with passengers' cellphones played an enormous role in Fox News' coverage of the 2005 terrorist bombings in the London subway, Rhodes noted: ``Those were some of the most dramatic pictures.''

Involving unvetted civilians in news coverage has its risks, especially on live television: Almost every news division has been burned by crank calls from Howard Stern's legion of prankster shock troops that made it onto the air. CNN officials concede ruefully that it's a possibility Monday, too.

''We're checking the videos carefully,'' said Klein, ``but there's always a chance that we've missed a flash-frame somewhere.This could be the first presidential debate where a nipple gets on the air.''
Source :http://www.miamiherald.com

iGot it

2007-06-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

After waiting in line for 10 hours, James Everett walked into the AT&T store with his arms in the air, and said, "iPhone. Right now!"

"Do you know how long I waited for this machine? I waited months for this thing. I was on the (Apple) Web site every day," said Everett, 25, a Boston resident whose family lives in Framingham. He was the first of about 50 people in line at the Rte. 9 AT&T store yesterday.

At 6 p.m., Apple Inc. released its long-anticipated iPhone, a combination wireless phone, video and photo iPod and mobile Internet device, in partnership with wireless carrier AT&T Inc. The device has been deemed revolutionary by many market watchers because it features a 3.5-inch glass touch screen, full Internet browsing and intuitive software, among other reasons.

Hype-generated lines formed outside Apple's retail stores in Braintree, Burlington, Cambridge, Chestnut Hill, Hingham and Peabody, as well as its 162 other locations. This time, the lines were also outside AT&T's 1,800 company stores nationwide, including 80 in New England.

Outside the Framingham AT&T store, Everett said the group became an "iPhamily," which "ate together, played together and had a good time." The group all ordered out from UNO Chicago Grill, next door, he said.

Nadia Mahmoud, 15, of Ashland, said she had a friend who went on a trip to Italy but she couldn't. So the $599, 8-gigabyte iPhone was her "something great." The phone also comes in a 4-gigabyte, $499 model.

"I can't even imagine my life without my iPod and my phone," said Mahmoud. "Them together, along with my pictures and the Internet, that's all I need."

Steve Krom, vice president and general manager of AT&T New England, said anyone who didn't end up with an iPhone yesterday could still buy one.

"Customers can purchase a product and accessories in the store, and we'll ship it to them in three to five business days," Krom said.

Inside the store, accessories from DLO, Case Mate, Belkin and Griffin were already on sale.

Buying the iPhone at the store is different than buying any other smart mobile phone. Customers can buy the device there, then take it home and connect it to their computer. Only through iTunes software program can customers activate the device.

To get unlimited Internet, e-mail and visual voice mail service, 200 text messages and 450 rollover minutes, with free AT&T to AT&T calling on the iPhone, customers pay $59.99 a month. Similar plans with more rollover minutes cost more.
Source :http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/

Break For Internet Radio?

2007-06-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

A key concession Friday by a recording industry trade group might help ease the way toward an eventual settlement to end a bitter battle over royalty fees paid by Internet radio stations.

SoundExchange, a former subsidiary of the Recording Industry Association of America, said Friday that it has agreed to extend a cap on a portion of the fees that Internet radio operators will have to pay under new rules scheduled to take effect in about two weeks.

The $2,500 cap on an annual $500-per-radio-channel fee that Internet radio stations have to pay could represent a significant break for major streaming-audio services run by Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), Pandora and CBS's (nyse: CBS - news - people ) Last.FM, which feature multiple, customized audio feeds for their listeners.

Current rules already include such a ceiling, but no such ceiling was included under a new free structure issued in March by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), an arm of the U.S. Library of Congress.

SoundExchange is proposing that the cap be extended through the end of 2008. But the Digital Media Association, which represents Internet radio stations, countered Friday that it would only accept a cap that extends through the end of 2010.

Under the new CRB rates, which are scheduled to take effect July 15, Internet radio operators will face a sharp jump in the "performance" royalties they pay record labels and recording artists. In addition to losing the cap on annual fees, Internet radio operators will also have to increase the royalty they pay for each song they stream from 0.08 cents in 2006 to 0.19 cents in 2010.

Performance royalties are distinct from the publishing royalties that terrestrial, Internet and satellite radio operators must pay to songwriters. Only Internet and satellite radio stations have to pay performance royalties, but record labels are now gearing up for a battle to extract performance royalties from terrestrial radio stations as well.

Internet radio operators have warned that the increase in royalty rates and the elimination of the cap on annual fees will force many of them out of business and might prompt large portal sites like Yahoo! and AOL to reconsider their commitment to music services. On Tuesday, thousands of Internet radio stations observed a day of silence in protest of the pending royalty hike.

In an earlier concession, SoundExchange offered to extend, with some modifications, existing provisions allowing small commercial and nonprofit Internet radio operators to pay lower royalty rates based on a percentage of their revenues, rather than on a per-song basis. Under the proposal, such operators would pay a royalty rate of 10% on their first $250,000 of gross revenue and 12% on all revenue above that.

Because the CRB's new royalty structure for Internet radio will take effect in the absence of a settlement, the recording industry would appear to hold the upper hand. But legislation pending in Congress would throw out the CRB decision and set royalty rates for all Internet radio operators at just 7.5% of gross revenue.
Source :http://www.forbes.com

“Obvious” missing features

2007-06-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

OK, so I promised a list of “Obvious Features Missing from the iPhone.” Basically, these are features that you would have expected the iPhone to have — either because most modern phones have them, or because the iPhone is such a Mac- and iPod- like device that it seems odd they’re missing.

The good news is that, since the iPhone runs a version of Mac OS X and can receive software updates (likely via iTunes), and Apple has made clear that new features will be rolled out via such updates, I expect a good number of these features to eventually make their way onto the current iPhone — in other words, you shouldn’t have to go out and spend another $500 or $600.

iChat/IM: AIM is hugely popular, iChat is on every Mac, the iPhone’s SMS feature looks exactly like iChat, the iPhone has true Internet connectivity, there’s a keyboard for input — am I missing anything? Oh, yeah: AT&T makes lots of money on SMS messages. This was likely one of the (few) concessions Apple had to make to the carrier.

MMS: Basically, MMS is the multimedia version of mobile text messaging. Whereas SMS is plain text, MMS lets you send images, audio, video, and rich text. For example, if you take a photo with your phone and want to send it to someone else’s phone, you would send an MMS. Or at least you would if the iPhone supported it.

Interesting note: according to a leaked AT&T iPhone training guide, “MMS and IM messages are included in the customer’s iPhone Data Plan.” Typo? Or a sign of things to come?

Voice dialing: I haven’t seen a decent mobile phone without voice dialing in years. Of all the “missing” features, this one is the most puzzling to me.

One-button dialing: A minor drawback of the iPhone’s “one-button” interface is that basic phone-dialing, even via “shortcuts,” requires more steps than on most phones. For example, even though I’ve added my wife to my Favorites list in the iPhone’s phone section, calling her requires 3 (or 4) steps: waking up the phone, switching the iPhone to phone mode (if it’s not already there), touching the Favorites button, and touching her entry. On my previous phone, I could perform the same action by simply pressing 2 and then Send; on the phone before that, I could just hold down the 2 button for a couple seconds. (And, I should add, on both phones I could perform the action without actually looking at the phone.) Unfortunately, I think we’re stuck here; given that the iPhone doesn’t have physical buttons, I’m not sure how Apple would be able to implement such a feature. It’s one of the drawbacks of the iPhone’s impressive touchscreen interface. (Although this makes the lack of the previous feature, voice dialing, that much more painful.)

MP3/AAC ringtones: Again, it’s been years since I owned a phone that didn’t let me use my own MP3 or AAC files as ringtones. (Which is another way of saying that I’ve never been a Verizon customer.) And, in fact, early demos of the iPhone clearly showed this ability. But the iPhone I have in my hand doesn’t let me. We’ve seen reports (a.k.a., rumors) that a possible upcoming feature in iTunes will let you convert snips of your music to ringtones for $0.99. Hopefully this is one of those rumors that’s partly wrong (specifically, the $0.99 part — although this could be another concession to AT&T).

Video recording: It’s got a decent camera, but you can’t currently record video using it. Think about the possibilities, especially with YouTube built into the iPhone: What if you could record video and then upload it directly to YouTube, sans computer?

To Do list: Not much to say here. I’d use it.

iPhoneAccessIncompat.jpgVoice memos: Many current phones can do this. All current dockable iPods can do this if you connect an iPod microphone. The iPhone can’t, and — as you can see from the image to the left — doesn’t work with iPod microphone attachments.

I’ve also noticed a few features missing from the iPod side of things:

Lyrics: There’s no way to view them on the iPhone; too bad, as the iPhone’s screen is much more suited to reading text than that of any “normal” iPod.

Ratings: You can’t view them on the iPhone, which also means you can’t set them on the iPhone. I actually rate all my music, and I use this feature all the time on my iPods. Update: My mistake. My colleague Chris Breen just let me know that you can indeed rate tracks, although the feature is somewhat hidden. Go to the Now Playing view — when the iPhone is vertical, not horizontal — and then click on the track listing button in the upper right. At the top of the screen is the familiar five-star rating scale; you can tap a star, or drag your finger to it, to assign that rating.

Bluetooth A2DP: A2DP stands for Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, a Bluetooth profile that supports stereo audio transmission. Newer mobile phones use A2DP to send stereo audio to a compatible speaker system and to support stereo Bluetooth headsets such as iSkin’s Cerulean F1. I find this omission especially odd given that the iPod is, in Steve Jobs’ own words, “the best iPod ever.” Possible good news: a couple sources have told me that A2DP is likely to be supported in a future software update.
Source :http://iphone.macworld.com

Carriers Should Hail the iPhone Shakeup

2007-06-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

Apple (AAPL) has never been a company to shy away from risk, and the iPhone, which finally became available in the U.S. on June 29 (but won't hit Europe until this fall), could be its next important milestone. If the integrated phone-and-media device is a hit, Apple will revolutionize the mobile industry and cement its reputation for creating gadgets with chic designs that are so compelling, consumers will gladly pay a premium.

But if the iPhone does not justify the hype, Apple's ambition to become one of the few companies to bridge the technology and entertainment worlds could collapse, damaging its aura of invincibility.

To avoid that outcome, Apple will need to work with the mobile industry. Given the company's track record, carriers ought to welcome it with open arms. A successful iPhone could be the catalyst in evolving a new telecommunications business model.

Apple does face challenges. It's entering a maturing telecommunications market that's already highly saturated. With more than a billion handsets likely to be sold worldwide this year, consumers have and will continue to get lots of choice. Hyped as it is, the iPhone is just one of many devices out there.
The Power of Cool

Still, Apple's risk is well calculated. It has a strong pedigree in delivering the best combination of desirable devices and user experience. It has a robust user base from which to negotiate—IDC estimates that iTunes has nearly 80% of the worldwide music download market—and, above all, Apple is cool. Though the Nokias (NOK) and Vodafones (VOD) of the world have a cachet of their own, there isn't a mobile brand out there that comes close to Apple's buzz-creating ability.

By generating buzz in its traditional fashion—eschewing first-mover advantage to create market-leading products based on a killer blend of ease-of-use, design, and desirability—Apple has been able to make demands of the mobile industry.
The Internet Model

First among them is that the carriers must apply the Internet model. Until now, they have recognized the need for this change but, in a cozy alliance with handset makers, have largely managed to resist it. No more. Since iPhone users will want to connect their devices to iTunes and access third-party applications via the Safari Web browser, avoiding the Internet model is no longer plausible (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/5/07, "Why Vodafone Should Welcome Googlefone").

Whether or not they worry about losing control, operators are savvy enough to know that they need to get this device into their portfolios. They are aware that their high-spending customers are not highly brand-loyal and will go elsewhere to get an iPhone, if need be. Since Apple's application model may also deliver a more dynamic and innovative route to increasing average revenue per user (ARPU), operators will be willing to make concessions.

That said, Apple won't get everything it wants without making some adjustments of its own. Once Apple gets past the 10 million-unit milestone—the target it must hit to recoup its investment—it will start to erode the main handset makers' market share. Handset makers are already reacting by pointing out the device's shortcomings and, in some cases, offering competing products.
Weaknesses: iPhone Does Have Them

And indeed, there are drawbacks to the iPhone. First, it doesn't support 3G (third-generation) mobile networks. To get high-speed downloads, the consumer will have to find Wi-Fi hotspots to connect to some services.

Also, the iPhone is not a business device. Large organizations may not advocate incorporating iPhones into their systems, given that the Internet model Apple is offering may present too many IT challenges. Big business likely will stay with its tried and trusted PDAs—BlackBerrys (RIMM), Palm Treos (PALM), and Nokia Enterprise devices—which are designed for corporations and already deliver features similar to the iPhone's.

Apple will have to keep abreast of the market it is trying to change and have an upgrade path to ensure it stays ahead of its competitors, including those who have already introduced iPhone-like devices, such as the Prada from LG Electronics and HTC's Touch. In the future, Apple will have to incorporate 3G and applications such as GPS, which rivals such as the Nokia N95 already offer.
Pressure Will Be Felt

What's more, carriers won't change their business models overnight. If Apple doesn't keep the iPhone cool and cutting-edge, operators will happily go with another vendor to get a device that will. In releasing its RAZR, Motorola (MOT) (and, by extension, other major wireless players) learned the hard way that while a handset's design can grab market share, not following up quickly with continued innovations can lead to rapid erosion.

Its track record suggests Apple will do just fine. With the iMac and the iPod, Apple proved it can innovate in established markets and carve out a place for itself. Right now, the mobile-phone market is fickle and highly competitive, but Apple's blend of design and cool may make it three-for-three. Regardless, it seems bound to energize the market—and that means good things for consumers.
Source :http://www.businessweek.com

Bald eagle soars off endangered list

2007-06-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

The bald eagle, America's national symbol, is flying high after spending three decades in recovery. On Thursday, the government took the eagle off the Endangered Species Act's "threatened" list.

"The eagle has returned," Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne told government officials, wildlife conservationists and journalists at a ceremony held on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington.

"Today is an opportunity to celebrate and draw inspiration," Kempthorne added.

"We do have 1,300 species that have been listed and our recovery rate is about 1 percent. I would like to see us have more days like this when we can announce success and victory and delisting of species."

Since the 1970s, the government has worked hard to save the bald eagle, which was dying off because of habitat destruction, illegal shooting and contamination of its food source. Video Watch bald eagles along the Hudson River »

It was first listed as endangered, then threatened, and now is off the list entirely.

Challenger, a bald eagle, also attended the ceremony. Challenger is a teaching bird who travels the country educating young and old about the national symbol. See one bald eagle's story of survival »

The birds will be now protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Bald eagle populations severely declined in the lower 48 states between 1870 and 1970 because of hunting, habitat loss and the use of DDT.

DDT, a powerful insecticide, made bald eagle eggshells so weak they couldn't produce viable offspring. In 1963, there were only 417 breeding pairs in the lower 48. Photo See bald eagles in the wild »

In a national effort to save the iconic bird, the federal government banned the use of DDT in 1972 and placed the bald eagle under protection of the Endangered Species Act, which allowed the government to protect bald eagle habitat.

These two key factors helped it recover, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Today, there are 9,789 breeding pairs in the lower 48 states.

But Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity conservation group said this victory comes at a price -- loss of eagle habitat protection.

The bird's nesting grounds were protected as long as the bald eagle was considered a "threatened" species. But the less restrictive eagle protection act does not put eagle habitats off-limits.

Suckling said he worries that without habitat protection, developers will move into critical bald eagle areas, push the birds out and reduce their numbers.

"There is big money to be made in cutting down and developing bald eagle habitat," he said.

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act prohibits anyone without a permit from "taking" bald eagles, including their parts, nests and eggs. Its definition of "take" includes: pursuit, shooting, shooting at, poisoning, wounding, killing, capturing, trapping, collecting, molesting and disturbing.

"For the most part, it's a shooting and hunting statute," said Nicholas Throckmorton of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"It does talk a little about nesting and the tree that eagles are in, but it's not intended to protect habitat or ecosystems."

As part of his concern, Suckling points to Arizona, home to 43 breeding pairs. The birds nest along small rivers, which are easily affected by development, he explained. Suckling said once protection is gone, these rivers will be under severe threat.

He said he's particularly concerned about growth in Prescott in central Arizona and its impact on the Verde River, which he said could harm eagles' nests.

One landowner ready for delisting is Minnesota retiree Edmund Contoski.

Contoski, 69, wants to build five log homes on his undeveloped seven-acre property along Lake Sullivan. However, the Endangered Species Act has prohibited development within 330 feet of an active bald eagle's nest on his property -- that covers all of Contoski's usable land.

"Eagles don't pay taxes; I pay taxes," Contoski said. "I'm paying taxes, and I can't do anything with the property."

In 2005, he challenged the Fish and Wildlife Service to make good on its 1999 proposal to delist the bald eagle. He took the agency to court and won. His court battle led to the June 28 delisting.

The Fish and Wildlife Service will issue voluntary guidelines for landowners to protect bald eagles and permits to people who wish to evict a bald eagle from their property.

The agency took the additional step of defining what it actually means to "disturb" an eagle under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act: "To agitate or bother a bald or golden eagle to a degree that causes, or is likely to cause, based on the best scientific information available, 1) injury to an eagle, 2) a decrease in its productivity, by substantially interfering with normal breeding, feeding or sheltering behavior, or 3) nest abandonment, by substantially interfering with normal breeding, feeding or sheltering behavior."

The conservation organization National Wildlife Federation called it a "solid framework" that will keep the bald eagle around for generations to come. Dr. Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society, said he feels confident that "good things will happen for the bald eagle" as a result of the government's actions.

Suckling said while that definition will help protect the birds, it fails to protect their habitat.

"The definition is linked to bothering or agitating actually present birds; it does not apply to logging the nest area when the bird is not present," he explained.

Suckling offered this analogy: "You come back from your summer vacation and someone has trashed your property so badly that you can't live there anymore. Have you been 'disturbed'? I would say so, but the Fish and Wildlife Service definition says, 'No.' "

Paul Schmidt, the Fish and Wildlife Service's assistant director for migratory birds, told CNN.com the government is confident the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act will "afford adequate protections" and the agency won't see a decline in populations after delisting.

"Americans can and will coexist with a healthy and sustainable population of bald eagles," Schmidt added.

Endangered species delistings are often contentious. The proposal to delist the Northern Rockies gray wolf worries conservationists, who argue that without safeguards, wolf populations will dangerously dwindle. But ranchers say that if the wolves are protected, they will over-reproduce and packs of them will attack their livestock.

Earlier this month, conservation groups filed a lawsuit asking the government to restore Endangered Species Act protections for the Yellowstone grizzly bear. Lack of habitat protection and climate change threaten the bears' future, says Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm representing the environmental groups.

The Yellowstone grizzly bear was delisted in March. For more than 30 years, it was considered a "threatened" species.
Source :http://www.cnn.com

GPLv.3: 'A Great Improvement'

2007-06-29T19:51:00.000-07:00

Version 3 of the GNU General Public License is out.

The Free Software Foundation released GNU GPL v.3, its latest version of its popular free software license, Friday.

"Since we founded the free software movement, over 23 years ago, the free software community has developed thousands of useful programs that respect the user's freedom," FSF Founder and President Richard Stallman, said in prepared remarks. "The programs are in the GNU/Linux operating system, as well as personal computers, telephones, Internet servers, and more. Most of these programs use the GNU GPL to guarantee every user the freedom to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute the program."

The organization said that the latest version of the GNU GPL strengthens protections that allow users to use, study, change, and redistribute programs. It allows users to modify the free software on their personal and household devices. The new license also extends compatibility with other free software licenses.

Jeremy Allison said, on behalf of the Samba team, that the latest version is "a great improvement" and "a necessary update to deal with the new threats to free software that have emerged since version 2 of the GPL."

The FSF said much of the free software community warmly embraced the release after an "unprecedented drafting process," which included four published drafts in 18 months. Those generated discussions, which drew thousands of public comments. The comments helped committees, representing the public and private sectors, and legal experts from the Software Freedom Law Center, write the final text, FSF said during its announcement Friday.

"By hearing from so many different groups in a public drafting process, we have been able to write a license that successfully addresses a broad spectrum of concerns," the FSF Executive Director Peter Brown said in a prepared statement.

He added that the groups found common ground on issues like patents, TiVo, and "Treacherous Computing," FSF's tongue-in-cheek term for Microsoft's Trusted Computing Initiative, which covers PC security standards. The FSF scorned the standard and "Tivoization" during the announcement, labeling them schemes to prevent users from utilizing modified or alternate software.

The group said TiVo blocks modified software, while Trusted Computing standards stop Web sites from working with modified software. The FSF said "both are typically used to impose malicious features" like DRM, a term that FSF also changes from Digital Rights Management to Digital Restrictions Management.

The license begins with a preamble, laying out ideals for free software. The FSF said the new license does not prohibit DRM, but it does not allow users to block software modification.

"Thus, they are free to remove whatever features they dislike," FSF announced Friday.

The FSF said that more than 15 GNU programs would be released under the new license Friday and that the whole GNU Project would follow. The FSF plans educational and outreach programs to promote the new license.

According to FSF, the GNU GPL is the most widely use free software license in the world, with nearly 75% of all free software packages distributed under it. Stallman wrote the first two versions with legal guidance. They were released in 1989 and 1991. The third version -- a result of collaboration between Stallman, the public, industry experts and the Software Freedom Law Center -- aims to address changes in computing and policy around the world.

Stallman's GNU software system, coupled with Linux, is a free operating system under GPL version 2. The GNU components of the system will be released under GPL v.3. If Linux kernel developer Torvalds sticks with the earlier version, as he has previously indicated, the GNU/Linux system will contain GNU packages using the latest version, along with Linux under the old, the FSF said.
Source :http://www.informationweek.com

AMD says for Opteron, it's 'Barcelona' in August

2007-06-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Friday that it will start shipping quad-core versions of its Opteron microprocessor in August and that it expects hardware vendors to follow in September with servers based on the new chips.

According to AMD, the quad-core Opterons will deliver a performance gain of 40% to 70% over its existing dual-core chips, depending on the application. And they will do so without consuming more power, said the company, which will come to market with its quad-core offering nine months after Intel Corp. released versions of its Xeon server chips with four processor cores.

The quad-core product line, code-named Barcelona, gets some of its performance improvements because AMD is using a 65-nanometer manufacturing process to build the new chips vs. 90nm for its dual-core chips. In addition, the quad-core devices are being manufactured on a single die of silicon, which allows for faster and easier memory sharing, AMD said.

The new chips will initially ship in two versions with different energy-usage levels: a standard model that consumes 95 watts of power and a lower-power edition that operates at 65 watts. AMD said the clock speed of the quad-core processors will range up to 2 GHz in the standard devices and 100 MHz to 200 MHz slower in the reduced-power chips.

Additional processors will be released in this year's fourth quarter with faster clock-speed frequencies that eventually will reach 3 GHz, AMD said. It added that users who are running servers with dual-core Opteron chips will be able to easily move to the quad-core devices because the two processor lines have similar power usage characteristics and were designed to operate within the same "thermal envelope."

John Fruehe, AMD's worldwide market development manager for server and workstation products, said that the bulk of Opteron sales have always been for the standard-power chips but that customers are increasingly asking for better energy efficiency. Because of the demand, company officials wanted to make sure that the lower-power devices got to market quickly, Fruehe said.

Intel launched its quad-core Xeon processors last November and claims to have shipped more than 1 million of the devices, which were code-named Clovertown.

Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at research firm Insight 64 in Saratoga, Calif., said more details need to be disclosed about the performance of AMD's quad-core processors, including benchmarking data and the real-world experiences of users, before much can be said about how they compare to Intel's Xeon 5300 line.

"AMD didn't give us enough information to make a definitive statement," Brookwood said. "They believe that at 2 GHz, their performance will be very competitive with Intel's Clovertown products. However, there is no data to back that up."

Moreover, Brookwood wondered what will happen "over the next few months as Intel introduces 45nm versions of its current products." He said that he expects AMD to reach 3-GHz clock speeds by this time next year.
Source :http://www.computerworld.com

Even Apple's co-founder is standing in line for an iPhone

2007-06-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Those standing in line around the Bay Area to be among the first to spring for a new iPhone shouldn't feel bad: Even the cofounder of Apple was queued up.

Steve Wozniak arrived at the Apple store at Valley Fair Mall in San Jose at 4 a.m. to begin the wait wearing a button that read, "The line starts here. Woz #1."

In fact, he hadn't been the first to show up but in deference, Apple fans stepped aside to give him the first space.

"This has been the main mall my whole life," Wozniak said, explaining his choice of venue. "This is where I and Steve Jobs came when we were kids."

When the Apple store closed at 2 p.m. to prepare for the 6 p.m. onslaught of business, 200 people stood behind Wozniak.

Why did they bother, when Apple is offering to ship its new product at no extra cost?

"Yeah, you can order a CD online, too -- or you can go to the concert and hear it live," Wozniak said.

Over in Emeryville, more than 150 iPhone devotees had lined up outside the Apple store, many chatting, tapping away on Apple laptops or grooving to music on iPods.

The Apple store provided free WiFi, and Bay Street shopping mall let people power up electronic devices from nearby poles while they waited.

First in the line of loungers was Jiggs Davis Jr., a 73-year-old biotech entrepreneur from Piedmont, who was accompanied by one of his employees, project manager Chi Pak, 24.

Davis, wearing a red American flag ball cap to shield the sun, said he's been an Apple fan since the company's inception. His own Alameda company is outfitted with all Apple products. He appreciates their simplicity, he said.

He nabbed the first spot in line by arriving at 4:45 a.m. and was passing the time working on his Powerbook G4. He will be happy, he said, to replace the Cingular Treo hooked to his belt with the new iPhone.

Sitting next to them was Saul Sutcher, an 18-year-old Occidental college student, a self-proclaimed Apple fan since birth who owns several iPods, a few laptops and couldn't wait to add the iPhone to his collection.

He was keeping busy organizing his music and photos so they'd be ready to load onto his new accessory. His family dropped by from time to time to drop off blankets, food and electronics.

Next to Sutcher was Rick Shibata, a 36-year-old information technology manager for a Richmond freight company, who was wearing a MacWorld T-shirt. He gave up a good-paying consulting gig, he said, to wait in line for an iPhone.

The Apple fan, who has attended every MacWorld convention for the past eight years and catches all the Steve Jobs keynotes on the Web, said he couldn't wait to replace his Motorola Razr cell phone. "I just love their user interface, and their design is top-notch," he said.

All four got to the Emeryville store so early, they helped set up the barricades through which the line snaked this afternoon.

At the end of the line was the most recent arrival: Kyle Killion, 29, of Oakland, who co-founded JamLab, a Web site for musicians. He had to work, he said, so he got there about 1 p.m.

He got hooked on the new product when he got a chance to play with it for a few minutes at the Apple developer conference.

Killion, who calls himself an "Apple whore" and planned to purchase two iPhones, said that he didn't like the company when Jobs wasn't at the helm.

"It's possible to love a product and hate a company," he said, adding that he doesn't like how Apple treats its developers.

Across the street and down a block, a much smaller line of about 20 people -- including a baby in a stroller -- formed outside the Cingular store. Limit for customers there is one phone per person.

That's OK with Angelica Contreras, 20, a college student from San Pablo, and her boyfriend of six years, Owen Perez, 22, who arrived at 9 a.m. and jumped to the head of the Cingular line rather than wait in the already long line in front of the Apple store. They had heard rumors that the Apple store would be giving away T-shirts, but they didn't care. They just want one phone for Contreras, who has been pining for the product for six months and can't wait to play with its touch screen. She has had it with her Razr phone. "Everybody has it," she said. "I want something else, something better."

So what does Perez, a Merritt College psychology major, think? He laughed. "I'm not getting one. But she wanted one bad."

In San Francisco, about 200 hopeful consumers had queued up by 3 p.m.

Some had been on-hand the previous evening, when an unknown benefactor delivered pizza, and a local company handed out chocolate.

Those in line had plenty of time to spread rumors. A bearded man at the end of the San Francisco line this morning, who would only identify himself as Ray, insisted that the store "only had 600 phones.''

Where did he hear that?

"From the media, man,'' Ray said.

Actually there have been no reports of how many will be available. However, postings on the Apple Web site remind potential buyers that they can order online, have a phone shipped to them and not even pay a delivery charge. That may be keeping the lines in check.

Or, like San Francisco Art Institute student Chris Silva, they may just think "the whole thing is totally over-hyped.'' Silva, number five in line at Walnut Creek, has no interest in buying an iPhone himself -- he's earning $100 for every 24 hours he stands in line. But his guess is the buyer who's paying him didn't have to bother.

"Just wait,'' Silva says. "At 8 o'clock tonight you'll be able to walk right in and buy a phone.''
Source :http://www.sfgate.com

What your website says about you

2007-06-28T19:43:00.000-07:00

It was like a scene from A Clockwork Orange : armed with metal bars, baseball bats and bicycle chains, pupils from three schools in Devon converged for a mass brawl. But this particular fight - thankfully averted by police - had been arranged online, largely on the social networking site Bebo.com.

The volume of people now using networking sites means that illicit behaviour is bound to occur online, and the forces that police the web have to guard not only against paedophiles and terrorists but everyday users, too. If a child is being bullied at school, their peers will frequently bombard their email account or homepage with abuse.

But the fact that Bebo was the forum for the pupils arranging the school fight highlights the way in which internet sites are becoming split along the lines of class and age. Bebo organises its users by the school they attend and is all the rage among pupils (although given that the site had 9.3 million British users last month aged 15 or over, the age range is clearly not just limited to kids).

A US academic, Danah Boyd, this week described how white, wealthy and university-bound high-school students tend to do their networking on Facebook.com, while those from poorer, non-university backgrounds use Myspace.com.

Is this the shape of a nascent class system - the wealthy on Facebook, average Joes on Myspace, children on Bebo?

Figures for the UK are hard to come by, but Quantcast.com, which breaks down demographic data for millions of sites, found that US visitors to Facebook were indeed wealthier and from better-educated families, while the families of Myspace and Bebo users were poorer and less well-educated.

The sites' most famous moments reflect these age and class boundaries. Bebo, popular among children, was used by Alan Shearer's daughters to post a video of him singing along to U2. Myspace, big with teens, was the launchpad for singers such as Lily Allen.

Facebook, where the students and graduates hang out, had some fascinating debates on the Labour deputy leadership contest. As Boyd pointed out, the US military recently banned soldiers in Iraq from using Myspace, to conserve bandwidth, but Facebook, favoured by officers, was left alone.

One factor that determines the audience a particular site attracts is its history. Facebook was started at Harvard, spread around the Ivy League and other universities, and only then opened up. Design is also a factor: our own MyTelegraph site was built to link to our news stories and blogs, and attracts a readership to match - intelligent, adult and engaged.

Myspace and Bebo, meanwhile, let users design their own homepages, putting a premium on youthful self-expression. Joanna Shields, president of Bebo, says these "skins" are perhaps the site's most popular feature.

User culture also plays a part: Facebook's members tend to use their full names, but only allow their friends to read their profiles. On Myspace, first names or pseudonyms are the norm - but so is leaving your page open for anyone to read.

Most important, however, is getting there first. These sites live or die by the network effect - more users means a greater pool of prospective friends, which makes the sites more attractive. Start losing people to another site and the wound can be hard to staunch.

Thus Bebo, which launched after Myspace and Facebook in America, is a distant third there, but rivals Myspace in popularity in the UK and is top of the heap in Ireland.

But much of the process is out of the sites' hands, as users discover niches and uses not originally envisaged - Myspace has gathered a host of unsigned bands; Orkut, a social-networking site owned by Google, has bombed in most places but is huge in Brazil; an older site, Friendster.com, is massive in the Philippines.

Shields admits that targeting specific features at particular demographics is nigh-on impossible. "It's much less scientific than that," she says. "We just try to make the site a platform for self-expression, something that is interesting for users, that they will want to stick around on."

Kathryn Corrick, a digital media consultant, agrees. "Facebook works because people recommend it to each other," she says. "That's because they've made it very 'viral', by creating so many different ways you can engage with your friends.

Some people just want to say 'Hey, I'm here' - which they do using the function called Poke. Some want to send private messages, so use the mail system, while others want to talk in a very open way, so write on Walls. It's very good design."

It is possible that eventually social networking will be dominated by a few giant sites, to which virtually every internet user will be signed up - but there are some important sticking points. For starters, not everybody wants to talk to everybody else.

Even within a family, it is hard to imagine everyone signing up to the same site - teenagers will not want their parents to see what they got up to the night before; adults might dislike the lack of grammar and chaotic design on their children's pages.

Already, niche networks that cater to special interests are emerging around the giants. MyTelegraph is one, as is Beautiful People (us.beautifulpeople.net), a terrifyingly narcissistic site whose members only let in those they judge attractive. One of the latest start-ups, Ning.com, allows you to build your own social networks around any interest you can envisage.

Also, as Shields points out, many users will have more than one account, hopping from Myspace to Facebook to Bebo depending on their mood. This overlap can only be enhanced by Facebook's recent decision to allow other developers to hook into its network, so that you can now share your Flickr photos on the site or recommend music through the iLike application.

Whatever their technical wizardry, sites will rise and fall on the uses people invent for them and how open they are to innovation. "One of the mistakes many social-networking companies have made is to look at the technology community as where you start things off," says Corrick.
Source :http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Mars rover Opportunity to make risky descent into huge crater

2007-06-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

NASA's aging but durable Mars rover Opportunity will make what could be a trip of no return into a deep impact crater in an attempt to peer further back than ever before into the geologic history of the Red Planet.

The descent into Victoria Crater received the go-ahead because the potential scientific returns are worth the risk that the solar-powered, six-wheel rover might not be able to climb back out and would be forced to end its days there, NASA officials and scientists said Thursday.

The rover has been roaming the surface for nearly 3 1/2 Earth years, or some 1,200 Martian days, so scientists and engineers want to send it in while it still appears healthy and before the inevitable breakdown of vital parts that would certainly trap it there.

"This crater, Victoria, is a window back into the ancient environment of Mars," said Alan Stern, the NASA associate administrator who authorized the move.

"Entering this crater does come with some unknowns," Stern added. "We have analyzed the entry point but we can't be certain about the terrains and the footing down in the crater until we go there. We can't guarantee, although we think we are likely to come back out of the crater."

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have been exploring opposite sides of Mars since landing on Earth's neighbor in January 2004, discovering geologic evidence of rocks altered by water from a long-ago wetter period of the now-dusty planet.

Blasted open by a meteor impact, Victoria Crater is a half-mile across and about 200 to 230 feet (60 to 70 meters) deep — far deeper than anything else the rovers have explored.

"Because it's deeper it provides us access to just a much longer span of time," said Steve Squyres, the principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover mission from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

He said it is not known just how much time is represented in the crater's layered walls "but if you have a thicker stack of rocks it's covering more of geologic history, so we're going to see more of the history of Mars here than we've seen anywhere else."

Opportunity's first target will be a band of bright material like a bathtub ring about 10 feet (3 meters) below the crater's rim, which will require a drive of more than 60 feet (18 meters) into the crater.

"It is somehow different from everything else around it," Squyres said of the ring.

"That was the original, pre-impact surface so this bright stuff is the stuff that was in contact with the Martian atmosphere at the time Victoria formed, which may have been billions of years ago," he said. "This is a fairly ancient crater. So this material may preserve in its details information about the interaction of these Martian rocks with the ancient Martian environment."

The rover team has named features along the crater's rim as if it was a coastline and have chosen the rover's entry point at a place dubbed Duck Bay, between Cape Verde and Cabo Frio.

First, it will have to safely cross a ripple of wind-formed material at the lip of the crater, a kind of feature that has given the rover trouble before. The team plans to initially drive only far enough to have all six wheels on the slope and then back up to the top, to analyze how it performed.

"We call that a toe dip," said John Callas, the rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The initial entry is expected on July 7 or 9.

Mission officials are keeping an eye on a regional dust storm that has been going on for about a week to the south of Opportunity. The storm could be a risk because dust in the atmosphere can block out sunlight, which the rover relies on to charge its batteries, or cover its solar panels.

But the officials said the rover currently has very clean panels and has power to spare, and that the mission team has gained considerable experience in operating the rovers at very low power levels, such as when the sun is very low in the sky during winters.

Since inception, the twin-rover mission has cost more than $900 million (€668 million) to date. Planned to last 90 days, the mission is in its fourth extension and another proposal would continue operations to the end of October 2008. The mission now costs $20 million (€14.85 million) to $24 million (€17.8 million) annually.
Source :http://www.iht.com

Evidence of ancient farming found in Andes

2007-06-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

Anthropologists in northern Peru have found evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years, researchers said on Thursday, in a finding that helps pin down the start of organized agriculture in the Americas.

Farming marks an important turning point in human history because it signals a change from a nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life to more settled, sedentary society.

"This seems to be a major shift for the development of social structures," said Tom Dillehay, professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, whose findings appear in the journal Science.

"The crops are dependent on people, which ties the latter down," Dillehay said in comments e-mailed to Reuters.

Anthropologists assumed early farming was taking place in the Andes Mountains, but Dillehay and colleagues managed to find proof.

They discovered peanuts, squash and cotton, as well as a primitive grain and various tubers and fruits on the western slopes of the Andes.

"Agriculture played a more important and earlier role in the development of Andean civilization than previously understood," Dillehay and colleagues wrote.

"Our data also show that horticulture and cultural complexity developed in the Americas nearly as early as it did in many parts of the Old World."

They dated the squash from about 9,200 years ago, the peanut from 7,600 years ago and the cotton from 5,500 years ago.
Source :http://www.reuters.com

MySpace Going the YouTube Way?

2007-06-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

Talking about sibling rivalry -- in this case between Web sites sporting a social intent, seems MySpace is busy chalking plans to go -- yes -- the YouTube way...

What with plans this week to launch "MySpace TV", a new Web site that would put together content from professionals and amateurs alike...

No doubt the focus will likely be on professionally-created videos rather than those churned out by amateurs.

"MySpace TV" will also include television and movie clips from News Corp-owned NBC Universal and Fox.

The point worth mentioning here is that the content on the new site will be available even to those who are not registered members of the main MySpace social networking Web site.

The videos thus uploaded will be divided into groups depending on their category. What will also be taken into consideration is videos sponsored by advertisers or jointly developed along with mainstream producers.

Meanwhile, users will have the option to set-up video channels or create their very own video channels.

And for users of MySpace who proceed to upload videos on MySpace TV channels, there will be a link on their MySpace pages that will lead them to the videos on MySpace TV.

Apart from all this, MySpace also plans to introduce tools to allow users edit video clips -- something like what YouTube is currently offering its users.
Source :http://www.techtree.com

Rockstar Releases GTA IV Trailer II

2007-06-28T19:36:00.001-07:00

True to its word, Rockstar Games today released the second trailer of its much awaited 'Grand Theft Auto IV' game title.

With an interesting name like 'Looking for that Someone Special', the trailer was released at around 12.00pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Xbox.com, the Xbox Live Marketplace, and www.rockstargames.com/IV.

Meanwhile, the first GTA IV trailer that was released in March this year, offered a delicious sneak-peek into the environs and machinations of Rockstar's epic next. Yet, it also left millions of hungry gamers unsatiated and pining for more...

Reportedly, the first trailer was downloaded so many times that it now enjoys the privilege of being one of the 'most downloaded' trailers on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

As regards the newly-released trailer 2, Xbox 360 gamers will now be able to download exclusive GTA IV theme as well as gamer pictures from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Apart from the trailer, Rockstar today also released details on GTA IV's 'special collector's edition'.

Going by the first photographs that have been released, it looks like an interesting package...

The GTA IV special edition will come with goodies such as: a customized safety deposit box, an art book with unreleased GTA IV artwork, a soundtrack CD showing Liberty City's skyscape, an exclusive key chain, and a limited edition duffel bag.

Grand Theft Auto IV the game has not been rated yet, but is slated for release both on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, on October 16th in North America and October 19th in Europe.

According to sources, the regular edition game will sell for about $59.99 (Rs 2,700 approx), while the special edition will cost around $89.99 (Rs 4,050) in North America.

In any case, the special edition is already available on pre-order basis from various retailers and the Rockstar Warehouse.
Source :http://www.techtree.com

Google Eyes Enterprise Search

2007-06-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Ingram Micro Inc. will distribute Google Inc.'s Search Appliance and Google Mini enterprise search devices, a deal intended to accelerate sales of the products, the companies announced Wednesday.

Google, which has sold about 9,000 of the devices to date, expects the distribution deal with Ingram to boost sales in particular among small and medium-size businesses.

Ingram, with its distribution network of more than 165,000 retailers and resellers worldwide, is also expected to help increase sales internationally, as well as in the government and education sectors.

"The only way to meet the growing demand for the products is to go through channels," said Rodrigo Vaca, channel marketing manager of the Google Enterprise unit.

Vaca declined to provide details of the effect Google hopes the deal will have on sales. "We expect this to have a significant impact," he said.

Google already has deals in place with regional distributors in Japan, Australia and parts of Latin America, and expects the Ingram relationship to be complementary to those arrangements, Vaca said.

The Ingram deal will initially focus on the U.S. and will expand to other regions like Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific later this year, he said.

So far, Google has sold the products almost exclusively via its own direct sales staff in the U.S. and Europe. "Our strategy is to have our direct sales force work hand-in-hand with the channel," he said.

As part of the agreement, Ingram will provide sales assistance, marketing resources, credit help and technical support to the resellers that carry the Google products.

The Ingram deal isn't exclusive, Vaca said.

In a news release, Ingram, which distributes hundreds of thousands of IT products from about 1,400 suppliers, said the deal strengthens the menu of wares it can offer to its channel partners.

The Search Appliance and Google Mini are server-side hardware devices loaded with Google's search engine software designed to let companies index and find information stored on corporate servers.

Although Google generates most of its revenue from search engine advertising in the consumer market, company officials have said they are committed to its Enterprise unit, which, in addition to the search devices, also markets business software.

The Google Mini, designed for small and medium size businesses or departments within large organizations, starts at US$1,995 with a capacity to index 50,000 documents. It tops out at 300,000 documents.

The Search Appliance, which is more powerful and has more features, starts at $30,000 with a 500,000-document capacity and tops out at 30 million documents.

The Google products typically cost less than more sophisticated enterprise search products and are designed to be easier to install, manage and use.

However, analysts generally agree that the Google products don't match the feature set of high-end enterprise search products from companies like Autonomy Corp. PLC and Fast Search & Transfer ASA.
Source :http://www.pcworld.com

Cyberbullies target one-third of teenage Internet users

2007-06-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

Nearly one in three teenagers who use the Internet say they have been harassed online by "cyberbullies" who spread rumors, post embarrassing pictures, make private conversations public and even send threatening messages.

"Bullying has entered the digital age," the Pew Internet & American Life Project stated this week in a report based on a telephone poll of 935 kids, ages 12 to 17.

Adolescent cruelty has moved from the whispers and shouts of the schoolyard to the online world, where teens often feel insulated from the consequences of their actions, kids reported in focus groups conducted in addition to the poll.

One 15-year-old boy admitted threatening to kill a girl in an electronic message.

"I played a prank on someone but it wasn't serious," the boy told researchers. "I told them I was going to come take them from their house and kill them and throw them in the woods. It's the best prank because it's like 'Oh my God, I'm calling the police,' and I was like 'I'm just kidding, I was just messing with you.' She got so scared though."

Girls reported being bullied online more often than boys, with girls aged 15 to 17 being the most common targets.

Fifteen percent of teenagers who use the Internet said their private e-mail, instant messages or text messages have been forwarded to others or posted to public sites without their permission. Thirteen percent said rumors have been spread about them online, and another 13 percent have received threatening or aggressive e-mails, IMs or text messages. Six percent said cyberbullies have posted embarrassing pictures of them online.

Overall, 32 percent of teens online said they have been targeted by at least one of these annoying and potentially menacing forms of bullying. Still, teens reported that bullying was more common in real-world interactions than on the Internet.

In focus groups with Pew researchers, teens said they have to be increasingly careful about what they say because it could be posted on a blog or Web site. One middle school girl said, "I was in a fight with a girl and she printed out our conversation, [changed] some things that I said, and brought it into school, so I looked like a terrible person."

One girl reported an attack targeted at a gay male.

"I have this one friend, and he's gay and his account got hacked," the girl told Pew researchers. "Someone put all these really homophobic stuff on there and posted like a mass bulletin of like some guy with his head smashed open like run over by a car. It was really gruesome and disgusting."

Though bullying appears to be most common offline, Pew researcher Amanda Lenhart concluded that the effects of bullying are magnified by the distributed nature of the Internet. Ninety-three percent of the teens polled said they use the Web.

"The impulses behind it are the same, but the effect is magnified," Lenhart writes. "In the past, the materials of bullying would have been whispered, shouted or passed around. Now, with a few clicks, a photo, video or a conversation can be shared with hundreds via e-mail or millions through a Web site, online profile or blog posting."

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a nonprofit research center that examines the social impact of the Internet.
Source :http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au

Now, We All Can Wii

2007-06-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

Nintendo Co. has opened its blockbuster Wii game system to independent video-game developers, the company announced Wednesday.

Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY.PK - news - people ) said it will let hobbyists and game studios create and sell downloadable Wii games with a tool called WiiWare. Gamers will be able to purchase the games through the console's Wii Shop channel starting in early 2008.

"Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit," said Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, in a statement.

Nintendo may be taking a page from Microsoft Corp. (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )'s play book. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker's XNA Game Studio tools let developers design video games for its Xbox 360 console.

WiiWare and XNA help lower the risk for developers of niche games that could appeal to nontraditional gamers, but wouldn't move off the shelves fast enough to entice retailers, said Anita Frazier, an industry analyst for NPD Group.

"There is recognition in a very broad sense that the industry has to continue to bring new people into the gaming audience, because the hardcore group is already gaming so much (that there is) not much room for expansion," Frazier said.

By encouraging independent game developers to get creative with smaller titles, Nintendo can offer a broader range of games to hook new customers, Frazier said.
Source :http://www.forbes.com

DNA shows domestic cats have origins in Near East

2007-06-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Housecats around the world can now trace their ancestry back to the Near Eastern wildcat, which today lives in the remote deserts of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.

Scientists have discovered that early farmers in this region were probably the first to domesticate wild cats. When people from this region migrated to new areas, such as Europe and the Americas, they probably brought the cats with them.

These findings will be published on the June 29 issue of the journal Science.

Until now, researchers have not known very much about the genetic differences among different types of cats. In fact, many wild and domestic cats look so much alike, that it is hard to tell which is which, just from looking at them.

Although all cats belong to the same species, there are several subspecies of wildcats, including the European wildcat, the Near Eastern wildcat, the Central Asian wildcat, the southern African wildcat, and the Chinese desert cat.

Carlos Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute and the University of Oxford and his colleagues used DNA samples from almost 1,000 wild and domestic cats to learn more about how different types of cats are related to each other.

The researchers compared the DNA sequences to determine which subspecies were most closely related. They found that each of the subspecies as well as domestic cats fell into a group, or "clade," that was genetically distinct.

One of the clades included domestic cats and some wildcats from the Middle East. This suggests that wildcats from this region became the first domesticated cats.

Some scientists think that cat domestication occurred once humans settled into villages and began farming. The villages and the grains that the farmers were storing might have attracted mice, which then would have attracted cats. Once people saw how useful the cats were, they might have tried to tame them in order to keep them around to catch mice.
Source :http://english.people.com.cn

Scientists Report DNA Transplant

2007-06-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

Scientists said yesterday they had transplanted a microbe's entire, tangled mass of DNA into a closely related organism, a delicate operation that cleanly transformed the recipient from one species into the other.

After the operations, the "patients" -- single-celled organisms resembling bacteria -- dutifully obeyed their new genomes and by every measure exhibited the biological personas of the donors.

"This is equivalent to changing a Macintosh computer into a PC by inserting a new piece of [PC] software," said study leader J. Craig Venter, chief executive of Synthetic Genomics, a Rockville company racing to be the first to create fully synthetic, replicating cells.

The success confirms that chromosomes can survive transplantation intact and literally rewrite the identity and occupation of the cells they move into. That is a crucial finding for scientists who hope to make novel life forms by packing synthetic chromosomes into hollow, laboratory-grown cells.

Venter's goal is to create hand-crafted chromosomes with genes that will instruct cells to secrete biofuels that are cheaper and cleaner than oil or coal. But until now, he said, it has not been clear if chromosomes could spur the machinery of life into action after landing in the innards of an unfamiliar cell.

"This proves we can boot up a cell with another chromosome," Venter said.

The total identity makeover, described in yesterday's online edition of the journal Science, is a modern version of work done in the 1940s, when Rockefeller University scientists moved DNA from one strain of a bacterial species to another, causing a change that was passed to its offspring. That work is enshrined in history books as the first proof that DNA is the chemical carrier of genetic information.

Similarly, scientists at Harvard University earlier this month reported they had performed "whole genome" transplants from mouse cells into fertilized mouse eggs, a move that reprogrammed those eggs to behave differently.

But the new work is the first in which the entire genetic load from one species has been transferred to another species "naked" -- without the cumbersome protein coatings that usually envelop DNA and can get in scientists' way.

Moreover, the size of the transplanted genome, about 1 million genetic letters, or "bases," is large. That offers hope that complicated genetic programs requiring lots of DNA code will be transplantable.

The largest artificial chromosomes made so far are about half a million bases long, but bigger ones are expected soon. Most genetic engineering done today involves the splicing of just a single gene -- perhaps a few thousand bases -- into a cell's own DNA.

Venter said the first transplant of a synthetic chromosome into a cell could happen within a few months. He emphasized that his team has had its plans approved by ethics boards, in part because of the potential to create agents of bioterrorism.

The organisms he is working with do not cause disease, he said, and could be modified so they cannot survive outside the laboratory.

The DNA transplants involve chemical washes that gently clean the donor DNA, and other washes that make the recipient's outer membrane porous, so the new DNA can enter.

It usually fails. But in about one of every 150,000 tries, the new DNA moves in, turns on, and, for reasons that remain unclear, the old DNA disappears.

Barbara Jasny, a senior editor at Science, called the work "a landmark in biological engineering."

Kevin Eggan, of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, offered a more tempered assessment. He said the very simple cells Venter chose to work with, called mycoplasmas, are not representative of the kinds of cells most biologists believe will be useful in synthetic biology.

And, he said, although Venter's team has had some success, "They don't really understand how it works" -- a criticism that Venter acknowledged as true.

George Church, a Harvard professor of genetics and founder of a competing synthetic biology company, Codon Devices of Cambridge, Mass., said he was impressed by the mega-base size of the transplant. But he said a lot needs to be learned about why most transplants do not work and how the recipient's DNA is shut down.

"There are a lot of missing dot-dot-dots," he said.
Source :http://www.washingtonpost.com

Bald eagles soaring to escape extinction

2007-06-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

The bald eagle, America's national symbol, is to be removed from its list of endangered species, 40 years after it was on the brink of extinction, officials said yesterday.

The majestic sea bird, which was almost wiped out by hunters and insecticide poisoning, has not only survived but is now thriving.

The interior department's announcement that it is to remove the species from the protection of the Endangered Species Act signalled a major victory for tough federal conservation laws, said naturalists.

In 1963, there were only 417 mating pairs of bald eagles known to exist. Government biologists, however, have now counted nearly 10,000 mating pairs, including at least one pair in each of the 48 contiguous states.

The Continental Congress put the bird on the country's official seal in 1782, although Benjamin Franklin preferred the turkey and called the eagle a "bird of bad moral character". The eagle was long viewed as a nuisance and dangerous predator. It was hunted for its feathers, the subject of a 50-cent bounty in Alaska and poisoned in some states.

President Bush said its resurgence should be credited to cooperation between landowners and federal and state governments. "This great conservation achievement means more and more Americans across the nation will enjoy the thrill of seeing bald eagles soar," he said.
Source :http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Nintendo Tops Sony's Market Value as Wii Outsells PS3

2007-06-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

Nintendo Co., the world's largest maker of handheld game players, surpassed Sony Corp. in market value as its Wii home console outsells the rival PlayStation 3.

Shares of Nintendo, based in Kyoto, western Japan, rose 1.8 percent to 46,250 yen as of 10:33 a.m. on the Osaka Securities Exchange, valuing the company at 6.55 trillion yen ($53 billion). Sony stock fell 0.8 percent to 6,500 yen, giving the Tokyo-based company a value of 6.51 trillion yen.

Sony, which overtook Nintendo as the world's biggest console maker after PlayStation 2's introduction in 2000, suffered production delays with the release of its latest player. Wii's lower price, simple games and a wand-like controller that players swing like a sword or tennis racquet have helped Nintendo outsell the PlayStation 3 by five to one since the debut in November.

Sony last month sold 81,600 PlayStation 3 units in the U.S., the world's largest video-game market, while Nintendo sold 338,000, according to data compiled by NPD Group Inc. Microsoft Corp. sold 154,900 of its Xbox 360 machines.

Nintendo, also the maker of DS handheld player, may exceed Sony in sales this year. Nintendo posted revenue of 966.5 billion yen in the year ended March 2007, and forecast 1.14 trillion yen this business year.

Sony reported 1.02 trillion yen in sales at the game business in the past fiscal year. The company didn't disclose a sales forecast for the unit. Sony plans to more than double its software lineup to more than 200 titles worldwide and increase the number of downloadable games this fiscal year to boost sales.
Source :http://www.bloomberg.com

Adults only rating may kill sales of video game

2007-06-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Rockstar Games has come under fire. Again.

First, there was "Grand Theft Auto," whose graphic portrayal of drugs, sex and violence put it squarely in the cross hairs of Congress.

Next came "Bully" about a slingshot-wielding 15-year-old at a boarding school.

Now, the company's latest video game has just been banned in England and Ireland and is facing a ratings controversy in the United States.

Players of "Manhunt 2" assume the role of an escaped mental institution patient who goes on a killing spree as he fights his way to freedom. It includes special death moves players can perform by moving the Wii's wireless, motion-sensitive controller at just the right moment.

British Board of Film Classification director David Cooke said the board was unable to approve the game because it "constantly encourages visceral killing."

In the United States, the video game industry's self-regulated ratings board has given a preliminary version of "Manhunt 2" an "adults only" rating instead of the more lenient, and far more popular, "mature" rating for ages 17 and up.

Slapping "Manhunt 2" with the Entertainment Software Rating Board's most stringent rating would likely doom sales. Large retailers including Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart won't stock AO-rated games.

At the same time, Nintendo Co. and Sony Corp. said their policies bar any AO-rated content on their systems.

Microsoft has a similar policy, but "Manhunt 2" wasn't planned for the Xbox 360.

Still, the game's publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software — Rockstar's parent company — said it was determined to bring the title to market.

Rockstar spokesman Rodney Walker said "Manhunt 2" was meant to be a horror game, something akin to gory films like "Saw."

He called Britain's decision a form of censorship because the public would never get to decide for itself.

"People think of video games as a kids' medium but the fans are so diverse and the games are diverse," he said. "When you ban a game, you're putting a limit on what sort of creative choices people can make."

But Cooke insisted that the game would "involve a range of unjustifiable harm risks to both adults and minors."

Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive Software have six weeks to appeal.

In the United States, meanwhile, a national coalition of educators and child advocacy groups sent a letter to the video game industry's self-governed ratings board this week hoping to slap "Manhunt 2" with the strictest rating possible.

In a letter to ESRB President Patricia Vance, the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood urged the stricter, "AO" rating.

No one at the group has seen or played the game, though. Campaign spokesman Josh Golin said the view was based on comments from a video game critic and various studies on video games and violence.

"If ever there was a time for the ESRB's strongest and most unambiguous rating, it is now," wrote Susan Linn, co-founder of the CCFC. "An adults-only rating is the only way to limit children's exposure to this unique combination of horrific violence and interactivity."

The group said the Wii version was particularly troublesome because players would be able to act out the violence with the console's controller.

"It is reasonable to expect that being able to go through the motions of violence while playing Manhunt 2 will exacerbate its negative effects," the letter said. "Given what is already known about the impact of violent games played on standard game controllers, it is irresponsible to make this game available to children and teens on a potentially more dangerous platform."

Defending the less-restrictive "M" rating, Walker said people shouldn't treat video games like toys.

"Video games are a very sophisticated medium," Walker said. "Ratings systems and classifications boards have to adapt to the audience and the audience has already voted. We keep having the same arguments over and over again."
Source :http://www.news-record.com

Space Engineers to Begin Prepping Shuttle for Return to Florida

2007-06-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

Now that the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis has landed safely in California, officials with the U.S. space agency NASA must begin days of work to get the shuttle back to its home base in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida.

The shuttle touched down at an alternate landing site, Edwards Air Force Base, on Friday after bad weather thwarted several attempts to land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the shuttle fleet is housed.

With the shuttle's seven-member crew returning to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas in the southwestern United States engineers are preparing the shuttle Atlantis for a flight across the country, piggybacked on top of a jumbo jet. The entire process - preparation and delivery - takes between seven and 10 days and costs nearly $2 million.

During their two-week mission, the Atlantis crew docked at the International Space Station and conducted four spacewalks, to do construction and repairs on both the station and the shuttle.

NASA engineers cleared the shuttle to return to Earth after determining that a repaired thermal blanket on the shuttle's exterior could withstand the intense heat of re-entering the atmosphere. The blanket was damaged on takeoff. Also during the shuttle visit, Russian computers on the International Space Station crashed and were not restored for several days. The computers help control the space station's orientation.

The next shuttle scheduled for launch is Endeavor, on August 9.
Source :http://www.voanews.com

PREVIEW: Final countdown begins to iPhone launch

2007-06-24T20:20:00.001-07:00

In a buzz-worthy launch worthy of Apollo 11's blast off to the moon, Apple's iPhone hits US stores on Friday, hoping to eliminate world poverty, eradicate disease, and put a kabosh to war.

OK, that's a slight exaggeration. The new-fangled must-have gadget is only a cell-phone, albeit a really cool one, but judging from the amount of hype it has generated you could easily be forgiven for thinking it's the best invention since sliced bread.

Some of the excitement is due to the RDF (that's short for reality distortion field) so famously created by Apple CEO Steve Jobs whenever he launches a product. But that's only part of the explanation.

The rest of the buzz is down to a combination of the frustration millions of people experience when using their phones and the eternal Apple promise to make machines that are both intuitive and sophisticated.

There can be little doubt that the Silicon Valley company is set to introduce the most comprehensive cell-phone in history, with all due respect to the Nokias, Sony-Ericcson, Palms and Blackberry's of the world.

Featuring a powerful web browser, music player, video capabilities and wi-fi receiver, the only question is whether you will ever have the time, or battery power, to make a phone call.

Concerns about the strength of the iPhone battery prompted Apple to issue updated specifications just a few days before launch. Apple says the phone now offers up to 8 hours of talk time, seven hours of video watching, six hours of web browsing, 24 hours of music listening and a standby time of 10 days.

The phone offers a touch-screen interface that is meant to replace the fiddly buttons that were standard on most other smartphones. A smoothly integrated software suite makes you think that Apple designers were the first ones to ever really think how real people actually use their phones.

You just need to tap your finger to dial a number brought up from the phone book or web browser, another touch makes it a conference call. You can view your voice messages on the screen instead of having to listen to them all in order, and you can resize text and photos by pinching your fingers together and apart.

Apple says the touch-screen keyboard has predictive software that completes words for you and helps prevent errors. But power email addicts of the Blackberry and other smartphones are likely to find that a poor substitute for the tactile feedback they get from pressing the admittedly tiny buttons on their current machines.

Other iPhone drawbacks: It's limited to only the AT&T network, it doesn't work on the relatively fast 3G networks, and third party developers are limited.

That's unlikely to deter the hordes of gadget junkies who simply must have the hippest cell phone out there, even if costs 500 dollars. That's the price of the least expensive version available. But customers will also have to sign a two-year contract commitment for an as yet undisclosed monthly rate plan that could add significantly to the overall cost.

But for true Apple fans it's easy to circumvent such economic rationale.

'A new phone would cost me 200 dollars anyway, and a good iPod costs 300 dollars so I might as well just get an iPhone if I can get my hands on one,' says Paul Renn, a self-confessed Apple 'fan-boy'.

Renn is planning to line up early outside an Apple store in San Francisco when the phone goes on sale on Friday at 6 pm. The phone will be available only in Apple's 162 retail stores and in the 1,800 stores owned by AT&T which has hired 2,000 extra staff to deal with the launch.

Because of its high price, limited corporate appeal and entrenched competitors analysts don't expect the iPhone to dominate the cellphone market, thought it is already inspiring companies like Nokia, LG and Samsung to roll out phones with similar features.

'The demand for the iPhone is partly generated by Apple's marketing machine, but it's also perceived to be a very usable and user-friendly phone,' said Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence.

'The frenzy illustrates that there is pent-up demand for mobile devices that are easy to use and really work. People are struggling with small screens and awkward triple-tapping. It's had an impact already, even if it doesn't penetrate as deeply as some expect.'
Source :http://tech.monstersandcritics.com

U.S.proposes tighter ozone standards

2007-06-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

As the standards made in 1997 are too weak to protect people, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed tighter standards for ozone pollution, accoreding to the agency Thursday.

"Ozone's impacts are more significant than we previously thought," EPA administrator Stephen Johnson said during a conference call with reporters.

The environment agency proposed the new rules for ground-level ozone (damaging pollution also known as smog that is spawned by motor vehicle exhaust, power plants, gasoline vapors and chemical solvents) by suggesting an acceptable range of 70 to 75 parts per billion over any eight-hour period.

It's the agency's first new recommendation since 1997 for ground-level ozone. If finalized, the new standards would roughly triple the number of U.S. counties out of compliance with federal air pollution regulations, though business groups have said meeting the new limits could cost tens of billions of dollars.

Johnson answered the agency will formally take comments from business and industry groups that strongly believed the current standards should not be changed.

However, the Union of Concerned Scientists said the new standards fall short of the standards recommended by the EPA's own scientific experts and should be lowered even farther, while the National Association of Manufacturers called for maintaining the current rules.

The union said the proposed standards could allow the agency to avoid tightening the rules altogether, despite unanimous agreement from its own scientists and science advisers that the current standards are not safe.
Source :http://news.xinhuanet.com

Atlantis crew welcomed at Ellington

2007-06-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

NASA astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams received a rousing welcome to Houston on Saturday, 24 hours after returning aboard the shuttle Atlantis from a record-setting mission to the international space station.

Several hundred well-wishers, many of them family, friends and co-workers from NASA's Johnson Space Center, gathered at Ellington Field to greet Williams and the six Atlantis astronauts.

"I'm not sure what I should say. There are so many to thank," said Williams, who logged 195 days in space, a record for women.

A little wobbly after months of weightlessness, Williams was interrupted several times by applause as she addressed the gathering in a voice that broke with emotion.

"I'm a girl, so I'm allowed to do this," she said with a grin and a tear. She finally found inspiration in the words of Tony Dungy, who became the first black coach to win the Super Bowl as the leader of the Indianapolis Colts.

"He said something like, 'It's just the time and the place. There were many before me and many after me who can do this. It's just the time and place.' "

Atlantis touched down at Edwards Air Force Base., Calif., on Friday afternoon, after stormy weather in Florida prevented a return to the Kennedy Space Center.

In a two-week mission to the space station, the Atlantis astronauts delivered and installed a 35,000-pound solar power module.

They also dropped off NASA astronaut Clay Anderson for a five-month stay, exchanging him for Williams.

"We are so happy to be back and have had a successful mission," said Frederick "Rick" Sturckow, the shuttle's commander.

"It feels great to have all of that behind us."

He and crewmates Lee Archambault, Steven Swanson, Patrick Forrester, James Reilly and Danny Olivas overcame damage to heat-shielding on the shuttle's tail section as well as the crash of Russian computers aboard the space station responsible for steering and life support.

The setbacks added two days to their flight and increased the number of spacewalks.

"This was an incredibly complicated mission," said Michael Coats, the Johnson Space Center director. "This crew handled everything thrown at them and more and made it look easy."

Williams was joined at Ellington by her husband, Michael, her mother and sister, and Gorby, her Jack Russell Terrier.

With her return to Earth, Williams began a 45-day physical rehabilitation program to regain strength in her bones and muscles.
Source :http://www.chron.com

Game suspension could boost interest

2007-06-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

The decision by Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. to suspend distribution of the violent video game "Manhunt 2" could actually end up boosting demand from curious gamers, industry analysts said Friday.

Analysts do not believe the move will harm the company's long-term bottom line. And if the game ever sees the light of day, the current controversy could give the title "a lot more exposure that would actually benefit game sales in the long run," said Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst at Lazard Capital Markets.

"Manhunt 2," initially slated for a July release on Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2, depicts the escape of an amnesiac scientist and a psychotic killer from an asylum and their subsequent epic killing spree.

Following bans by Britain and Ireland, as well as a ratings flap in the United States, Take-Two said late Thursday it was reviewing its options.

"We believe in freedom of creative expression, as well as responsible marketing, both of which are essential to our business of making great entertainment," the company said.

The game received a preliminary "Adults Only" rating in the United States from the industry's self-governed ratings body, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, restricting sales to customers 18 and older.

More importantly, such titles aren't stocked by large retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and all three console makers — Microsoft Corp., Nintendo and Sony — do not allow "AO" games on their systems.

Take-Two still could appeal the rating or craft a toned-down version that meets the less-stringent "Mature" rating for players 17 and older.

It's a move anticipated by analysts, but no indication was given on the fate of the title as of Friday. Telephone messages left with a Take-Two company spokesman were not returned, and a spokesman for its Rockstar Games division, which created "Manhunt 2," declined comment.

"It's free publicity," Sebastian said. "Consumer backlash is a risk but at the end of the day if it's rated `M' the retailers will take it."

Added Rick Munarriz, a senior analyst with The Motely Fool: "If anything, with this suspension there's going to be a demand for it because of the controversy."

Investors also seemed unfazed as Take-Two shares rose 21 cents, or 1 percent, to $20.82 in trading Friday.

Take-Two and Rockstar still have a marquee franchise on tap for a fall release.

"Grand Theft Auto IV," the latest in a series of urban crime games, should prove to be the real money maker when it is released on the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 in October.

Previous versions have been top-sellers, and Sebastian said any financial hit from "Manhunt 2" would be more than offset by the new "GTA" game.

"Relative to Grand Theft Auto it's a lot less significant," Sebastian said of "Manhunt 2." "Grand Theft Auto is the key driver. This is a second-tier title."

The previous game in the series, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," was at the center of a ratings controversy two years ago that sparked a Congressional inquiry.

Rockstar was forced to replace its first edition of "San Andreas" after a hacker discovered a password-protected game inside it that involved a sexual encounter.

This year has already been a turbulent one for Take-Two, which recently underwent a shareholder coup that ousted its chief executive and nearly all of its board.

The company said earlier this month that layoffs were likely as part of a restructuring effort designed to cut costs by about $25 million a year by 2008. Specific numbers haven't been released. Take-Two has about 2,100 employees.

It's not clear what effect the "San Andreas" controversy had on sales, as the title had already been available for months by the time the hack was discovered. In 2004, the year it was released, "San Andreas" was the top seller with more than 5.1 million copies sold in the U.S., according to market analyst NPD Group.

Controversies like "Manhunt 2" are to be expected for a company with a reputation for publishing edgy content, said Munarriz, the analyst.

"You have a company that's always lived in the gray area," he said. "These games are controversial and that's part of the allure."
Source :http://www.chron.com

Hawaii's Kilauea Oozes Lava at New Spot

2007-06-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

Lava oozed from a new location on Kilauea, one of the world's most active volcanoes, scientists said Tuesday.

Researchers on the Big Island had been looking for a new lava breakout point after hundreds of small earthquakes were recorded Sunday, suggesting magma, or underground lava, was shifting beneath the surface.

The small outbreak oozed about 150 feet from a 600-foot-long fissure in a forest about eight miles southeast of Kilauea's summit, the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said on its Web site.

When a field crew arrived, lava was moving sluggishly and the fissure was emitting heavy smoke and steam. By the time the crew left four hours later, the lava had stopped flowing and the smoke and steam had decreased significantly.

Part of the park on the Big Island remained closed to protect public safety while researchers examined the latest lava breakout.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources announced the closure of Pu'u 'O'o Trail. It will remain closed until further notice.

Kilauea has been erupting continuously since Jan. 3, 1983, sending lava from the Pu'u 'O'o cone through a system of tubes to the ocean where it forms new land over time.

In Hawaiian tradition, Kilauea is home to Pele, the volcano goddess. Lava is said to be her physical representation.
Source :http://www.abcnews.go.com

Touchdown! Atlantis Lands Flawlessly At Edwards AFB

2007-06-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

ouchdown! Moments ago, the space shuttle Atlantis came to a stop on runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, bringing to close a successful 13 day, 20 hour, and roughly 11-minute flight... with the textbook definition of a perfect landing

Residents in Southern California were treated to beautiful views of the shuttle passing high overhead, as it travelled north to Edwards. Pilot Lee Archambault then flew a traffic pattern slightly wider (grin) than you'll see at your local GA field, to align the orbiter with the runway.

In the coming days, Atlantis will be defueled, purged of hazardous substances and fitted with a drag reducing tail cone. The orbiter will then be loaded atop the modified 747 NASA uses to transport the shuttles back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Welcome back, everybody!
Source :http://www.aero-news.net/

U.S.proposes tighter ozone standards

2007-06-22T22:05:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu, Red Hat ‘Just say NO’ to Microsoft

2007-06-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

First Novell, then Xandros and finally Linspire have all done deals with Microsoft to extend the interoperability between Linux and Windows, and to ensure that Microsoft doesn’t sue Novell, Xandros or Linspire users over the alleged 235 patent infringements contained in Linux and open source software.

Speculation was rife on the Internet that two of the Linux world’s stalwarts, Red Hat and Ubuntu, were soon to go down the same path of being embraced and extended out of existence by the forces of Microsoft and their not-so-open Windows, but to the delight of open source and Linux advocates, both companies say ‘no deal’.

Ubuntu, owned by Canonical and headed up by the South African space tourist and billionaire Mark Shuttleworth, has clearly stated in his blog that there are “No negotiations with Microsoft in progress”.

Shuttleworth says that: “We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements”, and that “Allegations of ‘infringement of unspecified patents’ carry no weight whatsoever”.

He continues that: “We don’t think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security”.

Shuttleworth does however believe that Microsoft’s ‘stated commitment’ to interoperability between Linux and Windows is a good thing, and says that: “I have no objections to working with Microsoft in ways that further the cause of free software, and I don’t rule out any collaboration with them, in the event that they adopt a position of constructive engagement with the free software community”.

But in regards to the deals done with Novell and the rest, Shuttleworth says that: “I don’t believe that the intent of the current round of agreements is supportive of free software, and in fact I don’t think it’s particularly in Microsoft’s interests to pursue this agenda either. In time, perhaps, they will come to see things that way too”.

Shuttleworth also makes reference to Microsoft Open XML document format, saying it’s just not as good as the ODF format used in Open Office, and implores Microsoft to consider using the ODF standard instead of their own.

In the end, Shuttleworth concludes by saying that: “My goal is to carry free software forward as far as I can, and then to help others take the baton to carry it further”, with his final sentence being that “All the deals announced so far strike me as ‘trinkets in exchange for air kisses’. Mua mua. No thanks”.

Red Hat is likewise unwilling to play Microsoft’s game. In statements provided to CNET, Red Hat said there would be no deal, and that their “standpoint has not changed".

CNET quoted Red Hat’s director of corporate communications Leigh Day as saying that: "We continue to believe that open source and the innovation it represents should not be subject to an unsubstantiated tax that lacks transparency."

So, despite the deals with Novell, Xandros and Linspire, which are now hated by OSS and Linux purists the world over, Linux appears safe thanks to Ubuntu and Red Hat who, at least for now, are more committed than ever to firmly answer ‘untainted Linux’ whenever they are asked ‘Where do you want to go today?’.
Source :http://www.itwire.com.au

Microsoft displays at telecom show

2007-06-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

The nation's biggest telecommunications trade show opens at McCormick Place on Monday, but it might as well be a computer or cable TV confab.

There was a time when telecom folks gathered to check out the latest in optical fiber, network switches and digital cross-connect boxes. That stuff is still on hand, but it is overshadowed by new software aimed at video and entertainment.

A big presence at this year's Chicago show will be Microsoft Corp., which is unveiling its latest advances in Internet protocol TV that enable consumers to search for video content quickly rather than browsing. It also lets people move photos and music from their computers to their television sets.

"With IPTV, you can do things you cannot do with any other platform," said Ed Graczyk, Microsoft TV marketing director. "Instant channel zapping, for instance. You change channels in a fraction of a second instead of the two seconds it takes for cable or satellite."

This isn't your grandfather's telephone trade show.

In North America, Microsoft's main IPTV customers are AT&T Inc. and BellCanada, two telecom carriers looking to compete with cable-television operators. The software giant will be attending NXTcomm to show off its latest applications, but it is also coming to Chicago to meet privately with customers and potential customers.

"It's an opportunity to engage one on one with customers and partners," said Graczyk. "A big part of our strategy is to build an ecosystem of partners, from set-top box suppliers to video encoders. For us, the best activity is what goes on in meeting rooms around the convention center."

And even though NXTcomm is aimed at the telecom industry, the major cable TV operators also will be there, checking out the competition.

"The lines are blurred," said Wayne Crawford, NXTcomm executive director. "Companies that make equipment for telecom carriers are the same companies that make stuff for cable TV operators. Everyone is moving toward Internet protocol networks."

This will be the first NXTcomm trade show under that name. For many years, the telecom industry held gatherings under the name SuperComm, but that ended in 2005 because of disagreements between SuperComm's two owners, the US Telecom Association, made up of carriers, and the Telecommunications Industry Association, made up of equipment vendors.

Last year, the equipment vendors staged a trade show in Chicago and the carriers held a rival show in Las Vegas, but people in the industry complained about having two separate events to attend and pressured the trade groups to reunite under a single banner again. "We need to keep expanding the diversity of buyers who attend the show," Crawford said.

And converging technology helps them do that, attracting firms such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft that in years past might have barely paid attention to a telecom trade show.
Source :http://www.chicagotribune.com

Sunita returns June 21 after 194-day record space odyssey

2007-06-19T00:03:00.000-07:00

Indian American astronaut, Sunita Williams is all set to return home June 21 after a record breaking 194-day space odyssey by a woman with the mission managers giving the green signal.

Sunita and six other astronauts who came June 10 to fetch her bid farewell to her replacement Clayton Anderson and two Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) before the hatches between their spaceship and the station closed at 6.51 p.m. Monday (4.21 a.m. IST Tuesday).

'I'm sad to say goodbye, but that means progress is being made and it's time for the International Space Station to grow a little more,' Williams told ground control before the astronauts floated into space shuttle Atlantis that would take them home.

Undocking at 10.42 a.m. (8.12 pm IST) Tuesday, Atlantis is scheduled to touchdown at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida at 1.54 p.m. (11.24 p.m. IST) Thursday, US space agency NASA said. Sunita had set off from here Dec 9 on space shuttle Discovery on what was to become the longest space journey by a woman.

Sunita, who with four excursions also holds the record for most space walks by a woman, crossed the new milestone Saturday surpassing the 188-day, 4-hour mark set by US astronaut Shannon Lucid in 1996 on a mission to the Russian Mir space station.

The Atlantis received the go-ahead Monday after the Space Station's revived Russian computers passed a final test. The station's three main computers had crashed shortly after astronauts installed a new set of solar power panels to give it additional power in readiness for the arrival of new laboratories owned by the European and Japanese space agencies.

Space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov were able to restore the system by bypassing suspect protection circuits. The computers control the firing of rocket thrusters needed to keep the station properly positioned in space for tracking the sun for power, pointing communications antennas and warming or cooling parts of the complex.

The departure of Atlantis was delayed by two days to let the astronauts repair a thermal blanket that had come loose near the tail during its June 8 launch.

Although it is only her first space flight, Sunita became the world's most experienced woman walker in space Feb 4 with four excursions over 29 hours and 17 minutes to top Kathy Thornton's 21-hour space walking record.

'It was very exciting to watch her spacewalks and to watch her accumulate more spacewalk time than any other female in the universe,' said Lucid.

'These [long-term] flights are providing the needed confidence so that some day in the near future we can depart low-Earth orbit and head on out to Mars.'

During her stay at the space station, Williams has worked with experiments across a wide variety of fields, including human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation as well as education and technology demonstrations.

Some of these experiments give scientists critical insight into the effects of weightlessness on human bodies while others show ways to prevent effects already known about like muscle and bone loss.

In addition to rigorous exercise, Williams also collected and stored her blood while in space to add to an ongoing study on nutrition, another key element of living in space for long stretches of time. The results of this study may impact nutritional requirements and food systems developed for future ventures in space.

'Her mission has been critically important to our overall space program,' said astronaut Eileen Collins, another female pioneer in space flight. Collins became the first woman to command a space flight mission on Space Shuttle Columbia in July 1999.

'She truly is a space marathoner who shows young women everywhere that there's a place in the space programme for them.'
Source :http://www.indiaenews.com/

Sony encouraged by Blockbuster picking Blu-ray

2007-06-18T23:53:00.000-07:00

Sony Corp. on Tuesday hailed US movie rental leader Blockbuster's decision to expand inventory of its Blu-ray format, giving it a new edge in the battle to set the standard for next-generation DVDs.

Japanese electronics makers have invested heavily in the future of DVDs but failed to agree on a single standard, with Sony and Panasonic pushing for the Blu-ray format with a competing camp led by Toshiba promoting the rival HD DVD.

Blockbuster Video on Monday gave the nod to Blu-ray in a battle often likened to the VHS-Betamax war of the 1980s for videocassette supremacy.

"The availability of movie titles is very important. The move by Blockbuster is definitely positive," said Daichi Yamafuji, spokesman for Sony Corp. in Tokyo.

Dominance win over HD DVD could help restore some lustre to Sony's reputation for innovation after the company that brought the world the Walkman fell behind other companies such as Apple with its iPod hit music player.

Blockbuster Inc. said Monday it will offer exclusively Blu-Ray at 1,450 stores that will carry next-generation DVDs.

It will continue to offer both formats online and at the first 250 stores that featured the next-generation discs.

In the test period at the 250 stores, Blu-ray rentals significantly outpaced HD-DVD rentals, Blockbuster said.

"We intend to meet the demands of our customers and based on the trends we're seeing, we're expanding our Blu-ray inventory to ensure our stores reflect the right level of products," Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising for Blockbuster, said in a statement.

However, he added that "it is still too early to say which high-definition format will become the industry standard."

Sony earlier this month slashed the price of its Blu-Ray player for the North American market in a bid to compete with rival electronic companies.

Sony is also suffering from a huge operating loss in its video game division as its PlayStation 3 faces tough competition from rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.
Source :http://www.smh.com.au

Apple’s iPhone a ‘billion dollar’ hit before launch

2007-06-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

M:Metrics research shows that 56 percent of British and 64 percent of American mobile phone users were aware of the iPhone. In the U.S., where the device will launch first, 14 percent of those who had heard about the iPhone reported they would be highly interested in buying one.

"19 million Americans reported strong interest in purchasing an iPhone – an impressive figure, when you consider that the installed base of most high-end devices rarely approaches one million and respondents were informed of the price point as well as of the AT&T exclusive," said Mark Donovan from M:Metrics.

"This data confirms that the iPhone has sparked the imaginations of consumers and is not merely a topic of conversation among insiders and technology enthusiasts," observed Mark Donovan, senior vice president and senior analyst, M:Metrics.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at the recent unveiling of the iPhone that the company is looking to sell 10 million of the "revolutionary and magical" devices in the next 18 months. The latest research from M:Metrics makes this figure more realistic than ever.

AT&T, which has 60 million subscribers, has started to punt the iPhone to their user base, which makes sense since the UK market is far more likely to purchase a smart phone than their US counterparts.

"We expected that mobile users in the UK would be more inclined to buy an expensive device, since smartphones are twice as popular in the UK as in the US," said Paul Goode, vice president and senior analyst, from M:Metrics London office.

In the UK 6.96 million, or 28%, of mobile subscribers indicated that they have a strong interest in purchasing the iPhone.

This brings the combined US-UK number of mobile subscribers with a strong interest in purchasing an iPhone to just under 26-million, something that will make Apple’s Jobs a happy man.

Assuming that the actual sales figures will resemble the numbers reported in the M:Metrics research, Apple stands to generate billions in additional revenue.

iPhone riding the ‘cool’ factor

While there are many other mobile phones that provide superior features to the iPhone, this is not the iPhone’s major selling point. Its revolutionary interface, modern look and fashionable image will most likely be the major draw card for the phone.

"While other devices—some of them already on the market—have features equal or better than the iPhone, such as 3G, superior cameras, and the like, the iPhone has been the first mobile device to create widespread consumer excitement around a mobile phone," commented Donovan.

"This has the potential to increase consumer demand for more expensive, full featured phones across the board as OEMs and other operators respond to AT&T/Apple's marketing juggernaut."

A recent discussion with mobile experts from the cellular giants Vodacom-Vodafone, MTN and Virgin Mobile revealed that they expect the iPhone to become the ultimate cellular fashion accessory after its launch.

And with mobile phones long surpassing the image of merely a functional telephony device, Apple may be able to bank on the image of the iPhone to achieve millions of sales for the company.

The iPhone is set to launch on the 29th June in the US.
Source :http://mybroadband.co.za

IPhone Battery Life Improved

2007-06-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

Apple Inc. said Monday its soon-to-be released mobile phone, the iPhone, will have a battery life that supports 8 hours of talk time, better than what the company originally estimated in January.

The company says the battery may also support 7 hours of video playback, or 24 hours of audio playback, and it will feature up to 250 hours of standby time.

Apple also said that it is upgrading the top surface of the phone from plastic to optical-quality glass.

The device is scheduled to ship on June 29.

Shares of Apple traded at $123.65 in the premarket session, up $3.15, or 2.6 percent, from Friday's closing price of $120.50.
Source : http://www.chron.com

Crew Set To Test Space Station Computers

2007-06-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

Russian ground controllers were gearing up for a critical test of the revived computers in the Russian segment of the space station to make sure they can control the lab's orientation with rocket thrusters as required after the shuttle Atlantis departs, reports CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood.

If all goes well, NASA's Mission Management Team is expected to give shuttle commander Rick Sturckow and his crewmates permission to seal the hatches between the station and the orbiter late Monday in preparation for undocking Tuesday.

Ground controllers also tested a new solar array rotation system overnight in preparation for switching over to normal sun-tracking mode.

Four of the six computers that crashed have been back online since Friday, reports CBS News correspondent Peter King. That's by design, with the other two on standby. Most of the systems that run on those computers are back, too.

The mission managers will test the rockets that keep the station aimed properly. They want to make sure the computers can do the job, and that the U.S. and Russian computers can talk to each other.

Atlantis has been at the space station since June 10.

During the computer meltdown, Atlantis' thrusters were used to help the station maintain its position. The space station's thrusters haven't been used since last week.

Atlantis is currently set to undock on Tuesday and land Thursday in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

"We will have sort of an extra double-check, if you will, to make sure everything is running well," flight director Kelly Beck said of Monday's test.

The Russian computers, which also control oxygen production, crashed last week. All six of the computers' processors were back online as of Saturday. The two processors that took longer to revive are now on standby mode and can be used if needed.

Except for an oxygen generator, all the space station systems that were powered down when the computers failed are now running.

Also Monday, Atlantis' crew was to finish packing the shuttle for its return trip to Earth. The shuttle and space station crews were set to say their goodbyes before hatches between Atlantis and the outpost are closed in preparation for Tuesday's undocking.

On Sunday, shuttle astronauts completed the fourth and final spacewalk of their mission to continue the construction of the space station.

During a nearly 6½-hour spacewalk, astronauts Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson activated a rotating joint — their top priority — on the outpost's newest segment so a new pair of solar wings can track the sun and provide power to the station. The solar arrays were delivered to the space station by Atlantis.

The astronauts also set up a new camera stanchion outside the station's newest segment and a computer network cable between the U.S. and Russian sides of the outpost. They were not able to bolt down a problematic debris shield and instead secured it in place.

While the seven-member crew of Atlantis and the three-man crew of the space station spent Father's Day 220 miles above Earth, the holiday didn't slip the minds of the nine fathers at the outpost, who collectively have 24 children.
Source :http://www.cbsnews.com

Rare Turtle Hatches at Tenn. Aquarium

2007-06-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

A rare turtle has hatched at the Tennessee Aquarium, one of only three places in the United States that display the endangered species, aquarium officials announced.

A Beal's four-eyed turtle, named for two white spots on the back of its head that look like a pair of eyes, hatched from a clutch of three eggs, officials said Friday.

"This little turtle in Chattanooga may represent the first successful reproduction of Sacalia bealei in a North American institution," aquarium herpetologist Enrico Walder said.

The turtle weighed 0.21 ounces and was 1.52 inches long when it hatched June 9.

There are only 18 known Beal's four-eyed turtles in the United States and Europe. The Dallas Zoo and the Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascadero, Calif., also have the turtles, officials at the Chattanooga aquarium said.

The turtles were once common in southern China, and researchers believe their numbers will not grow because of the species' low reproductive rate.

"As with many Asian species, the Beal's four-eyed turtle has been over collected for use in the Chinese food and traditional medicine trade," Walder said.

A male Beal's four-eyed turtle is on display at the aquarium, but the baby will not be exhibited until it is older.
Source :http://www.washingtonpost.com

Shuttle cleared to land

2007-06-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

"That's great news!" Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow radioed to Mission Control after receiving word that Atlantis is cleared to land at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday.

The clearance came a day after astronaut Danny Olivas, during a spacewalk, stapled down a loose thermal blanket that covered an engine pod near the shuttle's tail. The blanket peeled back during last week's launch.

NASA has been sensitive about the space shuttles' heat shields ever since the Columbia accident killed seven astronauts in 2003. Foam from the shuttle's external tank came loose during launch, striking Columbia's wing and allowing fiery gases to penetrate it during re-entry.

Also today, Russian cosmonauts began turning back on some crucial systems that had been shut down more than four days ago when a computer system on the Russian side of the international space station crashed.

The first system turned on was a machine that scrubs carbon dioxide from the air inside the space station.

Just a day earlier, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov were able to get four of six processors on two computers working again by using a cable to bypass a circuit board.

"In the last 24 hours, we've had a lot of successes," flight director Holly Ridings said this morning.
NASA officials said the crew was never in danger of running out of oxygen, power or essentials.

The computers on the Russian side provide oxygen and maintain the space station's correct position in orbit, allowing it to point its solar arrays at the sun for power and shift orientation to avoid occasional large debris that comes flying through space.

The computer problem had raised the possibility the space station's three-person crew might have to abandon the outpost. NASA officials rejected such a scenario.

"We feel like the computers are stable and back to normal," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's manager of the space station program.

The cosmonauts used another jumper cable Saturday to get the last two failed processors on the computers working, Ridings said Saturday morning.

Suffredini, however, said Friday night that engineers do not expect the other two processors to come back online. They will be replaced.

Engineers were still trying to determine what caused the computers to fail, Suffredini said.

Early today, US astronaut Sunita Williams set the record for the longest single spaceflight of any woman, passing astronaut Shannon Lucid's record of 188 days in space.

"It's just that I'm in the right place at the right time," Williams said when Mission Control congratulated her. "It's just an honour to be up here. Even when the station has little problems, it's just a beautiful, wonderful place to live."

The seven astronauts visiting on space shuttle Atlantis and the three space station crew members planned to spend most of today moving supplies and rubbish back and forth between the vehicles and preparing for the mission's fourth spacewalk tomorrow.

The 11-day space station construction mission had already been extended by two days so the rip in the shuttle's thermal material could be fixed.

The failed computers were the latest technical glitch for the half-built, $US100 billion ($A120 billion) outpost. A Russian oxygen machine and gyroscopes, which also control orientation, have previously failed.

The computer problem renewed criticism of the space station, which has been called an ill-conceived venture, as well as criticism of US President George W Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, which calls for finishing the space station in three years, grounding the space shuttles in 2010 and building next-generation vehicles to go to the moon and Mars.

"We're learning a great deal from the space station, and one of things we may be learning is we shouldn't have built this particular one," said Howard McCurdy, a space public policy expert at American University.
Source :http://www.news.com.au

What's Behind Google's Sneak Attack Against Microsoft?

2007-06-13T00:16:00.000-07:00

Another day, another charge that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft has violated its consent decree -- or so it must seem to the software titan, which has been battling such accusations ever since the mega antitrust case against it ended in 2002.

In the latest controversy, though, the company lodging the complaint is none other than Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google, an adversary almost equal to the European Commission, which has been lobbing the most successful -- and costly -- complaints at Microsoft.

Google has not openly accused its adversary of making it difficult for third-party search engines to be used -- and more importantly, replaced as the default -- in Microsoft's recently released operating system Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server., Vista. Those charges were reported by the New York Times on Sunday, based on a leaked memo written by a Department of Justice official. The memo urges state attorneys general to disregard the claims levied by Google, which was referred to only as "a middleware vendor."

Google's complaint has not been made public, so it is difficult to evaluate the accusations and Microsoft's response. However, based on the players involved and on Microsoft's history -- not to mention the Bush Administration's track record on antitrust enforcement -- it is safe to make at least some assumptions about the charges and how this particular chapter in Microsoft's
Source :http://www.technewsworld.com

Safari key to iPhone app developers

2007-06-13T00:12:00.000-07:00

CEO Steve Jobs announced during his keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco that developers of third-party applications will be able to create Web applications for the iPhone using Safari, Apple's Web browser.

This gives developers the chance to create iPhone applications using common Web development standards such as Ajax ahead of the device's June 29 launch. As a bonus, those applications will also work on Windows now that Safari will run on Microsoft's operating system.

But this is not what many mobile developers were hoping to hear. Unlike other mobile-phone makers, Apple has chosen not to set up a software development kit or support community for iPhone applications at this time.

Call it the iPhone compromise -- Apple is giving developers a chance to get their wares on the iPhone, but not every application will work properly inside a browser without native support. The decision means Apple has a better chance of guaranteeing application security and reliability on the native applications it does allow on the iPhone, but it falls short of what other smartphone companies -- notably Nokia -- offer mobile-application developers.

"It's a first small step in the right direction, but they have many more steps they need to follow," said Daniel Graf, founder and CEO of Kyte, which allows mobile-phone users to share videos and photos.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone in January, Jobs hinted that Apple would be the only game in town for iPhone application development. He seemed concerned that a rash of third-party applications could create security and reliability problems that could derail Apple's first attempt at cracking the smart-phone market.

But at the D: All Things Digital conference in May, Jobs appeared to signal that he was amenable to third-party application support, which has been an important factor in the success of other mobile devices. This had developers eager to get their hands on a software development kit. They're going to have to wait.

The Web application compromise "is probably the way to go," said one developer for a major financial services company who asked not to be identified. It avoids the potential problems that might come with allowing full iPhone development too soon, he said.

Apple's plan allows the iPhone to quickly take advantage of added features that Apple doesn't have the time or willingness to develop itself, without the risk that poorly written programs could hurt the device's stability, said Mike McGuire, an analyst with Gartner. It also allows Apple to take advantage of the groundswell of interest in developing new Web applications.

"A lot of the interesting stuff out there right now are these Web 2.0 apps," he said. "Go where the momentum is."

But if Apple really wants the iPhone to be a widespread success against smartphones already in the market from companies like Nokia, it will have to create a developer community like the one it's entertaining this week in San Francisco, Graf said.

"It's a neat starting point, but I don't call this really third-party app support," Graf said. "Third-party application support means you can do a Java app, or Windows Mobile app, or BREW (binary runtime environment for wireless), and then you can take advantage of the phone's capabilities." Graf said he doesn't think his company's photo-sharing application will work without native support.

The financial services developer said he would be disappointed if Apple didn't eventually allow native iPhone apps. "Some people would want to go deeper," he said, noting that there are things developers would want to do that can't be done with an Ajax application. "I would hope they would open it up in a more compelling way at some point."

As for his company, he said the amount of time devoted to the iPhone depends on whether the firm decides to make the iPhone a fully supported platform, like the BlackBerry is currently. Whether the device earns that status depends in large part on how many iPhones Apple can sell, and what kind of people end up buying them. "Big corporations are conservative that way," he said.

And in a way, many application developers will also take a wait-and-see attitude with the iPhone, said Todd Kort, an industry consultant who has tracked mobile devices for years. Sales volume will help determine the speed of iPhone application development, and many influential factors that have yet to be fully tested, such as battery life, will help determine the iPhone's fate, he said.

Over time, however, developing a vibrant developer community is a must for any computing platform, be it Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Palm and mobile phones, Graf said.

"Look at the development arm of Nokia, they have 3 million active developers and mobile applications are nowhere yet," he said. "If Apple did anything like that for the iPhone, it would be huge."
Source :http://www.zdnet.com.au

NASA postpones repair decisions

2007-06-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

NASA likely will tell the Atlantis astronauts to sew, staple or pin a piece of loose fabric heat shielding in place to cover an exposed region of the tail section of their spaceship during a spacewalk.

The space agency, which had planned to select a technique as well as the day for the repairs, postponed its decision by at least 24 hours Tuesday so engineers could conduct more tests, said John Shannon, who chairs NASA mission management team.

The assessments involve evaluating the strength of each repair technique with "pull tests." The tests re-create the damage, a 6-by-4-inch gap in the heat-resistant fabric that stretches across a maneuvering rocket mounted on the left side of the shuttle's rear section.

The gap was noticed by the shuttle crew shortly after the launch Friday on an assembly mission to the international space station. Experts believe the blanket, which may not have been installed properly, was peeled back, but not torn, by the airflow of the launching.

The shuttle Columbia's fatal breakup in 2003 was traced to an undetected hole in the thermal armoring that protects the wing from the temperature buildup that accompanies the high-speed descent through the atmosphere before landing. The breach was caused by an impact with a chunk of flyaway fuel tank insulation.

The tail section usually is exposed to lower temperatures than the wing, but Shannon said mission managers do not want to take the risk.

A 1984 shuttle mission landed safely with a similar gap in the protective material, but the temperatures were high enough to damage the housing of the rocket engine.

Even an extensive repair to Atlantis would become a setback as NASA attempts to finish the assembly of the space station before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.

On Monday, NASA extended the Atlantis mission by two days to June 21 to make time for a repair, which will be carried out either Friday or Sunday.

In addition to the "pull tests," shuttle engineers are scheduling wind tunnel tests that will subject the repair options to the aerodynamic forces and temperature regimes that Atlantis can expect as it returns.

Also, the space agency said small impact sensors within the left and right wings of Atlantis recorded small vibrations this week.

Mission managers believe the readings may have been in response to temperature swings rather than actual blows from a meteoroid or man-made debris.

However, the shuttle's heat shield will be examined for damage before re-entry.
Source :http://www.chron.com

Shuttle Atlantis astronauts start first spacewalk

2007-06-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

Two astronauts on the US shuttle Atlantis have embarked on the first of three planned space walks to continue construction on the International Space Station, NASA television reported.

The two astronauts, Jim Reilly and John Olivas, emerged from the orbiting space station's airlock at 2002 GMT on Monday to start their work.

They are assigned the task of making power and cooling connections between the station and a new 16-tonne truss segment containing solar panels.

Before the astronauts left for their space walk, the S3/S4 truss segment was installed on the station with the help of the station's giant robotic arm. The truss's solar arrays will increase the station's power generation.

The space walk is scheduled to last about six-and-a-half hours, NASA said.
Source :http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Apple Releasing a Windows Browser

2007-06-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

Apple said Monday that it would make its Safari Web browser available for Windows-based PCs, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft.

The announcement came at the end of a presentation made by Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and chief executive, at the company’s annual World Wide Developers Conference. It indicates that Apple is increasingly confident in its ability to compete against Microsoft’s desktop computing monopoly.

Shares of Apple dropped sharply after the announcement, falling $4.30, to $120.19. Several Wall Street analysts said the decline proved that Mr. Jobs was, after all, mortal. In recent years, Apple’s chief executive has refined product announcements into an art form that leaves his audience cheering and then rushing to a store. Wall Street has come to hope that each new event will create a new iPod-style billion-dollar market.

“This was pretty underwhelming,” said Gene Munster, a financial analyst at Piper Jaffray. “He hit a double instead of a homer.”

With his usual showmanship, Mr. Jobs said that Safari would have twice the performance capability of Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer. He also expressed confidence that Apple would be able to increase its market share against the dominant software company, pointing to half a billion downloads of Apple’s iTunes software, most of them by Windows users.

A test version of the program was available Monday for downloading from Apple’s Web site.

In an interview after his presentation, Mr. Jobs said he had no concerns that the new competition might anger Microsoft or lead to retaliation, such as slowing the development of the version of Office for the Macintosh. “After all, we are developing for Windows,” he said.

Like many of Apple’s strategic moves, the implication of an Apple browser for Windows was not immediately clear. It is likely that Mr. Jobs is now plotting a broader business strategy that will allow Apple to grow beyond its niche position in the computer market of about a 5 percent share.

“Who knows? Maybe we can grow our Safari share in the future,” Mr. Jobs said. “We’re going to try.”

Apple’s move is significant, industry executives said, because it indicates that despite the end of the browser wars of the late 1990s, Microsoft’s continued ability to retain more than 80 percent market share is a continuing threat to its competitors. Mr. Jobs said that Safari’s market share was currently about 5 percent and the share of Firefox, the open source browser, was about 15 percent. There has been a persistent fear that Microsoft would be able to create new standards that would force computer users to adopt its software to reach certain Web sites and Internet services.

The broader appeal of the browser might have implications for Apple’s iPhone. In his presentation, Mr. Jobs said that the company was encouraging Apple software developers to use modern Internet software standards to make applications compatible with Apple’s iPhone, which will go on sale June 29. The announcement is likely to touch off a frenzy of activity because Mr. Jobs said that applications that are written to Internet standards like AJAX and designed to work with Web browsers would work from the first day the iPhone is available.

“It will create a much more significant consumer platform for the iPhone,” said Mike McGuire, a research analyst at Gartner, an industry research firm in San Jose, Calif.

By moving software development away from personal computers and cellular phones and toward the Internet, Apple is attempting to persuade its developers that they can achieve new economies of scale while permitting the computer and consumer electronics firm to build more secure devices and computers.

“There is something very clever going on here with Apple releasing Safari for Windows,” said Scott Love, president of Aquaminds Software, a Macintosh developer based in Palo Alto, Calif. “Don’t ever underestimate S. J.’s motives.” Some developers said they were disappointed that Apple would continue to restrict software development for the iPhone. However, a number of them said that they were intrigued by the company’s new Windows-oriented Web browser strategy.

Much of the rest of the presentation focused on showing 10 new features of the company’s Leopard version of the OS X operating system. Mr. Jobs had shown many of the features, such as a new backup system called Time Machine and a new more powerful version of the Apple instant messaging system called iChat. On Monday, Mr. Jobs showed several refinements to the company’s operating system appearance and graphical user interface.

At previous events announcing the Leopard version of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, Mr. Jobs has hinted at important new features. However, Monday’s event indicated that Leopard, which was originally supposed to be commercially available by now and then was delayed until October when the company shifted resources toward its iPhone, had no major surprises.

Mr. Jobs teased the audience of about 5,000 software developers, saying the company would have multiple versions of Leopard, all priced at $129.

“I’m sure most of you will want the Ultimate version,” he said. The reference was a not-so-subtle jab at Microsoft, which offers Windows Vista at a variety of price points with different features. Apple, of course, will sell just one version.

Electronic Arts and Id announced that they would begin releasing popular games for the Macintosh simultaneously with Windows versions.
Source : http://www.nytimes.com/

Teacher’s porn conviction overturned

2007-06-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

A substitute teacher was granted a new trial Wednesday after her conviction for failing to prevent students from viewing pornography on her computer raised thorny questions about who is ultimately responsible for screening unsavory online material.

The woman, Julie Amero, 40, of Windham, Conn., adamantly denied clicking on pornographic Web sites that appeared on her classroom’s computer screen in October 2004 while she was teaching seventh-graders at Kelly Middle School in Norwich.

Amero was convicted in January on four counts of risk of injury to a minor, but computer security experts and bloggers across the political spectrum rallied to Amero’s defense when evidence later emerged that her computer had been infected with spyware that caused pop-up ads to take over the screen.

Superior Court Judge Hillary Strackbein granted Amero’s motion for a retrial Wednesday after determining that a Norwich police detective who was called as an expert prosecution witness had given “erroneous” testimony about the computer.

A date for her new trial has not been set, but prosecutors did not oppose the ruling, meaning Amero is unlikely to face any further prosecution, NBC affiliate WVIT-TV of Hartford reported.

Assistant State’s Attorney David Smith acknowledged Wednesday that erroneous information about the computer was presented during trial. He said the errors came to light when prosecutors sent the computer to a state laboratory for examination after the trial.

Amero, who was pregnant at the time of the incident, could have been sentenced to 40 years in prison, but her sentencing was postponed four times as the new evidence was examined.

“Frankly, we commend the state for investigating further to determine that their original computer witness was erroneous in his conclusions about the pop-ups,” Amero’s attorney, William Dow, told NBC affiliate WNBC-TV of New York. “The lesson from this is all of us are subject to the whims of these computers.”

Teacher becomes a technology cause
The sentence for what all sides eventually agreed was at best an inadvertent error made Amero’s case a call to battle for some technology experts, who said that what happened to her could happen to anyone.

Amero said the computer lacked firewall or anti-spyware protections to prevent inappropriate pop-ups, a contention supported by the school’s principal, who said a vendor’s bill had gone unpaid.

“I did everything I possibly could to keep them from seeing anything,” Amero said during her trial.

Several experts showed up Wednesday at New London Superior Court to support Amero, including consultant Herb Horner, a defense witness whose company examined a copy of the computer’s hard drive.

“During the copy process we received several ‘Security Alerts!’ from our antivirus program. We analyzed the activity log and noted that there were spyware/adware programs installed on the hard drive,” Horner wrote in a report. “We ran two other adware/spyware detection programs and more spyware/adware tracking cookie/programs were discovered.”

But most of Horner’s evidence was barred at trial after the prosecution objected. Horner said Wednesday that Amero would not have been convicted if he had been allowed to present all of his evidence.

“It was the most frustrating thing of my life,” Horner told WNBC. “I went home and while I was eating dinner, I broke down because I was so emotional and upset.”

The Federal Trade Commission has been cracking down on companies accused of spreading malicious spyware to millions of computer users worldwide. Pop-up blockers that can prevent so-called porn storms are now in wide use.
Source :http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Microsoft Waxes Nostalgic With 'Pac-Man' Update

2007-06-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

It is perhaps one of the most distinctive sounds in video game history -- the "wakka, wakka, wakka" of 1980s pop culture phenom "Pac-Man." Now, 26 years after the game was first introduced, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft has kept the beloved sound but flipped the script on Pac-Man, Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde with the game's first revamp since its worldwide release. Game designer Toru Iwatani, who brought the world the first "Pac-Man," was also behind the creation of the latest game.

"'Pac-Man' was the game that ignited the world's passion for video games, with every member of the family hooked on avoiding Clyde and eating up all the Power Pellets," said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing Email Marketing Software - Free Demo for Microsoft's interactive entertainment business. "It is a tremendous honor that Namco Bandai and Toru Iwatani are going to use the power of the Xbox 360 Latest News about Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade platform to deliver the next evolution of 'Pac-Man' to the world."

Microsoft announced the release of its 21st century "Pac-Man Championship Edition" Tuesday during the title round of its Xbox 360 "Pac-Man" World Championship. In addition to competing for the title of "Pac-Man" World Champion, the 10 finalists received an unexpected thrill when they became the first gamers in the world to play the revamped version of the iconic 1980s video game.

Outdated No More

"Pac-Man Championship Edition" has been updated with a bevy of new features, including new mazes that dynamically change shape during gameplay, six new timed game modes and new soundtracks. The developers kicked the game up a notch further with high-definition (HD) graphics.

Designed especially for the "Pac-Man" World Championship's final round by Namco Bandai and Iwatani, "The Championship Mode," one of six timed games, features redesigned mazes sporting wide maze walls and a widescreen configuration to enable high-speed game play. Players have a scant five minutes to complete this mode.

Each subsequent mode bumps up the gaming quotient with fewer Power Pellets and Reward Mazes on the "Patience and Reward Course," and a darkened maze only partially illuminated on "The Darkness Course." Pac-Man hits warp speed on "The Freeway Course," while "The Manhattan Course" allows the ever-hungry muncher to cruise a maze based on the famous New York borough. For an extreme challenge, "The Overall Course" provides gamers with a mixture of all other modes.

Lovers of the 2-D classic game need not feel left out; Microsoft has included something for everyone. They can now enjoy the game's more modern look in HD, Microsoft said.

"Pac-Man Championship Edition" is available beginning June 6 for 800 Microsoft Points via the Xbox Live Arcade.

"This is the first time anybody has modified the mazes for 'Pac-Man' since there was a 'Pac-Man,'" Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "So this is a major change for what was an old staple."
Courting Casual Gamers

At the time the original "Pac-Man" reigned supreme, casual games were incredibly popular, Enderle said, It was a time when a lot of today's older gamers were growing up. "This is the way video games came into the market. This is how video games came to be," he added.

"Pac-Man" is a game that a lot of people liked in the past and that many more will enjoy in the future, making this a significant coup for Microsoft, which has reset its sights on Nintendo's Wii Latest News about Wii, the current market leader. Microsoft gets some good press and it attracts casual gamers, a group comprised largely of women, therefore expanding the Xbox 360 customer base, Enderle explained.

Microsoft will likely aggressively pursue the casual gaming market, he said. One factor pointing to the console maker's commitment, he noted, is Microsoft's development of a Wii-esque controller of its own.

"It has some motion controls that at least they think will be as good if not better than what Nintendo has on the market," Enderle pointed out. "They have caught on to the fact that the PlayStation 3 Latest News about PlayStation 3 is increasingly not a target because the market has pretty much rejected that product. They are now rethinking what they are doing and starting to target the Wii more aggressively."
Source :http://www.technewsworld.com

NASA Clears Shuttle Atlantis for Friday Launch

2007-06-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

Preparations for a Friday evening liftoff of the shuttle Atlantis are still on track despite weather forecasts of possible hail in the days leading up to launch.

"We feel very good about where we are with Atlantis," shuttle launch integration manager LeRoy Cain said Wednesday following a mission management review. "We're ready to go and the team is ready to go and we're just really excited to be at this point after a long and arduous spring."

Atlantis was originally set to launch March 15, but was delayed due to hail damage to the orbiter's foam-covered external tank following a late-February storm.

NASA's seven-astronaut crew now plans to launch Atlantis' STS-117 construction mission to the International Space Station on Friday, June 8 at 7:38 pm EDT (2338 GMT).

"Right now all looks good," said shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach. "Countdown is going well, no issues to report, and we're looking forward to an on time launch Friday night."

Mission managers also found that the discovery of a slightly misaligned umbilical cord connected to a fuel tank planned for use by the shuttle Endeavor in August will not affect plans for Atlantis' space shot.

For Atlantis, "we reviewed the data, we did some analysis...and determined that we are ready to go fly with the system that we have on the launch pad," Cain said. "We have a very solid flight rational and so we are very comfortable with where we are with that mission."

Weather concerns

Weather forecasters predict a 30 percent chance that thunderstorms could delay Friday's launch, and that possibility is expected to increase to 40 percent on Saturday and Sunday.

"We are expecting thunderstorms to occur over the next couple days during the afternoon, but they should progressively move to our west and clear out of Kennedy Space Center by launch day," said Pat Barrett of the U.S. Air Force 45th Weather Squadron.

There is also a possibility of half-inch hail and strong winds of over 55 mph (92km/h) in the days leading up to launch, Barrett said.

Leinbach said NASA is prepared to deal with that scenario should it occur.

"We'd kick off another round of inspections," he said. "We would ask each project to go and inspect their hardware just like we did three months ago, especially the external tank. Those inspections would likely take many, many hours. Would that cause a delay? I'm not prepared to say right now."

NASA's STS-117 crew, led by shuttle commander Rick Sturckow, is tasked with installing a new pair of solar array and trusses on the orbital laboratory.

Atlantis has an open launch window from June 8 to 12. After that, it will have to stand down to allow the scheduled launch of a Lockheed Martin Atlas rocket on June 14. The next launch window would then begin on June 17 and extend through mid-July.
Source :http://www.space.com/

New EPA Policy Muddies the Water, Charge Critics

2007-06-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have issued new joint guidance for their field offices for the protection of wetlands and bodies of water that are protected under the Clean Water Act.

The new guidelines come in the wake of last year's Supreme Court decision over the identification of wetlands, streams and rivers that are subject to the Clean Water Act. The decision of two consolidated cases, Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. United States, has sparked criticism for not clearly specifying which waters are subject to EPA and Army Corps protection.

While non-navigable waters, streams and many wetlands may still be managed by the EPA and Army Corps, the agencies' jurisdiction may need to be decided on a case-by-case basis in lower courts.

Hampered by Decision?

As for the Army Corps and EPA, the organizations issued the guidelines with public statements on President Bush's intent to protect existing wetlands and bodies of water -- while noting the Clean Water Act and the Supreme Court decision.

"We are committed to protecting America's aquatic resources under the Clean Water Act and in accordance with the recent Supreme Court decision," said John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army, civil works. "This interagency guidance will enable the agencies to make clear, consistent and predictable jurisdictional determinations. The results, once posted on agency Web sites, will document how the scope of the Clean Water Act jurisdiction is being determined."

The Bush Administration supports a policy of no net loss of wetlands, which is one of three key elements to the Bush Administration wetlands policy, the EPA reports. The other two elements include an active management program that will result in the restoration, enhancement and protection of three million acres of wetlands by 2009 and a commitment to conserve isolated wetlands such as prairie potholes.

"The Bush Administration is committed to protecting wetlands and streams under the Clean Water Act and Supreme Court decisions," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for Water. "We'll use our regulatory tools to meet the president's ambitious wetlands goals."
Up In the Air

These new guidelines, however, are not business-as-usual, and it's difficult to say whether previously covered wetlands and watersheds will receive the same levels of protection. Either way, the new guidelines have critics.

"We're really disappointed with the new guidelines," Julie Sibbing, senior program manager for wetlands and agriculture policy for the National Wildlife Federation, told TechNewsWorld. "The court decision itself left some opening for interpretation, but it seems like the [Bush] administration took every opportunity to retreat from protection in any possible way they could, and we think they retreated unacceptably, even according to what the Rapanos decision said."

Furthermore, the new guidance leads to new procedures where individual streams or ponds would be isolated in the decision-making process, meaning that a single headwater stream would have to have an adverse effect on a larger body of water, Sibbing said. While possible to prove that a headwater stream could affect the Mississippi River, for example, the new guidelines reduce the likelihood of that determination.

The combined effects of several watersheds, for example, could possibly be ignored, which can be critical to the evaluation of environmental problems. Hypoxia, for example, is a condition in which aquatic environments lose dissolved oxygen that can lead to the mass death of fish and other aquatic organisms. Pollution entering a body of water from a single stream, for example, might not lead directly to hypoxia, but pollution entering multiple streams could possibly lead to downstream hypoxia.

"With wetlands, you have thousands of little wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region. Sure, if you fill one in, it's not going to devastate duck populations," Sibbing explained. "But if you fill thousands of them in, one at a time, it is going to have devastating impacts. They just don't seem to want to take that concept on."
New Legislation

"The Administration's so-called guidance has done little to unmuddy the water," said Bob Perciasepe, COO for Audubon and a critic of the new guidelines. "The only real solution is legislation. A perfect storm of government ambivalence, aggressive polluter activism and a split Supreme Court have subverted the original intent of the Clean Water Act and make it vital that Congress fix the problem."

A handful of concerned members of Congress have introduced a new bill, the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, which, if passed, could clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act to ensure the protection of watersheds.
Source :http://www.technewsworld.com

Original Pac Man's last hurrah

2007-06-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

The new version of the iconic arcade game is a faithful interpretation of the addictive 27-year-old original, where players wrenched joystick controllers to race a character - resembling a yellow pizza missing a slice - around a digital maze to chomp white pellets and chase multicoloured ghosts.

The new game, Pac Man Championship Edition, is the second and final version Mr Iwatani personally designed, and was created for the final round of the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship in New York, when nine finalists played it for the first time.

Mr Iwatani, 52, an employee of Japan's Namco Bandai Holdings, said in an interview he would retire from active duty at Namco and spend more time teaching the next generation of game designers at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

He said there were no immediate plans for another version of Pac Man, but that he could work with Namco in a supervisory position or work on a new version with his students.

The new game, which pulses to dance music and has mazes that change shapes, marks Mr Iwatani's swan song from electronic interactive entertainment.

But Mr Iwatani said the future of the games industry, where development budgets now rival those of some feature-length movies, lies not with professional creators, but outsiders.

The designer of Tetris was not from the industry, he said. "He was a scientist". Another legendary 1980s game, in which players organise falling blocks, Tetris designed by Russian scientist Alexey Pajitnov in 1985.

"For someone thinking outside of the industry, they can have a fresh new idea," Mr Iwatani said.

Despite the last decade's advances in computer graphics technology and design, Mr Iwatani created the new Pac Man as he did the original - in two-dimensions. "I wanted to stay with the original simple rules of Pac Man," he said.

The new version also reshuffles older formats. In one mode, called "Dark mode,' most of the maze is hidden from view with players guided only by a torch lighting Pac Man's path.
Source :http://australianit.news.com.au

Apple adds new Intel processors, more memory to MacBook Pro

2007-06-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

The new configuration is based on Intel's Santa Rosa platform, with an 800 MHz front-side bus. It also includes an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics card.

The Pro comes with 4 MB of shared L2 cache, as well as 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM memory, which can be upgraded to 4 GB. Apple says the new Intel processor can run Mac applications 50% faster than the previous Core Duo model.

Although the Intel chipset includes the proprietary Kedron wireless technology, Apple is continuing to use its AirPort platform. It has built-in 802.11n wireless networking, the latest specification from the Wi-Fi Alliance.

The MacBook Pro is available with either 2.2 GHz or 2.4 GHz processors, and comes with a built-in iSight webcam. Additionally, it comes packed with Bluetooth, two FireWire ports, a DVI output, ExpressCard expansion slot, and a backlit keyboard. It of course also comes with iLife pre-installed, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, and iTunes.

The new configurations are available as of today, with the 2.2 GHz model going for around $2000. The 2.4 GHz unit comes with a 15-inch monitor for a list price of around $2500, or a 17-inch display for around $2700.
Source :http://www.tgdaily.com

Microsoft's Protection Racket?

2007-06-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Microsoft should have admitted that Linux matters sooner. For years, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant seemed to be in denial as the open-source operating software made gains against its Windows franchise. But now a series of deals is finally allowing Microsoft to argue that it's ahead of the curve--with the entertaining upside of making some of the open-source community's truest believers even angrier.

Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) announced a pact with Linux software distributor Xandros Monday that will the offer tiny company's customers so-called "patent covenants," protecting them from the threat of litigation from Microsoft.

So do Linux users need protection? It's an open question. In 2004, software vendor The SCO Group (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) sued Linux user AutoZone (nyse: AZO - news - people ) for what it claims are violations of its intellectual property--a case that hasn't yet been resolved. Some now fear Microsoft could play that game after open-source software distributor Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ) struck a sales and marketing pact with Microsoft last year.

Linux advocates were angered because, as part of the deal, Microsoft agreed not to sue users of Novell's Linux distribution. And Microsoft executives are hinting that trouble could be brewing--claiming last month that open-source products are violating 235 of the company's patents.

Meanwhile, the folks behind open-source software are growing more upset as they see companies aligning themselves with Microsoft to give their customers a free pass against that possibility. "They know their standing in the community is going to take a hit," wrote one commentator on geek site Slasdot.org in response to the news. "So, how much was it worth to them?"

Aside from having to endure getting flamed on a few geek-friendly message boards, however, it's hard to see a downside for the 80-employee Xandros. The company gets to fine-tune its offerings to work more closely with Microsoft's ubiquitous software. And both firms get to make a case to customers that their wares will play well with others, said Michael Cherry, lead analyst, Windows and mobile, at Directions on Microsoft. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The real question: Which software developer will sign a deal with Microsoft next?
Source :http://www.forbes.com

Sony's Blu-Ray cost cuts prompt talk of lower PS3 price tag

2007-06-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

"If the cost of Blu-ray is coming down, you can drop the price of anything with Blu-ray in it," said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee & Leach Inc.

Sony said cheaper component costs and production "efficiencies" make it cheaper to manufacture Blu-ray, which is named for the blue-colored light used to read data stored on discs. The technology's being positioned as a better alternative to the popular DVD format.
Sony's already announced one price cut based on its newfound Blu-ray chops. On Monday, a company representative said it will begin selling a new version of its Blu-ray video disc player later this week for $500, which is $100 less than what it previously said it would.
The next Sony product expected to have its price cut, say analysts interviewed Monday, is Sony's PlayStation 3 gaming console, which comes with a Blu-ray video player.
While Sony makes scores of different devices, its PS3 is among its highest profile product lines, and has become much more important to the company's bottom line.
Any price cut is sure to boost PS3 sales, and sales of games designed for the console, Bhatia said.
According to NPD Group, at least 1.3 million PS3s have been sold. That nearly half of the total sales of Nintendo's Wii consoles, and about a quarter of the 5.4 million Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 consoles that have been sold.
At $700 for some models, the PS3 ranks as the most expensive of the best-selling devices. The hefty price tag has helped to throttle sales since its introduction last year.
Source :http://www.marketwatch.com/

NASA busy ahead of shuttle launch

2007-06-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

NASA is preparing to ramp up the pace of its shuttle missions as Atlantis is poised to blast off this week in a bid to finish the assembly of the international space station by a 2010 deadline.

After a three-month delay, the year's first mission is set to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:38 p.m. Friday.

A half-dozen station-assembly missions are planned over the next 12 months, enough new construction to outfit the station with European and Japanese research modules.

Atlantis leads the parade with a crew of seven astronauts trained to deliver and install a $367.3 million solar-power generation module during an 11-day mission. The new module's outstretched solar panels will give the station a new look as well as gains in electrical power for the new labs.

Also, the shuttle will return to Earth with U.S. astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams, whose 6 1/2 -month mission to the space station is drawing to a close. Her 192-day mission will be the longest flown by any woman. She will be replaced in space by American Clayton Anderson, one of the Atlantis astronauts.

"This is a pretty intense period for us," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. "From a concentration standpoint, this is one of our most challenging periods."

At the planned pace the space agency should finish the station's assembly by September 2010, the date established for the shuttle fleet's retirement by the White House.

Atlantis was poised for a March 15 liftoff when a hail storm pummeled the protective foam insulation that jackets the ship's external fuel tank, leaving 4,200 divots. The agency, which responded with an around-the-clock repair effort, is not expecting wiggle room in the 2010 deadline, though some experts believe NASA should have leeway to respond to hail storms, hurricanes and other events beyond its control.

"We have no plans to fly past that date at all," said NASA's Wayne Hale, the shuttle program manager.

Reason for deadline

The cap was imposed by the White House in 2004 to free billions in funding for the shuttle's replacement, a new spacecraft that can launch astronauts to the moon as well as the space station.

"What's so sacrosanct about 2010?" asked Jerry Grey, director of science and technology policy for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the nation's largest professional organization for engineers in the two fields.

"Suppose the shuttle is still flying in 2011. Aside from not conforming exactly to the president's original timetable, what's the difference?" Grey said. "Space exploration cannot be done effectively on a tight schedule — it's a long-term activity and should be programmed as such."

In response to the Feb. 26 hail storm, NASA repaired the foam by filling in the largest divots with liquid foam patches and spray-overs. Minor blemishes were sanded away.

The foam prevents a crust of ice from forming as the towering metal fuel tank is filled with super-cold propellants during countdown and protects the tip from destructive overheating as the ship accelerates through the Earth's atmosphere.

If unleashed in flight, pieces of ice or foam become destructive projectiles if they strike the ship's vulnerable heat shield.

The shuttle Columbia's deadly breakup in 2003 was traced to a break in the heat shielding caused by a hunk of breakaway fuel tank foam.

NASA's planned flight rate over the next year will match the peak of six station-assembly missions launched in 2001.

That pace, the space agency acknowledges, could test safety standards NASA embraced after the Columbia tragedy.

"Clearly, having a schedule helps us organize our work," said Hale. "But we fully intend to keep all of our safety practices in place. We can't let the schedule drive us to do something dumb."

He took that message to many of the 17,000 people who work on the shuttle through "all-hands" sessions this year at major NASA installations.

"We can't take our eye off the ball," he warned them.

The agency has time to launch up to 15 flights to the space station as well as a repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope before the shuttle is retired, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations.

Process is slow going

Atlantis' mission will trace ground broken by missions in September and December, which marked a revival of station construction that ground to a halt after Columbia's loss.

In September, spacewalkers struggled with tools to remove stubborn restraint bolts, the fasteners required to immobilize 17 tons of new station hardware during the shuttle's launching. If stuck in place after installation, the launch restraint bolts would have prevented rotations of a mechanism that enabled a pair of long solar panels to track the sun while the station orbits Earth.

In December, astronauts extended the mission to add a spacewalk after having difficulties retracting a solar panel on an older power module. The 110-foot panel was jammed repeatedly by misaligned guidewires and sluggish hinges.

The Atlantis crew will deliver a solar-power module identical to the hardware launched on the September mission. The crew also will retract a solar panel identical to the one that proved troublesome in December.

"This flight is a lot like a couple of previous flights," said Jim Reilly, the astronaut who will quarterback the mission's three spacewalks. "We have to do the same things those guys did — only better."
Source :http://www.chron.com

To stay on top, Google has to improve search results

2007-06-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

These days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere. It takes pictures of your house from outer space, copies rare Sanskrit books in India, charms its way onto Madison Avenue, picks fights with Hollywood and tries to undercut Microsoft's software dominance.

But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet.

Yet the site is also among the world's biggest teases. Millions of times a day, users click away from Google, disappointed they couldn't find the hotel, the recipe or the background of that hot guy. Google often finds what users want, but not always.

That's why Amit Singhal and hundreds of other Google engineers constantly tweak the company's search engine in an elusive quest to close the gap between often and always.

Singhal is the master of what Google calls its "ranking algorithm" -- the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer a user's question. It is a key part of Google's inner sanctum, a department called "search quality" that the company treats like a state secret.

Google values Singhal and his team so highly for the most basic of competitive reasons: It believes that its ability to decrease the number of times it leaves searchers disappointed is crucial to fending off the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft.

"The fundamental value created by Google is the ranking," says John Battelle, the chief executive of Federated Media, a blog ad network, and author of "The Search," a book about Google.

The search-quality team makes about a half-dozen major and minor changes a week to the mathematical formulas that power the search engine.

These formulas have grown better at reading the minds of users to interpret a very short query. Are the users looking for a job, a purchase or a fact? The formulas can tell that people who types "apples" are likely to be thinking about fruit, while those who type "Apple" are mulling computers or iPods. They can even compensate for vaguely worded queries or outright mistakes.

"Search over the last few years has moved from 'Give me what I typed' to 'Give me what I want,' " says Singhal, 39, a native of India who joined Google in 2000 and is now a Google Fellow, the designation the company reserves for its elite engineers.

As Google constantly fine-tunes its search engine, one challenge it faces is sheer scale. It is now the most popular Web site in the world, offering its services in 112 languages, indexing tens of billons of Web pages and handling hundreds of millions of queries a day. At the same time, users expect Google to sift through all that data and find what they are seeking, with just a few words as clues.

"Expectations are higher now," said Udi Manber, who oversees Google's entire search-quality group.

The search-quality group operates in small teams of engineers. Some, like Singhal's, focus on systems that process queries after users type them in. Others work on features that improve the display of results, like extracting snippets -- the text that hints at a site's content.

Other members of Manber's team work on what happens before users even start a search: maintaining a giant index of all the world's Web pages.

Google makes a copy of the entire Internet in each of its huge customized data centers so it can comb through the information faster. Google recently developed a new system that can hold far more data and search through it far faster.

As Google compiles its index, it calculates a "PageRank" for each page it finds. That was the key invention of Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. PageRank tallies how many times other sites link to a given page. Sites that are more popular, especially with sites that have high PageRanks themselves, are considered likely to be of higher quality.

Singhal has developed a far more elaborate system for ranking pages that involves more than 200 types of information, or what Google calls "signals." PageRank is but one signal.

Once Google corrals its myriad signals, it feeds them into formulas it calls classifiers that try to infer useful information about the type of search, in order to send that user to the most helpful pages.

These signals and classifiers calculate several key measures of a page's relevance, including one it calls topicality -- a measure of how the topic of a page relates to the broad category of the user's query.

If all of that wasn't excruciating enough, Google's engineers must compensate for users who are vague, often typing ambiguous phrases or misspelled words.

So it built a system that understands variations of words. So elegant and powerful is that model that it can look for pages when only an abbreviation or synonym is typed in.

In the end, it's hard to gauge exactly how advanced Google's techniques are, because so much of what it and its search rivals do is veiled in secrecy.

"People still think that Google is the gold standard of search," Battelle says. "Their secret sauce is how these guys are doing it all in aggregate. There are 1,000 little tunings they do."
Source :http://seattlepi.nwsource.com

Apple confirms June 29 as iPhone launch date

2007-06-04T01:28:00.000-07:00

Apple Inc.'s upcoming revolutionary iPhone, an all-in-one cell phone/iPod/pocket computer which has recently won the required approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is due to hit the market shelves in United States on June, 29, according to three TV commercials that began airing on Sunday night and posted on the company's Web site.

This widely anticipated gadget, which combines three amazing products, a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching, into one small and lightweight handheld device, is priced at $499 for 4-gigabyte model and $599 for an 8-gigabyte model, Apple said previously.

Apple made its long-awaited entry into the cellphone world in January by launching its much-anticipated mobile phone, iPhone, at the annual Macworld conference and Expo in San Francisco. Apple's CEO and chief showman Steve Jobs had unveiled iPhone during his keynote speech at the Macworld conference.

Cingular, the Atlanta-based leading wireless carrier and a unit of AT&T Inc., is Apple’s exclusive U.S. carrier partner for iPhone.

On Sunday night the new iPhone ads showed off several of the gadget's features, including advanced media player functions along with its ability to take calls, the ability to manage Internet and media tasks, and the function of how to use Google Maps to find a restaurant. The commercials ended with the pronouncement that the combination cell phone will be available "Only on the new AT&T" and "Coming June 29."

Of the three ads, one aired before a 7 p.m. broadcast of "7th Heaven" on the CW Television Network.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr confirmed the June 29 sale date, while an AT&T spokespeople did not immediately return a phone call.

Apple’s iPhone, which was touted as "revolutionary" by Jobs in the keynote, has a built-in camera, five hours of continuous talk time and 15 hours for playing music, and runs Safari Web browser and Apple's Macintosh operating system software. It has Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology that supports wireless headsets or links to devices like printers, and can connect to the Internet wirelessly via Wi-Fi.

Unlike the tiny multiple keys found on existing smart phones, Apple's iPhone has a single button and a 3.5-inch (9-cm) touch screen, and is larger than the iPod Nano. With a black front and silver back, the iPhone according to Apple is the thinnest smart phone in the market having thickness of 11.6 millimeters (0.5-inches).

Last month, Apple said the regulators have given their stamp of approval to iPhone, allowing it to sell iPhone in the United States.

The approval of FCC, which is an independent executive agency of the U.S. government established to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest, is necessary before a manufacturer can sell a handset to consumers.

After revolutionizing the personal computing with its Macintosh line of desktop and notebook computers, and digital media market with its most popular iPod, the Cupertino, California based Apple is ready to revolutionize the mobile market with its multifunctional device that has such potent qualities which make it potential for revolutionizing the handset industry.
Source :http://www.themoneytimes.com/

Google, Salesforce.com Partnership Predicted

2007-06-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Google Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. will announce a partnership on Tuesday, a source close to the company in Europe said Thursday.

Salesforce.com has scheduled an online news conference on Tuesday at 11 a.m. GMT at which Lindsey Armstrong, co-president of the company's operations in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region, will make a "strategic announcement." The source said it is safe enough to assume that the announcement concerns Google.

In the U.S., Salesforce.com has said that it will make an announcement with "a leading Internet company based in the Bay Area" first thing on Tuesday. A Salesforce.com U.S. spokesman reached on Thursday declined to comment on the identity of the Internet company.

The Wall Street Journal reported on May 21 that Google and Salesforce.com were holding talks over a possible alliance that could see the two companies bundle Web-based applications. Both vendors declined to comment on the report.

Google and Salesforce.com have each been rapidly expanding the online services they offer.

Google has dramatically widened its scope from being a leading Internet search engine to encompass an ever-increasing range of other online services including desktop applications. Eight-year-old Salesforce.com has its roots as a hosted provider of CRM (customer relationship management), but has its sights set on becoming a platforms vendor using its AppExchange Web site, which it is in the process of fully commercializing as an online software marketplace.

"We're a catalyst for change," Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO, told financial analysts earlier this month. "Google, Amazon.com, eBay and Yahoo inspire us. We want to duplicate what they do in the consumer world." He added that to his mind Salesforce.com was effectively "building an on-demand operating system." Benioff positioned Salesforce.com as still very much focused on growth. "We're just trying to get to a billion dollars in on-demand [software] before anyone else does," he said. "We're willing to do anything."

At the same time, Microsoft Corp., a prime competitor of Google in the search and Internet advertising arenas, is marshalling its own set of Windows Live online services, including a hosted version of its Dynamics CRM software.

The Journal report suggested that Google and Salesforce.com need to buddy up to take on Microsoft and avoid competing with each other.

Teaming up could involve integrating Google's Apps suite with Salesforce.com's hosted CRM. The two companies have previously worked together around Google's Search Appliance and AdWords. There's also the possibility that the relationship might become much closer with Google potentially looking to acquire Salesforce.com at some point.
Source :http://www.pcworld.com

Google Maps becomes “Go Ogle Maps”

2007-06-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Given the detail with which Google Maps' new Street View lets users “view and navigate within 360 degree street level imagery” of selected streets in selected US cities, concern for people’s privacy implications has been raised.

Google’s explanation for the service certainly does make sense, and makes it sound like a very useful service indeed. Google says that: “By clicking on the "Street View" button in Google Maps, users can navigate street level, panoramic imagery. With Street View users can virtually walk the streets of a city, check out a restaurant before arriving, and even zoom in on bus stops and street signs to make travel plans”.

Wow, that does sound cool, especially as more and more cities worldwide are added to the mix, and the content is mashed up in many different ways online. But almost immediately, people started looking at the photographs closely, and started noticing things that the people in the photos concerned might not have wanted published to the world.

Online reports of a man picking his nose, another scaling a wall, yet another at the entrance of a strip joint have been found and discussed, while the hunt is on to see what else the photos contain. The discovery some photos allow web surfers to see inside homes through open windows has also caused alarm.

Google says it has options for users who find photographic information about themselves or their properties that they would like removed, and in a statement reported by the Associated Press, Google spokeswoman Megan Quinn said "This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street. Imagery of this kind is available in a wide variety of formats for cities all around the world."

Google also claim the images were taken in a public place from a cameras specially mounted onto cars that travelled the streets, as well as buying similar imagery from another company.

While Google is offering to take down material people are unhappy about, it’s a bit like the DMCA excuse – the rights holders need to find out they’re being infringed before they can do anything about it, as Google takes all care but no responsibility.

The rather logical suggestion has been made that Google simply blur people’s faces, open windows or other sensitive information, but naturally, this would result in a lot of blurred sections on the photos concerned, and you can imagine Google probably doesn’t want that to happen.

Ultimately, Google might have to take multiple photos from multiple cars travelling one behind the other, in the hope to get enough of the ‘same’ photo to be able to mix them all together and remove all the people from it. Technology to do this type of hyper intelligent automatic photo editing was demonstrated by Microsoft at their Australian Tech Ed conference in 2006, and no doubt demonstrated elsewhere as well.

Given Google’s massive computing power, this might be feasible – but it would make cities look like ghost cities as Tom Cruise had to face in the movie Vanilla Sky. Still, if open windows could be closed (or simply blurred or replaced with a similar image of a closed window) and people removed, at least the photos would look relatively normal, as opposed to having people blurred out everywhere.

Other companies have tried this in the past, notably Amazon with their A9 search engine, although they have now scrapped the project, and Microsoft who has introduced a similar service for their competing mapping project, with Microsoft doing their best to keep nipping at Google’s heels in every way they can.

Google’s new Street View mapping service certainly does add a whole extra level of usefulness to their mapping service, especially as it grows to cover cities worldwide. But if public opinion has anything to do with it, the unintended ‘Go ogle’ feature of seeing faces, seeing into homes, seeing license plate numbers and other private detail on Google Maps is one feature that’s likely to disappear.
Source :http://www.itwire.com.au

Thumbnails of Atlantis' 7 astronauts

2007-06-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

The crew of space shuttle Atlantis took scrupulous notes during two of last year's construction missions on the international space station. They'll be expected to accomplish the same challenging tasks.

Spacewalking astronauts last year ran into some glitches and had to figure out how to loosen stubborn latches and bolts, how to fold up an obstinate solar array (kind of like folding a wrinkled roadmap) and how to get the solar array's rotary joint to spin. All these are tasks the seven astronauts will tackle during their 11-day mission.

"We've had the benefit of learning from the people who have gone before us," said astronaut Patrick Forrester.

The four first-time spacefliers in the crew — Clayton Anderson, pilot Lee Archambault, Danny Olivas and Steven Swanson — were all members of the astronaut class of 1998.

All of Atlantis' astronauts were born in the United States, a contrast to flights in recent years that typically include an international crew member. This is the first time there's been an all native-born crew since April 2002.

Here is a more detailed look at the seven flying aboard Atlantis:

___

U.S. Marine Corps Col. Frederick "Rick" Sturckow, commander

Age: 45

Hometown: Born in La Mesa, Calif. but considers Lakeside, Calif. his hometown.

Family: Married, two children.

Sturckow has the nickname C.J., or Caustic Junior, but he swears it's not because of his personality. It was given to him when he was a young Marine because he resembled a squadron commander who was appropriately called "Caustic."

After earning a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, Sturckow was commissioned by the Marines in 1984 and earned his pilot wings almost three years later. He attended the Navy Fighter Weapons (Topgun) School, and later the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. During the first Gulf War from 1990-91, he flew 41 combat missions. Sturckow worked as a test pilot before he was chosen for the astronaut corps in 1994.

He's flown on two missions to the space station, one on Endeavour in 1998 and the second on Discovery in 2001. One of his crewmates then was Patrick Forrester, who will be flying with him again on Atlantis.

___

U.S. Air Force Col. Lee Archambault, pilot.

Age: 46

Hometown: Born in Oak Park, Ill., but considers Bellwood his hometown.

Family: Married, three children.

Archambault is hesitant to tell how he earned the nickname Bru as a young lieutenant. Let's just say it involved a fighter bomber he was flying, the mistaken flipping of some switches and the accidental jettisoning of a bomb rack unit, also known as a "bru."

"We were on a range. There were no houses, no people, nothing below us. It ended up being a very embarrassing experience," he said. "When I came to NASA, I thought (the nickname) would all be over. One of my first days after I walked through the door, somebody called me it and it stuck."

Archambault was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force in 1985 after he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in aeronautical/astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

After getting his pilot wings in 1986, he became a combat-ready pilot and later flew 22 combat missions during the first Gulf War. He had a second tour in Saudi Arabia in 1991, assisting postwar peacekeeping efforts, and then flew as a test pilot after attending U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base.

He was selected into the astronaut corps in 1998 and this will be his first space flight.

"If I had to guess right now, the most exciting part of the mission will probably be the first eight minutes as we make it into orbit," he said.

___

Retired U.S. Army Col. Patrick Forrester

Age: 50

Hometown: El Paso, Texas.

Family: Married, two children.

On Forrester's first trip to space in 2001, Rick Sturckow, then-pilot of the flight and the commander on Atlantis' upcoming mission, told him that even though he was a spaceflight rookie, he would be treated as an equal. The astronauts became fast friends.

"That really endeared me to him, from the very first day," Forrester said.

Forrester earned a bachelor's degree in applied sciences and engineering from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. and a master's degree in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia. He was commissioned by the U.S. Army in 1979 and worked as a flight test engineer, an experimental test pilot and an engineering test pilot. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and has attended a handful of other military schools.

He became an engineer at Houston's Johnson Space Center in 1993 and joined the astronaut corps in 1996. During his first shuttle mission, he went on two spacewalks.

On Atlantis' mission, his second trip to space, he will perform one of the three planned spacewalks and will be coordinator of the other two. As the primary robotic arm operator on the shuttle, he also will lead in-flight inspections of the spacecraft's thermal protection system.

___

Steven Swanson

Age: 46

Hometown: Born in Syracuse, N.Y., but considers Steamboat Springs, Colo., his hometown.

Family: Married, three children.

On his first trip to space, Swanson is bringing up a small Lego astronaut for his youngest child.

Although he has never flown on a space shuttle, Swanson has plenty of experience working on the airplane that serves as the shuttle simulator. When he first joined NASA as an engineer in 1987, he worked on the Shuttle Training Aircraft, improving its navigation and control systems. He was selected to be an astronaut 11 years later in the class of 1998.

He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the University of Colorado, a master's degree in computer systems from Florida Atlantic University and a doctorate in computer science from Texas A&M University.

___

John "Danny" Olivas

Age: 40

Hometown: Born in North Hollywood, Calif., but was raised in El Paso, Texas.

Family: Married, five children.

Sure Olivas has six patents and a doctorate in mechanical engineering and material science from Rice University, but he says, deep down, he and his fellow astronauts are just normal guys who like to tinker on their cars.

That combination of tinkering and a fundamental understanding of engineering principles will serve Olivas well when he goes on two of the mission's three spacewalks, removing bolts and restraints from the space station's new addition while floating in the void of space.

In addition to his doctorate, Olivas has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas-El Paso and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston. Before joining the astronaut corps in 1998, he was a research engineer and program manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he researched microelectronics.

This is Olivas' first space flight.

___

James Reilly

Age: 53

Hometown: Born at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, but considers Mesquite, Texas, his hometown.

Family: Single, three children.

Reilly will lead two of three spacewalks during Atlantis' mission to the space station.

The Texan has experience. Reilly and another astronaut performed three spacewalks during his last visit to the space station in 2001. On his first trip to space in 1998, Reilly visited the Russian Mir Space Station aboard Endeavour.

Reilly earned bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in geosciences from the University of Texas-Dallas.

In graduate school, he was part of a research expedition that lived for several months in Antarctica. Before joining the astronaut corps in 1994, he worked as an oil and gas exploration geologist for a Dallas firm during which he lived for days at a time underwater in deep submergence vehicles.

Reilly is bringing an Irish flag to the space station and back since his grandparents were from Ireland.

___

Clayton Anderson

Age: 48

Hometown: Born in Omaha, Neb., but considers Ashland, Neb. his hometown.

Family: Married, two children.

The Nebraska native had been scheduled to fly to the space station in August aboard Endeavour, but NASA managers made an 11th-hour decision to switch Anderson to Atlantis' flight in June so he could replace astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams as a crew member at the space station. Without Anderson replacing her, Williams' stay in space would have extended to eight months, instead of the planned six to seven months. The juggling is the result of a canceled flight of Atlantis in March, creating a domino-effect that pushed back the year's three other shuttle missions. Williams' original return flight to Earth aboard Endeavour was delayed from early July to late August.

On his first spaceflight, Anderson will make three spacewalks during a four-month stay at the space station.

Anderson has worked his whole career at the Johnson Space Center.

After earning a bachelor's degree in physics at Hastings College in Nebraska and a master's degree in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, he started working for NASA in 1983 as an engineer for early shuttle and station missions. He joined the astronaut corps in 1998.

Anderson played football and basketball and ran track in college, and in his free time he has worked as a referee for NCAA Division II basketball games and high school basketball games.

Anderson has given his grade school-age son and daughter each a half medallion. He plans to take the two other halves with him to space.

"Every night, we're going to take out our medallions and say a prayer for each other," he said. "Then eventually when I return to Earth, we'll be able to put those medallions together."
Source :http://www.chron.com

Wii VC: 4.7m downloads, 100 games

2007-06-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

Today, Nintendo further touted the Wii's success by announcing the platform's virtual console has hit a dual milestone. First, with the Monday release of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the platform's Virtual Console will now have a catalog of 100 games. Originally released in 1988, Zelda II has not yet been priced on the VC, but original NES games typically sell for 500 Wii points ($5).

Secondly, Nintendo today announced that more than 4.7 million Virtual Console games have been downloaded worldwide since the Wii launched on November 19, 2006. Besides titles from Nintendo's pre-GameCube consoles, the Wii's Virtual Console network also offers games from two former rival platforms--the Sega Genesis and NEC TurboGrafx-16. However, the five most downloaded games are all first-party games for the Mario Factory's own NES, SNES, or N64 platforms. They are, in order of popularity:

1. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
2. Super Mario 64 (N64)
3. Mario Kart 64 (N64)
4. Super Mario World (SNES)
5. The Legend of Zelda (NES)

By comparison, from its launch in November 2005 to March 2007, Xbox Live Arcade--which features both new and classic titles--has seen 25 million downloads worldwide. However, that figure includes demos of XBLA titles, which are free.

[UPDATE] A Sony rep told GameSpot that, as of May 15, 13 million pieces of content had been downloaded worldwide from the PlayStation Store, the PlayStation 3's online service. And although Sony does not break out games from other content downloads, the rep did say there had been 900,000 worldwide downloads of GT HD Concept. The PlayStation 3 went on sale two days before the Wii last November.
Source :http://www.gamespot.com

Parallels 3.0 to take leap into next dimension

2007-06-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

Are you a happy Intel Mac user using either Parallels Desktop for Mac, or VMWare’s Fusion, to run Windows XP, Vista, Linux or other operating systems?

Then you’ll be interested in learning about Parallels 3.0, with more than 50 new features, over 100 bug fixes, including the 3D graphics gaming support that many users have wanted since Parallels first came onto the scene.

The new version has also had the benefit of over 100,000 developer hours and more than 1000 beta testers working and testing the new version.

According to the Official Parallels Blog, one of the new features is called SmartSelect, a “wicked cool new feature that lets you assign any OS X or Windows application as the default for any Mac or Windows file type”. When you right-click on any file in either OS and selects “open with”, SmartSelect automatically populates the recommended application list with compatible applications from both operating systems.

Parallels say that this is total OS integration on a file and application level, and when you “put it together with Coherence, and you have the most seamless user experience possible”.

The next big feature is 3D Graphics, letting you run previously Windows-only OpenGL and DirectX games and apps in a virtual machine on your Mac, without shutting down OS X, with Quake 4 running at full speed offered as an example, a game they played for an entire day in a noble effort at bug testing the application, as well as having fun for an entire day with Quake deathmatches!

Vista Aero support through Parallel’s new 3D feature still isn’t available but is promised as ‘coming soon’, so there’s hope that Aero will be available to those who want it when version 3.0 finally ships.
Snapshots and Security Settings let you worry less about crashes and focus on work or play instead. Snapshots let you ‘bulletproof your VM’ by allowing you to store the VM state, and also do it at custom intervals, and rollback to a clean state as needed.

Some of the security features include the ability to make a virtual machine ‘read-only’, implement controls on the levels of integration and isolation with the Security Manager and stop viruses in their tracks with a 6 month free trial of Kaspersky anti-virus.

Other cool features include offline access to virtual machine files with Paralles Explorer, Coherence 2.0, including shared folders and UI enhancements, Linux Tools for seamless integration between Mac OS X and Linux, and a promise of a Native Hardware Experience.

The Native Hardware Experience promises the aforementioned 3D graphics support, expanded support for USB 2.0 devices, a USB connection assistant that quickly connects you to your OS of choice, shared printers for cross OS printing and significant enhancements in performance and audio quality.

Parallels 3.0 will retail for US $79.99, but an upgrade offer is available, even though the software is still in ‘release candidate’ stage, which is the equivalent of a very advanced beta that is nearly ready to ship to users.

If you pre-order and upgrade before June 6th, 2007, you can purchase Parallels 3.0 for only US $39.99, or half the regular retail price. However if you choose to upgrade later, it will cost US $49.99.

Customers who purchased Parallels 2.0 after May 1st can upgrade free, as can ‘Maintenance customers’.

With Parallels, your Mac is your PC, too. Apple should do an ad for Parallels, showing how the Mac guy can embrace and extend over the PC, with the PC guy living in the Mac guys stomach, bursting through ‘Alien’ style when needed.

Or maybe not. Either way, if Apple ever were to do an ‘I’m a Mac and a PC’ ad, we’re sure it would be very interesting to see! However, it’s an ad we’ll probably never see, unless Apple does indeed release a virtualization tool within Mac OS X 10.5.

However if you read the official Parallels blog (linked at the top of the story), Parallels are of the firm belief that Apple has no such virtualization tool planned, ensuring plenty more sales of Parallels and free downloads for VMWare’s Fusion beta for some time to come!
Source :http://www.itwire.com.au

Google Maps, Tabby Cats, Black Helicopters, and You

2007-06-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

Two years ago Google Maps began peering into our back yards from space with its Satellite view feature. Now it's looking at the fronts of our houses with its new Street View thing. Street View has been live for only a few days, and people are already getting freaked out about its privacy implications.

Friday's New York Times tells us the story of Mary Kalin-Casey, an Oakland, Calif. resident whose cat appeared in one of Google's Street View shots. Here's Kalin-Casey's cat, Monty:

Here's what Kalin-Casey told the blog site BoingBoing Thursday:

"I'm all for mapping, but this feature literally gives me the shakes. I feel like I need to close all my curtains now."

The cat had no comment. Kalin-Casey even posted an actual link to the Google map page, which gives even more information about her. Jeez, is she running for president?

Anyway, Kalin-Casey is asking Google to take down the picture. Sure, that's gonna happen. Google says that its Street View shots were taken from public property and contain nothing that can't be seen by somebody just walking by on the sidewalk. Perfectly right.

But I don't think that it's Street View by itself that's getting people concerned about the privacy implications of Google Maps. It’s the combo of Satellite and Street View, and the feeling that Google's view is getting closer and closer to our personal space.

I can understand this, but let's not start seeing Black Helicopters yet. Call me when Google Maps launches its Bedroom View feature. For now, Google could head off any privacy-related backlash by simply announcing when and where it plans to photograph streets for the Street View service.

I took a long look down my street here in San Francisco with Street View, looking for something, anything, interesting. All I found was some guy standing on the sidewalk staring stupidly at the camera.

Source :http://blogs.pcworld.com

NASA opens space shuttle ride for the earthbound

2007-06-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

NASA opens space shuttle ride for the earthbound

If you are not one of the seven people scheduled to ride on the space shuttle next week, take heart - NASA has opened a launch simulator for the rest of us.

It will not take years of training and your commitment to space travel can be over in 30 minutes or so, depending on how long the lines are.

Of course, it does not really go anywhere.

But for a few minutes, as you tip backward in your seat and let the special effects of the simulated rocket ride take hold, it is easy enough to suspend disbelief.

That is the appeal of the Shuttle Launch Experience, a $US60 million attraction that opened last weekend at Kennedy Space Centre's Visitors Complex in central Florida.

With input from 27 current and former shuttle astronauts, designer BRP Imagination Arts of Burbank, California, spent years creating an experience that would come as close as possible to a real shuttle launch.
More than a ride

BRP chief Bob Rogers says the experience is more than a ride.

"We don't do empty-headed stuff," he said.

Before people strap in, they get to hear a breezy, videotaped lecture about space shuttle technology given by veteran astronaut Charlie Bolden.

It is a good overview of the program, though the shuttle's impending retirement may make the details a bit irrelevant.

The shuttles are being mothballed in 2010 because they did not meet their original intent of delivering people and cargo to low-Earth orbit safely, cheaply and often.

At the end of the "launch," the shuttle's cargo bay doors open, and while the sight that unfolds may well be state-of-the-art, with an orbital view of Italy projected onto a curved screen and a black-sky background flecked with moving stars, it may be hard not to feel a bit let down.

"It's 100 times more beautiful in person," says an astronaut in one of the video clips before the start of the ride.

Adult general admission tickets to the Kennedy Space Centre's Visitors Complex are about $US40 each and there is no additional charge for a ride on the Shuttle Launch Experience.
Source :http://www.abc.net.au

Information hidden in iTunes music files sparks privacy fears

2007-06-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

Fresh privacy fears have been sparked after it emerged that Apple has embedded personal details into music files bought from its iTunes music store.

Technology websites examining iTunes products discovered that personal data, including the names and e-mail addresses of purchasers, are inserted into the AAC files that Apple uses to distribute music tracks.

The information is also included in tracks sold under Apple’s iTunes Plus system, launched this week, where users pay a premium for music that is free from the controversial digital rights management (DRM) intended to protect against piracy.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation, the online consumer rights group, added that it had identified a large amount of additional unaccounted-for information in iTunes files.

The foundation said it was possible that the data could be used to “watermark” tracks so that the original purchaser could be tracked down if a track appeared on a file-sharing network, although experts said that it would be relatively easy to “spoof” such data.

Ars Technica, one of the first websites to unveil the hidden information, said: “Everyone should be aware that while DRM-free files may lift a lot of restrictions on our personal usage habits, it doesn’t mean we can just start sharing the love, so to speak. Sharer beware.”

An Apple spokeswoman was unable to comment.

The discovery of the data, of which most iTunes users will have been unaware, underscores the reluctance of music groups to allow music to circulate freely over the web.

With estimates suggesting that 40 tracks are digitally boot-legged for every legally down-loaded track, piracy remains a massive problem for the industry and music groups have largely proven reluctant to withdraw the controversial DRM technologies.

Apple had sought to present itself as a consumer champion, with the group’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, insisting earlier this year that his company would drop DRM “in a heartbeat” if allowed to by the labels.

Previously, Apple’s DRM system had been criticised by European regulators for being anticompetitive because it allowed tracks to be played only on Apple’s iPod music players.

Apple’s iTunes Plus service offers DRM-free music of a higher quality than standard iTunes tracks for 99p a song, compared with 79p for a standard track. Users who opt to pay extra for iTunes Plus tracks will be able to play the music without limitations on the type of music player or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on.

The discovery comes amid fears of a creeping culture of consumer surveillance by technology companies. Google also gave rise to fears yesterday when it unveiled thousands of street-level photographs of major American cities as part of its online maps service. Within hours, bloggers picked out images of people, their faces visible, being arrested, sunbathing and urinating in public.
Source :http://business.timesonline.co.uk

Top "Seattle Spammer" Arrested on Multiple Charges

2007-06-01T23:14:00.000-07:00

The war against spam seems to be never-ending, but a small battle was won earlier this week. Robert Alan Soloway, 27, was arrested Wednesday in Seattle on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Soloway pleaded not guilty to all charges.

"Spam is a scourge of the Internet, and Robert Soloway is one of its most prolific practitioners. Our investigators dubbed him the Spam King because he is responsible for millions of spam e-mails," Jeffrey Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, said in a statement.

Soloway allegedly spammed the masses in email fraud since 2003 by using hijacked computers from around the world, and covered his tracks using Chinese servers, fabricated websites and stolen identities.

According to the Washington Post: “Soloway's company, Newport Internet Marketing, defrauded its customers by offering to send a high volume of legitimate e-mail marketing messages or to sell software that could be used in mass mailings. Neither approach performed as advertised but generated a torrent of spam. When customers complained, Soloway allegedly refused to provide assistance or refund the sales, instead threatening to charge them with additional fees and refer them to collections agencies.”

Anti-spam agency Spamhaus once named Soloway in its top ten list of worst offenders, though he’s since been outpaced by even greater threats from eastern Europe. "He is one of the bad ones. He's one of the longest-running and uses criminal methods all the time," said John Reid, an investigator with Spamhaus. "Anyone on the Web for a while would have received one of Soloway's spams."

This isn’t the first time Soloway has run into the legal system for his spamming activities. In 2005, Microsoft won a $7.8 million judgment against him for his spoofing of MSN and Hotmail email addresses. Unfortunately, the $7.8 million could never be collected because Soloway’s funds and bank accounts remained elusive.
Source :http://www.dailytech.com

EMI signs content deal with YouTube

2007-06-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

The Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI Group), the world’s third-largest music firm has signed an agreement with Google Inc.'s YouTube that gives video-sharing site’s users access to EMI audio and video libraries.

In a joint statement on Thursday Internet search site giant Google Inc. and EMI Group PLC's EMI Music record label said that they've agreed to let users of Google-owned video-sharing site access videos and music by EMI artists, including David Bowie, Coldplay, The Decemberists, Fat Boy Slim, Gorillaz and Lily Allen.

Under terms of the deal, the Kensington, London-based music company not only agreed to offer YouTube users "unprecedented" access to authorized sound and visual recordings from its catalog, but will also allow them to incorporate limited elements of the videos in their own content.

After signing the agreement with Google, EMI has become the fourth major record company after Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Entertainment that entered into a content deal with YouTube.

"With this deal, all four of the world's major music companies are now official YouTube partners," Chad Hurley, chief executive and co-founder of San Bruno-based YouTube, said in a statement.

The two companies has not yet disclosed the financial details of the deal, but EMI chief executive Eric Nicoli said in a statement that "EMI Music and its artists will be fairly compensated for their work."

As part of the pact, EMI Music will work with YouTube and parent company Google to develop revenue-generating business models that will enable EMI to track, attach monetary value and control content.

Yesterday’s Youtube-EMI deal comes after the copyright lawsuits filed by media companies that accused the former company of allowing its users to pirate their programmes on the popular video-sharing site.

In March, the New York-based entertainment giant Viacom Media filed a suit with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging Google's San Bruno-based video-sharing site YouTube knowingly infringed Viacom copyrights "on a huge scale."

In its lawsuit, the American media conglomerate Viacom claimed unauthorized display of over 160,000 video clips picked collectively from MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon by YouTube.

Besides claiming "massive intentional copyright infringement" of its properties Viacom has demanded for an injunction preventing Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement. Viacom also seeks more than US $1 billion in damages and an injunction against further violations against YouTube and its parent company Google Inc.

However, in an 11-page response to Viacom's copyright infringement lawsuit, the online search leader has denied all claims, and late in April filed a confrontational official response in New York’s federal district court, contending that YouTube’s activities are legal.

Last month, the Football Association Premier League Ltd. better known as the English Premier League, and music publisher Bourne Co. launched a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing the YouTube of "knowingly” misappropriating its intellectual property by encouraging footage to be viewed on its site.

Google shares jumped $7.70, or 1.5%, to close at $506.26 in midday trading.

Source :http://www.themoneytimes.com

Delayed Novell Report Contains MS Patent Agreement Documents

2007-05-26T22:57:00.000-07:00

The 10-K filing for the fiscal year to Oct. 31, 2006, was delayed as a result of a company stock option investigation, which was recently concluded, allowing the company to release its annual report.

Click Here!
The entire 10-K filing can be found here.

The text of the 144 page 10-K filing does not get into the specifics of the Microsoft deal but it does include, subject to some redactions, the full three Microsoft agreement documents: the second amended and restated technical collaboration agreement; the first amended and restated business collaboration agreement; and the patent cooperation agreement.

Novell first said publicly that it planned to release the agreement documents with Microsoft on May 23 during a panel discussion at the annual Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, where the question of whether the deal with Microsoft was good for open source was being debated.

Asked by eWeek if it was not unusual for a company to make such contracts public, Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said that when the agreements were material – as these are for Novell rather than for Microsoft - it was standard practice to include them in a company's periodic financial reports.

"We would have done so earlier but for the stock options review and the fact that we weren't filing our periodic reports. Microsoft is certainly aware of this. There are confidential elements in the agreement, and SEC rules allow for redaction of those elements. This is a standard practice in situations like this," he said.

Among other things, companies may redact from their agreements trade secrets and confidential commercial or financial information, including confidential information that refers to specific products or joint work.

"So there are redactions in our filings. But we believe the text of the agreements, even redacted, will provide important additional detail on the scope of work going on between the two companies," he said.

For its part, Microsoft seemed unconcerned about the release of the agreement documents, with Horacio Gutierrez, its vice president of intellectual property and licensing, saying the deal was "an historic bridging between the worlds of open source and proprietary software that was created to address issues of interoperability and intellectual property for our customers."

Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian says he has no regrets about the Microsoft deal. Click here to read more.

The agreements greatly enhanced interoperability between Linux and Windows and gave customers greater flexibility in their IT environments, he said, noting that the patent cooperation agreement gave customers peace of mind and intellectual property assurance regarding patent issues.

"Customers have asked for this type of solution to address their interoperability and IP needs in a mixed source environment and we are happy to have been able to come to this agreement for the mutual benefit of our customers. We will continue our bridge-building efforts in this area," he said.

Asked about the timing of the 10-K release, ahead of the Memorial Day long weekend, Lowry said this was not intentional but rather "the luck of the draw. When we completed the stock options review Wednesday, we were obligated to file our outstanding financial reports as quickly as possible following that. We also have earnings May 30, which I'm sure also had finance pushing hard to get these out the door as soon as we could."

In the 10-K filing, Novell says that "the overarching purpose of this partnership [with Microsoft] is to increase the utility, desirability and penetration of Linux by enabling its interoperation with Windows to a mixed environment that is easier to maintain. We believe that this partnership will help us deliver value to customers by giving them greater flexibility and effectiveness in their IT environments."

The Microsoft partnership essentially consists of three related agreements: the technical collaboration agreement, primarily in the areas of virtualization, web services management, directory interoperability, and document format compatibility; a business collaboration agreement around joint sales and marketing activities; and a patent cooperation agreement.

"We believe that this partnership addresses pressing, industry-wide issues, that it puts customers' needs first, and that our company will benefit from it financially and strategically," Novell said in the report.

With regard to the competitive front, Novell says that the market for identity-driven computing solutions and Linux and platform services solutions is highly competitive and subject to rapid technological change. "We expect competition to continue to increase both from existing competitors and new market entrants," it said in the 10-K filing.

However, the company also acknowledges the threat, and dominance, posed by Microsoft. "One pervasive factor facing us and all companies doing business in our industry is the presence — and dominance — of Microsoft … We will continue to be competitors of Microsoft, but it is our goal that through this set of agreements, Microsoft will serve as an important indirect source of channel sales for Novell's Linux sales," the company said.

On the copyright, licensing, patent and trademark front, Novell said that its business included a mix of proprietary offerings and offerings based on open source technologies.

Dell plans to partner with Microsoft and Novell on interoperability. To read more, click here.

"With respect to proprietary offerings, we perform the majority of our development efforts internally, but we also acquire and license technologies from third parties. No one license is critical to our business. Our open source offerings are primarily comprised of open source components developed by independent third parties over whom we exercise no control," the company said in its filing.

But Novell also recognized the potential harmful effects to its business if it lost access to third-party open source technology.

"The collective licenses to those open source technologies are critical to our business. If we are unable to maintain licenses to these third party open source materials, our distribution of relevant offerings may be delayed until we are able to develop, license, or acquire replacement technologies. Such a delay could have a material adverse impact on our business."

Microsoft says free and open source software violates 235 of its patents. Click here to read more.

The company also said that current trends indicate the frequent litigation in the software industry regarding patent, copyright and other intellectual property rights might increase.
Source :http://www.physorg.com

Facebook Lets Advertisers Reach Members Via Free Apps

2007-05-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

Social networking site Facebook has launched a new platform to give advertisers a deeper level of free access to its 24 million users by providing them the ability to write applications that can be shared from person to person. Among initial partners using the new service are Microsoft, Amazon and Obama for America.

Speaking to a hall of developers and business partners at the Facebook f8 Event in San Francisco, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the "Social Graph" of the site's users who influence their friends and contacts. Calling the Facebook Platform an operating system to gain access to the Facebook members, he invited developers to create applications to run across the site. The hope is the advertiser applications will generate more traffic, adding ad inventory for Facebook’s paid advertising through the pages generated by the apps, which will cost nothing to the companies adding them to the site.

As part of its launch, Facebook laid claim to 65 partner companies who had already developed over 85 applications to run on the platform. They run the gamut from major businesses like Microsoft, Amazon and Red Bull, to online game companies like social gaming site Bunchball and entertainment fantasy gaming site FantasyMoguls.com. Even more sublime like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s Obama for America have joined in.

"We're providing integration and distribution; you guys are providing great applications, and together we can help share more information and both benefit," he said.

Zuckerberg demonstrated the new platform's ability for users to share applications, and showed how businesses can serve ads and transactions via those applications, and promised they could keep all the revenues. Facebook, which started as a social networking system for college students, now has over 60 percent of its users over the age of 25, according to Zuckerberg.

"You can build a real advertising business off of Facebook, especially with all the distribution you get on the Social Graph. You get to keep all of the revenue, and you don't even have to send people off the site to process the transactions," said Zuckerberg. "You can run ads or you can run transactions, and we encourage both. This is good for us too, because if you are building good applications, that's helping our users."

For example, Microsoft's Popfly Web-based mashup tool is being integrated onto the Facebook platform to allow users to create applications that can be embedded into their profiles. This is not the first partnership between Facebook and Microsoft, which is the exclusive seller and manager of all display ads on Facebook through its adCenter platform. Microsoft also provides sponsored text link ads for the social networking site.

Amazon, on the other hand, is launching a book reviews application to allow users to share information on their favorite reads.

"This application is…duh…to let the communities on Facebook share their book recommendations. We know now how powerful it is to let others share opinions," Russ Grandinetti, VP of Amazon, joked with the audience. "One of the things that our companies share is a passion for the communities that we serve. Some of the earliest Web community things we built because we were just trying to do the right thing for our readers."
Source :http://www.clickz.com

Man in NASA love triangle quits

2007-05-26T22:54:00.000-07:00

The space shuttle pilot at the center of a bizarre love triangle that included a former astronaut who now faces attempted kidnapping charges is leaving the space agency, NASA said in Houston.

Cmdr. William A. Oefelein will leave NASA on June 1, nearly four months after authorities believe his cooled relationship with Lisa Marie Nowak led her to drive 900 miles from Houston to Florida and confront her romantic rival.

Oefelein was being assigned to the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Va.
Source :http://www.latimes.com

Bid to Save Whales Drags Into 3rd Week

2007-05-26T22:52:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to have a suggestion to get two wayward whales lingering in the Sacramento River to swim 70 miles back to the Pacific Ocean.

One person suggested towing life-sized replicas of orcas behind the whales to scare the recalcitrant mother humpback and her calf. Another proposed placing a giant magnet downriver, since humpbacks are thought to navigate by an internal compass that can sense magnetic north.

On Saturday, veterinarians on a boat shot custom-made syringes with 8-inch needles at the whales in what wildlife officials said was the first time antibiotics have ever been administered to whales in the wild. The treatment is meant to ward off infection in deep wounds that have worsened from long exposure to fresh water.

While rescuers have not tried the hundreds of suggestions they have received via e-mail _ most of which are unfeasible _ they acknowledge that they are running out of ideas.

"This is very much a work in progress," said Trevor Spradlin, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration working at the rescue scene.

More than two weeks after the whales were first spotted in fresh water, the giant mammals continued to circle in the river. Their once smooth, shiny skin has become dull and rough, and tissue around the gashes likely inflicted by a run-in with a boat was starting to die off, biologists said.

Scientists hastily drew up plans to spray the whales with fire hoses Friday after nearly a week of pipe-banging and whale recordings failed. Scientists used recordings to nudge a male humpback dubbed Humphrey out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in 1985.

The pair got stranded after marking an apparent wrong turn earlier this month and heading upstream until they reached the Port of Sacramento and could go no farther. They turned around on their own Sunday, and swam some 20 miles downriver to the Rio Vista Bridge.

The central problem facing scientists trying to engineer new whale-herding techniques is that, while gentle coaxing has proved ineffective, they fear anything too forceful might make the situation worse. Nets pose a threat of entanglement, biologists said.

Any method that induces panic could separate the whales or send them fleeing, increasing the danger they could become stranded in the mud among the delta's labyrinthine network of sloughs, they said.

During the week, rescuers grew concerned that some of the tactics they tried may have been too stressful for the duo. Some onlookers complained that scientists should stop interfering with the whales and allow them to follow their natural instincts.

The problem with that theory, according to veteran whale watchers, is that the humpbacks' natural sense of direction has been thrown off severely by their 90-mile journey upriver.

"They'd probably like to just go north, but there's no way they can do that," said Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research, who helped track Humphrey after he returned to the Pacific.

Balcomb gave poor marks to the current rescue effort, arguing that aggressive steps should have been taken to turn the whales around as soon as they were spotted. And, he said, the effort should have different leaders at the helm.

The most qualified whale herders in the world, Balcomb said, are Japanese whale hunters whose traditional pipe-banging technique known as "oikomi" has been passed down for more than 700 years.

Instead, at least a dozen federal, state and local agencies have been involved in the whale operation since the pair appeared.

As the mother and calf tarried near the Rio Vista Bridge, their health deteriorated.

"The loss of any single animal would be bad. The loss of a breeding animal and her calf would be a substantial biological punch," said Brian Gorman, a NOAA spokesman. "To ignore the plight of such iconic animals as humpback whales in such a public place would be unthinkable."
Source :http://www.washingtonpost.com

Royalty Proposal Divides Webcasters, Musicians, And Labels

2007-05-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

A musicians' union said Wednesday that it backs below-market royalty rates to "subsidize small webcasters," but a group representing webcasters rejected the plan.

The American Federation of Musicians (AFM), which claims more than 90,000 members, said it supports SoundExchange's plan to allow some small webcasters to pay below-market rates for songs played from 2006 through 2010. It said the deal would allow the businesses time to develop and expand their audiences.

"Most recording musicians, including royalty artists and session musicians, are entrepreneurs themselves," AFM President Thomas F. Lee said in a prepared statement. "Fifty percent of the royalties paid by webcasters go to performers, and performers surely need that income stream to make it in their own careers. But they also know from experience that it can be tough to build a business, and they are willing to make some sacrifices to give small webcasters the opportunity to grow and make the world of Internet music as diverse and artist-friendly as possible."

A group representing webcasters rejected the plan.

SoundExchange represents the four major record labels, more than 20,000 artists and 2,500 independent labels. It announced the proposal soon after Representatives Howard L. Berman, (D-Calif.) and Howard Coble (R-N.C.), members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, urged the group to work toward a settlement between recording artists and webcasters. The representatives and several others are considering legislation that would overturn rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB).

The CRB decided to increase royalty rates for Webcast music, setting a retroactive rate of $0.0008 per song for 2006. The rate in 2005 was $0.0007 per song. The amount is set to rise to $0.0019 per song by 2010. That -- plus a $500-per-station fee and the elimination of schedules that based fees on a percentage of revenue -- could amount to a 300% increase for large operations and up to 1,200% for smaller operations, according to digital media representatives.

SoundExchange said the rates are "fair and based on the value of music in the marketplace," but it is willing settle on 10% of all gross revenue up to $250,000 for royalty fees and 12% for gross revenue above that amount.

"There's a sense in the music community and in Congress that small webcasters need more time to develop their businesses," SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson said in a prepared statement. "Artists and labels are offering a below-market rate to subsidize small webcasters because Congress has made it clear that this is a policy it desires to advance, at least for the next few years. We look at it as artists and labels doing their part to help small operators get a stronger foothold."

The AFM called on the small webcasters and SoundExchange to seal a deal quickly and urged small webcasters to more fully and accurately report the songs they play.

"Small webcasters all confirm that they want performers to be paid, but many of them fail to file the reports that enable royalty dollars to flow smoothly to the entitled performers," Lee said. "In return for below-market rates, small webcasters should file the required reports so performers can be paid. Bottom line, musicians' creative work has value and it is important that they be fairly compensated for its use."

SaveNetRadio, which boasts a membership of "hundreds of thousands" of webcasters, listeners, and musicians, said all webcasters are small compared to terrestrial and satellite radio companies, and the proposals would "throw" the largest webcasters under the bus."

"Labeling webcasters small or large is a distinction without a difference," SaveNetRadio spokesman Jack Ward said in a prepared statement. "Two of the most prominent webcasters, Pandora.com and Live365 are models of industry success but would be bankrupted by the CRB and by the SoundExchange proposals. Pandora employs 100 people in an enterprise zone in Oakland, California, but its popularity would put it out of business. Similarly, Live365, an aggregate webcaster that provides a platform for more than 10,000 individual webcasters, has a staff of fewer than 40. Though clearly small as a business, Live365's enormous importance and scope among webcasters would force them to shut down."

Ward said that the revenue caps that SoundExchange proposed would "create an insurmountable barrier to growth for small webcasters," which would guarantee "the perverse and unintended consequence of forcing thousands of webcasters to stay small if they want to stay alive, thereby weakening the industry -- the very opposite of Congress' intention."

SaveNetRadio and the Digital Media Association support legislation that would set rates at 7.5%, which is what satellite radio pays.
Source :http://www.informationweek.com

Dell unveils three consumer systems featuring Ubuntu 7.0

2007-05-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Dell has made it official, unveiling three consumer systems with the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux distribution factory installed. The systems include the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook.

The company says the systems target the Linux enthusiast community and are a direct result of customer feedback received since February via a website specially setup for this project.

About 30,000 community members advocated that Dell offer systems with Linux pre-installed, and more than 100,000 participated in a follow-up survey to help determine customer preferences, including which Linux distribution to offer initially.

With no software licensing costs associated with Ubuntu, the base price for each system is competitively priced and fully configured. Hardware support is available through normal Dell support channels, along with the Basic software support on a variety of dedicated Web sites and Linux forums. Customers can also choose service upgrades from Canonical, including: 30-day Get Started, One-year Basic and One-Year Standard.

Dell is offering hardware options on each system that have the most mature and stable Linux driver support. These hardware options have been tested and certified by Canonical. For hardware options not offered with this release, Dell is working with the vendors of those devices to improve the maturity and stability of their associated Linux drivers, and expects to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time.

In response to customer feedback, Dell created a Dell Linux Forum, providing an easily accessible resource and collaborative environment that enables customers to interact with other Linux enthusiasts, ask questions, share experiences and learn.

The Inspiron E1505n comes with a 15.4 inch WXGA display, an Intel Pentium Dual Core T2080, 512MB memory, 80GB hard drive. The Dimension E520n comes with a 17 inch flat panel, Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, 1GB memory, 250GB hard drive and 256MB nVidia GeForce 7300LE. The XPS 410n has a 19 inch flat panel display, Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, 1GB memory
250GB hard drive and 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE.

Prices start at U$599 for Inspiron E1505n, US$599 for the Dimension E520n and US$849 for the XPS 410n.
Source :http://www.geekzone.co.nz

Will the new firmware update save the PS3?

2007-05-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

If the fact the PS3 couldn’t upscale existing DVD videos to 1080p HD annoyed you, especially when you’d purchased Sony’s top of the line digital device for the 21st century, salvation is at hand thanks to the latest Version 1.80 firmware update from Sony Computer Entertainment.

You will need a widescreen TV with an HDMI socket to watch DVD movies in all their upscaled glory, but you won’t get any upscaling if you connect the PS3 to the TV with component cables.

On the other hand, the library of Playstation and PS2 games that will play on a PS3 will now play in HD – whether you’re using component cables or HDMI, so that is at least some consolation for component cable users – you won’t need to buy a new HDMI-equipped TV just yet.

Peter Dille, the senior Veep of marketing at SCEA said that: “As adoption of HDTVs continues to surge, we know that consumers are hungry for content, and this latest firmware update leverages the PS3s technology to deliver an HD-quality experience using the entertainment media already in your collection”.

In a statement, Dille continued that: “In addition, we continue to enhance the PS3s capabilities as an entertainment hub, giving consumers the option to bring their content with them on-the-go, or to stream photos, videos, and music stored on their PC to the PS3 in their living room. That’s often where the largest TV monitor and sound system is located, giving consumers the best possible entertainment experience”.

The new firmware also brings some other nifty features along for the ride. If you own a PSP, you’ll find that after the next PSP firmware update 3.50 due next week, the PSP and the PS3 can play together much better than before thanks to the new Remote Play feature.

Although the PS3 has been able to stream photos, videos, and music to a nearby PS3 for some months now, the next PSP update will let you access that same content whenever you are connected to a Wi-Fi connection - even if it’s on the other side of the world. That’s pretty cool.

Streaming content from your PC, digital video recorder or other device with storage is made possible by the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance).

That fully transforms the PS3 into the same kind of ‘media center’ that the Xbox 360 has been able to do in conjunction with XP or with Vista’s Media Center for some time now, with Sony saying the “new functionality reinforces the value of PS3 system as a home entertainment hub”.
Clearly, it’s yet another important piece of Sony’s media enabled and digitally connected home entertainment lifestyle ‘vision’ that companies have been dreaming of for years and doing much to answer Microsoft’s ‘Windows Media Center/Xbox 360’ challenge.

So, what else can the new PS3 firmware do, and will all of this boost PS3 sales? Read onto page 2 to find out!
Source :http://www.itwire.com.au

Scare Tactic Used on Wayward Whales

2007-05-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

Scientists hope recordings of orcas attacking a mother whale and her calf will persuade a pair of ailing humpbacks meandering in a freshwater river to head back toward the ocean.

The tactic is just the latest that increasingly concerned marine biologists have come up with to coax the two lost, injured whales back to the ocean. They have spent more than a week in freshwater, which they are not physically equipped to inhabit.

"I wouldn't say there's a lot of optimism right now," said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The humpbacks apparently took a wrong turn during their annual migration to feeding grounds in the northern Pacific. They traveled 90 miles inland to the Port of Sacramento before turning around. They were making progress Monday until they reached a Sacramento River bridge about 70 miles from the Pacific and began swimming in circles.

For a third day Wednesday, the whales _ a mother and calf _ did not respond to a gauntlet of boats that tried to herd them past the Rio Vista Bridge.

Boat crews resumed playing underwater recordings of humpbacks feeding _ a method tried last week _ after attempting to startle them by banging on metal pipes.
Source :http://www.foxnews.com

MySpace to give up sex offenders’ details

2007-05-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

Following threat of legal action from eight different state attorneys in the US, MySpace has agreed to hand over details on registered sex offenders that had a profile on its site.
Originally, the News Corporation-owned social networking site was reluctant to reveal any data, citing privacy laws, but was aware that following legal requests they were obliged to release the information.

Although MySpace has already identified and deleted the accounts of some 7,000 people which it suspected to be sex offenders, the company has held the personal data from these profiles.

Last December MySpace joined forces with Sentinel Tech Holding and together they developed Sentinel Safe, a program that sorted through the 180 million MySpace member pages to find possible sex offenders.

MySpace CSO Hemanshu Nigam said: "We have zero tolerance for sexual predators on MySpace and took the initiative to create this first-of-its-kind tool ourselves because nothing previously existed.

"We look forward to working collaboratively with the attorneys general on all future efforts to make the internet a safer place for teens."

Throughout the US it is possible for registered sex offenders, who are no longer on parole, to sign up for a MySpace account or indeed an account on any other dating or social networking site. Currently there are 20,000 such offenders in the US.

New Jersey is planning to introduce a law that would ban sex offenders from using the internet completely, but MySpace is asking state administrators to pass laws requiring these offenders to register their email address.

However, it is easy to sign up for and hold several email addresses at once and there is nothing to stop sex offenders from hiding behind this method of anonymity.

Source : http://www.siliconrepublic.com

Wayward whales halfway back to ocean

2007-05-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

The journey of a wayward whale and her calf back to the Pacific Ocean hit a snag Monday when the pair reversed course and began heading back up the Sacramento River.

The humpbacks, nicknamed Delta and Dawn, had traveled more than 20 miles south from the Port of Sacramento since taking a wrong turn and swimming toward the state capital more than a week ago. But they turned around again Monday afternoon, even as scientists and the Coast Guard tried to position more than a dozen boats in front of them.

"They're at this point lost. We don't think they have any clue," Rod McInnis of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Their route includes sloughs leading to muddy deltas that could trap the whales, who appear to have been wounded by a boat's propeller. Crews were trying to maneuver boats to the mouths of side channels to keep the whales from going off course.

The two also will have to make their way through the pylons of four bridges on their 90-mile trek. Once they reach San Francisco Bay, the whales will have to swim under the Golden Gate Bridge to return to the ocean, Wilson said.

The whales started moving toward the Pacific around 3:30 p.m. Sunday from the Port of Sacramento, where crowds gathered over the weekend to catch a glimpse. They swam as far as the Rio Vista Bridge in the rural Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region before turning around.

Scientists theorized that vibrations from traffic were upsetting the mother and calf, but the whales could not be coaxed forward even when the drawbridge was raised to halt the flow of vehicles.

"We were thrilled to get them down the channel yesterday, but I'm afraid that was the easy part," Carrie Wilson, a marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said Monday.

Federal officials have authorized researchers to fire darts carrying a satellite tracking device beneath the mother's fin to ensure authorities can still locate the whales if they wander from the main channel into the delta's maze of river branches.

If the two continue to head upstream, authorities could resort to "hazing" by banging on metal pipes dangling underwater with hammers, said Steve Edinger, assistant chief of the Department of Fish and Game.

The goal is to "make as much noise to be as obnoxious to the whales as possible" to get them to move back toward the ocean, Ed Sweeney, a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary said from his boat Monday.

No one is certain why the whales decided to go back downstream in the first place, but Jim Oswald of the Marine Mammal Center said the change may have been spurred by tug boats. The tugs' engines fired up about 100 yards away from the pair, and the sound may have had an influence.

"The tugs were out in the basin, and the whales decided to follow them," Oswald said.

There was no indication that the whales were in poor health, Wilson said. "They have been very consistent and moving along at a good pace," she said.

The appearance of the humpbacks was not the first time a West Coast whale has veered so far off course during the annual spring migration northward. A humpback named Humphrey swam in the delta for nearly a month in 1985 before scientists used recordings of whale songs to lure him back to the Pacific.
Source :http://www.chron.com

MySpace exposes sex predators

2007-05-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

The move ends a standoff between MySpace and top prosecutors from eight US states that had demanded the identities of convicted sex criminals who have posted their profiles on the News Corporation-owned website.

State attorneys general subpoenaed MySpace after the website refused to hand over the data on the grounds that disclosure of the private information was barred by US law.

"Our subpoena compels this information right away -- within hours not weeks, without delay -- because it is vital to protecting children," said Connecticut state attorney general Richard Blumenthal.

"MySpace has decided to do the right thing, but additional steps are necessary, such as age verification, to protect children from predators on social networking sites."

MySpace told AFP that since innovative "Sentinel SAFE" software began running" 24 hours a day" on the website May 2, 2007 it has ferreted out about 7,000 profiles posted by convicted sex criminals.

MySpace deleted the profiles but saved information about them for law enforcement officials, said MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam.

"We've always intended to provide law enforcement with the information," said Nigam, a former US prosecutor who handled sex crimes.

"The last week has been about the mechanism to provide the information in a way so that someone charged by law enforcement doesn't get off because of a technicality."

US law bans illegally obtained evidence from being used in court.

Nigam said that since MySpace received the letter from US attorneys general last week he has been collaborating with them to make certain they use proper legal channels to get the data.

"At the end of the day, it is all about implementing a process that lets the information be used in court," Nigam told AFP. "We work with law enforcement every day. We have a very well-oiled law enforcement compliant program."

North Carolina state attorney general Roy Cooper laments that the data from MySpace does not include sexual predators without convictions, using fake names, or not registered with police.

"We are pleased to see MySpace step up to the plate and provide us with the very important information," Cooper said. "But, we still must do more to protect our children from predators."

MySpace is lobbying for a federal law requiring convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses to make it easier to screen them from membership websites used by young people.

US law already requires people convicted of sex crimes to register their addresses with local police after they are released from custody.

Sex offenders may have violated their parole or probation by contacting or soliciting children on MySpace, Blumenthal said.

There are an approximately 600,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. Nearly 180 million profiles are posted on MySpace.

"What you are really seeing is a mirror of a physical community appearing online," Nigam said of MySpace.

"It is a reflection of society, which is why we have to implement all the safety features and education we can."

MySpace and Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. created Sentinel Safe, touted as the nation's "first proprietary software dedicated to identifying and removing sexual predators from online communities."

The justice chiefs of Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and New Hampshire had contacted MySpace after getting word that it had found thousands of convicted sex offenders with profile web pages.
Source :http://nationmultimedia.com

Google’s ‘universal search’ – the logical next step

2007-05-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

A subtle homepage redesign that gives more prominence to Google’s greatly expanded range of products and services, along with an improved set of results from the US Google.com search engine called ‘Universal Search’ ensures Google’s lead as the most accurate and relevant search engine is undiminished.

This is despite some commentators believing Google’s better search results aren’t in Google’s or users best interests, but clearly, information resides in more than just HTML web pages, but also in scanned books, blogs, video clips, news stories and more.

Being able to access this on one page of results gives you more – and better – information on the topic at hand. It helps you find information more easily, because it has brought you what should be relevant information that you didn’t even ask for, such as images or videos or blog entries or news stories, all of which could hold the answer to what you want to know.

Google say their vision for universal search is to “ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for”, beginning today, with more categories of search results to be added in the future in the new single set of results that Google is offering its users.

Google’s Veep of search products and user experience, Marissa Meyer, said that: “Our focus has always been making our users' search experience as simple and straightforward as possible. The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query. While we still have a long way to go, today's announcements are a big step in that direction.”

As Meyer implies, it’s basically still a version 1.0 product. Google promise it will get much better, but have offered some examples of how it works right now. Have a look at the search results for Steve Jobs, Darth Vader and Nosferatu. In the Nosferatu results, you’ll see a link to the movie. Click the little + sign, and the video window will open up right there in the Google results pages. Steve Jobs and Darth Vader brings up images from the Google Images search engine along with other useful information.

The results aren't totally consistent yet – you can type in names of other famous people and not get the Google Images results, for example. But it’s version 1.0, and Google promise they’re working on making it better and better. They even foreshadow that new types of ads might appear on the right hand side of the page, such as video ads. But that’s still to come in the future.

Even though it’s a great idea, Google aren’t the first to offer these kinds of results. Yahoo said they have been offering something similar in Europe for two years, and anyone who’s tried out Yahoo Mobile search on their mobile cell phone will have noticed that different categories of results are offered up in the results, as the aim was to bring the most relevant information from different categories right to your cell phone screen, making cell phone based search more useful.

But what is new is Google’s way of grouping all of this information together. A blog entry at Google’s official blog explains how difficult getting the right and relevant results together from Google’s different search engines. Google also say that they are “in the process of deploying a new technical infrastructure that will enable the search engine to handle the computationally intensive tasks required to produce universal search results”.

In addition, Google is upgrading their ranking mechanism once more to cope with the added information, which “automatically and objectively compares different types of information”, with Google’s “search results ranked automatically by algorithms to deliver the best results to users anywhere in the world”.

Udi Manber, Veep of engineering at Google, said that: “Google has continued to concentrate on improving the quality of search. The level and speed of search innovation at Google has increased. Most of this innovation addresses basic ranking algorithms and is often not obvious to users. Users just see more accurate results, more often, in more languages, which is our primary goal.”

It’s great to see Google is finally able to accurately aggregate search results from different parts of the Google empire into a single page, while still making the original interfaces for different Google search products still separately available, and no doubt this is something that all competitors will try emulating in their own search results over the coming days, weeks and months.

Finally, Google have unleashed a new version of Google Experimental, available from Google Labs. Google said the site “provides users an opportunity to try out some of the latest search experiments and innovations and provide Google with feedback”.

Google says that one of the first experiments to be featured on the site “enables users to view their search results on a map or timeline. For instance, when someone searches for "Albert Einstein" on Google Experimental, they can choose to view the search results on a map that shows locations mentioned within web pages about Albert Einstein or on a timeline that illustrates the history of Albert Einstein's life”.
Source : http://www.itwire.com.au

Halo 3 Beta Is Trial by Fire and Snow

2007-05-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

The Halo 3 beta has, at long last, gone live. And it plays better than most game designers' finished projects.

The launch was not without its snags. The vast majority of the beta invites (about 900,000 of them) went to purchasers of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown, but those players found that the download link in the game's menu screen didn't work. Bungie Studios furiously worked to fix the problem, but Crackdown players weren't able to pull down the 900 MB download until about 7 p.m. Wednesday.

In apology, Bungie extended the beta test by four days. The mayhem is now scheduled to end June 10.

As expected, Halo 3 is wildly popular. Microsoft said that 294,821 players have played 355,011 matches in the first 24 hours since the beta went live.

Halo newbies (like me) shouldn't expect a slow-paced introduction to the world of Spartans and Elites. This is trial by fire -- the game is multiplayer only, and as soon as you start you'll be taking potshots from all sides. But Halo 3, like its predecessors, is meant to be a pick-up-and-play party game, so you'll get the hang of things soon enough. (And Bungie has put up a helpful guide.)

The first thing you'll notice is that the graphics are nowhere near the holy-crap level of Microsoft's last shooter epic, Gears of War. In fact, Halo 3 looks pretty much like a slightly more polished, high-def version of Halo 2. But that's OK: When you're dealing with a maximum of 16 players on screen at once, all zooming around in giant vehicles and blasting rapid-fire, you can't also be pushing knock-your-socks-off graphics.

A few new features change up the gameplay. The biggest is the inclusion of items that can be picked up and used. There's a bubble shield that you can throw up around yourself to stop bullets temporarily. And an anti-grav jumping device lets you get extra height -- perfect, we found out, for infiltrating an enemy's base in Capture the Flag.

If you get sick of CTF (and there's got to be some people who are by now), there's the new VIP mode. In this team-based affair, one player on each team is the VIP, and the only way to score is by killing him. My team really appreciates it when the VIP charges our base alone.

But ultimately, it's the interface changes that will have the biggest impact on the Halo experience. It's easy to join up and stay together with the friends on your Xbox Live master list. The game will automatically match you up with the group of people closest to your skill level that it can find, although it often takes a few more minutes than should really be necessary in the beta.

If you play a round with some good people, you can choose to "party up" afterward, and you'll stick with that group for the next play session.

Each time you begin a game, the beta version auto-selects the map and game type, but players can veto the first suggestion the game makes. If a majority of players veto, the game will automatically pick another map.

Many players have been exercising their veto power whenever the Snowbound level comes up. The map features a lone building set in a snowdrift surrounded by mountains and turrets. There's nowhere to run, which means that matches are less strategic and more of a bloodbath. And nobody seems to like it. Snowbound "sucks balls" and is also "gay," according to two of the cultured, erudite gentlemen with whom I last enjoyed a round of Team Slayer.

This might be an excellent time to mention that muting a player's audio is as easy as selecting them on the menu and clicking the right joystick.

Another interesting new feature is the ability to film your matches -- after a match, you can save a record of the whole experience, then upload it for all to see. Whether you want to save an impressive victory for posterity, analyze a loss or be the new Red vs. Blue, this is sure to be a fan favorite.
Source : http://www.wired.com

StarCraft 2 cinematic trailer

2007-05-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't hear, Blizzard today announced StarCraft 2 at the Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea.

StarCraft 2 will feature the return of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg races, overhauled and re-imagined with Blizzard's signature approach to game balance. Each race will be further distinguished from the others, with several new units and new gameplay mechanics, as well as new abilities for some of the classic StarCraft units that will be making a reappearance in the game.

StarCraft 2 will also feature a custom 3D-graphics engine with realistic physics and the ability to render several large, highly detailed units and massive armies on-screen simultaneously.

This trailer offers over four minutes of cinematic footage.
Source : http://download.boomtown.net

Hundreds flock to shipping channel to watch whales

2007-05-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of people with coolers, kids and dogs in tow lined the shores of a West Sacramento shipping channel today, eager to catch a glimpse of the two hapless whales that have swum 70 miles into the heart of California and gained international renown.

It was too great a show for people to miss, and too great an opportunity for opportunists to make a buck. There was a guy selling sodas for a buck a piece, and Francisco Mondragon, 32, of Sacramento forked over $10 for a "Whale Watch 2007" hat. The lure of a 45-foot humpback whale and her calf proved irresistible, he said.

"I just wanted to see something unique," he said. "This is history in the making. Whales have a special charisma about them. They draw your attention."

He planned to stick around until noon, when he figured he'd go home for a bite to eat. In deference to the whales, it won't be tuna, he said.

"Let's just hope they make it back home," said Mondragon, who was 11 years old when the excitement over Humphrey, the last humpback to enter the delta, reached a fever pitch. "Thanks for visiting Sacramento," he told the whales. "I hope they enjoy their stay."

The two whales swam north through the Delta on Sunday and have spent the past week calmly circling the turning basin at the Port of Sacramento, occasionally breaching the surface with a spectacular exhalation through their blowholes. Experts believe the two cetaceans, which have set the inland travel record for their species, became disoriented during their annual migration north.

Readers of SFGate.com have named the whales Rio and Vista because they were first spotted in the delta near the town of Rio Vista. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who played a key role in organizing the rescue effort, has suggested naming the mother "Delta" and the calf "Dawn."

The whales have become a huge tourist draw. People have come by the dozens over the past week; today being the first day of the weekend, there were up to 800 to 1,500 who showed up along a dirt road on a levy to watch the spectacle on a sunny day.

The whale watchers came with spotting scopes, cameras and dogs. Police were on hand to help maintain order and direct motorists to parking spots as a gentle breeze sent dust flying in the air.

Onlookers stared at the glassy, smooth surface of the channel as a Coast Guard boat patrolled the waters. A cargo ship that's taken on a load of cement could be seen across from the channel; officials hope to bring the ship out Monday morning without hurting the whales.

Not everyone was impressed with the spectacle. Jeff Spradlin and his wife, Jenny came from Elk Grove with their sons, Noah, 8, and Cole, 6, "just to see the whales submerge." But Cole didn't see what all the fuss was about. He gave it 90 minutes, but by 10 a.m., he was eager to return home to stage a race between a tortoise and a rabbit they'd captured in the backyard.

"It's so boring," he said of the whale-watching. "Not cool."

Wildlife rescuers are giving the leviathans the weekend to rest up after the past week's attempts to coax them from the channel failed. They've placed speakers underwater to broadcast recordings of whales, hoping the animals would follow the sound back to sea. The rescue effort will resume Monday with further broadcasts; if that fails, the experts might try herding the whales downstream with a flotilla of boats.

Although the animals appear to be in good shape, marine experts are concerned about their welfare. The whales are in a freshwater environment that cannot provide nearly enough food to sustain them. Humpbacks typically consume huge quantities of small, oil-rich fish such as anchovies, herring and sardines.

Both animals sustained relatively minor injuries during their sojourn, possibly by the propeller of a ship or the keel of a sailboat.
Source :http://www.sfgate.com

Whales aren't responding to call of the wild

2007-05-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

From a boat in the brackish waters of a backwater delta channel, Bernie Krause and his scientific colleagues lower an underwater speaker that emits a staccato symphony of grunts, squeals and squeaks.

They're whale noises, some of which the 68-year-old bio-acoustics expert captured 16 years ago off the Alaskan coast as he hovered above a pod of humpback whales in a tiny kayak. Now he is using this whale language to reach out to an injured mother humpback and her calf, circling in the depths below.

Krause is a whale whisperer. And he's spearheading an effort to rescue two wrong-way cetaceans that last week strayed from their seasonal migration on a misguided 100-mile journey up the San Joaquin River Delta.

Now the whales, both wounded from an apparent run-in with a boat propeller, have reached a dead-end in a murky inland channel not far from the California State Capitol dome. Racing against time, a host of governmental agencies for days has tried to coax the leviathans back to sea.

Krause has spent nearly four decades recording natural sounds worldwide -- pristine underwater soundscapes, jaguars in the Brazilian jungle, corn growing in Iowa. He earned an international reputation in 1985 when he turned his attentions to a whale known as Humphrey, who had ventured many miles into the Sacramento Delta. Using tapes of whales' feeding and social noises, the Detroit native helped coax the wayward humpback back out into the open ocean.

Friday, Krause and a team of scientists tried, for the second straight day, to reprise that success. But the two whales simply weren't taking the bait.

"The animals are just not responding," Krause said. "It might be from the noise of the boats or aircraft flying overhead, or from the effects of their injuries. We just don't know."

Humphrey spent 26 days wandering inland waters, but experts worry that the mother and her calf don't have that much time. Although the adult humpback's wounds don't appear to be life-threatening, officials aren't so sure about the calf, which they believe was nursing when the propeller struck the pair.

The whales' injuries have added pressure and drama to the rescue effort, as dozens of reporters wait for updates near the Port of Sacramento and hundreds of onlookers watch from a nearby levee.

Friday, the news still wasn't good. Scientists varied the sounds they played. They fiddled with the speaker volume. They changed boats. Nothing worked.

"They call me a whale whisperer," said a frustrated Krause. "Yeah, right. Nature always has the last laugh."

(Begin optional trim)

A former musician who plays both violin and guitar, Krause became a pioneer of electronic sound in the 1960s and helped introduce the Moog synthesizer to pop music and film.

In 1970 he and a partner produced "In a Wild Sanctuary," an album that incorporated recorded natural sounds into the music.

The record changed his life, launching him on a quest with his microphone and recorder to amass what he says is the world's largest collection of natural sounds -- 3,500 hours, featuring countless habitats and 15,000 creatures, many of which are now extinct.

Krause has studied whales and their environment, and he said he understood why so many people were captivated by the journey of the humpback and her calf.

"People associate with these wild critters. There's something atavistic in our genes, making us long for a simpler time," he said. "Whales just have a presence, being so gentle and coming back from the brink of extinction."

Twenty-two years ago, when asked to take part in Humphrey's rescue, Krause had not yet made any of his own whale recordings. He used recordings collected by a pair of University of Hawaii graduate students who studied humpbacks. Krause took the scratchy recordings into his sound studio and spent hours working on the sound quality.

He recalled the moment when Humphrey reacted to the sounds. He and Dianna Reiss, a colleague from Marine World in San Francisco, were aboard a 42-foot boat south of Sacramento. The whale had been wandering for weeks and authorities were losing hope in the rescue.

So the two went to work with their whale sounds.

"I have never seen a animal move so fast. That whale was hydroplaning," Krause said. "He was a quarter-mile away and got to our boat in 15 seconds. He nearly swamped us."

A flotilla of boats behind Humphrey slowly moved the whale toward the ocean. Each time he veered off course, officials played more whale sounds, along with pipe-banging noises from behind to herd him along. Tens of thousands of onlookers gathered along the delta shores to root the whale on.

"Every time the whale surfaced, an incredible roar arose from the crowd," Krause said. "Every so often, he swam toward shore and did a tail slap. It was an emotional experience."

This time, Krause has played a prerecorded loop of sounds he described as a "whale dinner call."

"It's a long clear tone, lower than a b-flat in pitch, and then it slowly ascends," he said. "It's very powerful, very forceful."

(End optional trim)

Whale roundups are an inexact science. Studies show that humpback whales respond to recorded stimuli only about 10 percent of the time. But Krause has focused on the task, spending most of his time on the water, away from the news conferences and reporters' questions.

"They're saying we failed on Thursday," he said early Friday, sighing. "I don't think we failed. These animals don't respond to protocol, the way we understand the world. They'll respond when they're ready, not when we're ready."

Rescuers say they will take a break over the weekend and resume their efforts Tuesday. But Krause won't be there.

He will leave his recordings with the rescue crew and head back to his Wild Sanctuary headquarters in Sonoma County, where he has other projects in the works.

He'll keep pulling for the mother humpback and her calf, in the hopes they make it back to sea, he said. But he won't give them names or adopt the names chosen in contests run by several Northern California newspapers and radio stations.

"These whales are not cartoon characters, you can't animate them like at Pixar," he said. "Try and humanize them and you're going to have human expectations they cannot deliver. They're going to do what they're going to do. They're wild."
Source : http://www.latimes.com

iPods able to crash pacemakers

2007-05-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

There's no denying the technological impact of Apple's iconic iPod and its subsequent dominance in the digital music marketplace, and, considering its prolific rise and ongoing consumer dominance, the occasional bug, fault, and glitch are perhaps tolerable in an otherwise superb piece of kit. However, one of this week's news stories would suggest that loving your iPod and duly keeping it close to your heart might be bad for your health, especially if you're fitted with a pacemaker.

More pointedly, according to a study carried out by Jay Thaker, a 17-year-old high school student, which was presented to a selection of heart specialists yesterday, close proximity to an iPod can trigger monitoring malfunctions in cardiac pacemakers due to electromagnetic interference.

Thaker, lead author on the heart-related study and a student at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan, revealed that iPod units positioned a mere 2 inches from the chests of patients fitted with a pacemaker caused electrical interference in 50 percent of them. Even when located around 18 inches from a patient's chest electrical interference was registered as disrupting the pacemaker's telemetry equipment, leading the implanted device to misinterpret the pace of the heart. In one test the pacemaker ceased to function completely.

The study was conducted at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University across 100 patients with an average age of 77, all equipped with implanted pacemaker devices. Thaker’s somewhat worrying results (which only focused on the iPod, and not the effects of other digital portable music players), were presented on Thursday at the annual meeting off the Heart Rhythm Society in Denver, Colorado.

While the test results are worth noting, the study's senior author, Dr. Krit Jongnarangsin (who is also an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Division of Cardiovascular Medicine) conceded that the patient and age demographic generally associated with iPod use doesn't coincide with the related demographic of those fitted with pacemakers, and therefore actual figures connected to possible misdiagnosis are hard to amass.

"Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users," said Jongnarangsin in a Reuters report. "This needs to be studied more."

Young Mr. Thaker, whose mother and father happen to be a rheumatologist and electrophysiologist respectively, is now aiming to conduct a similar test that will assess the effects of iPod use in location to implanted cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs).
Source :http://tech.monstersandcritics.com

NASA shuttle tank an eyesore but ready to fly

2007-05-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle and its newly repaired hail-damaged fuel tank are ready to return to the launch pad for a June 8 launch, NASA managers said on Friday, even though the tank is a bit of an eyesore.

Instead of being a uniform orange color, Atlantis's tank now has a patchwork of white spots where technicians sprayed, scraped and filled fresh foam into more than 4,200 areas that were damaged during a freak hail storm in February.

"I want to prepare all of you for what this tank is going to look like when we roll it out," fuel tank manager John Chapman told reporters on a teleconference call. "It's going to look pretty speckly."

The shuttle had been due to take off on a mission to the International Space Station in March when the storm blew through and showered the shuttle and its tank with hail as they perched on their seaside launch pad in Florida.

The repair work cost NASA about three months time in its race to finish building the space station by the time the shuttle fleet is due to retire in 2010.

NASA has been particularly sensitive to issues involving the fuel tanks since the deadly 2003 Columbia accident. The shuttle was lost and seven crewmembers killed as it was returning to Earth when superheated atmospheric gases ate into a hole in the wing that had been caused by foam falling off the tank at launch.

The tank's deep orange color is caused by ultraviolet light from the sun striking the foam insulation over time. The fresh foam on Atlantis' tank is light-colored, some of it bright white and some off-white depending on what repair technique was used in a particular area.

"There's not at all a problem with this," Chapman said

"We have total confidence in the integrity of the repairs but I'm telling you right now that your mind will have a hard time convincing your eyes."

Atlantis and a newly expanded crew of seven will be carrying a new set of solar power-producing wings for the space station. The extra crewmember, Clay Anderson, will be replacing station flight engineer Sunita Williams, who will return home aboard Atlantis.

The space station, a $100 billion project of 16 international partners, is about half finished. The shuttles are the only vehicles capable of hauling and assembling the outpost.

Source :http://www.reuters.com

Ashes of 'Scotty,' Others Await Recovery

2007-05-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

UP Aerospace Inc. president Jerry Larson said recovery crews can get no closer than 1,300 feet to the payload because it landed in rocky, steep terrain in the San Andres Mountains.

"It's on top of the mountain," Larson said. "The only way to get in there is by helicopter. But once we spot it, getting it out is the easy part."

Connecticut-based UP Aerospace launched the 20-foot rocket April 28. It was the first successful attempt to reach space from New Mexico's fledgling Spaceport America, which is under development north of Las Cruces.

The rocket, carrying remains of about 200 people, made a 4-minute suborbital flight and parachuted back to Earth.

Attempts to recover the payload last week failed because of bad weather, including tornadoes that struck other areas of the Army's restricted White Sands Missile Range.

Larson said the payload landed within its designated recovery zone but that future flights will try to target areas with less challenging terrain.
Source :http://www.foxnews.com

Encyclopedia of Life to cover Earth's 1.8 mln species online

2007-05-09T19:24:00.001-07:00

The world's scientists plan to put descriptions, pictures, videos and sounds of all of the Earth's 1.8 million known species on one Web site, open to everyone, U.S. media reported on Wednesday.

The effort, called the Encyclopedia of Life, will standardize the presentation of "information about the plants and animals and microorganisms that share this planet with us," said James Edwards, the project's executive director.

Its first pages of information will be shown Wednesday in Washington where the massive effort is being announced by some of the world's leading scientific institutions and universities. The project will take about 10 years to complete.

It appears they will begin by scraping the web for information, then checking the material they gather for accuracy and copyright issues. Then that material will become the basis of the encyclopedia entry.

If the new encyclopedia progresses as planned, it should fill about 300 million pages, which, if lined up end-to-end, would be more than 83,200 km long, able to stretch twice around the world at the equator.
Source :http://news.xinhuanet.com

Wave of New Notebooks Follows Intel Centrino, NVidia 8M

2007-05-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

So much has already been said or leaked about Intel's Centrino Duo and Centrino Pro mobile computing platforms - formerly code-named "Santa Rosa" - that this morning's announcement from the company in San Francisco produced few surprises. But the announcement served as a starting gun for notebook computer manufacturers who are anxious to put an end to the seasonally duller spring purchasing season, and move forward the back-to-school buying season.

The Centrino Duo and Centrino Pro platforms designate a typical range of buildouts for notebook system builders who want to use Core 2 Duo mobile processors, and earn the prestigious Intel logo and reap the benefits of cross-marketing. With at least one notebook manufacturer having jumped the gun (quite literally, a marketing manager may have mistaken "May 9" for "May 4" on a schedule), exactly what the new Centrinos will entail is not new.

Chief among the new platforms' features is the inclusion of Intel's so-called "Next-Gen Wireless-N" system-on-a-chip, whose existence came to light last January immediately after members of the IEEE came to some substantive agreement on 802.11n. Still, Intel's implementation of 11n remains impressive, with three-antenna MIMO support, and transmission on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band to reduce the likelihood of signal collision with 11g equipment - the problem which had delayed 11n's rollout to this point.

Intel's Next-Gen will also support 802.11i, a transmission-layer security standard devised as far back as 2004, but which hasn't been widely implemented since due in part to the IEEE logjam. Now, supporting 11n wireless routers can implement end-to-end encryption, greatly reducing the likelihood of signal snooping.

We'll also see for the first time Intel's implementation of "Turbo Memory," the culmination of the project once code-named "Robson" that utilizes NAND flash as a kind of performance-enhancing buffer. Intel first announced Turbo Memory at a conference in Hannover last March, and is expected to give some of the first practical demonstrations of the technology at WinHEC in Los Angeles next week. BetaNews will be there to see it.

Helping to maintain Intel's now-well-reputed "cadence," nVidia timed its DirectX 10-supporting notebook GPU announcement to fall in lockstep. Its new GeForce 8M series will focus on two principal features: enabling the full DirectX 10 Windows Vista experience, and expediting the playback of high-definition video. Several of today's announced notebooks support both Centrino Duo/Pro and 8M, which may lead some to the conclusion that nVidia and Intel can address the mobility market quite well as partners, thank you, without having to effectuate their own merger first.

Here's a rundown of the new platform-based notebooks announced today:

1. Toshiba will be phasing out its mainstream Satellite A105 and P105 models in favor of A205 and P205, which will follow the Centrino Duo spec, will include a built-in webcam and nVidia GeForce Go 7-series GPUs, and will support an optional DVD "SuperMulti" (+R/-R double-layer) burner. The A has the 15.4" diagonal screen, the P the 17". On the business side, the Tecra M9 will appeal to travelers with sturdy construction and "spill-resistant keyboard," and in following the Centrino Pro spec, will include support for Intel's Active Management Technology - its hardware-level remote management system for enforcing policies and proactively monitoring the operating system. The M9 will have options for upgraded graphics, including nVidia's professional Quadro NVS 130M. On the performance side, Toshiba's Qosmio G45 proudly waves the "green eye" logo of nVidia's GeForce 8600M, making it Toshiba's official DirectX 10 notebook. Expect pricing and availability news to come in the third quarter.

2. Sony has followed suit by turning up the volume on its Vaio series. The Vaio FZ follows Centrino Duo, and then adds a plethora of the company's exalted multimedia features. For instance, LocationFree software will enable the system to wirelessly connect with a media center base station, typically in the house, for transmission of DV-R and other recorded content, as well as the ability to "phase-shift" (pause and rewind) live TV. The $1,400 model supports DVD, while the $2,000 edition - as you might expect - both records and plays Blu-ray Discs in what Sony is touting as "full 1080 HD resolution." It will be interesting to see how Sony pulls this off on a 15.4" screen. Availability is expected in just a few weeks.

3. Fujitsu announced four systems for various markets that all follow the full Centrino Pro specification - which means Intel AMT should be available even for the Lifebook A6030, which has Vista Home Premium and is targeted toward the everyday user. The E8410 targets the business user who wants a durable case (for instance, steel hinges rather than plastic). Meanwhile, the E8310 appears to utilize the same case, except without the "widescreen" form factor (15" rather than 15.4"), and without the "powerful nVidia graphics processor" (Fujitsu did not say which one). Most interestingly, perhaps, the T4220 may be the first Centrino Pro tablet system, weighing in at 4.3 pounds and featuring a bi-directional display hinge. Availability was not discussed.

4. Asus announced five (5) systems, though as has been the case with this manufacturer in the past, resellers' variations may actually lead to greater than five systems when they finally hit the street. Most impressive among these are the A8SC, with a 1440 x 900 17" screen and a GeForce 8400G with 896 MB of RAM all to its lonesome; the F3SC, with a 1200 x 800 15.4" display and nVidia 8600M GPU; and the F3SV which adds Asus' fingerprint reader to that mix. Although pricing and availability have not been specified, Taiwanese retailers online are already taking orders and appear to be making near-term shipping promises.

5. Acer is the manufacturer that jumped the gun, letting slip last Friday that its Aspire 5920 would pair its attractive Gemstone chassis with an nVidia 8600M-GT GPU - a chip that at that time was not yet announced. The Aspire is the only unit thus far announced that appears to exploit Centrino Duo's Turbo Memory option. Its stylish chassis will support options such as Dolby surround-sound speakers and an HD DVD drive, though at this stage it doesn't look like an HD DVD writer. Pricing and availability were not announced.

Though Dell also took advantage of the day's high tide to trumpet three new Latitude models, strangely, they're not Centrino Pro or Duo models. In fact, the D531 is said to "expand consumer choice" by offering an AMD Turion 64 - which is guaranteed to fall outside the Intel specs. Dell says it plans to announce a Centrino Pro model D630c "in the fall."

In the meantime, its new Latitudes' networking abilities seem centered around Dell's own implementation of HSDPA and EV-DO options, which perhaps for the first time places Dell behind the forefront of a major Intel platform announcement.
Source :http://www.betanews.com

Yahoo Asks Users to Switch Photo Sites

2007-05-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yahoo is shutting down Yahoo Photos, a photo storage site, and asking users to move instead to its photo-sharing site Flickr, which emphasizes community features, a Yahoo executive said on Thursday.

In June, tens of millions of registered users of Yahoo Photos will be notified of their options, including moves to Flickr or various competing photo-storage sites, according to Stewart Butterfield, a co-founder of Flickr and a director of product management at Yahoo.

Mr. Butterfield and Caterina Fake, his wife, sold Flickr to Yahoo in 2005. Yahoo continued to operate both its older photo service and Flickr over the last two years, reflecting the different customer base of the two sites.

Yahoo Photos is a more conventional photo-finishing site, full of family snapshots, while Flickr has attracted a passionate fan base of amateur and professional photographers who use the site to share digital photos online, and for whom printing is largely an afterthought.

According to data from comScore supplied by Yahoo a year ago, Yahoo Photos counted 30 million registered users, who had uploaded two billion photos as of June 2006.
Source :http://www.nytimes.com

Digg's Mob Rules

2007-05-04T02:36:00.000-07:00

Chester Millisock was angry and he had friends. Digg, a community news-sharing site, had banned the 24-year-old programmer for posting a not-so-secret code enabling tech-savvy users to illegally copy high-definition DVDs. Rather than accept banishment, Millisock re-registered and voted for the offending post to appear on Digg where it would be seen by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Digg users. Tens of thousands of other Digg members did the same, arguing that the right to post the code was covered under freedom of speech. Soon, the code covered Digg's homepage. "If the majority decides something is true, then it's the truth," says Millisock. His rationale: "Majority rule."

At 9 p.m. Pacific time, May 1, Digg joined that majority. Site founder and chief architect Kevin Rose wrote in a blog post that Digg's staff would allow the stories to post and deal with whatever legal ramifications would follow. "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying," wrote Rose. In a show of solidarity with the users, he included the offending numbers in his message.
Take-down troubles

Digg CEO Jay Adelson says that about-face was against the advice of Digg's lawyers, who fear it could embroil the company in a costly, and potentially losing, legal battle with HD DVD's backers. He also insists that Digg's senior managers never wanted to follow the lawyers' advice in the first place. "Not only are we aligned with our users in this, but we cannot suppress such a voice," says Adelson. "The people have the power in this new medium."

"Power to the people" is a popular rallying cry of young Web companies whose businesses are dependent on the communities their sites empower to create and share content. But it's also their prime problem. Try as they might to guide the wisdom of the crowds supplying their content—and viewing their advertising—they cannot ultimately control them. "This is the flip side of these companies whose strategy is building up a community of users and encouraging those users to see the company as leaders of the community rather than their bosses," says Edward Felten, professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. "You can imagine a similar kind of thing happening in MySpace or YouTube or any of these places."

Already Google's (GOOG) YouTube has found itself in trouble for its users actions. The site's terms of service clearly state that users cannot upload content that they don't own the copyright to. Yet users continue to do this, and take-down notices continue to be filed. The company was sued by Viacom (VIA) as a result (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/14/07, "Viacom's Suit Won't Snuff Out YouTube").
Risky business

Even if Digg disagreed with the users, Adelson says the company doesn't have a staff large enough to silence the majority. The site attracts 15 million unique users a month, by Digg's estimate. The company has around 18 employees. In fact, it relies on the majority to police itself by voting for the promotion or deletion of posted content and comments. Digg can, and will continue to, remove posts that violate Digg's terms of service, such as hate speech or pornography. But if the users really want something—such as the keys to copying cutting-edge DVDs—the users have the power to get it. That is, providing Digg doesn't simply shut itself down.

Digg's alliance with the users could prove devastating. About a month before Digg's change of heart, the company received a take-down notice alerting it to the posted code from the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administration, the copyright protection group backed by such heavyweight tech and media companies as IBM (IBM), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), and Disney (DIS). The code could be injected into a DVD player that would then decrypt the HD-DVD discs and allow them to be copied or used to write programs to strip the copy protections from the discs. As such, it was a "circumvention device" and illegal in the view of the AACS and the courts. The AACS declined to comment for this story through a spokesperson. A lawyer listed on the take-down notices for the AACS did not return phone calls.

The legal precedent barring the code was set in a 2000 case, Universal City Studios vs. Reimierds, and upheld on appeal. In that case, 2600 magazine, nicknamed The Hacker Quarterly, published a story in which it included a code that enabled the technically adept to crack DVD copyright protections. The motion picture studios sued for damages as well as an order preventing the publication of the code. They won. "I think that at this point if [Digg] just ignores take-down notices they will probably lose their business over it," says Cory Doctorow, a professor, author, and co-editor of Boing Boing, a blog devoted to culture, art, and digital rights.

Doctorow had a blog for his University of Southern California class, "Pwned: Everyone on campus is a copyright criminal," on which a student posted the code. He received a take-down notice months later and replaced the code with the take-down notice, which conveniently had the code in it. Doctorow believes Digg should also take this tack—preserving the information without "falling on their sword."
Dependent on the Community

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the firm which tried and lost the 2000 Universal City case, believes that even linking to the numbers at all may be considered a violation. "There is a possibility that you can be sued even if you have no idea it was there," says von Lohmann.

Of course, Digg may have no other choice but to fight for whatever its users want. Digg depends on their participation. If it angers enough of its core users, they may go somewhere else. That not only means no real audience to serve advertising to, it means no real content, period. No articles submitted. No Diggs. Nothing. It can hope to attract a community of like-minded users by advertising its terms of service, but it risks losing any community if it doesn't let the crowd influence—if not outright dictate—what those terms should be.

Despite having his initial account reinstated, Digg user Millisock is looking for another community site that gives its audience more power. "What users are after is a Web site where they can submit stories and just the users can decide what is important," says Millisock. "That is still the ideal."
Source :http://www.businessweek.com/

Jobs Polishes Apple's Eco Image

2007-05-04T02:32:00.000-07:00

Responding to critics like Greenpeace, which gave his company a particularly low rating in environmental friendliness, Apple chief Steve Jobs outlined the company's plans for making itself more eco-friendly. Strategies including reducing the use of toxic chemicals like arsenic, and expanding product recycling programs. Greenpeace lauded the move, but indicated there was more work to be done.

Having found his company in April at the bottom of a Greenpeace list ranking the world's most eco-friendly electronics companies, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted a letter on the company Web site Wednesday detailing present and future plans to make a greener Apple. Included among the iPod maker's green initiatives is a push to reduce the use of toxic substances in its products and also to improve its practices for recycling old products.

"It is generally not Apple's policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished," Jobs wrote. "Unfortunately, this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple's desires and plans to become greener."

"Our stakeholders deserve and expect more from us, and they're right to do so. They want us to be a leader in this area, just as we are in the other areas of our business. So today we're changing our policy," he continued.

Green Apple

In his rebuttal to criticism from environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Jobs noted several steps that Apple had already undertaken to reduce the impact of its products on the environment. Whereas other companies, including Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Latest News about Dell, Gateway (NYSE: GTW), HP (NYSE: HPQ) Latest News about Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo continue to ship cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors that contain as much as three pounds (1.36 kilograms) of lead, Apple completely eliminated the displays from its product line in 2006, according to Jobs.

Apple's remaining line of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) contains arsenic and mercury. In order to eliminate the use of mercury in its displays, the company plans to transition from fluorescent lamps to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the displays. The first Macs sporting LED backlight technology will debut later this year. However, Jobs cautioned, making a full transition to LED backlighting could take time.

"Our ability to completely eliminate florescent lamps in all of our displays depends on how fast the LCD industry can transition to LED backlighting for larger displays," he wrote.
Out With Arsenic

In addition, Apple plans include a complete elimination of the use of arsenic it all of its displays by the end of 2008. As for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Jobs said Apple began phasing out PVC in 1995 and began restricting BFRs back in 2001.

"Today, we've successfully eliminated the largest applications of PVC and BFRs in our products, and we're closer to eliminating these chemicals altogether," Jobs wrote. "For example, more than three million iPods have already shipped with BFR-free laminate on their logic boards. Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs in its products by the end of 2008."

In terms of Apple's recycling programs, Jobs pointed out that the company began recycling in 1994. During the past 13 years that program has expanded to include more than 82 percent of the countries in which Macs and iPods are sold. By the end of 2007 that percentage, according to Jobs, will increase to 93 percent.

As part of its recycling efforts, Jobs said in the future Apple will extend its free iPod recycling program, currently only available in the U.S., to the rest of the globe.
Still Not There

Greenpeace lauded the Apple's new commitment to environmental transparency and the phasing out of the worst chemicals in its product range as "genuine steps forward." However, the environmental organization noted that the plans Jobs outlined would only raise Apple's score from its previous 2.7 to 5 out of 10.

"We look forward to Apple going further to green their existing products, to get non-toxic products on the market and to announce a worldwide take-back and responsible reuse/recycling policies," the group said. "We will continue to work with Apple users to ask Apple to do just that."

The greening of products is all well and good, Danial Fleischer, an analyst at IDC, told MacNewsWorld, and it is a topic that many IT vendors are focusing on. "This is something that doesn't come as a surprise. It is something that a lot of IT vendors are focusing on, how to portray a green image to the marketplace."

A green strategy Barracuda Spam Firewall Free Eval Unit - Click Here does not stop at producing green products, Fleischer pointed out. In his research, producing and using green products plays a role, but it is not the only answer. Manufacturers also need to take a hard look at and begin greening their manufacturing processes as well.

"There's one thing in developing green products, but it's another thing to presenting yourself as a green organization," he explained. "The approach to take is to set your own internal goals and your own internal targets and benchmark yourself on anything from energy reduction to reducing your carbon footprint within manufacturing and logistics as well."
Source :http://www.macnewsworld.com

IBM's New Nano Chip Process Takes Cue From Nature

2007-05-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

IBM (NYSE: IBM) Latest News about IBM has developed a method of assembling microchips using nanotechnology, the company stated Thursday, a potentially revolutionary process for insulating tiny wires by allowing them to assemble themselves around air gaps. This advance could make next-generation chips dramatically faster and more energy efficient, IBM said.

IBM borrowed the concept directly from nature, using the same approach that occurs in the creation of snowflakes, seashells and tooth enamel to create natural insulation around the nano-scale wires that make up a computer chip Latest News about computer chips.

Chips made with the process could be up to 15 percent more energy efficient than the most advanced chips built with traditional technology, IBM said. Electrical signals could also flow up to 35 percent faster, potentially leading to additional advances in computing power and speed.

From the Lab to the Fab

With the technique, IBM said, Moore's Law -- the theory named after the founder of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel which holds that the number of transistors on a like-size chip doubles every 24 months -- can be dramatically sped up, with two such improvement cycles happening at once.

"This is the first time anyone has proven the ability to synthesize mass quantities of these self-assembled polymers and integrate them into an existing manufacturing process with great yield results," said Dan Edelstein, IBM fellow and chief scientist of the self-assembly air-gap project.

"By moving self assembly from the lab to the fab, we are able to make chips that are smaller, faster and consume less power than existing materials and design architectures allow," he added.
Eliminating Etching

As computer processing chips have advanced, traditional chip assembly techniques have limited the ability of manufacturers to continue to shrink them while still growing their speed and power. Most current microchips use tiny glass insulators to absorb and help dissipate heat from the surrounding wires.

Other researchers have attempted to create a vacuum effect around chip wires to eliminate the need for insulators to be installed, IBM said. Doing so would free up additional space on the chip for transistors.

Big Blue's breakthrough came as the result of work done by researchers at the company's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., and the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, N.Y., the company noted. The manufacturing technique was tested and perfected at the nanotechnology department at the University at Albany, near IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y.

IBM's tests show the new technique can be integrated into existing chip fabrication facilities without major changes to the way things are done and that its approach could yield "millions of chips with consistent, high performance results," the company stated.

The air-gap process eliminates a process by which transistors are installed on insulating material, which is then etched out with lasers. Instead, IBM's now-patented approach involves a liquid mixture of compounds that are poured over a wafer on which wires have already been installed. The chip is then baked, with the result being "trillions of uniform, nano-scale holes" across the surface of a chip wafer.

By removing material from the wafer, the air holes then create a vacuum called an "air-gap" that acts as an insulator while causing relatively little friction.
Looking Ahead

IBM is hoping to start using the technique as soon as 2009 on its own chips, the company said. However, it may be some time after that before the technique becomes widespread -- through licensing of the IBM technology or development of similar approaches.

Still, the advance is one of several IBM researchers have rolled out in recent weeks as the longtime patent leader seeks to reinvigorate its image as a developer of cutting-edge technology.

Last month, Big Blue announced it had devised an entirely new way of enabling chips to be stacked within devices, potentially reducing the need for additional wiring that slows devices down and drains battery power. In January, both IBM and Intel announced advances in assembly techniques aimed at reducing electricity leakage in microchips.

IBM has said it would selectively license the new technology, likely starting with existing partners such as Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) Latest News about AMD and Toshiba Latest News about Toshiba.
Some Implications

The advances could have far-reaching implications, noted Enderle Group Principal Analyst Rob Enderle, because just about all device makers are seeking ways to make smaller devices that last longer on a single battery charge while all PC makers are interested in making more energy-efficient machines.

"There is also potential to drive down costs in manufacturing and design, and that has a lot of appeal," he said.

The ability to make more energy-efficient chips would also be welcomed by many in the technology business, which is increasingly coming under criticism from environmental groups for producing inefficient machines that require more power than necessary to operate and cool.

This week, for instance, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple found itself defending its environmental record after being called out by Greenpeace for contributing to global warming and helping to create a growing stream of so-called "i-waste." Apple pledged to take steps to get greener, a promise met with applause from the environmental group.
Source :http://www.technewsworld.com