AloTech

Amazon.com adds web services to its offerings

2008-03-16T20:24:00.001-07:00

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Critics thought it was over the top when Amazon.com Inc. expanded from books into music in 1998. When the Web retailer let competitors start selling things alongside its own inventory in 2000, they said Amazon had gone nuts.

Amazon.com employees pack books for shipment in July at the company's facility in Fernley, Nevada.

In both cases, Amazon proved them wrong. Media sales now total in the billions each quarter, and third-party merchandise, more profitable for Amazon than its own wares, makes up nearly a third of everything sold through the site.

Now, Amazon is making an even greater stretch -- selling storage, computing power and other behind-the-scenes data center services.

The venture, which Amazon expects will grow into a significant business segment, could help keep the company strong if retailers get hit by an economic downturn.

More broadly, Amazon Web Services, as the business is called, could improve chances for a new generation of Web startups by slashing how much they spend up front on costly infrastructure.

MileMeter Inc., a Dallas-based startup that plans to sell auto insurance by the mile, started out running its own server in a data center. Recently, it moved most of its applications onto virtual computers in Amazon Web Services' Elastic Compute Cloud.

EC2 lets its customers quickly start up a virtual computer in the "cloud" -- industry slang for data centers around the world -- then use it as a Web server or for crunching data and shut it down just as fast.

"I don't need to have a systems administrator or a network administrator," said Chief Executive Chris Gay. "I don't have to worry about hardware becoming irrelevant."

Gay said he also uses Amazon's online payments service and is evaluating its data storage and simple database services. During the first dot-com boom, he said, "It was a badge of strength to have as much as possible in house.

"Now, unless that is your core business ... it's a liability."

Adam Selipsky, vice president of product management and developer relations for Amazon Web Services, said Amazon wants entrepreneurs to focus on their ideas, not on hardware leases and crashing servers.

"We want to let developers innovate and make money," he said.

Amazon is certainly not the only player. James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Akamai Technologies Inc., Enki and Terremark each offer at least a portion of the Web services Amazon is selling. IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. offer pricier versions aimed at big businesses, while Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are thought to be working on services similar to Amazon's.

Amazon comes closest to utility-style billing, Staten said. Most competitors demand a contract or minimum payments.

Amazon, which gives away the computer code to access its services, bases its fees on how much data is shifted around and stored. For example, the company charges 15 cents per month for every gigabyte of data stored in its Simple Storage Service. Developers pay another 10 cents each time they send a gigabyte into the cloud and 18 cents per terabyte when they pull data back out.

SmugMug Inc., a photo sharing startup, had considered storing its users' digital pictures and movies in the cloud with other services. But "the pricing was out of our reach, and it wasn't simple to engineer" before Amazon Web Services launched, said co-founder Chris MacAskill.

Today, the Mountain View, California-based company keeps more than 400 terabytes of data in Amazon's Simple Storage Service. It also uses up to 750 "instances," or virtual machines, in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud during peak hours to help turn its clients' high-resolution photos and video files into different sizes for display online.

In the first 12 months it used Amazon Web Services, SmugMug saved $1 million.

"It is hard to get your head around: 'Why is this retailer that ships me toys for my kids for Christmas ... also my supplier of IT services?"' MacAskill said.

Amazon executives would say that's because theirs is a technology company, not just a retailer.

In 2005, it ramped up spending on "technology and content," a catchall expense line that includes data centers and R&D to support its own global growth, Web Services, its third-party seller platform, its digital music and movie download stores and other projects.

In 2005 and 2006, the company dropped $1.11 billion on technology and content, eating into margins and souring Wall Street on its stock. With Web Services, Amazon has a chance to earn back a slice of that investment.

It's too soon to tell if Amazon will be able to turn Web Services into a business with revenue to rival its retail lines. The company declined to say what Web Services brings in, saying only that it had signed up 330,000 customers -- startups, Fortune 500 companies, students, researchers and others -- by late 2007.

"Is it any meaningful percentage of revenue? I doubt it," said Global Crown Capital analyst Martin Pyykkonen. "As far as being a technology company...Eh. It depends on how you want to get into labeling it. It's retail."

It's also not clear how many startups will want to outsource their data center functions.

At Shelfari, a social networking startup for avid readers that is partly funded by Amazon, Chief Executive Officer Josh Hug doesn't intend to use the new Web services.

Having IT staffers to keep a close eye on things is important for a consumer service, Hug said. "It's worth the extra cost."

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Scan, deposit checks from home

2008-03-16T20:21:00.001-07:00

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Online banking service provider CheckFree Corp. is rolling out technology that could mean consumers will no longer have to go to a bank branch to deposit checks.

Called Remote Deposit Capture, the technology has been around for years and lets people scan checks through their home computers and deposit them electronically. But it has been used mainly for businesses.

Customers want to be able to deposit checks without having to go to banks, said Rod Springhetti, CheckFree's vice president of global strategic marketing, and banks want to be able to offer that.

"I think the ability to remotely capture a check will become part of the standard features and functions of online banking," Springhetti said.

CheckFree said the service is available starting this week for any consumers who bank online, as long as their banks offer it.

Recently acquired by Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc. for about $4.4 billion, CheckFree has been in discussions with institutions large and small, though none have committed to using the technology, Springhetti said.

Bob Meara, a senior analyst for research firm Celent, said lots of smaller competitors may follow CheckFree's lead, but it remains unclear how many banks will adopt it and how consumers will react.

"Eventually, it will be a staple element in banks online and the mobile banking platform," he said. "That doesn't mean every consumer is going to pay attention to it."

A recent Celent survey found that about 20 percent of banks had the technology for consumers or planned to get it, and another 20 percent were considering it -- while about 90 percent either use the technology with business clients or want to.

CheckFree's technology already is in the top 150 banks. Springhetti said it is fairly simple to use, and banks can tailor it for their clients.

Customers need a scanner, which is often standard on printers now, a computer and an Internet connection. They'll go to their home banking site, enter the amount of the check, scan both sides, do a quick review and submit it to the bank.

Banks will have the option to add their own fraud protection to make sure bad checks aren't being cashed, he said. Normal processing times will apply, he said.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Tax TVs, video games, outdoor group says

2008-03-16T20:19:00.001-07:00

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) -- Dave Gilligan remembers being pushed outside to play baseball and other sports, but feeling it just wasn't for him.

Dave Gilligan plays a video game at the store he co-owns, Gamers Anonymous, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So the 24-year-old business owner is skeptical about a proposal to nudge kids off the couch and out the door by taxing televisions and video games sold in New Mexico. The idea could backfire, he says.

"If you take a kid that's just playing his X-Box or whatever and you take him outside and you make him play baseball, he's going to hate it," said Gilligan, co-owner of Gamers Anonymous, an Albuquerque video game store. "There's nothing wrong with sitting at home playing games. Everybody's doing it now."

But a coalition of groups, led by the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, is sold on the idea that outdoor education programs can inspire children in a way that video games and television cannot.

The coalition wants state lawmakers to create a No Child Left Inside Fund with a 1 percent tax on TVs, video games and video game equipment. The fund would help pay for outdoor education throughout the state.

Supporters of the tax -- which would be the first of its kind in the nation -- say outdoor programs have been shown to improve students' abilities in the classroom, boost their self-confidence and teach them stewardship and discipline.

"We believe that an outdoor education program in New Mexico could be funded through a tax on the very activities that are divorcing kids from nature, promoting more sedentary lifestyles," said Michael Casaus, Sierra Club's New Mexico youth representative. "One of those culprits is TV and what we call screen time."

Blogs dedicated to the gaming world have been abuzz over the proposal, with critics complaining that they shouldn't have to foot the bill for parents who don't know how to raise their children. Some have seized the moment to talk about gaming's benefits.

Gilligan, for example, says he learned to read at a young age thanks to video games. He also attributes his interest in art to gaming.

"I'm not a very athletic person," he said. "I kept playing video games and eventually my parents accepted that, and now it's my career and I make good money so I'm happy."

Sean Bersell, a spokesman for the Entertainment Merchants Association, said the video game industry has fueled advances in computer technology, such as faster processors and better graphics and sound.

Supporters of the tax are wrong to suggest that such complex problems as low test scores and childhood obesity can be solved by turning off the TV, said Bersell, whose group represents about 125 retailers in New Mexico.

"Targeting a small category of entertainment as somehow a major contributor to these problem is just not justified and frankly it's not supported by a scientific consensus," he said.

The tax would put New Mexico retailers at a disadvantage as they compete with online stores and retailers that offer downloadable games, Bersell warned.

Supporters argue that just as health programs are often supported by excise taxes on cigarettes or alcohol, an excise tax on games and TVs would provide a steady source of cash for outdoor education. Legislative analysts have said the tax would generate about $4 million a year.

New Mexico State Parks already offers outdoor programs, but the funding is just a fraction of what the tax would bring in.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Sangean's HD radio has good looks, sound

2008-03-16T20:17:00.001-07:00

(CNET.com) -- HD Radio is the new digital broadcasting standard that has been available in the U.S. for the past several years. While the HD stations are just static-free duplicates of the FM (and some AM) ones you already listen to, the format also offers HD2 (multicast) stations in many markets--digital-only substations that you can't receive on analog radios.

Compatible hardware has been slow in coming to market, but 2007 saw HD Radio being included in more products--and the price for standalone HD Radios finally dipping below $200.

The Sangean HDR-1 falls into the latter group, and competes directly with similar tabletop HD Radio models from Boston Acoustics, Cambridge SoundWorks, and Sony.

Most of the aforementioned radios are extremely similar, so choosing between them often comes down to a matter of personal taste.

With its real wood enclosure and a plastic-louvered speaker grille, the Sangean is perhaps the most genuinely "retro" looking unit of the bunch. If not for the center-mounted LCD readout, you would swear it was straight out of the 1950s--we half expected to hear Red Barber calling a Brooklyn Dodgers game when we powered it up.

Dimensions are about standard for a tabletop model: 4.5 inches tall by 11.5 inches wide by 7.5 inches deep, and the wood casing gives the unit a nice heft.

Controls are limited to a single knob located just below the LCD. It adjusts volume by default, but clicking it brings up a list of other options on the LCD screen, which are further navigated by clicks and spins.

That works great on an iPod, of course, but the Sangean HDR-1 doesn't come close to that legendary Apple ease of use.

After some trial and error, you'll eventually get the hang of it, but we often opted to use the 24-button credit card-style remote instead.

In addition to the stereo auxiliary input and headphone jack, the radio's rear panel includes connectors for AM and FM antennas (both are included, or you can attach your own). While there's no built-in iPod dock, the line-in jack will let you connect the Apple player--or any other device--to the HDR-1's speakers.

With no built-in CD player, satellite radio, or dedicated iPod dock, the clock and alarm functionality represents fully half the value of the HDR-1.

On the plus side, the alarm can be set to wake to any station, the line-in source, or a beeping tone, and the volume can be locked in as well.

The latter point is a nice touch, since it lets you drift off to sleep with the radio barely audible (sleep mode can be set in 15-minute increments up to 90 minutes), but wake up at a suitably high volume to rouse you out of bed.

It's a dual-alarm system, and they can be further customized to go off daily, weekdays only, weekends only, or just once.

On the downside, there's no snooze bar. Also of note: the LCD backlight doesn't auto-adjust to the room's ambient light--but you can manually set it to one of seven levels (including off), so it won't keep sensitive sleepers awake at night.

The radio The clock and alarm functions are all well and good, but if you're buying the Sangean HDR-1, it's to listen to some digital radio. HD isn't a separate band--when you tune to an analog station that has a digital counterpart, the "HD" notation will flash on the display.

After a couple of seconds, the radio will automatically switch from the analog to the digital signal, and the display should show additional data (usually the song and artist information, and station call letters) available on the digital stream. Most digital stations are on the FM band, but a handful of AM stations are also available.

In addition to the digital version of the analog stations you already receive, many stations also offer "multicast" or HD2 channels. These secondary channels are generally digital-only stations that offer alternative programming.

Yes, many of these are available online, and some HD2 channels are merely simulcasts of AM news or talk stations that you can hear elsewhere on the analog dial. But the big selling point here is that--unlike satellite radio--the HD Radio content is completely free. You just need to pay for the hardware. (For a complete list of the HD Radio stations in your area, check out the HD Radio Web site.)

The HDR-1 offers a few other nice convenience touches as well. Analog or digital stations can be stored in any one of the Sangean's 20 presets (10 FM, 10 AM). An HD Seek mode lets you roll through the available digital-only stations. And for analog stations, the HDR-1 supports RDS data, so you can see the text display (song and artist information) on stations that support it.

The HDR-1 can also be set to lock into analog-only mode, which is useful for distant or weak stations that never quite properly "lock in" to digital mode.

In terms of sound quality, the Sangean HDR-1 delivered the same sort of standard performance we found from most of its competitors.

Like nearly any radio or iPod speaker system of this size, there's not much in the way of stereo separation, and Sangean doesn't even offer an "expand" or "3D" mode (not that they usually work anyway).

That's not to say it sounded bad, though: music had ample weight and presence, especially when compared directly with the Tivoli Audio SongBook and even the Boston Acoustics Recepter--though both of those are monaural analog models. And the ability to tweak the Sangean's bass and treble settings to our liking always helps customize a sound that's more pleasing to an individual listener.

Of course, we can't let a discussion of the Sangean HDR-1 end without listing our major gripe--that the whole HD Radio format doesn't (for most people) deliver a particularly major improvement over the analog radio experience.

To our ears, the HD Radio stations weren't delivering a dramatic improvement over their analog counterparts. And while we welcomed the presence of digital-only HD2 stations on the dial, many of them seemed to be noticeably compressed--more MP3 than CD.

Moreover, the data streams seemed limited to artist, song, and show title information. That's nice, but nothing that can't be done with RDS information on analog stations, and some of the HD stations seem to lack the informational displays altogether.

While the digital stations certainly offer static-free reception, that's only if they're within range; a distant HD station will drop in and out if it's too far away. Even more disturbing is that some nearby HD stations seem to blink out randomly--the cell-phone-like signal meter drops a full six bars to zero and then shoots back up again a few seconds later, even when the radio is completely stationary.

To reiterate, none of these problems are the fault of Sangean HDR-1. The same issues exist on the Polk I-Sonic and Cambridge 820HD, and will continue to exist for any and all HD Radio receivers until the stations decide to offer more bandwidth and better data support.

If none of that scares you off, the question becomes: is the Sangean HDR-1 worth buying? At $200, it more or less matches the price of other namebrand HD Radio tabletops, including the Boston Acoustics Recepter HD, Cambridge SoundWorks 820HD, and Sony XDR-S3HD.

For us, the admittedly attractive retro styling of the Sangean is overshadowed by the control shortfalls: both the single knob nor the credit card remote are more frustrating than intuitive.

By contrast, the controls (just one extra knob makes a world of difference) and the better display on the Cambridge keep that model at the top of the heap.

Those who like the Sangean's wood finish may also wish to check out the Sony, which is similarly styled. In the meantime, a lot of us will continue to wait for HD Radio to simply be a standard feature that's folded into run-of-the-mill AV receivers, audio systems, and boom boxes, rather than something that requires paying a big premium--or the purchase of a whole separate product.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Razer's unique, frustrating gaming keyboard

2008-03-16T20:15:00.001-07:00

(CNET.com) -- Razer's new Lycosa gaming keyboard has several unique features. The rubber coating on the keys provides a soft, comfortable touch. You can switch between three backlight configurations via a touch-sensitive control pad. You can even use Razer's software to program each of the Lycosa's keys to work as a separate macro, either individually or in combination with one another.

We're frustrated, though, by a few things left half-baked. None of the Lycosa's issues are bad enough to make us dislike it outright, and we'd recommend it--especially for confident touch-typing gamers. For $80, though, we expect Razer to follow through on the promises of its features.

Setting up the Lycosa is only a little convoluted. It requires two USB inputs, as well as separate audio inputs if you want to plug in your own headset and microphone. Because the Lycosa has a single spare USB 2.0 jack on its top edge, we understand why Razer relies on two USB outputs; presumably it wants to preserve the pristine data stream for the keyboard itself to ensure typing responsiveness.

Fair enough. Razer still could have added a second USB input, though, since the current one has a dedicated data stream all to itself via the second USB cable.

The software is easy to set up, although hard to navigate because of small type and a less-than intuitive layout. If you don't plan on using macros, you might not even need it. The touch pad's media control and backlit profile button work without installing anything.

The Lycosa's backlighting is its biggest problem. With the blue LED turned off, you're left with an almost illegible keyboard, that's similar to the purposefully blank Das keyboard of a few years ago.

If you're not secure in your touch-typing prowess, the reasonable thing to do would be to turn on the Lycosa's backlighting, which reveals the letters on the keys, along with the touch pad buttons.

The problem is that the lighting is so faint that in a lit room, it gives you only a suggestion of which key is which. Unlike Saitek's Eclipse II keyboards, there's no way to adjust the brightness on the Lycosa's LED, let alone the color.

In a darkened room, however, the lighting is sufficiently bright. The only other option is a third profile that lights up the W, A, S, and D keys (with roughly twice the brightness of the standard lighting scheme), commonly used by PC gamers as direction controls, but keeps the rest of the board unlit.

Assuming you can find the proper keys, typing on the Lycosa is a pleasant experience.

The nonstick rubber coating is soft to the touch, and combined with the response of the low profile keys, we actually like the Lycosa's typing action better than Razer's higher-end Tarantula keyboard.

The Lycosa's glossy plastic housing is also attractive enough, but we're less enamored with the detachable wrist rest. For one, it requires four screws, which seems overcomplicated when surely a plastic clip or two would suffice.

The wrist rest is also made from a nonvented matte plastic that seems to induce sweating. This is gross, especially if, like your reviewer (he swears), you're not normally prone to sweaty palms.

If you do go so far as to install the software and can figure out how to use it, you'll find that you can make any key perform the work of several via the macro software.

Razer also promises the ability to press more than three keys at a time. For gamers especially, we can see how this might be useful for executing a complicated series of moves.

Unlike the Tarantula, the Lycosa has no dedicated buttons for macro hosting. The benefit, though, is that with no macro keys, the Lycosa has a much smaller footprint than the 20.25-inch wide Tarantula or Logitech's 21.5-inch wide G15 keyboard. At its widest, the Lycosa comes in just under 18.5 inches, smaller than even the Saitek Eclipse II.

Finally, in addition to the Lycosa's scaled-down size, we also like how well it holds its position on your workspace. It's not an overly heavy keyboard, but the rubber feet gripped our desk firmly. You can also elevate the Lycosa via two drop-down feet on the underside.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

MacBook Air revisited

2008-03-16T20:12:00.001-07:00

(CNET.com) -- Apple's new laptop, the MacBook Air, may not be the true ultraportable that many had hoped for, but it still easily breaks new ground for small laptops.

Mimicking the 13-inch silhouette of the current MacBook line, it's only 0.76 inch thick at its thickest, and Apple calls it the "world's thinnest notebook."

Some nitpickers say an obscure Mitsubishi laptop from 1997 was a hair thinner, but two of the smallest current ultraportable laptops, the 11-inch Sony VAIO TZ150 and the 12-inch Toshiba Portege R500, are both slightly thicker, and neither tapers to 0.16 inch as the Air does along its front edge.

As we've come to expect from Apple, the design and engineering that went into the MacBook Air is extraordinary, but it's certainly a much more specialized product than the standard 13-inch MacBook and won't be as universally useful as that popular system.

The biggest compromises, which have been well-documented, come in its connectivity: The MacBook Air finds room for only one USB port and doesn't include a built-in optical drive, FireWire, Ethernet, or mobile broadband. And like with its other laptops, Apple refuses to outfit the Air with a media-card reader or an expansion card slot.

Offsetting its sparse connectivity are genuinely useful new features including new trackpad gesture controls and the ability to wirelessly "borrow" another system's optical drive.

Choosing the Air over the cheaper, faster standard 13-inch MacBook, or the comparably priced MacBook Pro, will depend on your needs. Travelers who want minimum weight, maximum screen real estate, and who live their lives via Wi-Fi hot spots, with little need for wired connectivity, will find the $1,799 starting price a reasonable investment for owning one of the world's premier bits of high-tech eye candy.

And while the MacBook Air's specs are inferior to those found on the cheaper MacBook, they compare more favorably when you look at other ultraportables, where a price premium is always exacted. For instance, both the Sony VAIO TZ150 and Toshiba Portege R500 cost hundreds more than the MacBook Air and feature slower CPUs and half the RAM as the Air.

Although it shares a desktop footprint with the standard black and white MacBooks, the first thing you notice about the Air is its aluminum chassis--similar to the one found on the MacBook Pro, and much more fingerprint resistant than the standard MacBooks.

Picking it up, the MacBook Air feels a little heavier than you would expect from looking at it, even though it's only 3 pounds. At the same time, it feels very sturdy and solid, thanks in part to the aluminum construction, and we'd have no qualms about carting it around with us all day.

By way of comparison, the VAIO TZ150 features an 11.1-inch screen and weighs only 0.3 pound lighter than the Air, and the Portege R500 is 0.6 pound lighter than the Air with a 12.1-inch screen.

The MacBook Air includes an iSight camera and mic, and an LED-backlit display that works with an ambient light sensor to adjust the screen brightness in response to the light in the room.

The keyboard--the same full-size version found in other MacBooks--has backlit keys that are also controlled by the ambient light sensor, although we had to adjust the room lighting a good deal to see any difference.

The revamped trackpad is large, measuring nearly 5 inches diagonally, and it works with new multitouch gestures. Other MacBooks let you do things like use two fingers to scroll through documents--this one lets you use three fingers to go forward and back in your Web browser history, and use your thumb and forefinger to zoom in and out of documents and photos--much like on the iPhone.

The three-finger forward/back gesture was immediately useful, and we're already missing it when using other laptops. Apple tells us these new gestures won't be available on older MacBooks as a firmware upgrade, as the hardware behind the new trackpad is different.

Another noteworthy new feature is the remote disc function. Since the Air lacks an optical drive, you can instead remotely use the optical drives of other systems, PC or Mac, as long as they're on the same network.

The setup was a little cumbersome for the "host" PC--requiring us to insert the OS X disc that came with the Air, run a small setup program, and then find and turn on "CD and DVD sharing" in the Windows control panel (the documentation could have been a little clearer on what you need to do to on the Windows side).

Once we set it up, however, it worked like a charm. You won't be able to stream DVD movies or music CDs via remote disc, but it's fine for getting files and installing apps. A matching external USB DVD burner is available from Apple for $99, but any USB DVD drive should work.

The display offers the same 1,280x800 native resolution as the standard 13-inch MacBook, but the Air's LED-backlit screen means its lid is thinner with an image that was somewhat brighter, at least with both systems set to max brightness.

The real key to finding out whether the MacBook Air is right for you lies in its stripped-down set of ports and connections. Those who regularly use more than one USB device, or need FireWire, an SD card slot, or an Express card slot will find the single USB jack too limiting.

Likewise, we often say the telephone modem jacks and S-Video outputs on most laptops are a waste of space, but the MacBook Air goes even further, removing the Ethernet jack (a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor will run you $29) and offloading video output to a pair of included dongles (one VGA, one DVI).

If you live on Wi-Fi hot spots, use Bluetooth for your external mouse, and only need a USB port to occasionally sync and charge your iPod or iPhone, these limitations may not be a deal-breaker for you.

While most hardware vendors offer a choice of mobile broadband options, Apple continues to offer none, which is disappointing for a system so clearly meant for life away from home and office.

Without an Express card slot, your only option would be a USB mobile broadband modem, but with the sole USB jack under a tiny flap on the right side of the system with limited clearance, you may need a small USB extension cable to get a bulky USB mobile broadband modem connected (similar to the problems people had with the iPhone's recessed headphone jack).

While the 80GB hard drive included in the base $1,799 model may be smaller than you're used to, the only other option is a 64GB solid state hard drive. With no moving parts, and advantages in heat, power consumption, and reliability, SSD hard drives are certainly the way of the future.

The future may have to wait a few years for prices to come down; however, swapping the 80GB platter drive for the 64GB SSD drive is a whopping $999 upgrade. The only other internal hardware option is a CPU uptick, from 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz for $300. With the upgraded CPU and SSD drive, the $1,799 MacBook Air suddenly becomes a $3,098 laptop.

We are pleased to see that the MacBook Air comes standard with 2GB of RAM, but with a processor that runs at a much slower clockspeed than the standard MacBook (2.0GHz or 2.2GHz), plus a 4,200rpm 1.8-inch hard drive (as opposed to the standard 5,400rpm), it's not surprising that the MacBook Air is not as fast a performer as the $1,649 MacBook we reviewed in December 2007. Do note that the baseline $1,099 MacBook features a slower processor and half the memory of our MacBook review unit.

And as we often point out, any modern dual-core CPU is going to be more than adequate for Web surfing, multimedia playback, and productivity tasks, and we were able to surf the Web, play videos, and work on a document at the same time with absolutely no slowdown or stuttering.

We're currently conducting additional benchmark tests and will update this review with new results as they're available.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the MacBook Air is the lack of a user-replaceable battery. While most laptops will be obsolete before their batteries wear out, we are sensitive to the desire to occasionally carry an extra battery for extended field use.

We're still conducting our standard DVD battery drain test on the system, and will report those scores shortly, but in anecdotal testing, the Air lasted for nearly 4 hours of mixed use, including video playback, software installation, Web surfing, and productivity tasks. That's reasonably close to Apple's 5-hour claims, but may not be enough for a full day of off-site use.

We're still not fans of Apple's nearly obligatory extended warranty upsell (so much so that we've simply copied this complaint from our last MacBook review).

The default warranty for the MacBook is one year of coverage for parts and labor, but toll-free telephone support is limited to a mere 90 days--well short of what you'd typically find on the PC side--unless you purchase the $249 AppleCare Protection Plan, which extends phone support and repair coverage to three years.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

ThinkPad crams tons of features into lightweight laptop

2008-03-16T20:10:00.001-07:00

(CNET) -- We're not even two months into the new year, and we've already seen Apple's remarkably slim MacBook Air and Toshiba's update to its featherweight Portege R500.

Both were very strong contenders for the top spot on our list of favorite ultraportable laptops--until this week, when we got our hands on the Lenovo ThinkPad X300.

The newest addition to the ThinkPad X series incorporates the best of the MacBook Air (13.3-inch display, full-size keyboard, thickness less than one inch) with the best of the Portege R500 (solid-state hard drive, thorough selection of ports) while also adding its own great features, such as a built-in DVD burner, WWAN connectivity, and GPS. The X300's ThinkPad DNA is evident in its instantly recognizable black, square-edged case, but at 0.73 inch thick and weighing anywhere from 2.9 pounds to 3.5 pounds (depending on your battery and optical drive choices), it's simply the sleekest ThinkPad yet.

The biggest criticism of the ThinkPad X300 is its price: the base configuration costs $2,476 and goes up from there. But innovative design, thorough features, and cutting-edge components don't come cheap, and the ThinkPad X300 is truly unique in its balance of portability and usability.

Aside from the laptop's dimensions, the design changes with the ThinkPad X300 have been incremental. The ultraportable still features a rectangular black case built around a magnesium chassis. There's still a blue ThinkVantage button above the keyboard, a fingerprint reader below it, and a keyboard light on the top edge of the display.

However, ThinkPad fans will notice small changes that make the X300 a bit more attractive. The lid and wrist rest feature an appealing soft matte finish; the ThinkVantage, power, and mute buttons glow when pressed; and the front edge is devoid of any ports or switches.

In addition to the keyboard light, the ThinkPad X300's display bezel includes a 1.3-megapixel Web cam and a noise-canceling digital microphone for Web conferencing. The matte-finish display itself features a 1,440x900 native resolution that's sharper than that of the MacBook Air and other similarly sized screens, resulting in text and icons that are a bit smaller than you'd expect.

The sharper resolution doesn't cause tremendous problems, though we did find ourselves pumping up the font size on a newspaper's Web site so we could read a lengthy article. We also zoomed in a bit when working on documents and spreadsheets. The trade-off: more screen real estate for multitasking and, when it's time for a break, beautiful video.

Given the amount of typing the typical executive does through the course of the work day, a keyboard can make or break an ultraportable. The ThinkPad X300 actually uses the same keyboard found on Lenovo's 14- and 15-inch models--which is to say, not the condensed keyboard found on previous X series models and many ultraportable laptops from other manufacturers. After conducting an entire morning's work--and writing this review--on the ThinkPad X300, we still don't feel like we've been typing on a laptop. We love it.

Lenovo decided to include both the red eraser-head TrackPoint pointing stick and a touch pad on the ThinkPad X300. The decision is understandable: many ThinkPad users are viscerally attached to their TrackPoint's, while other users can't stand it, so why not include both methods? However, the double sets of mouse buttons seem to run counter to the overall theme of simplification that the ThinkPad X300 embodies.

In order to make room for the TrackPoint's buttons, the touch pad is placed rather low on the wrist rest, with its buttons near the laptop's front edge. Fortunately, the ThinkPad X300 is thin enough that we could use the touch pad with our wrist resting on a desk surface--or on our leg, when the laptop was in our lap.

Of greater concern is the fact that, during our lazier typing moments when our wrists dropped to the wrist rest, we were likely to graze the touch pad and accidentally misplace the cursor.

The ThinkPad X300 is an interesting exercise in minimalism. The laptop lacks some features that would be considered standard on an ultraportable, such as an expansion card slot or multiformat memory card reader, both of which are found on the Toshiba Portege R500. But it adds features that will likely be of higher value to mobile workers, such as WWAN, wireless USB, and even GPS.

More notably, it incorporates many features that the MacBook Air does not, including two more USB ports, an Ethernet connection, and a built-in DVD burner. These additions make the ThinkPad X300 a realistic choice for use as a primary computer, which is a major advantage over its Apple competitor, especially given the price.

The base model of the ThinkPad X300 costs a hefty $2,476. Much of that price can be attributed to the laptop's 64GB solid-state drive, which promises faster application launch and boot times as well as a longer lifetime than a traditional hard drive with moving parts. (Unlike the MacBook Air, which comes in a low-cost configuration with a traditional spinning hard drive, the ThinkPad X300 is available only with a solid-state drive.)

Our review unit included a few upgrades--twice as much RAM as the base configuration, plus WWAN, GPS, and an extended-life six-cell battery--that brought the price to $2,936. That's a bit high, even for an ultraportable, but still below the cost of a MacBook Air equipped with a solid-state drive.

Like the MacBook Air, the ThinkPad X300 incorporates Intel's new small-form-factor Core 2 Duo CPU, though with a slightly slower clock speed. That slower speed is at least partly to blame for the ThinkPad X300 trailing behind the MacBook Air on the multimedia multitasking portion of CNET Labs' performance benchmarks.

Fortunately the ThinkPad's 2GB of RAM helped it keep up with the MacBook Air on our Photoshop test, where it also scored well ahead of the Toshiba Portege R500. As with any Core 2 Duo system, the ThinkPad X300 proved more than adequate for typical business productivity tasks, including Web surfing, media playback, and running office applications. We were able to conduct a full morning's work while streaming music over the wireless connection without any stuttering or noticeable performance issues.

In anecdotal testing of the ThinkPad X300 with the six-cell battery, we were able to get between 3 and 4 hours of battery life, depending on our usage and screen brightness settings. On CNET Labs' DVD battery drain test, the ThinkPad X300 died out after 3 hours, 43 minutes, just 20 minutes before the MacBook Air. That's obviously not enough juice for a full day of work away from the desk, but it is nearly an hour longer than the Portege R500's battery life.

Here's another place where the ThinkPad X300's built-in DVD is an advantage: you can purchase an additional three-cell battery that fits inside the drive bay to extend your mobile computing time. Also an advantage: the ThinkPad X300's removable battery, which is remarkable only because users cannot replace the battery in the MacBook Air.

As Lenovo has moved toward offering built-to-order systems, the company has dropped the baseline warranty for ThinkPads to a single year. Extending coverage to three years costs $119; other reasonably priced upgrades add coverage for accidental drops or spills and LCD damage. The preloaded suite of ThinkVantage applications helps users troubleshoot problems, and Lenovo's support Web site includes the expected troubleshooting topics, driver downloads, and user guides.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Pre-Inca temple uncovered in Peru

2008-03-16T20:08:00.001-07:00

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient temple, roadway and irrigation systems at a famed fortress overlooking the Inca capital of Cuzco, according to officials involved with the dig.

Archaeologists say the temple could predate Inca structures.

The temple on the periphery of the Sacsayhuaman fortress casts added light on pre-Inca cultures of Peru, showing that the site had religious as well as military aims, according to researchers.

It includes 11 rooms thought to have held mummies and idols, lead archaeologist Oscar Rodriguez told The Associated Press.

The team of archaeologists that made the discoveries believes the structures predated the Inca empire but were then significantly developed and expanded.

"It's from both the Inca and pre-Inca cultures; it has a sequence," Washington Camacho, director of the Sacsayhuaman Archaeological Park, told the AP on Thursday. "The Incas entered and changed the form of the temple, as it initially had a more rustic architecture."

Archaeologists are still waiting for carbon dating tests, but Camacho said their calculations about the facilities' age are supported by historical references such as ceramics and construction style.

Previous carbon-14 dating of Sacsayhuaman revealed that the Killke culture constructed the fortress in the 1100s, said Peruvian archaeologist Luis Lumbreras, former director of Peru's National Culture Institute and an expert on Cuzco's pre-Incan cultures. He was not involved in the dig.

The Killke occupied the region from 900 to 1200 A.D., prior to the arrival of the Incas.

"These recent discoveries add to our knowledge of Sacsayhuaman, confirming again the aggregate nature of the fortress," Lumbreras told The Associated Press.

The Inca empire, based in the ancient city of Cuzco, flourished along the western edge of South America during the 1400s, prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Today, Cuzco is Peru's main tourism hub and a launching point for visitors to the jungle-shrouded ruins of Machu Picchu, 40 miles northwest.

The temple lies a little under a mile from zigzagging walls of the Sacsayhuaman fortress, alongside an enormous rock formation believed to be one of the fortress' burial mounds.

"The temple is one of the most important in the Sacsayhuaman site," Camacho said.

The discovery of the temple reveals "the sacred ceremonial nature of the Killke," Lumbreras said. "Previously we thought Sacsayhuaman was simply a military fortification, but we now see it was a very complex ceremonial center.

Lumbreras, now working with Peru's Institute for the Study of Cultural Patrimony, has extensively studied and excavated sites from the Wari culture, which flourished in Peru's southern highlands from 500 to 1200 A.D.

Part of the temple was destroyed by dynamite blasts in the early 20th century, when the site was used as a stone quarry.

The roadway, buried for hundreds of years under about three feet of soil, is believed to have formed part of a network connecting Sacsayhuaman's buildings, according to Camacho.

Archaeologists are also busy unearthing an advanced hydraulic system, which may have been used to supply water to Cuzco during the Inca empire.

The team also believes the Killke built the irrigation system, later used and expanded by the Incas. Remnants of Killke ceramics are scattered throughout the site.

The new excavations, directed by Cuzco's National Culture Institute, began in June 2007 and will continue for another five years, Camacho said.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

How Twitter makes it real

2008-03-12T18:16:00.001-07:00

So I wasn't in the ballroom when the keynote address by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went awry under the less-than-forensic questioning of technology journalist Sarah Lacy.

I didn't see the crowd start to get restless and heckle Zuckerberg about the deeply-unpopular Beacon advertising system, or get a chance to grab the microphone and ask questions when Lacy threw the conversation open to the floor.

And yet I was there in another way, listening to and even interacting with some of my friends in the audience, picking up on the vibe in the room and even tuning in later as Sarah Lacy loudly defended herself.

I was there because I was plugged into Twitter, the instant messaging service that lets users send short text messages to anyone who cares to tune in, online or on their mobile phone.

As I sat at my desk a constant stream of 'tweets', as they are called, was being supplied by many of the people in the room and I was able to reply directly and feel that I too was participating.

One of the reasons for its success is that it is very open, with a clean and well-defined way for programmers to use the service through an application program interface

Of course following short messages on a screen is not the same as being physically there, just as watching a nature show on TV doesn't mean you can claim to have visited the Serengeti.

But the sense of presence that can be achieved is remarkable, especially when you're sitting at your computer working, connected to the internet and with a Twitter client running on your computer so that tweets appear as they are posted. It's rather like reading a novel, where you stop seeing the words on paper and find yourself immersed in a world created for you by the author.

After a certain point Twitter becomes part of the background to life.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the caf of my favourite bookshop with my partner. She was reading about the Habsburgs, Hitler and Weimar while I was writing a talk about the future of publishing.

But I was also engaged in a distributed dialogue with a bunch of friends around the world,

BrightMeadow was cold and complaining, so I sympathised. Luke invited me to look at the first release of his new site, while sambrook was happy to discuss media futures and help me with my talk.

I was there in the cafe but also in this liminal space with everyone else, reading lovemaus's comments on Casablanca, sympathising with technokitten stuck at Madrid airport and wondering whether Jeff went for his run on a chilly New York morning.

Thanks to Twitter I carry my online networks with me as I wander through town, and more and more I see the world through the lens of our shared experience.

Sanjukta is in a cafe in Delhi and here with me; I am wondering what Documentally is filming in Rugby; I know that Yuko42 is lying in bed listening to the Tokyo rain.

Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey while working for San Francisco based podcast company Odeo, and it launched in August 2006, growing by word of mouth until last year's SXSW conference when it emerged from nowhere as the way for attendees to keep track of what was going on and share their thoughts with friends.

One of the reasons for its success is that it is very open, with a clean and well-defined way for programmers to use the service through an application program interface (API).

The developers have gone out of their way to encourage people to write clients for Twitter users, and seem to be both flexible and understanding.

For example clients are limited to 70 requests for data per hour, in order to keep the load on the system manageable and deter spamming.

But they also say 'If you are developing an application that requires more frequent requests please contact us and we'll see what we can do'.

Most of my friends seem to twitter from the web or a client called Twitterific. I prefer Twhirl, which works nicely on my Mac, but thanks to the open API there's a lot of choice.

When I'm out I can even get Twitter on my iPod Touch thanks to Hahlo, which offers a particularly clean and usable interface.

And when I want to follow a particular topic, like SXSW, I use the Tweet Scan website, which searches public updates.

You can choose to keep your tweets private, of course, though there is something about telling the world just what you're up to in 140 characters or less that becomes strangely compelling after a while.

Like many fast-growing services Twitter is far from perfect. The site sometimes creaks and falls over under the load, the interface can be confusing and sometime tweets don't get through.

It is also a dangerous distraction from work, encouraging micro-conversations and followups and witty rejoinders when articles have to be edited, code checked and projects planned.

But as I sit here writing this I feel connected to a community of people, feel that we share a space that none of the social network sites can conjure up, a space that is both here and not here, somewhere between offline and online.

And I feel that I have a foretaste of what tomorrow's network world will bring, when the boundaries have dissolved completely and we can experience the network directly through augmented reality contact lenses or direct neural connections or whatever other technologies make it out of the lab and into the streets in the next decade.

Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.

Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Google bets on Android future

2008-03-12T18:14:00.001-07:00

Gaming and surfing on Google Android

But the company is going much further. At the end of 2007 it lifted the lid on Android, an open mobile operating system that is being used to power a new generation of devices under the Open Handset Alliance, a group which involves firms like HTC and chip designer ARM.

Android is the creation of Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms.

He believes that a lack of openness in the mobile phone space has stifled innovation to date.

"What Android enables for third party developers is the kind of programming we see on the internet," he says.

"What it enables is agility and rapid innovation and the same kind of innovation that happens on the internet."

Android was developed by former robot maker Andy Rubin

Mr Rubin says that by opening up the phones - from the operating system, released under open source, to the drivers and the application framework - developers will have more freedom to innovate, and more scope also.

But if you talk to Symbian and Microsoft, two companies that also build mobile operating systems, both claim to be open also.

Mr Rubin says: "There's a distinction we have to make - and it's an important one - between open source and open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).

"APIs are essentially documentation, they're the way that somebody like Symbian or Microsoft will allow third party developers to develop for their platform.

"Open source is a mechanism by which the source code of the operating system is actually for free and that way the carriers and OEMs are not really locked into a single vendor, nobody really owns this.

"It means they are free to take it into the direction that's important to them; they can fix bugs, add enhancements so in the end the consumer has a better experience."

Mr Rubin believes this will lead to greater variety of mobile experiences - driven not by the rules and regulations of an operating system but by the ideas of developers.

In essence, it could lead to greater variety of phones and of what those phones are capable.

Google has formed the Open Handset Alliance, with manufacturing partners like HTC and chip designers like ARM.

At the Mobile World Congress earlier this month the first reference handsets running Android were on show.

The first Android phones are expected in the second half of 2008

The browser was responsive and driven by both touch and a mini-track ball.

Google Maps supported Street View, the ability to see stills of real world locations, which has not been seen on a mobile device before.

Mr Rubin says Android is running on a phone powered by a 300Mhz chip, which puts the device in the mid-range of smartphones.

"A lot of applications we are seeing on phones today, in some of the newest and most powerful phones, are doing internet style web browsing.

There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can't access on their cell phone

"But that is just one of the components of the internet we need to bring to cellphones. There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can't access on their cellphone.

Mr Rubin points out that not all net experiences are available through the browser.

"Applications like Google Earth and YouTube have specific functionality that hasn't yet effectively been brought to mobile.

"Up until Android that wasn't possible on the phone - you could only access functionality given to you by the operating system."

The iPhone is a great 1.0 product said Mr Rubin

This is not Mr Rubin's first foray into overturning the "natural order" of things.

A former roboticist and Apple engineer, he created Web TV, and the device which led to the pioneering Sidekick handset.

"One of my passions throughout my whole career is consumer products; making things my mom would use.

"That need wasn't satisfied doing robotics. that was behind the scenes factory stuff."

So what does he make of Apple's first phone to the market?

"It's a great 1.0 product; I use one.

"Apple has that great balance of being both a hardware and software firms so they have a lot of flexibility.

"One of the things that is a challenge for them is having an incredible footprint worldwide - there are different types of communications standards, regulatory issues, and different language issues.

"I'm hoping that doesn't limit them."

With about three billion people using mobile phones worldwide and the number of devices that can access the net climbing rapidly, the future of the web is definitely mobile. And with no one company dominating the mobile arena as yet, the race is very much on.

Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

The high cost of a good reputation

2008-03-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

Auction site eBay doesn't trust sellers to behave honestly. Bill Thompson isn't surprised.

At the moment I've got 100% positive feedback but the number of transactions is so small that it doesn't really signify.

However, heavy sellers and those who make a substantial proportion of their income from the site care deeply about the reports they get from other buyers and sellers.

Their concerns about negative feedback are well-grounded: In 2002 Paul Resnick and his colleagues did a proper randomised control experiment to assess the value of an eBay reputation, looking to see how much people would bid for articles from sellers with different scores.

They found that sellers with established reputations can expect about 8% more revenue than new sellers marketing the same goods.

The move is being seen by some as a clear indication that the brave new world of online communities is faltering

Cheerleaders for crowdsourcing, hive minds and the wisdom of the crowds like to point to eBay as an example of a working online community where little intervention is needed, a "self-governing nation-state" that essentially manages itself, according to Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat.

Unfortunately, however, like many other communities that seem to be happy and relaxed but are in turmoil just beneath the surface, eBay is more like the fictional murder-prone village of Midsomer than the perfect market.

Buyers and sellers seem to be engaged in a war of attrition where negative feedback is one of the main weapons, and now eBay has announced that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback on buyers, hoping that this will help to rebalance things.

Both sides in a transaction get to leave feedback on the site, but it seems that sellers are threatening to leave negative comments on buyers' profiles if they say anything at all critical, knowing that this will make it harder for them to trade in future.

When Bill Cobb, eBay's head of North American operations, announced the changes he admitted that "the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation".

The way eBay works has been likened to a colony of bees

But eBay probably reckons that it can weather the storm and that its users will adapt to the new dispensation since the costs of setting up on another auction site are so high.

The move is being seen by some as a clear indication that the brave new world of online communities is faltering.

In the Financial Times Patti Waldmeir was sad that "the company has basically admitted that the cybersouk model does not work: buyers did not tell the truth about sellers, and sellers did not tell the truth about buyers. And in a market where traders lie, the trust that is so central to online commerce cannot flourish".

This seems to be an excessive response to the change, which is more about rebalancing the system than ditching the very idea of customer feedback.

eBay already relies strongly on external legal systems to support its business.

The company's "level of integration with and dependence on law enforcement is remarkable", as Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu point out in their excellent book Who Rules the Internet, so taking some of the feedback elements away from the customers is not itself a radical shift.

Research shows a bad reputation can dent sales

We could see the development of policing in the 18th century as a similar process, one that reinforces community bonds by taking certain sanctions away from individuals and vesting them in the group as a whole.

In this light eBay's move marks a growing maturity, not a failure of nerve.

After all, as Nick Carr point out, no system managed by humans can be perfect or last forever.

"Sometimes, we're inspired by fellow-feeling", he says. "Other times, we act selfishly or with prejudice or we try to game whatever system we're part of. And the more times we're confronted with other people acting selfishly, or fraudulently, the more we retreat into self-interest ourselves."

eBay's reputation system did well for many years, and even with the changes in place it is far from useless for sellers or buyers.

Perhaps we should applaud the senior team for following Clinton, Obama and McCain, the front-runners for the US presidency, in being bold and embracing change instead of lambasting them for leaving a broken system in place just because they are afraid of the reaction.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

BBC iPlayer comes to the iPhone

2008-03-12T18:10:00.001-07:00

The iPhone's network is too slow for streaming video

The BBC has launched a version of its iPlayer video on demand service for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.

It is the first time the service has been available on portable devices.

The iPhone and iPod touch are able to stream shows from the iPlayer website over wi-fi networks. The iPhone cannot stream BBC video over the cell network.

Anthony Rose, writing on the BBC internet blog, said: "We started with iPhone because it is the device most optimised for high quality video currently available.

"It displays the BBCiPlayer site and BBC programmes nicely."

The software currently comes in two versions - a program which allows users to download programmes to their Windows PC and a streaming version on the web available to all users.

The version for iPhone and iPod touch users will allow streaming over a wi-fi connection. However, the EDGE mobile network used by the iPhone is too slow for streaming video.

The corporation has agreed a deal with wi-fi firm The Cloud to provide all BBC online services for free at its 7,500 hotspots.

A version of iPlayer for Virgin Media customers is expected later this month.

Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Microsoft cuts Europe Xbox price

2008-03-12T18:08:00.001-07:00

The console was launched in 2005

Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox 360 video game console in Europe.

From 14th March, the 20 gigabyte hard drive model will cost 270 euros, a drop in price of 80 euros.

In the UK, the entry level machine, which does not come with any hard drive, will cost 159.99, 40 less than the current price.

The price drops mean that the versions of the console are now cheaper than both of its competitors - the Nintendo Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3).

Sony's 40GB console currently retails for 299.99 compared to 259.99 for Microsoft's top level machine - the Xbox 360 Elite, which has a 120GB drive.

The Nintendo Wii currently retails for 180 in the UK.

Microsoft said that the price of the entry level machine had been chosen because historically it was "the price point where a console's audience begins to expand".

The Xbox 360 has been losing ground to both of its competitors recently, despite having launched earlier. Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Broadcasting first with 3D rugby

2008-03-12T18:05:00.001-07:00

BBC engineers have broadcast an entire international sporting event live in 3D for the first time in the UK.

Scotland's defeat of England in the Six Nations rugby union championship was relayed to a London cinema audience. The project was carried out with production group, the 3D Firm.

BBC News website video journalists Andrew Webb (Edinburgh) and John Galliver (London) were at both ends of the transmission.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Voiping the outback

2008-03-12T18:03:00.001-07:00

The outback is home to a great number of remote communities

Communications in the remote Australian outback are getting a boost following the development of a system that links the internet to amateur radio technology.

The outback is a vast area of land, but home to only one tenth of Australia's population - and with a large number of small, isolated communities.

Australian James Cameron, who lives in the remote region of Tooraweenah, has pioneered the use of the Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) - effectively, two radio stations linking to each other with the internet in the middle - to keep them in touch.

"Voice over IP doesn't work when you're wandering around the mountains in a Bush walk, or in your car, or waiting for a train, or all the other places where an amateur radio can still work," he told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme.

Mesh networking

IRLP is not exactly new technology, but what it allows is for the internet to be "bolted on" to old-fashioned amateur radio to achieve a different form of communication.

"It's quite amazing that I can pick up my radio while walking and dial a number and talk, and I'm not paying anything for it - there's no companies making money from it," Mr Cameron said.

Combining XO laptops results in a large mesh network

Mr Cameron has meanwhile been putting his remote location into use by volunteering to test the wireless capabilities of the $100 laptops that are part of the One Laptop Per Child project.

Until now it has been difficult to precisely establish the range of an individual laptop, owing to difficulties in finding appropriate areas to do such work.

But when Mr Cameron heard the project was looking for ways to test the maximum range, he was keen to volunteer.

"As a radio amateur I put up my hand and said, 'I've got a place that I can test them which is really hot, really dry, never rains'," he said.

He tested the machines by suspending them from trees 1.5m above the ground and found their range was 1.6km, or around a mile.

"I can put them up trees and test how far they go. Especially because there's not much radio noise around here, being on a farm in the outback, I'm a long way from any other radio source."

The One Laptop Per Child XO machines are designed to function as individual nodes to allow mesh networking.

Two placed close enough together can share information between them wirelessly. Place a third close enough to one of them and, even though it might be out of range of the first, it can still share information between all three.

Multiplying this principle out many times results in a mesh network.

"We were able to get test results which were, frankly, astounding," Mr Cameron added.Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Camera 'looks' through clothing

2008-03-12T18:01:00.001-07:00

All objects emit terahertz radiation

A camera that can "see" explosives, drugs and weapons hidden under clothing from 25 metres has been invented.

The ThruVision system could be deployed at airports, railway stations or other public spaces.

It is based on so-called "terahertz", or T-ray, technology, normally used by astronomers to study dying stars.

Although it is able to see through clothes it does not reveal "body detail" or subject people to "harmful radiation", according to the designers.

"It is totally and utterly passive - it receives only," said a spokesperson for Thruvision.

The portable camera, which has already been sold to the Dubai Mercantile Exchange and Canary Wharf in London, will be shown off at the Home Office scientific development branch's annual exhibition later this week.

Body glow

Unlike current security systems that use X-rays, the ThruVision system exploits terahertz rays, or T-rays.

This electromagnetic radiation is a form of low level energy emitted by all people and objects.

These are able to pass through clothing, paper, ceramics and wood but are blocked by metal and water.

The system works by collecting these waves and processing them to form an image which can reveal concealed objects.

"If I were to look at you in terahertz you would appear to glow like a light bulb and different objects glow less brightly or more brightly," said the firm's spokesperson.

"You see a silhouette of the form but you don't see surface anatomical effects."

In addition, the system does not involve any of the "harmful radiation associated with traditional X-ray security screening", according to the firm.

The company has made previous versions of the camera, but the T5000, as it is known, is the first that works both indoors and out.

The system exploits technology originally developed at the government owned Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire.

"Astronomers use T-ray cameras that can see through dust and clouds in space, revealing what lies beyond," explained Dr Liz Towns-Andrews, of the Science and Technology Facilities Council which runs RAL.

Other terahertz systems, developed by companies such as TeraView, are used to probe the structure of pharmaceutical compounds.

Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Users offered ad tracking choice

2008-03-12T17:59:00.001-07:00

TalkTalk customers will get chance to decide if they want targeted ads

Broadband provider TalkTalk has confirmed that it will allow customers to 'opt in' to Phorm's controversial new advertisement system.

TalkTalk is one of three UK ISPs to sign up to the Webwise service which sees user's surfing habits tracked.

It has decided not to offer the service by default but rather to allow users to choose whether they want it.

It follows 1,000 people signing a Downing Street online petition saying the system breaches customer privacy.

"We will be endorsing and recommending take-up of the system but we want to ensure that customers make their own decision," said a spokesman for TalkTalk.

It believes that there is a two-fold benefit for customers.

"We feel customers will welcome the opportunity to get fewer irrelevant advertisements as well as benefit from the real-time anti-phishing alerts," he said.

Behavioural advertising

Fans of Top Gear website will get motoring ads

Phorm works by placing a cookie on a user's machine that contains a randomised identifying number. That cookie tracks websites visited and draws conclusions about a user's behaviour in order to target more relevant adverts.

So, for example, someone who often visits the Top Gear website is likely to be served motoring advertisements.

The controversy over the system surrounds the fact that ISPs are "selling" information about users on to a third party.

Phorm, the US company behind the system, is keen to stress that the data it collects is 100% anonymous and no profile of the user is ever created, so that no-one could "reverse engineer" the information in order to establish identity.

Campaigner Simon Davies was asked to assess its privacy measures as part of the work he does for privacy start-up 80/20.

He believed the system "advances the whole sector of protecting personal information by two or three steps", although he was not sure that the public was ready to buy into behavioural advertising.

The fact that TalkTalk has decided to let consumers choose whether they want to sign up to the service is likely to be a blow for Phorm, thinks Nate Elliott, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

"Ideally Phorm would like to have automatic access to all users but TalkTalk has gone for the safe option of opt-in which could limit the number of consumers," he said.

For ISPs desperate to retain customers entering the untested world of behavioural targeted advertisng is "scary"., said Mr Elliott.

"If ISPs do something that consumers see as a violation of their privacy then they will simply change provider."

Kent Ertegrul, chief executive of Phorm, told the BBC News website that he was confused about why the issue of opt-in versus opt-out was causing so much controversy.

"There is no way of not knowing that this is switched on. There is a clear choice offered to consumers and I am surprised that there has been so many questions about this. I find it a bit bizarre," he said.

For him the service is a win win for consumers.

"Having advertising behind it allows for better, cheaper broadband," he said.

BT will start a trial of the Webwise system this month and said that it would be offering it as an opt-in service in so far as it would be inviting 10,000 broadband customers to trial it.

"We will look at the findings of the trial before we make a decision on how to go about a more widespread deployment," said a spokesman.

He believes that the anti-phishing tools will attract customers concerned by online safety although he stressed that other security measures would still be in place for customers who did not want to use the system.

Automatic access

Google and Hitwise manage and manipulate data and people generally don't have an objection to that

He also said that triallists wishing to sign up to the system would have to agree to new terms and conditions. The details of this have not yet been finalised but it would not be a "material change", said the spokesman.

Virgin Media is also due to trial the system later in the year and is happy that it does not breach any existing privacy legislation.

"We have had a few customers get in touch with privacy concerns but these have been fairly comprehensively addressed by answers from Phorm," said a spokesman.

He believes the system sets a "new standard" in targeted advertising and is not convinced that there is any foundation for concern.

"Google and Hitwise manage and manipulate data and people generally don't have an objection to that," he said.

How the system was to be rolled out to Virgin Media customers was yet to be decided, he added.

"Deployment is months away but we will make sure that people know what it is about and exactly how it will work."

ISPs entering the lucrative world of online advertising could receive a big revenue boost. Proceeds from the advertising platform being set up by Phorm - known as the Open Internet Exchange - will be shared with any ISPs that sign up.

Some analysts predict that the deal could generate millions of pounds annually for BT and other ISPs but not everyone is so optimistic.

"Our figures show that only 10% of online advertisers currently use behavioural targetted ads," said Mr Elliott.Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Wiki boss 'edited for donation'

2008-03-12T17:57:00.001-07:00

Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia Photo: Gus Freedman

Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales has been accused of agreeing to edit a page on the online encyclopaedia in exchange for a donation.

Former Novell chief scientist Jeffrey Merkey says he donated $5,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation in exchange for changes to his Wikipedia entry.

Mr Merkey says Mr Wales agreed to "use his influence" to remove libellous remarks in the entry.

In response, Mr Wales has called the allegations "nonsense".

The edit history of the page does show changes made by Jimmy Wales and that the page was "protected", so that no further edits can be made by the public.

Jay Walsh, a spokesman for Wikipedia, told the Daily Telegraph that the allegation was "absolutely false" .

"Jimmy never made this offer, and of course this is a practice the Wikipedia Foundation would never condone," he told the newspaper.

Writing on a Wikimedia mailing list, Mr Merkey reprinted a statement he said he had released to the Associated Press news agency.

It said: "Wales agreed that in exchange for a substantial donation and other financial support of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wales would use his influence to make Merkey's article adhere to Wikipedia's stated policies with regard to internet libel 'as a courtesy' and place Merkey under his 'special protection' as an editor."

Mr Wales responded on the mailing list: "Of course I would never offer, nor accept any offer, whereby a donation would buy someone special editorial treatment in the encyclopaedia."

He said he had routinely helped people whose Wikipedia entry contained false or damaging information, adding: "Donations have no bearing on that at all."

Mr Wales added: "I encourage anyone who is tempted to believe this story to consider the source."

The Wikimedia Foundation describes itself as a "non-profit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content."

The foundation operates Wikipedia, one of the most popular websites in the world.Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Phorm: Your questions answered

2008-03-12T17:55:00.001-07:00

The controversial online advertising company Phorm has come under fierce criticism for its tool that tracks users' online surfing habits.

Q: What transparency is there? How can I check that Phorm is doing exactly what it claims it is doing? If I opt out, how can I assure myself that the opt out means just that - my data is not being harvested at all?

A: The claims we make as regards our systems, policies and procedures are regularly audited by the privacy audit department of Ernst & Young. But perhaps more importantly, our ISP partners take their customers' privacy very seriously and they have conducted immense due diligence on our technology and internal controls.

Q: Given Phorm's history (as 121media) in the murky world of adware and spyware, how can we trust it today? Why should we trust it?

A: It's true that we have a background in adware, not spyware. Part of the reason we decided to get out out the adware business was because we realised it was very difficult for people to distinguish between the two. We also think that we should be judged on our transparency and our actions. Firstly, when we realised the desktop model was taking us away from our core vision for the business of personalising the internet, we took the unprecedented step of shutting the desktop business down: voluntarily, transparently and under no pressure from anyone else. It was our choice and one that meant we cut ourselves off from revenues of $5-6 million a year in order to concentrate on developing a network based solution, where we find ourselves today.

Q: What fees (or other gifts/gratuities) were paid to Simon Davies and Gus Hosein when they were "invited" to assess Phorm's privacy protection measures? Does Phorm, or any of its directors, agents or employees have any interests in 80/20 Thinking

A: Phorm, its directors, agents or employees have no interests whatsoever in 80/20 Thinking. 80/20 Thinking is a consulting business founded and run by Managing Director Simon Davies, who is also a director of Privacy International, one of the leading privacy advocacy bodies. Phorm has retained 80/20 Thinking to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment on its technologies, systems and policies and we will work with them on an ongoing basis throughout the year. We chose 80/20 Thinking because Simon Davies has spent the best part of thirty years championing consumer privacy and railing against infringements. We wanted our systems and policies to be open to the kind of unforgiving scrutiny Simon brings.

And yes, 80/20 Thinking does charge for its services, as conducting audits takes time and resources.

A: No, we do not modify web pages or inject ads. We only serve ads to the websites we partner with. In order to participate, websites have to insert a tag into their own page. If you have opted out, will still see ads as you browse - just as you do today - but they won't be from the OIX and they won't be relevant to your browsing.

Q:Would they consider hiring an external agency to audit the provisions for opt-out?

A: Yes. We already have an external auditor -- Ernst & Young, and 80/20 Thinking is conducting a Privacy Impact Assessment, but we would welcome suggestions for additional auditing.

A: Most people have a separate login if they are sharing a computer and they will therefore have a separate random number. But also, advertisers using our system can choose to show ads based on the page they are visiting, recently visited, or a longer term basis. Only the last of these would be affected if the computer and the login were share, so this scenario if possible but not that likely. If the person really wants to hide a surprise, they can switch webwise off!

Q: I would like to better understand the strict demarcation of ownership of equipment to be installed in the ISP to really understand the full content of the stream received at the point of entry to equipment under the control of Phorm. Bloggers purporting to be from BT claim that this is the FULL browsing (http - port 80) stream with IP addresses obfuscated in some way. Is this true? And if so, what safeguards over employee recruitment do Phorm have since they will be in an extremely powerful and trusted position, being able to read 10m peoples' web traffic.

A: No, this is not true. IP addresses are not passed in any form, even obfuscated, to Phorm. All that is passed is a limited digest of page data from each navigation. This data is never stored on disk and is immediately deleted from memory as soon as a product category match has been made.

Q: The same report also mentions detailed (but anonymous) logs that will be removed from the closed loop onto Phorm servers and kept for up-to 14 days. Why do they need these logs since the very thing that impressed 80/20 was the lack of need to store detailed personal information nor remove it from the closed loop

A: The logs mentioned in the E&Y audit report concern system health and error logs, not anything to do with users.

Q: Do phorm intend to resell any data, such as "clickstream" trends, perhaps even split by demographic, and if so, are they aware of the possibility that this data would be "de-anonymized" as reported on techcrunch and numerous sites with the AOL and Netflix "anonymous" releases.

A: Clickstream data is never stored. Therefore is cannot be sold on or 'deanonymised'. The AOL / Netflix situation cannot occur because the clickstream data has been deleted in real time as the page loads.

Q: Even if you do opt out your web traffic will still be intercepted and analysed, you just wont see the ads. Is this true?Q: Plus how will Phorm serve you the "correct" ads unless the traffic they have analysed can be traced back to your computer / IP address. Either Phorm are connected or they aren't, in which case the system can't work. Just replacing the IP with a "unique ID" doesn't make Phorm unconnected if there is a direct relationship between the two.Q: You maybe able to select to opt out of the adverts however BT will still be passing your personal and private information to Phorm, this will include the content of all emails you view online that are not covered by a secure connection (SSL).

Q: What safeguards are there to ensure that in the future Phorm doesn't alter or add to the amount and types of information/data is passed to and

The keynote is transparency: we will communicate any changes and our claims will continue to be subject to external scrutiny by formal audit, partner due diligence, customer vigilance and media interest.

Q: Does the opt out from Phorm satisfy the Data Protection act's provision that individuals can write to the Data Controller of the ISP in writing

The ISP will not be passing any personal information to Phorm. We do not tie into their authentication systems or use any subscriber information.

Q: And does the service ever modify information you receive via http that might not be a web-page, i.e. is it possible for it to accidentally break

We operate a whitelist of user-agents corresponding to major browsers (e.g. Firefox, IE, Opera). Other user-agents are ignored.

A: This isn't inconsistent. The Profiler is owned by the ISP. If someone opts out no data is passed from the ISP to Phorm.

Q: However, I would like to know who provides the software for the "Profiler" and if it's not written by the ISP, how does the ISP check that it does what it's meant to?

A: Phorm provides the software for the profiles, just like Cisco, for example, provides software for an ISP router. The ISP can see exactly what data is being passed in and out of its systems and has complete control over it.

Q: I still want answers to my cookie question. Part II Section 11 "Right to prevent processing for purposes of direct marketing". Is this direct marketing - well as is clear to all concerned there HAS to be some link between the profile and the target computer else the ads would not get served. Opt out by cookie is insufficient in my mind.

A: It's important to understand there are two distinctly separate processes in the Phorm system: data capture and ad serving. The data capture system only stores one item of information on your computer -- a random number. The random number is the only thing that distinguishes your browser from the millions of others on the internet. It does not contain any information about you or your computer. The only person able to make that connection is you, as you have that cookie in your browser.

As you browse your browsing behaviour is matched against pre-defined advertiser categories for everyday products eg travel or sport.

No urls, browsing histories or IP addresses are retained and the raw data used to make the match is deleted in real time - by the time the page loads. There is, in essence, no data other than the categories and the random number stored in the system and so it's impossible to know (or indeed reverse engineer from that) who you are or where you've been.

In the ad serving phase, when your computer requests an advert from the OIX (because a website has included our tag in their page), the browser sends the random number and the categories are used to deliver the targeted ad, not the details of your browsing, or anything about you or your computer.

If you clear your cookies regularly or if you'd like to ensure that Webwise is permanently switched off, simply add "www.webwise.net" to the Blocked Cookies settings in your browser.

Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Open Rights Group questions Phorm

2008-03-12T17:52:00.001-07:00

The Open Rights Group has published its concerns

Campaign body the Open Rights Group (ORG) has called for further detail on the workings of ad system Phorm.Compliance?
Mardell's Europe Day in pictures Moon marvel
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Cassini testing for water on one of Saturn's moons

2008-03-12T17:48:00.001-07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Three years after gigantic geysers were spied on an icy Saturn moon, the international Cassini spacecraft is poised to plunge through the fringes of the mysterious plumes to learn how they formed.
An unmanned probe will sweep through geysers on one of Saturn's moons to measure the chemical makeup.
Wednesday's flyby will take Cassini within 30 miles of the surface of Enceladus at closest approach.
The unmanned probe will be about 120 miles above the moon as it sweeps through the edge of the geysers and measures their chemical makeup.
The carefully orchestrated event will take Cassini "deeper than we've been before," mission scientist Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute said in an e-mail.
Scientists long believed Enceladus, the shiniest object in the solar system, was cold and still because it resides hundreds of millions of miles from the sun. But recent evidence shows the Arizona-size satellite is geologically active, with a significant atmosphere and a relatively warm south pole.
In 2005, Cassini surprised scientists when it snapped images of geyser-like eruptions of ice particles and water vapor spewing from the south pole. The dramatic images effectively put Enceladus (en-SELL'-uh-duhs) on the short list of places within the solar system most likely to have conditions suitable for extraterrestrial life.
Scientists generally agree the presence of water, organic compounds and a stable heat source are needed to support primitive life.
Previous measurements by Cassini showed the eruptions were frequent, with gases and particles venting from the surface at about 800 mph and forming plumes hundreds of miles high.
The source of the geysers is a mystery, but some theorize reservoirs of liquid water below the surface are likely supplying the ice and vapor seen in the plumes.
Until now, scientists have not been able to measure the plumes' makeup in detail. Using its particle analyzers, Cassini will calculate the density, size and speed of the various gases and particles. The spacecraft's cameras will also image the moon during the flyby.
Of particular interest is whether the plumes contain ammonia, which can keep water in liquid form and would bolster the theory that liquid water lies beneath.
"There's not much for us ... to do regarding the upcoming flyby except to hold our breaths and cross our fingers," John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, wrote on the Cassini blog.
The close encounter poses little danger to Cassini because the plume particles are small compared with the dust-size debris the spacecraft is used to flying through while orbiting Saturn, scientists said.
The Cassini mission is a collaboration between NASA and the European and Italian space agencies.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

The high cost of a good reputation

2008-03-01T18:19:00.001-08:00
Auction site eBay doesn't trust sellers to behave honestly. Bill Thompson isn't surprised.
At the moment I've got 100% positive feedback but the number of transactions is so small that it doesn't really signify.
However, heavy sellers and those who make a substantial proportion of their income from the site care deeply about the reports they get from other buyers and sellers.
Their concerns about negative feedback are well-grounded: In 2002 Paul Resnick and his colleagues did a proper randomised control experiment to assess the value of an eBay reputation, looking to see how much people would bid for articles from sellers with different scores.
They found that sellers with established reputations can expect about 8% more revenue than new sellers marketing the same goods.
The move is being seen by some as a clear indication that the brave new world of online communities is faltering
Cheerleaders for crowdsourcing, hive minds and the wisdom of the crowds like to point to eBay as an example of a working online community where little intervention is needed, a "self-governing nation-state" that essentially manages itself, according to Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat.
Unfortunately, however, like many other communities that seem to be happy and relaxed but are in turmoil just beneath the surface, eBay is more like the fictional murder-prone village of Midsomer than the perfect market.
Buyers and sellers seem to be engaged in a war of attrition where negative feedback is one of the main weapons, and now eBay has announced that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback on buyers, hoping that this will help to rebalance things.
Both sides in a transaction get to leave feedback on the site, but it seems that sellers are threatening to leave negative comments on buyers' profiles if they say anything at all critical, knowing that this will make it harder for them to trade in future.
When Bill Cobb, eBay's head of North American operations, announced the changes he admitted that "the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation".

The way eBay works has been likened to a colony of bees

But eBay probably reckons that it can weather the storm and that its users will adapt to the new dispensation since the costs of setting up on another auction site are so high.
The move is being seen by some as a clear indication that the brave new world of online communities is faltering.
In the Financial Times Patti Waldmeir was sad that "the company has basically admitted that the cybersouk model does not work: buyers did not tell the truth about sellers, and sellers did not tell the truth about buyers. And in a market where traders lie, the trust that is so central to online commerce cannot flourish".
This seems to be an excessive response to the change, which is more about rebalancing the system than ditching the very idea of customer feedback.
eBay already relies strongly on external legal systems to support its business.
The company's "level of integration with and dependence on law enforcement is remarkable", as Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu point out in their excellent book Who Rules the Internet, so taking some of the feedback elements away from the customers is not itself a radical shift.

Research shows a bad reputation can dent sales

We could see the development of policing in the 18th century as a similar process, one that reinforces community bonds by taking certain sanctions away from individuals and vesting them in the group as a whole.
In this light eBay's move marks a growing maturity, not a failure of nerve.
After all, as Nick Carr point out, no system managed by humans can be perfect or last forever.
"Sometimes, we're inspired by fellow-feeling", he says. "Other times, we act selfishly or with prejudice or we try to game whatever system we're part of. And the more times we're confronted with other people acting selfishly, or fraudulently, the more we retreat into self-interest ourselves."
eBay's reputation system did well for many years, and even with the changes in place it is far from useless for sellers or buyers.
Perhaps we should applaud the senior team for following Clinton, Obama and McCain, the front-runners for the US presidency, in being bold and embracing change instead of lambasting them for leaving a broken system in place just because they are afraid of the reaction.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Google bets on Android future

2008-03-01T18:16:00.001-08:00

Gaming and surfing on Google Android
But the company is going much further. At the end of 2007 it lifted the lid on Android, an open mobile operating system that is being used to power a new generation of devices under the Open Handset Alliance, a group which involves firms like HTC and chip designer ARM.
Android is the creation of Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms.
He believes that a lack of openness in the mobile phone space has stifled innovation to date.
"What Android enables for third party developers is the kind of programming we see on the internet," he says.
"What it enables is agility and rapid innovation and the same kind of innovation that happens on the internet."

Android was developed by former robot maker Andy Rubin

Mr Rubin says that by opening up the phones - from the operating system, released under open source, to the drivers and the application framework - developers will have more freedom to innovate, and more scope also.
But if you talk to Symbian and Microsoft, two companies that also build mobile operating systems, both claim to be open also.
Mr Rubin says: "There's a distinction we have to make - and it's an important one - between open source and open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
"APIs are essentially documentation, they're the way that somebody like Symbian or Microsoft will allow third party developers to develop for their platform.
"Open source is a mechanism by which the source code of the operating system is actually for free and that way the carriers and OEMs are not really locked into a single vendor, nobody really owns this.
"It means they are free to take it into the direction that's important to them; they can fix bugs, add enhancements so in the end the consumer has a better experience."
Mr Rubin believes this will lead to greater variety of mobile experiences - driven not by the rules and regulations of an operating system but by the ideas of developers.
In essence, it could lead to greater variety of phones and of what those phones are capable.
Google has formed the Open Handset Alliance, with manufacturing partners like HTC and chip designers like ARM.
At the Mobile World Congress earlier this month the first reference handsets running Android were on show.

The first Android phones are expected in the second half of 2008

The browser was responsive and driven by both touch and a mini-track ball.
Google Maps supported Street View, the ability to see stills of real world locations, which has not been seen on a mobile device before.
Mr Rubin says Android is running on a phone powered by a 300Mhz chip, which puts the device in the mid-range of smartphones.
"A lot of applications we are seeing on phones today, in some of the newest and most powerful phones, are doing internet style web browsing.
There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can't access on their cell phone
"But that is just one of the components of the internet we need to bring to cellphones. There should be nothing that users can access on their desktop that they can't access on their cellphone.
Mr Rubin points out that not all net experiences are available through the browser.
"Applications like Google Earth and YouTube have specific functionality that hasn't yet effectively been brought to mobile.
"Up until Android that wasn't possible on the phone - you could only access functionality given to you by the operating system."

The iPhone is a great 1.0 product said Mr Rubin

This is not Mr Rubin's first foray into overturning the "natural order" of things.
A former roboticist and Apple engineer, he created Web TV, and the device which led to the pioneering Sidekick handset.
"One of my passions throughout my whole career is consumer products; making things my mom would use.
"That need wasn't satisfied doing robotics. that was behind the scenes factory stuff."
So what does he make of Apple's first phone to the market?
"It's a great 1.0 product; I use one.
"Apple has that great balance of being both a hardware and software firms so they have a lot of flexibility.
"One of the things that is a challenge for them is having an incredible footprint worldwide - there are different types of communications standards, regulatory issues, and different language issues.
"I'm hoping that doesn't limit them."
With about three billion people using mobile phones worldwide and the number of devices that can access the net climbing rapidly, the future of the web is definitely mobile. And with no one company dominating the mobile arena as yet, the race is very much on.
Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Private data, public interest?

2008-03-01T18:14:00.001-08:00

The use of material taken from personal profiles on social networks by newspapers is to be the subject of a major consultation undertaken by industry watchdog the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
This comes in the wake of increasingly numbers of newspaper stories that include images and text taken from sites like Bebo, MySpace and Facebook.
But the subjects of press reports are not always happy with the use of content they have uploaded.
Tim Toulmin, director of the PCC, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 says the organisation was getting complaints from people about material, "that is being republished when they themselves are the subject of news stories".
Mr Toulmin says it would be useful to establish principles to guide the press in their use of social network content.
"It's down to the PCC to set the boundaries in a common sense way about what sort of information it is acceptable to re-publish," he says.
To that end the PCC has commissioned research by Ipsos MORI into public attitudes.
The newspaper watchdog wants to discover if people are aware that material they upload could be used in newspaper reports.
Public or private?
There has been some public resentment of the use of social networks by the press.

People may post less information if they knew it journalists might use it

More recently in the UK, media interest in the spate of suspected suicides among young people in Bridgend has lead some in that community to express concern about the way social network profiles were being used by journalists.
Bridgend Welsh Assembly Member Carwyn Jones, said: "It does raise questions of the sensitivity of publishing those photographs for the world to see."
Local MP, Madeleine Moon went further saying that some in the community had complained of reporters posing as young people on social networking sites in order to obtain quotes.
Ms Moon, who has spoken with the PCC, stressed she had no evidence to substantiate these claims, but she did feel that there was a clear need for guidelines for the press.
But the wider issue of how reporters should use information taken from social networks is far from clear-cut.
Taking a photo from a social networking site is, some argue, a less traumatic way of obtaining images and personal detail, than a reporter visiting the home of a grieving family. Digital door-stepping can be much less intrusive than the real thing.
Mr Toulmin says the matter is one of degree: journalists do have a right to use publicly accessible content and the public have responsibilities when they post it.
And many who publish to social networks, in Mr Toulmin's view, do not regard that information as private but actively want to share the information.
He said: "Half the charm is accumulating as many people as possible to be their friends...there will then be an argument about the extent to which you yourself are concerned about people knowing that information."
Similarly if information is already in the public domain there would be little point in denying the press access.Clear case
Mr Toulmin also believes any new guidelines should not prevent the press reproducing content clearly in the public interest to publish.
The PCC has already ruled to this effect. It supported the right of a local newspaper to enter an online community undercover and to republish an image found there, because the complainant, a police officer, was the subject of a criminal investigation.

Some papers covering the Virginia Tech shootings used information from social sites

"They will I think be forced to go further in educating people," he says.
Guidance from the PCC will only apply to newspapers.
With the most popular blogs surpassing the circulation of many local papers, and competing effectively for advertising revenue, this is not a small concern.
Mr Toulmin acknowledges this is important, but adds: "The press do have obligations over and above those that govern the online community."
But not everyone in the media shares that view: Bob Satchwell of the Director of the Society of Editors thinks the press should be subject to no greater regulation than the public.
Says Mr Satchwell: "Traditional media is already regulated in various ways; broadcasting by the statutory regulation, the press by the PCC, so there are far greater constraints on traditional journalists and media than there are on the wider public, so called 'citizen journalists' and bloggers."
However, there are some restrictions that apply to all who use social network content.
The British Journal of Photography in a recent article concludes that publication of images on social networks does not automatically grant rights to republish photograph elsewhere.
In the end copyright law may resolve part of this issue, if the deliberations of the PCC do not.Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Web desktop targets 'cybernomads'

2008-03-01T18:12:00.001-08:00

Many in developing world rely on computer centres

A virtual desktop aimed at users who access the web via cybercafes is attracting interest from organisations set up to bridge the digital divide
Offered by Luxembourg-based start-up Jooce, it is being billed as a way of personalising any computer.
Jooce is targeting the estimated 500 million people who log on to the internet from a cybercafe every day.
Its free web-based desktop could prove valuable for those who can't afford their own PC, said experts.
Jooce offers users the functionality they would get from their personal computer on any machine, allowing them access to files, e-mail, instant messaging, storage and other applications.
"It's a platform that will make it much easier for the world's cybernomads to manage their digital lives," said Jooce founder Stefan Surzyck.
"The one thing that has been missing is a place on the internet where these people can properly manage their online lives - their very own private space online," he said.
A public desktop - known as a Joocetop - is also available to allow friends to access and share files. A dedicated e-mail client is also in development.
Bandwidth issues

Jooce offers a personal desktop on any computer

Eloisa San Mateo is a regional IT coordinator for the Philippines National Computer Centres - government-sponsored cybercafes set up to provide net access for those in remote areas.
She sees potential for Jooce as a storage device for those who use the centres but has some concerns.
"It seems to require a lot of memory and while the performance of Jooce on high-end computers is very good, when it is run on lower spec machines with poor bandwidth it takes too long," she said.
She is currently running workshops to give locals a feel for the system and is looking to install it on machines over the next six months.
Meddia Mayanja is a senior program officer of Telecentre.org, an organisation that offers advice to telecentres in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
He sees new technologies such as Jooce as crucial if publicly-funded net access centres are going to remain relevant and useful to the audience they intend to serve.
"It is one of many applications that add value to users," he said.
Jooce is also working with the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) to bolster its telecentre programme - a network of cyber kiosks across the developing world.
In India, it is partnering with charity Mission 2007 and ISP Tatatel to support their digital divide activities.
It is also seeing big interest from China.
Heavy-weight backer
Jooce is one of many companies which offer so-called web-based operating systems.
Companies such as Global Hosted Operating System (g.ho.st), desktoptwo and startforce also offer net-based desktops allowing users to access files and applications from any browser.
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with JupiterResearch, believes the concept of a web OS is a misleading one.
"WebOS is a buzzword but it has little that technically represents an operating system and is more about aggregating functionality," he said.
"It is a crowded market but it is interesting that people are more and more looking to have their digital personas linked into online universes," he said.
Jooce has been in public beta testing for one month and in its first week of operation had 60,000 sign up for a free account.
It has a heavy-weight backer in the form of Mangrove - the venture capital firm that provided the initial funding for voice-over-IP platform Skype.
Online technology news site CNET.com has nominated Jooce as a finalist in its 2008 Webware 100 awards.Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Legal aid for whistle-blower site

2008-03-01T18:10:00.001-08:00

Whistle-blowing site Wikileaks is getting legal help to fight an attempt to keep it offline.
Freedom of speech and digital rights groups plan to argue on its behalf at a legal hearing on 29 February.
The hearing will decide whether to continue a court order that removed links to some of the Wikileaks sites from the net's address books.
The order was sought by Swiss bank Julius Baer after internal documents were placed on Wikileaks.
Speech test
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are planning to "intervene" for Wikileaks at the continuation hearing.
The rights groups claim the order that knocked Wikileaks offline in the US raises "serious First Amendment concerns".
"Blocking access to the entire site in response to a few documents posted there completely disregards the public's right to know," said ACLU attorney Ann Brick in a statement.
The order granted for Julius Baer by US district judge Jeffrey White ordered Dynadot - the company that hosts the Wikileaks website in America - to remove all mentions of the site from its address books.
Anyone in the US trying to find Wikileaks would have to consult this address list to find the website.
The bank took the action in mid-February because, it is understood, the documents hosted could have had an impact on a separate case being heard in Switzerland.
Julius Baer said the case had nothing to do with free speech.
"This action has been brought solely to prevent the unlawful dissemination of stolen bank records and personal account information of its customers," lawyers for the bank wrote in court papers.
"Many of those documents have also been altered and forged," said the legal filing.
However, the attempt to get the documents removed spurred many other sites to host them and Wikileaks' sites in other countries were largely unaffected by the ruling.
The US site itself was also reachable by those that knew its numerical net address rather than just its English name.
In total, 18 organisations have pledged support for Wikileaks in documents filed to the US court that will hear the legal argument.Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

EU extends net safety programme

2008-03-01T18:08:00.001-08:00

The Safer Internet programme educates children about net dangers

The European Commission is spending 55m euros (42m) on making the net a safer place for children.Action plan
Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Browsers go head-to-head

2008-03-01T18:06:00.001-08:00

The top two browsing programs of net users got a big update this month as Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Mozilla unleashed Firefox 2.0. Here we take a quick spin through some of the features to be seen in the new versions.
Microsoft's IE7 program is the beefier of the two browsers with the download package weighing in at 14.8 megabytes (MB). By contrast Firefox is a svelte 5.4MB. However, neither should tax a broadband connection.
Differences start to show up once the software is downloaded. Once it is done installing, IE7 demands a re-start before you can use it. Firefox installs without that need. It's a minor difference and a minor inconvenience for those that choose Internet Explorer.
Both take about the same amount of time to install and get started-up but once they are running more subtle differences start to become apparent.
At first glance Firefox 2.0 looks more familiar as its main page layout hardly differs from earlier versions.
But IE7 does look changed because, for a start, the grey menu bar is hidden. It can be resurrected by hitting the "alt" key but you might be surprised by how much you need to call on it when you can't find it.
Hidden information
With IE7 Microsoft has brought tabs to its browser but both deal with them in slightly different ways.
With IE7 a blank tab is always available but with Firefox the new tab only appears, and takes up some screen space, when you open one up.

IE7 has a neat feature that lets you see thumbnails of all of the tabs you have open at any one time, letting you leap to the one you need with a click.
However, it seems to take a moment longer than Firefox 2.0 to close tabs when you are done with them.
Opening up quite a few webpages in each browser shows up another quirk. Firefox 2.0 seems to do a better job of using the text that webpages use to describe themselves.
Often in IE7, the only information you get about a webpage you have open but hidden on the bottom taskbar is "http://" - the rest of the title is obscured.
Again, a minor difference and a minor niggle.
Searching a webpage is still more elegant in Firefox 2.0 than IE7.
Calling up the search function in Firefox prompts the appearance of a text box tied to the bottom of the page and typing your search term in that takes you to the first appearance of that word or phrase on the page - provided it is there, of course.
In IE searching calls up a floating box in which you have to type your text and then click or hit a key to find the term or phrase.
Feeding frenzy
One of the very useful inclusions in Firefox 2.0 is a live spell checker that watches over your metaphorical shoulder as you type text into any field on any webpage. It is possible to add a similar function to IE7 but only via an add-on.

It will be interesting to see how many people download and install it.
When it comes to RSS - the system that feeds updates of webpages to those interested - Firefox 2.0 does a slightly better job of making it easy to subscribe to new feeds.
With only a click it was possible to add a feed to popular blog-following sites such as Bloglines to IE7 and Firefox
Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 also benefit from thousands of plug-ins, or add-ons - that can be installed to add more functionality to the browser.
These range from RSS readers to Instant Messaging clients, Voice over IP programs, and mini iTunes controls - all accessed from inside the web browser page.
Finally, both IE7 and Firefox 2.0 have introduced systems that warn users when they are about to visit a site that is known to be used by phishing gangs. These pages are made to look like that of a bank to trick people into handing over confidential information.
Firefox handles this by updating a locally held list of known phishing sites every time you use the browser.
Microsoft's IE7 checks in via the web to make sure a site is safe to visit. In the short tests run by the BBC news website, IE7 occasionally took longer to load a page as it carried out a check to see if it was a phishing site.
Despite these minor differences, Firefox 2.0 and IE7 are now broadly comparable - something that could not be said of IE6 and Firefox. But it will be up to users to choose which one best meets their needs.Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Web icon set to be discontinued

2008-03-01T18:03:00.001-08:00

Netscape lost ground to Microsoft's internet Explorer

The browser that helped kick-start the commercial web is to cease development because of lack of users.
Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 February 2008, the company has said.
In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of the web population, but numbers have slipped to just 0.6%.
In particular, the browser has faced competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), which is now used by nearly 80% of all web users.
"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer," said Tom Drapeau on the company's blog.
Browser wars
Netscape was developed by Marc Andreessen, co-author of Mosaic, the first popular web browser.
Mosaic was written while Mr Andreessen was a student at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in 1992.

Firefox was created by many of the Navigator developers

After graduation he set up Netscape Communications Corporation and began development of the Navigator browser. The first version was released in 1994.
It was quickly a success and dominated the browser market in the mid-1990s.
But other companies followed its success, notably Microsoft, which bundled its Explorer software with its operating systems.
This culminated in a highly-publicised legal battle, which saw Microsoft accused of anti-competitive behaviour.
Although the settlement saw Netscape gain many concessions from Microsoft including the ability to exploit IE code, it has been unable to gain back its market share.
The demise of Navigator was compounded in 2003 when AOL, which bought Netscape in 1998, made redundant most of the staff working on new versions of the browser.
Many of the staff moved to the Mozilla Foundation which develops the popular Firefox browser. This browser has a 16% share of the browser market.
Fade away
Although a core team has continued to work on the secure browser - it is currently on version nine - AOL has decided to finally pull the plug.
"After 1 February, there will be no more active product support for Navigator nine, or any previous Netscape Navigator browser," wrote Mr Drapeau.
"We feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," he said.
Users of the browser will no longer receive security or software updates after the date.
Old versions of the browser will still be available for download, but will no longer be supported.
Microsoft is expected to launch a new version of IE in 2008, whilst the third version of Firefox is currently available as a beta, or test version.Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Final goodbye for early web icon

2008-03-01T18:01:00.001-08:00

Netscape's demise A web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear.Web window

Firefox uses the same technology as Navigator developers

Netscape is a wonderful browser, and it will be so in the future Future return?

Flock is designed to take advantage of web 2.0 sites

Texan tango 'Troops chased me' Bound for Baghdad
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Review: Nikon D300 solid as a little tank

2008-02-27T19:22:00.001-08:00

(CNET) -- When you build the follow-up to a hot camera, how do you turn up the heat? When Nikon shipped the D200 a couple of years ago, its combination of speed and photo quality blew away the limited competition, and provided a powerful, relatively inexpensive alternative to Nikon's then top-of-the-line D2X.
The D300 faces a far more crowded field. Not only does it take on its venerable and now lower-priced predecessor, but also a cluster of far-from-shabby dSLRs just at or below its price: the Canon EOS 40D, the Sony Alpha DSLR-A700, the Olympus E-3, and the Pentax K20D.
Nikon's offering a body-only box of the D300 as well as two kits: one with a DX 18mm-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF lens (27mm-202.5mm equivalent with the camera's 1.5x crop factor) and one with a DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens (27mm-300mm equivalent). I tested the latter kit, and also used the camera with two non-DX lenses: a preproduction version of the 14-24mm 2.8G ED and the 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF.
For the most part, Nikon sticks with the tried-and-true body design and interface of the D200, with its intelligently laid out controls. The dust- and weatherproof body weighs a hair over 2 pounds, and feels as solid as a little tank.
The viewfinder is bigger and brighter, with 100 percent coverage. There are a few behaviors I'm not fond of, like the hard to manipulate metering dial (discussed in my more-detailed analysis of the design) and occasionally problematic AF-mode navigation (discussed below), but find the camera's operation comfortable and fluid. Nikon carries over the ultraflexible user-settings menus, which consists of two banks--shooting settings and custom settings--with four nameable slots each.
Though the DX-format (23.6x15.8 mm), 12-megapixel CMOS sensor is new, the D300 otherwise retains the raft of features that made the D200 so powerful, plus some high-profile enhancements. Most notably, the D300 increases to 51 AF points with 15 cross-type sensors, which contributes to the camera's new 3D-tracking 51-point Dynamic Area AF mode, and replaces the Group Dynamic AF of its predecessor. Essentially, the D300's 1,005-point 3D color matrix meter does double duty, feeding a low-resolution digitized version of the scene to the new Multi-Cam 3500DX AF module for tracking analysis. (You can see an interesting video simulation of it on YouTube.)
Based on the description (and the suggested use in the manual), the 3D tracking mode seems like an optimal solution for shooting well-defined subjects--those with strong color contrast relative to the background and which occupy a large percentage of the scene--that remain within the frame. And in shoots at a local dog run, it worked best for portrait-type situations, where it tracked the dogs' wildly moving heads while they themselves remained relatively stationary within the frame. However, for shots where the subject moves too quickly to keep in the viewfinder--as happens with most of the other dog-run shots--Nikon suggests using the 51-point dynamic AF without the 3D tracking. That works relatively well. (You can also choose 21-point or nine-point without 3D.)
Unfortunately, if you need to switch quickly between those two AF options, as I do in the aforementioned scenario, you're out of luck. There's no direct-access control and you can't assign the selection to one of the three custom buttons; the closest you can get is to add it to My Menu, or waste an entire custom setting bank for that one feature. For me, since the 51-point without 3D is the more generally useful of the two modes, the 3D tracking will just be woefully underutilized, and might as well not be there at all. And frankly, I miss the AF-group visual feedback provided by the D200.
The same goes for the D300's Live View shooting. Like the 40D, it supports autofocus, but the D300 uses the typical too-many-mirror-flips implementation that makes it far less useful than it could be. There's actually a flow chart in the manual explaining the series of steps it takes to shoot in Live View--with a tripod it can use contrast AF, which doesn't require the constant mirror flippage. It is neither complicated, nor the shooting experience one should expect.
Like Canon, Nikon has a lot invested in lens-based optical-image stabilization technology, so the D300 lacks the in-body sensor-shift stabilization that Sony, Pentax, Olympus, and Panasonic offer. That's not a big deal if you already have an investment in Nikon's VR lenses or don't really use/care about stabilization. But if you do care about it and making your first dSLR purchase, or contemplating shifting from another brand, then don't discount its importance; the fact that the two kits require a choice between VR and non-VR lenses foreshadows future lens choices you'll have to make.
Other boosts over the D200 include an upgrade to a 3-inch LCD with a 170-degree viewing angle, a stop higher on the sensitivity scale to an effective ISO 100-6,400, the addition of a 14-bit raw mode, and an HDMI connector for optimal HDTV output. Before going into production, Nikon dropped the Virtual Horizon capability (which did make it into the D3). Nice features carried over from the D200 include built-in wireless flash control; selectable 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, or 13mm center-spot for center-weighted metering; and a shutter-speed range of 1/8,000 to 30 seconds. (For a complete list of the D300's features and capabilities, check out the PDF manual.)
There's nothing to complain about with the D300's shooting speed--though it delivers average performance for its class, the D300 does belong to a pretty zippy class of cameras, and it outpaces the D200 on a few tasks. CNET Labs' tests indicate that it wakes up and shoots near instantly, in about 0.1 second. Under good, high-contrast lighting, it focuses and shoots in just under half a second, rising to 0.9 second in dimmer conditions.
Typically, it captures consecutive frames in the same half second, edging up to 0.6 second with the built-in flash enabled. And it delivers a quick 5.8 frames per second for high-speed burst shooting. (We tested without the optional battery grip, which brings the speed closer to 7fps.) Nikon traditionally delivers excellent low-light focus performance in its dSLRs, and the D300 is no exception. Even shooting a black cat sitting in the shadows of a dimly lit apartment proved no problem.
As for photo quality, the D300 delivers great results, with a visibly superior noise profile to the D200 as well as to the Sony DSLR-A700 (which uses the same sensor). At their best, photos are sharp, with excellent exposures, accurate colors, and broad tonal ranges. Flash with the SB-800 Speedlight unit especially showed off how well the metering system works, with none of the harsh, overexposed look that I frequently get on the most difficult shots. (For more details on the photo quality, click through the slide show.)
Although the lack of in-body stabilization can be a big liability for certain users, and its interface not quite as streamlined as I'd like, these negatives are more than offset by the great performance and class-leading photo quality delivered by the Nikon D300--earning it an Editors' Choice.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Q&A: What is DRM?

2008-02-19T10:09:00.001-08:00
EMI has announced that it will be offering its back catalogue online without software locks, called digital rights management. The songs will be sold at a higher price to those currently with the digital locks but will also be at double the audio quality.
What is DRM?
Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a class of technologies that allow rights owners to set and enforce terms by which people use their intellectual property.
Rights owners are typically copyright-holding companies like music, film, book or software publishers. They use DRM to control how documents, entire software programs, or even e-mails are used.
Most often media companies use DRM to curb piracy of their content by restricting users' ability to copy it, though it can also be used to create new business models like subscriptions to a large library of music.
How does DRM work?
DRM is a two-part scheme. It relies on encryption to protect the content itself and authentication systems to ensure that only authorised users can unlock the files.
When applied, DRM scrambles the data in a file rendering it unreadable to anyone without the appropriate unlocking key.
Authentication systems stand between users and the decryption keys, ensuring that only people with the proper permissions can obtain a decryption key.
Without a username and password or if a file has been decrypted too many times, the system will not provide the key. This means music files with DRM, for example, can be swapped over the internet and remain unusable to those who have not paid for them.
It also means only authorised programs and portable players can use the tracks.
Music without DRM, like the popular MP3 music format, retain the ability to be played regardless of the number of times or to whom they have been copied.
Who is using DRM and why?
The most common commercial use of DRM is copy prevention. The technology gives rights holders some assurance that their intellectual property will not be pirated, and helped to create a legal digital download industry.
Film studios were some of the first large companies to adopt DRM.
When the DVD format was launched it included an encryption scheme called the Content Scrambling System, which prevented users from making digital copies of films off the disc.
Recording labels have also adopted DRM to prevent copying.
With the advent of peer-to-peer file sharing networks and the MP3 music compression format in addition to the proliferation of broadband internet access, they claimed music piracy drastically increased.
CD publishers reacted by making discs in a way that lets them play in a regular machine, but not in a computer. This prevents users from copying the music and distributing it over the internet.
Many record labels have also released DRM-protected music for sale and download in online stores like Apple's iTunes and Roxio's Napster. These tracks can play on a set number of computers and portable devices.
DRM video downloads are just beginning in the UK. Channel 4 and Sky have on-demand services that include films.
What are the problems with DRM?
Some consumer groups and internet commentators vociferously argue against the use of DRM.
One of the most often cited problems with the technology is that competing systems are not compatible. For example, users of the Napster service cannot play a track on the iPod.
Changing music download providers or portable players could mean already purchased tracks are unusable.
Because tracks have to be authenticated to play, they may also become unusable if a download company goes out-of-business.
Both cases force purchasers to either forfeit their music or re-purchase it, and for this reason has been characterised as anti-competitive.
Unlike brick-and-mortar shops selling records, cassettes, or CDs, digital download companies can lock consumers into their service.
Critics also argue that many DRM systems go far beyond the rights the law gives rights holders to protect what they create.
DRM is also an imperfect technology. Hackers and software companies engage in a constant back-and-forth battle where any given system is broken, patched, and broken again.
DVD copy prevention was cracked in part by the then 15-year-old Jon Lech Johansen.
Still others object to DRM on philosophical grounds. Art, they contend, is often a collaborative process that builds off the work of others.
For digital media, this is referred to as the "rip, mix, burn" culture.
As music, film, and literature is increasingly expressed in digital form, many worry that restrictions on the use of this content will limit creativity.Survival questions Key question Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Quick guide: Cracked DRM systems

2008-02-19T10:07:00.001-08:00
Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are a technology used by many of the world's leading content providers to prevent piracy.
Critics argue that many of the leading DRM systems are easily broken. Here is a look at four of the main DRM systems and how effective they are.

Windows Media DRM is used in the BBC's iPlayer

Windows Media DRM is a Microsoft-produced copyright protection system intended to "securely deliver content for playback on computers, portable devices and network devices".
The system has been updated several times since it was first released in 1999. The most up-to-date release is version 11.
Various tools have been created to strip files of the DRM, such as FairUse4WM, a program released in August 2006 by a hacker named Viodentia.
Nine days after the crack first appeared, Microsoft released a new version to prevent FairUse4WM from working. Within three days hackers released a new version of the tool.
The tool can be used to strip DRM from programmes with the BBC iPlayer.
On 13 July, a new version of the tool called 1.3fix-2 was released. It can be used with Windows Vista and can also strip DRM from songs downloaded from Microsoft's online music store, Zune Marketplace.
Return to menu

Several tools have been released to circumvent FairPlay

FairPlay is the DRM of choice for Apple products.
It is built into the Quick Time media player and is used by the iPhone and iPod. Protected music from the iTunes store also uses the system.
Users can copy downloaded songs to a CD and then copy the disc back on to the computer to remove the DRM - but the quality of the music is affected.
The first tool to circumvent FairPlay was a program called QTFairUse, released by infamous hacker Jon Lech Johansen, in November 2003.
Since then several versions of the program have been distributed to keep up to date with new versions of iTunes and FairPlay.
Other programs such as Playfair, Hymn and JHymn have also been developed to get around FairPlay. Following updates to the DRM and legal action by Apple, these systems no longer work.
Return to menu

AACS is used by both next generation DVD formats

The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is the DRM of choice for next generation HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.
It was first introduced on high definition discs in June 2006 and uses a system of keys to decrypt content in a player.
These keys can be revoked by the AACS licensing authority if compromised.
Six months after the first discs hit shelves, a hacker known as muslix64 released a tool called BackupHDDVD which circumvented AACS on a Windows PC. Several other similar tools followed.
Many keys were made available on the internet.
In April this year, hackers discovered a method to retrieve the crucial keys using a tweaked HD DVD drive for an Xbox 360. The hack still works even when keys are revoked.
Return to menu

Many of the tools allow DVDs to run on open source software

Content Scramble System (CSS) is used on almost all commercially produced DVD-Video discs.
It was first introduced in 1996 by the DVD consortium.
In 1999, hacker Jon Lech Johnasen, along with two anonymous hackers, cracked the system and distributed the DeCSS tool on the internet.
Following its release, the system was also found to be susceptible to a so-called brute force attack, where thousands of different codes are tried in order to break the encryption.
On average, the DRM could be stripped off a movie in 24 hours using this method.
Since 1999, hundreds of different variants have appeared on the net, many developed to add DVD support to open source movie players.
Return to menu
Survival questions Key question Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

'Hacker' launches iTunes copying

2008-02-19T10:04:00.001-08:00

The software will allow the sharing of music bought on iTunes

The release of software from a firm run by a notorious Norwegian hacker is likely to cause waves in the music and film download world.
Jon Lech Johansen became the "enfant terrible" of the DRM industry when he released software which cracked the encryption codes on DVDs, aged just 15.
His firm, DoubleTwist, has now released software allowing users to share digital media files across devices.
It would allow songs bought on Apple's iTunes to be shared on other devices.
At the moment, the only portable music player which can store content downloaded from the iTunes store is Apple's iPod.
In 2003 Mr Johansen distributed a program which bypassed Apple's Fairplay system, the software that enforces this relationship. Since then he has had several other well-publicised run-ins with the firm.
The software from San Francisco-based company DoubleTwist will allow users to share both user-generated and professionally created music, photos and video clips between computers, mobiles and game consoles.
Media which lives on a computer can be moved to a variety of mobile devices by dragging and dropping the files to a desktop folder which then drops copies on the external device over the web.
Initially the system will allow file-sharing with Sony's PSP games console, Nokia's N-series mobile, Sony Ericsson's Walkman and Cybershot handsets and Microsoft's Windows Mobile smartphones.
Tower of Babel
The software converts media stored in one file format to those used by the other devices in a system that mimics the process of ripping a CD onto a computer.
One hundred songs can be converted in about half and hour, with a slight degradation in sound quality, according to the firm.
With digital media such as video from a friend's cell phone or your own iTunes playlists, it's a jungle out there," said Monique Farantzos, co-founder of DoubleTwist.
"The digital media landscape has become a tower of Babel, alienating and frustrating consumers. Our goal is to provide a simple and well integrated solution that the average consumer can use to eliminate the headaches associated with their expanding digital universe," she said.
The company is confident there will not be any legal challenges from Apple.
"All we are facilitating are friends sending things to one another," Ms Farantzos told the Reuters news agency.
The software is available as a free download from the company's website.Survival questions Key question Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Microsoft agrees Danger purchase

2008-02-19T09:11:00.001-08:00

Hilton is among stars who have given Danger a cool cachet

Microsoft has agreed to buy software firm Danger Inc, maker of T-Mobile's SideKick web phone.
The gadget, also known as the Hiptop, has been popularised by a number of American celebrities, including socialite Paris Hilton.
Danger was co-founded in 1999 by Andy Rubin, Joe Britt and Matt Hershenson. Mr Rubin has moved on to a new job running Google's mobile venture.
Microsoft did not disclose the purchase price as it made the announcement.
Swivel screen
A statement by Microsoft highlighted the fact that it saw Danger's customer base as "young and enthusiastic, internet-savvy and socially inclined".
The statement added: "The Danger team has a deep understanding of consumers and a hold on what people want from mobility, making it an ideal group to work with in delivering connected experiences."
It will be really interesting to see how Microsoft integrates the technology, business model, and overall device cachet to a culture more at home to selling to enterprise CIOs than it is to selling rock stars
The SideKick allows users to instant message, talk on the phone, send e-mails and access the web, with a distinctive swivel screen that flips around 180 degrees to reveal a full keyboard.
Mr Rubin has said in interviews the company was called Danger because he had bought the danger.com domain name several years earlier. The name was a reference to a robot in the TV show Lost in Space, which continuously issued "Danger!" warnings to the cast.
Michael Gartenberg, analyst for Jupiter Research, said on his blog that news of Microsoft's acquisition was the "real excitement" of the first day of the Mobile World Congress.
He added: "The T-Mobile SideKick has had moderate success in the US markets appealing to celebrities, sports figures and of course all the demographics that look up to these folks.
"The SideKick had strong appeal as the anti-Blackberry for younger audiences and it will be really interesting to see how Microsoft integrates the technology, business model, and overall device cachet to a culture more at home to selling to enterprise CIOs than it is to selling rock stars."Survival questions Key question Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Nokia aiming to banish paper maps

2008-02-19T09:09:00.001-08:00

Nokia says its aim is to sell 35m GPS-equipped phones in 2008

Nokia has launched navigation tools designed to make the paper street map obsolete for pedestrians.
The firm's next generation of digital maps gives real-time walking directions on the mobile phone screen, just like sat-nav systems which guide drivers.
"Nokia is taking navigation services out of the car so it can always be with you," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of the firm.
"Struggling with oversized paper maps will become a thing of the past."
Navigation by phone
Nokia's Maps 2.0, for its Series 60 and 40 phones, is part of the firm's push into location and context-aware technologies.
Mr Kallasvuo said: "Navigation is one of the foundations of the context-aware mobile phone. We believe it will be as important as voice capability was 20 years ago.
He added: "Your mobile device will soon be in tune with your surroundings and adjust accordingly."
Nokia expects to sell 35 million mobile phones equipped with GPS (Global Positioning System) in 2008.
Nokia said it was the world's first pedestrian navigation on a mobile phone.
The question people want answered is: when will Nokia react to the Apple iPhone and bring out devices that have touch screen capabilities?
Niklas Savander, executive vice president of services and software, said: "The future is about bringing context - time, place and people - to the web; that is the foundation of the next generation of the worldwide web."
Nokia made its announcement as the Mobile World Congress opened in Barcelona, with methods of driving mobile uptake worldwide firmly on the agenda.
A raft of new handsets and services are expected to be unveiled.
"We have 2.5 billion connected but how do we connect the next three or four billion and deliver services to the lowest income groups," said a spokesman for the GSM Association.
Analysts predict more tie-ups between mobile firms and companies like YouTube and MySpace.
Mobile entertainment - the combination of mobile phone, social networking and location-based services - is being touted as the killer application for the future.
Nokia's announcement underlines its belief that GPS chips will become as ubiquitous in mobile phones as cameras. It has already made a $6bn (3bn) investment in mapping company NavTeq to show that it is putting its money where its mouth is.

Final preparations at the Mobile World Congress

The company also announced a successor to its flagship N95 phone.
The N96 comes with 16 Gigabytes of onboard flash memory, and the ability to access live mobile TV through DVB-H.
The phone is also able to play flash videos online, such as clips on YouTube, through its web browser.
The company sold six million N95s last year.
Location, location
The move to web applications is likely to continue although the tricky part will be finding a way of translating the economics of the mobile world - where data comes with a charge - to the free net-based applications it wants to mimic, thinks analyst Margaret Rice-Jones, chief executive of mobile consultancy AIRCOM,
Location-based social networking, allowing you to find out the exact location of your buddies, could be one way that mobile can offers something over and above web-based applications.
"I don't think the average Facebook user will pay to spend two hours looking at the site on their phone or uploading the photos of their mate drunk in the bar at 2am but they might be interested in knowing that one of their friends is in the bar that they are walking past," she said.
At the start of the conference LG announced a new smartphone with built-in GPS, the LG-KT610, to take advantage of location-based services.

Do users want Facebook on mobiles?

Sony Ericsson has unveiled its first handset powered by Windows Mobile, the Xperia, and it too comes with GPS.
Gypsii, a social networking service offering location-based search for people, places, content and events will be launched on the first day of the conference.
"The real time location-based element of GyPSii adds a new dimension to the social networking phenomenon," said Dan Harple, founder and CEO.
"Rather than sitting indoors chatting to friends on an pc-based service - you can be out and about seeing who is nearby, what they are doing and where you could go - all in real time," he added.
Mobile payments
In some rural parts of Pakistan, people have to spend half a day walking to a village where they can top up the credit on their mobile phone
For years the mobile world has talked about the possibility of the phone as a replacement for all the plastic we carry around in our purses and wallets.
The tail-end of last year saw a tie-up between Transport for London's Oyster card, O2, Nokia and Visa in a trial allowing commuters to pay for their tube tickets via mobile and make small purchases in a range of shops.
But increasingly eyes are turning to the developing world where the mobile wallet is not just a convenience but a necessity.
According to Norman Frankel, managing director of Mi-Pay, a mobile banking firm which has systems up and running in the developing world, payment via mobile is helping to "bank the unbanked".
"In some rural parts of Pakistan, people have to spend half a day walking to a village where they can top up the credit on their mobile phone," he said.
With the Mi-Pay system the mobile acts as a kind of debit card, allowing users to top up without having to leave their homes.
Another system SafariCom, in Kenya is up for the Digital Divide Award, a the Global Mobile Awards, organised by the GSM Association.
Its M-Pesa accounts are proving popular with Kenyan and allows tapping into the $93bn African remittance market - where migrant workers send cash home to their families.
Cheaper than traditional money transfer services, the idea is simple - users deposit cash in affiliated shops and get an e-voucher on their phones. Survival questions Key question Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Google Android phones make debut

2008-02-19T09:07:00.001-08:00
The first mobile phones to be loaded with Google's Android software for mobile phones have gone on show.
About a dozen companies such as ARM, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm showed off prototype handsets at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The free software system was launched in November 2007 and is being developed by an alliance of more than 30 companies including Google.

The first Android-enabled phone is expected to go on sale later this year.
One firm showing off a prototype phone was the UK processor designer ARM.

"It's really a demonstration vehicle rather than a full phone," Ian Drew of ARM told BBC News.
However, he said the wireless phone did show off several applications.

"What we are demonstrating on the Android platform is maps, browser, camera applications, multimedia, e-mail, and calendar - basically everything you'd expect on a mobile phone."
Open world
The Google Android platform is based on open source Linux software that allows developers access to the underlying code.

This allows programmers much greater flexibility to build applications and features tailored to individual phones.

Other companies also showed off Android prototypes such as Marvell, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics.

Korean handset manufacturer Samsung has also said it hopes to have a phone based on Android by early next year.

Android was not the only Linux platform making waves in Barcelona.

The Mobile Linux foundation said that 18 phones from seven different firms would be demonstrated at 3GSM using its Limo software.

LG and Samsung were amongst handset manufacturers showing off Limo devices.
Survival questions Key question Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Beijing takes timing to the wire

2008-02-19T09:05:00.001-08:00

Blood, sweat and tears offered by athletes in their efforts to go ever faster would count for nothing without one thing - accurate timekeeping.
When a fraction of a second makes the difference between winning and losing, timekeepers have to be as focused as the athletes themselves.
At the Beijing Olympics this summer, the job of timing the event's wide range of sporting competitions falls to Swiss watchmaker Omega.
It plans to introduce a series of technological innovations that will produce more accurate times than those recorded at Athens in 2004.Swim plan
Improving timing equipment for sporting events is a constant task, said Christophe Berthaud, Omega Timing's chief executive.
You cannot say to an athlete who has just run the 1500m 'Sorry there was something wrong, can you do it again?'
"As athletes improve, performances are getting closer and closer so you have to introduce technology that is more and more accurate."
Recording performance times ever more accurately often means looking at the beginning and the end of races, according to Mr Berthaud.
"What is difficult is not measuring the time when they are in the pool - that's easy," he said, referring to swimming events.
"Having the maximum accuracy at the beginning and the end is what makes the difference."
Omega was trialling a new starting block for swimmers at the recent test event. It is being given to national teams to try out over the coming months.
This new block allows swimmers to start a race with their legs bent at 90 degrees - the angle that ensures the best start.
Every starting block will also be fitted with a speaker to ensure that each swimmer will hear the start signal at exactly the same time.
In other events at the Beijing Olympics, Omega will also present information in new ways to allow spectators to better understand what is going on.

Omega plans to use GPS to help follow sailing events

The Global Positioning System will be used to relay information to viewers about exactly where one boat is in relation to another.
And in rowing, being able to accurately position a competitor will enable Omega to work out if one boat is catching another, and whether it will do so before the finish line.
Developing new technology can ensure the right competitor gets the gold medal, but it sometimes gets timekeepers into trouble.
This happened when Omega introduced touch pads -- used to stop the clock -- to swimming events in 1967.
Shortly after one event this new technology led to judges disqualifying Australian swimmers.
"That night the Swiss timekeeping officials were almost run down in the parking lot," said Joseph Panetta, a spokesman for Omega.
"They had to change hotels at midnight because people were threatening... them," he added.
"But it was because of this advent of technology that we could say they had cheated." Future limit
Omega first began timing the Olympic Games at the Los Angeles event in 1932, when hand-held stop-watches were used.

China has been preparing for the Olympics for a long time

Mr Berthaud claimed there have been no mistakes while Omega has been in charge of timing, and nothing is being left to chance in Beijing.
Around 400 professional timekeepers and 1,000 volunteers will be responsible for timing performances in China.
There will be three timing systems in place: the main one and two back-ups.
"Getting a performance time is the most important thing," said Mr Berthaud, who arrived on time for his interview with the BBC.
"You cannot say to an athlete who has just run the 1500m, 'Sorry there was something wrong, can you do it again?'"
The goal of getting ever more accurate times at sports events is Mr Berthaud's passion, but even he admits there is a limit to what can be achieved.
One thousandth of a second represents about 1cm in the 100m.
"Is it worth measuring 1mm?" he said. "Probably not." Survival questions Cold War to thaw? Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Review: Nikon D300 solid as a little tank

2008-02-19T09:02:00.001-08:00

(CNET) -- When you build the follow-up to a hot camera, how do you turn up the heat? When Nikon shipped the D200 a couple of years ago, its combination of speed and photo quality blew away the limited competition, and provided a powerful, relatively inexpensive alternative to Nikon's then top-of-the-line D2X.
The D300 faces a far more crowded field. Not only does it take on its venerable and now lower-priced predecessor, but also a cluster of far-from-shabby dSLRs just at or below its price: the Canon EOS 40D, the Sony Alpha DSLR-A700, the Olympus E-3, and the Pentax K20D.
Nikon's offering a body-only box of the D300 as well as two kits: one with a DX 18mm-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF lens (27mm-202.5mm equivalent with the camera's 1.5x crop factor) and one with a DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens (27mm-300mm equivalent). I tested the latter kit, and also used the camera with two non-DX lenses: a preproduction version of the 14-24mm 2.8G ED and the 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF.
For the most part, Nikon sticks with the tried-and-true body design and interface of the D200, with its intelligently laid out controls. The dust- and weatherproof body weighs a hair over 2 pounds, and feels as solid as a little tank.
The viewfinder is bigger and brighter, with 100 percent coverage. There are a few behaviors I'm not fond of, like the hard to manipulate metering dial (discussed in my more-detailed analysis of the design) and occasionally problematic AF-mode navigation (discussed below), but find the camera's operation comfortable and fluid. Nikon carries over the ultraflexible user-settings menus, which consists of two banks--shooting settings and custom settings--with four nameable slots each.
Though the DX-format (23.6x15.8 mm), 12-megapixel CMOS sensor is new, the D300 otherwise retains the raft of features that made the D200 so powerful, plus some high-profile enhancements. Most notably, the D300 increases to 51 AF points with 15 cross-type sensors, which contributes to the camera's new 3D-tracking 51-point Dynamic Area AF mode, and replaces the Group Dynamic AF of its predecessor. Essentially, the D300's 1,005-point 3D color matrix meter does double duty, feeding a low-resolution digitized version of the scene to the new Multi-Cam 3500DX AF module for tracking analysis. (You can see an interesting video simulation of it on YouTube.)
Based on the description (and the suggested use in the manual), the 3D tracking mode seems like an optimal solution for shooting well-defined subjects--those with strong color contrast relative to the background and which occupy a large percentage of the scene--that remain within the frame. And in shoots at a local dog run, it worked best for portrait-type situations, where it tracked the dogs' wildly moving heads while they themselves remained relatively stationary within the frame. However, for shots where the subject moves too quickly to keep in the viewfinder--as happens with most of the other dog-run shots--Nikon suggests using the 51-point dynamic AF without the 3D tracking. That works relatively well. (You can also choose 21-point or nine-point without 3D.)
Unfortunately, if you need to switch quickly between those two AF options, as I do in the aforementioned scenario, you're out of luck. There's no direct-access control and you can't assign the selection to one of the three custom buttons; the closest you can get is to add it to My Menu, or waste an entire custom setting bank for that one feature. For me, since the 51-point without 3D is the more generally useful of the two modes, the 3D tracking will just be woefully underutilized, and might as well not be there at all. And frankly, I miss the AF-group visual feedback provided by the D200.
The same goes for the D300's Live View shooting. Like the 40D, it supports autofocus, but the D300 uses the typical too-many-mirror-flips implementation that makes it far less useful than it could be. There's actually a flow chart in the manual explaining the series of steps it takes to shoot in Live View--with a tripod it can use contrast AF, which doesn't require the constant mirror flippage. It is neither complicated, nor the shooting experience one should expect.
Like Canon, Nikon has a lot invested in lens-based optical-image stabilization technology, so the D300 lacks the in-body sensor-shift stabilization that Sony, Pentax, Olympus, and Panasonic offer. That's not a big deal if you already have an investment in Nikon's VR lenses or don't really use/care about stabilization. But if you do care about it and making your first dSLR purchase, or contemplating shifting from another brand, then don't discount its importance; the fact that the two kits require a choice between VR and non-VR lenses foreshadows future lens choices you'll have to make.
Other boosts over the D200 include an upgrade to a 3-inch LCD with a 170-degree viewing angle, a stop higher on the sensitivity scale to an effective ISO 100-6,400, the addition of a 14-bit raw mode, and an HDMI connector for optimal HDTV output. Before going into production, Nikon dropped the Virtual Horizon capability (which did make it into the D3). Nice features carried over from the D200 include built-in wireless flash control; selectable 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, or 13mm center-spot for center-weighted metering; and a shutter-speed range of 1/8,000 to 30 seconds. (For a complete list of the D300's features and capabilities, check out the PDF manual.)
There's nothing to complain about with the D300's shooting speed--though it delivers average performance for its class, the D300 does belong to a pretty zippy class of cameras, and it outpaces the D200 on a few tasks. CNET Labs' tests indicate that it wakes up and shoots near instantly, in about 0.1 second. Under good, high-contrast lighting, it focuses and shoots in just under half a second, rising to 0.9 second in dimmer conditions.
Typically, it captures consecutive frames in the same half second, edging up to 0.6 second with the built-in flash enabled. And it delivers a quick 5.8 frames per second for high-speed burst shooting. (We tested without the optional battery grip, which brings the speed closer to 7fps.) Nikon traditionally delivers excellent low-light focus performance in its dSLRs, and the D300 is no exception. Even shooting a black cat sitting in the shadows of a dimly lit apartment proved no problem.
As for photo quality, the D300 delivers great results, with a visibly superior noise profile to the D200 as well as to the Sony DSLR-A700 (which uses the same sensor). At their best, photos are sharp, with excellent exposures, accurate colors, and broad tonal ranges. Flash with the SB-800 Speedlight unit especially showed off how well the metering system works, with none of the harsh, overexposed look that I frequently get on the most difficult shots. (For more details on the photo quality, click through the slide show.)
Although the lack of in-body stabilization can be a big liability for certain users, and its interface not quite as streamlined as I'd like, these negatives are more than offset by the great performance and class-leading photo quality delivered by the Nikon D300--earning it an Editors' Choice.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Iris scans to protect your photos

2008-02-19T07:50:00.001-08:00

Iris recognition relies on the fact that no two eyes are identical

The increasing problem of digital photograph theft is being tackled by one Japanese camera company using iris recognition - the same technology used at airports to combat terrorism.
A patent for technology which will digitally "watermark" the image with the details of the iris of the photographer has been filed by camera giant Canon.
The system works by scanning the iris as the eye is put to the viewfinder when the shot is composed.
"It's really a combination of two pre-existing technologies," John Daugman, the original inventor of Iris Recognition, told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme.
"Often in invention, the innovation is a combination of two older arts. So from what I've seen of the Canon patent, it doesn't actually propose any new method of iris recognition - it just says, rather vaguely, that the iris information of the photographer is embedded, whether it's a raw image or an encoded image."
Practical issues
Digital photographers keen to show off their skills have flocked to photo-sharing websites such as Flickr and Photobucket in recent years.
Although the sites make provision for the owner to set the copyright status associated with their images, there have still been cases where photos have been stolen - in some cases allowing the thief to sell the images to sites which pay to be able to use them commercially.
There's advantage in encoding just the mathematical description of the iris - a very short iris code - rather than the iris itself
John Daugman said that the patent as filed does not specify whether the iris scan will be put into the photograph as a piece of code or as an image of the eye.
"There's a lot of practical issues there, because a raw image is several hundred thousand bytes normally - or even several million bytes - but the iris code itself is only 500 bytes," he said.
"So there's advantage in encoding just the mathematical description of the iris - a very short iris code - rather than the iris itself."
This is because they are intended to be unobtrusive and surreptitious.
Mr Daugman pointed out that using iris technology may not necessarily be "an unalloyed blessing," because cameras are not ususally built to capture infra-red images - which is how iris recognition works.
As a result, building it in would add significant cost.
"You've got to had another set of optics that's rather different to the set at the front of the camera, to acquire this image facing the other way, as it were," Mr Daugman said.
These problems were "not necessarily trivial," he said.
"But still, it's a promising idea," he added.Opposition joy Cold War to thaw? Blu-ray victory
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Q&A: Death of a format

2008-02-19T06:00:00.001-08:00

It means victory for Sony's Blu-ray format but will leave questions for all those who bought into the failed format as well as raising issues about whether anyone can benefit from a format war.
Q: What is the HD DVD format war all about?
HD DVD and Blu-Ray have been battling to become the pre-eminent format for next-generation DVDs for the last couple of years. Toshiba had its HD DVD format approved by the DVD Forum back in 2004 and the first products hit the market in the US in April 2006.
The same year Sony pulled its Blu-ray format out of the bag.
Initially the two formats seemed to have an equal number of backers although there was general dismay in the industry that a new format war could slow down developments of a nascent market and be confusing for consumers.
Toshiba, for its part, said it never intended to enter a format war.
"Blu-ray wasn't submitted to the DVD Forum. We did it right and we didn't expect this battle," Olivier VanWynendaele, deputy general manager at Toshiba, told the BBC News website.
He added that the firm was "very sad" to see the end of the format it had such high hopes for.
Q: Why has Toshiba backed down?
The firm itself identifies the tipping point as Warner Bros' decision to back Blu-Ray, a decision it said it was very surprised at.
It also points to the loss of key retailers - in February Wal-Mart announced that it would phase out HD DVD products, UK retailer Woolworths said it would only promote Blu-Ray in store while US chain Best Buy also came down firmly in the Blu-Ray camp.
US online retailer Netflix said it would also focus on Blu-Ray as have several content owners, including Constantin Film in Germany and National Geographic.
"It became increasingly difficult for us to gain access to the market," said Mr VanWynendaele.
Others point to the power of Sony's PlayStation 3 which has an in-built Blu-Ray player. The figures speak for themselves - 10.5 million PS3's have been sold compared to one million HD-DVD players.
Analysts see Toshiba's swift admission of defeat as being a better long-term strategy for the firm than carrying on with a dying format.
The market seems to agree - Toshiba Corp shares rose 6% in response to the news.
Q: What does it mean for consumers?
Those who rushed out and bought a HD-DVD player when it went on the market in the UK paid a hefty 449 for it and they could be understandably angry about Toshiba's pull-out.
For its part Toshiba said it had "no plan to compensate consumers", and will continue to offer technical support for those owning HD DVD machines.
In fact, according to Toshiba, the players - now available for just 149 - are still a good value option for consumers, despite the diminishing amount of content available to play on them.
The machines can still be used to "upscale" standard definition movies for high definition screens.
For consumers who have bought a HD DVD add-on for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, there was no word as to whether the software giant will phase out the add-on.
In a statement Microsoft said it was too early to say but added that games, rather than high definition movie playback, was the main reason why consumers bought consoles.
Q: What other format wars have there been?
For Sony, victory this time around is a case of third time lucky because it has lost two previous format wars.
The now-famous tussle between video formats - VHS and Betamax - interestingly saw Toshiba as a partner rather than a rival to Sony.
Although many felt Betamax was the superior format, most cite the longer recording length of VHS tapes - three hours versus one - and the cheaper manufacturing costs for VHS machines as the main factors why VHS eventually won out.
In the early nineties Sony was caught up in another format battle, this time about who would control what would become the DVD market.
At the time there were two high density optical storage formats were being developed. Sony and partner Phillips offered the MMCD (Multi-Media Compact Disc) format while the SD (Super Density) format was backed by Toshiba and Matsushita among others.
While the VHS/Betamax format war was a long and costly struggle, the battle to take charge of the DVD market was an altogether a quieter affair, ending with a compromise.
The super density format was used as the basis of DVD with a couple of tweaks form the Sony camp.Opposition joy Cold War to thaw? Battling on
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Why the future is in your hands

2008-02-19T04:09:00.001-08:00

GPS is starting to appear on more handsets

Sales of smartphones are expected to overtake those of laptops in the next 12 to 18 months as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer.
Convergence has been the Holy Grail for mobile phone makers, software and hardware partners, as well as consumers, for more than a decade.
And for the first time the rhetoric of companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, who have boasted of putting a multimedia computer in your pocket, no longer seems far fetched.
"Converged devices are always with you and always connected," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia chief executive at last week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Last year Nokia sold almost 200m camera phones and about 146m music phones, making it the world's biggest seller of digital cameras and MP3 players.
In the coming year the firm predicts it will sell 35 million GPS-enabled phones as personal navigation becomes the latest feature to be assimilated into the mobile phone. Form and function
Nigel Clifford, chief executive of Symbian, said: "All of those single use devices - MP3 players, digital camera, GPS - are collapsing onto the phone."
"We are going past the point where this was a phone with a few other things," he said.
Symbian's operating system shipped on 188 million phones last year and a third of those came with GPS.
"We see mobile phones evolving into multi-functional devices that now support consumer electronics, multimedia entertainment and mobile professional enterprise applications; all converging," said Luis Pineda, from mobile phone chip firm Qualcomm.

More and more people are snapping shots with a handset

The first phones powered by a chip running at 1Ghz will hit the market later this year, seven years after the first desktop chip broke the gigahertz barrier.
Qualcomm's 1Ghz Snapdragon chipset will debut inside a number of handsets, including some from Samsung and HTC
"It's a first in the industry for a wireless chipset," said Mr Pineda.
As well as raw horsepower Snapdragon also features a dedicated application processor, as well as the ability to handle 12 megapixel digital photos and up to 720p high definition video imaging.
Mr Clifford from Symbian said the mobile industry had to deliver multi-function devices which did not compromise.
He said: "When we look at what is collapsing on to these devices and people's expectations with their experiences on single-use specialized devices there is going to be rising expectations."
Chip shop
More than 90% of the world's mobile phones are powered by technology created by British firm Arm. It designs chip architectures that it licenses to semiconductors makers such as Qualcomm and Broadcom.
Ian Drew from Arm said future mobile phones demanded ever more processing power.
But building chips with greater processing was not a straightforward, he said.
The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it's going to be mobile
"It needs to get into your pocket. And there's no fan. It needs to work for days rather than hours."
He added: "When you start adding multi media experiences - such as 3D graphics, video, and games - there are two ways to do that: you can get bigger and bigger processors or you have multi core where you can switch off a processor when you don't need it."
Arm is demonstrating a chip architecture, called Coretex A9, that will offer four cores, or processors, on a single chip.
Symbian has been working with Arm on future uses for multi-core mobile phones.
"You can use massive amounts of processing if you need it. But if you don't you can power down the cores that aren't required," said Mr Clifford.
Symmetrical Multi Processing will drive the next generation of applications on a phone, he added.
"Silicon vendors are looking very seriously at how they integrate SMP."
Mr Clifford added: "The future of the internet and computing applications is not going to be in the home or at the office; it's going to be mobile."

The gaming abilities of handsets are rapidly improving

"That is one of the next single usage devices that will start feeling the pressure from the mobile device," he said.
3D graphics acceleration is becoming standard on many of today's mobile phones and specialists like Nvidia have joined the market.
Mr Clifford said today's most powerful mobile phones, such as Nokia's N96 and NTTDoCoMo's 905 series have the same power as a laptop from 2000.
Nvidia's APX 2500 chip has enough 3D graphics acceleration to handle Quake 3, a PC game from 1999, on a mobile phone.
Handset owners were also beginning to expect the same online experience they have on their desktop PCs on their mobile phones.
"Web 2.0, social networking and video sharing; that's a real driver of horsepower," said Mr Drew from Arm.
He added: "But you need to be able to get data in. The next generation of mobile phones need high performance radios - they will have high data rates that will enable this content to be streamed to you."
Symbian is working on technology called Freeway to give phones the ability to move seamlessly between wireless networks, like wi-fi and cell networks like 3G and 4G.
"We don't want people to feel the mobile web is a second class experience."Opposition joy In pictures Battling on
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

The high cost of a good reputation

2008-02-19T04:07:00.001-08:00
Auction site eBay doesn't trust sellers to behave honestly. Bill Thompson isn't surprised.
At the moment I've got 100% positive feedback but the number of transactions is so small that it doesn't really signify.
However, heavy sellers and those who make a substantial proportion of their income from the site care deeply about the reports they get from other buyers and sellers.
Their concerns about negative feedback are well-grounded: In 2002 Paul Resnick and his colleagues did a proper randomised control experiment to assess the value of an eBay reputation, looking to see how much people would bid for articles from sellers with different scores.
They found that sellers with established reputations can expect about 8% more revenue than new sellers marketing the same goods.
The move is being seen by some as a clear indication that the brave new world of online communities is faltering
Cheerleaders for crowdsourcing, hive minds and the wisdom of the crowds like to point to eBay as an example of a working online community where little intervention is needed, a "self-governing nation-state" that essentially manages itself, according to Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat.
Unfortunately, however, like many other communities that seem to be happy and relaxed but are in turmoil just beneath the surface, eBay is more like the fictional murder-prone village of Midsomer than the perfect market.
Buyers and sellers seem to be engaged in a war of attrition where negative feedback is one of the main weapons, and now eBay has announced that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback on buyers, hoping that this will help to rebalance things.
Both sides in a transaction get to leave feedback on the site, but it seems that sellers are threatening to leave negative comments on buyers' profiles if they say anything at all critical, knowing that this will make it harder for them to trade in future.
When Bill Cobb, eBay's head of North American operations, announced the changes he admitted that "the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation".

The way eBay works has been likened to a colony of bees

But eBay probably reckons that it can weather the storm and that its users will adapt to the new dispensation since the costs of setting up on another auction site are so high.
The move is being seen by some as a clear indication that the brave new world of online communities is faltering.
In the Financial Times Patti Waldmeir was sad that "the company has basically admitted that the cybersouk model does not work: buyers did not tell the truth about sellers, and sellers did not tell the truth about buyers. And in a market where traders lie, the trust that is so central to online commerce cannot flourish".
This seems to be an excessive response to the change, which is more about rebalancing the system than ditching the very idea of customer feedback.
eBay already relies strongly on external legal systems to support its business.
The company's "level of integration with and dependence on law enforcement is remarkable", as Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu point out in their excellent book Who Rules the Internet, so taking some of the feedback elements away from the customers is not itself a radical shift.

Research shows a bad reputation can dent sales

We could see the development of policing in the 18th century as a similar process, one that reinforces community bonds by taking certain sanctions away from individuals and vesting them in the group as a whole.
In this light eBay's move marks a growing maturity, not a failure of nerve.
After all, as Nick Carr point out, no system managed by humans can be perfect or last forever.
"Sometimes, we're inspired by fellow-feeling", he says. "Other times, we act selfishly or with prejudice or we try to game whatever system we're part of. And the more times we're confronted with other people acting selfishly, or fraudulently, the more we retreat into self-interest ourselves."
eBay's reputation system did well for many years, and even with the changes in place it is far from useless for sellers or buyers.
Perhaps we should applaud the senior team for following Clinton, Obama and McCain, the front-runners for the US presidency, in being bold and embracing change instead of lambasting them for leaving a broken system in place just because they are afraid of the reaction.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Listening to internet chatter

2008-02-19T04:05:00.001-08:00
What the internet sounds like Thousands of people chat online every day - but what does it actually sound like?
A new electronic art installation at the Science Museum in London endeavours to show just that.
Listening Post allows its audience to eavesdrop on the online world. Sampling text from thousands of chatrooms, message boards and forums, the artists have created a huge display that attempts to "hear the internet".
Artists Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen have forged a giant curved stand that is built out of 231 small electronic screens.
Those screens display text fragments, which are accompanied by the rhythm of computer-synthesized voices reading - or as some put it "singing" - the words that surge and flicker over the screens.
Those words are uncensored and unedited: they may be four letters but they are predominantly "clean ones", such as "skin" and "bone".

Then sound artist Ben Rubin has programmed a voice synthesizer to create tones and sound effects that respond to shifts in the data-streams, building up a musical score of online activity.
The artwork then plays out through a series of seven cycles, lasting 25 minutes in all.
The display has been funded by money from the Art Fund and the Science Museum.
Hannah Redler, head of arts at the Science Museum, said the artwork offered an insight into public chatter online.
"It is an awe-inspiring 'portrait of chat' that reveals people's most personal thoughts and most universal concerns."
And David Barrie, director of the Art Fund, said the installation saw art and technology meet.
"Its interest lies, not only in its almost mesmeric visual and auditory impact, but in the poetry it generates from the often banal traffic on the internet," he added.Opposition joy In pictures Battling on
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Game creators look to the future

2008-02-19T04:03:00.001-08:00

Games aimed at casual players have been big in 2007

The developers of some of the world's most popular video games are in San Francisco this week to discuss the future of the industry.
They will look back on one of their most successful years and discuss tackling the challenges ahead.
Jamil Moledina, director of the Game Developers' Conference said: "We had an incredible banner year in 2007 with games like Bioshock, Halo 3 and Uncharted.
In the US the industry's revenues grew 43%, with software sales up a third on the previous year.
Speaking to BBC News, Mr Moledina said: "It's often dangerous to make predictions about the future but the industry has taken on a sense of casualisation."
In this sense casual games are those that people can play and complete in minutes rather than hours and are aimed at children, women and older people. Many of the titles prepared for Nintendo's Wii are casual games.
He added: "There's definitely an increasing interest in approaching that larger audience of media consumers."
New markets
Traditionally the games industry has concentrated on its core audience. Titles like Halo 3, which pulled in the biggest ever earnings for an entertainment release in a single day, showed that the hard core gamer remained a potent market.
How on earth will the games industry surpass last year's commercial and critical high?
For instance, he said, Guitar Hero games made more than $820m at retail, a record for any single franchise in any one year.
Mr Moledina added: "The Wii has re-proven the point that five to 95 year olds like playing games."
Veteran game designer Sid Meier will speak at the conference to shed light on "the key things you need to capture the interest of the public at large".
"We have Facebook here talking about how they have managed to get so many eyeballs playing games in such a short space of time," he said.
Developers and publishers were looking at this area very closely, he added.
But, he said, these new developments would not change everything. "Not all games are going to be casual. There's still going to be a huge market for the core base which drives everything."
One of the games aimed squarely at the core audience in 2008 is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which will be demoed at the week-long conference.
Gaining control
The event will also feature talk about the future of the human computer interface.
"Game worlds are a fairly complex universe, however the controllers we have are often a bit intimidating," said Mr Moledina.
Emotiv systems will be showing off its latest headset that uses sensors to detect brain waves to allow gamers to control characters and objects in a game world.

Mobile gaming is starting to be taken seriously

Gamers can swing an imaginary golf club or interact with a 3D world just by using their hands and arms and without the need for a controller.
"A lot of people experiment with different ways to get into the game; to convert a fairly complex way that humans think and behave and have that map in a natural way to a complex game world," explained Mr Moledina.
The conference also features a strong mobile gaming element.
"We are seeing more and more big game companies take the space seriously. The sea change is that traditional game developers are less snarky about mobile and casual than they were because of the power of phones today."
Microsoft's head of Live services, John Schappert, will give one of the conference's keynotes, where he is expected to unveil new features for the Xbox Live service.
"Microsoft hasn't delivered a keynote for two years so it will be interesting to see what they have for us," said Mr Moledina.Opposition joy In pictures Battling on
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Whistle-blower site taken offline

2008-02-19T04:01:00.001-08:00

The case was brought by lawyers working for a Swiss bank

A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US. Web names

The site was founded in 2006

Information bank
Opposition joy In pictures Battling on
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Net news 'threatens court cases'

2008-02-19T03:58:00.001-08:00

Lord Falconer believes the actions would only need to be temporary

Articles relating to high-profile court cases should be removed from online news archives, the former Lord Chancellor has told the BBC.
Lord Falconer believes the action is necessary to avoid news stories written before a case influencing its outcome.
Action would be necessary for around 20 cases a year, he said, in trials which attract a lot of pre-trial coverage.
The Attorney-General would have to be responsible for identifying cases that could be affected, he said.
"I think the state needs to be better at identifying those cases in which they think there's a contempt risk," he told BBC Radio 4's Law in Action programme.
The rules would only apply to cases, such as the Soham murders, which generate intense media interest.
News organisations would have to remove stories from their archives that were written before an arrest was made and a case became active.
If they refused to comply "it would be very strong evidence they'd committed contempt", he said.
History search
Under the Contempt of Court Act 1981, reporters must be careful not to publish or broadcast anything which poses a "substantial risk of serious prejudice" to a fair trial, such as a defendant's previous convictions unless they are mentioned in open court.
The restrictions apply when a case becomes "active", that is when a warrant is issued for a suspect, an arrest is made or charges are brought.
If one hoster is ordered to remove information because it is in contempt, it is very easy for that information to pop up on another website.
But a journalist may have legitimately reported this information before the individual was arrested and faced trial, and that article could lie in vast online archives that are easy to access.
Charles Collier-Wright, group legal manager at Trinity Mirror, said taking down story archives would present news organisations with serious practical difficulties:
"I think it would be absurd if anyone seriously argued that newspaper archives should be removed just for fear that somebody might go and do a bit of research on them in relation to a case that might be coming up," he said.
"Newspaper information has always been accessible to anyone who really wanted to do it - you can go to libraries and find it out."
Lord Falconer says articles should only be removed for a temporary period, in the run-up to and during a court case, and that search engines should also be asked to ensure prejudicial material doesn't come up at the top of search results lists.
He also denies that the scheme could be seen as changing history.
'Conviction quashed'
Lord Falconer's intervention comes as concern increases about the role of the internet for the criminal justice system.
"By the click of the button you can go on to the internet and get access to the press coverage there may have been at the time the person on trial was arrested," Donald Findlay QC, one of Scotland's leading barristers, told the BBC.
The internet presented a potentially big problem for the criminal justice system across Britain, he said.
"That might disclose all sorts of speculation about the circumstances of the crime, all sorts of information you are not supposed to have if you're serving on a jury."
Prejudicial material can be easy to come by, appearing all over the web - on blogs and discussion boards, for example.
As a result, Catrin Turner, a partner and online law specialist at solicitors Pinsent Masons, said removing a web page wouldn't necessarily remove the problem.
"Websites are hosted on servers all over the world," she explained.
"If one hoster is ordered to remove information because it is in contempt, it is very easy for that information to pop up on another website.
"There is also something called caches: invisible copies of content are stored in separate places on the internet, so even if content is taken down from a website, there may still be these caches or stores of information which can be accessed."
Judges do warn juries against doing their own research on the internet, but media barrister Rupert Elliott said there was concrete evidence that the temptation is difficult to resist:
"In a 2005 rape case, at the end of the trial some downloaded material from the internet was found in the jury room, which essentially encouraged uncritical acceptance of evidence from a rape victim.
"In that case, the Court of Appeal was so concerned about its content that they quashed the conviction," he said.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Meeting the man behind Moore's Law

2008-02-17T09:47:00.001-08:00

Dr Moore has now helped found several companies

In April 1965 a 36-year old electronics buff jotted down his thoughts on the future of the juvenile silicon chip industry.
Writing in a "throw-away" journal, Gordon Moore accurately imagined a future filled with mobile phones, home computers, and even intelligent cars.
But it was a much more prosaic prediction that has come to dominate his life and the industry that he helped found.
"I could see a change coming that the electronics were going to get significantly cheaper," says the co-founder of Intel, the largest maker of computer chips.
In the article in Electronics Magazine, he predicted that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would double every year for ten years.
He later revised the forecast to doubling every two years or so, as the initial breakneck speed of development and shrinkage waned. It was a prediction that became known as Moore's Law and it has helped drive the computer revolution over the last four decades.
Modest growth
At first glance it is not the kind of observation that would catapult a person to fame.
But the day I meet him, a now silver haired Dr Moore has just given a talk to a packed auditorium of people and he is surrounded by crowds of autograph hunters who were not even born when he made his off the cuff observations.
Moore's Law has become shorthand for the pace of technological change. It set a standard for the chip industry's phenomenal growth and has in turn underpinned the world's digital awakening.

"It was an exciting technology in the beginning. It had so much potential, we just had no idea how much potential," he says.
"When Intel was formed [in 1968] the total semiconductor industry was only a couple of billion dollars worldwide - today it is 300 billion."
And as the industry has delivered each successive generation of faster, smaller, cheaper chips, it has opened up rafts of new possibilities for silicon that have ultimately delivered the technologies he predicted more than 40 years ago.
Reflecting on his prophesies today, a retired and quietly-spoken Dr Moore is characteristically modest.
"When I went back and read that I was amazed that I predicted all of those things," he says.
But, as a young engineer, he was at least uniquely placed to make his key observation, having co-founded Fairchild Semiconductors, maker of the first commercial integrated circuit, or chip.
"I was directing a lab where we were trying to advance the technology and from my perspective I could see some of these things coming that weren't generally visible to the rest of the population," he says.
Force for change
At the time, computers were mainly used by the military and PCs were unheard of, he says.
"Computers were in glass rooms tended to by a core of monks that knew how to do the proper incantations."

But as the silicon chip industry took hold and computer makers learnt how to exploit the technology everything changed.
"Shortly after that the commercial market just completely dwarfed anything in the military," he says.
And what had originally been just a prediction by Dr Moore became a self-fulfilling prophesy.
"It has become a driving force for the industry," he says. "Competitors have realised that if they don't move at least that rate they are going to fall behind."
So far silicon producers have managed to keep on or ahead of the curve for more than four decades by continually shrinking the technology and packing more and more components inside a chip.

"It's a peculiar feature of this technology that by making things smaller everything gets better," says Dr Moore. "The transistors get faster, you can put more of a system on a chip."
But more importantly, and perhaps more curiously, the chips also become cheaper.
And this is the key point of his 1965 paper, he says. Moore's Law is an economic law and would probably have driven the industry regardless of whether or not he had made his prediction.
"I am not sure that having Moore's Law held up there as a yardstick increases the pressure [on chip manufacturers] because the need to remain competitive is so strong."
Chip future
As a result, the industry has grown "far beyond" what he could have imagined in 1965, he says.
Moore interview
"It is surprising that any of the things we predicted are still valid."
He is most impressed with the industry's inventiveness, he says, allowing it to overcome a series of seemingly insurmountable technical hurdles as it grew.
"The industry has succeeded in getting around all of the ones that have been thrown in front of it," he says. "It has been much more successful than I probably would have predicted."
But, Dr Moore says, the industry can only go on shrinking transistors for so long.
Eventually, the features will become so small that the atomic structure of the materials will be a limitation, possibly spelling the end of Moore's Law
So what does he think will happen in the next 40 years?
"I'm through with making predictions," he chuckles. "Get it right once and quit."

Return to text
In pictures Balance of forces In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Getting more from Moore's Law

2008-02-17T09:45:00.001-08:00

For more than 40 years the silicon industry has delivered ever faster, cheaper chips.
The advances have underpinned everything from the rise of mobile phones to digital photography and portable music players.
Chip-makers have been able to deliver many of these advances by shrinking the components on a chip.
By making these building blocks, such as transistors, smaller they have become faster and firms have been able to pack more of them into the same area.
But according to many industry insiders this miniaturisation cannot continue forever.

"The consensus in the industry is that we can do that shrink for about another ten years and then after that we have to figure out new ways to bring higher capability to our chips," said Professor Stanley Williams of Hewlett Packard.
Even Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel and the man that gave his name to the law that dictates the industry's progression, admits that it can only go on for a few more years.
"Moore's Law should continue for at least another decade," he recently told the BBC News website. "That's about as far as I can see."
Tiny tubes
As a result, researchers around the world are engaged in efforts to allow the industry to continue delivering the advances that computer users have come to expect.
Key areas include advanced fabrication techniques, building new components and finding new materials to augment silicon.
Already new materials are creeping into modern chips.
To overcome this, companies have replaced the gate dielectrics, previously made from silicon dioxide, with an oxide based on the metal hafnium.
The material's development and integration into working components has been described by Dr Moore as "the biggest change in transistor technology" since the late 1960s.
But IBM researchers are working on materials that they believe offer even bigger advances.
"Carbon nanotubes are a step beyond [hafnium]," explained Dr Phaedon Avouris of the company.
'Superior' design

"They are a more drastic change but still preserve the basic architecture of field effect transistors."
Dr Avouris believes they can be used to replace a critical element of the chip, known as the channel.
Today this is commonly made of silicon and is the area of the transistor through which electrons flow.
Chip makers are constantly battling to make the channel length in transistors smaller and smaller, to increase the performance of the devices.
Carbon nanotube's small size and "superior" electrical properties should be able to deliver this, said Dr Avouris.
Crucially, he also believes the molecules can be integrated with traditional silicon manufacturing processes, meaning the technology would more likely be accepted by an industry that has spent billions perfecting manufacturing techniques.
The team have already shown off working transistors and are currently working on optimising their production and integration into working devices.
Tiny improvement
Professor Williams, at Hewlett Packard is also working on technology that could be incorporated into the future generations of chips.
Nano chip developer Multi-core chips Multi-core 'myth'
"Now we have this type of device we have a broader palette with which to paint our circuits," said Professor Williams.
Professor Williams and his team have shown that by putting two of these devices together - a configuration called a crossbar latch - it could do the job of a transistor.
"A cross bar latch has the type of functionality you want from a transistor but it's working with very different physics," he explained.
Crucially, these devices can also be made much smaller than a transistor.
"And as they get smaller they get better," he said.
Professor Williams and his team are currently making prototype hybrid circuits - built of memristors and transistors - in a fabrication plant in North America.
"We want to keep the functional equivalent of Moore's Law going for many decades into the future," said Professor Williams.In pictures Balance of forces In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Cleaning up in 'fab world'

2008-02-17T09:43:00.001-08:00

Each manufacturing plant, or "fab", may cost billions of dollars and is a triumph of engineering.
But working inside these hi-tech plants can be a surreal experience, says Dr Peter Wilson of the University of Southampton.

Its pristine white walls, secure air locks, sterile air and ethereal yellow lighting makes it seem like you have arrived in the belly of an orbiting space station.
I can still remember the first time I went there.
It was set in classic "tumbleweed" territory - a small town in Arizona with just one road and the factory.
The temperature was over 100 degrees outside, with dust everywhere, but when you crossed the threshold into the plant, the air-conditioning kicked in and you felt like you were in a different world.
This is a common experience to anyone who works in the silicon manufacturing sector. The world outside and the fab world inside are on two different planes.
The boundary can transcend geographic and political boundaries - it can become impossible to tell which country you are in, when everyone is wearing a mask, and is dressed head to foot in shapeless, white hooded-suits.
'Bunny men'
Outside, we worry about dirt on our shoes and wipe our feet, or perhaps wipe some dust off our laptop screen. In fab world, we worry about a few atoms contaminating the environment.
If dust falls on the delicate silicon wafers on which chips are printed it can render them useless.

Modern transistors - the tiny switches at the heart of these devices - are described in terms of the smallest feature sizes that can be made, such as a 45 nanometres, or 45 billionths of a meter.
To put this in perspective, the average human hair will be between 20 and 100 micrometers across - over a thousand times larger - and a typical dust particle will be anything from 1 to 100 micrometres.
Dust and contaminants must be kept out.
The fab is a place for chips, not for people. As a result, only the pure and the clean are given permission to penetrate its' inner chambers.
Anyone that enters must go through a strict set of procedures.
All of the trappings of the outside world must be left behind, whether clothes, jewellery or even make-up.
A series of ante-chambers serve as prep rooms where workers change into a series of gowns and gloves, collectively known as a "bunny suit".
Sticky floors make sure that no one treads in any contaminants and an air shower before entry makes certain that any loose particles are stripped away.
Skin flakes, lint, hair and anything else gets sucked into the grate in the floor.
Pure products
And then it's onwards into the hum of the clean rooms. Stark white walls reflect the yellow sodium lights from above and a constant breeze blows down from the ceiling taking any particles through the gridded floor.
Fab world is an expensive place and, hence, it never stops Sand to silicon chip
Everything taken in either needs to be cleaned with alcohol or specially designed. Even the paper we use to take notes is designed from a special lint-free material.
Inside, humans very rarely come into contact with the rainbow-streaked discs of reflective silicon on which the chips are cut.
Instead, they are there to trouble shoot and monitor that everything goes correctly.
The silicon wafers are handled on monorails that move above the fab floor and the processing is done by complex vacuum sealed robots.
The wafers enter one end of the line costing a couple of hundred dollars and appear at the other - weeks later - patterned with billions of transistors and worth tens of thousands of pounds.
The silicon itself is not made at the fab - the ultra pure ingots (up to 99.99999999% pure) are produced and cut by specialist companies and sold to the chip makers.
The fab world's magic is creating the incredibly complex patterns of wires and circuitry on chips the size of a postage stamp time and time again
That alchemy can cost billions of dollars.
Non-Stop
Each layer of a processor is constructed using a mask which is like a stencil, to highlight the areas to be deposited, etched or doped.
Nano chip designer
Doping involves adding impurities to the silicon to change its electrical characteristics - something which has to be done with astonishing precision.
Each mask used to cost several thousand pounds but as the complexity of chips has increased, and the smallest possible feature size has reduced, the number and intricacy of these masks has increased.
In addition, the size of individual features is now smaller than the wavelength of light that used to be used to pattern them, which means the use of some clever optics is required.
The yellowish lights used inside the fab are to make sure that they do not interfere with this process.
The result of all of this is that an individual silicon integrated circuit may require masks that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, or perhaps even millions of pounds, to produce and machines that cost a similar amount.
Fab world is an expensive place and, hence, it never stops.
The plants churn out chips every single day of every year. So called giga-fabs may process more than 100,000 wafers every month, each containing hundreds of chips.
Each one of the 10mm by 10mm silicon squares is a triumph of design.
As a chip designer, the impact of the incredible complexity of fab world has led to an amazing transformation in what we can do on a single chip.
The products of this strange and surreal place have burst out of its confines and have pervaded every facet of the outside world from computers and mobile phones to aircraft and microwave ovens.
Yet, incredible as it is to visit, fab world is also a place that is blissful to leave.
At the end of the day there's no better feeling than being able to rip off the itchy bunny suit, step outside into the searing heat and once again get dirty.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Politics 'stifling $100 laptop'

2008-02-17T09:41:00.001-08:00
XO Laptop in Nigeria A lack of "big thinking" by politicians has stifled a scheme to distribute laptops to children in the developing world, a spokesman has said.
Walter Bender of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said politicians were unwilling to commit because "change equals risk".
But, he said, there needed to be a "dramatic change" because education in many countries was "failing" children.
In an interview with the BBC, Nigeria's education minister questioned the need for laptops in poorly equipped schools.
Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku said: "What is the sense of introducing One Laptop per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in, where they don't have facilities?"
"We are more interested in laying a very solid foundation for quality education which will be efficient, effective, accessible and affordable."
The previous government of Nigeria had committed to buying one million laptops.
Dr Aja-Nwachuku said he was now assessing OLPC alongside other schemes from Microsoft and Intel.
"We are asking whether this is the most critical thing to drive education."
But speaking separately to BBC News, Professor Bender said: "We think that change has to be dramatic."
"You've got to be big, you've got to be bold. And what has happened is that there has been an effort to say 'don't take any risks - just do something small, something incremental'."
"It feels safe but by definition what you are ensuring is that nothing happens."
Winds of change
OLPC was started in 2002 by Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It aims to put thousands of low-cost laptops, known as the XO, in the hands of children around the world.
The machines are planned to cost $100 and have been especially designed for use in remote and harsh environments where there is little access to electricity or the internet.
But getting the project off the ground has proved difficult.
Professor Negroponte has had high profile run-ins with major technology firms.
He told an audience at a Linux event: "if I am annoying Microsoft and Intel then I figure I am doing something right."
Microsoft head Bill Gates had questioned the XOs design, particularly the lack of hard drive and its "tiny screen".
But recently, the firm announced that it was working on a version of Windows XP that would run on the pared down machines.
The price will come down as the numbers go up. It will take time but it will happen
"We are spending a non-trivial amount of money," Microsoft's Will Poole told Reuters.
Earlier this year, Professor Negroponte also accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop - the Classmate - below cost price to drive him out of markets. He said that Intel "should be ashamed of itself" and said its tactics had hurt his mission "enormously".
Within weeks it was announced that Intel had joined the board of OLPC amid speculation that the firm was unhappy about the XO using a processor from its main rival AMD.
'Small thinking'
Although these episodes now appear to be behind OLPC, Professor Bender said there was still an "aggressive" effort to undermine the charity.

"There is still a concerted misinformation campaign out there," he said.
Mr Bender said he would not speculate on who was behind the alleged campaign.
"Wherever it is coming from, it exists," he told BBC News.
But he said the main problem for OLPC was dealing with conservative politicians.
"Change equals risk especially for politicians. And we are certainly advocating change because the [education] system is failing these children," he said.
"It has not been that processor versus that processor or that operating system versus that operating system - it's been small thinking versus big thinking. That's really the issue," he said.
Sales target
Originally, the laptops were to be sold to governments in lots of one million for $100 apiece.
Over time, however, the project has dropped the minimum number of machines that can be ordered, leading some to speculate that governments were not buying into the scheme.
The project also recently launched an initiative to allow citizens of North America to buy two machines at a time; one for themselves and one for a child in a developing country.
But Mr Bender said the shift was because of a better understanding of how to distribute smaller numbers cheaply and effectively, rather than a lack of orders.
"Part of it was our understanding of how the supply chain was going to work and having enough flexibility in the supply chain to make it work with a small number," he said.
"The big numbers were really about how you get this thing started not how you make it work in the long term.
"That was always going to be about supporting any good idea that comes along. And we've been able to get it started without the big top down numbers so we are off and running."
Developing tool
Since the scheme was first announced in 2002 there have been reports of several countries signing up to it.
Both Nigeria and Libya were reported to have ordered more than one million laptops.

Tests of the XO are going on around the world

Other countries including Thailand and Pakistan had also placed orders, according to reports.
But recently, OLPC revealed it had just taken its first order for 100,000 of the machines, placed by the government of Uruguay.
"Uruguay is first then it will be Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia then we are going to be doing stuff in Haiti, Rwanda and Mongolia," said Mr Bender.
In addition, he said, OLPC had done a deal with Birmingham, Alabama, in the US, to provide the laptop for schools in the city.
"The numbers of countries where we have trials set up is also increasing," he said.
Tests were also going on in the Solomon Islands, Nepal and India, a country that had previously shunned the scheme.
The Indian Ministry of Education had previously dismissed the laptop as "pedagogically suspect", whilst the Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee said the country needed "classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools".
Tipping point
The first machines will cost almost double the $100 originally planned.
The high price has been blamed on the increasing cost of the raw materials for the components inside the XO. Each machine currently costs $188.

The laptops have been designed to cope with harsh conditions

The manufacturer of the laptop - Quanta - recently revealed it had started mass production of the machines, after a number of delays.
Previously, OLPC had said it needed three million orders to make production feasible.
Professor Negroponte said it was an important milestone that had been reached despite "all the naysayers".
"We're not turning back - we have passed the point of no return," said Mr Bender. "It is happening."In pictures Balance of forces In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Cloudy visions of the future

2008-02-17T09:39:00.001-08:00

Predicting the future can be difficult

Regular commentator Bill Thompson looks forward to cheap net access and cloud computing.

It's a good, safe time frame because if you're right then people may just remember your prediction when you remind them how clever you are, and if you're wrong it's very unlikely anyone will think to point it out.
Trying to anticipate significant developments for the coming year is a lot harder, perhaps because the tendency is to overestimate the impact of the few obvious trends and miss the slow-burn developments that are on the verge of going mainstream and changing the way we see the world.
For example, last year I wrote "we are building our lives around the network and the things it makes possible, and 2006 marks the year in which this became a sensible and indeed rather normal thing to do rather than something that marked you out as a geek".
While it's true that Facebook and other social network sites went mainstream, they are still not as widespread as the sometimes breathless coverage would make you think.
Wireless world
It's the same with my prediction about phones, when I argued that "we're going to see smartphones and mobile access finally come into their own, as the devices live up to the earlier promise and the networks finally realise that treating handsets as network nodes makes a lot more sense than acting like they are mobile phones with added data services".
This has started to happen, but it's going to take a long time before we're all surfing the wireless web from smart mobiles.
The iPhone has accelerated the process begun by Symbian, and the rollout of Google's Android and open source phones like OpenMoko may help, but it will be a few years before the devices are completely freed from reliance on the network.
Computing is not a simple service like electricity, and it's not clear that we can solve the administrative problems needed to have business-critical services hosted remotely.
One facet of mobile internet access may change quite fast, however.
Buying wifi by the hour in cafes or on trains is expensive and tedious, and the widespread availability of 3G data cards for laptops on fixed monthly rates could hasten the demise of the pay-per-use services.
It may force the operators to do more deals to offer free access like the one between The Cloud and McDonalds, and I wouldn't be surprised to see free wireless in Starbucks by the middle of the year.
At home we'll see faster broadband services being delivered over cable, and ADSL providers will try to keep up.
BT and the other telcos will complain loudly about not being able to afford the investment needed to upgrade the local loop between exchanges and homes, but if the government keeps its nerve and refuses them tax breaks I think we'll find that the money is there after all.
The potential revenue from fast broadband networks are just too great to pass on.
Network power
We'll also see better screens.
The multi-touch interface that Apple has built into the iPhone and the iPod Touch will be used on bigger devices, perhaps giving the tablet PC a new lease of life after years in which it has struggled to escape the taint of Microsoft's over-enthusiastic marketing.

And there will be more and better location-based services. The newest version of Google Maps for mobile does a pretty good job of figuring out where you are without GPS by using the cell network, and we may see this information used to tag photos and blog posts.
No doubt Facebook will seize the opportunity to offer an "I'm here" map-based addition to your profile, whether you want it or not.
Together these changes amount to more of the same, offering us easier, simpler, cheaper and faster access to the network.
But next year's real shift will be more subtle and have much greater long term impact.
At the moment most of the computing we do is local, and programs run on our laptops or desktops.
This is starting to change, and in 2008 we will see more and more processing moving away from the user and into large data centres which serve many different organisations.
Gradual shift
The change is described in Nick Carr's new book The Big Switch, where he argues that computing power is becoming a utility.
He believes that instead of owning our own processors we will soon be renting time on large systems run by the likes of Google and Amazon, not just for storing data but also for running code.

Computing could begin to be distributed like electricity

Carr sees strong parallels between the way electricity generation shifted from local generators in factories to a national grid providing voltage differences where they are needed and the move from local to central processing.
In the world Carr describes most processing takes place in "the cloud", and the computers we actually use will manage the interface and the communications, but do little of the real work.
It is a compelling vision, though not without its problems.
Computing is not a simple service like electricity, and it's not clear that we can solve the administrative problems needed to have business-critical services hosted remotely.
Moving everything onto the network may appeal in the rich countries of the industrialised world but offers little to rural India or sub-Saharan African countries.
And there are massive security and data management issues to be solved.
Even so, the potential benefits are too great to be ignored, and we're likely to see a range of services go live next year that will, if successful, take us closer to the cloud computing model.
It will not be an overnight shift, but when we look back in a decade or so I think we'll see 2008 as the year things started to change.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Facing the future Facebook style

2008-02-17T09:36:00.001-08:00

Facebook has become so influential it is bound to create headlines

Regular commentator Bill Thompson ruminates on the inevitability of Facebook being in the news in 2008

It might just manage to avoid upsetting its users with new services such as Beacon, the misjudged advertising feature that told your friends about your purchases.
It might spot fake profiles of famous people, like the two Bilawal Bhutto entries that fooled both Facebook and some newspapers, and remove them before they get noticed.
And it could even avoid falling victim to one of the frauds that are likely to be perpetrated against users of all social network sites.
But even if Facebook is lucky it will still get a lot of coverage.
Because during 2007 it became the social site of choice for journalists, politicians, bloggers and others who see MySpace as for the kids and LinkedIn as too business-oriented for friends.
Face off with blogger
The spat has helped highlight the issue of data ownership and data portability, and may even lead to more careful consideration of who can do what with the information found around the internet.
It also means that when Facebook is directly involved in a story then it will be bigger than it may otherwise have been.
We saw this recently in the fuss over the site's treatment of Robert Scoble, one of the more significant technology bloggers and a former Microsoft employee and evangelist.
Scoble, who has complained that Facebook limits him to 'only' 5,000 online friends, used a program to read each name, e-mail address and date of birth and import them into another social service, Plaxo Pulse.
When you sign up for Facebook "you agree not to use the Service or the Site to harvest or collect e-mail addresses or other contact information of other users from the Service or the Site by electronic or other means for the purposes of sending unsolicited emails or other unsolicited communications".
Since Scoble was using an automated script to harvest addresses he was clearly breaking this condition, so Facebook suspended his account just as it would for any other user.
Data issues
However Scoble is an A-list blogger so when he wrote about his suspension it generated a storm of comment.
At first people were broadly on his side, criticising Facebook for acting as if it owned his network of contacts.
Others then weighed in, pointing out that the birth dates and e-mail addresses Scoble had taken didn't belong to him but to his Facebook friends, many of whom might not want to be imported into Plaxo without their consent.
Company and blogger have now made up, with Scoble having achieved his goal of enhancing his notoriety and outsider status by standing up for users right to have access to 'their' data - even when that data is personal information about other people.
And Facebook has backed away from another PR embarrassment, although not without some loss of face since it is unlikely that an unknown accountant from Basingstoke would have been allowed to return after such an egregious breach of the site's rules.
Blurring boundaries
The spat has helped highlight the issue of data ownership and data portability, and may even lead to more careful consideration of who can do what with the information found around the internet.
But it also shows how important Facebook has become as the focal point for any discussion of this type. It is our lightning conductor for many of the issues which are emerging as important in the new, online world, and that will ensure that it will be dragged into stories to make a point, even when it is not directly involved.
Of course the chances are that the site will also merit some coverage because of the way it grows.
In his list of technology predictions for 2008 noted computer scientist Ed Felten includes 'a Facebook application will cause a big privacy to-do', and he's not alone in this belief.
One reason for this is that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg comes from the generation that grew up with the network in their lives, for whom the boundaries between offline and online relationships have always been indeterminate and to some extent irrelevant.

Mark Zuckerberg, part of a new generation of networkers

Zuckerberg's instincts are those of the children who flock to MySpace, Bebo and YouTube, not those of the older users who are now using the tools his company has developed.
This culture clash is an interesting reversal of the old order, in which teenagers would grow into a world defined by their parents and have to learn how to assert their own desires and demands.
Adults going online for the first time are entering a world that has been shaped by the interests, desires and concerns of the younger generation, a world that does not operate according to the rules they have followed in real life.
It is hardly surprising that there are differences of opinion, or that the practices of the various social sites sometimes cause concern for parents, politicians or teachers.
It will be interesting to see whether some compromise can be achieved in the coming months and years, or whether the rapid rate of network development means that even Mark Zuckerberg will end the year complaining that the youngsters are just not behaving responsibly online.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Finding the freedom to roam

2008-02-17T09:34:00.001-08:00

Looking for wi-fi? With a 3G connection you might not have to

Regular columnist Bill Thompson is enjoying the new freedom offered by his laptop and 3G connection working together.

A sore tooth can sit for weeks just beneath the threshold of consciousness before you finally decide to do something about it, and you leave the dentist full of optimism, hope and love for all humanity now that you can think clearly.
Well, like a man who bangs his head against a brick wall because it feels so good to stop, I've finally given up grubbing around for open wireless connectivity on the move and invested in a 3G modem for my laptop.
No more will you find me wandering down dark alleyways in search of an elusive open network, or hoping that the train slows down long enough on the run into Stevenage station for me to pick up "Netgear", "default" or "belkin54g" long enough to download my e-mail.
I have to admit that this change of heart has not come about because such activity might be illegal, since I firmly believe that simply joining an open network should not be considered a crime.
The law has clearly not kept match with the capabilities of the technology especially since many people leave their networks open in order to offer a service to passers-by.
Since I have my laptop with me nearly all the time I don't need to compromise on a small screen or inadequate keypad
And an iPhone or iPod Touch will automatically connect to "known" networks, so if my home network is called "default" I'll join any other open "default" network as I walk the streets.
So I'm confident that a well-constructed defence would establish that the previous convictions under the Communications Act were not justified.
But now I won't even be tempted to latch on to other people's wireless, because I have a little white box, called a dongle, that plugs into a USB port on my laptop and can connect to the phone network.
It works on the train, it works in my favourite (wi-fi-less) cafes in Cambridge and it works in my car sitting by the side of a B-road trying to figure out where I am on Google Maps.
I've been able to get my e-mail and surf the web on my phone for ages, but it has always been a second-best solution, and I'm unwilling to shell out for an iPhone even if the user interface does solve many of the problems I've had with small screens.
But since I have my laptop with me nearly all the time I don't need to compromise on a small screen or inadequate keypad.
New generation
The toothache has been sorted. The ringing in my ears has stopped. I can breathe freely and that sharp pain whenever I bend over sideways has finally cleared up. I can be online whenever and wherever I want to be, and life is good.
The new generation of data modems are already being sold as an alternative to slow broadband for home PCs when ADSL over copper wires is either not feasible or just unreliable.
And it can't be long before someone realises that the external dongle isn't really needed, and offers a laptop with a built-in 3G modem and a slot for a SIM card.
It isn't a perfect service, as I found out last weekend when I tried to stream video from the re-opening of Wysing Arts Centre in the middle of the Cambridgeshire countryside.
You really need a 3G connection for anything at all substantial, and when the connection falls back onto the old GSM/GPRS network it can cope with e-mail but little else.
But it is a viable alternative to wi-fi in cities. As well as being a lot cheaper it lets you move around without dropping the connection because it uses the cellular network.
I can also see how these 3G services could be used in countries without an established telecommunications infrastructure.
Many cybercafes in African countries already use a cellular phone to provide access to the internet, but these dongles could improve the speed and quality of service without needing several phone handsets.
When I first got an always-on internet connection from home I couldn't believe how liberating it was.
This was in the days before home broadband and involved rather a lot of complex fiddling to get SSH tunnelling going over a pair of Centrex lines into a small Linux box on my desk, and if that means anything to you then you've been in this business too long.
Now I'm finding the same sense of freedom comes from having easy, fixed-price access on the move.
Instead of deciding whether to shell out 5 for an hour's access in the railway station or risk the quality of coffee in a well-known fast-food chain just to get free access I can plug in and go.
Once again, the technology has demonstrated its ability to surprise me, and yet again I realise that we are only at the beginning of the transformation which began with the early networks of the 1960s.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Locking down open computing

2008-02-17T09:32:00.001-08:00

DTrace was made available for the new version of Mac OS X

How open should computers be, asks regular columnist Bill Thompson.

These tools would look at my thousands of lines of code and check that I had all my brackets and semi-colons in the right place and that I hadn't mis-spelled the names of variables or functions.
I also relied on more serious debugging software, programs like 'dbx' that could investigate the inner workings of other programs, monitoring them as they ran and giving me complete access to the instructions I was executing and the data structures they were manipulating.
Tracing running programs in this way is hard and detailed work, but it is often the only way to spot subtle errors, and a lot of work has gone into improving such tools in the years since I was working on sixteen-user UNIX systems with a generous 512Mb of RAM.
One of the best tracing programs around is DTrace, developed by Sun Microsystems for use on its Solaris operating system.
DTrace is available under an open source license, and when Apple announced that it would be available on Leopard, the new version of Mac OS X, every serious Mac OS programmer looked forward to having a new, powerful tool to work with.
Unfortunately early experiments with the Apple version of DTrace identified some unusual behaviour.
Cable ties
Adam Leventhal, one of its original developers, found that he could not see any information about iTunes, apparently because Apple had modified his tool to ignore some of its own programs.
Leventhal is rather annoyed about this, because the point of a trace program is that it can see everything in order to help developers find and fix errors.
Digital rights management is not, in itself, an objectionable technology
Apple has not made any comment on his findings, but the general consensus is that iTunes is being shielded to protect details about how it implements FairPlay, the digital rights management system that Apple uses to limit the uses of music and video files downloaded from their online store.
And Apple is probably doing this because it has been told to by the content industries, the companies that package and sell the products of other people's creativity.
This would not be too surprising, and Apple is certainly no worse than other companies in limiting what users and developers can see and do.
Microsoft makes it almost impossible to get inside its Xbox 360 games console, resulting in the absurdity of having to get a special cable if you want to transfer your information to a new console when you upgrade. It also doesn't open the console up to developers.
Modifying DTrace is also perfectly legitimate, if irritating.
'protected content'
Apple is perfectly entitled to change software in any way it wants within the law, even if it does reveal yet again just how much power the record companies have over the computing industry.

Vista also contains technology aimed at protecting content

The inner workings of a complex debugging tool may seem like the sort of issue that only affects programmers, but it has a direct impact on every Mac user since it makes it harder to find and fix problems in software, especially software written by independent developers.
Like many Mac users, I rely on a range of free and open source tools like the Acorn image editor or the twhirl twitter client, so I have a direct interest in ensuring that the programmers behind them have proper access to the internals of the operating system.
And it also shows the sort of issues that can arise when any part of a complex computing environment is restricted in order to satisfy requirements that have nothing to do with effective operation and are solely motivated by a desire to limit what users can do.
It's the same with Microsoft Vista, where vast efforts have been made to ensure that "protected content" like high-definition video doesn't leak out of the controlled environment.
This has an effect on system performance and on hardware compatibility that can seriously affect the user experience.
Picture record
The restrictions are not really a serious problem.
Landon Fuller has already posted details of a workaround, although there is no sign yet of Apple responding to Leventhal's point that "Apple has done a service by porting DTrace, but let's convince them to go one step further and port it properly".

The Mukurtu project uses DRM effectively

And digital rights management is not, in itself, an objectionable technology.
Encrypting e-mail so that they can only be read by the intended recipient is a way of managing the readership of a document, and a vital one for anyone wanting to use the public internet for private communications.
It is also useful in helping groups of people keep control and ownership of material that is important to them for non-commercial reasons.
For example an Australian Warumungu community has created a digital archive that uses DRM to enforce rules that they consider vitally important when dealing with photographs, because only elders can look at sacred objects, while images of dead people should not be viewed and other objects may be restricted by family or gender.
The Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari archive uses DRM to help the community manage these rules, although it also allows individuals to decide to vary or even break them, recognising that the technology should be at the service of its users and not the other way around.
It is a lesson that the record industry seems slowly to be learning, as more and more online services offer unlocked MP3s to download.
Perhaps Apple will eventually free DTrace from its restrictions, just as Steve Jobs has worked to get rid of DRM on music.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Are the watchers being watched?

2008-02-17T09:30:00.001-08:00
Not even MPs are exempt from the surveillance state they have created, notes regular columnist Bill Thompson.
Two conversations between Tooting MP Sadiq Khan and his constituent and childhood friend Babar Ahmad were apparently recorded in the prison where Mr Ahmad is being held.
He is on remand while awaiting deportation to the United States on charges relating to his support for terrorism. Mr Ahmad faces no charges in the UK.
The real problem for MPs, of course, is not that they will be specifically targetted for surveillance but that they will inevitably be caught up in operations against other people.
This doesn't seem to be the case here, as special arrangements were made to seat the two men at a "talking table" in the prison visiting area, but many MPs must have found themselves chatting to someone who was being constantly watched.
Perhaps it's time to teach our elected representatives how to use the latest encryption and anonymising tools so that they can protect themselves from the surveillance state they have created?
Just as few of us believe that employers really do stop reading employee e-mails when they realise that they are personal, although that is what the law would require, it is hard to imagine that the secret service turn off their microphones when an MP enters the room.
The problem is not, however, restricted to specially installed listening devices, and MPs concerned about bugs might want to look again at the laws which control how online communications of all kinds are monitored, stored and analysed, since this affects them as much as it affects the rest of us.
Phone companies and internet service providers keep records of all text messages, phone calls, e-mails, IP addresses, websites visited, and times logged on to instant messaging services, collectively known as "traffic data".
The content of e-mails and chats or details of web searches are not stored, so it takes a warrant to read someone's e-mail, monitor their online chats or install bugging software on their laptop so you can listen in to their Skype conversations.
But the information that is retained is enough to know who you are calling or e-mailing, when you're chatting and which websites you are visiting, the sort of thing that most of us would consider private and expect to be kept confidential.

The immunity for MPs dates from the days of Labour PM Harold Wilson

According to the Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy over 250,000 requests for access to this data were made in the first nine months of 2007, an appalling extension of the state's powers of surveillance, and one that few of us are aware of.
And nearly 800 separate bodies can ask to see some or all of it.
Apart from the police and secret services the Food Standards Agency, health service trusts and even the Post Office can ask to see who you've been exchanging e-mails with.
The information gathered will inevitably include details of correspondence between MPs and their constituents, lists of websites visited from MPs offices and home computers and details of which instant messaging services they have been accessing.

Currently net service firms retain data for about six months

At least it puts them in the same bag as the rest of us. Journalists don't even have the fig-leaf of protection against being watched that MPs have claimed for themselves, and I tell every one of my students at City University to assume that all of their e-mails, phone calls and online chats could be read by the authorities.
Most of the time, of course, what we're doing is not of sufficient interest to justify the effort of monitoring a journalist - or even an MP - but being aware of the possibility is vitally important in case a story suddenly becomes high-profile. The same would apply if a constituent becomes "of interest" to the authorities.
MPs might be unhappy to find out that their supposedly confidential chats to constituents are being listened in to by MI5, but surely they should be just as worried that the Food Standards Agency can find out that the owner of the dodgy takeaway in the local high street has been sending them e-mails?
Perhaps it's time to teach our elected representatives how to use the latest encryption and anonymising tools so that they can protect themselves from the surveillance state they have created?
Or perhaps they would like to do us all a service and dismantle it.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Smart tags hail the web of things

2008-02-17T09:28:00.001-08:00

Tags are helping monitor health and safety on building sites

The humble radio tag is growing up.
So say researchers and developers who are finding ways to make the tiny devices much more than just a hi-tech price tag that can help shops and supermarkets track cans of beans from warehouse to store shelf.
"It all started with simple radio tags and asset tracking," said Gerd Kortuem, "but that really only gives you an identifier for an object."
Now, said Dr Kortuem, tiny Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags are getting smarter and more communicative as bigger memory, basic processing power and wireless technologies are added to them.
"We are trying to embed a little more intelligence beyond location by adding sensors and by networking these objects together," he said.Safe and sound
Dr Kortuem and colleagues at the University of Lancaster are working on a project that combines smart tags and personal identifiers to keep an eye on people working on construction sites using heavy machine tools.
"It's to keep track of how long they are used, to figure out vibrations generated by these tools," he said. "It's for health and safety. We create personalised health and safety records for every worker."
The future of the internet is an internet of connected objects
Workers will also be able to look at their own health records to get a sense of their exposure to potentially harmful working environments and raise awareness of the dangers.
For instance, prolonged exposure to vibrations from drills and other tools can lead to a condition called "vibration white finger" that can leave extremities numb and painful.
Many hardware makers, such as router maker Cisco, are also starting to put smarter tags on devices so they can keep a record of their working life and can call for help if they are about to fail or are in need of servicing.Smarter homes
In the home too some gadgets are starting to use RFID tags to become smarter and help their owners cope with the pace of modern life.
The latest version of the Nabaztag wi-fi rabbit gadget has been fitted with a sensor that can interrogate the radio tags.
The rabbit can also read out e-mails, monitor RSS feeds and the weather for its owners. Rival devices such as the Chumby and Tux droid perform similar functions.

The rabbit can recognise lots of different objects

Jean-Francois Kitten, a spokesman for Violet, said at first only five titles, some stories and some educational, would have tags but more were expected soon.
When a tagged book is waved under the Nabaztag's nose it pulls a recording of a story being read from the net and begins to play it. Moving the rabbit's ears lets listeners skip forward or back in the text.
The rabbit also remembers where it reached in the book so, in the case of a story, it can pick up at the right place in the action when listeners want to continue.
"In the average house you have about 10,000 different objects and right now you have maybe three objects connected to the net - phone, computer and perhaps a rabbit," he said.
"But we think that more and more objects are going to be connected," said Mr Kitten.
Mr Kitten said putting tags on books had huge potential. For instance, he said, a tagged book could become a key to future content if a novel was made in to a film or game. When the rabbit read the tag its owner would get the chance to watch the movie online or download a game.
"It's a pedagogical way to explain what you can do with RFID and interactive objects," he said.
Violet also had plans to sell RFID stamps, or ztamps, that can be stuck on any object which can then be associated with almost any net content. When they go on sale three ztamps will cost 1 (1.34 euros).
Nabaztag owners will be able to customise what happens when a tagged object is waved under the nose of their wi-fi rabbit.
"The future of the internet is an internet of connected objects," he said.In pictures Benazir's ghost In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Why Americans are shunning e-voting

2008-02-17T09:26:00.001-08:00

Some people have found e-voting confusing and complicated

The BBC World Service's technology programme, Digital Planet has been looking at how many US states are going back to traditional voting methods after serious problems with electronic voting machines.
It has been dubbed "Super Duper Tuesday" - and as the votes of millions of Americans for their choice of who should run in the presidential elections in November are counted, it looks like much of the adding up will be done manually.
State authorities in California have made a last-minute decision to stop using electronic machines, as they have become unreliable and are more open to electoral fraud.
Some Hollywood residents told Digital Planet that if people wanted to cheat, they would do so, regardless of the voting method.
However one resident found that e-voting was a complicated and confusing process, "There are too many options and for the avergae Joe, it's a little too complicated, they need to make it simpler."
Another said: ""Nothing is really one hundred percent safe on the internet, you don't know who is getting what."
More machines, more problems
The issue is not only controversial in California, but nationwide.
Doug Chapin, director of the electiononline.org website which analyses election reform, said that there continues to be a tremendous interest in looking at new ways of how to vote after the disputed elections in 2000.
"The Help America Vote Act in 2000 - which made nearly $4bn available to states and localities to buy new machines or upgrade their old ones - encouraged lots of stares to go out and buy what was then the latest and greatest technology in electronic voting," he said.
But he added that the elections in 2004 saw many high-profile problems with using these new machines.
I don't really think it makes a difference - if someone wants to cheat a vote they will find a way
"Technology has gone wrong in almost every way possible," he said.
"You have inevitable human error - just last week, in the Florida presidential primaries, a lead poll worker accidentally turned off all the machines, which then took a long time to restart.
"In other places you have had screens freeze, power failures due to bad weather and there have also been allegations of 'vote flipping', where people are trying to press the screen to vote for one candidate and the machine wants to keep registering votes for another".
However, an investigation by Digital Planet to the electoral commission in the Indian capital Delhi recently found that electronic voting has been working very successfully.
So why is America struggling to get it right?
Doug Chapin argues that the main problem with US elections is that they can be decided by an unusually slim majority, and are often bitterly contested.
"A tiny number of votes can have a huge impact," he said.
"In some ways that has complicated efforts to really think through what is the best system now but not for the medium to long term."In pictures Benazir's ghost In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

How cash can change online games

2008-02-17T09:23:00.001-08:00

Online games may be set in fantastical or far future worlds but they share one feature with the real world - the relative scarcity of money.
Life can be tough for the novice characters that players create in games such as World of Warcraft, Runescape and Tabula Rasa because they are unskilled and poor.
While skills will improve as monsters are slaughtered and quests are completed, the scarcity of cash can be a brake on progress for many gamers.
Many fix the problem by turning to a gold seller and buying a chunk of in-game cash, using real world money, to fund their advancement. This is despite the fact that the terms and conditions of many games ban the buying and selling of in-game gear for real money.
Being found out can mean a player is banned and their account is closed.Money markets
As games rack up more and more players the numbers turning to the money sellers and those who only play to amass, or farm, gold that they can then sell have rocketed.
There are many websites that offer to sell players in-game gold for any and every online title.
For games such as Runescape which have millions of players the numbers involved are staggering.

Runescape brought in changes to stop rogue gold traders

"A lot of this is coming from China," he said. "We had tens of thousands of accounts in China that were just bots working the game to make gold and then sell it."
Mr Iddison said that the gold farmers spoiled the experience for many players by camping out near monsters with the most valuable loot, filling chat channels with spam messages advertising gold, inflating prices and sometimes taking real world cash without handing over the game gear.
In a bid to stem the trade, Jagex changed the Runescape mechanics to make unbalanced trades much harder to do. Mr Iddison said typically game cash was handed over during a transaction for relatively worthless items.
By making it hard for all but dedicated players to conduct such unbalanced trades, Jagex hopes to stifle the farmers.
Early reports suggest the changes are having an impact, said Mr Iddison with complaints about farmers well down on usual numbers.
"'Legit' outfits are going to have a hard time getting an edge over the farmers of today
Mr Iddison added that Jagex was not wholly against real-money trade, just how it was being practiced in Runescape.
With the right design, he said, it should be possible to make a game that embraces real-money trade that does not damage game play.Buy and sell
Some game firms are trying to do exactly that. The end of 2007 saw the launch of Live Gamer which aims to make it much easier for gamers to buy in-game goods with the blessing of the game makers.
At launch Live Gamer had the backing of online game makers such as Funcom (Age of Conan and Anarchy Online), Sony Online Entertainment (Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies) and Acclaim (Bots, 9Dragons).
Co-founder Andrew Schneider said that when the service goes live players would be able to buy and sell gold and gear while still in the game world - rather than step outside it and go to a website.
"We're working with the publishers to integrate our client software so that it does not break the fourth wall," said Mr Schneider.
The system would involve a player to player market place similar to the auction houses seen in many games already and which are often the busiest places in the virtual worlds.

Blizzard has banned accounts engaged in gold-farming and trading

"There's a better way of addressing the consumer demand," said Mr Schneider.
"We anticipate that well-known market dynamics will occur a secondary market is introduced into any market such as exists in the game worlds," he said. "There's typically uplift for both sides."
But not all game watchers are convinced that real money trading will take off.
Michael Zenke, an editor at online game website MMOG Nation, expressed scepticism about Live Gamer's prospects.
Despite the rampant participation in real-money trade by players, it's still a big taboo to talk about it," he said.
"'Legit' outfits are going to have a hard time getting an edge over the farmers of today, because there are certain companies (EA, Mythic, Blizzard) that will never ally with them," he told the BBC News website.
He expected that Live Gamer would find some success with those players who want a reliable source and a further few who did not like the tactics of gold sellers.
"Otherwise," he said, "I don't see there being much room for traction there." In pictures Benazir's ghost In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

On the trail of Manhunt 2

2008-02-17T09:21:00.001-08:00
Manhunt 2 is the most controversial video game in history. Banned last June by the British Board of Film Classification, it is at the centre of a legal row that is defining what is and what is not acceptable in video games. But what makes this game so objectionable?
In the US adult gamers have been able to buy and play Manhunt 2 since last year. But in the UK the game is not available for sale and developers Rockstar are not even legally able to share the game with journalists.
Copies of the game can be bought on eBay from US sellers. But in order to play it I had to visit the developer's London offices in person and be shown the US copy of the title.
The BBFC says its position is clear. When it was first banned in June last year, David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said: "Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone.
"There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game."
Developer Rockstar is no stranger to controversy - it faced criticism over last year's title Bully, mainly from a press which mis-understood the game and assumed the player took on the role of a bully. In actual fact, the player's role was to challenge the bullies.
But its highly successful Grand Theft Auto series has come in for regular criticism that the titles glorify crime, especially violence.
There are concerns about the whole tone of the game and what it may or may not do to people who play the game
Rockstar says its position is equally transparent: It says it makes games that are "well within the bounds established by other 18+ games".
Before playing the game I sat through two of the most violent films of recent years - Saw and its sequel.
Both films have 18 certificates and are blood-laden, gore-fests which feature torture, mutilation and strong violence throughout.

Manhunt 2 boasts a range of murder methods

Manhunt 2 is a similarly violent and blood-infused experience. The player takes on the role of Danny, who makes his escape from a mental institution leaving behind a trail of murdered guards and inmates.
The method of his killing is particularly gruesome - the player can stab, kick, beat, axe and even suffocate characters in the game.
There is also the option to make the deaths more spectacular - the longer a certain button is held, the more violent the ensuing death.
Death and murder is one of the principal elements of the game, along with basic puzzles.
After about two hours playing Manhunt 2, it is impossible to argue with the BBFC's assessment that the game is unremittingly bleak and callous.

The game is on sale in the US

But the violence is stylised - and not particularly real. The deaths play out as mini-scenes reminiscent of action in the current crop of horror movies that are doing so well at the box office, such as Hostel, Cabin Fever and the two titles I had watched.
And the amount of killing in the game is no greater than in any number of titles that have been released in the last 12 months - from Call of Duty 4 to Bioshock.
The game is currently in limbo. After the BBFC was told to issue the title with a certificate by its own Video Appeals Committee, the organisation sought and won a judicial review which forces the VAC to look again at the game.
The BBFC successful argued that the VAC had been guilty of "a very serious misdirection of law" on the question of harm.
The BBFC has been the UK's "censor" for more than 90 years but in the last 20 years it has asked for fewer and fewer cuts in films, reflecting both a modernised certification system and a more liberal attitude.
Last year it asked for cuts in just five films, compared with almost 60 in 1989. No figures are available for games but Manhunt 2 is certainly the most contested title in UK history.
As games become ever more photo-real and as developers start tackling ever more adult themes the BBFC could find itself at the centre of more disputes if it continues to be the body which classifies games in the UK.

The player controls Danny, who escapes from an asylum

There is a growing body of opinion calling for pan-European game classifications to replace national systems.
There is currently a voluntary system, called PEGI, which sits alongside BBFC ratings in the UK.
Dr Tanya Byron, who is conducting a review of video games and their impact on children, is believed to favour PEGI replacing the BBFC.
One game developer told BBC News that he believed the Manhunt 2 controversy was "the BBFC trying to prove it has teeth in an attempt to avoid being pushed out of the way in favour of PEGI".
Rockstar says it is committed to seeing Manhunt 2 released in the UK and one staff member said he was "quietly confident" the VAC would rule in its favour.
Critics of the classification system point out that the VAC is a panel chosen by the BBFC and it is unclear when the committee will meet to decide the game's fate. A spokeswoman for the BBFC said no date was in the diary.
She said: "Classification is not a science; it's a judgement based on guidelines.
"It went too far. There are concerns about the whole tone of the game and what it may or may not do to people who play the game.
"Our judgement is a line we have drawn at this game," said the spokeswoman.
"If the VAC do not find in our favour, then that line has to move," she added.
Gamers and the game industry are waiting to see what happens to that line.In pictures Benazir's ghost In pictures
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Messenger probe shows off side of Mercury never seen before

2008-02-17T09:19:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The first pictures from the unseen side of Mercury reveal the wrinkles of a shrinking, aging planet with scars from volcanic eruptions and a birthmark shaped like a spider.
A scientist thinks Mercury's "spider," found by NASA's Messenger probe, could be remnants of a volcano.
Some of the 1,213 photos taken by NASA's Messenger probe and unveiled Wednesday help support the case that ancient volcanoes dot Mercury and that it is shrinking as it gets older, forming wrinkle-like ridges. But other images are surprising and puzzling.
The spidery shape captured in a photo is "unlike anything we've seen anywhere in the solar system," said mission chief scientist Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The image shows what looks like a large crater with faint lines radiating out from it.
Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, has often been compared to Earth's dull black-and-white moon. But the new photos, which reveal parts of Mercury never seen, show the tiny planet is more colorful and once had volcanic activity.
With the help of NASA high-tech enhancement, Messenger photos showed baby blues and dark reds.
"It has very subtle red and blue areas," said instrument scientist Louise Prockter of Johns Hopkins University, which runs the Messenger mission for NASA. "Mercury doesn't look like the moon."
Mariner 10 was the last NASA spacecraft to visit Mercury. In 1975, it took pictures of just 45 percent of the planet.
Messenger, which will do a couple more flybys of the planet before going into a long-term orbit, already has taken pictures of another 30 percent of Mercury, Prockter said. The rest will be seen eventually.
Planetary scientist Robert Strom, who was part of both the Mariner 10 and Messenger teams, said, "This is a whole new planet we're looking at."
And Prockter noted "there are some features we haven't been able to explain yet."
Example No. 1 is what scientists are calling "the spider." It is in the middle of a basin formed billions of years ago when space junk bombarded an infant Mercury.
Mariner had seen only part of the crater. When Messenger took a look with sharper cameras and a better angle, it photographed the odd central plateau, jutting about half a mile high with dozens of tiny ridges radiating out.
It is as if "something is pushed up," said Maria Zuber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology planetary scientist who is part of the science team.
Prockter guessed that it could be remnants of a volcano. Other scientists think the leg-like features could be the same ridges seen all over Mercury.
The planet's ridges, first seen in the 1970s, now seen to more widely provide evidence that Mercury is contracting, the scientists said.
Scientists had theorized that as the core of Mercury cools, it contracts, and the whole planet shrinks. That was even a 19th century theory for why Earth had mountains, but one that was later proved wrong, Solomon said. But with Mercury, that seems to be the case. As the planet shrinks, a bit of crust is pushed over another, forming what Prockter calls "wrinkle ridges."
Besides having what looks like the leftovers from volcanoes, Mercury has at least one crater that seems to be filled with what would be that planet's version of lava, Prockter said.
NASA launched the $446 million Messenger on its nearly 5 billion-mile mission in 2004. It will fly by Mercury two more times, this October and September 2009, before settling into orbit in 2011. Messenger will take pictures, and it will measure the planet's tenuous atmosphere, hills, valleys and unusual magnetic field. Mercury is the only planet in the solar system other than Earth to have a magnetosphere.
Quirky Mercury is one of the bigger question marks in the solar system, probed not nearly as much as Mars, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn.
Strom, a retired University of Arizona scientist who worked on Mariner 10, said that as he awaited Messenger's flyby earlier this month, "I couldn't sleep at all. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve."
Only he had to wait 30 years for his presents. It was worth it, he said: "What I saw was astounding to me."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

NASA to beam Beatles song to North Star

2008-02-17T09:17:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way.
NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star.
This first-ever beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space is nostalgia-driven. It celebrates the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th anniversary of NASA's Deep Space Network, which communicates with its distant probes, and the 50th anniversary of NASA.
"Send my love to the aliens," Paul McCartney told NASA through a Beatles historian. "All the best, Paul."
The song, written by McCartney and John Lennon, may have a ticket to ride and will be flying at the speed of light. But it will take 431 years along a long and winding road to reach its final destination. That's because Polaris is 2.5 quadrillion miles away.
NASA loaded an MP3 of the song, just under four minutes in its original version, and will transmit it digitally at 7 p.m. EST Monday from its giant antenna in Madrid, Spain. But if you wanted to hear it on Polaris, you would need an antenna and a receiver to convert it back to music, the same way people receive satellite television.
The idea came from Martin Lewis, a Los Angeles-based Beatles historian, who then got permission from McCartney, Yoko Ono and the two companies that own the rights to Beatles' music. One of those companies, Apple, was happy to approve the idea because is "always looking for new markets," Lewis said.
Perhaps coincidentally, the song's launching comes a day before the release of the DVD of the Julie Taymor movie named after the Beatles hit.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Amazon.com adds web services to its offerings

2008-02-17T09:12:00.001-08:00

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Critics thought it was over the top when Amazon.com Inc. expanded from books into music in 1998. When the Web retailer let competitors start selling things alongside its own inventory in 2000, they said Amazon had gone nuts.
Amazon.com employees pack books for shipment in July at the company's facility in Fernley, Nevada.
In both cases, Amazon proved them wrong. Media sales now total in the billions each quarter, and third-party merchandise, more profitable for Amazon than its own wares, makes up nearly a third of everything sold through the site.
Now, Amazon is making an even greater stretch -- selling storage, computing power and other behind-the-scenes data center services.
The venture, which Amazon expects will grow into a significant business segment, could help keep the company strong if retailers get hit by an economic downturn.
More broadly, Amazon Web Services, as the business is called, could improve chances for a new generation of Web startups by slashing how much they spend up front on costly infrastructure.
MileMeter Inc., a Dallas-based startup that plans to sell auto insurance by the mile, started out running its own server in a data center. Recently, it moved most of its applications onto virtual computers in Amazon Web Services' Elastic Compute Cloud.
EC2 lets its customers quickly start up a virtual computer in the "cloud" -- industry slang for data centers around the world -- then use it as a Web server or for crunching data and shut it down just as fast.
"I don't need to have a systems administrator or a network administrator," said Chief Executive Chris Gay. "I don't have to worry about hardware becoming irrelevant."
Gay said he also uses Amazon's online payments service and is evaluating its data storage and simple database services. During the first dot-com boom, he said, "It was a badge of strength to have as much as possible in house.
"Now, unless that is your core business ... it's a liability."
Adam Selipsky, vice president of product management and developer relations for Amazon Web Services, said Amazon wants entrepreneurs to focus on their ideas, not on hardware leases and crashing servers.
"We want to let developers innovate and make money," he said.
Amazon is certainly not the only player. James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Akamai Technologies Inc., Enki and Terremark each offer at least a portion of the Web services Amazon is selling. IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. offer pricier versions aimed at big businesses, while Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are thought to be working on services similar to Amazon's.
Amazon comes closest to utility-style billing, Staten said. Most competitors demand a contract or minimum payments.
Amazon, which gives away the computer code to access its services, bases its fees on how much data is shifted around and stored. For example, the company charges 15 cents per month for every gigabyte of data stored in its Simple Storage Service. Developers pay another 10 cents each time they send a gigabyte into the cloud and 18 cents per terabyte when they pull data back out.
SmugMug Inc., a photo sharing startup, had considered storing its users' digital pictures and movies in the cloud with other services. But "the pricing was out of our reach, and it wasn't simple to engineer" before Amazon Web Services launched, said co-founder Chris MacAskill.
Today, the Mountain View, California-based company keeps more than 400 terabytes of data in Amazon's Simple Storage Service. It also uses up to 750 "instances," or virtual machines, in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud during peak hours to help turn its clients' high-resolution photos and video files into different sizes for display online.
In the first 12 months it used Amazon Web Services, SmugMug saved $1 million.
"It is hard to get your head around: 'Why is this retailer that ships me toys for my kids for Christmas ... also my supplier of IT services?"' MacAskill said.
Amazon executives would say that's because theirs is a technology company, not just a retailer.
In 2005, it ramped up spending on "technology and content," a catchall expense line that includes data centers and R&D to support its own global growth, Web Services, its third-party seller platform, its digital music and movie download stores and other projects.
In 2005 and 2006, the company dropped $1.11 billion on technology and content, eating into margins and souring Wall Street on its stock. With Web Services, Amazon has a chance to earn back a slice of that investment.
It's too soon to tell if Amazon will be able to turn Web Services into a business with revenue to rival its retail lines. The company declined to say what Web Services brings in, saying only that it had signed up 330,000 customers -- startups, Fortune 500 companies, students, researchers and others -- by late 2007.
"Is it any meaningful percentage of revenue? I doubt it," said Global Crown Capital analyst Martin Pyykkonen. "As far as being a technology company...Eh. It depends on how you want to get into labeling it. It's retail."
It's also not clear how many startups will want to outsource their data center functions.
At Shelfari, a social networking startup for avid readers that is partly funded by Amazon, Chief Executive Officer Josh Hug doesn't intend to use the new Web services.
Having IT staffers to keep a close eye on things is important for a consumer service, Hug said. "It's worth the extra cost."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Scan, deposit checks from home

2008-02-17T09:10:00.001-08:00

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Online banking service provider CheckFree Corp. is rolling out technology that could mean consumers will no longer have to go to a bank branch to deposit checks.
Called Remote Deposit Capture, the technology has been around for years and lets people scan checks through their home computers and deposit them electronically. But it has been used mainly for businesses.
Customers want to be able to deposit checks without having to go to banks, said Rod Springhetti, CheckFree's vice president of global strategic marketing, and banks want to be able to offer that.
"I think the ability to remotely capture a check will become part of the standard features and functions of online banking," Springhetti said.
CheckFree said the service is available starting this week for any consumers who bank online, as long as their banks offer it.
Recently acquired by Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc. for about $4.4 billion, CheckFree has been in discussions with institutions large and small, though none have committed to using the technology, Springhetti said.
Bob Meara, a senior analyst for research firm Celent, said lots of smaller competitors may follow CheckFree's lead, but it remains unclear how many banks will adopt it and how consumers will react.
"Eventually, it will be a staple element in banks online and the mobile banking platform," he said. "That doesn't mean every consumer is going to pay attention to it."
A recent Celent survey found that about 20 percent of banks had the technology for consumers or planned to get it, and another 20 percent were considering it -- while about 90 percent either use the technology with business clients or want to.
CheckFree's technology already is in the top 150 banks. Springhetti said it is fairly simple to use, and banks can tailor it for their clients.
Customers need a scanner, which is often standard on printers now, a computer and an Internet connection. They'll go to their home banking site, enter the amount of the check, scan both sides, do a quick review and submit it to the bank.
Banks will have the option to add their own fraud protection to make sure bad checks aren't being cashed, he said. Normal processing times will apply, he said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Tax TVs, video games, outdoor group says

2008-02-17T09:08:00.001-08:00

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) -- Dave Gilligan remembers being pushed outside to play baseball and other sports, but feeling it just wasn't for him.
Dave Gilligan plays a video game at the store he co-owns, Gamers Anonymous, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
So the 24-year-old business owner is skeptical about a proposal to nudge kids off the couch and out the door by taxing televisions and video games sold in New Mexico. The idea could backfire, he says.
"If you take a kid that's just playing his X-Box or whatever and you take him outside and you make him play baseball, he's going to hate it," said Gilligan, co-owner of Gamers Anonymous, an Albuquerque video game store. "There's nothing wrong with sitting at home playing games. Everybody's doing it now."
But a coalition of groups, led by the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, is sold on the idea that outdoor education programs can inspire children in a way that video games and television cannot.
The coalition wants state lawmakers to create a No Child Left Inside Fund with a 1 percent tax on TVs, video games and video game equipment. The fund would help pay for outdoor education throughout the state.
Supporters of the tax -- which would be the first of its kind in the nation -- say outdoor programs have been shown to improve students' abilities in the classroom, boost their self-confidence and teach them stewardship and discipline.
"We believe that an outdoor education program in New Mexico could be funded through a tax on the very activities that are divorcing kids from nature, promoting more sedentary lifestyles," said Michael Casaus, Sierra Club's New Mexico youth representative. "One of those culprits is TV and what we call screen time."
Blogs dedicated to the gaming world have been abuzz over the proposal, with critics complaining that they shouldn't have to foot the bill for parents who don't know how to raise their children. Some have seized the moment to talk about gaming's benefits.
Gilligan, for example, says he learned to read at a young age thanks to video games. He also attributes his interest in art to gaming.
"I'm not a very athletic person," he said. "I kept playing video games and eventually my parents accepted that, and now it's my career and I make good money so I'm happy."
Sean Bersell, a spokesman for the Entertainment Merchants Association, said the video game industry has fueled advances in computer technology, such as faster processors and better graphics and sound.
Supporters of the tax are wrong to suggest that such complex problems as low test scores and childhood obesity can be solved by turning off the TV, said Bersell, whose group represents about 125 retailers in New Mexico.
"Targeting a small category of entertainment as somehow a major contributor to these problem is just not justified and frankly it's not supported by a scientific consensus," he said.
The tax would put New Mexico retailers at a disadvantage as they compete with online stores and retailers that offer downloadable games, Bersell warned.
Supporters argue that just as health programs are often supported by excise taxes on cigarettes or alcohol, an excise tax on games and TVs would provide a steady source of cash for outdoor education. Legislative analysts have said the tax would generate about $4 million a year.
New Mexico State Parks already offers outdoor programs, but the funding is just a fraction of what the tax would bring in.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Sangean's HD radio has good looks, sound

2008-02-17T09:06:00.001-08:00

(CNET.com) -- HD Radio is the new digital broadcasting standard that has been available in the U.S. for the past several years. While the HD stations are just static-free duplicates of the FM (and some AM) ones you already listen to, the format also offers HD2 (multicast) stations in many markets--digital-only substations that you can't receive on analog radios.
Compatible hardware has been slow in coming to market, but 2007 saw HD Radio being included in more products--and the price for standalone HD Radios finally dipping below $200.
The Sangean HDR-1 falls into the latter group, and competes directly with similar tabletop HD Radio models from Boston Acoustics, Cambridge SoundWorks, and Sony.
Most of the aforementioned radios are extremely similar, so choosing between them often comes down to a matter of personal taste.
With its real wood enclosure and a plastic-louvered speaker grille, the Sangean is perhaps the most genuinely "retro" looking unit of the bunch. If not for the center-mounted LCD readout, you would swear it was straight out of the 1950s--we half expected to hear Red Barber calling a Brooklyn Dodgers game when we powered it up.
Dimensions are about standard for a tabletop model: 4.5 inches tall by 11.5 inches wide by 7.5 inches deep, and the wood casing gives the unit a nice heft.
Controls are limited to a single knob located just below the LCD. It adjusts volume by default, but clicking it brings up a list of other options on the LCD screen, which are further navigated by clicks and spins.
That works great on an iPod, of course, but the Sangean HDR-1 doesn't come close to that legendary Apple ease of use.
After some trial and error, you'll eventually get the hang of it, but we often opted to use the 24-button credit card-style remote instead.
In addition to the stereo auxiliary input and headphone jack, the radio's rear panel includes connectors for AM and FM antennas (both are included, or you can attach your own). While there's no built-in iPod dock, the line-in jack will let you connect the Apple player--or any other device--to the HDR-1's speakers.
With no built-in CD player, satellite radio, or dedicated iPod dock, the clock and alarm functionality represents fully half the value of the HDR-1.
On the plus side, the alarm can be set to wake to any station, the line-in source, or a beeping tone, and the volume can be locked in as well.
The latter point is a nice touch, since it lets you drift off to sleep with the radio barely audible (sleep mode can be set in 15-minute increments up to 90 minutes), but wake up at a suitably high volume to rouse you out of bed.
It's a dual-alarm system, and they can be further customized to go off daily, weekdays only, weekends only, or just once.
On the downside, there's no snooze bar. Also of note: the LCD backlight doesn't auto-adjust to the room's ambient light--but you can manually set it to one of seven levels (including off), so it won't keep sensitive sleepers awake at night.
The radio The clock and alarm functions are all well and good, but if you're buying the Sangean HDR-1, it's to listen to some digital radio. HD isn't a separate band--when you tune to an analog station that has a digital counterpart, the "HD" notation will flash on the display.
After a couple of seconds, the radio will automatically switch from the analog to the digital signal, and the display should show additional data (usually the song and artist information, and station call letters) available on the digital stream. Most digital stations are on the FM band, but a handful of AM stations are also available.
In addition to the digital version of the analog stations you already receive, many stations also offer "multicast" or HD2 channels. These secondary channels are generally digital-only stations that offer alternative programming.
Yes, many of these are available online, and some HD2 channels are merely simulcasts of AM news or talk stations that you can hear elsewhere on the analog dial. But the big selling point here is that--unlike satellite radio--the HD Radio content is completely free. You just need to pay for the hardware. (For a complete list of the HD Radio stations in your area, check out the HD Radio Web site.)
The HDR-1 offers a few other nice convenience touches as well. Analog or digital stations can be stored in any one of the Sangean's 20 presets (10 FM, 10 AM). An HD Seek mode lets you roll through the available digital-only stations. And for analog stations, the HDR-1 supports RDS data, so you can see the text display (song and artist information) on stations that support it.
The HDR-1 can also be set to lock into analog-only mode, which is useful for distant or weak stations that never quite properly "lock in" to digital mode.
In terms of sound quality, the Sangean HDR-1 delivered the same sort of standard performance we found from most of its competitors.
Like nearly any radio or iPod speaker system of this size, there's not much in the way of stereo separation, and Sangean doesn't even offer an "expand" or "3D" mode (not that they usually work anyway).
That's not to say it sounded bad, though: music had ample weight and presence, especially when compared directly with the Tivoli Audio SongBook and even the Boston Acoustics Recepter--though both of those are monaural analog models. And the ability to tweak the Sangean's bass and treble settings to our liking always helps customize a sound that's more pleasing to an individual listener.
Of course, we can't let a discussion of the Sangean HDR-1 end without listing our major gripe--that the whole HD Radio format doesn't (for most people) deliver a particularly major improvement over the analog radio experience.
To our ears, the HD Radio stations weren't delivering a dramatic improvement over their analog counterparts. And while we welcomed the presence of digital-only HD2 stations on the dial, many of them seemed to be noticeably compressed--more MP3 than CD.
Moreover, the data streams seemed limited to artist, song, and show title information. That's nice, but nothing that can't be done with RDS information on analog stations, and some of the HD stations seem to lack the informational displays altogether.
While the digital stations certainly offer static-free reception, that's only if they're within range; a distant HD station will drop in and out if it's too far away. Even more disturbing is that some nearby HD stations seem to blink out randomly--the cell-phone-like signal meter drops a full six bars to zero and then shoots back up again a few seconds later, even when the radio is completely stationary.
To reiterate, none of these problems are the fault of Sangean HDR-1. The same issues exist on the Polk I-Sonic and Cambridge 820HD, and will continue to exist for any and all HD Radio receivers until the stations decide to offer more bandwidth and better data support.
If none of that scares you off, the question becomes: is the Sangean HDR-1 worth buying? At $200, it more or less matches the price of other namebrand HD Radio tabletops, including the Boston Acoustics Recepter HD, Cambridge SoundWorks 820HD, and Sony XDR-S3HD.
For us, the admittedly attractive retro styling of the Sangean is overshadowed by the control shortfalls: both the single knob nor the credit card remote are more frustrating than intuitive.
By contrast, the controls (just one extra knob makes a world of difference) and the better display on the Cambridge keep that model at the top of the heap.
Those who like the Sangean's wood finish may also wish to check out the Sony, which is similarly styled. In the meantime, a lot of us will continue to wait for HD Radio to simply be a standard feature that's folded into run-of-the-mill AV receivers, audio systems, and boom boxes, rather than something that requires paying a big premium--or the purchase of a whole separate product.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Razer's unique, frustrating gaming keyboard

2008-02-17T09:03:00.001-08:00

(CNET.com) -- Razer's new Lycosa gaming keyboard has several unique features. The rubber coating on the keys provides a soft, comfortable touch. You can switch between three backlight configurations via a touch-sensitive control pad. You can even use Razer's software to program each of the Lycosa's keys to work as a separate macro, either individually or in combination with one another.
We're frustrated, though, by a few things left half-baked. None of the Lycosa's issues are bad enough to make us dislike it outright, and we'd recommend it--especially for confident touch-typing gamers. For $80, though, we expect Razer to follow through on the promises of its features.
Setting up the Lycosa is only a little convoluted. It requires two USB inputs, as well as separate audio inputs if you want to plug in your own headset and microphone. Because the Lycosa has a single spare USB 2.0 jack on its top edge, we understand why Razer relies on two USB outputs; presumably it wants to preserve the pristine data stream for the keyboard itself to ensure typing responsiveness.
Fair enough. Razer still could have added a second USB input, though, since the current one has a dedicated data stream all to itself via the second USB cable.
The software is easy to set up, although hard to navigate because of small type and a less-than intuitive layout. If you don't plan on using macros, you might not even need it. The touch pad's media control and backlit profile button work without installing anything.
The Lycosa's backlighting is its biggest problem. With the blue LED turned off, you're left with an almost illegible keyboard, that's similar to the purposefully blank Das keyboard of a few years ago.
If you're not secure in your touch-typing prowess, the reasonable thing to do would be to turn on the Lycosa's backlighting, which reveals the letters on the keys, along with the touch pad buttons.
The problem is that the lighting is so faint that in a lit room, it gives you only a suggestion of which key is which. Unlike Saitek's Eclipse II keyboards, there's no way to adjust the brightness on the Lycosa's LED, let alone the color.
In a darkened room, however, the lighting is sufficiently bright. The only other option is a third profile that lights up the W, A, S, and D keys (with roughly twice the brightness of the standard lighting scheme), commonly used by PC gamers as direction controls, but keeps the rest of the board unlit.
Assuming you can find the proper keys, typing on the Lycosa is a pleasant experience.
The nonstick rubber coating is soft to the touch, and combined with the response of the low profile keys, we actually like the Lycosa's typing action better than Razer's higher-end Tarantula keyboard.
The Lycosa's glossy plastic housing is also attractive enough, but we're less enamored with the detachable wrist rest. For one, it requires four screws, which seems overcomplicated when surely a plastic clip or two would suffice.
The wrist rest is also made from a nonvented matte plastic that seems to induce sweating. This is gross, especially if, like your reviewer (he swears), you're not normally prone to sweaty palms.
If you do go so far as to install the software and can figure out how to use it, you'll find that you can make any key perform the work of several via the macro software.
Razer also promises the ability to press more than three keys at a time. For gamers especially, we can see how this might be useful for executing a complicated series of moves.
Unlike the Tarantula, the Lycosa has no dedicated buttons for macro hosting. The benefit, though, is that with no macro keys, the Lycosa has a much smaller footprint than the 20.25-inch wide Tarantula or Logitech's 21.5-inch wide G15 keyboard. At its widest, the Lycosa comes in just under 18.5 inches, smaller than even the Saitek Eclipse II.
Finally, in addition to the Lycosa's scaled-down size, we also like how well it holds its position on your workspace. It's not an overly heavy keyboard, but the rubber feet gripped our desk firmly. You can also elevate the Lycosa via two drop-down feet on the underside.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

MacBook Air revisited

2008-02-17T09:01:00.001-08:00

(CNET.com) -- Apple's new laptop, the MacBook Air, may not be the true ultraportable that many had hoped for, but it still easily breaks new ground for small laptops.
Mimicking the 13-inch silhouette of the current MacBook line, it's only 0.76 inch thick at its thickest, and Apple calls it the "world's thinnest notebook."
Some nitpickers say an obscure Mitsubishi laptop from 1997 was a hair thinner, but two of the smallest current ultraportable laptops, the 11-inch Sony VAIO TZ150 and the 12-inch Toshiba Portege R500, are both slightly thicker, and neither tapers to 0.16 inch as the Air does along its front edge.
As we've come to expect from Apple, the design and engineering that went into the MacBook Air is extraordinary, but it's certainly a much more specialized product than the standard 13-inch MacBook and won't be as universally useful as that popular system.
The biggest compromises, which have been well-documented, come in its connectivity: The MacBook Air finds room for only one USB port and doesn't include a built-in optical drive, FireWire, Ethernet, or mobile broadband. And like with its other laptops, Apple refuses to outfit the Air with a media-card reader or an expansion card slot.
Offsetting its sparse connectivity are genuinely useful new features including new trackpad gesture controls and the ability to wirelessly "borrow" another system's optical drive.
Choosing the Air over the cheaper, faster standard 13-inch MacBook, or the comparably priced MacBook Pro, will depend on your needs. Travelers who want minimum weight, maximum screen real estate, and who live their lives via Wi-Fi hot spots, with little need for wired connectivity, will find the $1,799 starting price a reasonable investment for owning one of the world's premier bits of high-tech eye candy.
And while the MacBook Air's specs are inferior to those found on the cheaper MacBook, they compare more favorably when you look at other ultraportables, where a price premium is always exacted. For instance, both the Sony VAIO TZ150 and Toshiba Portege R500 cost hundreds more than the MacBook Air and feature slower CPUs and half the RAM as the Air.
Although it shares a desktop footprint with the standard black and white MacBooks, the first thing you notice about the Air is its aluminum chassis--similar to the one found on the MacBook Pro, and much more fingerprint resistant than the standard MacBooks.
Picking it up, the MacBook Air feels a little heavier than you would expect from looking at it, even though it's only 3 pounds. At the same time, it feels very sturdy and solid, thanks in part to the aluminum construction, and we'd have no qualms about carting it around with us all day.
By way of comparison, the VAIO TZ150 features an 11.1-inch screen and weighs only 0.3 pound lighter than the Air, and the Portege R500 is 0.6 pound lighter than the Air with a 12.1-inch screen.
The MacBook Air includes an iSight camera and mic, and an LED-backlit display that works with an ambient light sensor to adjust the screen brightness in response to the light in the room.
The keyboard--the same full-size version found in other MacBooks--has backlit keys that are also controlled by the ambient light sensor, although we had to adjust the room lighting a good deal to see any difference.
The revamped trackpad is large, measuring nearly 5 inches diagonally, and it works with new multitouch gestures. Other MacBooks let you do things like use two fingers to scroll through documents--this one lets you use three fingers to go forward and back in your Web browser history, and use your thumb and forefinger to zoom in and out of documents and photos--much like on the iPhone.
The three-finger forward/back gesture was immediately useful, and we're already missing it when using other laptops. Apple tells us these new gestures won't be available on older MacBooks as a firmware upgrade, as the hardware behind the new trackpad is different.
Another noteworthy new feature is the remote disc function. Since the Air lacks an optical drive, you can instead remotely use the optical drives of other systems, PC or Mac, as long as they're on the same network.
The setup was a little cumbersome for the "host" PC--requiring us to insert the OS X disc that came with the Air, run a small setup program, and then find and turn on "CD and DVD sharing" in the Windows control panel (the documentation could have been a little clearer on what you need to do to on the Windows side).
Once we set it up, however, it worked like a charm. You won't be able to stream DVD movies or music CDs via remote disc, but it's fine for getting files and installing apps. A matching external USB DVD burner is available from Apple for $99, but any USB DVD drive should work.
The display offers the same 1,280x800 native resolution as the standard 13-inch MacBook, but the Air's LED-backlit screen means its lid is thinner with an image that was somewhat brighter, at least with both systems set to max brightness.
The real key to finding out whether the MacBook Air is right for you lies in its stripped-down set of ports and connections. Those who regularly use more than one USB device, or need FireWire, an SD card slot, or an Express card slot will find the single USB jack too limiting.
Likewise, we often say the telephone modem jacks and S-Video outputs on most laptops are a waste of space, but the MacBook Air goes even further, removing the Ethernet jack (a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor will run you $29) and offloading video output to a pair of included dongles (one VGA, one DVI).
If you live on Wi-Fi hot spots, use Bluetooth for your external mouse, and only need a USB port to occasionally sync and charge your iPod or iPhone, these limitations may not be a deal-breaker for you.
While most hardware vendors offer a choice of mobile broadband options, Apple continues to offer none, which is disappointing for a system so clearly meant for life away from home and office.
Without an Express card slot, your only option would be a USB mobile broadband modem, but with the sole USB jack under a tiny flap on the right side of the system with limited clearance, you may need a small USB extension cable to get a bulky USB mobile broadband modem connected (similar to the problems people had with the iPhone's recessed headphone jack).
While the 80GB hard drive included in the base $1,799 model may be smaller than you're used to, the only other option is a 64GB solid state hard drive. With no moving parts, and advantages in heat, power consumption, and reliability, SSD hard drives are certainly the way of the future.
The future may have to wait a few years for prices to come down; however, swapping the 80GB platter drive for the 64GB SSD drive is a whopping $999 upgrade. The only other internal hardware option is a CPU uptick, from 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz for $300. With the upgraded CPU and SSD drive, the $1,799 MacBook Air suddenly becomes a $3,098 laptop.
We are pleased to see that the MacBook Air comes standard with 2GB of RAM, but with a processor that runs at a much slower clockspeed than the standard MacBook (2.0GHz or 2.2GHz), plus a 4,200rpm 1.8-inch hard drive (as opposed to the standard 5,400rpm), it's not surprising that the MacBook Air is not as fast a performer as the $1,649 MacBook we reviewed in December 2007. Do note that the baseline $1,099 MacBook features a slower processor and half the memory of our MacBook review unit.
And as we often point out, any modern dual-core CPU is going to be more than adequate for Web surfing, multimedia playback, and productivity tasks, and we were able to surf the Web, play videos, and work on a document at the same time with absolutely no slowdown or stuttering.
We're currently conducting additional benchmark tests and will update this review with new results as they're available.
One of the biggest drawbacks of the MacBook Air is the lack of a user-replaceable battery. While most laptops will be obsolete before their batteries wear out, we are sensitive to the desire to occasionally carry an extra battery for extended field use.
We're still conducting our standard DVD battery drain test on the system, and will report those scores shortly, but in anecdotal testing, the Air lasted for nearly 4 hours of mixed use, including video playback, software installation, Web surfing, and productivity tasks. That's reasonably close to Apple's 5-hour claims, but may not be enough for a full day of off-site use.
We're still not fans of Apple's nearly obligatory extended warranty upsell (so much so that we've simply copied this complaint from our last MacBook review).
The default warranty for the MacBook is one year of coverage for parts and labor, but toll-free telephone support is limited to a mere 90 days--well short of what you'd typically find on the PC side--unless you purchase the $249 AppleCare Protection Plan, which extends phone support and repair coverage to three years.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Attempt to shoot down spy satellite to cost up to $60 million

2008-02-16T21:12:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The attempt by the U.S. Navy to use an anti-missile missile to shoot down a potentially hazardous satellite will cost between $40 million and $60 million, Pentagon officials told CNN on Friday.
A missile is launched from the Navy guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh during a 2006 test.
The missile alone costs almost $10 million, Lt. Gen. Carter Ham said at a Pentagon briefing. He declined to give an overall cost estimate.
"I think we're working with all the parties to [find] how much did it cost to modify the missiles, the fire control, that kind of business," he said.
Pentagon officials argue the effort is worth the expense because of the slim -- but real -- chance that the satellite's unused fuel, 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine, could land in a populated area.
Because the super-secret spy satellite malfunctioned immediately after launch in December 2006, its fuel tank is full, and it would probably survive re-entry and disperse harmful, even potentially deadly fumes over an area the size of two football fields.
The missile will carry no warhead; the objective is to break the satellite apart through the force of impact alone, defense officials said.
One Pentagon official -- who spoke on condition of anonymity because the planning for the operation remains classified -- told CNN that since early January, a Navy team, including 200 industry experts and scientists, has been working furiously to modify its sea-based Aegis missile defense system so it can shoot down a satellite in low orbit.
Among the challenges is modifying sensors designed to detect the heat from an incoming warhead so they can spot the much-cooler satellite, which has no heat source and is warmed only by the sun's rays.
In addition, the official says, a floating X-band radar has to be modified to track the satellite's trajectory, and the "fire-control" systems on the Navy ships also needed modification.
No attempt will be made to shoot down the satellite until after the U.S. space shuttle lands next Wednesday.
"The window will open when the shuttle is on the ground," Ham said.
Pentagon officials say three missiles have been modified for the mission, so in theory, the Navy may get three shots at the satellite, although only one at a time.
"They want the period of a day or two to assess the effect of the first missile ... to probably get an orbit or two, to get an understanding of what effect the first intercept had on the satellite before launching another interceptor," Ham said.
The Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie was chosen for the mission. It's fully equipped with sea-based missile defense systems, has long been the Navy's primary ship for the sea-based missile defense program and has the technology needed for the operation, officials said.
It will be accompanied by two destroyers --- the USS Decatur and the USS Russell -- at an undisclosed location in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator. The Decatur will feed trajectory information to the Erie, and the Russell will back up the Decatur.
Defense officials say the ships' radars and software were modified to track targets much faster than the ballistic missiles they were designed to track.
A host of ground-based radars, telescopes and sea-based radars will help determine if the satellite was hit. The Air Force also will have a plane in the air that can detect the release of hydrazine gas.
The USNS Observation Island, a ship that uses telemetry to monitor objects in space, will collect information on the satellite both before and after the missile launch.
The Navy will use its $9.5 million Standard Missile 3 in the shoot-down. The combined speed of the missile and satellite at impact is expected to be about 22,000 miles per hour.
The government started thinking about how to approach the satellite problem in December. And on January 4, President Bush and various senior officials agreed to begin planning for the shoot-down.
On Tuesday, the president approved the plan.

CNN's Mike Mount contributed to this report

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Shooting down of satellite doesn't worry space station crew

2008-02-16T21:09:00.001-08:00

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Military plans to shoot down a damaged U.S. spy satellite carrying toxic fuel will not concern the crew aboard the international space station, commander Peggy Whitson said Saturday.
Astronaut Stanley Love, upside down at left, installs a solar experiment package Friday.
The military hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week -- just before it enters Earth's atmosphere -- with a missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern Pacific Ocean.
It was unclear how close the satellite will be to the space station when it is shot down. NASA referred questions to the Defense Department, which did not immediately return a message seeking clarification.
Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and French astronaut Leopold Eyharts will still be in orbit 215 miles above Earth when the satellite is targeted. The satellite will be about 150 miles up when the shot is fired.
Whitson said NASA and the Department of Defense "love the station crew" and would not put them in harm's way.
"So, no, we're not worried about it," she said in a news conference with the 10-person shuttle-station crew.
Atlantis and its seven astronauts will be safely back on Earth before the Pentagon takes aim. NASA plans to open up the backup landing site in California to increase chances of an on-time landing next Wednesday even if weather is a problem in Florida.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.
Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.
The satellite, known by its military designation US 193, was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor.
The astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle-station complex focused their attention Saturday on the inside of the new Columbus lab.
They have all day Saturday and just half a day Sunday before the hatches between shuttle Atlantis and the international space station are sealed.
On Friday, a pair of spacewalking astronauts wrapped up work on the exterior of Columbus, installing a package of sun-gazing instruments as well as a huge box of experiments on radiation, orbital debris and other subjects.
During their 7-hour spacewalk, Rex Walheim and Stanley Love also installed handrails on Columbus, and removed a broken gyroscope from the space station and loaded it into the shuttle for the ride home.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Net firms reject monitoring role

2008-02-16T03:17:00.001-08:00

All net firms keep an eye on how much people download

UK net firms are resisting government suggestions that they should do more to monitor what customers do online.
The industry association for net providers said legal and technical barriers prohibit them from being anything other than a "mere conduit".
The declaration comes as the government floats the idea of persistent pirates being denied net access.
And in the US one net supplier has admitted to "degrading" traffic from some file-sharing networks.
Traffic control
Net firms have been stung into defining their position by the emergence this week of a draft government consultation document that suggests ISPs should be drafted in to the fight against piracy.
It suggested that people who persistently download and share copyrighted material could have their net access removed.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) said the 2002 E-Commerce Regulations defined net firms as "mere conduits" and not responsible for the contents of the traffic flowing across their networks.
If they didn't do traffic management we would all complain
The spokesman said technical issues also made it hard for net firms to take action against specific types of traffic.
For instance, he said, while some people use peer-to-peer networks to download copyrighted material many commercial services, such as Napster and the BBC's iPlayer, use file-sharing technology to distribute music and TV legally.
In the US, Comcast admitted in documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission that it does "degrade" some traffic from peer-to-peer networks.
The spokesman added: "We know that all ISPs are involved in traffic management but that is to optimise the service for all their customers."
A spokesman for Virgin Media said its traffic management system came into play during peak times - between 1600 and 2100.
Action was taken against any customer whose usage exceeded a limit associated with their tariff during that five hour window, he said.
"If you exceed that threshold we will drop your speed for five hours from when the excess is recorded," he said.

Browsing speeds are most often managed during the busiest times

Andrew Ferguson, an editor at Think Broadband, said net service firms manage their bandwidth in many different ways.
Almost all, he said, manage traffic but at certain times impose other systems to smooth out the peaks.
"Some firms will happily let you use as much as you like but will charge you accordingly, and business products that are more expensive often allow unlimited use," he said.
Others impose charges on customers who regularly exceed their download limits and a few manage their system so users cannot exceed a monthly download cap. The limits that firms impose can also vary widely.
"Any ISP that does not do traffic management is not going to stay in business very long," said Gavin Johns, managing director of net management firm Epitiro.
He said it was essential to ensure that services which have to be delivered in real time, such as voice and streaming video, were usable.
"Different applications use different ports and have different payloads," said Mr Johns, "They look completely different from a network point of view."
"If they didn't do traffic management we would all complain," he said.
Mr Ferguson from Think Broadband said although traffic management was common, net providers imposed it in contrasting ways.
"What varies is the degree it impacts users and the openness of providers in telling users it exists and what is and is not managed," he told the BBC News website.
"Traffic management has a poor reputation as in many cases it is used to keep bandwidth costs down for a provider with little respect to the consumers' wishes," he said.Building a nation Voters, boycotters Media spotlight
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Astronauts attach science experiments to new lab

2008-02-16T03:15:00.001-08:00

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Two spacewalking astronauts hung science experiments on the outside of the space station's new lab Friday and packed up a broken gyroscope for next week's shuttle ride home.
Astronaut Rex Walheim works in the space shuttle Atlantis' cargo bay during a spacewalk Wednesday.
It was the third and final spacewalk for Atlantis' astronauts, who arrived at the international space station nearly a week ago.
Rex Walheim and Stanley Love attached a package of sun-gazing instruments to the European Columbus lab as well as a huge box containing eight experiments to detect micrometeorite strikes and measure space radiation, among other things.
As they hooked up the solar experiments, French astronaut Leopold Eyharts informed them that the linked shuttle-station was just about to pass over Europe after sailing across the Atlantic.
"Just to let you know that you are finishing the installation of the first European payload on Columbus while we are arriving over Europe in the opposite direction of Christopher Columbus," Eyharts radioed from inside.
The work -- along with the removal of the bad space station gyroscope and the addition of Columbus handrails -- took more than six hours, and more tasks awaited them. By then, the spacewalkers were getting tired and begged off on at least one chore. They also did not have time to inspect a jammed solar rotary joint on the space station.
Before going back inside, the astronauts examined a small chip in a handrail near the space station's hatch. Love spotted the chip during Monday's spacewalk, and Mission Control dubbed it Love Crater.
Walheim put on a spare overglove and rubbed the fingers over the chip to see if the material would snag; then he did the same thing using a glove wrapped around a tool. Astronauts have ripped their gloves on previous outings, and NASA wanted to see if this chip might be a culprit.
Walheim said the chip felt rough at first, but seemed to get smoother with all the rubbing and cleaning.
At the very end of their 71/2-hour spacewalk, the spacewalkers wished a happy birthday to astronaut Leland Melvin, who turned 44 Friday and operated the robot arm on which they worked.
Between now and Monday's departure of Atlantis, the 10 spacefarers hope to complete as much work inside the Columbus lab as possible. NASA added a 13th day to the shuttle flight so the astronauts could do just that.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source from: edition.cnn.com

Spore to go on sale in September

2008-02-13T03:45:00.001-08:00

The game lets players design creatures and guide their evolution

Spore, the long awaited creation of gaming legend Will Wright, is going on sale on 7 September.
Begun in 2005 the eagerly anticipated game was originally expected to be on shop shelves in 2007.
Development problems delayed the ambitious game which lets players take creatures from their unicellular origins to the conquest of space.
The game will be released worldwide and will be available for the PC, Mac, Nintendo DS and some mobile phones.Sales target
"The wait is almost over," said Will Wright, chief designer for the title at game-maker Maxis, in a statement.
"We're in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can't wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year," continued the statement.
Maxis has described Spore as a "massively single-player" game. It lets people oversee the development of their creatures themselves but will use the net to let the beasts roam virtual universes to meet, and sometimes wage war on, the creations of other players.
Mr Wright is the brains behind the SimCity series of games and the hugely successful Sims titles that lets players control virtual people.
The news about Spore was released during a meeting between Maxis owner EA and analysts at which it said it had set itself a sales target of $6bn (3.05bn) by the end of its financial year in 2011.
Narrowing options Harare diary Writers return
Source from: news.bbc.co.uk