Digital Planet

C lub Penguin is a popular children's virtual world

Welcome to Digital Planet, the weekly BBC World Service programme that reports on technology stories from around the globe.

On this week's Digital Planet Gareth Mitchell finds out what really was happening to the internet in Burma during the September uprising.

And sharing your computer with 30 other people at the same time - how to make one average PC enough for an entire class.

BURMA

The complete shutdown of all internet traffic in Burma in September was a definitive step by the ruling junta to prevent information about the uprising filtering out of the country.

Such drastic moves had only ever been employed once before in Nepal in 2004.

The OpenNet Inititaive has published its findings into how the web was bought to a standstill by the country's authorities.

Gareth Mitchell speaks to Rob Faris, from the Harvard Law School, one of the reports investigators. He told him that many online restrictions were still in place.

This week the online search engine Yahoo! is being called before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The company is accused of lying to the United States Congress over its part in handing over details of two users activities in China in 2004. This information led to their arrest.

Digital Planet speaks to Clark Boyd technology correspondent for the World - a co-production for the BBC World Service and American Public Radio International - about the case, and how it could influence future US legislation.

MONSTER'S ROCK

Online virtual worlds are growing in popularity not only with adults but increasingly with children and teenagers.

Jonathan Kent has been to Europe's first conference on the future of virtual world's in London where he found out how company's are encouraging children into an alternative reality.

Pet monsters who need lots of care and attention, as well as food and a comfortable home (all bought using the virtual currency made up of rocks), are just one of the possible virtual choices for 7 to 12 year olds.

PC SHARING

Multi-user computing is not a new idea, but using a PC to support around 30 other terminals is becoming increasingly common in middle and low income countries.

This system has recently been installed in classrooms across the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The terminal costs $70 per unit but does not include a keyboard or monitor which can increase expenditure significantly.

Martin Booth from NComputing told Digital Planet how easy it is to turn a personal computer into a multi-user platform.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Net giants test web health

More and more medical data is created each year

Google and Microsoft are set to go head to head in the lucrative consumer healthcare market.

In October, Microsoft launched HealthVault, a website that allows users to gather, store and share health information online, whilst Google has been talking about similar offerings.

Both companies are keen to get a foothold in health products as more and more people are using the web as a source for health information and advice.

According to a poll by research firm Harris, 71% of US adults use the web to search for health-related information.

"Google is not a doctor, but people come to us with a lot of health information searches," Marissa Mayer of Google recently told a conference in San Francisco.

"There is a big user information need, which we should ultimately fill."

For example, she said, there are an estimated 2 billion X-rays created every year.

The well informed patient becomes a better partner with their doctor

Although the company has not revealed firm details of its plans it has suggested that parts of the health service would be integrated with some of its existing online tools.

For example, a special layer on Google Maps could allow people to find local doctors.

In addition, Ms Mayer has said that the company is investigating ways to make health records portable, for example on a password protected keychain device.

"This is a big vision. It's a multiyear process," she said during a brief on-stage appearance. "We are just getting started."

Health search

Whilst Google feels its way, Microsoft has pushed ahead with its one-stop health website.

HealthVault allows users to collect all of their health information in one place including information generated by doctors, such as observations, prescriptions and lab results, as well as information from private health plans.

The site allows users to search for specialist information

The free tools, currently offered as a test version, also let users upload data from a range of health devices such as blood glucose monitors, sports watches and blood pressure monitors.

The company has said that the tool puts the control of health records in user's hands as they can choose who they share health information with.

"It could be family, friends and healthcare professionals," says Sean Nolan, Chief Architect of Microsoft's health solutions group.

"But it is up to the users who have access to their information online."

HealthVault also includes an ad-funded and encrypted search application to allow uses to find healthcare articles and health information on the web.

Google offers similar specialist search through its Co-op tool.

But, whereas the Google search just scours existing web content, Microsoft have signed deals with organisations to provide specialist content.

For example, it has licensed content from the US-based Mayo Clinic.

Our privacy commitments were designed in conjunction with aggressive privacy advocates

"The well informed patient becomes a better partner with their doctor," says Brooks Edwards, Medical Director at Mayo Clinic Health Solutions.

"For this reason, we believe physicians and other health care providers should be supporting these new technologies."

"This is especially important for patients with chronic diseases who need to track and manage their illnesses," he adds.

The software firm is also working with several other health organisations to provide content for the portal including the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Privacy woes

The movement of sensitive details on to the web has understandably caught the attention of privacy organisations.

Dr Annie Anton, a privacy advocate and software professor at North Carolina State University, has examined HealthVault's privacy statement and believes there is a key problem with the site.

Writing on theprivacyplace.org website, Dr Anton said: "People don't realize is that HealthVault and similar PHR [public health record] systems are not subject to or governed by law."

HealthVault has raised concerns from privacy advocates

In particular, said Dr Anton, the site is not covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a US federal law which sets out privacy regulations for the collection and movement of health information.

"When HIPAA was enacted, we did not envision that private software firms would eventually want to create databases for our health records," she wrote.

"As a result, HealthVault and other PHR systems are not subject to the same privacy and security laws to which traditional medical records are subject to in the United States."

She says this and other features of the site, such as where data will be stored and how it will be used raises serious questions about HealthVault.

But Microsoft says it has developed their tool with the blessing of privacy experts.

"Our privacy commitments were designed in conjunction with aggressive privacy advocates in parallel with the platform development," says Mr Nolan.

He points out that the site has a TRUSTe privacy seal, an independent program which vets the privacy statements of websites.

The scheme is part-sponsored by Microsoft.

"We conducted a 6-month outreach program with consumer advocate groups and were very careful to take the different perspective into account as we developed HealthVault."

The firm says its privacy practices will be audited by a third-party vendor and that it takes extra steps such as deleting cookies and search logs after 90 days.

"Additionally, search terms aren't saved from session to session, nor are advertisements related to the content in a HealthVault account," says Mr Nolan.

Features like this, whilst not perfect, are a step in the right direction says Guy Hosein, senior fellow at London-based human rights watchdog Privacy International.

"This would be a step in the wrong direction if they are advertising to you based on your ailments and adding this information to your personal profile."

Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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15 reasons Facebook may be worth $15bn

So why does Microsoft think Facebook is worth $15bn? Here are 15 possible reasons....

1. The network has gone viral in the last 12 months, with more than 50 million users worldwide and a user base that is growing faster than great rival MySpace. According to Facebook, it adds 200,000 new users each day.

2. The average user spends 3.5 hours a month on Facebook - more than the average user on rival MySpace - which is increasingly attractive to advertisers.

3. Facebook is the current Web 2.0 darling - popular with ordinary users and "tech heads" alike.

4. US research reveals that Facebook users come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college than MySpace users - increasing that attraction for advertisers.

5. Microsoft's investment makes them a serious player in the growing market of "social advertising". Social network profiles are full of personal data that users voluntarily hand over, which is very useful for targeting adverts.

6. Sixty percent of Facebook users are outside of the US - so Microsoft's investment buys access to a global audience quickly and simply.

7. Facebook is the new web: The decision to open up the network to outside developers turned Facebook into a destination for many uses, like messaging, photos and video. Of course, as Facebook is on the web it could never really be the new web.

8. Every major content firm with an online presence is either working on a Facebook application or has already launched one - from Google to the BBC.

10. The openness of Facebook is attracting a wealth of talented developers who can launch their applications to millions of users quickly.

11. Facebook messaging is the new e-mail. Everyone feels stressed from a deluge of e-mail from unwanted people and companies. But Facebook messages are always from friends.

12. Facebook's "status updates" have become the easiest way to let friends know what you are doing and how you are feeling at any given moment.

13. Facebook thrives on playful applications such as Pirates, Zombies, Super Wall and Top Friends, which have made the network a place to play as well as communicate.

14. Facebook is the acceptable face of blogging - you can reflect your life and personality online without being seen as a "blogger", which often carries a geeky stigma.

15. Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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When work becomes a game

A generation is growing up playing immersive online games

Video games are big business and soon they could be big in business too.

A whole generation is growing up for whom video games are a key part of how they relax, whether it be fragging friends in a first person shooter or backing up the main tank in a Warcraft raid.

And it is not just youngsters. There are plenty of older folks who shake off the dust of the working day in many different virtual worlds.

Statistics from the the US Entertainment Software Association (ESA) back this up. It claims that the average player is 33 and has more than a decade of gaming under their belt.

All of a sudden, say academics and researchers, companies have realised that all the time employees spend gaming in virtual worlds is changing them.

Ian Hughes, IBM's metaverse evangelist, said many organisations were considering ways of harnessing the skills and familiarity their employees have with virtual environments.

This familiarity has driven many organisations to consider virtual worlds as places where employees can meet, mix and get on with the job.

"A lot of people are more accepting of that way of working just because of games," he said.

"It's about harnessing that ability to play to get work done."

The formidable organisational skills needed to run a game team or guild, organise raids involving perhaps 40 people and co-ordinate their different abilities to defeat a game's strongest foes are all relevant to work, said Mr Hughes.Game gear

But it is not just the skills that gamers hone in futuristic or fantasy worlds that businesses want to co-opt. Some are taking their inspiration directly from the way that online games are structured.

Skills learned on raids in games could apply to work too

"The problems associated with distributed teams, collaboration and information overload right now are so severe, and the opportunities so good, that they are willing to look at anything," he said.

Dr Reeves has founded a company called Seriosity that applies game elements to workplaces.

It was working with five or six unnamed Fortune 500 companies to harness the efficiencies of those game mechanics, said Dr Reeve.

One of the programs developed by Seriosity adds a virtual currency element to e-mail in a bid to help people cope with information overload.

Anyone sending a message adds some of their limited supply of virtual coins, called Serios, to show how important they consider that e-mail to be.

It was a more finely grained grading system than the low, medium or high importance flags found in most e-mail programs, said Dr Reeves.

It had other benefits too, he said. It revealed not just the flow of messages but also started to show who people pay attention to and who did a good job of getting responses.

Some companies were starting to adopt even more of the elements familiar from games.

"There are people right now trying to map it one-to-one," said Dr Reeves. Level playing field

Convinced that games can help them thrive some companies have turned work groups into guilds, rewarded staff with experience points when they complete tasks, giving out titles and badges when a guild finished a project and portraying objectives as quests.

Virtual worlds could become key to future business life

None, so far, he said, were tying wages to how people performed in the quests and against other guilds.

"Mapping levels and points on to wages is the most extreme application," he said.

Companies were adopting game mechanics for several reasons, said Dr Reeves.

Partly because workers were so familiar with this structure, he said, and because people become powerfully motivated when they know how they compare to their contemporaries.

The main reason was for the transparency it gave to the way workplaces were organised and for revealing who got things done.

"It exposes those that do and do not play well," said Dr Reeves. "There is a leader board and you know the rules."

It had the potential to turn workplaces into meritocracies where the most accomplished are easy to spot because they have racked up all rewards, achievements and levels required for a particular post.

While it may not sweep away systems of privilege or end nepotism it had the potential to make workplaces fairer and take some of the grind out of the day job, he said.

"The whole idea here is to get the objectives of the individual players aligned with the objectives of the organisation," said Dr Reeves. "Do that and you have something good."

Angela Barron, an advisor at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said games had long been used in training to expose personal preferences and prejudices.

Many organisations also used courses that revolve around games to help make teams work together better or expose power structures among workers.

She said this was the first time she had heard of elements of online games being used in a similar way.

"I would not have thought enough people play games for it to be a great motivator," she said.

But, she said, anything that helped staff develop a better working relationship and promote team work was likely to be a good thing.Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Driving the boundaries of realism

Driving through the rain-drenched streets of Shanghai in an Aston Martin DB4 at breakneck speeds, with the neon signs of shops blurring as you pass by, is one of the great thrills in life - even if it is only virtual.

Video game development has made tremendous graphical strides in the last four decades and nowhere is this more pronounced than in driving simulations.

In the 1970s a driving game was a simple mix of black and white pixels that were manoeuvred between two moving lines to represent the road's edge.

One of the first such games, Night Driver, had a plastic representation of the car that was laid under the screen of the arcade machine.

Games like Pole Position in 1982 and Outrun in 1986 pushed the genre on with 3D graphics and a growing emphasis on realism.

But today's games offer an experience that is unrecognisable from the blocky and crudely drawn efforts of the past.

Games such as Project Gotham Racing 4, Ferrari Challenge and Gran Turismo 5 offer photo-real cars with simulated handling physics, being thrown about in high-definition worlds, which often recreate real cities in astonishing detail.

"We're not trying to simulate reality," says Alan Mealor, lead environment artist at Bizarre Creations, developers of Project Gotham Racing 4 (PGR4).

"There's no point in creating a richly detailed world if it can't run in the game," he adds.

Bizarre have to trade off hyper-realism with the hardware's ability to handle the complexity and detail of a world and have cars run smoothly inside the game.

PGR4 takes drives on a tour of eight cities - Macau, Las Vegas, London, St Petersburg, Tokyo, New York City, Shanghai, Quebec - and each location took one of four teams of five artists 18 to 20 months to build.

"We start with research; books, magazines, the internet - anything to get a feel for a place," says Mr Mealor.

'Hands on'

After short listing the cities Bizarre sent out a team to each of the locations to look for any potential problems first hand.

Race some of the world's best cars - virtually

Mr Mealor says: "Cities have a nasty habit of changing. Macau looked perfect for us first of all.

"But in the space of two years they had built two casinos, the road layout had changed dramatically and they had reclaimed lots of land."

The work to recreate a city then moves to digital photography. The artists used a bank of digital SLRs to take photos of every aspect of a location.

"In Macau we took 240,000 photos. Everything from pavements to litter bins and every sign on a building.

"We have a two-week trip just taking photos."

In all, in excess of two million photographs of various locations around the world were taken - and then the hard work began.

Each of the cities in PGR4 is drawn by hand. The team does not use GPS data because it is not accurate enough and software that converts digital photos into real world geometry is eschewed in favour of an artist's talent at capturing the "feel" of a location.

Three dimensions

The artists use software application Photoshop to draw the worlds and Maya to build the cities in three dimensions. At the end of the process each city is more than 6.3GB in size, across 10,487 different files.

That data is crunched down by a render farm into a size manageable by the Xbox 360. The team even uses pre-production 360s to help export the data.

At the end of the crunch a city is only 593MB in size, held in just three different files.

The hardest part of the process, says Mr Mealor, is lighting.

The mission statement for us was to recreate the feeling of a Ferrari experience

"The importance of lighting is always overlooked. It's unbelievably important.

"You take it for granted when walking around a city: The light on concrete, tarmac, and cars."

The attention to detail and growing realism is one of the reasons racing titles remain such a popular gaming genre.

Mark South, a producer at Eutechnyx, working on multiplatform title Ferrari Challenge, says authenticity was the guiding principle.

"The mission statement for us was to recreate the feeling of a Ferrari experience. Getting all the real world data into the game requires a lot of reference."

His team travelled to far flung corners of the world to track down rare Ferraris, taking between five and 7,000 digital photos of each vehicle.

In all, the company gathered more than 3.3 terabytes (3,417GB) in data for its cars and tracks.

"The time taken between taking photos of a car to putting it in the game is about 2.5 months, with two people working on it day in, day out," says Mr South.

'Real thing'

The company also hired the services of Grand Prix 2 driver Bruno Senna to test the accuracy of virtual handling.

"If you're going to create a simulation you need to know that it drives like the real thing," says Mr Mealor.

"We took a virtual Ferrari 430, took it on a virtual track and recorded the telemetry. Then we took a real 430 and took it to a real track and again recorded telemetry to make sure it matches up."

At Bizarre, the firm also used CAD data for some of the cars and for certain others used miniature models, photos, manuals and first-hand experience of the vehicles.

"It takes four to six weeks to build every car - from nothing to being in the game," explains car artist Jason Bowers.

"We wanted the cars to look super realistic."Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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State of Play: Man versus machine

Researcher Kevin Herron has built a bot that plays Guitar Hero

Computers playing computer games may sound odd, but it's an example of the ongoing man versus machine debate.

To some, it's investing in a subtle, taxing game like Virtua Fighter and never doing more than bashing random buttons in the hope of a win.

For others it's buying a guide book to a Final Fantasy game and blindly following its instructions as you play, rather than the story or your own sense of adventure.

These ways of playing - staunchly defended by some - do seem to rob gaming of nearly everything it has to offer.

But there is an even greater level of pointless play that baffles almost everyone. These are the systems devised by people who are more interested in getting machines to play for them than in playing themselves.

It's a vibrant, but idiosyncratic, world, from the man who's hoping his genetic algorithms will eventually evolve into Dr Mario masters, to the frustrated Guitar Hero who built a bot - complete with a camera for eyes and virtual fingers - to complete the hardest tracks for him.

It's a little surreal, but watching both of these systems play is strangely compelling, and there's an odd sense of vindication to be found in their triumphs. It's literally a case of seeing something beaten at its own game.

So what's going on? Surely nothing could be more pointless than watching a machine play a machine.

Gamers have to put their faith in their heroes every time they play

The reality is that it's not as alien an idea as it might at first sound. Gamers are used to watching games try to beat themselves.

Arcade games have always traditionally had "attract modes" that demonstrated how the game should be played, and ever since it's been possible to see games play themselves.

Even stranger, most gamers are used to games which do their best to help you win while they try all-out to beat you.

Many gun-based games have an auto-aim option, which means the game is busy processing how best to swing your reticule over the target at exactly the same time it's trying to process how to get enemies to pop up in corners you didn't expect.

Puzzle games take a few precious cycles out from relentlessly crunching the numbers on winning strategies to offer you helpful tips. And, we, weirdly, are totally at ease with this schizophrenia.

Why on earth would we trust a machine that seems to be playing both sides against the middle?

Why don't we ever wonder if the game is using a slightly dumber AI to proffer tips than it is to guide its own moves?

Genetic algorithms are being used to "teach" computer to play Nintendo games

Can we be sure the so-called auto-aim isn't doing the software equivalent of jogging our elbow every time we shoot?

We can, but only because there's an instinctive understanding that - despite all the indications to the contrary - the games aren't trying to win.

They aren't machines determined to beat you, they're machines determined to entertain you. And it's reasonable to put your trust in them, because it's not them you're really trusting.

It's tempting to see games as the front-line of the great man versus machine debate. As the quest to build computers than can outsmart humans marches on, games remain the high-profile acid test.

A decade on from Kasparov's famous defeat by Deep Blue, computer programs such as Rybka can routinely beat players at Grand Master level.

Human intelligence, refusing to be put on the back foot, is taking refuge in creative ingenuity

Human intelligence, refusing to be put on the back foot, is taking refuge in creative ingenuity, inventing games like Arimaa, which are specifically designed to be easy for humans but hard for artificial intelligence.

But for most people, and for most games, that sense of pitting the human against the artificial isn't what you're aware of.

When you play, what you're doing is going up against the men behind the machine.

That's why watching bots and algorithms get the best of a game is so satisfying. For years, the machines that game developers build have been getting the better of us. Now our machines can, if only occasionally, get the better of them.

But at its best, gaming isn't about our machines or their machines.

At its best, the machine disappears, becoming instead an invisible conduit between you and these dozens of men and women who've spent years bending their immense imaginations and arcane skills to creating something designed purely to make you happy.

You put your trust in their instincts, and in their sincerity in trying to build an extraordinary, satisfying experience for you.

It's one of the ways in which game players have a much more intense relationship with game creators than is true of consumers of most other artforms.

Directors, writers or musicians can let you down, by making something you don't like, but they can rarely betray your trust.

Gamers have to put their faith in their heroes every time they play.

It's perhaps part of what enables game companies to engender the kind of fanatical loyalty that Nintendo does amongst its fans, and what accounts for the viciousness of the vitriol that unpopular products can produce.

Indeed, when you read the kind of hate-mail some studios are subject to, you have to wonder if they wouldn't prefer to be making games for bots and genetic algorithms. You rather suspect they might have better manners. Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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State of Play: The game of love

People play games for many reasons, but increasing numbers are finding that they are a great way to size up potential partners.

The wave that started in chatrooms has swept across internet dating sites and crashed against the shores of Azeroth, Vana'diel and Norrath.

Hundreds, probably thousands, of players can attest that they met their partners or spouses in the worlds of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI and EverQuest. A few more have darker tales to tell of romances that led to obsession or that were founded in deceit or infidelity.

For a while, it was a taboo. Couples steeled themselves against the inevitable silence that followed the announcement "we met online".

Now, it's commonplace: any silence following that kind of declaration will be based on boredom, not embarrassment.

The speed of that acceptance has meant that a fundamental question doesn't often get asked: just what is it about online games that makes them a good place to hook up?

They do, of course, share some of the aspects that make online dating in general successful: it's a quick, efficient way to encounter a large number of potential suitors, all without having to expose yourself too acutely.

it's hard to beat a game for how much it will show you of someone's character, and how quickly

But surely, that's where the advantages end. You don't see anything real of someone in a game, not so much as a photo. You don't get a real name, or even a real gender, as often as not. Conversation can be cumbersome and stilted, and your range of action can be severely limited.

But while information may be sparse in online relationships, insight abounds.

There's an intimacy available in games that the real world takes time to match. Warcraft is a world where you can right-click on someone you've just met and inspect their underwear.

Imagine how that ability would change how you responded to someone who offered to buy you a drink in a bar. What conclusions would you draw about a mighty, armour-laden warrior who is secretly wearing a pink silk shirt under his plate-mail carapace? How would you judge a seemingly level-headed priestess when you notice she's stuck with a low-level robe that offers little protection but matches her hair?

So far, so shallow. But can a game clue you in to more important character traits?

A good stint in an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game) can give you a very accurate reading on, say, how someone handles their money. It's easy to assess the difference between a carefree impulse buyer and a number-crunching investor who knows how to play the auction house - much more revealing that whether or not someone offers to "go Dutch" on a first date.

Or how about tricky social situations? Games are full of awkwardness: persistent beggars hassling you for money or inept but enthusiastic players who need to be jettisoned from a squad if you're to have any hope of success.

Games do not need much help to get players connecting

And all this is before you get to the actual game; there are few more revealing processes than watching someone play.

You can easily gauge some of the slipperiest aspects of human nature by observing someone's tactics. Are they a risk-taker? Do they panic under pressure? Do they respond to failure with frustration or creativity? Are they a gracious winner or a griping loser? A loner or a team-player? Perfectionist or bodger? Is winning all that matters, or will they risk death to pull a prank or tell a joke?

Dinner and a movie may well give you a chance to check out the basics - minor details like physical appearance, age, sex, gender and race - but it's hard to beat a game for how much it will show you of someone's character, and how quickly.

Dating in the real world is all too often reminiscent of the way French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes in his book The Little Prince meeting adults who only care about jobs and houses and money, golf and politics and neckties.

They never ask about essential matters, he laments, and so he never discusses them with such people; no talk of boa constrictors or primeval forests or stars, of butterflies and games and rose-brick houses.

It's taken more than 50 years for games to catch up with him, but it's hard not feel that he would approve of the exploration, friendship and whimsy that they now offer. Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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State of Play: A wide world of games

The Witcher draws on the work of Andrzej Sapkowski

The gaming industry may span the globe but attempts to homogenise what it produces may end up killing creativity.

The rest of us would probably struggle to put it on the map.

But the city, home to this month's Austin Game Developer's Conference, has an odd status in the videogame world.

In an industry dominated by its twin poles of Toyko and Los Angeles, Austin has long been a cluster of development excellence.

From the days of Looking Glass and Ion Storm, to the current trend for major outfits like BioWare, Midway, NCSoft and Sony Online Entertainment to base studios there, Austin has a long history of attracting, and retaining, game developers.

Handy info, if you're a game-fan-quiz-aficionado. And no doubt good news for Austin's local board of commerce. But does it have any wider significance? Does where a game gets made have any impact on what it's like to play?

The most obvious divide is between western and Japanese developed games.

Think of the extraordinary range of subjects, styles and structures you find in the "world cinema" section of a decent video store, and imagine what would happen if we could apply the same diversity to gaming.

And, as the appeal of games took hold in the late '70s in the US, and the early '80s in Japan, that gulf was amplified, as 30 years' worth of games established a new set of traditions to serve the local markets.

But while it's easy to look at game history as the US versus Japan, Atari versus Nintendo, the truth was always more multi-cultural.

Britain had a flourishing and distinctive game development scene, initially serving Clive Sinclair's homegrown computers the ZX81 and the Spectrum.

France soon established itself, with titles like Another World and Rayman still resonant today. Currently, it's areas such as Scandinavia and Korea which are pushing to the forefront of development.

So can you pick up a game and guess where it's from?

Sometimes it's easy: there's a trend for humour and oddness in British games which still survives today, in the output of Rare or the presentation of Little Big Planet.

The French insistence that games can have a wider emotional and stylistic range can still be found in forthcoming games such as Heavy Rain and The Crossing.

A Scandinavian tradition for understanding that "mature" can mean more than mere lashings of gore can be seen in Dreamfall, Kane & Lynch and The Darkness.

Korea's emphasis on highly customisable, multiplayer PC games is producing recognisable aesthetic trends, in both its casual and high-end games.

Bioshock was part-written by Austin resident Susan O'Conner

Yet, while some local flavour remains, the prevailing trend is for the opposite: games face almost total globalisation.

Overwhelmingly, publishers hope to be able to market what they make worldwide, which leads to them to limit the culturally distinct elements in a title.

Developers themselves are well used to relocating, often skipping continents to find the work they want. Even individual game projects are global affairs - it's no longer unusual to find projects that are being worked on simultaneously in three different countries, scattered across time zones.

Other older art forms had longer to incubate local traditions before becoming global commodities, meaning that national literary and musical identities have stayed strong.

Some newer media, like comics, have failed to generate the kind of commercial pressure that the games industry now generates, ensuring local traits continued to flourish.

Gaming may be facing a uniquely acute risk of losing its various identities.

Which takes us back to that original question. Does it matter? Isn't gaming's global appeal part of the proof that it's a truly modern medium for a truly modern age?

Gaming is capable of hitting all the current buzzwords, as it crosses borders, and encourages collaboration and user-created content. What sense does it make to cater to a domestic audience when you could be making games for the entire world?

The answer is another buzzword: diversity.

There's little importance, from a gamer's perspective, in whether or not Spain has a thriving development scene.

But if there weren't studios in Warsaw and Kiev, we almost certainly wouldn't have game projects inspired by film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) or writer Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher).

The games industry is used to having arguments about whether bringing more female, gay or ethnically diverse staff into the development process will make it more able to serve those markets.

What doesn't so often get discussed is the benefit that cultivating regional identities could bring. Think of the extraordinary range of subjects, styles and structures you find in the "world cinema" section of a decent video store, and imagine what would happen if we could apply the same diversity to gaming.

Isn't that the kind of globalisation games should be fighting for?

Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

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Kicking off the debate about free speech

The legal system is starting to get to grips with chat on the internet, says regular columnist Bill Thompson

A row about comments left on the site has ended in the courts

The football club has obtained an order from the High Court requiring the site's administrators to hand over the e-mail addresses of the three fans.

Although the posters used pseudonyms and may have thought that they were safe from any legal action, they may now be tracked down after deputy Judge Richard Parkes agreed that their posts "may reasonably be understood to allege greed, selfishness, untrustworthiness and dishonest behaviour on the part of the claimants".

This leaves them open to proceedings for libel, so the judge has told site owner Neil Hargreaves to reveal their e-mail addresses despite the site's privacy policy.

Of course nobody should assume that user names offer any real anonymity or protection against legal action against a site's host, whether here or in China, so if the three people involved didn't go to the trouble of registering non-UK addresses just to use on Owlstalk their real names will soon be known to the lawyers acting for the directors.

The consequences could be severe, as we now have a reasonable body of case law establishing that something you say online is just as likely to get you sued as something you print.

And while service providers and hosting companies may be able to claim immunity from prosecution under the EU directive on e-commerce those who write and publish the material are increasingly likely to find themselves hearing from the lawyers.

Three years ago the Sunday Herald paid damages to former defence secretary George Robertson in an out of court settlement after Mr Robertson said he had been libelled on the paper's message boards.

Most of us, most of the time, know the difference between abuse and moaning, so we should not see this case as the end of online anonymity.

Since then there have been many other cases, including the dispute between childcare writer Gina Ford and the Mumsnet site which ended with the site paying Ms Ford compensation. Another recent case involved a threatening letter from the law firm Schillings on behalf of Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov which resulted in the suspension of several blogs.

Back in September I chaired a two-day conference with the rather unpromising title "User Generated Content and the Law in the Modern Legal Environment".

It was a conference for lawyers, who clearly don't need to be enticed by snappy headlines, and featured a range of speakers who understood how the law was being applied online.

I can remember when commentators routinely described the internet as "lawless", a new frontier where existing legal principles simply could not be applied.

Some of the more hopelessly romantic, like John Perry Barlow, even declared that "cyberspace" was a new realm, independent of the physical world.

They were wrong at the time, but it was true that lawyers and judges were struggling to fit this new medium into the framework of existing law.

Now, it is clear, they have pretty much completed the task and there is no justification for believing that our online activities are in any sense outside the frameworks of regulation and control that govern the rest of our lives.

The stereotype of the uninformed, out-of-date judge issuing incomprehensible pronouncements from the bench is no longer sustainable.

The net is now judged by laws that apply offline too

While the e-mail addresses of the three fans have to be handed over, he refused an application to disclose the e-mail addresses of a further eight posters because their comments were "plainly intended as jokes and unlikely to be taken seriously".

He reckons they were "no more than saloon-bar moanings about the way in which the club is managed".

Most of us, most of the time, know the difference between abuse and moaning, so we should not see this case as the end of online anonymity. It is not going to force every website, bulletin board or mailing list to insist on proof of identity, a blood sample and a letter from two grandparents before you can sign up.

It won't have a chilling effect on the sort of raucous debate many of us enjoy on our favourite discussion sites, and it does not diminish the protection someone might expect if they are posting deeply personal or sensitive material under a pseudonym.

Of course, it isn't perfect. The judgment doesn't rule out the possibility of a thin-skinned person taking offence and dragging a small community site into the courts over postings which they really should just ignore.

And it doesn't change the law that encourages hosting companies simply to pull any content after they receive a complaint, as Fasthosts did when Mr Usmanov complained about blog postings about his past.

But it should help anyone who posts online decide whether what they are about to say crosses the line, and ensure that anyone who decides to go for the jugular realises that their carefully-selected username will not really help them when it comes to court.

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Robot cars race around California

A driverless car called Boss has scooped a $2m prize in a Californian race for robotic vehicles.

Boss shared the road with human drivers to simulate traffic

Boss successfully drove around an urban environment, avoiding other cars, and covering 60 miles (85km) in less than six hours, all without any human control.

The modified Chevrolet Tahoe was one of six cars that crossed the finish line, from a pack of 11 robotic vehicles which set off at dawn. The others had to pull out after crashes or other problems.

The race was organised by the US military's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and is designed to develop unmanned vehicles that could be used in battle situations. Automotive manufacturers say the technology could eventually lead to self-driving cars.

Boss navigated around a simulated town, created on a disused US Air Force base in Victorville, in the Californian desert.

It had to deal with single and dual carriageway roads, junctions, buildings and car parks. As well as the 10 other driverless cars, Boss shared the road with more than 30 professional human drivers to simulate busy traffic.

Kill-switch

The robotic vehicle was created by Tartan Racing, a team formed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and General Motors (GM).

Imagine being able to talk on the phone, eat your breakfast, handle your emails, and leave the driving to the vehicle

"This is a big day for robotics," said Chris Urmson, the team's technology leader.

"We had 11 vehicles that were incredibly capable, and the fact that six of them drove the 60 miles is amazing - just a big day."

Spectators watched from grandstands as the vehicles pulled up at junctions, turned on their indicators, and then pulled away with the steering wheel eerily moving by itself.

Many of them were hoping for some drama, and the rumour on site was the human drivers had been placing bets on who would be hit first.

Each robotic car was followed by a human in a pace car equipped with a kill-switch, designed to stop the robot instantly if it started acting erratically.

Confused truck

Rapid use of the switch avoided any major accidents but there were some minor ones.

TerraMax climbed a curb and hit a building after losing direction

A dumper truck called TerraMax was the largest vehicle in the race. At 3m tall, and 2.5 metres wide, the course had to be widened so it would fit.

It drew gasps from the crowd as it pulled into the starting line-up, and bigger gasps a couple of hours later when it became confused as it navigated around the urban environment, and drove into an empty shop.

"It seemed like it was parked, and then all of a sudden it climbed up the curb, and nudged itself into that building," according to Juan, who stood watching from behind a safety barrier.

"It wasn't very fast, but it was definitely hard!"

Big screens around the site repeated images of two other robot cars colliding, but damage was minor enough for them both to continue.

Laser eyes

Most of the vehicles look like normal road cars but with an array of sensors mounted on the roof, on each corner and embedded in the bumpers.

The robotic vehicles bristle with sensors

One of the key pieces of technology for the winning team was a Lidar - a spinning laser scanner.

"It has 64 individual lasers in it, and it spins about 10 times a second to generate about a million measurements of the world," explained Chris Urmson.

"That gives us a kind of point cloud which we can use to help understand where features are - cars, walls, the sidewalk and so on."

The time it takes for the laser to be fired out and bounce back off an object allows a computer to calculate how far the object is. That information is combined with data from radar sensors for longer-range perception and cameras.

"We have algorithms which process that data and analyse where the fixed objects are, where the moving objects are, and where we are in relation to our maps of the world," Mr Urmson added.

Eight years?

The car industry is watching developments closely.

Larry Burns, GM's vice-president for research and development and strategic planning, said developing cars that drive themselves is a key objective.

"Imagine being able to talk on the phone, eat your breakfast, handle your emails, and leave the driving to the vehicle," he added.

"That would be pretty phenomenal. It's going to a big breakthrough. It's technology that's on the way to 'having cars that don't crash'."

He believes cars with that level of intelligence could be on the road by 2015. Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

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Britons sending 1bn texts weekly

Some types of message are best sent via a text

Britons are now sending more than one billion text messages per week according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

The figure is 25% higher than a year ago and is set to shatter forecasts for how many text messages have been sent to and from handsets this year.

That weekly total is the same as the number sent during the whole of 1999.

Some 4.825bn texts were sent in September 2007, equivalent to 4,000 every second.

"It has exceeded our forecasts quite significantly," said Mike Short, head of the MDA.

The total for 2007 looks set to reach 52 billion, he said. This was far in excess of the 42-48 billion the MDA previously predicted would be sent this year.

Mr Short said there were several reasons for the continuing growth.

"It's convenient, comprehensive, it's on every handset and network and it is cost effective," he said.

Once despatched, a text message is stored on the mobile network until it can be delivered to its intended destination.

CompaniesHow did we manage before text someone asks? Quite easily old chap - we just got on with life without the need to communicate every few minutes. So peaceful.

That effective guarantee of delivery was perfect for many messages that may not merit an entire conversation or that people did not want to trust to voicemail.

Many people were also happy to get news and updates about topics or teams they follow via text messaging.

But increasingly, said Mr Short, companies were making use of text messaging.

"It's a lot more convenient for a business now to notify lots of their employees about an urgent message using a text message," he said.

At the same time many other companies were using text messages to manage relationships with customers when deliveries, appointments or house calls were due.

"The UK text volumes show no real signs of abating and the UK sits within the top six of the global league of countries sending text messages," Mr Short went on.

"While the trend towards operators offering 'all-you-can-eat' tariffs increases, this will act as a catalyst for consumers' passion for all things mobile."Challenges ahead No rush for gold Survivors' stories

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King Tut mummy on display for first time

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) -- The linen wrapped mummy of King Tut was put on public display for the first time on Sunday -- 85 years after the 3,000-year-old boy pharaoh's golden enshrined tomb and mummy were discovered in Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings.

"The only good thing (left) in this mummy is the face," says antiquities chief Zahi Hawass.

Archeologists removed the mummy from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb, revealing his shriveled leather-like face and body.

"The golden boy has magic and mystery and therefore every person all over the world will see what Egypt is doing to preserve the golden boy, and all of them I am sure will come to see the golden boy," Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told reporters under the intense Luxor sun.

Hawass said scientists began restoring King Tut's badly damaged mummy more than two years ago after it was removed briefly from its sarcophagus and placed into a CT scanner for the first time for further examination. Much of the mummy's body is broken into 18 pieces that Hawass described looked like stones that were damaged when British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the mummy, took it from his tomb and tried to pull off his famous golden mask.

But Hawass said he fears a more recent phenomenon -- mass tourism -- is further deteriorating Tut's mummy. Thousands of tourists visit the underground chamber every month.

"The humidity and heat caused by ... people entering the tomb and their breathing will change the mummy to a powder. The only good thing (left) in this mummy is the face. We need to preserve the face," said Hawass, who wore his signature Indiana Jones-style tan hat.

The mystery surrounding King Tutankhamun and his glittering gold tomb has entranced ancient Egypt fans since Carter first discovered the hidden tomb on November 4, 1922, revealing a trove of fabulous gold and precious stone treasures.

Archeologists in recent years have tried to resolve lingering questions over how he died and his precise royal lineage. Several books and documentaries dedicated to the young pharaoh, who is believed to have been the 12th ruler of ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty and ascended to the throne around the age of 8, are popular around the world.

In an effort to try to solve the mysteries, scientists removed Tut's mummy from his tomb and placed it into a portable CT scanner for 15 minutes in 2005 to obtain a three-dimensional image. The scans were the first done on an Egyptian mummy.

The results did rule out that Tut was violently murdered -- but stopped short of definitively concluding how he died around 1323 B.C. Experts for the time though suggested that days before dying, Tut badly broke his left thigh, apparently in an accident, that may have caused a fatal infection.

The CT scan also provided the most revealing insight yet into the life of ancient Egypt's most famous king. He was well-fed, healthy, yet slightly built, standing at 5 feet, 6 inches tall at the time of his death. The scan also showed he had the typical overbite characteristic of other kings from his family, large incisor teeth and his lower teeth were slightly misaligned.

The unveiling of Tut's mummy comes amid a frenzy of international publicity for the boy king. A highly publicized museum exhibit traveling the globe drew more than 4 million people during the initial four-city American-leg of the tour. The exhibit will open later this month in London and after it will make a three-city encore tour in the U.S. beginning with the Dallas Museum of Art.

The Egyptian tourism industry is hoping to capitalize on that interest and draw tourists to Luxor to see something they couldn't at the museum -- Tut's mummy. More than 9 million tourists visited Egypt last year -- up from 8.7 million the previous year, the Egyptian Tourist Authority said.

The tourists will begin viewing the mummy Monday, Hawass said. The mummy will remain in the tomb indefinitely -- unlike other Egyptian royal mummies, who are displayed in museums.

Canadian tourist Bryan Wadson said he and his wife would try to make it back to the Valley of the Kings for the second time on Monday because they missed the mummy Sunday.

"We're running out of time, but will try," he said after taking a photo with Hawass.

But not every tourist was eager to find out that Tut will be removed from his sarcophagus and put on display.

"I really think he should be left alone in quiet, in peace," said British tourist Bob Philpotts. "This is his resting place, and he should be left (there)."

John Taylor, an assistant keeper at the British Museum's department of ancient Egypt and Sudan, said tourists won't be the only ones to benefit by the display of Tut in a climate controlled case.

"In some ways, it could be advantageous to monitor the condition to see if the mummy is stable," he said by telephone from London.

Hawass said experts will begin another project trying to determine the pharaoh's precise royal lineage. It is unclear if he is the son or a half brother of Akhenaten, the "heretic" pharaoh who introduced a revolutionary form of monotheism to ancient Egypt and was the son of Amenhotep III.

"Everyone is dreaming of what he looks like. The face of Tutankhamun is different from any king in the Cairo museum. With his beautiful buck teeth, the tourists will see a little bit of the smile from the face of the golden boy," Hawass said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Graphics chips rev up research results

A better graphics card means PC games look more realistic

Every serious PC gamer knows what a difference a good graphics card can make to the fun they have.

But it is not just hardcore gamers who have recognised the worth of a PC graphics card.

Increasing numbers of research scientists have woken up to their potential too.

But the scientists in question are not using the cards to appreciate the detail in PC games such as The Witcher. Instead they are using them as cheap sources of supercomputer-class processing power.

"They give a phenomenal bang for the buck," said Mike Giles, professor of scientific computing at the University of Oxford.

Prof Giles said the way that graphics cards were built made them very good at the repetitive computational tasks many scientists use to test theories, models and predictions.

Spot checks

Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.

Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.

Women want scan results as quickly as possible

Dr Hagness' team is using microwaves to scan tissue and then pumping the results through hardware made by Canadian firm Acceleware which bolts together several graphics cards into a mini computational cluster.

The dedicated hardware meant that results emerged in a matter of hours rather than days, said Dr Hagness.

This was essential when the technique began to be used in a clinical setting, she said.

"Any woman who undergoes screening mammography wants the results straight away."

Hardware helper

Prof Giles, who is using graphics processors to do financial modelling, said the chips were very good at doing the same thing many different times.

By contrast the Intel or AMD chips inside a typical desktop machine were good at doing many different things at the same time.

Graphics cards had far more processing cores - which execute program instructions - than Intel or AMD chips, said Prof Giles, adding that each one of the cores could do one run of the same simple task.

The financial models that Prof Giles is running test the same algorithm on each core but each one gets different random numbers as input.

With the latest graphics processors having more than 100 processing cores that can add up to a lot of number crunching.

Modelling financial markets helps firms weather stock movements

"Each core is logically very simple but its floating point capability is the same as an Intel chip," said Prof Giles.

Developments in methods of writing code to handle the processing was also making graphics processors much more attractive, he said.

"In the early days you could only use graphics cards for graphics," said Prof Giles.

In particular, he said, graphics card maker Nvidia had released software tools called Cuda (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that made it much easier to write code.

"For a while there were only hard-to-use shader languages," said Prof Giles, "Cuda is a much more usable development environment."

Flow control

By harnessing that processing power many scientists are getting results from simulations far faster than before.

PhD student Tobias Brandvik and Dr Graham Pullan in the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge engineering department had sped up simulations of turbine blade designs by 40 times by using a few graphics cards.

Each blade, said Dr Pullan, was custom designed for the jet or power plant in which they will be used.

Tiny improvements in efficiency have big rewards in turbine engines

But, he said, even with this formidable level of complexity the design process models the turbulent air rather than accurately representing or resolving it.

"With a cluster of graphical processing units, we could hope to use, say, 10 million cells," he said. The simulation run would take the same amount of time as existing models.

"Then, we would resolve some of the larger turbulent eddies," said Dr Pullan. "In general, the more we resolve and the less we model, the more accurate the theory."

An alternative would be to stick with 500,000 cells and try lots more blade designs or include blades upstream and downstream to get a better overall picture of air flowing through a turbine.

Tiny improvements in design can have a huge payoff, said Dr Pullan.

"It's all about making the absolute best efficiency possible," he said.

"Improvements of even 1% in fuel consumption, for jet engines, or 1% in electricity power generated, for steam or gas turbines for power generation, is highly sought after."Street veteran Delhi's dilemma Crisis defused

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Farming the wind efficiently

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A typical exchange about wind farms tends to go like this: 'Are you in favor of wind farms?' 'Yes, of course I am...so long as they're nowhere near my house'. Nevertheless, wind turbines are fast-becoming an important piece in the energy puzzle, contributing a growing percentage to our overall energy needs.

A figure from Anthony Gormley's art installation 'Another Place' stands in front of the turbines of the new Burbo Bank off-shore wind farm in the River Mersey, Liverpool, UK.

Wind power is currently the world's fastest growing energy technology. According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) onshore wind farms are on course to provide 5 percent (3000 megawatts) of the UK's energy requirements by 2010. The UK Government -- who are investing around £1 billion in wind farms -- has stated that it wants 10 percent of energy to come from renewable resources by the same date. And by 2020 Europe as a whole hopes to produce 20 percent of its energy through renewable sources.

But opposition to wind power comes from some unlikely sources. The Germans, who are the world's biggest producers of wind energy, remain skeptical about environmental targets.

A 2005 study by the German government's energy agency concluded that wind farms were an expensive and inefficient way of reducing greenhouse gases. And a report in last month's Guardian newspaper suggests that the UK Government are concerned about the practicality of the European Union's renewable energy targets too.

If charges of inefficiency weren't enough, there's the aesthetic to consider as well. Wind farms are ugly say detractors, as well as being noisy and disruptive to the bird population. And smaller wind turbines attached to the rooftops of suburbia don't fair much better, attracting sour-faced glances from disapproving neighbors in the same way satellite dishes did a few years ago.

But new designs which are coming onto the market may make these arguments redundant as engineers create ever more efficient and attractive models.

Viktor Jovanovic's Stormblade Turbine is a revolutionary new design of wind turbine. It looks more like a jet engine than a propeller and promises unparalleled levels of performance and efficiency. Its design allows it to operate in high winds -- unlike its propeller counterpart which is switched off at speeds above 60 mph -- allowing it to harvest the most profitable winds.

London-based Jovanovic was inspired by conversations he used to have with his father -- also an engineer and inventor -- when he was a boy. "It was only when my Dad died that I revisited the ideas we talked about," he told CNN. "And then I got thinking about wind turbines."

The Stormblade Turbine has been in development since 2001. Jovanovic explained to CNN how it works. "The internal aerodynamics creates a pressure stream, which is directed radially towards the center," he said. "This induces centrifugal reaction force in the airflow that causes the stream field to expand strongly downstream of the rotor. The higher mass flow and higher velocity reduction behind the rotor result in a higher energy output from the wind turbine."

Jovanovic is currently in negotiations with a large multi-national company and has plans to make smaller models, which he says could be used for individual households.

Vertically challenged

A Wyoming based company, Terra Moya Aqua (TMA) is taking a different approach to wind turbine design. It has designed a vertical axis wind energy turbine which they hope will become the most efficient model on the market. Easier to operate, quieter and free from ground resonance, the company believes their design has many advantages over propeller-style turbines.

"The turbine is far more robust than traditional models of turbine", TMA President Duane Rasmussen told CNN.

Unlike large propeller turbines, which require running repairs to their blades after only a few years, Rasmussen believes that the TMA turbine has the ability to run for decades without major maintenance work.

"Because the turbine looks like a building it also means the avian population is not in danger," Rasmussen said.

The turbines aren't a blot on the landscape either. As Rasmussen points out: "Some propeller turbines reach up to 500 feet [150 meters]. You can see that from a long way away!"

The project began 11 years ago when Rasmussen teamed up with the turbine's inventor and TMA Chairman, Ron Taylor. Over the past three years, Rasmussen has traveled the world promoting the design across the U.S., Europe and in Africa. With orders in the pipeline, Rasmussen hopes it won't be long before the turbine is providing more efficient energy for thousands of people.

Like Jovanovic, TMA are designing smaller devices capable of meeting the demands of individual customers.

Critics of wind farms often point out that wind power is unreliable. And it is currently true that power cannot be stored.

But Jovanovic believes the technology is improving. "Storing power in batteries and hybrid wind farm power supply plants are two possibilities," he told CNN. The hybrid solution transfers the power generated by a turbine to a hydro-electric power station where the energy can be stored for use at a later date.

Urban energy

Problems of storing energy are negated once turbines move into towns and cities, as power can flow directly to supply the surrounding area. A UK based company Quiet Revolution Ltd is currently inundated with orders for its new wind turbine.

Initially developed by XCO2 -- a London-based engineering design company -- the QR5 is a five meter high vertical axis wind turbine which utilizes a triple-helix formation. And unlike horizontal axis turbines the QR5 doesn't have to track round to catch the wind. Made from carbon fiber and epoxy resin it is also light, quiet and can, say the company, generate 10,000 kilowatt hours a year.

Already popping up on commercial buildings in towns and cities all over the UK -- the first was installed in South London in 2006 -- the company is now developing a smaller 2.5kw domestic version.

Earlier this year, Marks Barfield Architects unveiled a new wind turbine concept that they hope might resolve some of London's spiraling energy costs. Standing 40 meters high, the Y-shaped frame would house five vertical axis wind turbines. Each tower would would have the capacity to create 50,000 kWh each year.

The creation of a new generation of wind turbines is forcing critics to reassess their objections to wind power. It may end up playing more than just a bit part in the 21st century, as the calls to reduce Co 2 emissions become evermore urgent.

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Balloon-telescope snaps photos of sun

(PopSci.com) -- You don't need a rocket to send scientific instruments into space. A really big balloon works just as well, according to an international research team that plans to take a closer-than-ever look at the sun.

A recent test flight launched from New Mexico provided support for the concept. Dangling from a balloon larger than a 747 airliner, a solar telescope soared to 120,000 feet before snapping pictures of the sun. About 10 hours later, the telescope separated from the balloon and parachuted to a safe landing in Texas.

The project, known as "Sunrise," is designed to observe details on the sun's surface that can help researchers forecast electromagnetic storms in Earth's upper atmosphere. In the super-thin air at high altitudes, the telescope can get a much sharper view of the sun than from the ground.

The gondola carrying the telescope has a special motor that keeps the telescope pointed at the sun as the balloon dips and twirls.

Beginning in 2009, the balloon-telescope combo will embark on pole-circling missions above the Arctic and Antarctica. There the telescope will take advantage of the midnight sun to capture continuous images for up to two weeks.

Copyright © 2007 Popular Science

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Jacket includes GPS tracker

LONDON, England (AP) -- Parents may worry less about losing their child -- and the kid's expensive coat -- with a new piece of winter wear that includes a global positioning tracker.

The jackets, released this week by the British clothing company Bladerunner, have a GPS tracking device in the lining. The device can track the jacket anywhere in the world, within 43 square feet.

"The jacket is not something that was released due to people losing their kids," said Adrian Davis, a partner at Bladerunner. "It was originally made for mountain climbers, skiers and snowboarders."

Davis said the company decided to make a children's version of the jacket aimed at parents concerned about their children's safety.

Using Google Earth maps, users can watch the jacket wearer move. The movements are updated every 10 seconds.

But they don't need to be online to find out where the person is. Users can also receive alerts to their e-mail or cell phone when the jacket leaves the boundary, meaning parents could potentially receive alerts whenever their children skipped school, left the neighborhood or went to their boyfriend's house -- so long as the child was wearing the jacket.

Bladerunner, which designed the jacket and commissioned Asset Monitoring Solutions to craft the tracking device, made headlines in the spring when they released slash-resistant clothing for children, aimed at those worried about increasing knife crime in London.

The new jacket is also equipped with the slash-resistant lining. The tracking device uses a rechargeable battery that can last for about 18 hours.

A children's tracking jacket costs $500, plus $20 a month for the tracking technology. An adult jacket costs $700.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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