According to a Computerworld Singapore report quoting newly published research, 2012 will be the year of the Linux mobile phone, with some 31 percent of all smart phones, or 331 million devices, running Linux. The prediction is based largely upon the fact that Linux has a much faster growth rate than either Symbian or Windows Mobile, some 75 percent year on year.
Symbian is probably likely to be the main casualty, as outside of the US (where it enjoys a market share of less than 10 percent) it claims in excess of 70 percent of the global smart phone business, although the majority of this is restricted to Europe. Things are already very different in Asia, where Linux has a 30 percent market share in China and Japan for example.
The main driver as far as mobile handsets are concerned would seem to be Motorola which has announced it plans to get Linux running on 60 percent of its devices within a two year time frame with the help of the newly created LiMo group.
Motorola has also just announced its Linux based RAZR2 V8 mobile phone handset which it showcased at LinuxWorld in San Francisco a few weeks ago. The Linux RAZR2 V8 has already shipped in India and Vietnam, and the US joins the list this week. It's an important push forward for the mobile Linux market, because this is no niche handset, no geek toy, but rather a mainstream multimedia phone replete with USB 2 connectivity, Windows Media Player 11 codec and an external touch screen display for text messaging. There's also the 2 MP camera with MPEG4 video, and an 8x zoom. The quad-band global support, and a decent HTML browser.
Priced at around $500, perhaps the year of the Linux mobile has actually already arrived.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Apple rumour site to shut down
APPLE and a popular website that published company secrets about the maker of the Mac, the iPhone and the iPod have reached a settlement that calls for the site to shut down.
Apple and the site, ThinkSecret.com, settled the suit, which Apple filed in January 2005, and no sources were revealed, Apple and ThinkSecret said in statements.
College student Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher, said he plans to move on. He started the site at 13.
"I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits," he said in his statement.
California-based Apple filed its suit after ThinkSecret published details of a stripped-down Macintosh computer called the Mac mini two weeks before the product was launched formally.
"We are pleased to have reached this amicable settlement and happy to have this behind us," an Apple spokesman said.
Other Mac rumour sites are still going strong, with MacRumors.com claiming that Apple may be revealing an ultra-portable notebook in early January.
Apple and the site, ThinkSecret.com, settled the suit, which Apple filed in January 2005, and no sources were revealed, Apple and ThinkSecret said in statements.
College student Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher, said he plans to move on. He started the site at 13.
"I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits," he said in his statement.
California-based Apple filed its suit after ThinkSecret published details of a stripped-down Macintosh computer called the Mac mini two weeks before the product was launched formally.
"We are pleased to have reached this amicable settlement and happy to have this behind us," an Apple spokesman said.
Other Mac rumour sites are still going strong, with MacRumors.com claiming that Apple may be revealing an ultra-portable notebook in early January.
Hollywood icon to create videogames
THE blockbuster producer behind films such as Pirates Of The Caribbean and Top Gun will try his hand at creating videogames in a joint venture announced by MTV.
Jerry Bruckheimer, the creator of TV shows including CSI and Cold Case, has signed a deal with MTV to form a videogame studio that would compete with industry giants Activision and Electronic Arts.
The planned studio would be co-owned by Bruckheimer and MTV and work on original games from concept to production and marketing, reported Kotaku.
"Video games represent a new and innovative medium for what we've always tried to do, which is to tell great stories. But this medium is unique in that it gives the player control over how those stories unfold," Bruckheimer said.
Jeff Yapp of MTV said the company were interested in Bruckheimer's storytelling talents and would seek to produce original concepts with him rather than spin-offs based on his previous work.
"What I wanted was his ability to tell a story that uniquely connects to an audience and now to give him a new set of tools," Mr Yapp said in an interview with MTV's gaming blog Multiplayer.
MTV takes on Activision
MTV has this year been competing with Activision for a slice of the music-based game market with its answer to the successful Guitar Hero series, Rock Band.
Rock Band, released in November, was developed by Harmonix, which also developed the first two Guitar Hero titles before being purchased by MTV in 2006.
Entertainment company RedOctane, which owns the rights to the Guitar Hero series, was bought by Activision in the same year.
Merging films and games
Also released this year was the game Stranglehold, developed by Chicago studio Midway Games in collaboration with acclaimed Chinese action director John Woo.
Stranglehold was marketed as an interactive sequel to Woo's 1992 film Hard Boiled and allowed gamers to play as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, the protagonist of the film, and follow a storyline that began where Hard Boiled ended.
The appearance of Inspector Yuen in Stranglehold was modeled on actor Chow Yun Fat, who played the same role in the film.
In 2005 Steven Spielberg announced a deal with Electronic Arts to develop three original games, but as of yet none have been released. The company is expected to release more information on the collaborations early next year.
Jerry Bruckheimer, the creator of TV shows including CSI and Cold Case, has signed a deal with MTV to form a videogame studio that would compete with industry giants Activision and Electronic Arts.
The planned studio would be co-owned by Bruckheimer and MTV and work on original games from concept to production and marketing, reported Kotaku.
"Video games represent a new and innovative medium for what we've always tried to do, which is to tell great stories. But this medium is unique in that it gives the player control over how those stories unfold," Bruckheimer said.
Jeff Yapp of MTV said the company were interested in Bruckheimer's storytelling talents and would seek to produce original concepts with him rather than spin-offs based on his previous work.
"What I wanted was his ability to tell a story that uniquely connects to an audience and now to give him a new set of tools," Mr Yapp said in an interview with MTV's gaming blog Multiplayer.
MTV takes on Activision
MTV has this year been competing with Activision for a slice of the music-based game market with its answer to the successful Guitar Hero series, Rock Band.
Rock Band, released in November, was developed by Harmonix, which also developed the first two Guitar Hero titles before being purchased by MTV in 2006.
Entertainment company RedOctane, which owns the rights to the Guitar Hero series, was bought by Activision in the same year.
Merging films and games
Also released this year was the game Stranglehold, developed by Chicago studio Midway Games in collaboration with acclaimed Chinese action director John Woo.
Stranglehold was marketed as an interactive sequel to Woo's 1992 film Hard Boiled and allowed gamers to play as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, the protagonist of the film, and follow a storyline that began where Hard Boiled ended.
The appearance of Inspector Yuen in Stranglehold was modeled on actor Chow Yun Fat, who played the same role in the film.
In 2005 Steven Spielberg announced a deal with Electronic Arts to develop three original games, but as of yet none have been released. The company is expected to release more information on the collaborations early next year.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Record spending on Xmas gifts
FRANTIC Christmas shoppers will spend $800 million across Australia today in a desperate spending spree to stock up on last-minute presents, food and alcohol.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal today's shopping bonanza is expected to cap a record year of yuletide spending, with Australians forking out $36.5 billion in the six weeks leading up to Christmas.
Figures released by the Australian Retailers Association show that shoppers in NSW alone are expected to spend $296million on last-minute Christmas gifts and food in retail stores today.
And experts yesterday said that leading the last-minute Christmas shopping rush will be men.
The huge spending follows bumper sales at the weekend, with shoppers taking advantage of extended trading hours at department stores and markets across Sydney and the state.
"It'll be a healthy Christmas for retailers, who want their cash registers ringing long and loud," the Australian Retailers Association's executive director Richard Evans said.
Department stores are expecting a huge trading day today, with shoppers splurging on this year's popular items including GPS trackers and PlayStation3 consoles.
David Jones spokesman Paul Zahra said more than one million customers were expected to shop at stores nationwide between Saturday morning and tonight.
Myer stores across Sydney have also recorded big spending from consumers on electronics such as iPods, and strong sales for gift cards and fashion accessories.
The Sydney Fish Market is today expected to record its busiest day of the year, with police on duty to cope with the large crowds.
A spokeswoman said 80,000 people were expected to visit the market during the 36-hour trading period from Saturday morning until this evening, with fishmongers selling more than 800 tonnes of seafood.
The Australian Retailers Association attributed today's anticipated shopping crush to the fact that some 60 per cent of Australians leave their gift purchasing until Christmas Eve.
Consumer behaviour expert Stephen Downes said more men would be in stores today buying last-minute gifts. Dr Downes said while women spent more time buying presents, men spent more money.
"Men are characterised as 'grab and go' in their shopping behaviour," he said
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Game Blamed For Death
THE popular fighting game Mortal Kombat is being linked to the death of a seven-year-old girl in Johnstown, Colorado.
The game series, first published by Midway in 1992, is receiving criticism following an incident in which two teenagers apparently imitated the game during an assault that ended in death.
Lamar Roberts, 17, and Heather Trujillo, 16, have been charged as adults with felony child abuse causing death after beating Ms Trujillo's younger half-sister, Zoe Garcia, on December 6th.
The incident occurred as the teenagers babysat Trujillo's half-sister while their mother was at work. They both allege that the girl lost consciousness following a wrestling game, and their attempts to resuscitate her failed.
According to the autopsy, Garcia's body had more than 20 bruises, swelling of the brain, and bleeding in her neck muscles and under her spine.
Media reports are dubbing this incident "the Mortal Kombat death", saying that the girl's horrific injuries were caused by Roberts and Trujillo imitating moves from the game.
But the police affidavit, published by The Denver Channel, does not clearly link the game to the physical assault.
In the affidavit, Roberts alleges that he was downstairs playing videogames while the girls wrestled upstairs.
Trujillo alleges that "she and the victim had been wrestling, playing 'Mortal Combat'."
There is no clarification whether "Mortal Combat" is the misspelt videogame title or a term for rough play. The affidavit describes the alleged wrestling moves in detail, but does not link them specifically to the fighting game.
The affidavit doesn't include any further statements about the game, or what game Roberts was allegedly playing downstairs.
This one reference has placed Mortal Kombat at the centre of a media storm about videogame violence.
Roberts and Trujillo are awaiting trial in Weld County jail. If convicted, they face up to 48 years in prison.
The game series, first published by Midway in 1992, is receiving criticism following an incident in which two teenagers apparently imitated the game during an assault that ended in death.
Lamar Roberts, 17, and Heather Trujillo, 16, have been charged as adults with felony child abuse causing death after beating Ms Trujillo's younger half-sister, Zoe Garcia, on December 6th.
The incident occurred as the teenagers babysat Trujillo's half-sister while their mother was at work. They both allege that the girl lost consciousness following a wrestling game, and their attempts to resuscitate her failed.
According to the autopsy, Garcia's body had more than 20 bruises, swelling of the brain, and bleeding in her neck muscles and under her spine.
Media reports are dubbing this incident "the Mortal Kombat death", saying that the girl's horrific injuries were caused by Roberts and Trujillo imitating moves from the game.
But the police affidavit, published by The Denver Channel, does not clearly link the game to the physical assault.
In the affidavit, Roberts alleges that he was downstairs playing videogames while the girls wrestled upstairs.
Trujillo alleges that "she and the victim had been wrestling, playing 'Mortal Combat'."
There is no clarification whether "Mortal Combat" is the misspelt videogame title or a term for rough play. The affidavit describes the alleged wrestling moves in detail, but does not link them specifically to the fighting game.
The affidavit doesn't include any further statements about the game, or what game Roberts was allegedly playing downstairs.
This one reference has placed Mortal Kombat at the centre of a media storm about videogame violence.
Roberts and Trujillo are awaiting trial in Weld County jail. If convicted, they face up to 48 years in prison.
Online Dating Site Offers DNA Matching
AN online dating website that compares the DNA of its customers promises a more satisfying sex life and healthier children for couples who are genetically matched.
Scientific Match helps singles find their "genetic match" by analysing their DNA and recommending a partner who has different immune system genes than themselves for a subscription fee of $US1995 ($2323) per year.
"Welcome to a new era of human relationships. We're the only introduction service that creates matches with actual physical chemistry," the website's homepage says.
After signing up to the website, clients are sent a DNA collection kit containing cheek-swabs and a pre-paid return envelope. Their saliva samples are then processed and they are matched with other users whose genetic profiles are different to their own.
Scientific Match claims the benefits of its matching process are a sexier smelling partner, more satisfying sex, healthier babies and a higher number of orgasms for women.
The US company, owned by Love Sciences, currently provides the service to singles in areas of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.
The future of dating?
Scientific Match says its service is based on the theory people with different immune systems breed "healthier" babies who have a wider variety of immune system genes.
"Since nature’s goal is to perpetuate the species, it encourages us to mate with others who have immune systems different from our own," the company says.
Among the studies referenced to support the theory is a 1995 experiment that found women were attracted to the scents of men with different immune systems.
In that study, led by Claus Wedekind and Dustin Penn at the University of Utah, women were asked to smell T-shirts worn by different men and rate their appeal.
"Nature attracts us to our genetic matches with our noses. The fact is, we love how other people smell when their immune systems are different from ours," Scientific Match says.
The company's founder Eric Holzle told CNET he believed genetic matching would "dominate the future of dating services", but the website was derided by one expert.
"(It) sounds like a complete and utter rip-off that preys on people's lack of knowledge of causation and correlation," said geneticist Dean Hamer from the US National Cancer Institute.
'Age of the Genome'
Scientific Match isn't the only website to offer a service based on DNA analysis. Last month Wired magazine ran a cover story about the "Age of the Genome", discussing websites that offer people an overview of their genetic profiles.
For about $US1000 ($1164) companies such as 23andMe and Navigenics analyse customers' DNA and allow them view the results online, including overviews of their inherited traits and talents and their predispositions towards various diseases.
23andMe, named after the 23 pairs of chromosomes that contain DNA, also allows family members to sign up together and trace their genealogy.
One of the problems with offering advice based on genetic profiles is that disease risks are often associated with a combination of genetic variations rather than just one, the magazine reported.
Journalist Thomas Goetz said the experience of browsing through his genetic profile was "simultaneously unsettling, illuminating and empowering".
"There's nothing intuitive about navigating your genome," he said after spitting into a cup and having his DNA analysed.
"It requires not just a new vocabulary but also a new conception of personhood. Scrape below the skin and we're flesh and bone; scrape below that and we're code."
Scientific Match helps singles find their "genetic match" by analysing their DNA and recommending a partner who has different immune system genes than themselves for a subscription fee of $US1995 ($2323) per year.
"Welcome to a new era of human relationships. We're the only introduction service that creates matches with actual physical chemistry," the website's homepage says.
After signing up to the website, clients are sent a DNA collection kit containing cheek-swabs and a pre-paid return envelope. Their saliva samples are then processed and they are matched with other users whose genetic profiles are different to their own.
Scientific Match claims the benefits of its matching process are a sexier smelling partner, more satisfying sex, healthier babies and a higher number of orgasms for women.
The US company, owned by Love Sciences, currently provides the service to singles in areas of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.
The future of dating?
Scientific Match says its service is based on the theory people with different immune systems breed "healthier" babies who have a wider variety of immune system genes.
"Since nature’s goal is to perpetuate the species, it encourages us to mate with others who have immune systems different from our own," the company says.
Among the studies referenced to support the theory is a 1995 experiment that found women were attracted to the scents of men with different immune systems.
In that study, led by Claus Wedekind and Dustin Penn at the University of Utah, women were asked to smell T-shirts worn by different men and rate their appeal.
"Nature attracts us to our genetic matches with our noses. The fact is, we love how other people smell when their immune systems are different from ours," Scientific Match says.
The company's founder Eric Holzle told CNET he believed genetic matching would "dominate the future of dating services", but the website was derided by one expert.
"(It) sounds like a complete and utter rip-off that preys on people's lack of knowledge of causation and correlation," said geneticist Dean Hamer from the US National Cancer Institute.
'Age of the Genome'
Scientific Match isn't the only website to offer a service based on DNA analysis. Last month Wired magazine ran a cover story about the "Age of the Genome", discussing websites that offer people an overview of their genetic profiles.
For about $US1000 ($1164) companies such as 23andMe and Navigenics analyse customers' DNA and allow them view the results online, including overviews of their inherited traits and talents and their predispositions towards various diseases.
23andMe, named after the 23 pairs of chromosomes that contain DNA, also allows family members to sign up together and trace their genealogy.
One of the problems with offering advice based on genetic profiles is that disease risks are often associated with a combination of genetic variations rather than just one, the magazine reported.
Journalist Thomas Goetz said the experience of browsing through his genetic profile was "simultaneously unsettling, illuminating and empowering".
"There's nothing intuitive about navigating your genome," he said after spitting into a cup and having his DNA analysed.
"It requires not just a new vocabulary but also a new conception of personhood. Scrape below the skin and we're flesh and bone; scrape below that and we're code."
Monday, December 17, 2007
Looking Ahead - Technology in 2008
SMARTER mobile phones, smaller memory sticks, flashing T-shirts and barcodes on every corner: a look into the world of technology in 2008.
Leaner chips for smaller PCs, smarter phones
When Apple released the iPhone, they proved you can develop a mobile phone with an easy to use interface in a sleek, sexy package.
But one of the most exciting features of the iPhone is that it functions like a computer - a true smartphone.
This has been made possible by the development of smarter, smaller, less power hungry computer chips, and the field is set for even better models.
Intel's Silverthorne 45nm processor, scheduled for release in the first half of 2008, delivers computer performance comparable to a desktop or laptop computer, on a 74mm x 143mm sized motherboard.
The Silverthorne processor uses 10 times less power than today's low power processors and can work alongside WiFi, 3G and WiMAX.
Expect many more smart phones, including the Australian version of the iPhone, and an avalanche of paperback-sized laptops to hit the market in 2008.
More bytes for your data
As computer processors get smaller, so does the physical size of computer memory, but there is a limit.
As the components become more cramped, they create more heat and cause weird quantum effects to occur.
Fortunately researchers at the Centre for Applied Nanoionics have made a breakthrough.
By using trace amounts of copper, mixed with Msilicon, they believe they can develop flash memory sticks that will hold terabytes, or thousands of gigabytes.
While it may be sometime later this decade before we see terabyte-sized memory in the stores, an alternative that is sure to appear in 2008 is remote storage.
Remote data storage frees up space on a hard drive and acts as a back-up in case the computer is stolen or destroyed.
Several companies such as Apple's .Mac and Symantec's Norton 360 already offer remote data storage, but with Google looking at offering a similar product, expect to see this area grow rapidly.
The end of the plain old telephone
For the past few years Voice over IP (VoIP) has been little more than a cheap way to make phone calls. However, the introduction of Naked DSL (broadband with a conventional phone service) to Australia, and the rapid growth of wireless internet, will see many VoIP providers offer these services as more people migrate across from the traditional plain old telephone service (POTS).
Services that should appear in the near future include voicemail delivered to your email inbox, fax converted and emailed as pdf documents, and the ability to direct multiple phone numbers to the one handset.
Radio goes digital
Expect to hear a bit about digital radio ahead of its official start date of January 1, 2009.
Digital radio will allow radio stations to broadcast multiple channels, along with images and data, such as radar images during the weather, or pictures of artists during a song.
Despite it being available in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Australian broadcasters have elected to wait until the release of DAB+ (digital audio broadcast), which provides better audio quality.
A number of manufacturers have indicated they will have DAB+ products ready for sale during 2008, including a plug-in which would allow listeners to tune into digital radio through an iPod.
The book is dead...
Reading text on a screen always seems harder than reading it on paper, which probably explains why electronic books haven't taken off.
But this hasn't stopped online book store Amazon having a go with its electronic book named Kindle.
The Kindle uses a unique electronic ink technology to produce a screen display that mimics the appearance of print on paper.
The screen is not backlit, to extend battery life, and the text can be easily read under most lighting conditions, indoors and out.
Users can download books through Amazon's WhisperNet, which operates via a mobile phone network, which are charged to an Amazon account.
Kindle can be configured to automatically download newspapers and magazine, and can play MP3 files and Audible spoken word books.
At this stage there is no word on when it will be released in Australia.
...Long live the book
But don't bemoan the death of the paperback just yet.
The Espresso Book Machine can produce a made-to-order book in minutes.
Also known as the "ATM book machine", it uses a black and white printer to produce the pages of a book from a PDF file, while a colour copier prints the cover on heavier stock.
Once the pages are printed, an electronically controlled clamp pulls the pages together, glues, trims and delivers the finished product out of a slot at the bottom.
The machine has been developed specifically to produce out-of-print books, and is being showcased around North America. If the concept takes off, you may end up seeing them in most libraries and bookstores around the world.
Devices talk wirelessly, faster
Universal Serial Bus (USB) has cemented itself as the standard for transferring files from one device to another, but in 2008 you can expect to see some new features.
Wireless USB uses ultra-wideband radio to deliver transfer rates of 480Mbps at a distance of three metres; comparable to wired USB 2.0, and several hundred times faster than Bluetooth.
It will soon be available in North America, Japan, Europe and Korea, but is yet to get the final tick in Australia.
Also in the pipeline is USB 3.0, which will use a combination of copper wire and fibre optic to provide transfer rates of 4.8 gigabits a second, 10 times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard.
A high definition movie, which is about 27GB, would take just 70 seconds to transfer using USB 3.0, compared to 14 minutes using USB 2.0.
The USB 3.0 specification is due in the first half of 2008, and it is expected to become available for use in 2009.
Watching you everywhere you go
Despite the Global Positioning System (GPS) network existing for more than a decade, its use in everyday applications is only just coming to the fore.
From mobile phones, to cars and aircraft, GPS devices help us determine where we are, much quicker and more accurately than using a paper map. But GPS is also being used to help others find our location.
MySpot, recently launched in Australia, gives users the ability to send an alert message from their mobile phone when they press a "panic button", or if they fail to respond to a set alarm.
The phone sends an SMS, or text-to-voice message, with the its GPS position that can then be used to locate the user. The service is being targeted at parents, hikers and security firms.
In the United States, Verizon Wireless' Chaperone Child Locator allows parents to track where their children are via their mobile phone.
Parents can locate where their child is, or when they arrive or leave a particular destination, such as school, sporting practice or a friend's house.
Barcoded information
Telstra is currently trialling a new barcode system called Mobicode, which is already in use in Japan.
Squares made up of black and white boxes contain encoded text and numbers, similar to barcodes on consumer packaging.
Users activate the mobicode reader on their phone and point the camera at the code. The application captures an image, decodes the mobicode and acts accordingly.
Mobicodes could be used to offer discounts on products and services, linked to mobile websites, or upload contact details stored on the back of a business card.
In one example, a mobicode offers a 25 per cent discount at a fast food chain, and then displays the nearest locations on map on the user's mobile phone.
Dating singles could wear a Mobicode on their clothing with their contact details encoded, or a link their RSVP online dating page, which they allow prospective dates to photograph.
If the trial is successful, Telstra hopes to roll it out across the country in 2008.
Wearable electronics
Clothes aren't always just going to be about looking good, or even just feeling comfortable.
Nanotechnology is allowing researchers to develop electronic fibres that can be woven into fabrics, with some interesting applications.
Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed stretchable, threadlike sensors that can be woven into shirts to alert the wearers when they're slouching at a desk.
Australia's CSIRO have also incorporated sensors in a knee sleeve, which alert football players before they overstretch, and into a shirt known as the wearable air guitar.
Graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have developed black plastic badges worn around the neck that could be used to detect mental depression, based on how a person interacts during a conversation.
Dutch electronics company Philips have recently commercialised a fabric called Lumalive, which contains special light emitting diodes (LED) integrated into fabric. The Lumalive fabric turns clothes and furniture into a live display or billboard on which any text, animation or moving images can be displayed.
Other devices nearing commercial release include fabric with built-in sensors and heaters to reduce the threat of hypothermia, and boots with heels that can generate small amounts of electricity with each step, which can be used to charge your MP3 player - a technology already being tested by the military.
Leaner chips for smaller PCs, smarter phones
When Apple released the iPhone, they proved you can develop a mobile phone with an easy to use interface in a sleek, sexy package.
But one of the most exciting features of the iPhone is that it functions like a computer - a true smartphone.
This has been made possible by the development of smarter, smaller, less power hungry computer chips, and the field is set for even better models.
Intel's Silverthorne 45nm processor, scheduled for release in the first half of 2008, delivers computer performance comparable to a desktop or laptop computer, on a 74mm x 143mm sized motherboard.
The Silverthorne processor uses 10 times less power than today's low power processors and can work alongside WiFi, 3G and WiMAX.
Expect many more smart phones, including the Australian version of the iPhone, and an avalanche of paperback-sized laptops to hit the market in 2008.
More bytes for your data
As computer processors get smaller, so does the physical size of computer memory, but there is a limit.
As the components become more cramped, they create more heat and cause weird quantum effects to occur.
Fortunately researchers at the Centre for Applied Nanoionics have made a breakthrough.
By using trace amounts of copper, mixed with Msilicon, they believe they can develop flash memory sticks that will hold terabytes, or thousands of gigabytes.
While it may be sometime later this decade before we see terabyte-sized memory in the stores, an alternative that is sure to appear in 2008 is remote storage.
Remote data storage frees up space on a hard drive and acts as a back-up in case the computer is stolen or destroyed.
Several companies such as Apple's .Mac and Symantec's Norton 360 already offer remote data storage, but with Google looking at offering a similar product, expect to see this area grow rapidly.
The end of the plain old telephone
For the past few years Voice over IP (VoIP) has been little more than a cheap way to make phone calls. However, the introduction of Naked DSL (broadband with a conventional phone service) to Australia, and the rapid growth of wireless internet, will see many VoIP providers offer these services as more people migrate across from the traditional plain old telephone service (POTS).
Services that should appear in the near future include voicemail delivered to your email inbox, fax converted and emailed as pdf documents, and the ability to direct multiple phone numbers to the one handset.
Radio goes digital
Expect to hear a bit about digital radio ahead of its official start date of January 1, 2009.
Digital radio will allow radio stations to broadcast multiple channels, along with images and data, such as radar images during the weather, or pictures of artists during a song.
Despite it being available in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Australian broadcasters have elected to wait until the release of DAB+ (digital audio broadcast), which provides better audio quality.
A number of manufacturers have indicated they will have DAB+ products ready for sale during 2008, including a plug-in which would allow listeners to tune into digital radio through an iPod.
The book is dead...
Reading text on a screen always seems harder than reading it on paper, which probably explains why electronic books haven't taken off.
But this hasn't stopped online book store Amazon having a go with its electronic book named Kindle.
The Kindle uses a unique electronic ink technology to produce a screen display that mimics the appearance of print on paper.
The screen is not backlit, to extend battery life, and the text can be easily read under most lighting conditions, indoors and out.
Users can download books through Amazon's WhisperNet, which operates via a mobile phone network, which are charged to an Amazon account.
Kindle can be configured to automatically download newspapers and magazine, and can play MP3 files and Audible spoken word books.
At this stage there is no word on when it will be released in Australia.
...Long live the book
But don't bemoan the death of the paperback just yet.
The Espresso Book Machine can produce a made-to-order book in minutes.
Also known as the "ATM book machine", it uses a black and white printer to produce the pages of a book from a PDF file, while a colour copier prints the cover on heavier stock.
Once the pages are printed, an electronically controlled clamp pulls the pages together, glues, trims and delivers the finished product out of a slot at the bottom.
The machine has been developed specifically to produce out-of-print books, and is being showcased around North America. If the concept takes off, you may end up seeing them in most libraries and bookstores around the world.
Devices talk wirelessly, faster
Universal Serial Bus (USB) has cemented itself as the standard for transferring files from one device to another, but in 2008 you can expect to see some new features.
Wireless USB uses ultra-wideband radio to deliver transfer rates of 480Mbps at a distance of three metres; comparable to wired USB 2.0, and several hundred times faster than Bluetooth.
It will soon be available in North America, Japan, Europe and Korea, but is yet to get the final tick in Australia.
Also in the pipeline is USB 3.0, which will use a combination of copper wire and fibre optic to provide transfer rates of 4.8 gigabits a second, 10 times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard.
A high definition movie, which is about 27GB, would take just 70 seconds to transfer using USB 3.0, compared to 14 minutes using USB 2.0.
The USB 3.0 specification is due in the first half of 2008, and it is expected to become available for use in 2009.
Watching you everywhere you go
Despite the Global Positioning System (GPS) network existing for more than a decade, its use in everyday applications is only just coming to the fore.
From mobile phones, to cars and aircraft, GPS devices help us determine where we are, much quicker and more accurately than using a paper map. But GPS is also being used to help others find our location.
MySpot, recently launched in Australia, gives users the ability to send an alert message from their mobile phone when they press a "panic button", or if they fail to respond to a set alarm.
The phone sends an SMS, or text-to-voice message, with the its GPS position that can then be used to locate the user. The service is being targeted at parents, hikers and security firms.
In the United States, Verizon Wireless' Chaperone Child Locator allows parents to track where their children are via their mobile phone.
Parents can locate where their child is, or when they arrive or leave a particular destination, such as school, sporting practice or a friend's house.
Barcoded information
Telstra is currently trialling a new barcode system called Mobicode, which is already in use in Japan.
Squares made up of black and white boxes contain encoded text and numbers, similar to barcodes on consumer packaging.
Users activate the mobicode reader on their phone and point the camera at the code. The application captures an image, decodes the mobicode and acts accordingly.
Mobicodes could be used to offer discounts on products and services, linked to mobile websites, or upload contact details stored on the back of a business card.
In one example, a mobicode offers a 25 per cent discount at a fast food chain, and then displays the nearest locations on map on the user's mobile phone.
Dating singles could wear a Mobicode on their clothing with their contact details encoded, or a link their RSVP online dating page, which they allow prospective dates to photograph.
If the trial is successful, Telstra hopes to roll it out across the country in 2008.
Wearable electronics
Clothes aren't always just going to be about looking good, or even just feeling comfortable.
Nanotechnology is allowing researchers to develop electronic fibres that can be woven into fabrics, with some interesting applications.
Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed stretchable, threadlike sensors that can be woven into shirts to alert the wearers when they're slouching at a desk.
Australia's CSIRO have also incorporated sensors in a knee sleeve, which alert football players before they overstretch, and into a shirt known as the wearable air guitar.
Graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have developed black plastic badges worn around the neck that could be used to detect mental depression, based on how a person interacts during a conversation.
Dutch electronics company Philips have recently commercialised a fabric called Lumalive, which contains special light emitting diodes (LED) integrated into fabric. The Lumalive fabric turns clothes and furniture into a live display or billboard on which any text, animation or moving images can be displayed.
Other devices nearing commercial release include fabric with built-in sensors and heaters to reduce the threat of hypothermia, and boots with heels that can generate small amounts of electricity with each step, which can be used to charge your MP3 player - a technology already being tested by the military.
Bionic Balls For Smart Refs
A NEW "bionic ball" being tested at the Club World Cup in Japan could soon be a regular feature at FIFA tournaments, its developers say.
The technology, involving magnetic sensors that determine if the micro-chipped ball has crossed the goal line, has worked well so far, according to co-designers adidas and Cairos.
The developers added that feedback from the players at the seven-team competition had been positive.
"We are very satisfied," adidas's chief of FIFA Affairs Gunter Pfau told a news conference in Tokyo to demonstrate the ball's qualities. "No ball was damaged. All the systems have worked."
An implanted microchip sends an instant signal to the referee's wristwatch to indicate if the whole of the ball has crossed the line.
FIFA hope the breakthrough will eliminate controversy and want to use the technology at the 2010 World Cup if the prototype proves 100 percent reliable.
Earlier difficulties with chips becoming loose have been addressed, adidas said, adding that the ball was stress-tested to seven times the force of gravity.
Arguments over whether the ball has crossed the goal line have raged for years, Geoff Hurst's disputed goal for England in the 1966 World Cup final against Germany arguably the most famous example.
Hurst smashed a shot against the crossbar and the ball bounced downwards. It was unclear if it had crossed the line but the referee awarded a goal after consulting his linesman.
England won the game 4-2 but many German fans still debate the validity of Hurst's goal.
"We're not trying to change history," Mr Pfau said, using a photograph of Hurst's goal in his demonstration.
"This technology is for more transparency and to support the referee in making more accurate decisions."
Saturday, December 15, 2007
'w00t' is word of the year
"w00t," an expression of joy coined by online gamers, was crowned word of the year by the publisher of a leading dictionary.
Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster announced "w00t" - typically spelled with two zeros -reflects a new direction in language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.
It' was like saying "yay," the dictionary company said.
"It could be after a triumph or for no reason at all," Merriam-Webster said.
What's your favourite word of the year? Tell us in the comment box below.
Visitors to Merriam-Webster's website were invited to vote for one of 20 words and phrases culled from the most frequently looked-up words on the site and submitted by readers.
Runner-up was "facebook" as a new verb meaning to add someone to a list of friends on Facebook.com or to search for people on the social networking site.
Merriam-Webster president John Morse said "w00t" reflected the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words.
"People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A," he said.
"This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."
One website, www.thinkgeek.com, already sells T-shirts with the word "w00t" printed on the front.
"w00t belongs to gamers the world over. It seems to have been derived from the obsolete 'whoot' which essentially is another way to say 'hoot' which itself is a shout or derisive laugh," ThinkGeek said on its website.
"But others maintain that w00t is the sound several players make while jumping like bunnies in Quake III," it added, referring to a popular video game.
Most theories about the word's origins come from gaming - it may be an abbreviation of "we owned the other team", or "wow, loot!".
But another theory claims that it is a hacker term for administrator (or "root") access to a computer.
Online gamers often replace numbers and symbols with letters to form what Merriam-Webster calls an "esoteric computer hacker language" known as "1337" or "l33t speak." This translates into "leet", which is short for "elite".
A separate survey of words used in the media and on the internet by California-based Global Language Monitor produced a different set of winners.
"Hybrid" took top honours as word of the year with "climate change" the top phrase.
Global Language Monitor, which uses an algorithm to track words and phrases in the media and on the internet, said "hybrid" had broad connotations of "all things green from biodiesel to wearing clothes made of soy to global warming."
Runner-up was "surge," based on the "surge" of 30,000 extra US troops deployed to Iraq since mid-June, followed by the word "Bluetooth," a technology used to connect electronic devices via radio waves.
"The English language is becoming more and more a globalised language every year," said Global Language Monitor president Paul Payack, noting that this year's list included words also culled from India, Singapore, China and Australia.
Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster announced "w00t" - typically spelled with two zeros -reflects a new direction in language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.
It' was like saying "yay," the dictionary company said.
"It could be after a triumph or for no reason at all," Merriam-Webster said.
What's your favourite word of the year? Tell us in the comment box below.
Visitors to Merriam-Webster's website were invited to vote for one of 20 words and phrases culled from the most frequently looked-up words on the site and submitted by readers.
Runner-up was "facebook" as a new verb meaning to add someone to a list of friends on Facebook.com or to search for people on the social networking site.
Merriam-Webster president John Morse said "w00t" reflected the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words.
"People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A," he said.
"This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."
One website, www.thinkgeek.com, already sells T-shirts with the word "w00t" printed on the front.
"w00t belongs to gamers the world over. It seems to have been derived from the obsolete 'whoot' which essentially is another way to say 'hoot' which itself is a shout or derisive laugh," ThinkGeek said on its website.
"But others maintain that w00t is the sound several players make while jumping like bunnies in Quake III," it added, referring to a popular video game.
Most theories about the word's origins come from gaming - it may be an abbreviation of "we owned the other team", or "wow, loot!".
But another theory claims that it is a hacker term for administrator (or "root") access to a computer.
Online gamers often replace numbers and symbols with letters to form what Merriam-Webster calls an "esoteric computer hacker language" known as "1337" or "l33t speak." This translates into "leet", which is short for "elite".
A separate survey of words used in the media and on the internet by California-based Global Language Monitor produced a different set of winners.
"Hybrid" took top honours as word of the year with "climate change" the top phrase.
Global Language Monitor, which uses an algorithm to track words and phrases in the media and on the internet, said "hybrid" had broad connotations of "all things green from biodiesel to wearing clothes made of soy to global warming."
Runner-up was "surge," based on the "surge" of 30,000 extra US troops deployed to Iraq since mid-June, followed by the word "Bluetooth," a technology used to connect electronic devices via radio waves.
"The English language is becoming more and more a globalised language every year," said Global Language Monitor president Paul Payack, noting that this year's list included words also culled from India, Singapore, China and Australia.
Adult shops fight Christian sect
From www.news.com.au
THE adult-entertainment industry has declared war on the fundamentalist Exclusive Brethren sect for allegedly infiltrating local councils.
The Canberra-based Eros Association says the conservative Christian group is bankrolling legal challenges to halt the spread of adult stores.
The accusations come after a group of Exclusive Brethren business leaders offered to fund Lithgow City Council's Supreme Court fight against a development application for a sex shop.
The Department of Local Government gave the offer a green light, claiming councils were allowed to "accept donations from third parties" - a clause critics say amounts to sanctioned bribery.
Flirt Adult Store owner Jeff Oliver won an appeal in the Land and Environment Court after the council refused him planning permission to set up shop in Lithgow's main street.
According to council and independent correspondence, local members of the Exclusive Brethren offered to fund the council's appeal against the court ruling.
The council was prepared to accept the money after the Department of Local Government decreed there was no legal impediment to it "accepting a donation from a third party".
It decided not to pursue the appeal, however, and the Flirt Adult Store was allowed to open.
About 100 members of the Exclusive Brethren live in the Lithgow area.
"There is increasing evidence that the Exclusive Brethren have infiltrated other morals groups around the nation and have embarked on a national campaign to stop adult retail shops from opening," Eros co-ordinator Robbie Swan said.
"There is also increasing evidence that their members are secretly being elected to local councils, with moral agendas their main reason for being there.
"There's an urgent need for a national enquiry into just how far this 'entryism' has gone and to what extent local government decisions on moral matters have been compromised by this cult."
Lithgow councillor Martin Ticehurst said he was disturbed by the fact it was perfectly legal for councils to accept money from groups such as the Brethren that wanted to influence outcomes.
"It's not just the involvement of religious groups that concerns me. Councils should not be allowed to accept money from any activist group," Mr Ticehurst said.
"It could be perceived as a form of bribery, and I think it's potentially dangerous."
The sect, which does not allow its members to vote, is known for its large donations to the Liberal Party.
THE adult-entertainment industry has declared war on the fundamentalist Exclusive Brethren sect for allegedly infiltrating local councils.
The Canberra-based Eros Association says the conservative Christian group is bankrolling legal challenges to halt the spread of adult stores.
The accusations come after a group of Exclusive Brethren business leaders offered to fund Lithgow City Council's Supreme Court fight against a development application for a sex shop.
The Department of Local Government gave the offer a green light, claiming councils were allowed to "accept donations from third parties" - a clause critics say amounts to sanctioned bribery.
Flirt Adult Store owner Jeff Oliver won an appeal in the Land and Environment Court after the council refused him planning permission to set up shop in Lithgow's main street.
According to council and independent correspondence, local members of the Exclusive Brethren offered to fund the council's appeal against the court ruling.
The council was prepared to accept the money after the Department of Local Government decreed there was no legal impediment to it "accepting a donation from a third party".
It decided not to pursue the appeal, however, and the Flirt Adult Store was allowed to open.
About 100 members of the Exclusive Brethren live in the Lithgow area.
"There is increasing evidence that the Exclusive Brethren have infiltrated other morals groups around the nation and have embarked on a national campaign to stop adult retail shops from opening," Eros co-ordinator Robbie Swan said.
"There is also increasing evidence that their members are secretly being elected to local councils, with moral agendas their main reason for being there.
"There's an urgent need for a national enquiry into just how far this 'entryism' has gone and to what extent local government decisions on moral matters have been compromised by this cult."
Lithgow councillor Martin Ticehurst said he was disturbed by the fact it was perfectly legal for councils to accept money from groups such as the Brethren that wanted to influence outcomes.
"It's not just the involvement of religious groups that concerns me. Councils should not be allowed to accept money from any activist group," Mr Ticehurst said.
"It could be perceived as a form of bribery, and I think it's potentially dangerous."
The sect, which does not allow its members to vote, is known for its large donations to the Liberal Party.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Google and the Wisdom of Clouds
From BusinessWeek.com
One simple question. That's all it took for Christophe Bisciglia to bewilder confident job applicants at Google (GOOG). Bisciglia, an angular 27-year-old senior software engineer with long wavy hair, wanted to see if these undergrads were ready to think like Googlers. "Tell me," he'd say, "what would you do if you had 1,000 times more data?"
What a strange idea. If they returned to their school projects and were foolish enough to cram formulas with a thousand times more details about shopping or maps or—heaven forbid—with video files, they'd slow their college servers to a crawl.
At that point in the interview, Bisciglia would explain his question. To thrive at Google, he told them, they would have to learn to work—and to dream—on a vastly larger scale. He described Google's globe-spanning network of computers. Yes, they answered search queries instantly. But together they also blitzed through mountains of data, looking for answers or intelligence faster than any machine on earth. Most of this hardware wasn't on the Google campus. It was just out there, somewhere on earth, whirring away in big refrigerated data centers. Folks at Google called it "the cloud." And one challenge of programming at Google was to leverage that cloud—to push it to do things that would overwhelm lesser machines. New hires at Google, Bisciglia says, usually take a few months to get used to this scale. "Then one day, you see someone suggest a wild job that needs a few thousand machines, and you say: Hey, he gets it.'"
What recruits needed, Bisciglia eventually decided, was advance training. So one autumn day a year ago, when he ran into Google CEO Eric E. Schmidt between meetings, he floated an idea. He would use his 20% time, the allotment Googlers have for independent projects, to launch a course. It would introduce students at his alma mater, the University of Washington, to programming at the scale of a cloud. Call it Google 101. Schmidt liked the plan. Over the following months, Bisciglia's Google 101 would evolve and grow. It would eventually lead to an ambitious partnership with IBM (IBM), announced in October, to plug universities around the world into Google-like computing clouds.
As this concept spreads, it promises to expand Google's footprint in industry far beyond search, media, and advertising, leading the giant into scientific research and perhaps into new businesses. In the process Google could become, in a sense, the world's primary computer.
"I had originally thought [Bisciglia] was going to work on education, which was fine," Schmidt says late one recent afternoon at Google headquarters. "Nine months later, he comes out with this new [cloud] strategy, which was completely unexpected." The idea, as it developed, was to deliver to students, researchers, and entrepreneurs the immense power of Google-style computing, either via Google's machines or others offering the same service.
What is Google's cloud? It's a network made of hundreds of thousands, or by some estimates 1 million, cheap servers, each not much more powerful than the PCs we have in our homes. It stores staggering amounts of data, including numerous copies of the World Wide Web. This makes search faster, helping ferret out answers to billions of queries in a fraction of a second. Unlike many traditional supercomputers, Google's system never ages. When its individual pieces die, usually after about three years, engineers pluck them out and replace them with new, faster boxes. This means the cloud regenerates as it grows, almost like a living thing.
A move towards clouds signals a fundamental shift in how we handle information. At the most basic level, it's the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities. Google executives had long envisioned and prepared for this change. Cloud computing, with Google's machinery at the very center, fit neatly into the company's grand vision, established a decade ago by founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." Bisciglia's idea opened a pathway toward this future. "Maybe he had it in his brain and didn't tell me," Schmidt says. "I didn't realize he was going to try to change the way computer scientists thought about computing. That's a much more ambitious goal."
One simple question. That's all it took for Christophe Bisciglia to bewilder confident job applicants at Google (GOOG). Bisciglia, an angular 27-year-old senior software engineer with long wavy hair, wanted to see if these undergrads were ready to think like Googlers. "Tell me," he'd say, "what would you do if you had 1,000 times more data?"
What a strange idea. If they returned to their school projects and were foolish enough to cram formulas with a thousand times more details about shopping or maps or—heaven forbid—with video files, they'd slow their college servers to a crawl.
At that point in the interview, Bisciglia would explain his question. To thrive at Google, he told them, they would have to learn to work—and to dream—on a vastly larger scale. He described Google's globe-spanning network of computers. Yes, they answered search queries instantly. But together they also blitzed through mountains of data, looking for answers or intelligence faster than any machine on earth. Most of this hardware wasn't on the Google campus. It was just out there, somewhere on earth, whirring away in big refrigerated data centers. Folks at Google called it "the cloud." And one challenge of programming at Google was to leverage that cloud—to push it to do things that would overwhelm lesser machines. New hires at Google, Bisciglia says, usually take a few months to get used to this scale. "Then one day, you see someone suggest a wild job that needs a few thousand machines, and you say: Hey, he gets it.'"
What recruits needed, Bisciglia eventually decided, was advance training. So one autumn day a year ago, when he ran into Google CEO Eric E. Schmidt between meetings, he floated an idea. He would use his 20% time, the allotment Googlers have for independent projects, to launch a course. It would introduce students at his alma mater, the University of Washington, to programming at the scale of a cloud. Call it Google 101. Schmidt liked the plan. Over the following months, Bisciglia's Google 101 would evolve and grow. It would eventually lead to an ambitious partnership with IBM (IBM), announced in October, to plug universities around the world into Google-like computing clouds.
As this concept spreads, it promises to expand Google's footprint in industry far beyond search, media, and advertising, leading the giant into scientific research and perhaps into new businesses. In the process Google could become, in a sense, the world's primary computer.
"I had originally thought [Bisciglia] was going to work on education, which was fine," Schmidt says late one recent afternoon at Google headquarters. "Nine months later, he comes out with this new [cloud] strategy, which was completely unexpected." The idea, as it developed, was to deliver to students, researchers, and entrepreneurs the immense power of Google-style computing, either via Google's machines or others offering the same service.
What is Google's cloud? It's a network made of hundreds of thousands, or by some estimates 1 million, cheap servers, each not much more powerful than the PCs we have in our homes. It stores staggering amounts of data, including numerous copies of the World Wide Web. This makes search faster, helping ferret out answers to billions of queries in a fraction of a second. Unlike many traditional supercomputers, Google's system never ages. When its individual pieces die, usually after about three years, engineers pluck them out and replace them with new, faster boxes. This means the cloud regenerates as it grows, almost like a living thing.
A move towards clouds signals a fundamental shift in how we handle information. At the most basic level, it's the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities. Google executives had long envisioned and prepared for this change. Cloud computing, with Google's machinery at the very center, fit neatly into the company's grand vision, established a decade ago by founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." Bisciglia's idea opened a pathway toward this future. "Maybe he had it in his brain and didn't tell me," Schmidt says. "I didn't realize he was going to try to change the way computer scientists thought about computing. That's a much more ambitious goal."
Fastest-Growing Tech Companies of 2007
Via BusinessWeek.com
Companies connected to the chip sector have been among the biggest drivers of technology industry growth in 2007. Four of this year's 10 fastest-growing tech companies manufacture semiconductors or the materials used to make them, according to a ranking of companies with the fastest gains in share price, sales, and profits and the largest returns on equity.
Cypress Semiconductor finished fourth, after Google (GOOG), AT&T (T), and Apple (AAPL), in BusinessWeek.com's annual Hot Tech Growth 75 ranking. Nvidia, MEMC Electronic Materials, and Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates claimed the sixth, seventh, and eighth spots, respectively.
Pass the Chips, Please
What puts so many chipmakers and their suppliers at the top of the heap? Demand for chips is up, fueled by robust purchases of personal computers and mobile phones. PC shipments are expected to finish the year 13% higher than in 2006, according to researcher Gartner (IT), and consumers are expected to buy as many as 1.1 billion wireless phones, up 13% from the 990 million sold last year, says research firm iSuppli.
Competitive pricing among some of the industry's biggest players, including Intel (INTC), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Texas Instruments (TXN), kept them out of the upper growth ranks.
Instead, some of the biggest beneficiaries are the smaller companies that supply the highly specialized, crucial materials needed to build chips. Consider silicon, one of a chip's most basic components. One of the prime suppliers is MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR), based far from Silicon Valley, in St. Peters, Mo., about a 30-minute drive from St. Louis.
MEMC Rides the Roller Coaster
Spun off from Monsanto (MON) in 1959, MEMC seemed little more than a footnote to the heady boom-and-bust cycles that marked the semiconductor sector in the mid-1990s. As chipmakers such as Intel and Texas Instruments ramped up production to meet the needs of PC and cell-phone makers, they needed more and more of MEMC's silicon wafers, the dinner-plate-size discs from which individual chips are made. As chip manufacturing surged, MEMC's revenues soared, from $552 million 1993 to $1.1 billion in 1996.
The bust came just as suddenly. After overestimating demand, MEMC's fortunes took a nosedive in 1997, and sales fell for six straight years, bottoming out at $687 million in 2002. "The wafer industry was just a train wreck during those years," says analyst Paul Leming of Soleil-Princeton Tech.
Enter Nabeel Gareeb, who, after a 10-year stint at International Rectifier (IRF), joined MEMC as chief executive in 2002 and quickly set about repairing a business model he describes as "badly broken." Gareeb says when he took the job, every dollar MEMC spent on capital expenditures returned only 60¢ in revenue. "We needed gross margins of more than 50% just to break even, and it just wasn't working," he says. Today a dollar spent on cap expenditures at MEMC yields $1.50 in revenue.
The Sun Shines on MEMC
Gareeb's arrival at MEMC was timely: Turns out the polysilicon used in chip wafers also is used in solar panels, which have been in high demand recently, spurred in part by government subsidies in Germany and Japan (BusinessWeek.com, 9/7/06). Demand for silicon is as high now as it's ever been. Spot prices for a kilogram of polysilicon (or simply "poly," as insiders call it) averaged $10 in 2000, but top $200 now.
Gareeb says solar-related business now accounts for nearly 20% of MEMC's sales. On Oct. 25 the company announced a 10-year deal worth more than $7 billion to supply wafers to German solar-power concern Conergy
Can MEMC keep it up? Analysts expect MEMC to clock north of $1.9 billion in sales this year and to report $3.29 in earnings per share, more than double the $1.60 it reported last year. But Soleil-Princeton's Leming wonders how long Germany can afford to subsidize solar power. "The way Germany has structured it, it has guaranteed pricing in the solar-panel business as far as the eye can see," he says. "But Germany is going to realize that it can't afford this forever."
One Wafer at a Time
Betting on solar power as the demand driver for silicon would have appeared a long shot a decade ago. Another company reaping the benefits of a long-shot bet is Varian Semiconductor (VSEA). Its specialty, ion implant gear, sounds arcane, but it's paying off in a big way, with sales expected to reach $1.1 billion this year, up from $730 million in 2006.
Ion implanting is a crucial step in the chipmaking process. Varian Chief Financial Officer Robert Halliday describes it as "blasting a silicon wafer with a high-pressure spray-paint gun," to implant specific molecules precisely where they're needed. In 2003, when chipmakers typically implanted ions on several wafers at once, Varian made a contrarian wager that it would eventually need to process one wafer at a time. Why? Ion implanting on individual wafers increases the precision with which molecules can be placed, eliminating the unintended damage that can happen when many wafers are processed at once.
Varian's risky maneuver took time to pay off, says analyst Weston Twigg of Pacific Crest Securities. "They came out with this process earlier than their competitors and were able to tune and refine their process," he says. The results speak for themselves: Applied Materials (AMAT), the $9 billion chip manufacturing gear giant, announced in February it was exiting the ion implant business. Since then, Varian's share of the business has soared to north of 60%, up from 43% last year, says Twigg.
Cypress and Nvidia Share in the Sector's Spoils
Cypress Semiconductor (CY)—one of the fast-growing companies that actually makes chips—has certainly profited from the demand for semiconductors, though it owes much of its recent success to an equity stake in solar power concern SunPower (SPWR), which makes and installs solar cells and panels. Cypress also benefits from demand for the Apple iPod: Cypress' Programmable System-on-Chip business is behind the iPod click wheel. The Cypress chip notes how the finger is moving on the click wheel and translates that information into a computer command, such as "more volume" or "next song."
The sixth-fastest-growing tech company is $3 billion graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA). Intel and AMD get much of the credit for pushing the computational power envelope. But the often overlooked yet hugely important components in today's graphics-heavy PCs are the graphics processors from Nvidia and its AMD-owned rival, ATI. Playing games, watching video, and editing photos are all made easier by graphics processors.
Nvidia is the brand of choice among gaming enthusiasts who customize their own machines, but Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and Apple are big Nvidia customers, too. Nvidia's share of the market for graphics chips in notebook computers has grown to north of 80% in the last year, according to analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research.
From Laptops to Handhelds
At least part of Nvidia's growth this year can be attributed to stumbles by AMD, which has struggled to integrate ATI and has lost business that Nvidia has been all too happy to take, says Freedman. "ATI couldn't get products out that were very competitive, and that opened the floodgates for Nvidia," he says. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang cautions against attributing too much of his company's success to ATI's troubles: "I'd have to ask how much our leadership position actually led to the merger of AMD and ATI," he says. "We were ramping up and became very successful before that merger."
Nvidia's next challenge? Handheld computing. This year it closed a deal to acquire PortalPlayer, the chip company that made its name supplying chips for the iPod. PortalPlayer is a building block in Nvidia's new strategy to attack the handheld computing market. "Eventually all these mobile devices are going to evolve into the first true computer in your hand," Huang says. "We believe they're going to be a lot more common in the next decade."
Companies connected to the chip sector have been among the biggest drivers of technology industry growth in 2007. Four of this year's 10 fastest-growing tech companies manufacture semiconductors or the materials used to make them, according to a ranking of companies with the fastest gains in share price, sales, and profits and the largest returns on equity.
Cypress Semiconductor finished fourth, after Google (GOOG), AT&T (T), and Apple (AAPL), in BusinessWeek.com's annual Hot Tech Growth 75 ranking. Nvidia, MEMC Electronic Materials, and Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates claimed the sixth, seventh, and eighth spots, respectively.
Pass the Chips, Please
What puts so many chipmakers and their suppliers at the top of the heap? Demand for chips is up, fueled by robust purchases of personal computers and mobile phones. PC shipments are expected to finish the year 13% higher than in 2006, according to researcher Gartner (IT), and consumers are expected to buy as many as 1.1 billion wireless phones, up 13% from the 990 million sold last year, says research firm iSuppli.
Competitive pricing among some of the industry's biggest players, including Intel (INTC), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Texas Instruments (TXN), kept them out of the upper growth ranks.
Instead, some of the biggest beneficiaries are the smaller companies that supply the highly specialized, crucial materials needed to build chips. Consider silicon, one of a chip's most basic components. One of the prime suppliers is MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR), based far from Silicon Valley, in St. Peters, Mo., about a 30-minute drive from St. Louis.
MEMC Rides the Roller Coaster
Spun off from Monsanto (MON) in 1959, MEMC seemed little more than a footnote to the heady boom-and-bust cycles that marked the semiconductor sector in the mid-1990s. As chipmakers such as Intel and Texas Instruments ramped up production to meet the needs of PC and cell-phone makers, they needed more and more of MEMC's silicon wafers, the dinner-plate-size discs from which individual chips are made. As chip manufacturing surged, MEMC's revenues soared, from $552 million 1993 to $1.1 billion in 1996.
The bust came just as suddenly. After overestimating demand, MEMC's fortunes took a nosedive in 1997, and sales fell for six straight years, bottoming out at $687 million in 2002. "The wafer industry was just a train wreck during those years," says analyst Paul Leming of Soleil-Princeton Tech.
Enter Nabeel Gareeb, who, after a 10-year stint at International Rectifier (IRF), joined MEMC as chief executive in 2002 and quickly set about repairing a business model he describes as "badly broken." Gareeb says when he took the job, every dollar MEMC spent on capital expenditures returned only 60¢ in revenue. "We needed gross margins of more than 50% just to break even, and it just wasn't working," he says. Today a dollar spent on cap expenditures at MEMC yields $1.50 in revenue.
The Sun Shines on MEMC
Gareeb's arrival at MEMC was timely: Turns out the polysilicon used in chip wafers also is used in solar panels, which have been in high demand recently, spurred in part by government subsidies in Germany and Japan (BusinessWeek.com, 9/7/06). Demand for silicon is as high now as it's ever been. Spot prices for a kilogram of polysilicon (or simply "poly," as insiders call it) averaged $10 in 2000, but top $200 now.
Gareeb says solar-related business now accounts for nearly 20% of MEMC's sales. On Oct. 25 the company announced a 10-year deal worth more than $7 billion to supply wafers to German solar-power concern Conergy
Can MEMC keep it up? Analysts expect MEMC to clock north of $1.9 billion in sales this year and to report $3.29 in earnings per share, more than double the $1.60 it reported last year. But Soleil-Princeton's Leming wonders how long Germany can afford to subsidize solar power. "The way Germany has structured it, it has guaranteed pricing in the solar-panel business as far as the eye can see," he says. "But Germany is going to realize that it can't afford this forever."
One Wafer at a Time
Betting on solar power as the demand driver for silicon would have appeared a long shot a decade ago. Another company reaping the benefits of a long-shot bet is Varian Semiconductor (VSEA). Its specialty, ion implant gear, sounds arcane, but it's paying off in a big way, with sales expected to reach $1.1 billion this year, up from $730 million in 2006.
Ion implanting is a crucial step in the chipmaking process. Varian Chief Financial Officer Robert Halliday describes it as "blasting a silicon wafer with a high-pressure spray-paint gun," to implant specific molecules precisely where they're needed. In 2003, when chipmakers typically implanted ions on several wafers at once, Varian made a contrarian wager that it would eventually need to process one wafer at a time. Why? Ion implanting on individual wafers increases the precision with which molecules can be placed, eliminating the unintended damage that can happen when many wafers are processed at once.
Varian's risky maneuver took time to pay off, says analyst Weston Twigg of Pacific Crest Securities. "They came out with this process earlier than their competitors and were able to tune and refine their process," he says. The results speak for themselves: Applied Materials (AMAT), the $9 billion chip manufacturing gear giant, announced in February it was exiting the ion implant business. Since then, Varian's share of the business has soared to north of 60%, up from 43% last year, says Twigg.
Cypress and Nvidia Share in the Sector's Spoils
Cypress Semiconductor (CY)—one of the fast-growing companies that actually makes chips—has certainly profited from the demand for semiconductors, though it owes much of its recent success to an equity stake in solar power concern SunPower (SPWR), which makes and installs solar cells and panels. Cypress also benefits from demand for the Apple iPod: Cypress' Programmable System-on-Chip business is behind the iPod click wheel. The Cypress chip notes how the finger is moving on the click wheel and translates that information into a computer command, such as "more volume" or "next song."
The sixth-fastest-growing tech company is $3 billion graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA). Intel and AMD get much of the credit for pushing the computational power envelope. But the often overlooked yet hugely important components in today's graphics-heavy PCs are the graphics processors from Nvidia and its AMD-owned rival, ATI. Playing games, watching video, and editing photos are all made easier by graphics processors.
Nvidia is the brand of choice among gaming enthusiasts who customize their own machines, but Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and Apple are big Nvidia customers, too. Nvidia's share of the market for graphics chips in notebook computers has grown to north of 80% in the last year, according to analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research.
From Laptops to Handhelds
At least part of Nvidia's growth this year can be attributed to stumbles by AMD, which has struggled to integrate ATI and has lost business that Nvidia has been all too happy to take, says Freedman. "ATI couldn't get products out that were very competitive, and that opened the floodgates for Nvidia," he says. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang cautions against attributing too much of his company's success to ATI's troubles: "I'd have to ask how much our leadership position actually led to the merger of AMD and ATI," he says. "We were ramping up and became very successful before that merger."
Nvidia's next challenge? Handheld computing. This year it closed a deal to acquire PortalPlayer, the chip company that made its name supplying chips for the iPod. PortalPlayer is a building block in Nvidia's new strategy to attack the handheld computing market. "Eventually all these mobile devices are going to evolve into the first true computer in your hand," Huang says. "We believe they're going to be a lot more common in the next decade."
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Google unveils its application about iPhone
GOOGLE plans to release an application for Apple's iPhone that combines the company's web services such as email, search and calendar into a single interface.
Google, which aims to replicate its success in desktop computer web use on mobile phones, said the new application would make it easier to find, use and switch between its services on the iPhone.
The company is also working to develop new mobile technologies that are faster, easier to use, and available on more devices – but it did not give details.
Other efforts to expand in wireless include the announcement last week that Google would bid in an upcoming US wireless airwaves auction to launch a wireless network, pitting it against established providers Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the exclusive US carrier for iPhone.
In a separate project, Google is also developing an operating system for mobile phones known as Android and based on open source Linux technology. It has about 30 partners including carriers and phone makers supporting the project.
The iPhone, with its touch-screen and full web browser, became the most talked about mobile phone this year when it went on sale in the US in June.
Google Maps and YouTube were among the first applications available on iPhone. Apple said last month that it would allow outside developers to create software for iPhone and that it planned to make a developers kit available in February.
Google, which aims to replicate its success in desktop computer web use on mobile phones, said the new application would make it easier to find, use and switch between its services on the iPhone.
The company is also working to develop new mobile technologies that are faster, easier to use, and available on more devices – but it did not give details.
Other efforts to expand in wireless include the announcement last week that Google would bid in an upcoming US wireless airwaves auction to launch a wireless network, pitting it against established providers Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the exclusive US carrier for iPhone.
In a separate project, Google is also developing an operating system for mobile phones known as Android and based on open source Linux technology. It has about 30 partners including carriers and phone makers supporting the project.
The iPhone, with its touch-screen and full web browser, became the most talked about mobile phone this year when it went on sale in the US in June.
Google Maps and YouTube were among the first applications available on iPhone. Apple said last month that it would allow outside developers to create software for iPhone and that it planned to make a developers kit available in February.
What's the Future of Flatscreens?
THE flatscreen market is changing shape as rear-projection models take a back seat to LCD and plasma screens.
In a move that reflects the future of the flat-screen market, manufacturer Seiko Epson has pulled out of the rear-projection TV market.
Seiko Epson said it had halted production and sales of its rear-projection TVs, becoming the latest company to distance itself from a technology once seen as a promising rival of LCD and plasma televisions.
Seiko Epson will focus resources on front projectors, but it is not withdrawing from the rear-projection TV business and will continue its research and development activities for rear-projection models, a company spokesman announced.
Demand for rear-projection TVs, which were once dominant in the large-sized flat TV market, has been dwindling as electronics makers in recent years started offering larger and cheaper LCD and plasma models.
Seiko Epson said it had aimed to sell about 11,000 units of rear-projection TVs in its first year of operations, though it did not give actual sales figures. The company started selling rear-projection TVs in 2004.
In a move that reflects the future of the flat-screen market, manufacturer Seiko Epson has pulled out of the rear-projection TV market.
Seiko Epson said it had halted production and sales of its rear-projection TVs, becoming the latest company to distance itself from a technology once seen as a promising rival of LCD and plasma televisions.
Seiko Epson will focus resources on front projectors, but it is not withdrawing from the rear-projection TV business and will continue its research and development activities for rear-projection models, a company spokesman announced.
Demand for rear-projection TVs, which were once dominant in the large-sized flat TV market, has been dwindling as electronics makers in recent years started offering larger and cheaper LCD and plasma models.
Seiko Epson said it had aimed to sell about 11,000 units of rear-projection TVs in its first year of operations, though it did not give actual sales figures. The company started selling rear-projection TVs in 2004.
Man vexed not sexed by text message
A New Zealand woman who sent a naked man to the wrong house on the promise of a good time has been charged with misusing a telephone, local media has reported.
The 17-year-old woman sent the man an enticing text message offering him an early Christmas present in the shape of two friendly women and suggested he take off his clothes to save time, the Manawatu Standard reported.
The 31-year old man wasted no time in arriving at the house, and took off his clothes and threw them through the window before entering.
But it was the wrong house and the householder did not see the funny side. The police were called and the man arrested for being unlawfully on a property.
The woman, who sent the tempting but deliberately wayward message, was also tracked down and charged for misusing a phone.
Both the man and the woman escaped prosecution and were cautioned and put on good behavior bonds.
The 17-year-old woman sent the man an enticing text message offering him an early Christmas present in the shape of two friendly women and suggested he take off his clothes to save time, the Manawatu Standard reported.
The 31-year old man wasted no time in arriving at the house, and took off his clothes and threw them through the window before entering.
But it was the wrong house and the householder did not see the funny side. The police were called and the man arrested for being unlawfully on a property.
The woman, who sent the tempting but deliberately wayward message, was also tracked down and charged for misusing a phone.
Both the man and the woman escaped prosecution and were cautioned and put on good behavior bonds.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Teen 'cyber crime kingpin' busted
A YOUNG New Zealand man has been accused of leading a group of cyber criminals who caused more than $20 million worth of damage around the world.
In a joint investigation between New Zealand Police, FBI and Dutch authorities, the home of an 18-year-old known online as AKILL was raided on Wednesday.
According to reports, the FBI has executed 13 search warrants in the US and overseas. So far, it has uncovered more than $22.7 million in economic losses caused by the group of hackers known as the A-Team.
The man, from Hamilton on New Zealand's North Island, has yet to be charged.
Detective Inspector Peter Devoy from New Zealand Police said it did not appear any Australians were involved in the hacking team.
Mr Devoy said the young NZ man had been co-operating with authorities.
"We are still investigating the matter and we are speaking to him. We are progressing the inquiry and we are happy with the way we are going," he said.
The 18-year-old was allegedly the ringleader of the A-Team, which is accused of infecting more than one million computers with malicious software.
"Sitting in New Zealand, AKILL is alleged to have designed a unique virus that utilised encryption and was undetectable by anti-virus software," a statement from New Zealand Police said.
Once infected, the computers became robots that could be used in unison to overload computer networks, in what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
Infected computers can also be used to aid identity theft.
The man, whose name has not been released, was arrested as part of Operation Bot Roast launched by the FBI in June to counter the growing threat from botnets.
Police raided a number of homes in New Zealand as part of the operation although, Mr said, many people targeted appeared to have been unwitting victims of the crime.
Police allege the hackers caused a DDoS attack at a Philadelphia university in February 2006 in which computer access was denied to about 4000 university students and staff.
A statement from New Zealand Police said Dutch authorities had determined AKILL was part of an adware scheme that infected 1.3 million computers.
Adware is software that may collect information about a computer user's browsing habits and send it back to a third party, or cause advertisements to appear on computers.
In a joint investigation between New Zealand Police, FBI and Dutch authorities, the home of an 18-year-old known online as AKILL was raided on Wednesday.
According to reports, the FBI has executed 13 search warrants in the US and overseas. So far, it has uncovered more than $22.7 million in economic losses caused by the group of hackers known as the A-Team.
The man, from Hamilton on New Zealand's North Island, has yet to be charged.
Detective Inspector Peter Devoy from New Zealand Police said it did not appear any Australians were involved in the hacking team.
Mr Devoy said the young NZ man had been co-operating with authorities.
"We are still investigating the matter and we are speaking to him. We are progressing the inquiry and we are happy with the way we are going," he said.
The 18-year-old was allegedly the ringleader of the A-Team, which is accused of infecting more than one million computers with malicious software.
"Sitting in New Zealand, AKILL is alleged to have designed a unique virus that utilised encryption and was undetectable by anti-virus software," a statement from New Zealand Police said.
Once infected, the computers became robots that could be used in unison to overload computer networks, in what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
Infected computers can also be used to aid identity theft.
The man, whose name has not been released, was arrested as part of Operation Bot Roast launched by the FBI in June to counter the growing threat from botnets.
Police raided a number of homes in New Zealand as part of the operation although, Mr said, many people targeted appeared to have been unwitting victims of the crime.
Police allege the hackers caused a DDoS attack at a Philadelphia university in February 2006 in which computer access was denied to about 4000 university students and staff.
A statement from New Zealand Police said Dutch authorities had determined AKILL was part of an adware scheme that infected 1.3 million computers.
Adware is software that may collect information about a computer user's browsing habits and send it back to a third party, or cause advertisements to appear on computers.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Santa-bot gagged after teen sex talk
HE knows who's been naughty and who's been nice, but Santa's online presence leaves a lot to be desired.
Microsoft had set up a "chat-bot" Santa to talk to children around the world and spruik the company's online products.
A "chat-bot" is an online personality run by a computer program that mimics natural conversation patterns. The creator adds some information about topics, and the program takes over from there.
Windows Live Messenger users could add northpole@live.com to their contacts and then converse with Microsoft's Santa agent programmed with standard festive-season responses.
The conversation was meant to be quite polite, such as this exchange between a technology columnist and a similar Santa-bot.
The only problem was that "Santa" became quite unsavoury after a few innocent comments.
UK technology news site The Register was alerted to this problem by a reader whose two nieces, aged 11 and 13, allegedly received comments about oral sex after offering the chat-bot a virtual slice of pizza.
The Register produced a similar response by urging Santa to "Eat it!", which received the response, "You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else..."
Calling Santa a "dirty bastard" elicited the retort, "I think you're dirty bastard."
Microsoft has since gone into damage control, shutting down the chat-bot to new users, blocking areas of Santa's Live Space profile, and editing his responses to include more PG-rated content.
According to The Register, the chat-bot now won't fall for the pizza bait, and calling him a "dirty bastard" only makes him wish a "Merry Christmas, especially to all my friends in the UK!"
Microsoft have apologised for any offence caused.
The North Pole could not be reached for comment.
Microsoft had set up a "chat-bot" Santa to talk to children around the world and spruik the company's online products.
A "chat-bot" is an online personality run by a computer program that mimics natural conversation patterns. The creator adds some information about topics, and the program takes over from there.
Windows Live Messenger users could add northpole@live.com to their contacts and then converse with Microsoft's Santa agent programmed with standard festive-season responses.
The conversation was meant to be quite polite, such as this exchange between a technology columnist and a similar Santa-bot.
The only problem was that "Santa" became quite unsavoury after a few innocent comments.
UK technology news site The Register was alerted to this problem by a reader whose two nieces, aged 11 and 13, allegedly received comments about oral sex after offering the chat-bot a virtual slice of pizza.
The Register produced a similar response by urging Santa to "Eat it!", which received the response, "You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else..."
Calling Santa a "dirty bastard" elicited the retort, "I think you're dirty bastard."
Microsoft has since gone into damage control, shutting down the chat-bot to new users, blocking areas of Santa's Live Space profile, and editing his responses to include more PG-rated content.
According to The Register, the chat-bot now won't fall for the pizza bait, and calling him a "dirty bastard" only makes him wish a "Merry Christmas, especially to all my friends in the UK!"
Microsoft have apologised for any offence caused.
The North Pole could not be reached for comment.
Computers destroyed in data rage
OILING the hard drive, spraying a computer with insect spray and putting a USB flash drive in the wash are some of the creative methods people have used to destroy their data, according to a recent report.
While not all users can boast of being computer savvy, the Top Ten List of Data Disasters from data recovery company Ontrack highlights some outstanding examples of technology incompetence.
Topping the list is a Thai photographer who removed the cover of his hard drive that was suffering from an ant invasion and doused it with insect repellent.
In another instance, a scientist in Britain became so frustrated at the squeaking noise coming from within his computer that he drilled a hole through the casing and poured oil inside.
Needless to say, the noise stopped - along with the computer.
Other accidental failings include USB flash drives falling into food or being hurled in a fit of rage, and acid in a laboratory being spilled onto the hard drive.
OnTrack Data Recovery general manager Adrian Briscoe said that in extreme cases he had heard of people in the US shooting their computers.
"They've just got so mad with their computers they've got their guns out and shot them," Mr Briscoe said.
To prevent such frustrations taking hold there are a couple of things to keep in mind when technology fails.
If it is a software mishap, for example pressing the wrong key or double-clicking the wrong icon, "Make sure they don't continue using their computer," he said.
"Because there is a chance they will start overwriting files that have been deleted."
If it is a hardware issue, however, Mr Briscoe says there is no opportunity to continue.
"It's a question of basically making sure that the computer is off and that the hard-drive is sent to a recovery lab for attention"
When the system crashes there is the fear that all its contents have been destroyed, this is where backing-up becomes important.
A recent survey by OnTrack found that only one in 12 people back up their data.
"I think that people get caught up with the pace of life," Mr Briscoe said.
"There's not such a thing as a perfect back-up, so really people need to start thinking about making back-ups of back-ups."
While not all users can boast of being computer savvy, the Top Ten List of Data Disasters from data recovery company Ontrack highlights some outstanding examples of technology incompetence.
Topping the list is a Thai photographer who removed the cover of his hard drive that was suffering from an ant invasion and doused it with insect repellent.
In another instance, a scientist in Britain became so frustrated at the squeaking noise coming from within his computer that he drilled a hole through the casing and poured oil inside.
Needless to say, the noise stopped - along with the computer.
Other accidental failings include USB flash drives falling into food or being hurled in a fit of rage, and acid in a laboratory being spilled onto the hard drive.
OnTrack Data Recovery general manager Adrian Briscoe said that in extreme cases he had heard of people in the US shooting their computers.
"They've just got so mad with their computers they've got their guns out and shot them," Mr Briscoe said.
To prevent such frustrations taking hold there are a couple of things to keep in mind when technology fails.
If it is a software mishap, for example pressing the wrong key or double-clicking the wrong icon, "Make sure they don't continue using their computer," he said.
"Because there is a chance they will start overwriting files that have been deleted."
If it is a hardware issue, however, Mr Briscoe says there is no opportunity to continue.
"It's a question of basically making sure that the computer is off and that the hard-drive is sent to a recovery lab for attention"
When the system crashes there is the fear that all its contents have been destroyed, this is where backing-up becomes important.
A recent survey by OnTrack found that only one in 12 people back up their data.
"I think that people get caught up with the pace of life," Mr Briscoe said.
"There's not such a thing as a perfect back-up, so really people need to start thinking about making back-ups of back-ups."
Voyager 2 discovers solar system is bent
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- New observations from NASA's long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft show the solar system is asymmetrical, likely from disturbances in the interstellar magnetic field, scientists reported Monday.
The discovery came after the 30-year-old unmanned probe sailed near the edge of the solar system this past summer following its twin, Voyager 1, which reached that part of space in 2004.
Researchers have long suspected the solar system was bent, but never had direct evidence until now, said Voyager mission scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology.
Voyager 2 crossed a barrier in the solar system known as the termination shock in August, some 10 billion miles from where Voyager 1 passed through. The termination shock is the region where charged particles from the sun abruptly slow down as they collide with other particles and a magnetic field in interstellar gas.
Scientists believe the unevenness is caused by the interstellar magnetic field that is pitched at an angle to the plane of the Milky Way.
"The magnetic field is disturbing an otherwise spherical surface," Stone said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Although Voyager 2 was the second probe to zip past the termination shock, scientists were nonetheless excited about the milestone. Unlike its twin, Voyager 2 had a working instrument that made the first direct measurements of the speed and temperature of the solar wind.
The nuclear-powered Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, are hurtling toward an uncharted region of space where the sun's influence wanes.
Voyager 1, the most distant of any manmade object, is traveling at 10 miles per second with its twin trailing close behind.
It will take about a decade before the probes reach the heliopause, marking the beginning of interstellar space and the end of our solar system.
The discovery came after the 30-year-old unmanned probe sailed near the edge of the solar system this past summer following its twin, Voyager 1, which reached that part of space in 2004.
Researchers have long suspected the solar system was bent, but never had direct evidence until now, said Voyager mission scientist Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology.
Voyager 2 crossed a barrier in the solar system known as the termination shock in August, some 10 billion miles from where Voyager 1 passed through. The termination shock is the region where charged particles from the sun abruptly slow down as they collide with other particles and a magnetic field in interstellar gas.
Scientists believe the unevenness is caused by the interstellar magnetic field that is pitched at an angle to the plane of the Milky Way.
"The magnetic field is disturbing an otherwise spherical surface," Stone said at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Although Voyager 2 was the second probe to zip past the termination shock, scientists were nonetheless excited about the milestone. Unlike its twin, Voyager 2 had a working instrument that made the first direct measurements of the speed and temperature of the solar wind.
The nuclear-powered Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, are hurtling toward an uncharted region of space where the sun's influence wanes.
Voyager 1, the most distant of any manmade object, is traveling at 10 miles per second with its twin trailing close behind.
It will take about a decade before the probes reach the heliopause, marking the beginning of interstellar space and the end of our solar system.
Internet censorship gathers steam
More than a decade ago -- as the Cold War ended and the technological revolution begun -- many predicted that globalization would usher in a new era of freedom of expression across the planet.
This would occur not for reasons based on human rights or politics, but economics.
The nascent "knowledge economy" was dependent on free-flow of information, the thinking went: government suppression would mean losing a competitive edge.
With Western multinational companies rushing into newly opened communist markets, the influence of global best practices -- and capital investment -- would cement this change.
Besides, the ubiquitous and chaotic networking abilities of the Internet would render censorship impossible. Free speech across the globe was only a matter of time, prognosticators said.
Now time has passed. Globalization has continued apace, spreading throughout former Soviet states and China, to the great profit of local economies and Western multinational companies.
But those predictions about a worldwide end to censorship? Never happened.
In fact, Internet censorship is picking up steam around the world. Thailand banned YouTube after a video was posted belittling the king. In Malaysia, the government is increasing the heat on bloggers, telling mainstream media outlets not to publish information from Web logs.
In Egypt, a blogger has been sentenced to four years in prison based on what he wrote. Pakistan banned Google's blogging service, and China employed a legion of censors to keep the "Great Fire Wall" of China free of content the government deems offensive.
According to the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of universities in North America and England, more than a dozen countries worldwide actively censor online content and clamp down on alleged offenders.
"In China, even though a great deal of liberalization is going on, state control of the media like the Internet seems to have become much more strict," says Thomas Parenty, a Hong Kong-based technology consultant and former employee of the U.S. National Security Agency.
Following local laws to gain market entry into China has put U.S.-based technology and information companies like Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in a difficult position with U.S. lawmakers, who have complained they are aiding governments such as China help clamp down on online dissent.
At a congressional hearing in January, the tech companies asked the government do more to fight for the rights of unrestricted use of technology as an international trade issue.
"The State Department has the tools to engage foreign governments on openness," said Michael Samway, an attorney for Yahoo, according to an Associated Press story. "We do have significant leverage as companies, but the government has the most significant amount of leverage, and we do need the government to be in play."
But how can censors in China -- with an estimated at 137 million online users -- monitor and track such a large volume of content? It's easier than you think, Parenty says.
"There's an interesting disconnect between reality and perception here," he says. "For example, someone who wants to look at pornography but doesn't want to be seen perusing a store in a seedy part of town may have no qualms about pornography searches at home, because of the illusion of anonymity on the Internet ... truth is, it's much easier (for a third party) to track and trace your online habits rather than your physical movements."
Every time someone uses the Internet, the information is bounced along to a number of computers, each of which keep a digital paper trail of information requests.
"The ISP servers are prime places where governments insert software that automatically filters for watchwords," he says. "It's the same technology -- sometimes even the same software -- that the FBI would use when investigating the commission of a crime, just with different watch list of words, such as 'democracy' or 'Falun Gong' (a religious group banned in China)."
Local governments, as Thailand recently showed with YouTube, can also block domain names of Web sites from finding the necessary IP address to reach the host site.
"Its like turning the Web site into an unlisted number in the phone book," Parenty says.
This would occur not for reasons based on human rights or politics, but economics.
The nascent "knowledge economy" was dependent on free-flow of information, the thinking went: government suppression would mean losing a competitive edge.
With Western multinational companies rushing into newly opened communist markets, the influence of global best practices -- and capital investment -- would cement this change.
Besides, the ubiquitous and chaotic networking abilities of the Internet would render censorship impossible. Free speech across the globe was only a matter of time, prognosticators said.
Now time has passed. Globalization has continued apace, spreading throughout former Soviet states and China, to the great profit of local economies and Western multinational companies.
But those predictions about a worldwide end to censorship? Never happened.
In fact, Internet censorship is picking up steam around the world. Thailand banned YouTube after a video was posted belittling the king. In Malaysia, the government is increasing the heat on bloggers, telling mainstream media outlets not to publish information from Web logs.
In Egypt, a blogger has been sentenced to four years in prison based on what he wrote. Pakistan banned Google's blogging service, and China employed a legion of censors to keep the "Great Fire Wall" of China free of content the government deems offensive.
According to the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of universities in North America and England, more than a dozen countries worldwide actively censor online content and clamp down on alleged offenders.
"In China, even though a great deal of liberalization is going on, state control of the media like the Internet seems to have become much more strict," says Thomas Parenty, a Hong Kong-based technology consultant and former employee of the U.S. National Security Agency.
Following local laws to gain market entry into China has put U.S.-based technology and information companies like Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in a difficult position with U.S. lawmakers, who have complained they are aiding governments such as China help clamp down on online dissent.
At a congressional hearing in January, the tech companies asked the government do more to fight for the rights of unrestricted use of technology as an international trade issue.
"The State Department has the tools to engage foreign governments on openness," said Michael Samway, an attorney for Yahoo, according to an Associated Press story. "We do have significant leverage as companies, but the government has the most significant amount of leverage, and we do need the government to be in play."
But how can censors in China -- with an estimated at 137 million online users -- monitor and track such a large volume of content? It's easier than you think, Parenty says.
"There's an interesting disconnect between reality and perception here," he says. "For example, someone who wants to look at pornography but doesn't want to be seen perusing a store in a seedy part of town may have no qualms about pornography searches at home, because of the illusion of anonymity on the Internet ... truth is, it's much easier (for a third party) to track and trace your online habits rather than your physical movements."
Every time someone uses the Internet, the information is bounced along to a number of computers, each of which keep a digital paper trail of information requests.
"The ISP servers are prime places where governments insert software that automatically filters for watchwords," he says. "It's the same technology -- sometimes even the same software -- that the FBI would use when investigating the commission of a crime, just with different watch list of words, such as 'democracy' or 'Falun Gong' (a religious group banned in China)."
Local governments, as Thailand recently showed with YouTube, can also block domain names of Web sites from finding the necessary IP address to reach the host site.
"Its like turning the Web site into an unlisted number in the phone book," Parenty says.
Where Linux is hot, and where it's not
Do you think you know, I mean really know, where Linux is popular and where it's not? I did, and you know what? I was wrong. I found out, thanks to a new feature from Google: Google Trends.
With Google Trends, you can enter in a word or a term, and find out where it's popular. So, for example, if you entered "Steelers," it wouldn't surprise anyone who knows anything about American football that Pittsburgh is the city where the most people are Googling the guys in black-and-gold.
Notice how I said American football? To the rest of the world, soccer is football, and Linux turns out to much more popular outside of the U.S. than within.
Google's new trend search is normalized. That is to say, the results are weighted not by raw numbers, but by numbers compared to the population. In sheer, raw numbers, the U.S. would lead the way in almost any category. That wouldn't say much. But, by looking at what percentage of a population is interested in a subject, you can see where people have the hottest interest in a given subject.
So, what's the number one city searching for all things Linux? It's Munich, Germany, followed by Hamburg, Berlin, and Frankfurt Am Main. Only Warsaw, Poland, at number three, broke into the German dominated Linux interest list. And, of the top ten, only Sao Paulo, Brazil was from outside of Europe.
Russia, however, is the country that has the most interest in Linux. It's followed by India -- out-sourcing anyone? -- and the Czech Republic. Germany, on the national list, comes in at number nine.
The U.S.? No American city or the country as a whole even makes the top ten.
Heck, for that matter, English-speakers aren't even on Linux's top-ten "language searched in" list. It's the Russians with a wide lead followed by Hungarian- and Romanian-speakers. German, by this metric, comes in at number six.
I don't know why that surprised me. After all, Linux was created by Linus Torvalds, a Finn (eighth in language) of Swedish descent (ninth in language). But, it did.
Now, not everything was a surprise. The top ten cities in the world where people search for SUSE were German. Darmstadt and Munich lead the way, here.
You might think that Americans must lead the way when it comes to Red Hat? Right? Wrong.
The number one and number two cities for searching about all things Red Hat are Mumbai and Delhi, India. The U.S. finally shows up at number three with Austin, Texas leading the way. Hmmm... I wonder if Michael Dell is getting serious about Red Hat Linux on the desktop.
What about the U.S. as a country when it comes to Red Hat interest? Nope, we're not even in the top five. The five countries in the world with the most interest in Red are: India, the Philippines, Russia, Columbia, and Mexico. With the Philippines coming up fast in outsourcing, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of outsourced data-center work in Red Hat's future.
I was also fascinated to find that India, Indonesia, and Norway are the countries with the most interest in "Linux desktop." The U.S.? Nope, not us. Again, we're not even in the top ten.
Then I wondered, "Where are the most popular Linux desktops the most popular?"
For KDE, you're about to say Germany, right? Wrong again.
KDE is searched for the most in the Czech Republic, with its former national partner Slovakia coming up in second place. Germany comes in at number six.
Even when you break it down to the city level, Prague, takes the checkered flag. After that, however, you'll find Munich, Berlin, and other German cities.
GNOME seems to be popular all over the Western world. While Stockholm, Sweden has the most interest in this desktop, the top ten list includes major cities from all over Europe with San Francisco, Calif. appearing as number nine. Looked at by country, Norway leads in GNOME interest.
However, I dug deeper, and I found that I'm not going to need to add Bengali or Swedish to my long list of languages that I know (1, English). While people from around the world search for all things Linux, what they end up reading tends to be in English and German.
Maybe Americans should start looking more for Linux, though. After all, we lead the way when it comes to looking into whether "Microsoft sucks" or not. Oh, and the city where the most people search on this burning question? Seattle, Wash. Who knew?
No one, however, looks to see if "Linux sucks." Why am I not surprised?
With Google Trends, you can enter in a word or a term, and find out where it's popular. So, for example, if you entered "Steelers," it wouldn't surprise anyone who knows anything about American football that Pittsburgh is the city where the most people are Googling the guys in black-and-gold.
Notice how I said American football? To the rest of the world, soccer is football, and Linux turns out to much more popular outside of the U.S. than within.
Google's new trend search is normalized. That is to say, the results are weighted not by raw numbers, but by numbers compared to the population. In sheer, raw numbers, the U.S. would lead the way in almost any category. That wouldn't say much. But, by looking at what percentage of a population is interested in a subject, you can see where people have the hottest interest in a given subject.
So, what's the number one city searching for all things Linux? It's Munich, Germany, followed by Hamburg, Berlin, and Frankfurt Am Main. Only Warsaw, Poland, at number three, broke into the German dominated Linux interest list. And, of the top ten, only Sao Paulo, Brazil was from outside of Europe.
Russia, however, is the country that has the most interest in Linux. It's followed by India -- out-sourcing anyone? -- and the Czech Republic. Germany, on the national list, comes in at number nine.
The U.S.? No American city or the country as a whole even makes the top ten.
Heck, for that matter, English-speakers aren't even on Linux's top-ten "language searched in" list. It's the Russians with a wide lead followed by Hungarian- and Romanian-speakers. German, by this metric, comes in at number six.
I don't know why that surprised me. After all, Linux was created by Linus Torvalds, a Finn (eighth in language) of Swedish descent (ninth in language). But, it did.
Now, not everything was a surprise. The top ten cities in the world where people search for SUSE were German. Darmstadt and Munich lead the way, here.
You might think that Americans must lead the way when it comes to Red Hat? Right? Wrong.
The number one and number two cities for searching about all things Red Hat are Mumbai and Delhi, India. The U.S. finally shows up at number three with Austin, Texas leading the way. Hmmm... I wonder if Michael Dell is getting serious about Red Hat Linux on the desktop.
What about the U.S. as a country when it comes to Red Hat interest? Nope, we're not even in the top five. The five countries in the world with the most interest in Red are: India, the Philippines, Russia, Columbia, and Mexico. With the Philippines coming up fast in outsourcing, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of outsourced data-center work in Red Hat's future.
I was also fascinated to find that India, Indonesia, and Norway are the countries with the most interest in "Linux desktop." The U.S.? Nope, not us. Again, we're not even in the top ten.
Then I wondered, "Where are the most popular Linux desktops the most popular?"
For KDE, you're about to say Germany, right? Wrong again.
KDE is searched for the most in the Czech Republic, with its former national partner Slovakia coming up in second place. Germany comes in at number six.
Even when you break it down to the city level, Prague, takes the checkered flag. After that, however, you'll find Munich, Berlin, and other German cities.
GNOME seems to be popular all over the Western world. While Stockholm, Sweden has the most interest in this desktop, the top ten list includes major cities from all over Europe with San Francisco, Calif. appearing as number nine. Looked at by country, Norway leads in GNOME interest.
However, I dug deeper, and I found that I'm not going to need to add Bengali or Swedish to my long list of languages that I know (1, English). While people from around the world search for all things Linux, what they end up reading tends to be in English and German.
Maybe Americans should start looking more for Linux, though. After all, we lead the way when it comes to looking into whether "Microsoft sucks" or not. Oh, and the city where the most people search on this burning question? Seattle, Wash. Who knew?
No one, however, looks to see if "Linux sucks." Why am I not surprised?
Microsoft fixes bug in Windows Live file-sharing service
(IDG News Service) -- Microsoft Corp. confirmed that it has fixed a bug in its online file-storage and -sharing service, Windows Live FolderShare, after users reported that the service was deleting files without user authorization.
Microsoft sent an e-mail to users Friday alerting them that it has fixed a bug that may have "accidentally moved" user files from their original folders into the FolderShare Trash folder, and that users should not delete files in Trash until they ensure that they were meant to be deleted. It also advised users how to retrieve deleted files from the Trash folder.
A copy of the information sent to users has been posted on the FolderShare Web site.
In a Microsoft statement e-mailed by its public relations firm today, the company said it is working with users who have lost files to help retrieve them. It also said that another online storage service that is in beta, Windows Live SkyDrive, was not affected by the bug.
Windows Live FolderShare, which allows users to store files online and then download and synchronize them to and between different devices and computers, is currently available in beta release.
Prior to being notified by Microsoft, users last week had been posting about the strange behavior of Windows Live FolderShare, on a Microsoft online discussion board.
Microsoft also sent out a notification via the discussion board to let users know about the problem and explain how to handle it.
Even after Microsoft said that the problem with moving files to the Trash had been fixed, users on the discussion board were still reporting buggy behavior from the service. Users noted that they were having trouble synchronizing files between computers and locating directories when using the service on Windows Vista.
Microsoft sent an e-mail to users Friday alerting them that it has fixed a bug that may have "accidentally moved" user files from their original folders into the FolderShare Trash folder, and that users should not delete files in Trash until they ensure that they were meant to be deleted. It also advised users how to retrieve deleted files from the Trash folder.
A copy of the information sent to users has been posted on the FolderShare Web site.
In a Microsoft statement e-mailed by its public relations firm today, the company said it is working with users who have lost files to help retrieve them. It also said that another online storage service that is in beta, Windows Live SkyDrive, was not affected by the bug.
Windows Live FolderShare, which allows users to store files online and then download and synchronize them to and between different devices and computers, is currently available in beta release.
Prior to being notified by Microsoft, users last week had been posting about the strange behavior of Windows Live FolderShare, on a Microsoft online discussion board.
Microsoft also sent out a notification via the discussion board to let users know about the problem and explain how to handle it.
Even after Microsoft said that the problem with moving files to the Trash had been fixed, users on the discussion board were still reporting buggy behavior from the service. Users noted that they were having trouble synchronizing files between computers and locating directories when using the service on Windows Vista.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Microsoft to serve ads for CNBC.com
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. said Monday it will provide online advertising for CNBC's financial news Web site.
The software maker said it will be the exclusive third-party seller of contextually driven text ads on the site starting later in December, and display ads beginning in March 2008. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal.
Jon Tinter, a general manager at Microsoft, said the company plans to offer advertisers the option to buy ads on CNBC.com together with ads on Microsoft's own financial site, MSN Money.
CNBC.com, part of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal division, gets about 2.6 million unique visitors each month, according to a company statement. Microsoft said it plans to aggregate information about CNBC.com visitors' Web surfing habits to better target advertising in the future.
CNBC will maintain its own ad sales team, which will focus on selling video ads online and on CNBC TV.
Microsoft has invested heavily in its advertising business this year, including the $6 billion acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive Inc., which closed in August.
Google Inc. remains the largest seller of online advertising.
Microsoft shares edged up 23 cents to close at $34.76.
The software maker said it will be the exclusive third-party seller of contextually driven text ads on the site starting later in December, and display ads beginning in March 2008. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal.
Jon Tinter, a general manager at Microsoft, said the company plans to offer advertisers the option to buy ads on CNBC.com together with ads on Microsoft's own financial site, MSN Money.
CNBC.com, part of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal division, gets about 2.6 million unique visitors each month, according to a company statement. Microsoft said it plans to aggregate information about CNBC.com visitors' Web surfing habits to better target advertising in the future.
CNBC will maintain its own ad sales team, which will focus on selling video ads online and on CNBC TV.
Microsoft has invested heavily in its advertising business this year, including the $6 billion acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive Inc., which closed in August.
Google Inc. remains the largest seller of online advertising.
Microsoft shares edged up 23 cents to close at $34.76.
Nanotech firms find room on campus
ITHACA, N.Y. - Neil Kane and his staff had figured out how to rearrange methane gas to create industrial diamonds, but their company couldn't afford to build the highly specialized lab needed for developing such nanotechnology.
So they hit the rental market and paid for lab time at Cornell University's Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility.
Thirteen nano-level university laboratories across the country are hiring themselves out to businesses eager to make their mark in the millennium of the minuscule. The intimidatingly named National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, begun in 2004, is funded in part with $14 million a year from the National Science Foundation.
Participating business owners say the network allows them to do much more research than they would have without access to its resources. That research, to which the businesses retain all rights, will foster better products and industrial processes that will bolster the national economy, they say.
The number of companies taking advantage of the network is growing 10 percent a year, said the National Science Foundation's senior engineering adviser, Lawrence Goldberg.
Host universities can apply the fees they receive to anything they like, including beefing up their lab equipment. Those fees ranged in fiscal 2007 from a few hundred dollars to $100,000. Cornell's lab and a dozen other campus nano-labs around the country cater mainly to students, faculty and visiting scholars. They are built and run with public and private money.
In addition to Cornell's lab, participants are at Stanford, Pennsylvania State, Harvard, Howard and North Carolina State universities, at Georgia Institute of Technology and at the universities of Michigan, Washington, California, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas.
Even though the universities must give up some use of the labs and don't get royalties from the business work done there, as they would from most academic work that later proved marketable, the arrangement seems to sit well with universities, businesses and government.
Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester's Simon Graduate School of Business Administration in Rochester, N.Y., sees the tradeoff as promoting innovation. He said he worried only that businesses might try to use the universities' names or reputations to enhance the credibility of their research.
In response to concern among participating researchers about how research and technology move between academia and business, a group of researchers will explore and monitor the issue, according to the network's Web site.
Kane, president of Advanced Diamond Technologies Inc. near Chicago, said his company could not hope to turn its patented material into a cell-phone chip or a vision-restoring retinal implant if it couldn't rent lab time at Cornell.
"We have our own equipment for making the diamond," Kane said. "But all of the subsequent steps require access to a clean room, to tens of millions of dollars of equipment that no small company could ever afford. Many big companies can't afford it either."
Machines coated with hard, heat-resistant, low-friction diamond last longer and work more efficiently, Kane said. His company's specialty is depositing the diamond uniformly on silicon wafers, a key innovation toward someday making micro-machines entirely out of diamond.
Even Fortune 500 firms "that can afford to have their own research infrastructure are not comfortable enough to handle some new nanomaterials" and rely on academia to help them out, said Yoshio Nishi, a former chief scientist at Texas Instruments who heads the Stanford Nanotechnology Facility in California.
Although the operating scale is infinitesimal — a nanometer is roughly 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair — the economic possibilities are colossal. By 2014, nanotechnology might generate $2.6 trillion of manufacturing output and employ 2 million people, Lux Research Inc. of New York estimates.
"It's the fixed costs that kill you," said Matt Miller, chief executive of Multispectral Imaging Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., which is renting lab time for two of his researchers at Cornell.
Miller's three-year-old startup is developing thermal imaging technology to help find people trapped in burning buildings.
In the 12 months through September, nearly 700 companies — mostly small startups, but also some corporate titans — paid for lab space and research help from the network, which is anchored by Cornell and Stanford and boasts top-of-the-line nanoengineering tools, techniques and staffs.
Business community members prefer the university labs to five similar ones owned by the federal government, which spends $1.4 billion on nanotechnology each year, because the government labs impose more restrictions.
"They're open to the outside community but require collaboration with Department of Energy researchers," Goldberg said.
"Many biotech or semiconductor-related technologies have emanated from university campuses as a result of our nation's investment in basic scientific research, and that's very much the case here too," said Sean Murdock of NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade association.
Yahoo News
So they hit the rental market and paid for lab time at Cornell University's Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility.
Thirteen nano-level university laboratories across the country are hiring themselves out to businesses eager to make their mark in the millennium of the minuscule. The intimidatingly named National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, begun in 2004, is funded in part with $14 million a year from the National Science Foundation.
Participating business owners say the network allows them to do much more research than they would have without access to its resources. That research, to which the businesses retain all rights, will foster better products and industrial processes that will bolster the national economy, they say.
The number of companies taking advantage of the network is growing 10 percent a year, said the National Science Foundation's senior engineering adviser, Lawrence Goldberg.
Host universities can apply the fees they receive to anything they like, including beefing up their lab equipment. Those fees ranged in fiscal 2007 from a few hundred dollars to $100,000. Cornell's lab and a dozen other campus nano-labs around the country cater mainly to students, faculty and visiting scholars. They are built and run with public and private money.
In addition to Cornell's lab, participants are at Stanford, Pennsylvania State, Harvard, Howard and North Carolina State universities, at Georgia Institute of Technology and at the universities of Michigan, Washington, California, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas.
Even though the universities must give up some use of the labs and don't get royalties from the business work done there, as they would from most academic work that later proved marketable, the arrangement seems to sit well with universities, businesses and government.
Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester's Simon Graduate School of Business Administration in Rochester, N.Y., sees the tradeoff as promoting innovation. He said he worried only that businesses might try to use the universities' names or reputations to enhance the credibility of their research.
In response to concern among participating researchers about how research and technology move between academia and business, a group of researchers will explore and monitor the issue, according to the network's Web site.
Kane, president of Advanced Diamond Technologies Inc. near Chicago, said his company could not hope to turn its patented material into a cell-phone chip or a vision-restoring retinal implant if it couldn't rent lab time at Cornell.
"We have our own equipment for making the diamond," Kane said. "But all of the subsequent steps require access to a clean room, to tens of millions of dollars of equipment that no small company could ever afford. Many big companies can't afford it either."
Machines coated with hard, heat-resistant, low-friction diamond last longer and work more efficiently, Kane said. His company's specialty is depositing the diamond uniformly on silicon wafers, a key innovation toward someday making micro-machines entirely out of diamond.
Even Fortune 500 firms "that can afford to have their own research infrastructure are not comfortable enough to handle some new nanomaterials" and rely on academia to help them out, said Yoshio Nishi, a former chief scientist at Texas Instruments who heads the Stanford Nanotechnology Facility in California.
Although the operating scale is infinitesimal — a nanometer is roughly 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair — the economic possibilities are colossal. By 2014, nanotechnology might generate $2.6 trillion of manufacturing output and employ 2 million people, Lux Research Inc. of New York estimates.
"It's the fixed costs that kill you," said Matt Miller, chief executive of Multispectral Imaging Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., which is renting lab time for two of his researchers at Cornell.
Miller's three-year-old startup is developing thermal imaging technology to help find people trapped in burning buildings.
In the 12 months through September, nearly 700 companies — mostly small startups, but also some corporate titans — paid for lab space and research help from the network, which is anchored by Cornell and Stanford and boasts top-of-the-line nanoengineering tools, techniques and staffs.
Business community members prefer the university labs to five similar ones owned by the federal government, which spends $1.4 billion on nanotechnology each year, because the government labs impose more restrictions.
"They're open to the outside community but require collaboration with Department of Energy researchers," Goldberg said.
"Many biotech or semiconductor-related technologies have emanated from university campuses as a result of our nation's investment in basic scientific research, and that's very much the case here too," said Sean Murdock of NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade association.
Yahoo News
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