2008/10/28

NEW NET Issues List for 28 Oct 2008

Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 28 October 2008, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering. This week we're at the Basic Bookstore and Cafe in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, US.

The ‘net

  1. Online divorcee jailed; killed virtual hubby http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081023/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_avatar_murder “…A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking…"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations…She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000…The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sappporo, where the man lives…”
  2. In Satellite Photo Resolution Race, Who's Winning? http://www.pcworld.com/article/152813/ “…The arms race over overhead images heated up earlier this month as the two Web cartographers battling for the mantle of technical supremacy, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., announced a pair of key deals. On Oct. 7, Microsoft signed a multi-year contract with DigitalGlobe Inc. to use its entire library of more than 177 million square miles of earth photos in its Virtual Earth and Live Search Maps. Until last month, access to DigitalGlobe's entire library of images, some of them taken at resolutions as fine as 2 feet-per-screen-pixel, had been exclusive only to Google for use in its Google Maps and Google Earth services. "It's safe to say that Microsoft's high-res coverage layer was not as extensive as Google's over the last couple of years,"…Microsoft's deal with DigitalGlobe, which is non-exclusive, is "an effort on their part to catch up." The following day, arch-rival GeoEye Inc. showed off the first color photos taken by its recently-launched GeoEye-1 satellite at a stunning 1.3 feet-per-pixel resolution…”
  3. Stick a fork in it: a broadband over powerline post mortem http://tinyurl.com/6lgk2c (Ars technica) “…Broadband over powerline (BPL) has joined the choir invisible, is pushing up the daisies, is an ex-broadband technology. Smart grids, which don't require broadband speeds, are moving forward, however. BPL encodes information on high-voltage and medium-voltage powerlines, and has speeds that were (at one time) competitive with cable and DSL. BPL is usually distinct from home powerline networking (like the HomePlug AV standard), which works over household voltages. BPL was advertised as a way to bring broadband to difficult-to-serve markets and to increase choices in competitive markets. BPL can be used to bring Internet access to homes, and to carry operational data and signals for the electrical networks over which BPL runs—the so-called smart grid. Smart-grid applications include video monitoring, live reporting of usage from homes and businesses, and remote operation of switches and other equipment... Why did BPL implode? It's pretty clear that competition from newer fiber-to-the-home and to the node networks (Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse, to name two), as well as increased speeds now possible on DSL and cable systems left BPL an expensive and unattractive option…”
  4. Broadband users reach their limit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7684322.stm “…One million UK consumers have exceeded or come close to exceeding their broadband usage limit… 56% of broadband providers who advertised services as "unlimited" did impose usage caps and were prepared to cut people off if they used their service to excess. Only two out of the nine actually said what these limits were. As a result, uSwitch found that 80% of UK broadband customers either wrongly thought that they had an unlimited broadband package or did not know what their limit was…”
  5. IT pays the price for your fun at work http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10075190-83.html “…It's clear that the line between work and play is blurring. Many people check work e-mail accounts in their off hours as much as they check their personal e-mail accounts. And who isn't occasionally distracted by something on Facebook or YouTube during the work day?...Ninety-seven percent of end users surveyed reported using one or more Internet applications at work, up from 85 percent last year… Corporations also continue to keep a watch on employee activities on the Web. Nearly 80 percent said they monitor corporate e-mail, 65 percent monitor Web browsing, 40 percent monitor peer-to-peer file sharing, 38 percent monitor IM messages, and 36 percent monitor social-networking activity…”
  6. Ray Ozzie Steers Microsoft Into the Cloud http://preview.tinyurl.com/5psjfy (PCWorld) “…Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has officially filled the shoes previously worn by founder and Chairman Bill Gates, stepping in as leader of the company's vast developer network, which is its lifeblood and crucial to the enormous success of Windows. Ozzie delivered Monday's keynote speech at the company's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, introducing Windows Azure, a cloud-computing development and hosting environment that integrates Ozzie's vision for the future of the Web…”
  7. Microsoft Office Is Coming To the Cloud http://gigaom.com/2008/10/28/microsoft-office-is-coming-to-the-cloud/ “…Microsoft’s Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will have a new home in the cloud, the company announced…adding the Office suite to the cadre of software and services it has said it will provide as it develops its Windows Azure cloud-based platform. The browser-based versions of the apps will run on Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, as well as on Windows Mobile devices. It will go into a tech preview for developers later this year…the suite will be a “lightweight” version of its client-based cousin and will be offered as a package rather than siloed and sold individually…”
  8. The Cloud is now “officially” full of Vapor http://blogs.zoho.com/general/welcome-microsoft/ “…Microsoft confirmed today…with grand fanfare, that next year they will be announcing a web-based version of their Office product. Yes, you read it right, Microsoft announced that they will be announcing… Microsoft had been pooh-poohing the whole SaaS world… even going as far as denying the inevitable and creating its own Software-plus-Services trend-of-one. But Microsoft took one big step forward today, and added some extra validation to the whole concept of productivity applications delivered using nothing but a browser… For their business model - I wonder if they’ll charge the same for the on-line version as they charge for the old, dinosauric version?...They surely risk loosing a grip on the desktop, as well, you don’t need Windows to run applications on a browser…”
  9. NuConomy: Next-gen web analytics http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/10/28/nuconomy-next-gen-web-analytics/ “…Web analytics is an increasingly important metric for web publishers…Technology has improved so that you can now track site entry points, popular keywords, specific post metrics, out-bound clicks, nationality of your visitors and more. The problem is, to actually get that data into something useful, you usually have to dedicate a bunch of time analyzing statistics or you have to pay for an expensive commericial analytics package. Today, NuConomy is officially launching its free web analytics platform, NuConomy Studio…The platform that NuConomy will most likely be compared to is Google Analytics, because both are free and both offer easy integration into various web platforms. In its scope, however, NuConomy Studio is much more akin to Omniture, but without the hefty licensing fee that pretty much excludes all but the biggest sites from taking advantage of its enhanced metrics…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

  1. Time to patch Windows again, ASAP http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-10074492-33.html “…If you use a Windows computer connected to a network, a newly discovered bug makes it possible for a bad guy to wreak havoc on the computer without your doing anything. The most vulnerable versions of Windows are XP, 2000 and Server 2003. Vista and Server 2008 are also vulnerable, but not as badly. Microsoft considers the bug important enough to issue the patch immediately rather than waiting for their normal once-a-month patch Tuesday…she offers some unusual advice, suggesting people first restart their computers "to verify that your machine is bootable." Can't hurt. Then she says to install the patch and reboot again…This particular bug is with a part of Windows known as the Server service. If you are not sharing files and/or printers on a local area network, then you don't need to have the server service running, bug or no bug…Microsoft describes how to both stop and disable the Server service in Security Bulletin MS08-067. They also suggest doing the same to the Computer Browser service…”
  2. Australia trials national net filters http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7689964.stm “…Is the Rudd government about to erect a Great Firewall of Australia... Senator Conroy has since indicated that there would be a two-tier system: a mandatory one that would block all "illegal material" and an optional tier that would block material deemed unsuitable for children, such as pornography… The website, "No Internet Censorship for Australia" asks: "Do we really want the Government of the day deciding what Australian adults can and can't see? Do we want Australia to join a censorship club in which Burma, China and North Korea are the founding members?…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

  1. Why Windows Mobile will die http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081023_005500.html “…Windows Mobile is probably doomed…I'm not saying that Windows Mobile is bad, just that it is probably doomed. It's a simple matter of market economics. There is generally room in any technology marketplace for three competing standards…In personal computers we have Windows, Macintosh, and Linux (or similar Unix workstation variant)…among those three standards there tends to be a market-share distribution that is more or less 85-10-5… If I had to bet right this moment on the mobile 85-10-5 of 2011 I'd say iPhone, Android, then RIM, Symbian, or something completely new from behind Door Number Three. Why iPhone over Android? For exactly the same reason why the iPod holds that approximate 85 position among music players, including ones using open source software…”
  2. T-Mobile G1's POP3/IMAP Email Is Down http://gizmodo.com/5068743/t+mobile-g1s-pop3imap-email-is-down “…Over on the T-Mobile forums, there's a massive thread about the G1's totally borked POP3/IMAP email service. Looks like receiving, sending, and even just checking email results in a nasty connection error for just about everyone (one user estimates 95%)…The problem isn't tied to any particular email service, though Comcast users are reporting the most errors. Gmail seems to work just fine, and T-Mobile customer service reps' official response is to forward all other email to a Gmail account for the time being…Will, an admin at the T-Mo forums, has responded that these issues are familiar to T-Mo, saying, "We used to see similar errors and symptoms with the old MyEmail service and the new Consumer Email Client…”
  3. HP Mini 1000 starts at $399 http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/10/hp-mini-1000-ne.html “…Vivek caught sight of the new HP Mini 1000 netbook on HP's shopping page: Starting price of $399, Weight begins at 2.25 pounds, which is a little less than the HP Mini-note, Under 1-inch in thickness…The large screen bezel of the 8.9-inch Mini-note is gone; we're guessing a 10-inch display…the Mini-note differentiates itself from all other netbooks with the generous 1280x768 display resolution…”
  4. Dell Inspiron Mini 12: $600 MacBook Air? http://tinyurl.com/5cznro (LaptopMag) “…The Inspiron Mini 12 was just about the same thickness as the Lenovo ThinkPad x200 I had brought to the meeting, and only a bit thicker than the .76-inch MacBook Air that one of the meeting attendees had on the table…that extra girth buys the Dell more ports - 3 USB, full-size VGA out, a 3-in-1 card reader, along with a mic and headphone jack… The expanded display and the resulting larger chassis will make for a more comfortable work experience compared to a 10-inch netbook. Starting at under $600, those who have dreamed of owning a seriously thin laptop will be tempted by the Dell Inspiron Mini 12…”
  5. Wal-Mart To Sell Google's G1 Phones At Discount http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10077054-1.html “…If you're thinking of buying a T-Mobile G1, you might want to run to the nearest Wal-Mart instead of a T-Mobile store…Wal-Mart will sell the first Google Android smartphone in 550 stores nationwide starting Wednesday…T-Mobile currently sells the G1 for $179.99 with a two-year contract, but Wal-Mart will offer the device for $148.88 to new customers or current subscribers who are eligible for an upgrade…”

Open Source

  1. Ubuntu's Live USB Disk Creator http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_usb_creator&num=1 “…Ubuntu 8.10 is shipping next week with a horde of updated packages including the Linux 2.6.27 kernel, X.Org 7.4, Pidgin 2.5, GIMP 2.6, and many other packages that have experienced significant milestones since the April release of Ubuntu 8.04. On top of these updated packages from the community, Canonical has been working on a few desktop Linux innovations of their own. For instance…a USB start-up disk creator. In this article we are providing a quick look at this utility to easily spin your own USB disk images…”
  2. Mozilla's mobile Fennec browser http://www.linux.com/feature/151153 “…Mozilla released the first workable alpha version of its new Fennec mobile browser last week, showcasing a new interface optimized for small-screen devices. Despite the slimmed-down look, however, Fennec makes use of the same Mozilla technologies under the hood that are well-known in Firefox. In my testing on my own handheld device, I found Fennec an enticing browser with a well-thought-out interface…You can grab the first usable release from the Fennec project site on Mozilla Labs…Perhaps the most innovative feature of Fennec is its user interface, which attempts to maximize the amount of screen real estate devoted to page rendering. It does so with context-sensitive UI elements and off-screen controls that you access with gestures…”
  3. Ubuntu 8.10 due Thursday http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10075890-92.html “…Canonical will release the newest version of its Ubuntu version of Linux on Thursday…Ubuntu 8.10, aka Intrepid Ibex in the company's alphabetically ascending naming convention, is the latest installment of Linux for desktop computers and servers in the company's six-month release cycle. Among the new features are support for 3G wireless modems, the ability to set up an encrypted and password-protected private directory, a guest account that can help out someone needing temporary use of a computer, and built-in content from the BBC…”
  4. Codeweavers makes CrossOver free today http://tinyurl.com/5rbd6v (ComputerWorld) “…Try as you might to get away from Windows, you might think that you're stuck with using it because there's this one program that you have to use and you can't find anything on Linux or Mac OS that works for you. Well, you're in luck. CodeWeavers the company behind CrossOver Linux Pro and CrossOver Mac Pro is offering for today, October 28th, free downloads and registrations for these programs that will enable you to run many popular Windows programs, such as Quicken, Microsoft Office, and Photoshop CS2 on your favorite operating system…the company said it would provide its software for free in the unlikely event that under Bush's administration any of the following things happened: Return the stock market to it's 2008 high; Reduce the average price of a gallon of milk to $3.50; Create at least one net job in the U.S. this calendar year…or, and this one that actually happened, bring the average gasoline prices in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) to $2.79 a gallon. As Jeremy White, president and CEO of CodeWeavers, explains, "I was filling my tank at Big Steve's Gas Palace in St. Paul, I had just finished my morning corn dog and 64-ounce Dr. Pepper when I looked at the pump and noticed gas was at $2.79. I screamed 'Woohoo,' then I yelled 'Oh, crap!' as I realized every American can now have my software for free. Kind of upsets my fourth quarter revenue projections…”
  5. Faster booting with Linux http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2008/10/faster_booting.html “…Sitting in front of a PC waiting for it to start up can be infuriating, especially if you've had to reboot before doing a presentation or dialing into a WebEx conference…despite earlier technologies introduced by Microsoft, boot times seem to be getting slower, rather than faster, over the last 10 years…DeviceVM has introduced a technology called Splashtop that provides instant-on access to Web browser apps in seconds rather than minutes. How? By booting a minimal-footprint Linux kernel from flash memory that runs Firefox, Skype, a music player, or other special Splashtop apps. Today Splashtop comes pre-installed on notebooks and motherboards from ASUS, including the Eee PC…”

SkyNet

  1. Russia Blocks Google Acquisition of Online Ad Firm http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10074033-93.html “…Russian antitrust regulators have blocked Google's acquisition of ZAO Begun, an online advertising unit of Rambler Media. The companies had agreed to the terms of the $140 million acquisition in July, but Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service said "nyet." According to Svetlana Gladkova's translation of a Russian news report, the reason is that Google hadn't submitted complete information on employees in Russia, so the FAS couldn't evaluate the deal's consequences…”
  2. Gmail Adds Emoticons, Canned Responses & Updates Mobile Client http://tinyurl.com/5coza8 (SearchEngineLand) “…Gmail team has…added emoticons to mail messages, created a new labs project for canned responses and…released a new mobile Gmail client for J2ME-supported and BlackBerry phones. The new client is “designed to be more reliable in low signal areas and provides basic offline support for phones like the Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson W910i, and BlackBerry Curve.” You can also manage multiple Gmail accounts in the same client…”
  3. Google Earth brings virtual tourism to iPhone http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10075543-37.html “…Google…dived headlong onto Apple's highly regarded mobile phone with a full-fledge application, a handheld version of its Google Earth geographical software… I tried the application late last week and was impressed how well the iPhone version kept up with the performance, features, and usability of Google Earth for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux--at least, while using a Wi-Fi network connection…What's most interesting to me, though, is that the iPhone's multitouch screen actually made using the application easier than the PC versions…”
  4. Gmail gets integrated calendar, docs http://lifehacker.com/5069708/gmail-labs-adds-google-calendar-other-gadgets-to-sidebar “…Gmail has added support for sidebar gadgets to its experimental Labs section, allowing users to add an agenda view of Google Calendar, a short list of recent Google Docs files, and…web-based gadgets…adding too many gadgets could lead to some page-loading slowdown. You can enable the GCal, Docs, and external gadget support in the beaker-icon Labs menu of Gmail…here's a few ways to make Gmail gadgets more convenient…”
  5. Google reaches $125 million settlement in book copyright lawsuits http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10076948-2.html “…Google will be paying authors and publishers $125 million as part of a settlement agreement that resolves a suit against its Google Book Search initiative, the Authors Guild and a group of publishers announced Tuesday. The settlement enables authors and publishers to receive compensation for online access to their works. Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, called the settlement "the biggest book deal in U.S. publishing history." Google is digitizing the works from many major libraries, including the New York Public Library and the libraries at Stanford and Harvard universities, and is making those texts searchable…”
  6. Google’s Green Agenda Could Pay Off http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28google.html “…Google, the Internet search and advertising giant, is increasingly looking to the energy sector as a potential business opportunity… Google’s chief executive…joined Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, to announce that they would collaborate on policies and technologies aimed at improving the electricity grid. The effort could include offering tools for consumers…engineers at Google are hoping to unveil soon tools that could help consumers make better decisions about their energy use….Google is now considering large investments in projects that generate electricity from renewable sources…”

General Technology

  1. Multi-Robot Pursuit System http://www.dodsbir.net/SITIS/display_topic.asp?Bookmark=34565 “…Develop a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment. There are many research efforts within robotics in path planning, exploration, and mapping of indoor and outdoor environments. Operator control units are available that allow semi-autonomous map-based control of a team of robots. While the test environments are usually benign, they are slowly becoming longer and more complex. There has also been significant research in the game theory community involving pursuit/evasion scenarios. This topic seeks to merge these research areas and develop a software/hardware suit that would enable a multi-robot team, together with a human operator, to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject…”

Leisure & Entertainment

  1. YouTube Enables Deep Linking Within Videos http://tinyurl.com/6ys4dp (TechCrunch) “…It’s not a big new feature but it’s certainly one that will come in handy: YouTube will now allow you to send users to a specific point in a video by appending a short tag to the end of a video’s URL…”
  2. LucasArts, BioWare unveil new 'Star Wars' game http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10071972-52.html “…LucasArts and BioWare unveiled Star Wars: The Old Republic, a new massively multiplayer online game…The companies did not divulge a release date and it appears that they will not show any live game play…LucasArts and BioWare…have pulled the curtain back on what appears a large-scale online game in which players will be able to take on roles and create their own, personal Star Wars story lines…”
  3. iPhone can rival Nintendo DS, Sony PSP for games http://www.macworld.com/article/136345/2008/10/ngmoco.html “…When a company forms specifically to publish games for Apple’s iPhone, it’s certainly worth noting. But when that company is headed up by two veterans of Electronic Arts who see the iPhone as hotbed for game development, it really grabs headlines…Young describes the App Store as “an effortless distribution system”…marked contrast to the barriers a developer has to face to get a game out for…a Nintendo DS or Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). Both of those businesses require most developers to go through a much more rigid approval process and secure retail distribution channels. But still, barriers to success for iPhone developers remain, Young added. “There’s a lot of noise in the App Store…”
  4. Fly into the danger zone with your iPhone http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13549_7-10076386-30.html “…if you've been aching for a true dogfight flight sim for the iPhone, you may not have to wait much longer. There are a couple of flight sim games for the iPhone, however, according to SnakeHead Software, their game Flying Aces is the first true dogfight flight sim for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The game puts you in control of an F-15 Eagle flying over the Persian Gulf and uses accelerometer controls to give you a more realistic flight experience…SnakeHead Software is planning to release a multiplayer version of the game sometime in the future…”

Economy and Technology

  1. 19,683 Tech Layoffs And Counting http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/24/19683-tech-layoffs-and-counting/ “…This has been a brutal month or so for tech layoffs….there have been 19,683 job eliminations at tech companies announced since mid-September, and we’re not even counting the 24,600 people at Hewlett-Packard who are being eliminated as a result of its merger with EDS. But only five big companies make up more than 90 percent of the layoffs: Xerox (3,000), Dell (8,900), Yahoo (1,500), eBay (1,500), and German chipmaker Qimonda (3,000). The other 33 companies are mostly startups, and collectively account for 1,683 layoffs. Although three more companies (Sony Ericsson, Nvidia, and TicketMaster) account for an additional 1,110 job losses…”
  2. Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/10/web-20-and-cloud-computing.html “…A couple of months ago, Hugh Macleod created a bit of buzz with his blog post The Cloud's Best Kept Secret. Hugh's argument: that cloud computing will lead to a huge monopoly. Of course, a couple of weeks ago, Larry Ellison made the opposite point, arguing that salesforce.com is "barely profitable", and that no one will make much money in cloud computing. In this post, I'm going to explain why Ellison is right, and yet, for the strategic future of Oracle, he is dangerously wrong… when Larry Ellison says that cloud computing and open source won't produce many hugely profitable companies, he's right, but only if you look at the pure software layer. This is a lot like saying that the PC wouldn't produce many hugely profitable companies, and looking only at hardware vendors! First Microsoft, and now Google give the lie to Ellison's analysis. The big winners are those who best grasp the rules of the new platform. So here's the real trick: cloud computing is real. Everything is moving into the cloud, in whole or in part. The utility layer of cloud computing will be just that, a utility, without outsized profits…The company that creates the right platform for network effects in data may well achieve the scale that Hugh Macleod envisioned…”
  3. What Tim O'Reilly gets wrong about the cloud http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/10/what_tim_oreill.php “…Tim O'Reilly…makes some important and valid points, but his analysis is also flawed, and the flaws of his argument are as revealing as its strengths… take a look at the big kahuna on the Net, Google, which O'Reilly lists as the first example of a business that has grown to dominance thanks to the network effect. Is the network effect really the main engine fueling Google's dominance of the search market? I would argue that it certainly is not. And in fact, if you look back at that 2005 O'Reilly article, What Is Web 2.0?, you'll find that O'Reilly makes a very different point about Google's success…”
  4. Upwardly Mobile http://www.technologyreview.com/business/21533/ “…An Indian startup thinks that the right software can make cheap phones a financial lifeline to hundreds of millions…. a Bangalore startup called mChek is plunging into microfinance. Its software is already used by 500,000 people, who can use their mobile phones to pay their phone bills and purchase a limited number of goods and services, such as airline and movie tickets. Through a pilot project, as many as 5,000 borrowers will begin using the system to manage their finances--tapping keys on their cell phones to access bank accounts and execute transfers, make payments…and possibly even do business with local merchants. Several borrowers should be able to share one phone…”

Civilian Aerospace

  1. Armadillo Aerospace meets Lunar Lander Challenge http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10811080 “…that changed Friday at the Las Cruces International Airport, when Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace successfully completed one contest in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. A small crowd gathered at the viewing platform held its breath as the Armadillo lander roared upward, moved sideways and landed, staying in the air for more than 90 seconds. A cheer erupted when it became clear the launch had succeeded...State officials announced Friday that Armadillo Aerospace and a second company, Rocket Racing Inc., will partner to test vehicles that can carry people to suborbital space...Teams had to launch from one point, travel 50 meter up, move 120 meters over, land on a target, while staying in the air at least 90 seconds. Teams had the chance to refuel and then had to reverse the process, landing at the starting point....A late-morning launch by a second team, the Chicago-based True Zer0, was unsuccessful. The Armadillo team will compete today in a more-difficult contest with a larger purse…”
  2. Space Tourist Lands Safely http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/081023-expedition17-landing-day.html “…A Soyuz spacecraft has returned safely from the International Space Station, touching down with an American space tourist and two Russian cosmonauts in a picture perfect landing that followed two flawed descents on similar vehicles… Garriott and Volkov made a bit of space history with their successful landing. Their return marked the end of the first spaceflight to include two second-generation spaceflyers… Garriott performed a host of science experiments and education events during his mission. He also photographed some of the same spots on Earth that his father observed more than 30 years earlier and created some zero gravity artwork while taking care not to spill paint in weightlessness…”
  3. Space Bubbles Would Thrill Tourists http://www.space.com/news/081024-rocketracing-spacetourism.html “…The Rocket Racing League is teaming up with a private aerospace company and the state of New Mexico to build a new fleet of suborbital spacecraft…Passengers would be surrounded in a clear, bubble-like shell that gives a panoramic, 360-degree view of Earth and space, rather than be limited by the round window portals offered by other private spaceflight efforts…Under the joint venture, Armadillo Aerospace and the racing league would build a fleet of vertical launch and landing spacecraft capable of flying two passengers on suborbital spaceflights. Tickets will cost about $100,000, about half that set for rides on billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceliners, league officials said. Passengers would likely launch into suborbital space about 62 miles (100 km) above Earth …”

Supercomputing & GPUs

  1. AMD drops the cheap HD 4830 on budget gamers http://tinyurl.com/6nbojq (Ars technica) “…AMD has fired the latest salvo in the video card wars with the introduction of its Radeon 4830 graphics card…which retails for under $150, outperforms the NVIDIA 9800GT…The HD 4830 supports DirectX 10.1 and shader model 4.1, and sports a total of 956 million transistors. The card's memory interface is 256-bit, rather than the 128-bit interfaces on the HD4650 series and below…AMD packed the GPU with 640 stream processing units…”
  2. Sequential programming is dead. So stop teaching it! http://tinyurl.com/55bdbw (Intel) “…All major manufactures of CPUs, GPUs and ASICs have moved to a many core design, yet universities and colleges are not training engineers in the parallel and concurrent disciplines needed to efficiently program on such systems. To make matters worse, many of the computer science and engineering faculty are often not yet informed enough to effectively teach the subject, even were it to be offered…most engineering and computer science graduates will not have the skills to provide competitive advantage on multicore and many core platforms. Undergraduates need to be exposed to parallel programming techniques starting in CS1 and then need to build on the skill in every (relevant) course. This is not the case at most institutions; when they teach parallel computing at all, they often relegate it to advanced topics or elective courses…”

*****

posted by myDigitechnician at 28.10.08 | 0 comments

2008/10/21

NEW NET Issues List for 21 Oct 2008

Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 21 October 2008, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering. This week we're upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA

The ‘net

  1. Team Cowboy: free sports team calendar and management tool http://www.teamcowboy.com “…FREE tool that allows players of organized sports teams to communicate and collaborate easier than ever before. Whether your team is organized around a community or school…Team Cowboy will make your life easier…As a manager of a team, you can keep track of members on your team's roster, setup your team's game schedule, record game scores, track payments, and much more. As a player of a team, you can keep your other teammates informed with whether or not you'll be attending games, view your team's game schedule, and easily communicate with other players. Team Cowboy even automatically sends e-mail announcements and reminders of upcoming events so you can say goodbye to paper schedules forever…”
  2. Poptub: best-of-YouTube TV show http://newteevee.com/2008/10/15/googles-big-new-content-push-poptub/ “…new video series Poptub, a sort of Entertainment Tonight for YouTube. Google’s direct involvement with the creation of the show…was revealed in a story in the Hollywood Reporter today. Poptub is actually a recreation of Yahoo’s cancelled The 9, with the same perky host, Maria Sansone, the same sponsor, Pepsi, and the same production company…comes out about three times a day, with short interview segments, hosted video roundups, most-viewed countdowns, and straight-up video compilations…”
  3. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay “…Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug…The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter…Scroll down Technorati's list of the top 100 blogs and you'll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can't keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

  1. Employer: I do not approve of this text message http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/10/now-your-employ.html “…Most people know it's probably not a good idea to use your corporate e-mail account to write about how you skipped out on work and had too many beers at the Dodgers game. But you may want to think twice about doing the same via text message on your work-issued phone. New guidelines for financial firms that were issued in December…mean that companies are responsible for any secure information employees send over their mobile phones, in addition to e-mail. Hospitals and other organizations that work with personal information are also cracking down on employees who send messages over phones…Onset Technology has come up with Big Brother software that enables employers to monitor employees' texts, as well as control who they're writing texts to and what they're writing…”
  2. Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece “…Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase…A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime…”
  3. Smile! you're on Internet cafe camera http://tinyurl.com/5ount6 (Ars technica) “…by the beginning of 2009, Internet cafes in Beijing, China will take a photo of every person who passes through the doors, then enter the picture and the person's identifying information into a city-wide government database. The measures are part of China's overall plan to monitor use of Internet cafes to ensure inappropriate material isn't reaching children and, of course, to make Internet use a little less anonymous…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

  1. G1, a hands-on look at the first Android phone http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android “…I've spent the last four days using an HTC G1 phone running the first release of Android, and while it is not an iPhone-killer, it is a killer device for heavy Google users…Android's huge advantage is its tight integration with the Google services you use most—Gmail, GCal, Google Talk, Maps, and YouTube right now, though it's still missing Google Reader, Docs, Bookmarks, and very many other GOOG apps that could come in quite handy on your phone. One can only assume as the software matures those will show up eventually. Assuming you're already an established Google user, you pop in your Google Account username and password (Google Apps domain accounts work to), and as Steve Jobs would say, BOOM!—you've got your email, contacts list, calendar events, the whole shebang on your phone, over the air, synced with the cloud, no contact with your computer necessary. This wasn't even close to the experience I had with my iPhone, which has required several email account setups and re-setups, and not a small amount of tinkering with my address book and syncing to my computer to get everything as it should be. In the course of four days, I still haven't connected the G1 to my computer—everything I need is in the cloud at Google and on the phone, period. This is why heavy Google apps users will want Android…Never have I had a better experience reading email—specifically Gmail—on a mobile device as I have with Android…” http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/10/t-mobile-g1-han.html “…the true story is the Android platform and more importantly, what will developers bring to the table…as good as the base functionality is in the phone, it's the third party applications that will truly set the device apart…Bluetooth pairing and usage works well, both on the voice calls I tested and also a Skype call over iSkoot. Pressing the Menu button lets you switch audio sources, merge calls, add a caller, and put someone on hold. I was very impressed with the speakerphone volume; it's extremely loud and clear…everything is tied to Google services and the Android platform integration is outstanding…” http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/10/google-phone-re.html “…the iPhone is an iPod with other cool features that can make phone calls. The G1 is a search tool that plays music and makes phone calls…instant messaging services such as Yahoo Messenger and AIM can run in the background, as on the BlackBerry, without having to reconnect every time you leave the app to do something else like check e-mail or answer a call. And G1 lets users send multimedia messages via MMS. Any basic cellphone these days can do that, but not the iPhone…The ease of setting ringtones on the G1 is almost enough to make an iPhone owner throw up her hands and think about converting. Pick a song, any song on your phone, and make it your ringtone. Yeah, it should be that easy -- and it is on the G1…Here was something that drove me a little nuts. I want to look at the screen the way I want to look at the screen -- not the way the device insists I do. The G1 won't let you flip back and forth unless you open and close the keyboard…” http://gigaom.com/2008/10/15/google-phone-review-the-good-the-bad-ugly-about-tmobile-g1/ “…This isn’t an iPhone competitor. If you look at it, you can very quickly see that G-1 is a Honda to iPhone’s BMW. After a few days of usage I have become increasingly convinced that for people who like the Apple iPhone, will find Google-based G-1 aesthetically lacking…The device is very easy to use. It took me less than an hour to figure out how to use the phone, most of its features including touch-screen abilities, surfing and setting up the network, without as much as referring to the accompanying handbook even once. Most people who use Windows XP or Vista for their daily computing will find Google Android user interface remarkably familiar and find comfort using this device. In other words, it will sell a lot of units. And yes it is going to become a thorn in Windows Mobile’s side…This has to be the best Mobile IM client on the planet…”
  2. Android's biggest impact may be smart-phone price cuts http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_10740847 “…the new T-Mobile G1…doesn't quite measure up to the iPhone. But after using the G1 and several smart-phones with other operating systems, I'm convinced that it will make an impact not so much because of how good it is but because it might help further slash prices and improve the functionality of other smart-phones…”
  3. Motorola Readies Its Own Android Social Smartphone http://tinyurl.com/6qq4l2 “…engineers at Motorola (MOT) are hard at work on their own Android handset. Motorola's version will boast an iPhone-like touch screen, a slide-out qwerty keyboard, and a host of social-network-friendly features, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Motorola…is likely to introduce the handset in the U.S. sometime in the second quarter of 2009…a phone based on the highly anticipated Android operating system is part of Motorola's effort to revive a loss-making handset division that has forfeited market share amid a drought of bestselling phones…The phone will appear among a new class of social smartphones designed to make it easy for users to connect quickly and easily to mobile social networks such as Facebook and News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace…The Android phone…is the brainchild of people who joined Motorola via its 2006 acquisition of Good Technology. Good specialized in enterprise wireless messaging, data access, and security software…”
  4. Call it a 'sub-subnotebook http://blogs.computerworld.com/call_it_a_sub_subnotebook_new_pc_is_small_as_a_cell_phone “…The new iKIT is about the size of a PDA from ten years ago, but has a QWERTY keyboard and connects to the Internet at 3G speeds via your cell phone or Wi-Fi. The $175 Linux-based system has a Webcam built in, as well as a range of applications, including Web browsing, e-mail and IM…”

Open Source

  1. Microsoft not distributing FLOSS Drupal http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2008/10/microsoft_is_no.html “…I was shocked when reading the following on Matt Asay's blog: “As I discovered from Dries Buytaert's blog yesterday, Microsoft's Web Application Installer comes with out-of-the-box support for Drupal, OScommerce, and other popular open-source web applications.” Matt suggests that Microsoft's Web Application Installer "arguably puts Microsoft on the legal hook for this open-source code." I found this clause in the license agreement for Microsoft's Web Application Installer: THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE…Microsoft is not distributing those applications to you, but instead, as a convenience, enables you to use this software to obtain those applications directly from the application providers. By using the software, you acknowledge and agree that you are obtaining the applications directly from the third party providers and under separate license terms, and that it is your responsibility to locate, understand and comply with those license terms….the license agreement seems to exclude Microsoft liability. So, in the eyes of Microsoft's lawyers, Microsoft is not distributing open source (at least not with Microsoft's Web Application Installer)…”
  2. The five best things in Linux 2.6.27 http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_five_best_things_in_linux_2_6_27 “…Linux 2.6.27 was released on October 9th. It's a good, but not ground-breaking, kernel. Still, it has at least five significant improvements. The first of these, in my opinion, is a new way of handling device firmware…this translates into making it easier to use this kind of devices…Number two on my list is that Linux 2.6.27 took another big step in supporting Webcams…Next up, and in the long-run this will probably be the most important change, Linux now supports direct access to flash-memory based storage devices, such as USB drives and the increasingly popular SSDs (Solid State Drives)…A storage improvement that will matter sooner to users is that the new mainstream ext4 Linux file system now includes delayed allocation, aka allocate-on-flush…Ext4 can also handle extremely large drives…1024 petabytes per volume. Today's top supercomputers typically only access a few dozen petabytes at most...Number five on my list is more of a collection of changes rather than a particular improvement. With this version, Linux has added native and improved support to many network devices including ones from Atheros, Intel and Renesas. In addition, netfilter, the foundation software for Linux's firewall now has greatly improved IPv6 support…”
  3. Samba co-founder touts "La Vida Linux" “…Samba developer Jeremy Allison issued an impassioned endorsement for Linux in an opinion piece written for ZDNet. In "Livin’ La Vida Linux," he describes the many Linux devices that have entered his life, and explains why Linux "is going to take over the appliance world."…He is now working on Samba full time as an employee of Google…Allison mentions a number of Linux devices that have crept into his life in recent years, including the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet and later N800, the Sonos multi-room music system (pictured at right), his unnamed Samba-based file server, Sony TVs released since 2003, the Neuros OSD DVR device, and a Garmin GPS device…his recent completion of a project to digitize his CD collection. Instead of using the lossy and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)-restricted MP3, he instead chose the open-source FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) format. FLAC is "a software patent-free, lossless way of encoding music" that is supported by "most devices," writes Allison. He adds, "It is free, so there's no danger of a company turning off a remote server and finding myself in the unpleasant situation of all the music I bought being orphaned and unplayable…”
  4. Animating slide shows in OpenOffice.org http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/animating-slide-shows-openofficeorg-impress “…Animation is one of the less-known features in OpenOffice.org Impress. Its most obvious uses are for transitions for individual objects on a slide (rather than for the entire slide)…But it can also be used for more serious purposes, such as illustrating a procedure that is clearer if you can see it in motion -- for instance, one of the most effective animations I saw showed was on a Society for Creative Anachronism site that explained how the links in chain mail fitted together…”
  5. Where Will Android Go Next? http://gigaom.com/2008/10/21/where-will-android-go-next/ “…Google today announced that the open-source version of its mobile OS is now available for anyone to download and use for their devices… Over the last few weeks I have learned that numerous companies are tinkering with Android in an attempt to get the OS to power a whole slew of gadgets — everything from set-top boxes to navigation systems to mobile Internet devices to smart picture frames. For instance, Motorola, a big player in the set-top box business, has designs on building an Android-based set-top box…It’s not just an operating system, but comes with middleware and key applications, making it a complete environment that can be modified for other users. It has a robust web browser (based on WebKit), the ability to handle 2D and 3D graphics, and is able to read all sorts of audio, video and image files…Google is taking Android very seriously, and is working on getting a groundswell built for it. For instance, it has started talking with leading universities – MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon – to develop teaching programs around the OS, ones in which students would be given lessons in Android UI, for example, or taught about the uses of Android as an embedded environment…”

SkyNet

  1. iGoogle: Better Integration with Google Reader, Gmail, and Google Finance http://tinyurl.com/3ndazz (ReadWriteWeb) “…Google today updated its iGoogle homepage by improving its integration Google Reader, Gmail, and Google Finance. These gadgets can now make use of iGoogle's canvas feature, which allows a gadget to take up the whole screen. This is especially useful for the Google Reader and Gmail gadgets, which now bring almost all of the features of the actual services to iGoogle…The Gmail gadget now allows you to perform some of the most common email tasks, including actions like send or reply to messages without having to leave the iGoogle page…”
  2. Extended Gmail outage hits Apps admins http://tinyurl.com/3zg745 (ComputerWorld) “… A prolonged, ongoing Gmail outage has some Google Apps administrators pulling their hair out as their end users, including high-ranking executives, complain loudly while they wait for service to be restored. At around 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Google Inc. announced in the official Google Apps discussion forum that the company was aware of a problem preventing Gmail users from logging into their accounts and that it expected a solution by 9 p.m. on Thursday…An administrator identified as Bill W. posted a desperate message on the forum Thursday morning, saying his company's CEO is steaming about being locked out of his e-mail account since around 4 p.m. on Wednesday. "Support keeps telling me it is affecting a small number of users…It is frustrating to not be able to expedite these issues. I have to speak with the boss again and he's po'd. This is considered a mission-critical issue here. We may have to make other arrangements. Apparently, Google mail is not very reliable. I think I would have pushed for something else before we switched if I had known the level of unreliability," he wrote. Another administrator identified as Techlinks wrote: "This outage has hit us pretty hard and we've been out of e-mail for 24 hours and now business is suffering…”
  3. Google hurdles over profit estimate http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10068142-93.html “…Google easily cleared analysts' profit expectations for the third quarter of the year, patting itself on the back for the results but offering a cautious qualifier about current economic conditions…Revenue was $4.04 billion…net income increased from $1.07 billion in the year-earlier quarter and $1.25 billion in the second quarter to $1.35 billion in the third…Google's stock closed at $353.02 a share on Thursday, and Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal pointed out that a full third of Google's employees have nothing but valueless "underwater" stock options that have greatly diminished incentive value. After-hours trading sent the stock up 10 percent to $389…”
  4. Google: Raise Your Data Center Temperature http://tinyurl.com/4mukva (DataCenterKnowledge) “…The latest company to focus attention on temperature in the data center is Google. “The guidance we give to data center operators is to raise the thermostat,” said Erik Teetzel, an Energy Program Manager at Google…We’d recommend looking at going to 80 degrees.” Most data centers operate in a temperature range between 68 and 72 degrees, and some are as cold as 55 degrees…Data center managers can save 4 percent in energy costs for every degree of upward change in the set point, according to Mark Monroe of Sun Microsystems… “There’s diminishing returns when you (raise the temperature) beyond a certain amount, because now your cooling systems are working harder to keep up with the increased fan speed on the server,” said Dean Nelson, Sun’s Senior Director of Global Lab and Data Center Design…“You’ve got to find that sweet spot…I think it’s probably around 80 to 85…”

General Technology

  1. Hazy Computing http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7157 “…The interesting thing is that these types of algorithms produce results (in a sense “optimizations”) that people don’t really understand. In the past, I recall reading about an antenna designed using a GA. The result worked great, the design however was weird and in a sense ugly. The engineers did not have a full understanding of how it worked…Futurist Ray Kurzweil proposes..the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions…At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide…I believe we already in this era…”
  2. Mini E Electric Vehicle http://www.automobilemag.com/green/news/0810_2009_mini_e_electric_vehicle/index.html “…Each Mini E (there will be 500 in all) begins life on the same Oxford, England, assembly line as its Mini One, Cooper, and Clubman cousins…Mini E models roll off the line without any form of motive power whatsoever. For that, they're then shipped to Munich, Germany…In place of the I-4 lies a 150 kW (204 hp) direct-current electric motor, mounted transversely in the Mini's engine bay, and powering the front…The Mini's diminutive rear seats are then replaced with a giant wall of lithium-ion batteries. The three battery packs, rated at 35 kilowatt-hours, send a collective 380 volts to the DC motor in front. All three can be charged via 120 or 220-volt outlets, or with a specially-designed charger - aka the "WallBox" - which comes with each vehicle. Using the WallBox, a full-charge is accomplished in two-and-a-half hours, pulling as little as 28 kilowatt-hours …”
  3. Acer gains on netbooks, HP keeps global PC lead http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20081015/tc_nm/us_gartner_pc_sales “…Taiwan's Acer Inc surged past global champion Hewlett-Packard Co in European personal computer sales in the third quarter, in the clearest sign of the move toward cheap, small mini-notebook computers, research firm Gartner Inc said on Tuesday…Acer's market share gains in the quarter were driven by surging sales of its mini-notebooks, a segment in which HP and Dell do not have a strong presence, she said. Mini-notebooks, also known a netbooks, refer to PCs with screen sizes of five to 10 inches…HP shipped 14.8 million units in the quarter, for a market share of 18.4 percent, barely changed from a year ago. Dell was in second place with a share of 13.6 percent, down 0.5 percent from last year, while Acer's piece of the market jumped to 12.5 percent from 9.7 percent…”

Leisure & Entertainment

  1. Amie Street gets more social, releases web player http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081015-amie-street-gets-more-social-releases-web-player.html (Ars technica) “…Amie Street, the independent music store with a very unique business model, has redesigned its site with an emphasis on better music discovery and more social interaction…The most noticeable overall change with the new Amie Street site (in beta, naturally) is that it packs more information into a thinner space…Amie Street's new main page is now a mix of personalized recommendations based on your purchases, friend recommendations, albums that you mark as favorites, and editor picks…Everything that makes Amie Street interesting is still here: independent music with a catalog from indie publishers like Orchard and Red Eye nearing 1.5 million tracks, a business model where tracks debut for free and increase in price as popularity grows, and a recommendation system that rewards users with cash for participating in the community…”
  2. Money in casual web game development http://gigaom.com/2008/10/18/wheres-the-money-in-casual-web-game-development/ “…For years, developing web-based casual games was little more than a hobby, a means of creative expression for game enthusiasts. Then advertising revenue started to reshape the casual gaming landscape — now, multimillion-dollar deals, flourishing startups like Mochi Media and Kongregate, and the attention of media giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are the name of the game…But just how much money can these new revenue streams bring to casual game developers’ pockets?…”
  3. "Max Payne" shoots to top of box office http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081019/en_nm/us_boxoffice “…Action-packed "Max Payne" shot its way to the top of the North American box office, grossing $18 million during the video game adaptation's first weekend in theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday. The dark, atmospheric film, which stars Mark Wahlberg as a cop in search of the men who killed his wife and child, outshone Oliver Stone's much-talked-about "W.," which debuted at No. 4 with a take of $10.6 million…"Max Payne" follows in the footsteps of games turned into films including the "Tomb Raider" movies starring Angelina Jolie, which were commercial hits but critically clobbered by gamers…”

Economy and Technology

  1. As Fuel Prices Fall, Will Push For Alternatives Lose Steam? http://tinyurl.com/5rg9az (WashingtonPost) “…One type of oil shock has given way to another. Even more swiftly than the price of oil rose, it has tumbled to the range that seemed far-fetched when Reinert spoke and oil was more than $130 a barrel. Now that drop threatens a wide variety of game-changing plans to find alternatives to oil or ways to drastically reduce U.S. consumption…Doing something about the amount of gasoline Americans use is essential to defusing future oil shocks…More than one out of every nine barrels of oil produced worldwide ends up in the gas tanks of cars in the United States. The amount of petroleum burned by U.S. motorists exceeds the entire crude oil output of Saudi Arabia, and that has propped up demand -- and prices…”
  2. GreenFuel CEO Gives Glimpse Into $92M Farm http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10070678-54.html “…The Cambridge, Mass.-based company detailed a multi-year deal worth $92 million to build greenhouses that grow algae, which can be harvested for vegetable oil to make biodiesel or to make animal feed…Its greenhouse design--which the company will not discuss in detail--grows algae without tubes and uses an automated harvesting system, according to CEO Simon Upfill-Brown. The water in which the algae grows is recycled. GreenFuel and Aurantia now have a 100 square-meter prototype operating…It hopes that by 2011, it will have a full-scale operation, which will take up 100 hectares, or about 250 acres, Upfill-Brown said. A 100-hectare algae farm would consume about 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year--about 10 percent of its the cement factory's annual emissions--and grow about 25,000 tones of algae biomass…”

Civilian Aerospace

  1. Elon Musk's vision: to change the course of humanity http://www.siliconvalley.com/thevalley/ci_10749864 “…Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX, plans to launch a far more powerful booster by mid-2009. By designing the new Falcon 9 to be reusable, Musk hopes to make space travel far cheaper, and secure a permanent gig taxiing supplies to the International Space Station….By 2011, Musk hopes to have his own astronauts flying SpaceX's Dragon capsule into orbit, transforming the macho test-pilot astronaut into a geek-friendly corps selected for technical ability, rather than their facility with a joystick…If SpaceX can achieve its ambitions of slashing the cost to reach space by a factor of 10, "it would be recognized as one of the pivotal events in human history…”
  2. Quasonix lands space flight contract http://tinyurl.com/6zqaj6 (MarketWatch) “…Quasonix, LLC, developer of high performance aeronautical telemetry systems, announced today that the company has been awarded a fixed price contract from Space Exploration Technologies Corporation ("SpaceX") of Hawthorne, California to provide telemetry transmitters and receivers in support of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft programs. "We're pleased to play a role in SpaceX's drive to increase the reliability and reduce the cost of space transportation by a factor of ten…”
  3. Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge “…The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge will be held October 24-25 at the Las Cruces International Airport in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Two teams are expected to fly during the competition: Armadillo Aerospace and TrueZer0. Although the competition is not open to the public, the event will be webcast live at http://space.xprize.org/webcast. 9 teams have registered for the competition: 5 veteran teams from last year whom you already know, and 4 brand new teams…”
  4. X Prize Cup '08 shrinks http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10741760 “…X Prize Cup, an event that in past years has drawn thousands to Las Cruces and Alamogordo, will be scaled down significantly with no public access to the one competitive event this year. Officials hope a full-blown Space Week will be back next year…"The Cup as it has traditionally been held is not (going to happen this year) because of funding levels it takes to run a massive public event," New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Steve Landeene said…The X Prize Cup, which seeks to foster innovation in space technology through competition, was held in Las Cruces in 2005 and 2006 before being moved to Alamogordo in 2007 when the cup lost title sponsor Wirefly…Instead of the full-blown event, the education days for area school children that have been part of the Cup will be held next Wednesday through Friday at the New Mexico Space Museum in Alamogordo…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

  1. Multicore programming explained http://tinyurl.com/69muqo (ElectronicsWeekly) “…Professor David May FRS…is professor of Computer Science at Bristol University and the architect of the Inmos multi-core Transputer…Current attempts to use multi-cores in the mainstream computing world, like the efforts made by Intel and Microsoft with a bunch of US universities, may be doomed. “I think they (Intel and Microsoft) are trying to solve a different problem," said May, “they’re taking all the PC applications and putting them on multi-cores. That’s a very different problem and, in my view, they won’t be very successful. Taking sequential programmes and trying to make them run in parallel is virtually impossible…For the future, computers will have to change. “The emphasis on process structures will replace emphasis on data structures”, said May, “with von Neumann, the idea is that what you scale up is the memory. People are still hanging onto that model. The emphasis should now be on how data is moved around in the memory…A universal computer is an infinite array of finite processors, not a finite array of infinite processors,” said May…”
  2. Nvidia Unveils Graphics Accelerator For Adobe Creative Suite http://tinyurl.com/5yzygc (InformationWeek) “…Nvidia on Thursday launched a graphics accelerator for Adobe Creative Suite 4, giving professionals the option of higher performance when adding graphics and visual effects to video…The Quadro CX GPU, which plugs into a PC's PCIe slot, is specifically designed to enhance the performance of Adobe's Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere Pro…In releasing the new product, Nvidia is taking advantage of software Adobe has added to its suite, which profits from GPU technology, such as the parallel processing capability in Quadro CX…”
  3. NVIDIA to Host Full-Day CUDA Tutorial at SC08 http://www.gpgpu.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2008/10/16 “…The tutorial is designed to give attendees a thorough introduction to the CUDA programming model. NVIDIA engineers will partner with academic and industrial researchers to present CUDA and discuss its advanced use for science and engineering applications. The morning session will introduce CUDA programming and the CUDA execution and memory models, and explore the uses of CUDA with many brief examples from diverse HPC domains. The afternoon session will cover more advanced topics and include real-world case studies from domain scientists using CUDA for computational biology, computational fluid dynamics and seismic imaging…” More parallel GPU computing news items are on this webpage

*****

posted by myDigitechnician at 21.10.08 | 0 comments