NEW NET Issues List for 08 Jun 2010

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 08 June 2010, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering. This week we'reupstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA -- if there's a chain across the steps, ignore it and come on upstairs.

The ‘net

1. Mote Runner http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ibm-launches-software-to-spur-sensor-management-internet-of-things/35409 “IBM on Monday will roll out a software development kit for an application dubbed Mote Runner with the aim of spurring the adoption of sensors in various devices…The real goal is to enable the so-called Internet of things by making sensor networks easier to deploy and manage. Mote Runner is a free download…The Mote Runner moniker refers to Mote’s—or wireless sensor nodes—that gather information ranging from temperature, movement and light and refer back to a network…Toss in smart grids, appliances and homes and we’re headed toward many interconnected devices carrying embedded software. IBM said it’s moving to release Mote Runner as governments and companies are taking advantage of low-cost sensors to monitor buildings, business systems and other networks…These sensors could also be used to monitor the elderly in their homes…”

2. Bing's Cashback Dies of Neglect http://www.pcworld.com/article/198026/microsoft_to_shut_down_bing_cashback.html “Microsoft plans to shut down Bing Cashback, the service that offered online shoppers cash rebates for buying products after searching for them on Bing…which was based on technology developed by Jellyfish.com…Microsoft attracted more than 1,000 merchant partners who offered cash back to shoppers, said Yusuf Mehdi…But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for…Cashback was once central to Microsoft's push to position its search engine as one that was ideal for shoppers. It was also a service that Microsoft founder Bill Gates seemed particularly fond of…he described Cashback as a new advertising platform. Search advertising offers essentially nothing in return…Cashback "gives you a reason why you should use a particular search," he said…Cashback launched with some marquee names including eBay, Barnes & Noble, Sears, Home Depot, Zappos.com and Overstock.com…”

3. Live Sync FAQ for Live Mesh users (it lives!) http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2010/06/05/live-sync-faq-for-live-mesh-users-it-lives.aspx “…a post on the Live Mesh MSDN blog (which hadn’t had an update since last October), entitled “Windows Live Sync beta: FAQ if you used Live Mesh beta or the previous version of Sync”…when we went to pull up the post, *poof* it was gone. Well, this is the internet. Things don’t just disappear. A quick Bing search found a nicely preserved copy on a blog called MSDN Blog Postings via RSS, which we’ll reproduce here…”

4. Minneapolis Unplugged http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/archive/2010/06/minneapolis-unplugged/57676/ “…Googling "citywide wireless" will get you a lot of links from 2004, brimming with optimism about the promise of municipal internet access. By 2006, however, the returns are fewer…ambitious city network plans stalled, hobbled by technical, logistical, and contractual issues…Minneapolis is one of few American cities whose WiFi plans are actually succeeding. Minneapolis studied the missteps of other urban networks before signing a 10-year contract with Minnesota-based USI Wireless…Minneapolis CIO Lynn Willenbring told The Atlantic how her city's wireless network helped Minneapolis through a disaster even before it was built. She also talked to us about bridging the digital divide…”

5. Office is now live on SkyDrive http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/06/07/office-is-now-live-on-skydrive.aspx “…today, Office Web Apps on SkyDrive are now available to everyone in the US, UK, Canada, and Ireland. We’ll have more to share next week when Office 2010 is released to consumers, including how Office 2010 + SkyDrive + Office Web Apps give you the best productivity experience across the PC, phone, and browser…if you live in the US, UK, Canada, or Ireland, you can head over to Office.live.com today to start viewing and editing Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents right in your web browser – and share them with your friends…Note that people you share documents with may also need to visit the link above before they can access the documents you share with them…”

6. Bing Opens Up Its Map Apps To Developers And Smooths Out Photosynth http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/07/bing-map-apps/ “One of the best part of Bing Maps is the gallery of Map Apps (Silverlight required) which add different informational overlays to the maps…Bing is opening up its Map Apps more broadly to outside developers and releasing an SDK for anyone who wants to create their own Bing Map App. The apps must be created in Silverlight 4, and there is an approval process before it appears in everyone’s Bing Map Apps gallery. Eventually, Microsoft will allow advertising in the apps as well and presumably will split revenues with the app creators…Microsoft is launching with a few new apps built on the SDK…Everyscape is adding its collection of 3D photo exploration tools for inside buildings, starting with restaurants in select cities like Boston…Bing is also rolling out some new improvements to its maps in general later this week. Photosynths (which meld multiple photos of a location into a huge, single, panoramic image which can be zoomed around) are now much smoother when zooming in and out to take a closer look at details. The jerky transitions are gone. Interior building maps for places like malls are also being added, so you can see exactly where the Jimmy Choo store is inside. And if you enter a business address, Bing Maps will do a reverse lookup and list the businesses at that location in the side column next to the map…”

7. HP ePrint Breaks Printing Free from PC Shackles http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/198175/hp_eprint_breaks_printing_free_from_pc_shackles.html “…HP announced a new breed of printers with new ePrint technology. The Web-connected printers are designed to work with cloud-based content, and print documents via e-mail -- freeing the printer from relying on a PC…Every HP ePrint printer will have a unique simple e-mail address that allows the sender to deliver a print the same way they would send an e-mail message. Customers also can send documents to print through an HP ePrint mobile app on their smartphone device to a home, office or public print location such as a hotel or FedEx Office store. Customers will be able to send Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDFs and JPEG image files, among others…We know that our customers want an easy way to print their content, anywhere, anytime. We're making that a reality today by giving people the power to print from any Web-connected device -- smartphones, iPads, netbooks and more -- to any printer in our portfolio above $99. The world has changed…HP revealed that later this year there will be new tools…to print directly from cloud-based services, such as…Google Docs…Box.net…DocStoc and Biztree for immediate access to business forms such as invoices, contracts, receipts, legal agreements…”

8. Chattanooga now offers 150Mbps http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/06/city-of-chattanooga-to-serve-up-150mbps-home-fiber.ars “The fourth largest city in Tennessee is about to get the fastest municipally provided Internet and IP video service in the United States. Chattanooga's city-owned EPB Fiber Optics promises that its residents will soon be able to buy "Fi-Speed Internet 150"—fiber-to-the-home broadband with down and upload speeds of 150Mbps…We will have all our customers in Chattanooga, East Ridge, and Red Bank served by the end of this month. And we will have all our customers throughout this system served by the end of this year."…EPB, which also provides electricity to Chattanoogans, already offers that speed. The company's coverage area spreads out across 600 square miles of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, and various other counties in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia…We're guessing that a big chunk of its extant 9,600 customers buy the company's Fi-Speed Internet 15 plan (15Mbps), sold at $57.99 a month "excluding taxes and fees." Fi-Speed 20Mbps is $69.99 a month, followed by 50Mbps for $174.99 and 100Mbps for $349.99…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

9. Back to the future with malware auto-dialers in apps for Windows Mobile http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20006882-245.html “Scammers are distributing apps for Windows Mobile-based smartphones that have malware hidden inside that makes calls to premium-rate numbers across the globe, racking up expensive bills unbeknownst to the phone's owner…The apps--3D Anti-Terrorist game, PDA Poker Art, and Codec pack for Windows Mobile 1.0--are being distributed on as many as nine popular download Web sites…Someone has copied the programs and repackaged them with the malware inside…Once the app is installed the virus wakes up and starts dialing premium-rate numbers like in Somalia and the South Pole…victims may not know about the problem until they get their phone bill and see that it's $50 or $100 higher than it should be…”

10. Autorun-Based Malware Leads May Top Five E-Threat Report http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Autorun-Based-Malware-Leads-BitDefenders-May-Top-Five-E-Threat-Report-1271893.htm “…With a percentage of 13.24 of the global malware, May's top e-threat is Trojan.AutorunInf.Gen -- a generic mechanism to spread malware using flash drives, memory cards or external hard-disk drives…second in this month's e-threat report, Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen also known as Kido or Conficker is responsible for 5.84 percent of the global infections. Relying on a Microsoft® Windows® vulnerability, this worm spreads on computers in the local network and restricts users' access to Windows Update and security vendors' web pages…Trojan.FakeAV.KUE ranks third with a percentage of 5.11 of the total amount of infections. This detection covers JavaScript code -- hosted either on malicious sites and/or innocent victim sites that have been infected -- that's used to trigger fake alerts on websites connected to the placement of rogue antivirus software…”

11. Free apps install spyware on Macs http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20006502-245.html “Mac users downloading free screensavers and a video converter app from several popular download sites also got spyware that installs a back door, collects data, and sends encrypted information to remote servers…They were found on Softpedia, MacUpdate, and CNET-owned VersionTracker…The spyware, a Windows version of which has existed since 2008, is not contained in the apps but is downloaded during the installation process. It is often marked as a "market research" program called PremierOpinion…”

12. SMS Blockers: The Cutting Edge of Asian Malware http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364621,00.asp “The latest rage in criminal malware in Russia and parts of Asia is the SMS blocker…a variant on ransomware, a form of malware that demands payment in order to disinfect a system or decrypt a file. When your system is infected with an SMS Blocker, in order to disinfect it you have to send an SMS message from your mobile phone to a premium number controlled by the attacker, typically at a cost of about $10…Some pop up pornographic pictures and keep them up until you pay; some claim your Windows license is invalid and that you must sent the SMS in order to reactivate it…Boris Yampolsky, a malware researcher…estimates that there are as many as 500,000 SMS blocker infections each day…These attacks are not present, at least not in large numbers, in the US because it's harder here to get the SMS numbers to receive the money…”

13. Surveillance Software Knows What a Camera Sees http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/25439/?a=f “A prototype computer vision system can generate a live text description of what's happening in a feed from a surveillance camera…Almost all search for images or video is still done using the surrounding text," he says. Zhu and UCLA colleagues Benjamin Yao and Haifeng Gong developed a new system, called I2T (Image to Text)…It puts a series of computer vision algorithms into a system that takes images or video frames as input, and spits out summaries of what they depict…”

14. Zero-day exploit for Adobe Reader, Flash http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/06/adobe-reader-flash-flaw-with-0day-exploit-doing-the-rounds.ars “…an exploitable flaw in Adobe Reader 9.x, Acrobat 9.x, and Flash 9.x and 10.x has been discovered and is being actively exploited. Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux versions are all affected. The flaw allows arbitrary code execution by attackers, and hence it is deemed "critical." Adobe presently has no fix available. Adobe Reader 8.x is unaffected, as is the Flash 10.1 beta; downgrading Reader and upgrading Flash therefore provides protection against the flaw…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

15. AT&T tries to defend its data pricing http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/06/04/att-tries-to-defend-its-data-pricing/ “Mark Siegel, the executive director of media relations at AT&T, was upset that I didn’t phone him before posting my blog entry…I told him that I assumed the official AT&T press release — which I linked to from my blog — had all the information that the company wanted to release…If you’re on the Data Plus plan, that costs you $15 for 200 MB no matter how much data you use. If you use 201 MB in a month, that’s $30; if you use 401 MB, it’s $45, and so on. If you go up to say 1.9 GB in a month, that’s $150 — six times the $25 you would pay to consume the same amount of data on the Data Pro plan. Is there any point, I asked Siegel, at which AT&T will help a brother out and automatically switch a heavy data user from Data Plus to Data Pro? No, he told me: “Our assumption is that people are intelligent enough to see that they’re going over. People are way smart enough to manage their own usage.” If you only use data-heavy applications like YouTube or Pandora when you’re connected to a WiFi hotspot, you should be fine with the lower data plan — until that fateful day when your WiFi craps out without you noticing, and you rapidly rack up a huge amount of data usage inadvertently…” [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/att-tiered-data/ “…new tiered pricing structure gives AT&T customers the following options: 200 MB for $15 per month. If you exceed the limit, AT&T will charge $15 extra in units of 200 MB…2 GB for $25 per month. If you surpass this limit, you can pay an extra $10 per extra gigabyte…Current smartphone users can continue their unlimited data for $30 per month — but if they switch to one of the cheaper plans, they can’t go back to unlimited…To tether your smartphone to a computer, you must use the 2-GB, $25 plan, and pay an extra $20 for the tethering privilege…”]

16. Apple introduces iPhone 4 http://www.macworld.com/article/151816/2010/06/iphone4.html “…Jobs described the phone as, “beyond a doubt, the most precise thing and one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever made”…iPhone 4 is 9.3mm thick, or 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS. It includes new camera with an LED flash on the black, but a second, front-facing camera as well. There are new volume buttons, a mute button, plus a second microphone on the top for noise cancellation. Just like the iPad, it now incorporates a micro-SIM tray…A new screen technology called a retina display add much higher precision to the iPhone…The new display is the same 3.5 inches diagonally, but at 960 by 640 it has four times as many pixels as the previous model…Apple went with the micro-SIM design to save space, mostly for a new battery that—coupled with the new chip—Apple says provides 40 percent more talk time. The company says talk time is up from 5 hours to 7 hours…The iPhone 4 add a three-axis gyroscope for measuring angular velocity. It can figure out pitch, roll, and yaw; and rotation about gravity. The gyroscope plus the accelerometer provide six-axis motion sensing. There are also new CoreMotion APIs that developers can call for extremely precise position information—ideal for games. The iPhone 4 has a new, 5-megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom and an LED flash. It also adds 720p HD video capture at 30 frames per second…”

17. A Silly Phone for Teens Reveals Microsoft’s Plan for Us All http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/how-a-silly-phone-for-teens-reveals-microsofts-plan-for-us-all/ “…Apple sucks at the internet. But surprisingly it’s Microsoft—not Google—that’s best positioned for Our Future in the Cloud. Here’s why…following spectacular success with the iPhone and the App Store, Apple has let its online ambitions — Mobile Me and the like — whither…Microsoft…could, if it wanted to, brings peoples lives—their media, their documents, their photos, their everything — online in a way that its competitors only dream of. I didn’t give the Kin…much credit as phones…Yet the one unequivocally great feature is a web service called Studio…Each Kin phone automatically and transparently uploads virtually everything created with the phone to Microsoft’s servers, from photos and videos to text messages and social media updates. Everything can later be accessed through a single web interface…It’s a stupidly simple system, but for some reason the effect is stunning. Here’s my stuff, on my phone. Here’s my stuff, on my computer. Here’s my stuff, on another computer. Why doesn’t every phone work like this?…”

18. Jobs Survives Gizmodo, But Not MiFi http://gigaom.com/2010/06/07/steve-jobs-survives-gizmodo-but-not-mifi/ “…Jobs takes tremendous pride in his public performances, and it pays off. His product presentations are usually seamless and even hypnotic…But one glitch almost took Jobs down. He couldn’t connect his live iPhone demo to the network using Wi-Fi because there were so many Wi-Fi networks in the room. Jobs blamed his audience, saying his tech team detected 570 separate Wi-Fi base stations…Jobs resorted to telling people to put their laptops down on the floor and police each other. Apple employees started circulating through the audience asking anyone who was using a computer to turn off the Wi-Fi and stop using their machines. The real problem, it seemed, wasn’t attendees connecting to the open Wi-Fi network, but bringing their own networks as backup — something that has become a necessity, especially for bloggers and reporters, as the Wi-Fi at conferences including Apple’s is almost always slow, crappy or nonexistent. (I’ll admit I had both a MiFi and an EVO 4G on me, though the latter was being saved for backup.)…When Jobs ran into error messages and slow-loading pages…he called out “Scott,”…the company’s senior VP of iOS Software, “you got any suggestions?” Multiple audience members shouted back in response “Verizon!”...[following is from post comments] The issue isn’t Jobs asking people to turn off their abusive MiFis,or AT&T’s problematic network. It’s that devices like the MiFi are an incredibly stupid replacement for a one-foot USB cable, which is all these audience members were using it for. 802.11 does not support AP densities of more than three per 100′ radius under the best conditions. The WWDC had more like 50 per 100′. If the clueless MiFiers (and other cellular personal hotspot users) simply USB-tethered their hotspots the problem would have never occurred. It’s scary that so-called “developers” couldn’t predict this problem and sensibly head it off. “MiFi Jamming” is a usability killer in many Starbucks now, where a dozen or more thoughtless users smear the room with unnecessary interfering 802.11 radiation, jamming access for everyone trying to use Starbucks’ wireless. All for want of a one-foot cable that ships with the cellular modem! Idiots all. The thing is, the 802.11 standards committee predicted this problem FIVE YEARS ago. MiFi is just the first wave a self-defeating wireless decablers, wielded by clueless users that ignore spectrum realities…”

19. Ford steering Google Maps into its cars http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20007051-48.html “…The free Send to Sync feature, announced Tuesday by Ford, will let drivers send Google Maps data from their Bluetooth-enabled computers or mobile phones to their in-car Sync systems…Ford is touting the service as a way for drivers to keep their eyes on the road by eliminating the need to juggle maps and printouts. "Printing paper directions from a Web site is a relic in our digital age," Doug VanDagens, director of Ford Connected Services Solutions Organization, said in a statement. "With Send to Sync, you can map a destination at home, at work--wherever you have connectivity--and when you get to your car, it already knows where you want to go."…No extra hardware, software updates, or additional fees will be required, according to the company. Ford said it is the only automaker to offer this feature without the need for a paid subscription.”

20. Amtrak to take free onboard WiFi nationwide http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/amtrak-to-take-free-onboard-wifi-nationwide.ars “Amtrak's Acela Express trains…along the Washington-Boston-New York corridor and offer…free WiFi…Amtrak wants to expand the bandwidth available to the system and hopes to extend WiFi service to its nationwide fleet…Each train has a central system housed in a ‘brain car’ comprising up to eight data modems using all four major US cellular carriers; Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. A 5GHz wireless network connects the brain car to the rest of the train, providing speeds of 12-22Mbps between carriages with approximately 3.5Mbps total bandwidth available for passenger Wi-Fi connections to the Internet. The bottleneck in any train-bound system will always be the backhaul…AmtrakConnect uses a quality-of-service system that segregates passenger traffic from on-board system traffic, and uses content filtering to manage bandwidth on a per user basis and block certain material including streaming video…”

Open Source

21. Teo, the New Tough Linux Netbook From ZaReason http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/7070/1/ “…I've been wanting a netbook ever since the ASUS Eee PC was released. The idea of the Eee PC was more exciting than its execution. It came with a seven-inch screen and a 4GB solid-state drive instead of a 80GB hard drive…its 900MHz Celeron mobile CPU was slow…It ran a highly-customized version of Xandros Linux…At two pounds and $199 it made a nice inexpensive second computer…But for me it fell short. It always seemed like a natural thing to have an extra-small laptop. Not way underpowered, not with a dim tiny screen, not with inadequate storage, nor with a tiny unusable keyboard, but a real laptop…so, here we are with the Teo, which is one of the nicest netbooks available…She's a beefy little girl, not as thin as other netbooks, but still very portable. The screen is beautiful; it is bright and sharp…The standard operating system is Ubuntu 10.04…ZaReason offers other Linuxes: Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is Ubuntu with a netbook-optimized appearance, Kubuntu, Debian, Mint, or Fedora…Earl Malmrose is ZaReason's chief designer. ZaReason does not order off-the-shelf computers, but works directly with manufacturers to get machines made to their own specifications…Processor Intel Atom N450 Processor (embedded), 1.66GHz…Main Memory 1GB on board and 1GB on SO-DIMM Total 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM included…Display 10" Non-glare WSVGA (1024 x 600)…Hard Disk Drive 160GB SATA HDD included…Webcam 1.3 mega pixels…Weight 2.8 lbs. (with a 6-cell battery…Keyboard 93% of a regular keyboard…”

22. Create a smart PDF document with Scribus http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/tutorials/create-a-smart-pdf-document-with-scribus/ “Sometimes we need to create a document containing a form for a client to fill out. This form is shared either by email or by downloading from a web location. A lot of people will use a word processor, most often Microsoft Word, to create such a document…A better approach to solving this problem would be to use a more standard file format, such as PDF. PDF documents work the same across all major operating systems, such as Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Let’s take a look at how to use Scribus, an open source desktop publishing application available for all these three platforms, to create a smart PDF document containing a form which your client can fill out. In the end, she can hit the Submit button at the end of the document, and the data she just entered will be sent right back to you by the document…”

23. Qi Hardware Launches Open-Source Computer http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364710,00.asp “It's difficult to envision a computer that's completely open-source…right down to the software on its drives, the drivers for its components, and the circuit boards for its construction…Qi Hardware's "Ben NanoNote,"…one of the few massive hardware projects in existence that runs on completely copyleft hardware…anyone is free to modify the Ben NanoNote's design or make copies thereof, so long as they release their version of the product under the same Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license…Qi Hardware already has a wiki in place where aspiring developers and tinkerers can brainstorm up new project ideas and uses for the $99 laptop…Ben NanoNote isn't designed for mass-market appeal…hardly top-of-the-line components for a laptop…a 366-MHz MIPS processor…32 megabytes of RAM and two gigabytes of internal flash storage…no internal networking functionality on this 3.9-by-2.95-by-0.7-inch product, whose 16.7-million-color, 3-inch screen sports a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels…a full QWERTY keyboard…runs the 2.6.32 version of the OpenWRT Linux kernel…This isn't the first open-source hardware project from the various members of Qi Hardware…When the Openmoko's phone project fizzled out in April of 2009, a team of developers and engineers founded Qi Hardware and shifted their goals from the mobile market to open-source hardware as a whole…” [http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/netbooks/296251 ]

24. 2 screen Linux tablet/e-reader to replace textbooks http://www.handlewithlinux.com/linux-dual-screen-e-reader-tablet “…the Kno a Linux based dual screen textbook replacement shown by californian startup Kakai at at the 8th Annual Conference of D: All Things Digital…Two capacitive touch screen IPS displays (1440 x 900) of 14.1-inch…Tegra 2 chip…16GB of storage…Wi-Fi…full internet browsing…Flash 10.1 support…The Kno…probably has not much future as a luxury item, but for students it may well be what they need…students would need to place it on a table to work from it…The reason it’s so large is that it needs to display already created textbook materials. Stylus input will allow for students to make annotations, highlights and sticky notes. The developers want to price the device below $1000…The Kno will also feature HD video, I guess I want to go back to school as soon as this is common teaching material. This would make school more fun for me…”

25. Best Free and Open Source CRM Software http://www.junauza.com/2010/06/open-source-crm-software.html “…Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business strategy for managing and understanding clients and sales prospects to help enhance customer satisfaction and thus increase profit and reduce operational costs. CRM software is needed to collect the correct information about a company's customers and arrange that information for proper analysis and action. It is a tool for organizing, automating, and synchronize business processes for sales activities, marketing, customer service, and technical support…If you happen to own a business and are looking for CRM applications, I have here a list of some of the most well-known free and open-source customer relationship management (CRM) software…CiviCRM is an open source CRM software that calls itself a "constituent relationship management solution". From its project website, it is described as a powerful contact, fundraising and eCRM system that allow you to record and manage information about your various constituents including volunteers, activists, donors, employees, clients, vendors…Opentaps is an open source CRM + ERP that is based on Apache OFBiz. It is web based, and it is aimed towards small to medium sized businesses…openCRX is an enterprise class open source CRM software that is loaded with powerful features such as role-based security, system-wide/pervasive audit-trail, true platform independence, virtually unlimited scalability, and more. It is web based…vtiger CRM is an open source CRM software that was forked from SugarCRM with the goal of being a fully open source CRM application and having the same functionality of SugarCRM and Salesforce.com…hipergate is an open source web based software suite that is written entirely in Java…other popular open source CRM software…are OpenERP, Adempiere, and Compiere…”

26. When Will Intel Fix the Linux Graphics Poulsbo Mess? http://ostatic.com/blog/when-will-intel-fix-the-poulsbo-mess “Once upon a time, you could buy a laptop or netbook with an Intel chipset and be confident that it would work well with Linux. That changed drastically with the release of the GMA500 video chipset, named "Poulsbo." Intel let its users down by rebranding a chip made by PowerVR, which is not supported with the mainline Linux kernel and X.org…users who have machines with Poulsbo chipsets are still waiting for Intel to make good. It's very disappointing to spend a few hundred bucks on a machine that should have Linux support and find out you're stuck with a lemon. I picked up one of the afflicted Acer machines via Woot a few months ago…”

SkyNet

27. Now You Can Try Out Google Docs Without A Google Account http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/04/now-you-can-try-out-google-docs-without-a-google-account/ “If you’ve ever tried explaining Google Docs to a long-time Microsoft Office user who isn’t familiar with buzzwords like “cloud computing” and “real-time collaboration”, you probably know that it can be a trying task…sometimes the lightbulb doesn’t really turn on for people until they’ve tried it for themselves…Google…just launched a new site at docs.google.com/demo, which allows users to try full-fledged versions of its word processor, spreadsheet, and drawing tool without a Google account…Using the site…you’ll see a newly generated document instructing you to start typing, along with a notice that the sample document you’re editing is only available for 24 hours…the document comes with a link that allows you to invite other users to collaboratively edit it (again, these invited users won’t need to have a Google account)…it’s not exactly a huge new feature, but it significantly lowers the barrier to entry to getting people to try out Docs for themselves…”

28. Chrome and Rust: Pros and Cons of Google's Browser http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3886246/Chrome-and-Rust-Pros-and-Cons-of-Googles-Browser.htm “…Google Chrome is the third most widely used web browser, coming after Internet Explorer and Firefox with a 7% market share. However, until the recently, the GNU/Linux version lagged behind…with the recent release of the 5.0.375 beta, GNU/Linux users can get the first real sense of Chrome…packages for the Chrome beta are available for 32 and 64 bit Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE…you might want to read the end-user's license agreement…When you download an official package, the license assumes that you have implicitly agreed not to copy or distribute it…the license also states that, by downloading, you grant Google the right to update without notifying you…Chrome's best-known feature is its speed. My own rough estimate is that is that it starts about 10% faster than Firefox, and loads pages about 35% faster on average…this speed disappeared when I opened 23 tabs at once. In fact, Firefox was about 25% faster in completely loading all the tabs. Could Chrome's opening of each tab as a separate thread actually be a handicap with large numbers of tabs?... Adobe Flash Player is integrated into Chrome, and updated automatically…Chrome now has an extension library to rival Firefox's…the five top-rated Chrome extensions are One Manga Reader, Facebook Photo Zoom, Feedly, Chromey Calculator, and Google Mail Checker Plus, most of whose functions should be guessable from their names…Chrome is the biggest development in browsers since Netscape created the Mozilla Organization. As such, it has been the center of mostly uncritical hype…As Chrome moves towards first release, it is likely to become the main influence on other browsers as well, especially Firefox…”

29. Google Maps previews in Gmail and Google Buzz http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-maps-previews-in-gmail-and.html “I often receive emails containing addresses in them — where to meet for dinner, the location of my friend's new apartment, etc. To find out where these places actually are, I have to copy the address, open up Google Maps, and paste it in. Today, we're making it easier to see maps of all the addresses you receive in Gmail and Google Buzz. Enable "Google Maps previews in mail" from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings, and any time you receive an address or a Google Maps link in an email, a preview will appear containing an interactive Google Map of that location…”

General Technology

30. DWFTTW http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/downwind-faster-than-the-wind/ “…Rick Cavallaro and his friends have built a wind-powered vehicle that travels downwind faster than the wind, solving a riddle that can start fights. The unusual wind-powered car hit a top speed 2.86 times faster than the wind during one recent run...The counterintuitive idea that you can travel downwind faster than the wind is casus belli for aerodynamic arguments from internet forums to college classrooms. The concept known as DWFTTW can cause world-renowned physicists to throw their Nobel Prizes in fits of rage. “People’s intuition is extremely strong on the topic,” Cavallaro, an aerodynamicist and avid kitesurfer and paraglider, said. “There are literally thousands of pages of debate on internet forums about the topic.”...Cavallaro did the math and built a model to prove DWFTTW is possible. Skeptics weren’t convinced. “I thought people would say, ‘That’s cool,’ but they didn’t. They said, ‘Wow, you’re an idiot.’ So we decided to build a full-size one. That’s when we approached a couple of sponsors.” Cavallaro lined up help from Google and Joby Energy and set to work with the San Jose State University aero department on an ultralight, four-wheeled vehicle with a 17-foot-tall propeller…”

31. Reinventing the Gasoline Engine http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25453/?a=f “…researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison could cut fuel consumption by about 30 percent in cars and by almost 20 percent in heavy trucks. In gas-powered cars, the new design would add little to the cost of the engine. In heavy-duty trucks, it would substantially reduce costs by eliminating the need for expensive after-treatment systems to reduce emissions. The concept, which has been demonstrated in test engines, involves precisely mixing two different fuels in the combustion chamber, which gives greater control over both the timing and duration of combustion. It could provide a way to meet fuel economy regulations without the more expensive electric motors and batteries found in hybrid vehicles (although for still greater efficiency, the new design could be incorporated into a hybrid vehicle)…The design has two versions, one for replacing heavy-duty diesel engines and another, to be unveiled this fall, that would replace conventional gasoline engines. Both use the same combustion process that makes diesel engines significantly more efficient than gasoline engines--compressing fuel and air until it reaches pressures and temperatures that cause it to ignite, rather than using a spark to ignite the fuel…”

32. Slow Going on Cellulosic Biofuels http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25471/ “ZeaChem, based in Lakewood, CO, has begun construction of a 250,000-gallon-per-year demonstration plant in Boardman, OR…Initially, the ZeaChem plant will convert sugar into ethyl acetate, a solvent used in making paints and in decaffeinating coffee…Within a year, ZeaChem plans to add equipment to this process that will allow the production of cellulosic ethanol…The plant is scheduled to begin producing both ethyl acetate and ethanol by next year. ZeaChem hopes to start construction on a 25 to 50 million gallon per year commercial cellulosic ethanol plant by 2012, says CEO Jim Imbler, but only after starting up a commercial ethyl-acetate plant. ZeaChem's plans to put off making biofuels reflect the economic challenges that have kept large-scale commercial cellulosic ethanol production from proceeding as fast as many expected. A renewable fuel standard signed into law in late 2007 requires the use of 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in the United States this year and will ramp up to 16 billion gallons by 2022. But so far no commercial plants are operating…The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in February that it was scaling back the mandates to just 6.5 million gallons…”

33. The Case of the Random IE Crash http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2010/06/01/3335060.aspx “While I long for the day when I no longer experience the effects of buggy software, there’s something rewarding about solving my own troubleshooting cases. In the process, I often come up with new techniques to add to my bag of tricks…The other day I successfully closed an especially interesting case that opened when Internet Explorer (IE) crashed as I was reading a web page…Whenever I experience a crash, whether it’s the system or an application, I always take a look at it…many times after spending just a few minutes I find clues that point at an add-on as the cause and ultimately a fix or workaround. In most cases when it’s an application crash, the faulty process is obvious and I simply launch Windbg (from the free Debugging Tools for Windows package that comes with the Windows SDK and Windows DDK), attach it to the process, and start investigating…”

Leisure & Entertainment

34. Lord of the Rings Online goes free-to-play this fall http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/06/04/lord-of-the-rings-online-goes-free-to-play-this-fall/ “Lord of the Rings Online will become a free-to-play game this fall as its new owner launches a major upgrade. The move is another validation of the free-to-play business model, where gamers can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as better weapons or decorative gear for their game characters. The business model has been popular in Asia but only recently took off in the U.S…Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the game division of the film giant Warner Bros., owns Lord of the Rings Online, since it purchased Turbine…Turbine saw good results when it took one of its slow-growing games, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and converted it to free-to-play…The move to make Lord of the Rings Online free-to-play shows Warner Bros. is serious about making a big investment in the Lord of the Rings franchise, which some say may have peaked with the Peter Jackson movie trilogy…”

35. Firefox add-on game ‘Destroy The Web’ lets you blast away the Internet http://www.geek.com/articles/games/firefox-add-on-game-destroy-the-web-lets-you-blast-away-the-internet-2010065/ “You ever have one of those days? Server meltdown? Failed hard drive? Smoke coming from your PSU? When nothing seems to be going your way might I suggest a little app that will help you relax a little and take out some of your frustrations on the Internet itself. This Firefox add-on installs a menacing little “Destroy this page!” icon on the Firefox toolbar and all you have to do is load up your favorite or even not-so-favorite webpages and hit the button. Soon afterwards, you are greeted to arcade music and a countdown timer…as the music plays, you given a set of arcade cross-hairs that lets you blast away at the web content you are viewing…”

36. Why Apple’s iBooks Numbers Are Meaningless http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/why-apples-ibook-numbers-are-meaningless/ “…Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said that big publishers had told him that sales of e-books for the iPad now accounted for 22 percent of all e-book sales…The 22 percent number means little because it does not reflect the entire publishing industry. Most small publishers, along with one of the largest in the world, Random House, do not sell books through Apple. Amazon has always been particularly strong at selling lesser known books in the so-called “long tail” of publisher’s catalogs…Still, Mr. Jobs said that iPad owners downloaded over five million books in the last two months, or 2.5 books per iPad. Although it is not clear how many of these books are free, this is still a troubling trend for Amazon…”

Economy and Technology

37. MasterCard Lets IPhone Owners Send or Receive Money With App http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/197979/mastercard_lets_iphone_owners_send_or_receive_money_with_app.html “Using MasterCard's MoneySend application, iPhone and iPad users will be able to send or receive money using their phone or tablet…MoneySend only works in the U.S. and the service can be used for everyday payments to the babysitter or a child at college who is low on funds, or to let someone else pay back a loan…Sending money costs US$0.29 for transfers up to $50, $0.99 for transfers up to $200, and $2.95 over that. There is no charge for receiving money. The maximum amount of money a user can send with MoneySend is $2,500 per month…”

38. BP Buys 'Oil' Search Terms to Redirect to Company Website http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Broadcast/bp-buys-search-engine-phrases-redirecting-users/story?id=10835618 “Be careful where you click, especially if you're looking for news on the BP oil spill. BP…has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website…A spokesman for the company confirmed to ABC News that it had, in fact, bought these search terms to make information on the spill more accessible to the public…”

39. Zappos’ approach to happy customers, investors and employees http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/06/sunday/main6553702.shtml “…At a time when many retailers are struggling, Zappos (derived from the Spanish word for shoes, zapatos) is thriving, thanks in part to a unique company culture - and its 36-year-old CEO, Tony Hsieh. "Our whole belief is that everyone's a little weird somehow," said Hsieh, "and so it's really more just a fun way of saying that we really want people's true personalities to shine in the workplace."…he's outlined his philosophy in the book "Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose"…the book is another way to help spread the message that it's actually possible to make employees happy, make customers happy, and still make investors happy … and you know, still have profits," Hsieh said. He's not kidding. Zappos is now so successful that last fall Amazon paid $1.2 billion to acquire it. Hsieh, who works out of a cubicle and earns as CEO less than $37,000 a year, never imagined he would one day run a shoe store. "I'm not a shoe person at all," he said. "I used to wear one pair of shoes for two years until there were holes in it and it was falling apart and then buy another pair."…as the oldest of three boys growing up in California, Hsieh was supposed to be a doctor - or at least that's what his parents had in mind…even at that early age, he showed a flair for doing things his own way. To avoid practicing every day, Hsieh would lock himself in his bedroom and play recorded tapes of himself on the piano….After graduating from Harvard, naturally, Hsieh joined the dot.com craze. In 1998, he sold an online venture Link/Exchange, to Microsoft, and walked away with over $30 million. He was just 24!...selling shoes on the Internet presented a particular challenge: People were used to trying on shoes before buying them…"The challenge is, how do you get customers to try out Zappos for the first time?" said Hsieh (left). So Zappos began offering something very few other companies do: free shipping and free returns for up to a year. It worked…”

40. The next Silicon Valley? It may be New York http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/06/07/internet.week.new.york/ “Silicon Valley -- or Silicon Alley? To non-techies, that's the San Francisco Bay Area versus New York…New York is turning up the heat on its West Coast competition with some successful startups of its own: think Tumblr, the blogging platform; Foursquare, the mobile social-networking game; and Gilt Groupe, an online store for discounted designer clothes…Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the creation of a $22 million venture capital fund to invest in promising New York-based tech companies…One common thread among industry experts is that if your startup needs heavy engineering, it's better to stick to the West Coast…"A lot of the innovation that's happening at the moment is not at the core of technology; it's not fundamental software. A lot of the innovation is social. On those dimensions, [New York] obviously has a lot to offer…"I don't know if New York will ever become Silicon Valley," Flint added. "In some ways, do you want it to become Silicon Valley? The culture here is very different than the culture there."…The average price of a two-bedroom apartment is $1.38 million in New York, according to Trulia, a real estate website. In San Francisco, that two-bedroom will cost you about $775,000. "You can go to the Midwest, [and] there are plenty of places where you can get very low rents and very low taxes," Bloomberg said in promoting his city as a tech center, "but there is no one to talk to in the context of people who are in your business.”

Civilian Aerospace

41. SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket enjoys successful maiden flight http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10209704.stm “…SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has enjoyed a successful maiden test flight…The rocket, which could one day carry astronauts, blasted-off from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1845 GMT…Before the rocket can be allowed to launch humans, it has to first demonstrate performance and reliability in the role of lofting robotic spacecraft…For its maiden flight, the Falcon 9 carried a cut-down version of its Dragon freighter - a blunt-nosed, 3.7m-wide capsule that will collect engineering performance data during the ascent. On future flights, Dragon will be filled with supplies for the International Space Station. Historically, the maiden flights of rockets have a notoriously high failure rate. Some two-thirds of the rockets introduced in the past 20 years have had an unsuccessful first outing…”

42. Your flight is now departing from space terminal 1 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1283188/Your-flight-departing-space-terminal-1-The-amazing-story-Sir-Richard-Bransons-new-Virgin-Galactic-project.html “The first thing you notice about the Mojave Air & Space Port is the large number of commercial airliners just sitting around under the desert sun. The climate here means it's the perfect place for aircraft manufacturers to store planes whose owners haven't managed to finish paying for them…five miles to the west is the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm - the second-biggest in the world, with more than 5,000 wind turbines. It's a weird landscape; and it seems to inspire off-the-wall businesses, and the one-of-a-kind thinkers who run them…Virgin Galactic isn't the only company taking the business of space tourism seriously. But it's further along with its preparations than its competitors, with its Sir Norman Foster-designed Spaceport America due to be completed next year in New Mexico, and its spaceship three months into its flight-test programme…There's been just over 500 people in space since 1961 - we hope to carry 500 in our first year.'…The plan is…to build three launch aircraft and five spaceships, as Virgin Galactic works towards taking fare-paying 'participants' into sub-orbit space from 2012, and progress towards its goal of three daily spaceflights…computers do not control any of the onboard flight systems: there are computers, but they're used solely for monitoring and informational purposes…both mothership and spacecraft are operated using traditional stick-and-rudder mechanical aircraft systems…Even the mechanism that changes the angle of SpaceShipTwo's wings - enabling it to adopt a fanned-out shuttlecock shape when plummeting back into Earth's atmosphere - is manual, with a lever that operates a hydraulic system. This is…to ensure that all the systems used will be as simple, and therefore as safe, as possible. This thinking extends to the rocket propulsion system as well…The spacecraft will be fitted with a plug-in rocket booster, which can be removed after touchdown and a new fuel plug inserted to power the next flight. The fuel…sounds about as explosive as a wet salad. SpaceShipTwo will be powered by one of two solid fuels - rubber or recycled nylon…unlike other solid fuel engines this one can be switched off…it's this rocket propulsion system that means the whole Virgin Galactic enterprise is shrouded in mystery. Cockpit or interior photos are unavailable because, as the system relies on rocket technology, the whole project is treated under U.S. law as if it was a weapon…”

43. Old Moon Rover Beams Surprising Laser Flashes to Earth http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/03jun_oldrover/ “…A Soviet robot lost on the dusty plains of the Moon for the past 40 years has been found again, and it is returning surprisingly strong laser pulses to Earth. "We shined a laser on Lunokhod 1's position, and we were stunned by the power of the reflection…In 1970, Time magazine described the robot's historic landing: "Three hours after reaching the Moon aboard the latest unmanned Russian Moon probe, Luna 17, Lunokhod I (literally "moonwalker") lumbered down one of two ramps extended by the mother ship and moved forward…The remote-controlled rover traveled almost 7 miles during its 11 month lunar tour, relaying thousands of TV images and hundreds of high-resolution panoramas of the Moon back to Earth. It also sampled and analyzed lunar soil at 500 locations. Then Lunokhod-1 was lost – until last month…Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Apollo astronauts placed three other retroflectors on the Moon to allow laser ranging of the Moon's orbit. Assisted by a fourth reflector on Lunokhod 2, a twin of Lunokhod 1 that landed in 1973, these mirrors constitute the only Apollo science experiment still operating…With Lunokhod 1 back in the fold, the laser ranging study can get up to full throttle for the first time. The scientists are using laser ranging to push hard on Einstein's gravity theory "to see if we can break it," says Murphy…"Our telescope shoots out laser pulses that travel from Earth to the Moon and ping the reflectors. Because these are all 'corner-cube reflectors,' they send the pulse straight back where it came from. We scoop up as many of the returning photons as possible." The round-trip travel time pinpoints the Earth-Moon distance. With repeated measurements, over months and years, the scientists can trace the Moon's orbit with millimeter precision…”

44. Bill Nye the new Planetary Society Exec Director http://planetary.org/about/press/releases/2010/0607_Bill_Nye_Signs_on_as_Planetary.html “Bill Nye the Science Guy® will take the helm as the new Executive Director of the Planetary Society. Louis Friedman, co-founder and Executive Director since the organization began 30 years ago, is stepping down in September, 2010, but will remain closely involved with the non-profit space group…A member of the Planetary Society's Board of Directors for more than a decade, Nye has been its Vice-President since 2005…Nye credits Planetary Society co-founder Sagan with introducing him to the wonders of astronomy during a class at Cornell University, where Nye earned his degree in Mechanical Engineering. As a scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, Nye wants to make science as entertaining and accessible as possible. His first job after college was working as an engineer at the Boeing Company…”

45. To Mars and back – virtually http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/to-mars-and-back---virtually/article1590203/ “…The ripped and ready crew of Mars500 will spend 520 days inside a sealed-up capsule in Moscow…they’ll complete the first simulated human mission to Mars, a test drive that will be influential in planning future trips to the red planet. “There’s never been a simulation that has lasted so long, that took place in something very similar to the actual future space capsule in which people will be going to Mars…Mars500 is made up of a six-member crew and one Russian backup. The European Space Agency chose Diego Urbina, a 27-year-old Colombian-Italian, and Frenchman Romain Charles, 31. Sukhrob Kamolov, 32, Alexey Sitev, 38, Alexandr Smoleevskiy, 33, and Mikhail Sinelnikov, 37, are all from Russia and Wang Yue, 26, will represent China…It will also be interesting to see how cultural differences play out in the capsule, he says. “We’ve done research on mixed nationality space crews and what we find is they get along quite well, but they don’t necessarily understand each other.” Even if a person is a fluent in a learned language, he says, cultural nuances can get lost in translation and cause communication breakdowns…They’ll spend 250 days doing flight tasks and experiments on their way to “Mars,” then climb into a fake landing module, donning spacesuits on a simulated Mars surface roughly akin to a sandpit. After 30 days on the surface, they’ll make the return trip, which takes 240 days. Because they’re confined to the 550-cubic metre space…There’s a medical room, a greenhouse and narrow sleeping pods with cot-like beds. They’ll dine on heavily pre-processed food; entrees such as beefsteak, cartons of mango juice and boxed pastries. The crew will stay in contact with the outside world via radio link…Their day-to-day life will also be videotaped…A long sentence of confinement comes with psychological, social and physical risks, says Prof. Suedfeld. Not only could the team go stir-crazy, the monotony could drum up social tensions and make them lash out…Past missions serve as cautionary tales. A 1999 experiment on the Moscow base backfired when a Russian captain forcibly kissed a female Canadian crew member…If the simulation is successful, it will advance the knowledge of how humans interact with each other in space and make for much smoother missions to Mars in the future…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

46. Researchers hope to build autonomous 'Batmobile' http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20006857-52.html “…researchers are working on developing a computer that they hope could one day mimic the visualization systems of the human brain. And while there could be many practical applications for such research, one of the sexiest is a potential autonomous vehicle that could use its visualization acumen to navigate roadside dangers or impassable terrain…Nicolas Pinto, a Ph.D. student specializing in brain visualization research at MIT…is partnered on the project with David Cox at Harvard's Rowland Institute, explained that research indicates the brain has computing power of at least 20 petaflops, or roughly 20 times the world's most powerful supercomputer…at the moment, Pinto said, the best technology he and his partner have found for the job is state-of-the-art GPUs from Nvidia. In part, he added, that's because, as unfunded university researchers, he and Cox are running their experiments on Linux computers, and Nvidia's GPUs are the best option for that operating system…Nvidia is offering the research team a powerful software stack that helps with coding the GPUs…Pinto and Cox are working--with no specific time frame--on enabling their computers to be visually aware technology…for an autonomous vehicle to do things like recognize an object as a pedestrian…My long-term dream is to build a cheap, autonomous, and intelligent robot-car--like a Batmobile—that…could greatly improve security and health…minimize energy use…reduce productive time wasted…and optimize urban space for people…”

47. OnLive, A Cloud-Based Video Gaming System http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/06/03/d8-demo-onlive-a-cloud-based-video-gaming-system/ “…on Thursday morning, the start-up OnLive CEO Steve Perlman demonstrated their new cloud-based gaming service, which officially launches June 17. The idea is that you can play a wide variety of console quality games interactively over the Web…You can play on PCs or Macs, but you can also play on a TV, with a little adapter device that has power, Ethernet and HDMI plugs. Perlman says the electronics in the box costs less than the case and connectors…you need to be within 1,000 miles of one of the company’s data centers, which right now are in Santa Clara, California; near D.C.; and in Texas, near Dallas…In a technology demo, they showed OnLine running on an iPad, and it looks great…they can actually deliver anything with this system - not just games. He says the system is connected to the largest supercomputer in the world - by far the largest datacenter deployment based in the world based on GPUs. Movies, he says, are trivially easy. Netflix runs fine on this, he notes…This was easily the most impressive demo at the conference so far…”

48. HPC Links Announces 'SuperLinks' http://www.hpcwire.com/offthewire/HPC-Links-Announces-SuperLinks-HPC-Platform-95422889.html “HPC Links Pvt…is partnering with Supermicro and NVIDIA and using Intel's manycore technology to offer a new HPC cluster platform named SuperLinks…SuperLinks is a hybrid, multicore cluster supercomputing platform with CPU/GPU combination, superior power efficiency and management, balanced memory, IO and network bandwidth optimized for our customers' most demanding HPC applications. These…incorporates Intel Gulftown and NVIDIA Fermi processors. Both Linux and Windows HPC Server software environments are supported…SuperLinks brings additional value to the customers in the form of HPC Links' parallel application programming, research, development, scaling and optimization services, including cross platform application migration. HPC Links' unique, multidisciplinary parallel programming skill pool strives to find a solution for HPC users' pressing application performance needs…”

49. Battery Pack Modeling and Simulation Key to PHEV Success http://www.hpcwire.com/offthewire/Battery-Pack-Modeling-and-Simulation-Key-to-PHEV-Success-95560939.html?viewAll=y “To help develop more effective battery management systems for plug-in hybrid vehicles, an Ohio State University researcher programmed a supercomputer to simulate the characteristics and behavior of individual lithium-ion batteries as they are arranged in an automotive battery pack. A vehicle's battery management system (BMS) monitors and protects the battery pack, prolongs its life and keeps it ready to deliver full power when called upon. The BMS equalizes the voltage drawn from each of the cells and interfaces with other on-board systems, such as engine management, climate control, communications and safety…until now, these configurations had not been empirically tested to determine how the state-of-charge (SoC) deviation -- and therefore battery life -- is affected by changing temperature and energy load on individual cells. Benjamin "BJ" Yurkovich, a graduate research fellow at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) at The Ohio State University, recently collaborated with the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) to better understand the characteristics and behavior of large battery packs…”

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