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The Weak of September 27, 1999 Sun to make Solaris code available ZDNN Sun Microsystems Inc., in a major shift, plans to begin making the source code of its Solaris operating system freely available to the public in an attempt to parallel the success of the popular Linux operating system. Sun (Nasdaq:SUN) doesn't intend to simply give away Solaris, its version of Unix that the company runs on its entire line of computer servers and workstations. But the Palo Alto, Calif., computer maker does plan to make the Solaris source code -- the computer instructions that set out exactly how the program works -- available under its "community-source license," said Greg Papadopoulos, the company's chief technology officer. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2345514,00.html Researchers solve vision mystery EurekAlert! TORONTO - Researchers at McMaster University, The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) and University of Toronto have unravelled the mystery of what causes the vision of human babies to improve so rapidly after birth. Vision scientists were previously unclear as to whether the five-fold visual improvement that babies experience within the first six months of life was built into the developing brain or depended on the babies actually using their eyes. The research is reported in the October 1 issue of the journal Science. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/hfsk-rsv092999.html 3D Circuits – Changing The Shape Of Things To Come AlphaGalileo A new technology that allows 3-D electronic circuits to be moulded into plastic objects is set to change the shape of tomorrow’s technology by allowing designers much greater freedom and providing excellent weight and space savings. The technology, being developed by Interconnection and Electronics Chemicals in the UK, can be used to produce products that can be assembled with lower production costs than using traditional technologies and are 100 per cent recyclable. http://www.alphagalileo.org/fetchpn.asp?id=2343&accept_language=en Say goodbye to wires in the office EurekAlert! Mirror balls-think John Travolta-have inspired an idea for improving the way computers communicate over a wireless office network. Local networks that use infrared beams run into problems when people walk into the beam and cut the link-a big problem in crowded offices. Channel-surfing couch potatoes have a similar problem when someone gets in the way of their TV remote control. The frustration could soon be over thanks to a device called a chaos mirror, invented at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) in Kyoto, Japan. This distant cousin of the mirror ball splits a narrow incoming beam into a widely spread array of reflected beams, vastly increasing the chances of the beam finding the intended receiver. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ns-sgt092999.html Robots to the rescue EurekAlert! A robotic caterpillar designed to listen for survivors trapped deep inside wrecked buildings has been built by students in North Carolina. The robot-powered by compressed air-would crawl through gas, water and sewerage pipes inside buildings damaged by earthquakes and explosions, listening for signs of life. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ns-rtt092999.html Novel neural net recognizes spoken words better than human listeners EurekAlert! Machine demonstrates superhuman speech recognition abilities. University of Southern California biomedical engineers have created the world's first machine system that can recognize spoken words better than humans can. A fundamental rethinking of a long-underperforming computer architecture led to their achievement. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/usc-nnn093099.html Beyond Geography: Mapping Unknowns of Cyberspace New York Times The mapping of that vast territory known as cyberspace has begun in earnest. Cyberspace maps are being produced by geographers, cartographers, artists and computer scientists. They range from glorious depictions of globe-spanning communications networks to maps of Web information. Many have no geographic references, instead turning to nature, the cosmos or neuroscience for spatial models. They stretch the definition of a map in their effort to capture, sometimes fancifully, what is sometimes referred to as the "common mental geography" that lies beyond computer screens. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/circuits/articles/30maps.html Internet addiction is real mental illness The Times THE first medical test for the rapidly growing number of Internet addicts has been devised to stop doctors ignoring a serious mental disorder, according to a new report. The test is designed to separate those who are dependent on their computers from those who could happily switch off at any time. It aims to give Internet addiction the official status of disorders such as alcoholism. http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/09/30/timnwshea01001.html?999 Amazon.com Allowing Anyone To Sell Through Its Site NewsBytes Amazon.com Inc. [NASDAQ:AMZN] fulfilled the promise of a "major" announcement made on Tuesday, in saying it'll let any individual or company sell merchandise through its hugely popular Website. The company also said it would extend its "1-Click" payment service to let anyone participating in the new "zShops" accept online payments, and would start a Web-search service "dedicated to shopping." http://www.technews.com/pubNews/99/137033.html What the cat saw New Scientist BY EAVESDROPPING on neurons in the brains of cats, scientists have made videos of what the cats actually see. It confirms that scientists' understanding of the language of certain visual neurons is bang on target. Most neuroscientists study vision from the way neurons respond to different images. This strategy has provided the foundations of our understanding of perception. But the ultimate test is to apply the opposite approach--to reconstruct videos of the ouside world from measurements of the neurons' behaviour. http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991002/newsstory7.html Quantum confidential New Scientist IT COULD HAPPEN in a few months or a few years. But sooner or later, a mathematician could make a discovery that jeopardises international security, threatens the future of Internet commerce, and imperils the privacy of e-mails. Today's codes and ciphers are good, to be sure. But it is probably only a matter of time before they become useless. With the coming of the information age, we rely ever more heavily on cryptography to protect us from snoopers, cyber-crooks and Big Brother. Some of today's most secure codes exploit the fact that while it is easy to multiply two prime numbers together, it is almost impossible to start with the answer and work out which two primes were used to create it. But the day a mathematical genius discovers a short cut for finding the hidden prime numbers, these codes will crumble. What everyone is looking for is a new form of code, one that is truly unbreakable. That's where the quantum world comes in. Exploiting the strange uncertainties of quantum physics can give you a code that nobody--no matter how clever--will ever be able to crack. http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991002/quantumcon.html CIA sets up firm to invest in intelligence technologies The Nando Times WASHINGTON (September 29, 1999 12:09 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The CIA, not wanting to miss the boat on the Internet age or be outsmarted by tech-savvy adversaries, is teaming up with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to invest in companies developing computer technologies that could help with intelligence gathering. Forgoing its usual clandestine ways, the agency has set up its own venture capital firm - with money appropriated by Congress - with offices in Washington and Palo Alto, Calif. It will invest in promising new start-up hi-tech companies. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500039359-500063830-500088357-0,00.html Old spacecraft makes surprise discovery BBC News Scientists have discovered a new object orbiting the Sun after a spaceprobe was mysteriously knocked off course. Researchers have yet to identify the object, but they are confident it exists because of the way it appears to have deflected the tiny Pioneer 10 craft, which is hurtling out towards the stars. If the observations are confirmed by other astronomers, it will be only the second time in history that a Solar System object has been discovered by its gravitational effect alone. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_460000/460095.stm Lucent servers demo speech-recognition capabilities EDTN network MILPITAS, Calif. — Using Bell Labs neural-based designs adapted to run over a local-area network, Lucent Technologies has demonstrated its first speech-recognition servers. Lucent's Voice Director is loaded onto a user's NT workstation, then accesses full voice-recognition services over a network. Integrated with Lucent's voice-messaging system and compatible with multivendor environments, Voice Director responds to commands spoken into a telephone. http://www.edtn.com/story/tech/OEG19990927S0099-T ARM strikes separate deals with Ericsson, 3Com EDTN network ARM Ltd. announced last night that it will work with Ericsson Mobile Communications AB to promote technology based on the Bluetooth wireless communications protocol, while separately licensing 3Com Corp. to use its ARM7TDMI embedded core. http://www.edtn.com/story/biz/OEG19990928S0010-T Chandra image shows a powerful connection in the Crab Nebula EurekAlert! Sept. 29, 1999: Superlatives were the order of the day as a team of astronomers revealed the best ever X-ray image of the Crab Nebula, the most studied object in the night sky. The picture showed a glowing ring encircling the Crab and apparently serving as the missing connector between the powerhouse at the center and the light show in the outskirts. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/sslh-cis092999.html Distant gamma-rays provide first test of quantum gravity AlphaGalileo A first test of quantum gravity has been made by a team* of researchers from Ireland, the UK and the US, using a ground-based gamma-ray telescope. Dr Steve Biller of the University of Oxford has led an analysis looking for the effects of quantum gravity in high-energy gamma-rays from a distant active galaxy. The results begin to rule out some of the more extreme ideas in theories of quantum gravity. http://www.alphagalileo.org/fetchpn.asp?id=2340&accept_language=en Digital Bond To Demonstrate Major Internet Security Flaw NewsBytes Internet brokerage firms may be scurrying for cover later today, after Digital Bond demonstrates what it calls a major flaw with online services associated with the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption mechanism. http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/99/136929.html U.S. Secretary of Commerce announces agreements on domain name management United States Department of Commerce Washington - Commerce Secretary William M. Daley today announced that the Department of Commerce, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) have reached a series of agreements that will allow transition of the domain name system to the private sector to move forward. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agreements/92899secpr.htm See and say: Wireless video phone on the way CNN.com TOKYO (IDG) -- In anticipation of the expected boom in wireless devices when third-generation (3G) cellular technology rolls out in early 2001, NEC has developed a prototype of a two-piece 3G video handset which transmits images and sound simultaneously. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/27/nec.vid.phone.idg/index.html Heavy books light on learning EurekAlert! Washington, DC-- Not one of the widely used science textbooks for middle school was rated satisfactory by Project 2061, the long-term science, mathematics, and technology education reform initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). And the new crop of texts that have just entered the market fared no better in the study. The in-depth study found that most textbooks cover too many topics and don't develop any of them well. All texts include many classroom activities that are either irrelevant to learning key science ideas or don't help students relate what they are doing to the underlying ideas. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/aaas-hbl092499.html Conference finds fiber headed for metro-area nets EDTN network CHICAGO — The common message at this week's National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference will be the enhanced uses of fiber optics in metropolitan-area networks, with rollouts spanning transceiver components to full-scale transmission systems. http://www.edtn.com/story/prod/OEG19990927S0049 Sprint PCS debuts wireless phones with Internet link The Nando Times (September 26, 1999 12:21 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Sprint PCS has unveiled the broadest launch yet of wireless phones and service capable of viewing e-mail and personalized Internet information, from weather and travel directions to stock quotes and breaking news. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/body/0,1634,500038065-500061715-500037682-0,00.html Japan foresees home invasion of robots The Nando Times TOKYO (September 27, 1999 10:17 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The arena rocks with cheers and shouts when the referee signals for the bout to begin. Pushing and shoving, the wrestlers try furiously to drive each other toward the edge of the ring. It's just like a real sumo tournament - except the wrestlers are robots. Japan, a global leader in industrial robotics, is now turning out mechanical marvels that walk, talk and even swim - placing a new focus on robots that serve more as companion or entertainer than servant. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/body/0,1634,500038482-500062436-500037790-0,00.html Corning Unveils Optical Switch Yahoo! News CORNING, N.Y. (AP) - A single strand of optical fiber can handle 5 million telephone conversations at once, or up to 320 billion bits of voice, video or Internet traffic each second. In just 15 years, 120 million miles of fiber-optic cable have been installed worldwide. That much alone can handle more information than all the billions of miles of copper wiring laid down over the last century. Someday, the networks connecting phones and computers might use light from end to end in place of electricity. That dazzling Information Age notion inched closer to reality recently with Corning Inc.'s (NYSE:GLW - news) unveiling of two prototypes of a key component in this hyper-speed technology: the optical switch. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19990926/tc/optical_switches_1.html Will You Pay Internet Tolls? Excite News In a new take on Internet taxation, Utah and other states plan to charge access fees to companies laying cable for Internet and other telecommunications services along interstate highways. Utah's Rights of Way Task Force earlier this year recommended a one-time $500-per-mile charge for telecom firms installing cable along right-of-way strips bordering interstates. But Utah governor Michael Leavitt has rejected the recommendation and has publicly suggested an annual fee of $1,000 per mile. Still, some observers in Utah say fees under consideration run as high as $250,000 per mile. http://news.excite.com/news/zd/990927/05/will-you-pay IBM to launch e-biz security chip ZDNet NEW YORK -- International Business Machines Corp. plans to launch Tuesday a security system that it hopes will set the industry standard for protecting confidential documents such as those used in the growing area of electronic commerce. Unlike previous security measures that rely on software "firewalls" that filter out unauthorized users of information, IBM (NYSE:IBM) has developed a security chip embedded within the computer hardware, which, it says, adds additional levels of security. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2341719,00.html?chkpt=hpqs014 Linux heads for the data center ZDNet Linux could be on its way to the data center if an ambitious new project comes to fruition. The project, being worked on by the Linux Cluster Cabal, aims to bring clustering to Linux. Clustering technology lets users harness multiple servers together to make one high-performance server. Originally created by Digital Equipment Corp. (NYSE:DEC) to give minicomputers the power of mainframes, it has extended into other arenas, including Unix. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2C4586%2C2341316%2C00.html Study finds male-female salary gap lower in engineering jobs National Science Foundation Recent studies have found that in the United States, women earn between 71-74 cents for every dollar earned by men.[2] However, such findings often do not take into account a variety of factors that alone or together may explain much of this gap between men’s and women’s salaries. This issue brief examines the gender salary gap in engineering, an occupation in which women held 10 percent of the jobs in 1995.[3] Using multivariate regression analysis, the authors explored various potential explanations for the salary gap in this occupation. The study showed that the salary gap is primarily explained by the fact that female engineers, on average, have fewer years of experience since their first baccalaureate degree than males; salaries of female and male engineers with similar years of experience are virtually the same. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/issuebrf/sib99352.htm Duke chemist describes 'flourescent' method for computing with DNA Duke University DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University chemists versed at conducting large numbers of simultaneous DNA reactions on the surfaces of tiny glass microchips have demonstrated how to use a recent modification of this technique as a precise molecular computer. http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/Research/sat.htm Father-daughter relationship crucial to when girls enter puberty EurekAlert! NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A young girl's relationship with her family, especially with her father, may influence at what age she enters puberty, according to Vanderbilt University researchers. Girls with close, supportive relationships with their parents tend to develop later, while girls with cold or distant relationships with their parents develop at an earlier age. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/News/news/sept99/nr16a.html Team developing new ways to handle data deluge EurekAlert! The fountain of information at the heart of science has become a fire hose, and an increase to river-like volumes is on the way. An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Alexander Szalay, Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University, is developing new ways to store, access and search large volumes of data. Participants in the Hopkins-led collaborative include scientists from Cal Tech, the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab and Microsoft Corp. They have been working together for several years already; this month they will receive the first formal support for their efforts in a 3-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/jhun-tdn092499.html Bill would prohibit Net taxes CNET.com Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't want the Net bled to death by tax collectors--not now and not ever. While a congressional commission studies Net taxation, McCain (R-Arizona), who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has introduced legislation to make a moratorium on "discriminatory" Net taxes permanent. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-122979.html?tag=st.ne.1002.bgif?st.ne.f Competition Is Changing the Internet Address Business New York Times First there was free e-mail. Then came free PCs. Now, thanks to competition in the Internet address registration business, a company is also promising free domain names. The offering by iDirections.com, a start-up in Los Gatos, Calif., is just one example of what competition could bring to the business that was previously run by Network Solutions under an exclusive government contract. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/cyber/articles/24domain.html Tech-worker shortage is probed at hearings Mercury Center High-tech companies have become so creative in finding ways to fill highly technical jobs despite a labor shortage that they may have undermined their case for allowing more foreign workers into the country. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/visas092399.htm U.S. Government to support SGI Vector Supercomputer Development Silicon Graphics, Inc. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Sept. 22, 1999) - SGI (NYSE:SGI) today announced that it will be receiving significant financial development support for the company's Cray SV2TM supercomputer system from several U.S. government agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA). The Cray® system, currently in development, will dramatically extend the capability of supercomputers. Specifically designed to meet the needs of the high-end user, SGI's Cray SV2 will provide exceptional memory bandwidth, interconnections and vector-processing capabilities. http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/1999/sept/vector.html NASA'S Mars Climate Orbiter believed to be lost NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter is believed to be lost due to a suspected navigation error. Early this morning at about 2 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time the orbiter fired its main engine to go into orbit around the planet. All the information coming from the spacecraft leading up to that point looked normal. The engine burn began as planned five minutes before the spacecraft passed behind the planet as seen from Earth. Flight controllers did not detect a signal when the spacecraft was expected to come out from behind the planet. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/99/mcolost.html AT&T Wireless Drops Caller Pays Cell Phone Plan Star Tribune NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Want whoever calls your cellular phone to pay the bill? It' s not likely to happen in this country unless billing rules change dramatically, industy experts and executives say. AT&T Wireless tested the idea in Minneapolis over the summer, but got so few takers that it quietly dropped plans for a national rollout. http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=80942918 Transmeta May Lift Veil On Itself In November Yahoo! News HELSINKI (Reuters) - Silicon-valley's most secretive start-up, Transmeta, may shed light on its business at the Comdex trade fair in Las Vegas in November, one of its most famous employees, Linus Torvalds, said Thursday. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990923/tc/tech_transmeta_1.html New Five-Level Layering Proccess Promises More Reliable, Complex Micromachines Sandia National Laboratories ALBUQUERQUE, NM -- A new advanced five-level polysilicon surface micromachining process pioneered at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories promises that microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) of the future will be more reliable and capable of doing increasingly complex tasks. http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR1999/layer.htm Caught On Camera New Scientist Every day, every minute, video cameras scan the crowds in a busy shopping centre. But this is no ordinary public surveillance system. The faces of all those passers-by are being converted into digital code and processed by computer. Continuously, instantaneously, the facial code of each stranger is compared with that of several dozen local criminals. If there is a match, an alarm sounds in a control room, a human operator double-checks the computer's assessment and alerts the police. http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990925/caughtonca.html |