Fresh technology news, science, and more.

World's Oldest Leather Shoe Found in Armenia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:57:00 +0000

The world's oldest leather shoe found in a cave in Armenia. (Credit: Image courtesy of University College Cork)

(ScienceDaily) -- A perfectly preserved shoe, 1,000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and 400 years older than Stonehenge in the UK, has been found in a cave in Armenia.

The 5,500 year old shoe, the oldest leather shoe in the world, was discovered by a team of international archaeologists and their findings will publish on June 9th in the online scientific journal PLoS ONE.

The cow-hide shoe dates back to ~ 3,500 BC (the Chalcolithic period) and is in perfect condition. It was made of a single piece of leather and was shaped to fit the wearer's foot. It contained grass, although the archaeologists were uncertain as to whether this was to keep the foot warm or to maintain the shape of the shoe, a precursor to the modern shoe-tree perhaps? "It is not known whether the shoe belonged to a man or woman," said lead author of the research, Dr Ron Pinhasi, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland "as while small (European size 37; US size 7 women), the shoe could well have fitted a man from that era." The cave is situated in the Vayotz Dzor province of Armenia, on the Armenian, Iranian, Nakhichevanian and Turkish borders, and was known to regional archaeologists due to its visibility from the highway below.

The stable, cool and dry conditions in the cave resulted in exceptional preservation of the various objects that were found, which included large containers, many of which held well-preserved wheat and barley, apricots and other edible plants. The preservation was also helped by the fact that the floor of the cave was covered by a thick layer of sheep dung which acted as a solid seal over the objects, preserving them beautifully over the millennia!

"We thought initially that the shoe and other objects were about 600-700 years old because they were in such good condition," said Dr Pinhasi. "It was only when the material was dated by the two radiocarbon laboratories in Oxford, UK, and in California, US that we realised that the shoe was older by a few hundred years than the shoes worn by Ötzi, the Iceman."

Three samples were taken in order to determine the absolute age of the shoe and all three tests produced the same results. The archaeologists cut two small strips of leather off the shoe and sent one strip to the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford and another to the University of California -Irvine Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility. A piece of grass from the shoe was also sent to Oxford to be dated and both shoe and grass were shown to be the same age.

The shoe was discovered by Armenian PhD student, Ms Diana Zardaryan, of the Institute of Archaeology, Armenia, in a pit that also included a broken pot and wild goat horns. "I was amazed to find that even the shoe-laces were preserved," she recalled. "We couldn't believe the discovery," said Dr Gregory Areshian, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, US, co-director who was at the site with Mr Boris Gasparyan, co-director, Institute of Archaeology, Armenia when the shoe was found. "The crusts had sealed the artefacts and archaeological deposits and artefacts remained fresh dried, just like they were put in a can," he said.

The oldest known footwear in the world, to the present time, are sandals made of plant material, that were found in a cave in the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri in the US. Other contemporaneous sandals were found in the Cave of the Warrior, Judean Desert, Israel, but these were not directly dated, so that their age is based on various other associated artefacts found in the cave.

Interestingly, the shoe is very similar to the 'pampooties' worn on the Aran Islands (in the West of Ireland) up to the 1950s. "In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of this shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region," said Dr Pinhasi.

"We do not know yet what the shoe or other objects were doing in the cave or what the purpose of the cave was," said Dr Pinhasi. "We know that there are children's graves at the back of the cave but so little is known about this period that we cannot say with any certainty why all these different objects were found together." The team will continue to excavate the many chambers of the cave.

The team involved in the dig included; lead author and co-director, Dr Ron Pinhasi, Archaeology Department, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland; Mr Boris Gasparian, co-director and Ms Diana Zardaryan of the Institute of Archaeology and Enthography, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Armenia; Dr Gregory Areshian, co-director, Research Associate at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, US; Professor Alexia Smith, Department of Anthropology of the University of Connecticut, US, Dr Guy Bar-Oz , Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Israel and Dr Thomas Higham, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, University of Oxford, UK.

The research received funding from the National Geographic Society, the Chitjian Foundation (Los Angeles), US, Mr Joe Gfoeller of the Gfoeller Foundation of US, the Steinmetz Family Foundation,US, the Boochever Foundation, US, and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, US.

Microsoft Understands How IT Guys Feel

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:43:00 +0000

(thenexweb) -- Microsoft suddenly has a fantastic sense of humor.

First, they sent flowers to the funeral of IE6. Now they’re rolling out a new webcomic series called “Where’s the ‘Any’ Key?” The site allows IT professionals to share their worst fail moments from their time doing tech support. From there, users can vote on these anecdotes.

The highest-rated anecdote every week wins its author a Sony Vaio X, £100 in gift certificates to the Microsoft store, and the anecdote is turned into the site’s weekly comic strip.

Why has Microsoft suddenly gotten a sense of humor?

It’s actually surprisingly simple. Microsoft knows that it has to do something to shake its reputation as being both the butt of jokes and the evil empire at the same time. By poking fun at its own flaws, it’s managed to put a human face on a previously imposing corporation.

As you can see from the above comic, it seems like Microsoft’s finally sticking to its core competencies regarding humor, as explained in this page (yes, that really is a MSFT page).

A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:11:00 +0000

In Hong Kong, one residential hi-rise looks much like the next. Tiny box-like apartments are home to most of the city's seven million people. Architect Gary Chang is one of them, although his place is just a little different.

Night Vision Coming Soon To Cell Phones, Eyeglasses

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:48:00 +0000

An image taken through night vision glasses shows soldiers in northern Afghanistan. New technology could make night vision more widely available. AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus

(Discovery) -- Adapting technology found in flat screen television sets, scientists have created a thin film that converts infrared light into visible light. The technology could give cell phones, eyeglasses and car windshields cheap, lightweight night vision.

"This device can convert any infrared image into a visible image and would weigh no more than a pair of eyeglasses," said Franky So, a scientist at the University of Florida who describes his new night vision technology in a recent article in the journal Advanced Materials that was funded in part by advanced technology powerhouse DARPA.

Most night vision devices today use massive amounts of electricity -- often several thousand volts, according to So -- and heavy, glass lenses that maintain a vacuum to make the night come alive. So's device takes a radically different turn, replacing glass with thin plastic, eliminating the vacuum and using energy-efficient, organic LEDs.

So does this by using technology borrowed from flat screen TVs. Infrared light enters the film and is detected by the first of seven separate layers, which generates a slight electrical charge. Additional electrical energy -- about three to five volts -- amplifies that signal, which is then converted back into visible light.

Like most of today's night vision cameras, So's device emits an eerie green light. Unlike most night vision technology today, however, So's design would weigh less than 100 grams (less than a quarter of a pound). Part of that weight is the proof of concept small size -- about one square centimeter -- but So says that even a full scale device could weigh as little as 10 grams and be only a few microns thick.

In other words, heavy and bulky night vision goggles could be replaced with a thin, lightweight coating weighing less than half a deck of playing cards.

It will take about 18 months to scale up the device for practical applications, such as car windshields, lightweight night vision eyeglasses and cell phones cameras.

"Ten years ago when people talked about putting cameras in cell phones, people asked why would you want to do that," said So. "Now you cannot find a cell phone without a camera. In the future, you might not be able to find a cell phone without night vision."

Night vision cell phones could be just the start. So said his team also plans to create cell phones that can see, and more importantly, measure heat as well. A cell phone equipped with heat vision could instantly take a patient's body temperature to see if they had a fever. A car windshield could make pedestrians crossing the street much easier to see and avoid.

Other scientists are enthusiastic about the new research. "This has a high potential to revolutionize night vision," said Yongli Gao, a professor at the University of Rochester. "It could be very useful in detecting heat loss from homes to reduce energy consumption, and for military applications as well."

Japan unveils humanoid robot that smiles, frowns

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:11:00 +0000

A model (R) smiles to her double -- a humanoid robot "Geminoid-F" (L) at a press conference in Osaka. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

(Xinhuanet) -- Japanese researchers have developed a humanoid robot that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's facial expressions.

By receiving electric signals from the person it is modelled on, the robot can move its rubber facial skin to imitate expressions like a smile, a laugh and a grim look.

"I felt like I had a twin sister," the model said.

A model (R) smiles to her double -- a humanoid robot "Geminoid-F" (L) at a press conference in Osaka. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

Tiny Japanese spacecraft scheduled to land in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:56:00 +0000

A Japanese spacecraft the size of a basketball carrying material from an asteroid is set to touch down in Woomera in June. The Hayabusa spacecraft, which weighs only 17 kilograms, will be the first craft to bring asteroid materials back to Earth. The craft, which first made contact with the asteroid Itokawa in 2005, will land in Australian defence land, at the Woomera Prohibited Area in Southern Australia.

Hayabusa (はやぶさ, Hayabusa? literally peregrine falcon) is an unmanned space mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa (dimensions 540 meters by 270 meters by 210 meters) to Earth for further analysis.

The Hayabusa spacecraft, formerly known as MUSES-C (ミューゼスＣ, Myūzesu Shī?), was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, colour, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it attempted to land on the asteroid to collect samples but failed to do so. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that some dust swirled into the sampling chamber, so it was sealed, and the spacecraft is slated to return to Earth by June 2010.

The spacecraft also carried a detachable mini-lander but it failed to reach the surface.

Lost iPhone prototype spurs police probe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:05:00 +0000

(CNET) -- Silicon Valley police are investigating what appears to be a lost Apple iPhone prototype purchased by a gadget blog, a transaction that may have violated criminal laws, a law enforcement official told CNET on Friday.

Apple has spoken to local police about the incident and the investigation is believed to be headed by a computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney's office, the source said. Apple's Cupertino headquarters is in Santa Clara County, about 40 miles south of San Francisco.

Editors at Gizmodo.com, part of Gawker Media's blog network, said in an article posted Monday that they paid $5,000 for what they believed to be a prototype of an impending iPhone 4G. The story said the phone was accidentally left at a bar in Redwood City, Calif., last month by an Apple software engineer and found by someone who contacted Gizmodo, which had previously indicated it was willing to pay significant sums for unreleased Apple products.

The purpose of an investigation is to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to file criminal charges. Spokesmen for Santa Clara County and San Mateo County--home to the Redwood City bar--declined to comment. Representatives for Apple and Gawker Media did not immediately respond to interview requests.

CNET has not been able to confirm whether the investigation is targeting Gizmodo.com, its source who reportedly found the iPhone in a bar, or both. Apple acknowledged that the lost device is their property and asked for its return; Gizmodo has since said that it has returned the device.

Late Friday, Bloomberg reported that it spoke to Gaby Darbyshire, Gawker's chief operating officer, and she said that law enforcement officials had not spoken with anyone at the company. The wire service also reported that a San Mateo County prosecutor would not confirm an investigation but said that, "if there is a case that is investigated and able to be submitted for prosecution, it will be handled by this office."

The tale of a lost iPhone may sound trivial, but Apple goes to great lengths to protect the secrecy of its products, and the company has not been afraid to take aggressive legal measures in the past. It filed a lawsuit against a Mac enthusiast Web site, for instance, to unearth information about a leak. A state appeals court ruled in favor of the Web sites.

Apple argued in that case that information published about unreleased products causes it significant harm. "If these trade secrets are revealed, competitors can anticipate and counter Apple's business strategy, and Apple loses control over the timing and publicity for its product launches," Apple wrote in a brief.

Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to be but "appropriates such property to his own use" is guilty of theft. If the value of the property exceeds $400, more serious charges of grand theft can be filed. In addition, a second state law says that any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.

Any prosecution would be complicated because of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that confidential information leaked to a news organization could be legally broadcast, although that case did not deal with physical property and the radio station did not pay its source.

The computer crime task force is called REACT, which stands for Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, and was established in 1997 with a goal of working closely with Bay Area technology companies. In the past, for instance, Apple has contacted REACT to report an employee who sold over $100,000 worth of computers on eBay. REACT also has investigated denial-of-service attacks targeting local firms.

Sony to stop selling floppy disks from 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:50:00 +0000

The first floppy disk was introduced in 1971 by IBM

(BBC) -- Sony has signalled what could be the final end of the venerable floppy disk.

The electronics giant has said it will stop selling the 30-year-old storage media in Japan from March 2011.

In March the firm stopped sales of the disks in most international markets due to dwindling demand and competition from other storage formats.

The slow death of the "floppy" or "diskette" began in 1998 when Apple decided to not include a floppy drive in its G3 iMac computer.

Since then various other firms have stopped support for floppy disks, including computer giant Dell in 2003.

Computing store PC World stopped selling them in 2007.

However, Sony has continued to sell the disks, and continues to ship them in the millions.

Now, the firm - which claims to have produced the first 3.5in (9cm) disks in 1981 - has decided to halt sales completely faced with competition from online storage and portable USB drives.

Stephen Hawking: alien life is out there, scientist warns

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:07:00 +0000

Life could evolve in the upper atmosphere of gas giants Jupitar Photo: Discovery channel
(telegraph) -- One of the world's leading scientists makes the claim in a new television documentary series, beginning on the Discovery Channel next month.

Hawking says that in a universe with 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, it is unlikely that earth is the only place where life has evolved.

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said, according to The Sunday Times.

"The real challenge is working out what aliens might actually be like."

Hawking says that they could be microbes – basic animals such as worms which have been on Earth for millions of years, but suggests that extraterrestrial life could develop much further.

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," Hawking said.

"I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."

The scientist, who is paralysed by motor neurone disease, warned that contact with alien life could spell disaster for the human race.

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians."

Dennis Hong: My 7 species of robot

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:59:00 +0000

(TED) -- At TEDxNASA, Dennis Hong introduces seven award-winnning, all-terrain robots -- like the humanoid, soccer-playing DARwIn and the cliff-gripping CLIMBeR -- all built by his team at RoMeLa, Virginia Tech. Watch to the end to hear the five creative secrets to his lab's incredible technical success.

Ancient Asphalt Domes Discovered Off California Coast

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:51:00 +0000

Chris Reddy (left) of WHOI and Chief Scientist Dave Valentine of UCSB hold a large chunk of undersea asphalt collected with one of the robotic arms of the DSV Alvin. The sample was surprising light in weight compared to rock. (Credit: Photo by Molly Redmond, UC Santa Barbara)

(ScienceDaily) -- They paved paradise and, it turns out, actually did put up a parking lot. A big one. Some 700 feet deep in the waters off California's jewel of a coastal resort, Santa Barbara, sits a group of football-field-sized asphalt domes unlike any other underwater features known to exist.

About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Their report -- co-authored with researchers from UC Davis, the University of Sydney and the University of Rhode Island -- appears online April 25 in the Journal Nature Geoscience. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy and the Seaver Institute.

"It was an amazing experience, driving along…and all of a sudden, this mountain is staring you in the face," said Christopher M. Reddy, director of WHOI's Coastal Ocean Institute and one of the study's senior authors, as he described the discovery of the domes using the deep submersible vehicle Alvin. Moreover, the dome was teeming with undersea life. "It was essentially an oasis," he said, "almost like an artificial reef."

What really piqued the interest of Reddy -- a marine geochemist who studies oil spills -- was the chemical composition of the dome: "very unusual asphalt material," he said. "There aren't that many opportunities to study oil that's been sitting around on the bottom of the ocean for 35,000 years."

Reddy's unique chance came courtesy of UCSB earth scientist and lead author David L. Valentine, who first came upon the largest of the structures -- named Il Duomo -- and brought back a chunk of the brittle, black material in 2007 from an initial dive in Alvin, which WHOI operates for the US Navy. Valentine and Reddy were on a cruise aboard the WHOI-operated research vessel Atlantis, following up on undersea mapping survey by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the work of UCSB earth scientist Ed Keller.

"The largest [dome] is about the size of two football fields, side by side and as tall as a six-story building," Valentine said. Alvin's robotic arm snapped off a piece of the unusual formation, secured it in a basket and delivered it to Reddy aboard Atlantis.

"I was sleeping," Reddy chuckled. "Somebody woke me up and wanted me to look at the rocks and test them."

It turned out to be quite an awakening. "I was amazed at how easy it was to break," Reddy recalls, "which confirmed it wasn't solid rock" and lent credence to Keller's theory that these structures might be made of asphalt.

Without access to the sophisticated equipment in his Woods Hole lab, Reddy employed a "25-cent glass tube, the back of a Bic pen and a little nail polish remover" to analyze the crusty substance. He used the crude tools like a mortar and pestle to grind the rock, "and literally within several minutes, it became a thick oil."

"This immediately said to me that this was asphalt," Reddy said. "And I remember turning to Dave [Valentine] and saying, 'We've got to back. Please take me back there'" to the dome.

After making some schedule changes, Valentine cleared the way for him and Reddy to take Alvin back to several sites in 2007. This work also set the stage for a follow-up study in September 2009, when the investigators returned to the domes with Alvin and the Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) Sentry to study the unique structures. They were joined by, among others, WHOI collaborators Dana Yoerger, Richard Camilli and Robert K. Nelson and Oscar Pizarro, now at the University of Sydney.

"With that combination, we were able to go in and do very detailed mapping of the site and very detailed sampling at the seafloor," Valentine said. Using mass spectrometers and radiocarbon dating in their respective laboratories, the scientists were able to confirm the nature and age of the domes.

"To me, as an oil-spill chemist, this was very exciting," said Reddy. "I got to find out what oil looks like after… 35,000 years."

What it looked like was "incredibly weathered," said Reddy. "That means nature had taken away a lot of compounds. These mounds of black material were the last remnants of oil that exploded up from below. To see nature doing this on its own was an unbelievable finding."

A few asphalt-like undersea structures have been reported, says Valentine, "but not anything exactly like these…no large structures like we see here." He estimates that the dome structures contain about 100,000 tons of residual asphalt and compares them to an underwater version of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, complete with the fossils of ancient animals.

The researchers are not sure exactly why sea life has taken up residence around the asphalt domes, but one possibility is that because the oil has become benign over the years that some creatures are able to actually feed off it and get energy from it. They may also be "thriving" on tiny holes in the dome areas that release minute amounts of methane gas, Reddy says.

The scientists plan to continue studying the domed structures. "We have some very fundamental questions that remain," Valentine says. "It would be nice to know what is going on deep down under these things.

"One future direction is to try and actually drill into them," he says. "We also need to turn it over to some geologists to figure out where this oil is really coming from. More fundamentally, we're going to look at the actual degradation of the oil by microorganisms and maybe even see what organisms are trapped in this…very much like the La Brea Tar Pits."

From a chemical point of view, Reddy says he will continue to probe the question of exactly which of the chemicals that make up the domes "stayed around" all these years.

"Instead of this taking place at a refinery, nature used a variety of its own tools," he said, to manufacture the asphalt substance. With some heating and a few chemical tweaks, he added, this is essentially the same material that paves highways and parking lots. After all, it is California.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans' role in the changing global environment.

Scientists uncover deep ocean current near Antarctica

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:11:00 +0000

A mountain is reflected in a bay that used to be covered by the Sheldon glacier on the Antarctic peninsula, January 14, 2009. The glacier has shrunk by about 2 km since 1989, probably because of global warming. Picture taken January 14, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Alister Doyle

(Reuters) -- A team of Australian and Japanese scientists, in a study published in Sunday's issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, found that the current is a key part of a global ocean circulation pattern that helps control the planet's climate.

Scientists had previously detected evidence of the current but had no data on it.

"We didn't know if it was a significant part of the circulation or not and this shows clearly that it is," one of the authors, Steve Rintoul, told Reuters.

Rintoul, of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, said it proved to be the fastest deep ocean current yet found, with an average speed of 20 cm (7.9 inches) a second. It was also found to carry more than 12 million cubic meters a second of very cold, salty water from Antarctica.

"At these depths, below three kilometers (two miles) from the surface, these are the strongest recorded speeds we've seen so far, which was really a surprise to us."

He said the current carries dense, oxygen-rich water that sinks near Antarctica to the deep ocean basins further north around the Kerguelen Plateau in the southern Indian Ocean and then branches out.

GLOBAL CONVEYOR BELT

The current forms part of a much larger network that spans the world's oceans, acting like a giant conveyor belt to distribute heat around the globe.

Oceans are also a major store of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that is emitted naturally and by mankind, mainly from burning fossil fuels.

For example, the Gulf Stream brings warm water to the North Atlantic, giving northern Europe a relatively mild climate. Failure of the current, which has occurred in the past, would plunge parts of Europe into a deep freeze, scientists say.

"The deep current along the Kerguelen Plateau is part of a global system of ocean currents called the overturning circulation, which determines how much heat and carbon the ocean can soak up," Rintoul said.

A key part of the circulation is the creation of large volumes of the very cold, salty water in several areas along coastal Antarctica that then sinks to the bottom and flows to other ocean basins.

The team deployed measuring devices anchored to the sea floor at depths of up to 4.5 km (3 miles) and recorded current speed, temperature and salinity for a two-year period.

"The continuous measurements provided by the moorings allow us, for the first time, to determine how much water the deep current carries to the north," Rintoul said.

He said a key issue for predicting climate was whether the overturning circulation was going to stay at its present strength or whether it was sensitive to changes as climate changes.

That meant further improving measurements of the speed and volume of the cold, salty water that is created around Antarctica.

Pioneer Develops Ultra-High Capacity Optical Disc

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:32:00 +0000

(informationweek) -- Pioneer on Monday said it has developed a read-only optical disc with a capacity of 400 GB, far more than any disc commercially available today.

Pioneer said the disc has 16 layers, each capable of storing 25 GB, which is the maximum of a one-sided Blu-ray disc used to store high-definition video. The company said its technology can be used in building recordable discs and can also be read by Blu-ray players after tweaking the hardware.

In building the disc, Pioneer overcame the difficulty of obtaining clear signals from each layer of a multi-layer disc. Crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss have been the biggest problems.

Pioneer said it solved the problems by developing a new optical disc structure that can play back high-quality signals from every layer. The company also developed a "compensator" and a light-receiving element for reading signals when there's a high signal-to-noise ratio in the optical pick-up mechanism, according to Pioneer.

The growing storage needs of business and consumers are expected to drive demand for higher capacity discs. In addition, offering one disc equal to many commercially available discs today will conserve resources, Pioneer said in a statement issued from Japan.

"This development has bolstered Pioneer's confidence in the feasibility of a large-capacity optical disc, which is expected to become necessary in the near future," the company said.

Pioneer plans to release the details of its research at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage, which is scheduled for July 13 in Hawaii.

Microsoft warns of “active, targeted” ActiveX control attacks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:23:00 +0000

(osnn.net) -- Microsoft has issued a pre-patch security advisory warning about the Microsoft Office Snapshot Viewer ActiveX control. It contains a vulnerability which can allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to download arbitrary files to arbitrary locations.

Vulnerability Note VU#837785 @ US-CERT

This advisory has information on setting the killbit in order to avoid this attack.

See the Microsoft Security Advisory 955179 for more information.

See also Microsoft Support Document 240797 about how to set the kill bit.

Nintendo Console Keychain Set

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:12:00 +0000

(coolest-gadgets) -- If you’re a geek who grew up in the late 80’s, you can’t help but hold a special place in your heart for Nintendo. It’s just how it is. Super Mario, Paperboy, Duck Hunt. These are all games we grew up spending hours doting over. While we might have high-tech alternatives these days, such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, sometimes there’s just no alternative for the classic 8-bit system.

As awesome as PS3 might be, you don’t see anyone walking around with PS3 keychains. And you probably shouldn’t plan on it either. NES was a trend setter. It showed us how gaming could bring us together while entertaining us alone as well. Which is why there are so many people which would be honored to display their love of retro gaming, right from their keychain.

This set of Nintendo console keychain charms offers mini versions of the console itself, a game cartridge, and the NES controller. All three of these legendary classics are included on one keyring. It’s a perfect way to show off your old school gaming pride, while spreading the word about the wonders of 8-bit gaming.

The NES keychain set can be yours for only $5.99. We’ve got to admit, that’s quite a bargain for the chance to rock your favorite console of all-time right from your keychain. As geeks, we might not always be chic, but damn are we cool.

Portable Gaming Solutions XBox 360 Portable

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:25:00 +0000

(itechnews) -- We have seen PS3 laptop before. Now the Portable Gaming Solutions website offers the XBox 260 Portable, a laptop size XBox. A XBox 360 is being converted in to a suitcase-sized box. It comes with integrated speakers and a 15-inch monitor.

Watch the video demo after the break:

Take A Look At Sony's Official Bluetooth Headset

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:08:00 +0000

(kotaku.com) -- On the PS2, Sony offered a headset with the purchase of SOCOM, help sweeten the deal. Seemed to work well, so no reason to go changing things, is there? So when SOCOM Confrontation is eventually released, it'll be released with this, Sony's official (and, for what it is, quite classy) bluetooth headset. Those with a yearning for the headset - but not for SOCOM's special blend of tactical squad combat - should know it's OK, you'll also be able to buy it separately. The dock's a considerate touch.

Blizzard gives sneak peak of Diablo III

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:02:00 +0000

Dungeons ... a screenshot from Diablo III, unveiled at game developer
Blizzard's Worldwide International event in Paris / IGN

(news.com.au) -- THE third instalment of the popular Diablo game series has been announced by video game development studio Blizzard Entertainment.

11,000 passionate fans watched the first demonstration of Diablo III at Blizzard's two day Worldwide Invitational event in Paris.

The studio, part of Vivendi Games, is well known for its game World of Warcraft, which now has over 10 million subscribers to its online world. Blizzard is also behind Starcraft – one of the most popular videogames for competitive play, even ten years after its original release.

Diablo III comes almost eight years after Diablo II was released in 2000. The new role-playing game (RPG) will see players cut a swathe of bloody destruction across a dark fantasy world teeming with evil.

Whether playing alone or with friends, the game promises plenty of replay value thanks to a heavy emphasis on randomly generated content, and a choice of five distinct character archetypes.

It also benefits from a heavily stylised visual design, giving its world a rich, painted aesthetic - the perfect backdrop to visceral, intense action.

The Worldwide Invitational, however, was about much more than just Diablo III.

The event was a chance for fans to get exclusive inside access to upcoming Blizzard games and to hear from members of the studio.

The hugely anticipated titles Starcraft II and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King were both available to play for members of the public, with around 500 PCs set up in the venue.

A number of panels discussed aspects of Blizzard's upcoming games in detail, giving members of the public an inside look at the process of making games, as well as a chance to ask questions.

The event also hosted several fiercely contested competitive tournaments. Teams from around the world flew in to compete for $100,000 in prizes across Starcraft, World of Warcraft and Warcraft III.

The tournaments were slick, professional and incredibly popular. They bore more than a passing resemblance to more traditional sporting contest - players competed in front of thousands of passionate fans while commentators followed the action and every detail was shown on massive screens.

In parts of Asia – South Korea in particular – "e-sports" are firmly entrenched as popular entertainment, while they are steadily gaining popularity in the West.

Starcraft is often dubbed the "national sport of South Korea", with tournaments regularly broadcast on television and the best pro players treated as legitimate sports stars.

Blizzard is one of many companies betting that competitive gaming will gain a similar status worldwide. It will probably continue to be a slow process, as the action can be nigh on incomprehensible for those not familiar with the games, but as the number of players continue to rise, the level of interest in watching the best of the best will too.

Regardless, events like the Worldwide Invitational play an important role in promoting the broader acceptance of video games as a powerful form of entertainment.

The sheer scale, excitement and passion of the fans was infectious, and sent a clear message: that video games are here to stay.

Diablo III Gameplay (PC)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:52:00 +0000

Blizzard gives a sampling of gameplay. A 20 minute clip.

Blizzard calls for Microsoft to promote PC gaming

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:43:00 +0000

(gamesindustry.biz) -- Blizzard's chief operating officer Paul Sams has joined in calls for Microsoft to "put more emphasis on the Windows operating system" as a gaming platform.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Sams described how he felt Microsoft was focusing on the Xbox 360 as its primary gaming system to the neglect of the PC.

"Their gaming focus is very much on the [Xbox] 360. And that makes sense, cause they're a hardware manufacturer as well as a software developer. And so they've got a lot of money and investment tied up in that system," explained Sams.

"And I kind of look at it and say to myself that it would be great if they put more emphasis on the Windows operating system, certainly probably the most prominent operating system in the world. Even more so than console boxes."

"And they own and operate that system, so having them put more energy and effort against it - and they would say that they are, but I think that there's more that can be done," Sams added.

Meanwhile Microsoft's Peter Zetterberg, the business development manager for MGS Europe, told GamesIndustry.biz that the company would contine to support different release dates for Xbox 360 and PC titles as the PC versions would take away a significant portion of console sales.

New Cooking Mama title announced for Wii

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:35:00 +0000

(palgn.com.au) -- Publisher Majesco has announced that another addition to the Wii and Nintendo DS cooking game franchise Cooking Mama is currently in the works. While many gamers may be skeptical about the title, Cooking Mama: World Kitchen will be bringing something new to the kitchen with the announcement that the game will ditch the 2D graphics of previous titles, with the series moving into a full 3D graphical title. Fans of the series should rest assured, that while the 2D graphics are being ditched, the game's charming cartoon style look will remain - as you can see for yourself in the media panel.

Along with the graphical upgrade, World Kitchen will serve up a few new dishes, with new mini-games and gameplay mechanics also making their way into the title. Exactly what this means for gamers is unknown at the moment and we'll just have to wait until Majesco feeds us some more information on the subject.

Cooking Mama: World Kitchen is currently scheduled for release towards the end of 2008.

Pentagon will buy satellites to do more spying

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP/yahoo) -- The Pentagon will buy and operate one or two commercial imagery satellites and plans to design and build another with more sophisticated spying capabilities, according to government and private industry officials.

The satellites could spy on enemy troop movements, spot construction at suspected nuclear sites and alert commanders to new militant training camps.

The Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (BASIC) satellite system will cost between $2 billion and $4 billion. It would add to the secret constellation of satellites that now circle the Earth, producing still images that are pieced together into one large mosaic.

A single satellite can visit one spot on Earth twice every day. BASIC's additional satellites will allow the photos to be updated more often, alerting U.S. government users to potential trouble, humanitarian crises or natural disasters like floods.

The announcement of the BASIC program, expected this week, has been delayed for months, with Pentagon, Air Force, and National Reconnaissance Office officials fighting over who should be in charge of buying, building and operating the satellites. They have also debated whose needs the system will cater to: senior military commanders or policymakers in Washington, D.C.

At stake was not just money but power: billion-dollar budgets are up for grabs, and the agencies' traditional missions and way of doing business have been hanging in the balance.

The National Reconnaissance Office ultimately won the right to buy and operate the satellites, besting the Air Force. And military commanders' needs trumped the White House. They will, for the first time, have the power to dictate what satellites will photograph when they pass overhead. The concept is known as "assured tasking."

"The battlefield today is so dynamic the warfighter needs to be able to respond at a moment's notice. Knowing they have the opportunity to have assured tasking in the next pass of satellite becomes very critical and helpful in the planning of their operations," Josh Hartman, the Pentagon director for space and intelligence capability acquisition, told The Associated Press.

Military commanders have long desired that kind of tasking control. Now, they submit their requests to a national intelligence authority which prioritizes the missions. And sometimes those requests are delayed or rejected.

The new satellite system is meant to bridge what intelligence agencies fear will become a huge gap caused by cancellation in September 2005 of a major component of the Future Imagery Architecture system overseen by the National Reconnaissance Office. Boeing, the primary contractor, ran into technical problems developing the satellite and spent nearly $10 billion, blowing its budget by $3 billion to $5 billion before the Pentagon pulled the plug, according to industry experts and government reports.

The Pentagon now hopes BASIC will fill in some of the lost capabilities.

_First, it will increase the amount of imagery the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency buys from commercial satellite companies GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, which are expected to put four new satellites into orbit by 2013. The U.S. military now has a $1 billion contract with two commercial satellite companies to buy space imagery. A U.S. commercial satellite launched in September by DigitalGlobe can make out the outline of 20-inch object from space. This year, GeoEye is launching a satellite with the ability to see the outlines of a 16-inch object. By 2011, that capability is expected to sharpen to nearly 10 inches. Secret government imagery satellites are believed by experts to have better than six-inch resolution.

_Second, the National Reconnaissance Office will buy, launch and operate one or two commercial imagery satellites with 16-inch resolution, probably around 2014.

_Third, NRO will design and build another more advanced satellite to be launched in 2018. The capability of that satellite, known as Block II, will be defined later.

Underpinning this will be the creation of a new ground intelligence station that will not only download the imagery directly from the satellites and make it available to all users, but will also — in theory — allow the users to tap into the national intelligence database that holds imagery produced by all spy equipment and sources such as satellites, aircraft and ground sensors.

The Pentagon's plan to both buy commercial satellite imagery and operate similar satellites of its own is an attempt to balance two competing goals. National space policy requires the Pentagon to buy as much commercial imagery as possible to help the companies withstand competition from subsidized foreign satellite companies. At the same time the Pentagon does not want to give the companies so much business that they tailor their services to government needs and ignore the private sector they need to make them self-supporting.

The Pentagon satellites will also be a back-up capability in case future commercial satellites malfunction.

The nation's classified network of satellites represents some of the most expensive government programs and receives almost no public oversight. Because of their multibillion-dollar price tags, sensitive missions and lengthy development schedules, spy agencies go to great pains to keep details from becoming public.

But if history is an indicator, the price tag could climb much higher as the new satellite is built. The House and Senate intelligence committees have criticized the Pentagon and intelligence agencies' management of space programs. Half the programs have experienced cost growth of 50 percent or more.

The Defense Department spends about $20 billion annually on space programs.

Earth's Cries Recorded in Space

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:17:00 +0000

(space.com/yahoo) -- Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.

The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals.

Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights.

The radio waves are blocked by the ionosphere, a charged layer atop our atmosphere, so they do not reach Earth. That's good, because the out-of-this-world radio waves are 10,000 times stronger than even the strongest military signal, the researchers said, and they would overwhelm all radio stations on the planet.

Theorists had long figured the radio waves, which were not well studied, oozed into space in an ever-widening cone, like light from a torch.

But new data from the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a group of four high-flying satellites, reveals the bursts of radio waves head off to the cosmos in beam-like fashion, instead.

This means they're more detectable to anyone who might be listening.

The Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR), as it is called, is beamed out in a narrow plane, as if someone had put a mask over a torch and left a slit for the radiation to escape.

This flat beam could be detected by aliens who've figured this process out, the researchers say. The knowledge could also be used by Earth's astronomers to detect planets around other stars, if they can build a new radio telescope big enough for the search. They could also learn more about Jupiter and Saturn by studying AKR, which should emit from the auroral activity on those worlds, too.

"Whenever you have aurora, you get AKR," said Robert Mutel, a University of Iowa researcher involved in the work.

The AKR bursts -- Mutel and colleagues studied 12,000 of them -- originate in spots the size of a large city a few thousand miles above Earth and above the region where the Northern Lights form.

"We can now determine exactly where the emission is coming from," Mutel said.

Our planet is also known to hum, a mysterious low-frequency sound thought to be caused by the churning ocean or the roiling atmosphere.

Black Holes in LHC Small Enough to Be Ignored

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:01:00 +0000

September will most likely see the LHC operational. Credits: CERN

(softpedia) -- The Large Hadron Collider is rapidly approaching completion and should become operational by the end of the year. It will become the biggest particle collider ever built, probably powerful enough to create even microscopic black holes. It has been suggested on a number of occasions, despite CERN’s reassurance, that such a microscopic black hole would come to accrete matter and grow so big that it would eventually destroy the Earth and even the entire solar system.

As far as I can remember, there have been more than one lawsuits against CERN to stop the Large Hadron Collider from ever becoming operational, for fear that a black hole originating inside it would eat the Earth altogether.

Steve Giddings, professor of physics at the University of California, believes that such a scenario is practically impossible. The strongest argument is that microscopic black holes created inside the LHC would be able to exist for only a very small amount of time, roughly a nano-nano-nanosecond, which is too little time for it to accrete any matter at all. And even if these microscopic black holes do not evaporate in this time, the large scale effects they would produce would be basically unobservable.

In a study co-authored with Michelangelo Mangano of the European Center for Nuclear Research, Giggings found that if the LHC were able to produce microscopic black holes then so could cosmic rays coming from space, which are probably more powerful than any particle collider that will be built on Earth. Since no large scale effects or any microscopic black holes have been ever observed in the Earth's atmosphere, it is only logical to believe that they pose no danger whether or not they exist.

"The future health of our planet and the safety of its people are of paramount concern to us all. There were already very strong physics arguments that there is no risk from hypothetical micro black holes, and we've provided additional arguments ruling out risk even under very bizarre hypotheses," Giddings said.

When completed, the system will collide hadrons, composite sub-atomic particles formed of quarks, in order to study the nature of the universe, look for extra dimensions of space and new sub-atomic particles and forces yet undiscovered.

Kaspersky adds anti-keylogger keyboard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:35:00 +0000

(techworld) -- The new version of Kaspersky’s security suite, Internet Security 2009, features a novel but simple defence against keylogging malware – a virtual keyboard.

Full details have yet to be confirmed, but it is understood that the program will let users bring up the keyboard from which to enter login details for websites such as online banks that might be vulnerable. The on-screen keyboard will cache the keystrokes, protecting them from recording programs that would pick up physical keystrokes coming via the keyboard driver.

It’s not a new idea but Kaspersky is the first major security vendor to include such a feature in a standard Net security program.

The company has also announced a raft of other enhancements to Internet Security 2009, and Anti-Virus 2009, both due out this month.

For the first time, Internet Security will feature applications whitelisting, which will analyse programs against a database from security vendor Bit9 - users will be told about apps that don’t show up with a digital ‘fingerprint’ in this database. There will also the ability to enforce restrictions on external devices such as USB drives, and a security analysis tool will tell users which third-party software needs patching, in a similar mould to Secunia’s Software Inspector.

The company claims it has overhauled the Anti-Virus program to better detect and deal with malware, especially rootkits, found on the system at the point it is installed, as well as adding improved self-protection against malware that tries to subvert Kaspersky itself.

If all this sounds as if it might cause performance to deteriorate, the company has an answer to that too. The new ‘iSwift’ checksumming feature – something that was popular in anti-virus programs as long ago as the early 1990s – will reduce scan loads by analysing only files that have changed since that last scan was performed.

“Our 2009 technology provides […] an unobtrusive security solution that will not slow down their gaming, email, instant messaging, downloading, home working or social networking and other activities. The Virtual Keyboard will further protect those using online banking, to ensure that their money and account details remain safe,” said Kaspersky’s David Emm.

Internet Security 2009 UK Edition, single user, costs £39.99 per annum (£27.99 renewal), with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 UK Edition, single user at £29.99 per annum (£20.99 renewal), available for download from this month.