Techno-News Blog

Preserving History in Multimedia: An Interview with Stanford's Michael Keller - Linda L Briggs, Campus Technology

2008-07-24T00:25:00.001+01:00

Michael Keller is well known as the innovative university librarian and director of academic information resources at Stanford University, as well as publisher of the Stanford University Press and HighWire Press. Keller is also involved in another venture: a worldwide effort to digitally preserve vast amounts of material from history, both aging paper documents and very recent digital content.

The 15-petabyte network and the atom smasher - Nick Heath, C|Net News

2008-07-24T00:20:00.001+01:00

Enough information to fill multiple CDs every second is flowing across the world on a network 1,000 times faster than home broadband. Terabytes of data are streaming through dedicated fiber-optic links between laboratories and universities globally in preparation for the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, being switched on in August at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

Kindle booming at Amazon - Buzz up!on Yahoo!

2008-07-24T00:15:00.001+01:00

ome may find this hard to believe, but the humble Amazon Kindle book reader appears to be a hit. After numerous gripes from early reviewers claiming it was not quite ready for prime time and problems with the Kindle being out of stock during the holiday season, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the Kindle now comprises a whopping 12 percent of book sales on the site (for books which are available in

Superlenses and Smaller Computer Chips - Kevin Bullis, Technology Review

2008-07-23T00:20:00.002+01:00

How small one can fabricate transistors, the detail that can be seen in an optical microscope, and the amount of data that can be squeezed onto a DVD--all these things are limited by the way light moves through materials. But several separate advances reported this week in Science describe new materials for manipulating light in exotic ways, potentially leading to vastly improved electronic

Breaking Phone-Call Encryption - Erica Naone, Technology Review

2008-07-23T00:20:00.001+01:00

A technique for saving bandwidth in Internet phone calls could undermine their security, according to research recently presented at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Johns Hopkins University researchers showed that, in encrypted phone calls using a certain combination of technologies, preselected phrases can be spotted up to 50 percent of the time on average, and up to 90 percent of

Not Green Enough - Benjamin Willson, Forbes

2008-07-23T00:15:00.001+01:00

And you thought you were going green. By reading this, you are contributing to what accounts for 2% of worldwide global greenhouse gas emissions. The computer and electronics sectors produce the same amount of carbon emissions as the aviation industry, according to a new Greenpeace report released Tuesday.

Google Search Security Mistaken For Censorship - Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek

2008-07-22T00:25:00.001+01:00

Google is known for its code of conduct -- "Don't be evil" -- as much as its computer code. But as the company has become a dominant force online, Google's detractors have become more willing to see evil in its actions, even when they're seeing things that aren't there. On Friday evening, the Web site of the Progress & Freedom Foundation was hit with a SQL injection attack that temporarily turned

Apple Sells a Cool Million iPhone 3Gs Despite Opening Weekend Hitches - Chris Maxcer, MacNewsWorld

2008-07-22T00:20:00.002+01:00

iPhone 3G buyers wiped out supplies in many locations over the weekend. Apple claims to have sold 1 million of the devices since Friday despite widespread snags in the activation process. AT&T has promised that more shipments are on the way, with priority going to buyers who purchased in advance over the weekend.

What's Next for IPv6 in the U.S.? - Sean Michael Kerner, IT Planet

2008-07-22T00:15:00.001+01:00

The U.S. government operates one of the largest technology infrastructures on Earth, and it's all supposed to be IPv6-ready. At least, that was the plan. A three-year-old mandate for IPv6 usage, put into place by the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), went into effect June 30. That order required all government agencies to have the ability to transmit IPv6 (define), the next

Cheaper, Easier Way to Use Solar Power: Coming Soon - Alex Garrel, eFlux

2008-07-21T00:25:00.001+01:00

As found in the Friday issue of journal Science, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) came up with a way to increase solar cell output and transform colored windows into solar panels. The technique consists in redirecting light with the help of dyes; as light is pushed to the edges and filtered, photovoltaic solar cells produce more electricity. This is not a new idea

How to add new drivers to your XP installation disc - Yahoo Tech

2008-07-21T00:20:00.001+01:00

Windows XP gone off the market? No problem: Just grab your Windows XP installation disc and install it on your computer by yourself, right? Not so fast. As popular as it is, Windows XP is now seven years old, which presents a unique problem if you try to install the aging OS on new hardware. The issue is one of drivers. A lot has changed since 2001, and modern computers have features and

Donate Your Computing Power, Cure Cancer for Free - KIM KOMANDO, USA Today

2008-07-21T00:15:00.000+01:00

Most of us have been touched in some way by diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Seemingly daily, there's more grim news about food shortages and climate change. But you can help make a difference and it doesn't cost your time or money. Your home computer does the work. The idea is genius. When a problem is too complex for one computer to solve it in a timely manner, pieces are

High-Def Conferencing At A Low Price - Mike Fratto, InformationWeek

2008-07-20T00:24:00.000+01:00

When viable videoconferencing technology arrived on the scene some eight years ago, vendors heralded "the end of business travel." That didn't happen, mainly because poor audio and video performance combined with high prices made early conferencing systems poor substitutes for face-to-face meetings. But now, as rising energy prices hike travel costs and cut into the bottom line, companies are

World's oldest blogger makes final post - Sydney Morning Herald

2008-07-20T00:20:00.000+01:00

The Australian woman renowned as the world's oldest internet blogger has made her final post, aged 108. Olive Riley, of Woy Woy on NSW's central coast, died in a nursing home just after 6am yesterday. She will be mourned by family and an international readership in the thousands. "It was mind blowing to her," her great grandson Darren Stone, of Brisbane, told AAP last night. "She had people

Bigger Phishers to Fry, Part 2: The Phuture of Phishing - Denise Deveau, TechNewsWorld

2008-07-20T00:15:00.000+01:00

Phishing has plagued Internet users nearly as long as there's been an Internet, but with more people moving online to do their banking and shopping, there's more data out there than ever for phishers to get their hands on. They're developing more sophisticated schemes every day to separate you from your money.

Could Google Monopolize Human Knowledge? - GREGORY M. LAMB, Christian Science Monitor

2008-07-19T00:25:00.001+01:00

Should a single company be left in charge of putting all of the world's books online? An impressive list of world-class libraries and book publishers don't seem to mind. In 2004, they signed on as partners with Google, the Internet search and advertising colossus based in Mountain View, Calif. Yet some observers have strong concerns about Google Book Search and how the collected thinking of human

Solar dyes give a guiding light - Matt McGrath, BBC

2008-07-19T00:20:00.001+01:00

Current solar plants need large mobile mirrors to produce energy A new way of capturing the energy from the Sun could increase the power generated by solar panels tenfold, a team of American scientists has shown. The new technique involves coating glass with a specific mixture of transparent dyes which redirect light to photovoltaic cells in the frame.

On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff - JOHN MARKOFF, NY Times

2008-07-19T00:15:00.001+01:00

When Steven P. Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone 18 months ago, he contended that viewing the Web on it was comparable to browsing on a desktop personal computer. As it turns out, Mr. Jobs may well have understated the quality of the iPhone Web experience. Visiting Web sites that have been redesigned for the iPhone is often a quicker and more pleasing experience than it is on those increasingly

A Picowatt Processor - Kate Greene, Technology Review

2008-07-18T00:25:00.001+01:00

Before long, sensors may be implanted in our bodies to do things like measure blood-glucose levels in diabetics or retinal pressure in glaucoma patients. But to be practical, they'll have to both be very small--as tiny as a grain of sand--and use long-lasting batteries of similarly small size, a combination not commercially available today.

A Robot That Learns to Use Tools - Kristina Grifantini, Technology Review

2008-07-18T00:20:00.000+01:00

To assist humans around the house, robots will need to be able to deal with the unfamiliar. But while researchers can preprogram robots to do increasingly sophisticated tasks, they face a much bigger challenge in teaching them to adapt to unstructured environments. A robot developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, however, is able to learn to use objects that it has never encountered

Making a Modern 3-D Movie - Kate Greene, Technology Review

2008-07-18T00:15:00.001+01:00

More people than ever are setting up impressive home theaters with high-definition plasma displays, Blu-Ray players, and surround-sound speakers. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D, opening today, exemplifies Hollywood's best hope for luring people back to the theater: lots of action, big stars--and the option of full 3-D. But as the first feature-length, live-action digital 3-D film, Journey

Wisconsin paper will publish mainly online - Emily Fredrix, MSNBC

2008-07-17T00:25:00.002+01:00

In a bid to offset slumping ad sales and rising costs, The Daily Telegram in Superior, Wis. said Thursday it would publish the majority of its 118-year-old paper on the Internet starting this fall. The afternoon paper, which has a circulation of about 6,000, will print only two issues a week. That was down from six issues a week, and it wasn't clear yet which days those would be, said Ron Brochu

Japan scraps 'iPod tax' - AP

2008-07-17T00:20:00.001+01:00

Japan will stop pushing for legislation to charge royalties on the sales of iPods and other portable digital music players, giving in to opposition from electronics makers, officials said Thursday. What is being dubbed here as "the iPod tax" has been tossed around for years. The tax would allow about 1% to 3% of the price of a digital recording device to go to recording companies, songwriters and

A new look at technology visualization - William Spencer, ZDNet, News.com

2008-07-17T00:16:00.001+01:00

Now more than ever, businesses and government agencies are dependent on clear, actionable infrastructure information to make intelligent business decisions on a daily basis. As individuals on almost every organizational level rely on the technical infrastructure to support mission-critical objectives and applications, data center management solutions must be capable of providing high levels of

Your Reputation Online, Part 1: How Damage Is Done - Vivian Wagner, TechNewsWorld

2008-07-16T00:26:00.001+01:00

These days, it's almost a given that a prospective employer will scour the Internet for information about you, so it's a good idea to think a little before you click "submit" on that fiery political blog entry you just wrote. There are ways to clean up after yourself, but they can be difficult.