| GreenCarReports

Paul Scott may be one of the most dedicated electric-car advocates around.

He sells Nissan Leafs for a living, and helped found advocacy group Plug-In America.

A few weeks ago, he had a brilliant idea.

Scott used a significant chunk of his life savings for a ticket to a pricey Barack Obama fundraiser, being held this Friday in Santa Monica, California.

It would give him the chance to tell the president how important plug-in electric cars are to the country's energy future and national security, and to the planet's long-term ecological heatlh.

Scott's mistake was that he talked about his plan to the media--stories appeared in USA Today, among other outlets--which didn't sit well with the Democratic National Committee.

Especially after conservative bloggers caught wind of the story.

This isn't just any fundraiser, mind you: The "exclusive, off-the-record" event has a range of five-figure prices that come with a variety of perks.

The top tier, at $32,400, offers "an official photograph with President Obama, as well as a very special one-hour roundtable discussion with the President after the luncheon."

That, for Scott, was the lure: During the "intimate" event, the president will "take your questions in a private, off-the-record conversation where you can discuss with him what you'd like."

There were only 25 slots available at that level. Scott dug into his life savings and bought one.

But as writer Jim Motavalli noted on Mother Nature Network, Scott received an e-mail on Monday that disinvited him from the fundraiser he'd paid to attend.

Thanking Scott for his advocacy, the note highlighted his sin. The media attention, it said, had become a distraction.

It should be noted that Obama is already on record, from 2007 through today, as a proponent of plug-in electric vehicles.

His goal of 1 million such vehicles on U.S. roads by the end of 2015 seems unlikely to be met, but a number of his administration's policy initiatives have promoted plug-in vehicles.

Those include Federal income-tax credits for the purchase of such vehicles, further credits for installation of charging equipment, and quite a few other initiatives.

Obama also drove a Chevrolet Volt a few feet in the Detroit-Hamtramck factory where it's built (the Secret Service doesn't allow the president to drive), and said he would buy a Volt at the end of his term.

But the moral of the story seems to be that if you want to lobby the president for anything, you need to do it quietly.

Otherwise the party apparatus might get nervous that someone would notice that such lobbying occurs.

Imagine.

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By JOSEF FEDERMAN

JERUSALEM (AP) -- It was an audacious idea that came to symbolize Israel's self-described status as "Start-Up Nation," a company that believed it could replace most gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles and reduce the world's reliance on oil -- and all within a few years.

But it all came crashing down.

The company, Better Place, started out as a source of pride and a symbol of Israel's status as a global high-tech power, but it suffered from a local brand of hubris and overreach. On Sunday, it announced plans to liquidate after burning through almost a billion dollars and failing to sell its silent fleet of French-made sedans to a skeptical public.

"This is a very sad day for all of us. We stand by the original vision as formulated by Shai Agassi of creating a green alternative that would lessen our dependence on highly polluting transportation technologies," the company said. "Unfortunately, the path to realizing that vision was difficult, complex and littered with obstacles, not all of which we were able to overcome."

It capped a stunning fall from grace for Better Place and its founder Agassi, a former high-tech whiz kid who sought to change the world by building a revolutionary network of battery-swapping stations.

Agassi, 45, believed that in an era of global warming and rising oil prices, environmentally friendly electric cars could be the wave of the future, if only a way could be found to overcome the limited range of their batteries.

Better Place offered an elegant solution. The vast majority of travelers who commute short distances could plug in their cars at home or work each day to keep their batteries recharged. For longer distances, customers could stop at the swapping stations, remove their used battery and replace it with a fully charged one in a matter of minutes.

Agassi's native Israel was chosen as the company's main laboratory, and a network of several dozen stations was installed, offering travelers nationwide coverage.

Israel was a particularly ideal testing ground, thanks to high fuel prices, a supportive government, its relatively small size and dense population centers. The cars were expected to appeal to Israel's tech-savvy population, and the ability to weaken the political clout of its oil-rich enemies was an added plus.

The project won the support of President Shimon Peres, received generous financial incentives from the Israeli government and an endorsement from former President Bill Clinton.

Agassi, a former top executive at software maker SAP, became a celebrity CEO. He was a central character in "Start-Up Nation," a best-selling book about Israel's high-tech industry, he was named to Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in 2009 and became a fixture at international conferences such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In roughly five years, Better Place raised some $850 million from investors like General Electric Co., HSBC Holdings PLC and the European Investment Bank. Israel Corp., controlled by billionaire Idan Ofer, was the largest shareholder. Agassi persuaded French car maker Renault to make a customized electric version of its Fluence sedan.

Agassi promised to 5,000 of his cars on Israel's roads by the end of 2011 and predicted that a majority of cars sold in Israel would be electric by 2016.

"The end of the oil era will not come because we ran out of oil -- it will come become we don't want to use oil any more to drive," Agassi told The Associated Press in a 2011 interview. "I can guarantee you that we will finish the need for oil as an energy source for cars before we run out of oil in the ground."

The numbers never panned out. Only about 1,000 Better Place cars are on the roads, and the company ran into trouble with investors. Last October, Agassi was forced to step down, and the company never gained its footing. Reached by the AP on Sunday, Agassi declined comment.

Better Place claimed to be the first nationwide network of battery-swapping stations. Other countries, such as Germany, have public networks of charging stations, while in other places, travelers typically recharge their vehicles at home.

For the most part, electric cars have not enjoyed their expected success anywhere. The battery alone in an electric car costs as much as a new gasoline-powered car, and electric vehicles are not selling nearly as fast as once projected. General Motors expected to sell 60,000 Chevy Volts globally last year, but sold just half that many. Sales of Nissan's all-electric Leaf grew 22 percent around the world last year to 26,000, short of Nissan's projected 50 percent growth.

One exception has been American electric car maker Tesla Motors, which recently posted its first profitable quarter.

Among Better Place's mistakes, the company misjudged consumers' willingness to embrace the new technology. There was the issue of "range anxiety," the fear of some that the batteries, with ranges of about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, would conk out in inconvenient places.

Others balked at the price. The cars sold for roughly $32,000, comparable to other sedans in Israel. And the pricing plans, roughly $300 to more than $500 a month depending on mileage, did not provide enough savings to overcome the doubters.

Sunday's announcement left many questions unanswered, especially what will happen to its cars and charging stations. Better Place has also installed a network of stations in Denmark and has operations in Australia, the Netherlands, China, Hawaii and Japan.

Several hundred workers in Israel are expected to lose their jobs, and stunned customers said they did not know whether they would be able to continue driving.

Local celebrity Arik Zeevi, a former Olympic judoka, said he was sorry to see the company go.

"I really like the idea of not being dependent on gas. That is something that really speaks to me, and beyond that I really enjoy driving the car. It is an amazing experience," he told Channel 2 TV. "I will be really bummed out if I need to give that up."

In its court motion Sunday, Better Place said it was seeking the appointment of a temporary liquidator. In light of its failure to raise additional funds, the company asked for the court's assistance in protecting the rights of its employees, customers and creditors.

"On a personal level this is one of the hardest moments of my career," CEO Dan Cohen said Sunday. "The feeling this morning is one of loss because we didn't reach the finish line, the finish line is still far away."

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

CHICAGO (AP) -- When Michael Gore stands, it's a triumph of science and engineering. Eleven years ago, Gore was paralyzed from the waist down in a workplace accident, yet he rises from his wheelchair to his full 6-foot-2-inches and walks across the room with help from a lightweight wearable robot.

The technology has many nicknames. Besides "wearable robot," the inventions also are called "electronic legs" or "powered exoskeletons." This version, called Indego, is among several competing products being used and tested in U.S. rehab hospitals that hold promise not only for people such as Gore with spinal injuries, but also those recovering from strokes or afflicted with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.

Still at least a year away from the market, the 27-pound Indego is the lightest of the powered exoskeletons. It snaps together from pieces that fit into a backpack. The goal is for the user to be able to carry it on a wheelchair, put it together, strap it on and walk independently. None of the products, including the Indego, are yet approved by federal regulators for personal use, meaning they must be used under the supervision of a physical therapist.

Gore, 42, of Whiteville, N.C., demonstrated the device this week at the American Spinal Injury Association meeting in Chicago, successfully negotiating a noisy, crowded hallway of medical professionals and people with spinal injuries in wheelchairs.

When he leans forward, the device takes a first step. When he tilts from side to side, it walks. When Gore wants to stop, he leans back and the robotic leg braces come to a halt. Gore uses forearm crutches for balance. A battery in the hip piece powers the motors in the robotic legs.

"Being able to speak with you eye-to-eye is just a big emotional boost," Gore said to a reporter. "Being able to walk up to you and say hello is not a big thing until you cannot do it."

The devices won't replace wheelchairs, which are faster. None of the devices are speedy enough, for example, for a paralyzed person to walk across a street before the light changes, said Arun Jayaraman of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, who is testing a number of similar devices.

"None of them have fall prevention technology," Jayaraman said. "If the person falls, they can hurt themselves badly. If you fall down, how do you get off a robot that is strapped into you?" They need to be even lighter and have longer-lasting batteries, he said.

Still, Jayaraman said, the devices might help prevent pressure sores from sitting too long in a wheelchair, improve heart health, develop muscle strength, lift depression and ultimately bring down medical costs by keeping healthier patients out of the hospital.

Companies in Israel, New Zealand and California make competing devices, and all the products are becoming less bulky as they are refined. The Indego was invented at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and tested at the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta. It's now licensed to Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Corp., which makes precision engineered products like aircraft wheels and brakes.

Like many other research participants in clinical studies, Gore receives a stipend for his participation from Vanderbilt University.

It's unclear exactly how much the devices will cost if they become available for personal use. Some technology news media reports have said $50,000 to $75,000. Indego's makers want to bring the cost below that, said co-inventor Ryan Farris of Parker Hannifin. Experts say it will take years of research to prove health benefits before Medicare and private insurance companies would consider covering the expense.

Paul Tobin, president of the nonprofit advocacy group United Spinal, said wearable robots present an exciting opportunity but that patients should keep their expectations realistic.

"It's going to be critical that people have a thorough medical evaluation before trying something like this, especially if they've been injured for some time," Tobin said. "It won't be appropriate for everyone. For some people, it will be a godsend."

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AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Microsoft is retooling the latest version of its Windows operating system to address complaints and confusion that have been blamed for deepening a slump in personal computer sales.

The tune up announced Tuesday won't be released to consumers and businesses until later this year. The changes, part of a software package given the codename "Blue," are a tacit acknowledgment of the shortcomings in Windows 8, a radical overhaul of Microsoft Corp.'s ubiquitous operating system.

With the makeover it released last October, Microsoft hoped to play a more prominent role in the growing mobile device market while still maintaining its dominance in PCs. But Windows 8's design, which emphasizes interactive tiles and touch controls, seems to have befuddled as many people as it has impressed. One leading research firm, International Data Corp., says Windows 8 contributed to a 14 percent decline in worldwide PC sales during the first three months of the year -- the biggest year-over-year drop ever.

Meanwhile, sales of smartphones and tablet computers are booming. The biggest beneficiaries have been Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone and iPad, and Samsung Electronics Co., which sells the most devices running on Google Inc.'s Android software. Google is also benefiting from Android's popularity through increased traffic to its services, creating more opportunities for the company to display ads.

By contrast, leading PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., which primarily sell Windows-powered machines, have been mired in a financial funk that has battered their stocks and raised questions about their futures.

Despite the troubling signs, Microsoft insists it's pleased with Windows 8's performance.

The company, which is based in Redmond, Wash., says more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses have been sold so far, up from about 60 million licenses in January. The licensing volume "is in the same general ballpark," as Microsoft's previous operating system -- Windows 7 -- at a similar juncture of its sales cycle, according to Tami Reller, who serves as the marketing and financial chief for Microsoft's Windows business.

In an interview, Reller said Microsoft still realized changes need to be made to make Windows 8 easier to navigate and capable of taking full advantage of technology improvements that have come out since October.

"Are there things that we can do to improve the experience? Absolutely," Reller said "There is a learning curve (to Windows 8) and we can work to address that."

For now, Microsoft isn't saying what kind of changes will be introduced with the release of Blue, which the company plans to anoint with a different name when the update is available. Microsoft also isn't saying whether it will charge existing owners of Windows 8 devices to get the fixes in Blue. The company plans to release Blue in time for the holiday season.

Reller said more details about Blue will be released before Microsoft holds a developers conference in San Francisco in late June. Some of Blue's features are expected to be previewed at that conference.

If Blue is meant to make people more comfortable, the changes may incorporate more of the elements from earlier versions of Windows.

A common complaint has centered on the lack of a "start" button in the Windows 8 menu.

Other critics have pined for an option that would allow the system to begin in a desktop mode suited for running applications designed for earlier versions of the operating system. Windows 8 currently starts off showing a mosaic of interactive tiles tailored for swiping through programs with a finger instead of using a computer mouse.

Blue also might make it easier to find a set of controls -- known as "charms" in Windows 8's parlance -- that currently must be pulled out from the right side of a display screen.

Besides responding to customer feedback, Blue also will improve Windows 8's ability to work on smaller tablets with 7- and 8-inch display screens, Reller said. She declined to say whether Microsoft intends to make smaller version of its own Surface tablets. In a conference call with analysts last month, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein said the company was working with other manufacturers to make smaller tablets.

One thing that Blue won't fix: the relatively small selection of mobile applications tailored for Windows 8. Reller said the Windows 8 store now has more than 60,000 apps. By contrast, there are more than 800,000 apps available for Apple's mobile's devices and nearly that many for Android devices, too. In one of the most glaring omissions on Windows 8, Facebook Inc. still hasn't designed an app to make its online social network more accessible on that system. Facebook has about 750 million mobile users.

Microsoft's decision to tweak Windows 8 so soon after it went on sale may reinforce perceptions that the product is a flop.

Reller is trying to frame the changes as evidence that Microsoft is becoming more agile and nimble as it responds to a rapidly evolving technology market. Smartphones and tablet computers have been at the epicenter of the upheaval, diminishing the demand for PCs as more people and businesses opt for the convenience of increasingly powerful mobile devices.

The mobile computing movement is the main reason that Microsoft made the most dramatic redesign of its Windows operating system since 1995. Given how different that Windows 8 is from its predecessors, Reller said Microsoft always knew it might have to make some adjustments less than a year after the software came out.

"It had to be a very big change to take advantage of the mobile opportunity," she said.

Analysts say one reason Windows 8 got off to a slow start is because there weren't enough devices designed to take advantage of the system's touch-screen features. But that is about to change as HP, Dell and other PC makers prepare to roll out a wide variety of laptops and tablets with displays that respond to touch. More than 2,400 devices have now been certified to run on Windows 8, up from 2,000 in January, Reller said.

Most of the touch-screen laptops will sell at prices $50 to $250 below the first wave of comparable machines running on Windows 8, reductions that Microsoft hopes will prod more people to check out the system.

"As we look at Windows 8, it's important to remember a lot of its full potential won't be realized until there are more touch devices on the market," Reller said.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

GENEVA (AP) -- Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher have found further reasons for the apparent lack of antimatter in the universe.

A team working with data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider says it has discovered a particle that decays unevenly into matter and antimatter.

The lab near Geneva said Wednesday that the particle called 'B0s' is the fourth sub-atomic particle known to prefer matter over antimatter.

Theory posits that the Big Bang produced equal amounts of each, and scientists have puzzled over why matter now dominates.

The discovery of the first matter-antimatter asymmetry earned two scientists at Brookhaven Laboratory in New York a Nobel Prize in 1980.

Team spokesman Pierluigi Campana said the find was predicted by the standard model of physics but "some interesting discrepancies demand more detailed studies."

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By ANNE FLAHERTY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pro-business legislation aimed at helping companies fend off sophisticated foreign hackers sailed through the House on Thursday despite a White House veto threat and an outcry from privacy advocates and civil liberties groups that say it leaves Americans vulnerable to spying by the military.

The House vote, 288-127, puts the spotlight on the Senate, which hasn't taken up the issue and is consumed with other high-profile issues such as gun control and immigration. The lack of enthusiasm in the Senate and objections by the White House mean that the legislation is in limbo despite an aggressive push by lobbyists representing nearly every corner of industry.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, is widely backed by industry groups that say businesses are struggling to defend themselves against aggressive and sophisticated attacks from hackers in China, Russia and Eastern Europe.

Hackers haven't been able to deliver crippling blows to the U.S. economy or infrastructure, but they have been able to wreak havoc on some key commercial systems. Most recently several news outlets including the New York Times acknowledged that their systems had been penetrated, while banks are said to be quietly fighting daily intrusions. North Korea was recently held responsible for a cyberattack that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks.

The bill, said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., strikes "that right balance between our privacy, civil liberties and stopping bad guys in their tracks from ruining what is one-sixth of the U.S. economy."

Under the legislation, businesses and the federal government would be able to share technical data without worrying about anti-trust or classification laws. The bill also would grant businesses legal immunity if hacked so long as they acted in good faith to protect their networks. The bill is sponsored by Rogers and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the panel's top Democrat.

But privacy advocates and civil liberties groups say the bill would open up Americans' most private online records to the federal government. The bill doesn't include a requirement that companies scrub data of sensitive information like health or credit records before sharing it with the government.

In its veto threat issued Tuesday, the White House echoed that concern.

"Citizens have a right to know that corporations will be held accountable -- and not granted immunity -- for failing to safeguard personal information adequately," the White House stated.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., had tried to amend the bill to require companies to strip any data of personally identifiable information before sharing it with the government. But Republicans blocked his proposal from being debated on the floor because they said tough mandates might deter companies from participating.

Business groups say the privacy concern is overblown.

"When it comes to sharing, there are practical, business reasons why companies carefully protect" sensitive information, Tim Molino with the Business Software Alliance recently wrote in an online post urging lawmakers to pass the bill.

"At the end of the day, personal information is customer information, and maintaining trust with customers is a core business imperative," Molino added.

Privacy groups also objected to the bill because they said it would give the National Security Agency a front-row seat in analyzing data from private computer networks. The bill doesn't address the NSA's role specifically, but it's presumed that the military intelligence agency would have a central role in the data-sharing program because of its technical expertise in tracking foreign-based hackers.

Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois had tried to amend the bill to prohibit the military from collecting threat data directly from industry. But that proposal also was blocked from floor debate amid GOP objections. Still facing a veto threat, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, worked with Democrats on a measure that would ensure that companies go first through the Department of Homeland Security. While that proposal was adopted, the American Civil Liberties Group and others still were not satisfied.

The White House had asserted in its statement that any information from the private sector should enter the government through a civilian agency, namely the Department of Homeland Security.

"We have long said that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include proper privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the appropriate roles of civilian and intelligence agencies and include targeted liability protections," said White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden in a statement.

A similar version of the bill passed the House a year ago by a 248-168 vote. But that bill also had prompted a veto threat and never gained traction in the Senate.

Rogers has said he thinks the political calculus has changed and that China's hacking campaign was too brazen for the White House to justify the status quo.

"There's a line around the Capitol building of companies willing to come in and tell us in a classified setting (that) 'my whole intellectual property portfolio is gone,'" Rogers said. "I've never seen anything like this, where we aren't jazzed and our blood pressure isn't up."

In February, Obama signed an executive order that would help develop voluntary industry standards for protecting networks. But the White House and Congress agreed that legislation was still needed to address the legal liability companies face if they share threat information. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised at the time to advance a bipartisan proposal "as soon as possible," although one hasn't emerged.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is expected to take the lead on cybersecurity proposals that would likely address the issue of information sharing but also take up other issues including ways to improve research and development.

In a statement after the vote, Rockefeller said the House action was important, "even if CISPA's privacy protections are insufficient." He said he would work with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., on bills covering various aspects of cybersecurity. "There is too much at stake," he said, "for Congress to fail to act."

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Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By PETER SVENSSON

NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook Home, the new application that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google's turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.

Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google Inc.'s Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook's app. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and will come preloaded on a new phone from HTC Corp., sold by AT&T Inc. in the U.S.

Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. Compared to ads targeting PC surfers, mobile ads are a small market, but it's growing quickly. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion.

With Home, Facebook is inserting itself between users and Google, diverting them to the social network's own ads and services. It's taking advantage of the fact that Google places few restrictions on how phone manufacturers and software developers modify Android. By contrast, Facebook Home would not work on the iPhone without approval from Apple Inc., and close collaboration with the company.

"Facebook Home can only reside on Android because only Google was daft enough to allow it," said independent phone analyst Horace Dediu, via Twitter.

At the launch event Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Google was aware of the project, but Facebook didn't work them to create Home. Asked if he believed Google could change tactics and restrict apps like Home, he said it was theoretically possible, but highly unlikely for Google to do a "180-degree change" in its stance on Android's openness.

It's not the first time a big Internet company has co-opted Android: Amazon.com has gone much farther with its Kindle Fire tablets. They run a version of Android that strips out all Google services, replacing them with Amazon's equivalents. Barnes & Noble Inc. does the same thing with its Nook tablets. These devices lie outside the Google system, whereas phones running Facebook Home still come with Google apps like Maps and the Play Store for music, movies and applications.

The Play Store has many examples of downloadable applications that modify the Android home screen -- so-called "launchers." Home, however, represents the first time a major Internet company and Google competitor has created a downloadable launcher.

J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said Home may increase the pressure on Google to find ways to get people to spend more time on its Plus social network, which so far hasn't been as magnetic as Facebook's hangout. Anmuth also thinks the communication tools built into Home could decrease usage of Google's Gmail and Gchat services.

But Zuckerberg said the app will help Google.

"I think this is really good for Android," he told the audience at the launch event in Menlo Park, Calif. Developers do their best work on the iPhone first, but with Home, Facebook is putting Android first. If consumers want the Facebook Home experience, they'll have to get an Android phone.

In a statement, Google seemed to agree. "This latest device demonstrates the openness and flexibility that has made Android so popular," it said.

___

AP Technology Writers Barbara Ortutay and Michael Liedtke contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Kate Connolly in Berlin | The Guardian

Right to be forgotten advocates argue details online can be out-of-date, misleading and even downright wrong. Read this story on the Guardian here.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger says the ability to forget our past, both on and offline, is an essential part of what makes us human

He describes himself as the "midwife" of the idea of the right to be forgotten. And for Viktor Mayer-Schönberger , it's not just about the legal, moral and technical arguments - but about what it is to be human.

"The more I've worked on data protection over the past 20 years, the more I've realised that at the heart of this, what matters as much as the privacy aspect is the issue of human decision-making," said Mayer-Schönberger, professor of internet governance at the Oxford Internet Institute. "Humans need to make decisions about the present and the future. The beauty of the human brain is that we forget, which enables us to think in the present. That is necessary to help us make decisions."

He cites the case of AJ, a woman from California, later identified as Jill Price, whose story came to light about six years ago. Price suffers from hyperthymesia, a neurological condition that means she cannot forget anything that has ever happened in her life. Mayer-Schönberger says that if everything about us is kept on internet databases, the effect, while not as drastic as in Price's case, is nevertheless similar.

"Our brains reconstruct the past based on our present values. Take the diary you wrote 15 years ago, and you see how your values have changed. There is a cognitive dissonance between now and then. The brain reconstructs the memory and deletes certain things. It is how we construct ourselves as human beings, rather than flagellating ourselves about things we've done.

"But digital memories will only remind us of the failures of our past, so that we have no ability to forget or reconstruct our past. Knowledge is based on forgetting. If we want to abstract things we need to forget the details to be able to see the forest and not the trees. If you have digital memories, you can only see the trees."

Digital memories, he said, are very different to analogue, photographic ones. "Photos, whether blurry or not, still leave a lot of room for interpretation, unlike, say, a high-definition video, where there's no escaping everything you said and did."

Mayer-Schönberger, who advises companies, governments and international organisations on the societal effects of the use of data, advocates an "expiration date" (a little like a supermarket use-by date) for all data so that it can be deleted once it has been used for its primary purpose. "Otherwise companies and governments will hold on to it for ever."

He cites surveys showing that people increasingly approve of the right to be forgotten. A survey by the University of Berkeley two years ago, he said, "clearly shows that people want the right to be forgotten to be legislated by US congress." He said the survey found 90% of the 60+ generation want this.

"There has hardly been a legislative issue in US history that has received such high acceptance," he said.

But what is of even more significance, he said, was the "84% of 18- to 24-year-olds - those born into the digital age - who want the right to be forgotten to be legislated. Their desire is not much less than that of the 60+ year-olds. There's a deep-seated concern in the population that the internet companies and data users have too much power."

Among the more refined arguments that the lobbyists use, he said, are that "right to-be-forgotten legislation violates and invalidates freedom of speech and expression. But this is bullshit. It's a ridiculous mis-statement" of what new EU legislative proposals set out.

Another lobbyist argument, he says, is that it is "technically impossible to implement the right to be forgotten, because of the many back-ups of back-ups of back-ups that take place".

"But if you can be deleted from Google's database, ie if you carry out a search on yourself and it no longer shows up , it might be in Google's back-up, but if 99% of the population don't have access to it you have effectively been deleted," he said.

guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The Guardian is an independent, global news organisation that invests in original journalism and in-depth analysis. For more from the Guardian, visit http://www.guardiannews.com. © 2011 Guardian News And Media Limited.

GENEVA (AP) -- A $2 billion cosmic ray detector on the International Space Station has found the first significant hint of dark matter, the mysterious substance that is believed to hold the cosmos together but has never been directly observed, scientists say.

The first results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which was sent into space two years ago, show evidence of a new physics phenomena that could be the strange and unknown matter, an international team at the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva announced Wednesday.

Nobel-winning physicist Samuel Ting, who leads the team, said he expects a more conclusive answer within months.

The data is being collected and analyzed at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, along the Swiss-French border.

The findings Wednesday are based on seeing an excess of positrons -- positively charged subatomic particles. Since the 7-ton AMS magnetic detector began studying cosmic ray particles in space, it found about 400,000 positrons whose surging energies indicate they might have been created when particles of dark matter collided and destroyed each other.

The first results from the detector are significant, because dark matter is thought to make up about a quarter of all the matter in the universe. Unraveling the mystery of dark matter could help scientists better understand the composition of our universe and, more particularly, what holds galaxies together.

"This is an 80-year-old detective story and we are getting close to the end," said University of Chicago physicist Michael Turner, one of the giants in the field of dark matter. "This is a tantalizing clue and further results from AMS could finish the story."

___

Science writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: http://www.ams02.org/

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

LONDON (AP) -- One of Britain's youngest Internet entrepreneurs has hit the jackpot after selling his top-selling mobile application Summly to search giant Yahoo.

Seventeen-year-old Nick d'Aloisio, who dreamed up the idea for the content-shortening program when he was studying for his exams, said he was surprised by the deal. As with its other recent acquisitions, Yahoo didn't disclose how much it is paying for Summly, although British newspapers suggested the deal's value at several million dollars.

"I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly," he wrote on his website, before thanking his family, his school -- and his venture capitalist backer Li Ka-Shing -- for supporting him.

Summly works by condensing content so readers can scroll through more information more quickly -- useful for the small screens of smartphones.

The deal announced Monday is Yahoo's fifth small acquisition in the past five months. All of them have been part of CEO Marissa Mayer's effort to attract more engineers with expertise in building services for smartphones and tablet computers, an increasingly important area of technology that she believes the Internet company had been neglecting.

Although the Yahoo acquisition won't close until later this spring, D'Aloisio said the Summly will no longer be available. Summly's technology will return in other Yahoo products, he said.

D'Aloisio will work for Yahoo in its London office -- in part so that he can complete his high school exams. Two other Summly workers will join Yahoo at its Sunnyvale, California, headquarters.

D'Aloisio is younger than Yahoo, which was incorporated in March 1995.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By SAM KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Investigators have traced a coordinated cyberattack that paralyzed tens of thousands of computers at six South Korean banks and media companies to a Chinese Internet Protocol address, but it was still unclear who orchestrated the attack, authorities in Seoul said Thursday.

The discovery did not erase suspicions that North Korea was to blame. An IP address can provide an important clue as to the location of an Internet-connected computer but can easily be manipulated by hackers operating anywhere in the world. The investigation into Wednesday's attack could take weeks.

By Thursday, only one of the six targets, Shinhan Bank, was back online and operating regularly. It could be next week before the other companies have fully recovered.

North Korea has threatened Seoul and Washington in recent days over U.N. sanctions imposed for its Feb. 12 nuclear test, and over ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills. It also threatened revenge after blaming Seoul and Washington for an Internet shutdown that disrupted its own network last week.

North Korea "will never remain a passive onlooker to the enemies' cyberattacks," state media said last week in a commentary. "The U.S. and its allies should be held wholly accountable for the ensuing consequences."

Wednesday's cyberattack did not affect South Korea's government, military or infrastructure, and there were no initial reports that customers' bank records were compromised. But it disabled scores of cash machines across the country, disrupting commerce in this tech-savvy, Internet-dependent country, and renewed questions about South Korea's Internet security and vulnerability to hackers.

The attack disabled some 32,000 computers at broadcasters YTN, MBC and KBS, as well as three banks. Many of the computers were still down Thursday, but the broadcasters said their programming was never affected, and all ATMs were back online except for those at 16 branches belonging to Nonghyup Bank.

The attack may also have extended to the United States. The website of the U.S.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea also was hacked, with reports on satellite imagery of North Korean prison camps and policy recommendations to the U.S. government deleted from the site, according to executive director Greg Scarlatoiu.

The initial findings from South Korean investigators were based on results from an investigation into one target, Nonghyup Bank. The investigation is continuing into the shutdown at the five other firms.

A malicious code that spread through the Nonghyup server was traced to an IP address in China, said Cho Kyeong-sik, a spokesman for the state-run Korea Communications Commission. Regulators said all six attacks appeared to come from "a single organization."

The Chinese IP address identified by the South Korean communications regulator belongs to an Internet services company, Beijing Teletron Telecom Engineering Co., according to the website tracking and verification service Whois. A woman who answered the telephone number listed on Beijing Teletron's website denied the company was involved in Wednesday's cyber-hack. She refused to identify herself or provide further information.

Beijing Teletron operates fiber-optic networks and provides Internet services. It is the seventh-largest host of IP addresses in China. A subsidiary of the Shanghai-listed Dr. Peng Telecom and Media Group, Beijing Teletron's clients include government agencies and state media: the Foreign Ministry, the State Council Information Office and People's Daily, the Communist Party's flagship newspaper.

Wednesday's cyberattack does not fit the mold of previous attacks blamed on China. Chinese hacking, either from Beijing's cyber-warfare command or freelance hackers, tends to be aimed at collecting intelligence and intellectual property -- not simply at disrupting commerce.

China is home to a sizable North Korean community, both North Koreans working in the neighboring nation and Chinese citizens of ethnic ancestry who consider North Korea their motherland.

If the attack was in fact carried out by North Korea, it may be a warning to South Korea that Pyongyang is capable of breaching its computer networks with relative ease. Seoul's National Intelligence Services believes Pyongyang was behind six cyberattacks between 2009 and 2012.

South Korean investigators say they have no proof that North Korea was behind the attack. However, the outage took place as Pyongyang warned Seoul against holding joint military drills with the U.S. that it considers rehearsals for an invasion.

North Korea also has threatened retaliation for U.N. sanctions imposed for the nuclear test and for its launch of a long-range rocket in December. Pyongyang blames Seoul and Washington for leading the push to punish the North.

On Thursday, in a vein of typical bellicose rhetoric, North Korea's military threatened to attack American naval bases in Japan and an air base in Guam, where nuclear-capable B-52 bombers took off earlier this week to join the drills in South Korea.

The Korean Peninsula has remained in a technical state of war, divided by a heavily militarized border, since the foes signed a truce in 1953. Over the past decade, the two Koreas have engaged in deadly naval skirmishes in Yellow Sea waters that both countries claim. And, increasingly, their warfare has extended into cyberspace.

In 2011, computer security software maker McAfee Inc. said North Korea or its sympathizers likely were responsible for a cyberattack against South Korean government and banking websites that year. The analysis also said North Korea appeared to be linked to a massive computer-based attack in 2009 that brought down U.S. government Internet sites. Pyongyang denied involvement.

Previous hacking attacks on commercial ventures have compromised the personal data of millions of customers. Past malware attacks also disabled access to government websites and destroyed files on personal computers.

Last year, North Korea threatened to attack several South Korean news outlets, including KBS and MBC, for reports critical of Pyongyang's activities.

In recent days, North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea -- a government agency that often targets South Koreans in its push to draw attention to reunification -- warned Seoul's "reptile media" that the North was prepared to conduct a "sophisticated strike" if its negative coverage continued.

"If it plays out that this was a state-sponsored attack, that's pretty bald-faced and definitely an escalation in the tensions between the two countries," said James Barnett, former chief of public safety and homeland security for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

An ominous question is which other businesses, in South Korea or elsewhere, may also be in the sights of the attacker, said Barnett, who heads the cybersecurity practice at Washington law firm Venable.

"This needs to be a wake-up call," he said. "This can happen anywhere."

Timothy Junio, a cybersecurity fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, said South Korea has worked to protect itself.

"Part of why this wasn't more consequential is probably because South Korea took the first major incident seriously and deployed a bunch of organizational and technical innovations to reduce response time during future North Korea attacks," he said.

South Korea also created a National Cybersecurity Center and Cyber Command modeled after the U.S. Cyber Command. Junio said South Korea's anti-virus firms also play a large role in stopping hacking attacks.

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Associated Press writers Youkyung Lee and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, Matthew Pennington in Washington, Charles Hutzler in Beijing and Martha Mendoza in San Jose, California, contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday that his team, Bezos Expeditions, successfully recovered some of the remains of the F-1 engines that powered the Saturn V rocket, the workhorse of the Apollo lunar missions in the 1960s and 1970s.

"We found so much. We've seen an underwater wonderland -- an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program," Bezos wrote on his website Wednesday.

His team used remotely operated vehicles at a depth of more than 14,000 feet, tethered via cables to a ship on the surface, to recover major components of two flown F-1 engines. Five F-1 engines were used in the first stage to lift the Saturn V rocket, generating 7.5 million pounds of thrust needed to lift it from the launch pad.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden congratulated Bezos and his team on the successful recovery.

"Nearly one year ago, Jeff Bezos shared with us his plans to recover F-1 engines that helped power Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s," he said in a statement. "We share the excitement expressed by Jeff and his team in announcing the recovery of two of the powerful Saturn V first-stage engines from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

"This is a historic find and I congratulate the team for its determination and perseverance in the recovery of these important artifacts of our first efforts to send humans beyond Earth orbit," he added.

Over 40 years later, the F-1 engine remains the most powerful American liquid-fuel rocket engine ever developed, holding the record as the largest single-chamber, single-nozzle liquid fuel engine ever flown. NASA is again looking to use a similar rocket design for the next heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Photo from the sea floor:

Photo of what the engines looked like, via NASA:

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- After recovering from a computer problem, the Mars rover Curiosity is sidelined again, further delaying the restart of science experiments.

The latest complication occurred over the weekend when the six-wheel rover entered safe mode after experiencing a software file error.

Curiosity remained in contact with ground controllers, but it can't zap rocks, snap pictures or roam around until the problem is fixed. Rover team members had expected to resume activities Monday, but they now have to wait a bit longer -- perhaps until the end of the week.

"We would definitely like to get over this and get back to doing something," said project manager Richard Cook of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which operates the $2.5 billion mission.

Studies at the Gale Crater landing site have been on hold since the beginning of March after engineers discovered a problem with Curiosity's computer memory, possibly caused by space radiation. The latest snafu isn't as serious, but any unexpected problem throws off the schedule, Cook said.

It's the longest stretch of inactivity since Curiosity's daring touchdown near the Martian equator last year.

Just before halting its investigations, the nuclear-powered rover used the drill at the end of its 7-foot-long robotic arm to bore into a rock near where it landed and analyze the powder.

Last week, scientists announced the results from the first drilling: Curiosity had discovered an ancient Martian environment that could have been favorable for primitive microbial life. Despite the excitement over achieving one of the mission's main goals, it has yet to find complex organic molecules considered the chemical building blocks of life.

Once Curiosity returns to normal, it'll only have a few days to work before a planetary alignment limits radio communication between Earth and Mars during most of next month.

By JOE McDONALD

BEIJING (AP) -- Suntech, one of the world's biggest solar panel manufacturers, said Monday it has defaulted on a $541 million bond payment in the latest sign of the financial squeeze on the struggling global solar industry.

Suntech Power Holdings Ltd.'s announcement was a severe setback for a company lauded by China's Communist government as a leader of efforts to make the country a center of the renewable energy industry. Its founder, Shi Zhengrong, became one of the industry's most prominent entrepreneurs and a billionaire, only to see most of his fortune evaporate as the company's share price plummeted.

The company is "exploring strategic alternatives with lenders and potential investors," David King, who replaced Shi as a CEO last year, said in a statement.

Suntech was due to make a $541 million bond payment on Friday but ran short of cash following heavy losses over the past year.

The company said it reached agreement with holders of 60 percent of the bonds to postpone payment but Monday's announcement said the bonds' trustee had declared a default. It said that triggered defaults on other debts to the International Finance Corp. and Chinese lenders.

"It is currently a very difficult time for our company and our industry, but the management and board of Suntech are committed to finding a way forward that will take into account the rights and interests of all of its constituents, including shareholders, note holders, lenders, customers, suppliers and employees," King said.

A sharp drop in solar panel prices over the last several years has erased the profits of solar panel makers around the world.

Suntech has also been hurt by a revelation in July that a business partner faked $680 million in collateral for a loan Suntech had guaranteed.

Suntech's U.S. shares tumbled in the days leading up to the debt deadline as fears rose that the company could be forced into bankruptcy. The stock, down nearly 80 percent in the past 12 months, dipped another 2 cents to 68 cents in morning trading Monday.

Suntech said it is negotiating with note holders and other lenders in hopes of reaching a deal to restructure its debt. About 60 percent of the note holders agreed last week not to exercise their rights under the notes until May 15.

The company said it is unaware of any legal proceedings taken against it by any of its note holders.

China's solar producers have been battered by a glut of supply in the market brought on by their own government's efforts to promote the industry.

Lured by tax breaks and subsidies, hundreds of small Chinese producers piled into the industry and new arrivals were springing up as late as 2011, when weak demand and a supply glut forced producers to slash prices.

Other major Chinese producers including Yingli Green Energy Ltd., LDK Solar Co. and Trina Solar Ltd. have reported heavy losses. That has prompted expectations that the government will intervene and force companies to merge or shut down.

Prices of polysilicon wafers used to make solar cells plunged by 73 percent from 2010 to last year. The price of cells fell by 68 percent and that of modules by 57 percent.

Major manufacturers amassed debts of $17.5 billion, according to Maxim Group, a research firm in New York City.

Deep-pocketed Korean conglomerates are moving into the solar industry, adding still more competition.

Chinese producers also have been hit with U.S. anti-dumping tariffs imposed to offset what Washington says are improper subsidies from Beijing. European solar producers also have filed anti-dumping complaints, with the European Union asking for higher tariffs on Chinese imports.

Shi has publicly criticized the tariffs, saying Suntech receives no improper government support.

Last week, Suntech announced the closure of its U.S. factory in Goodyear, Arizona, and the elimination of 43 jobs.

Forbes magazine estimated Shi's fortune at $2.9 billion at its peak in 2008. It said last year that it had tumbled to about $500 million as Suntech's share price plunged.

___

Associated Press Business Writer Bree Fowler in New York contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer

TOKYO (AP) -- Boeing said Friday it sees commercial flights of its grounded 787 jets resuming "within weeks" even though it has not pinpointed the cause of battery overheating.

Boeing Co. Chief Project Engineer Michael Sinnett outlined a fix centered on a new design for the lithium-ion battery system that has layers of safeguards to prevent overheating and measures to contain malfunctions.

"We could be back up and going in weeks and not months," Sinnett told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. A third of safety tests have already been completed. A Japanese official said it was possible flights could resume next month.

The 787 fleet was grounded worldwide by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, its counterparts in Japan and other nations in January, following a battery fire in a Dreamliner parked in Boston and an overheated battery that led to an emergency landing of another 787 in Japan.

All Nippon Airways, a major Japanese carrier, was the launch customer for the technologically advanced Dreamliner planes. With Japan Airlines another customer, about half the 787 jets in use are with Japanese carriers.

The Boeing executives sought to allay flier fears about the 787 by repeatedly stressing their commitment to safety. The Dreamliner is the first airliner to make wide use of lithium-ion batteries. They are light and quick to charge but can suffer from "thermal runaway," a chemical reaction in which a rise in temperature causes a spiral of temperature increases.

The executives said it would take too long to figure out what had specifically caused the problems in Boston and southwestern Japan but the new design would ensure 787s are safe.

Boeing came up with 80 possible causes for the battery failures, categorized them into four groups, and came up with design changes such as better insulation between each battery cell so any malfunctions won't spread. That was to allow the 787 to be back in the air more promptly, they said.

There were also changes to wiring for the battery, aimed at preventing overheating, and a new enclosure for the battery that they said would eliminate fire risk.

The enclosure has a direct vent to carry battery vapors outside the airplane, and small holes at the bottom of the battery case will allow moisture to drain from the battery, according to Boeing. The battery charger is also being adapted to beef up safety, it said.

While executives acknowledged that final approval would have to come from the FAA, and didn't rule out further delays to ensure safety, they said they were in close contact with the FAA and didn't foresee any long delays.

"It's a safe airplane. We have no concerns at all about that," Sinnett said.

Boeing Executive Vice President Ray Conner offered his apologies to Japan for the problems.

"We do apologize for this situation," Conner said. He said he was in Japan to meet with aviation authorities and airlines, and the company had picked Japan as the place to outline the battery fix.

About a third of the plane is made by Japanese manufacturers, including GS Yuasa, which supplies the lithium-ion batteries.

Despite assurances from Boeing, it is unclear if travelers will have enough confidence in the 787 to book flights on them.

Aviation analyst Kotaro Toriumi said carriers will likely face some challenges wooing people back to the 787 especially because the cause of battery overheating has not been identified. But many won't hesitate to do so once the FAA gives the go-ahead, he said.

"What the FAA decides will be critical," he said. "Boeing can't afford to have the jets staying idle forever."

Both ANA and JAL have announced cancellations of hundreds of 787 flights through the end of May.

Still, once the FAA clears the jet, approval from Japanese aviation regulators is likely to be instant.

Transport Ministry official Yasuo Ishii said Japanese officials were part of the tests and certification in the U.S., and planned to go along with and be part of the FAA decision.

He said it was even possible commercial flights could resume as early as next month.

JAL spokesman Jian Yang said in a statement the airline sees the 787 tests going "to a new stage" and was ready to cooperate with others in the effort.

ANA also welcomed Boeing's plan.

"As the launch customer for the 787, ANA hopes for a resumption of flights as soon as possible, while putting safety as a top priority," it said.

Boeing executives played down fire risks, stressing that there was no fire in the Japan failure and that there was no major damage to the aircraft.

They said they would not hesitate to fly on the 787 or have their families fly on them.

They declined comment on questions about monetary compensations for the carriers, which are suffering losses because of flight cancellations.

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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By FRANK JORDANS and JOHN HEILPRIN

GENEVA (AP) -- Scientists working at the world's biggest atom smasher near Geneva have announced they are confident that the new subatomic particle discovered last summer is a version of the long-sought Higgs boson. The particle bears key attributes of the so-called "God particle" that was theorized nearly a half-century ago as fundamental to the creation of the universe. It took thousands of scientists from around the world to hunt the particle in the atom-smasher operated by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE GOD PARTICLE?

Everything is made of atoms, inside of which are electrons, protons and neutrons. And those, in turn, are made of quarks and other subatomic particles. Scientists have wondered how these tiny building blocks of the universe acquire mass. Without mass, the particles wouldn't hold together -- and there would be no matter.

One theory proposed by British physicist Peter Higgs and teams in Belgium and the United States nearly a half-century ago is that a new particle must be creating a "sticky" energy field that acts as a drag on other particles. The atom-smashing experiments have now confirmed that this particle exists in a form that is similar to -- but perhaps not exactly like -- what was proposed.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

The Higgs is part of many theoretical equations underpinning scientists' understanding of how the world came into being. If the particle didn't exist, then those theories would have needed to be fundamentally overhauled. The fact that it does exist, in some form, means scientists have been on the right track with their theories. So far the measurements seem to line up with was expected under the so-called Standard Model of particle physics. This is disappointing for scientists who were hoping to see new discoveries including a theory known as "super-symmetry" where particles don't just come in pairs -- think matter and anti-matter -- but quadruplets, all with slightly different characteristics.

HOW MUCH DID IT COST?

CERN's atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, which forms a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border, cost some $10 billion to build and run. This includes the salaries of thousands of scientists and support staff around the world who collaborated on the two experiments that independently pursued the Higgs.

WHAT IF ANY PRACTICAL RESULTS MIGHT COME FROM THE SEARCH?

None directly. But the massive scientific effort that led up to the discovery paid off in other ways, including the creation of the World Wide Web. CERN scientists developed it to make it easier to exchange information among each other. The vast computing power needed to crunch all of the data produced by the atom smasher also boosted the development of distributed -- or cloud -- computing, that is now entering mainstream services. Advances in solar energy capture, medical imaging and proton therapy -- used in the fight against cancer -- also resulted from the work of particle physicists at CERN and elsewhere.

WHAT COMES NEXT

It remains an open question, CERN says, whether this is exactly the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle physics, or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model. Finding the answer to this question will take time, as scientists keep probing the new particle until they fully understand how it works. And in doing so, they hope to understand the 96 percent of the universe that remains hidden from view. This may result in the discovery of new particles and even unknown forces of nature.

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Jordans reported from Berlin.

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- NASA scientists say tests on a Mars rock show the planet could have supported primitive life.

The analysis was done by the rover Curiosity, which drilled into the rock, crushed it and tested a tiny sample. The rover was the first spacecraft sent to Mars that could collect a sample from deep inside a rock.

At a briefing at NASA's Washington headquarters on Tuesday, NASA scientist said the rock contains clay minerals that formed in a watery environment -- an environment that may be favorable for microscopic organisms.

Curiosity had already found a hint of the site's watery past -- an ancient streambed that the six-wheel rover crossed to get to the flat bedrock.

The rover made a dramatic landing near the Mars equator last August for a two-year mission.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By RICHARD LARDNER

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Defense Department is establishing a series of cyber teams charged with carrying out offensive operations to combat the threat of an electronic assault on the United States that could cause major damage and disruption to the country's vital infrastructure, a senior military official said Tuesday.

Gen. Keith Alexander, the top officer at U.S. Cyber Command, warned during testimony that the threat of an electronic assault against the nation's electric grid and other essential systems is real and more aggressive steps need to be taken by the federal government and the private sector in order to improve digital defenses.

Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee that foreign leaders are deterred from launching electronic attacks on the United States because they know such a strike could be traced to its source and would generate a robust response.

But the country is not preventing what Alexander called "low-level harassment of private and public websites, property and information by other states." He did not mention any specific countries, even though the Obama administration is escalating its criticism of cyber thefts by China that have become intolerable to the international community.

Offensive cyber weapons are growing and evolving, Alexander said, and it is only a matter of time before tools developed by other nations wind up in the hands of extremist groups or even individuals who could do significant harm.

Alexander said 13 cyber teams are being formed for the mission of guarding the nation in cyberspace. He described them as "defend-the-nation" teams but stressed their role would be offensive. In comments to reporters after the hearing, Alexander likened the teams' duties to knocking an incoming missile out of the sky before it hits a target. He also said the teams would work outside the United States, but he did not say where.

He also said another 27 cyber teams are being established to support the military's warfighting commands while others will protect Defense Department's computer systems and data.

But even as Alexander detailed these moves, he pushed lawmakers to pass cybersecurity legislation that would make it easier for the government and the private sector -- which controls critical infrastructure such as the electric grid, banking systems and water treatment systems -- to share detailed information about who is getting hacked and what to do about it.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order last month that relies heavily on participation from U.S. industry in creating new voluntary standards for protecting information and expands the government's effort to provide companies with threat data. But the order doesn't do enough to address the threat, administration officials said. Unresolved issues include the legal liability facing companies if they divulge information, and whether companies should be compelled to meet certain security standards.

The general also told the committee that there needs to be a clear consensus on how the nation defends critical infrastructure from cyberattacks. "It takes a team to operate in cyberspace," Alexander said. "But at times I think in talking about the team approach, we're not clear on who's in charge when."

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, noted that Obama recently issued a classified policy directive to govern cyber operations. The Pentagon also has developed a list of procedures on how to respond in "cyber crisis" situations, he added, and the Pentagon is expected to issue cyber rules of engagement for military commanders.

"The fact that these foundational policy frameworks and planning actions are just now taking shape serves as a stark illustration of how immature and complex this warfare domain remains," Levin said.

Alexander said the private sector maintains varying degrees of security over its computer systems. The financial industry typically is more secure than companies that operate the electric grid. Still, he said, banks are vulnerable to being disrupted by what are called denial of service attacks, a technique that works by overloading a website with traffic.

"The issue that we're weighing is, when does a nuisance become a real problem?" Alexander said. "And when are you prepared to step in for that? And that's the work that, I think, the administration is going through right now in highlighting that."

Alexander's testimony comes a day after Obama's national security adviser called for "serious steps" by China to stop cyber theft that has become intolerable to the international community.

The remarks on Monday by Tom Donilon before the Asia Society in New York underscore the growing concern in Washington over the security risks posed by cyber thefts and intrusions and the economic costs to U.S. businesses.

American companies are being more vocal about cyber theft emanating from China "on a very large scale." He said Beijing "should take serious steps to investigate and put a stop to these activities" and recognize the risk to international trade and to U.S.-China relations.

The Obama administration last month announced new efforts, including a new diplomatic push to discourage intellectual property theft abroad, to fight the growing theft of American trade secrets following the release of a report that linked China's military to the electronic theft of corporate trade secrets and U.S. government data.

After analyzing breaches that compromised more than 140 companies, the private security firm Mandiant has concluded that they can be linked to the People's Liberation Army's Unit 61398, a secret Chinese military organization based in Shanghai.

The Chinese government denied being involved in cyber theft, with China's defense minister calling the Mandiant report deeply flawed. China's Foreign Ministry said that country has also been a victim of hacking, much of it traced to the United States.

Levin asked Alexander if U.S. intelligence agencies can determine not only which Chinese government organizations are stealing U.S. intellectual property, but also what Chinese companies may be receiving that intellectual property and using it to compete against U.S. firms.

But Alexander declined to be specific in open setting, saying only that the intelligence agencies have increased their capabilities in this area significantly over the last several years.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google will pay a $7 million fine to settle a multistate investigation into the Internet search leader's interception of emails, passwords and other sensitive information sent several years ago over unprotected wireless networks throughout the world.

The agreement announced Tuesday covers 38 states and the District of Columbia.

It closes an inquiry opened in 2010 shortly after Google revealed that company cars taking street-level photos for its online mapping service also had been grabbing personal data transmitted over Wi-Fi networks that had been set up in homes and businesses without requiring a password to gain access.

It's the largest penalty that Google Inc. has paid so far in the U.S. for the snooping. News of the penalty leaked out last week.

Google isn't acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Updated at 5 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) -- A new form of microbial life has been found in water samples taken from a giant freshwater lake hidden under kilometers of Antarctic ice, Russian scientists said Monday.

Sergei Bulat and Valery Lukin said in a statement that the "unidentified and unclassified" bacterium has no relation to any of the existing bacterial types. They acknowledged, however, that extensive research of the microbe that was sealed under the ice for millions of years will be necessary to prove the find and determine the bacterium's characteristics.

New samples of water retrieved from Lake Vostok earlier this year are expected to be delivered to St. Petersburg in May aboard a Russian ship.

The Russian team reached the surface of the subglacial lake in February 2012 after more than two decades of drilling, a major achievement hailed by scientists around the world.

They touched the lake water Sunday at a depth of 12,366 feet (3,769 meters), about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) east of the South Pole in the central part of the continent.

Scientists hope the lake might allow a glimpse into microbial life forms that existed before the Ice Age and could have survived in the dark depths of the lake, despite its high pressure and constant cold -- conditions similar to those which also are believed to be found under the ice crust on Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus.

At 250 kilometers (160 miles) long and 50 kilometers (30 miles) wide, Lake Vostok is similar in size to Lake Ontario. It is kept from freezing into a solid block by the kilometers (miles)-thick crust of ice across it that acts like a blanket, keeping in heat generated by geothermal energy underneath.

Some have voiced concern that the more than 60 tons of lubricants and antifreeze used in the drilling may contaminate the lake, but the Russian researchers have insisted that their technology is environmentally secure. They said water from the lake rushed up the borehole once the drill touched the surface and froze, safely sealing the lubricants from the lake's pristine waters.

Bulat and Lukin said the research team has done a meticulous analysis of the samples to differentiate bacteria contained in lubricants from what they hoped could be a trace of new life forms. Initial studies only spotted bacteria associated with the lubricants, but scientists said they eventually found one bacterium that didn't fall into any of the known categories.

The researchers said that the small size of the initial sample and its heavy contamination made it difficult to conduct more extensive research. They voiced hope that the new samples of clean frozen water that are to arrive in St. Petersburg this spring will make it possible to "confirm the find and, perhaps, discover new previously unknown forms of microbial life."

A U.S. team that recently touched the surface of Lake Whillans, a shallower subglacial body of water west of the South Pole, also found microbes. The scientists are yet to determine what forms of bacteria they found.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Physicists in Italy said Wednesday they are achingly close to concluding that what they found last year was the Higgs boson, the elusive "God particle." They need to eliminate one last remote possibility that it's something else.

The long theorized subatomic particle would explain why matter has mass and has been called a missing cornerstone of physics.

With new analyses, scientists are closer to being certain they found the crucial Higgs boson. But they want to be 99.9 percent positive, said Pauline Gagnon, a physicist with the European Center for Nuclear Research.

Last July scientists with the world's largest atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, announced finding a particle they described as Higgs-like, but wouldn't say it was conclusively the particle. Now thousands of checks show them even closer.

"It looks more and more like a Higgs boson," said Gagnon after an update presented Wednesday at a conference in the Italian Alps.

Gagnon compared finding the Higgs to identifying a specific person. This looks, talks, and sings like a Higgs, but scientists want to make sure it dances like the Higgs before they shout "Eureka."

She said there is only one last thing the particle they found could also be: a graviton. That's another subatomic particle associated with gravitational fields, not mass.

By checking the spin of the particle, scientists will be able to tell if it is a Higgs boson, which is far more likely, or a graviton. If it has no internal spin, it's the Higgs boson; if it has a lot of spin it's a graviton.

Wednesday's presentation was by one team of researchers and another team will present more findings next week.

Physicist Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology, who isn't involved in the research, said scientists are just being careful, covering all bases.

Without the Higgs boson to explain why electrons and matter have mass, Carroll said, "there would be no atoms, there would be no chemistry, there would be no life, so that's kind of important."

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Amid chatter of "Facebook fatigue," real or imagined, the world's biggest social networking company is getting ready to unveil a new version of News Feed, the flow of status updates, photos and advertisements its users see on the site.

Facebook Inc. is hosting an event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Thursday to show off "a new look for News Feed." The company offered no other details on what the changes will be in an invitation sent to journalists and bloggers. It will be Facebook's second staged event at its headquarters since the company's May initial public offering. The company unveiled a search feature at the first one in January.

If past site changes are any indication, the News Feed tweaks may take some getting used to and will likely lead to user grumbles. Facebook users often complain about changes to the site, whether it's cosmetic tweaks or the overhaul of privacy settings.

Gartner analyst Brian Blau says one change he'd like to see from Facebook as a user is the ability to control how much he's seeing from the businesses and other non-friend accounts he follows. Currently users can only tweak how much they see from their friends, not from businesses they follow.

"We have a 'like' but there is no degree of 'like,' it's binary," he says. "I need a 'like plus' or even a 'like minus.'"

The event comes a month after a Pew study reported that many Facebook users take a break from the site for weeks at a time. The report, from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, found that some 61 percent of Facebook users had taken a hiatus for reasons that range from boredom to too much irrelevant information to Lent.

Overall, though, Facebook's user base is growing, especially on mobile devices. At last count it had 1.06 billion active monthly accounts. The number of people who access Facebook daily is also on the rise.

That said, even the company has acknowledged that some of its users, especially the younger ones, are migrating to substitutes, but so far this has not meant an overall decline in user numbers.

"For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram," the company said last month in the "risk factors" of its annual 10-K filing. "In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed."

Facebook owns Instagram, but so far it has not shown any ads on it.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By TOBY STERLING

AMSTERDAM (AP) -- The European Union has fined Microsoft €561 million ($733 million) for breaking a pledge to offer personal computer users a choice of Internet browsers when they install the company's flagship Windows operating system.

The penalty imposed by the EU's executive arm, the Commission, is a first for Brussels: no company has ever failed to keep its end of a bargain with EU authorities before.

In 2009, Microsoft Corp. struck a broad settlement with the Commission to resolve disputes over Microsoft's abuse of the dominance of Windows, which had spanned more than a decade.

The company agreed to pay €860 million and promised to give Windows users the option of choosing another browser rather than having Microsoft's Internet Explorer automatically installed on their machines.

But Microsoft failed to stick to the deal for some 15 million installations of Windows 7 in Europe from May 2011 until July 2012. The company admitted the failure last year, adding that it was an oversight.

The Commission's top regulator, Joaquin Almunia, said at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, Wednesday that the fine reflected the size of the violation and the length of time it went on. It was also intended to make an example of Microsoft and deter other companies from doing same thing.

"A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly," he said.

Almunia has advocated negotiated settlements since he took office in 2010, saying competition issues are best resolved quickly. He says slapping big fines on companies years after the fact does little to help consumers.

But he said the whole point of a settlement is undermined when companies then don't abide by its terms.

"They must do what they committed to do, or face the consequences," he said.

Almunia conceded that the Commission had been "naive" in appointing Microsoft itself to oversee compliance with the agreement, and said the Commission won't allow that in the future.

For its part, Microsoft was apologetic.

"We take full responsibility for the technical error that caused this problem and have apologized for it," the company said in a statement. "We provided the Commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps ... to help avoid this mistake -- or anything similar -- in the future."

The company is required to offer consumers a choice of browsers through 2014.

In all, Microsoft has now paid a grand total of €2.2 billion in fines to the Commission since 1998, when regulators opened their first investigation against the company. Some of those fines were for failing to obey the commission's orders, but this is the first time a company has admitted to breaking a promise made to the EU regulator.

The competitive landscape has changed greatly in recent years, however. Tech companies are now often more concerned about Google Inc.'s dominance in Internet search technology, Facebook's dominance in social networking, and Apple's dominance in mobile phones and software than Microsoft's Windows operating system, though it is still dominant on personal desktop computers.

Rival browsers such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome have become popular, and software applications on mobile devices usually bypass browsers entirely.

In a sign of the times, Microsoft itself turned to the watchdog in 2012, asking it to investigate Google for anticompetitive practices.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

OTTAWA (AP) -- Ancient, mummified camel bones dug from the tundra confirm that the animals now synonymous with the arid sands of Arabia actually developed in subfreezing forests in what is now Canada's High Arctic, a scientist said Tuesday.

About 3.5 million years ago, Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island's west-central coast would have looked more like a northern forest than an Arctic landscape, said paleobotanist Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.

"Larch-dominated, lots of wetlands, peat," said Rybczynski, lead author of a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Nearby fossil sites have yielded evidence of ancient bears, horses, deer, badgers and frogs. The average yearly temperature would have been about 0 Celsius (32 Fahrenheit).

"If you were standing in it and watching the camel, it would have the feel of a boreal-type forest."

The Arctic camel was 30 percent larger than modern camels, she said. Her best guess is it was one-humped.

Although native camels are now only found in Africa and Asia, scientists have long believed the species actually developed in North America and later died out. Camel remains have been previously found in the Yukon.

What makes Rybczynski's find special is not only how far north it was found, but its state of preservation.

The 30 fragments found in the sand and pebbles of the tundra were mummified, not fossilized. So despite their age, the pieces preserved tiny fragments of collagen within them, a common type of protein found in bones.

Analyzing that protein not only proved the fragments were from camels, but from a type of camel that is much more closely related to the modern version than the Yukon camel. Out of the dozens of camel species that once roamed North America, the type Rybczynski found was one of the most likely to have crossed the Bering land bridge and colonized the deserts.

"This is the one that's tied to the ancestry of modern camels," she said.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- A recently discovered comet is closer than it's ever been to Earth, and stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere finally get to see it.

Called Pan-STARRS, the comet passed within 100 million miles of Earth on Tuesday, its closest approach in its first-ever cruise through the inner solar system. The ice ball will get even nearer the sun this weekend -- just 28 million miles from the sun and within the orbit of Mercury.

The comet has been visible for weeks from the Southern Hemisphere. Now the top half of the world gets a glimpse as well.

The best viewing days should be next Tuesday and Wednesday, when Pan-STARRS appears next to a crescent moon at dusk in the western sky. Until then, glare from the sun will obscure the comet.

California astronomer Tony Phillips said the comet's proximity to the moon will make it easier for novice sky watchers to find it. Binoculars likely will be needed for the best viewing, he said, warning onlookers to avoid pointing them at the setting sun.

"Wait until the sun is fully below the horizon to scan for the comet in the darkening twilight," Phillips advised in an email sent from his home and observatory in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Pan-STARRS' name is actually an acronym for the Hawaiian telescope used to spot it two years ago: the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System. The volcano-top telescope is on constant prowl for dangerous asteroids and comets that might be headed our way.

Thought to be billions of years old, the comet originated in the distant Oort cloud -- a cloud of icy bodies well beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto -- and somehow got propelled toward the inner solar system. It's never passed by Earth before, Phillips said.

A much brighter comet show, meanwhile, is on the way.

Comet ISON may come close to outshining the moon in November. It was discovered last September by Russian astronomers and got its acronym name from the International Scientific Optical Network.

Neither Pan-STARRS nor ISON pose a threat to Earth, according to scientists.