may the force be with you

As Microsoft prepares to launch its Xbox 360 video game console, the company is doubling down on its bets that video games will become an ever larger part of consumers' lives and that it can move beyond hard-core gamers to claim a big share of Sony's mainstream customers.

On Nov. 22, after four years of planning and billions of dollars at risk, the Xbox 360 goes on sale in North America, the first leg of its worldwide debut. Industry veterans predict that demand from the most avid game enthusiasts alone will be enough to make the console a top seller this holiday season. But they don't know how Microsoft will succeed with the broader group of consumers, dubbed casual gamers, who may prefer the Sony PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Revolution coming next year.

``The wild card is whether consumers are really going to come out in the holidays for the Xbox 360 or just wait for Sony next year,'' said David Cole, analyst for market researcher DFC Intelligence in San Diego.

The Xbox 360 will have graphics that are better than anything on store shelves today, with more lifelike games designed to be viewed on high-definition TVs. It will be a digital entertainment and communications system that consumers can customize. But buying it isn't an easy decision for gamers, since the high-end version comes at a steep $399 and each game costs as much as $60.

Microsoft has created two versions of the new console, one with a hard drive that costs $399 and another without that costs $299.

From Chairman Bill Gates in Redmond to Nick Baker, the Microsoft hardware engineer in Mountain View who was a key chip architect for the new box, Microsoft's Xbox team started placing their bets on the Xbox 360, Microsoft's second version of the Xbox console, as early as four years ago.

But the broader effort to take a big chunk of the video game industry, now $28 billion in sales, started six years ago as a reaction to contain Sony's growth.

In the first round, Microsoft came in a distant second. Sony sold about 90 million PlayStation 2s, while Microsoft sold 22 million Xboxes and Nintendo sold about 20 million GameCubes. Nintendo has remained profitable, but Microsoft's cumulative losses in the video game business have topped an estimated $4 billion.

Broader vision

Microsoft is hoping to gain on Sony and make money this time by finding new ways to generate income beyond selling games. It hopes to generate sales from online tournaments, advertising and other online services that would boost Microsoft's long-term quest to control all online entertainment transactions in the home -- as consumers connect to the Internet via the game machine.

The stakes have only grown with the Xbox 360. Like a kid putting another quarter in an arcade machine, Gates anteed up billions for another round of battle. And engineers like Baker gambled that switching the Xbox 360's microprocessor to an IBM chip rather than an Intel one would deliver the processing smarts needed for more complex and intelligent artificial characters.

Microsoft's partners in the Xbox 360 venture -- such as game developers -- have also put themselves on the line. With games running $10 million to $15 million each to develop, a bad bet or two can steer a developer into bankruptcy.

Robbie Bach, chief Xbox officer, noted that this time many of Microsoft's big decisions were made lower down the ranks of the Xbox team, which topped out at more than 700 on hardware and 1,000 in game development.

One example was the choice of the microprocessor. Baker and fellow Microsoft hardware engineer Jeff Andrews, wagered that the best way to top the old Xbox was to create a chip that had multiple cores, or processing engines, on a single chip. This would make computer opponents in games far smarter, and it's why they chose IBM over Intel chips, which were in the first Xbox.

Microsoft also made a significant bet by signing up more contract manufacturers, hiring three of them to assemble boxes in China instead of just one. The bet is that outsourced manufacturing will be more efficient than Sony's use of its own factories. The move is enabling Microsoft to launch in North America, Japan and Europe in the same holiday season.

Another gamble Microsoft took was timing. Bach believes that Microsoft can gain ground by launching the Xbox 360 well ahead of next-generation machines from Sony and Nintendo. The risk of launching early: The new Xbox won't come with a blockbuster game based on Microsoft's hit franchise, ``Halo,'' anytime soon. Without that, gamers may not perceive the machine to be much better than what they've already got.

But the Xbox team figured that making the games run on high-definition TVs would set them apart. David Reid, director of Xbox 360 platform marketing, says the lack of ``Halo'' at the launch gives many of the other brand new titles a chance to rise to superstardom. About 15 to 20 titles will be ready by year's end, which is significantly more than either Sony or Nintendo have fielded in past launches.

Greg Thomas, head of Take-Two Interactive's Visual Concepts sports game studio in Novato, thinks the Xbox 360 lives up to its promise of enabling more lifelike games. He assigned a couple of developers the task of making uniforms for basketball players that would look baggy and flow like real cloth. It took them months to perfect the simulation for their basketball game for the Xbox 360.

Subtle differences

``It's not one big thing people will notice,'' Thomas says. ``It's a lot of subtle things that complete the picture.''

Whether consumers appreciate the subtleties will determine how well the consoles sell.

To broaden its appeal to more gamers, Microsoft is stepping up its investments in games. Microsoft Game Studios stole one of Nintendo's best game development companies when it acquired Rare for $375 million in 2002. Rare has made two of the three Microsoft titles that will be ready when the Xbox 360 launches.

For the Xbox 360, Shane Kim, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, has opted for just a few titles with bigger budgets. One of those games, ``Perfect Dark Zero,'' an espionage shooting game, is topping the lists of most requested games for all types of game hardware.

Since Microsoft wanted to broaden the console's appeal to non-gamers, the company designed it to fit with other living room decor and electronics, said Brett Lovelady, head of the San Francisco design firm, Astro, hired to work on the Xbox 360. The result is a smaller box that looks like a concave, cream-colored briefcase. It is intended to look like an appliance that doesn't intimidate the non-gamers in the family, said Lovelady.

J Allard, corporate vice president in charge of the Xbox platform, hired a trained sculptor, Jonathan Hayes, to lead the industrial design for the Xbox.

Allard also gambled that an online marketing and distribution strategy -- including virtual game tournaments, advertising and downloadable games -- would generate new sources of revenue that would help offset losses related to selling hardware for less than production costs.

``We decided we had to emphasize the combination of hardware, software and services,'' said Allard.

Still, big questions persist. Gamers are likely to be upset that many of their games for the current Xbox won't run on the new machine, thanks to the switch from Intel to IBM chips.

Microsoft expects to sell 3 million units of the Xbox 360 in 90 days. But that may not be enough to prevent temporary shortages, considering the nearly simultaneous worldwide launches, said Reid. Still, he expects Microsoft will rapidly replenish the supply of Xboxes.

Analyst Cole says that ``the main goal for Microsoft this holiday is to get people talking about the system and build awareness. It's a battle for mind share right now.''

source:http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/personal_technology/13162777.htm

Seeking to make its presence in third-party rebranded commerce applications more ubiquitous, eBay Inc is lifting all of its API and transaction charges for developers.

It's the latest ion a series of moves to expand the eBay developer community. Last summer, the company opened up a collaborative website, the eBay Community Codebase, to provide a hosted project developer site for anyone willing to open source their code.

Applications developed by third parties, in effect, extend the eBay brand to other channels and marketplaces. It's similar to programs already in place at Amazon, which offers web services hooks so third parties can embed the Amazon engine in their own commerce sites.

When it opened its developers program, eBay set charges because it wanted to ensure that developers used its resources efficiently, because each application developed ultimately executes on the eBay infrastructure.

Its now-discontinued fee schedule ranged from $1.25 to $2.90 per thousand calls to the eBay engine, and annual membership fees ranging from $500 to $5,000.

"Free access is not commonplace," claimed an eBay spokesman, who noted that other aggregator sites might offer limited free programs, such as specifying a ceiling to the number of no-charge transactions, or limit free access to non-commercial use.

For instance, that's what the Amazon search subsidiary Alexa Internet Services does. It charges $0.00015 for each hit to the search engine beyond the 10,000-free transaction per month threshold.

However, by contrast, Amazon does not charge for use of web services interfaces to its core merchant site. Instead, it incentives such as customer referral commissions. Amazon boasts that over 120,000 developers have registered for its web service program since it was launched in July 2002.

Consequently, eBay has taken the hint, and is throwing off charges to spur adoption. Over the past year, the eBay developer network has more than doubled to roughly 20,000, accounting for 22% of listings on the site.

In another announcement, eBay announced a developers challenge contest that will award prizes for best individual application and best collaborative open source applications. Winners could get $5000, Xbox 360s, or iPod Nanos, plus an all-expenses paid trip to demonstrate their app at the 2006 O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference.

source:http://www.cbronline.com/article_news_print.asp?guid=25FF7DB5-0D2F-40F4-9207-2303567DB983

Google has officially launched Analytics, a robust new web analysis system that provides site owners with traffic metrics and massive amounts of useful marketing data. Based on technology originally developed by a Californian company called Urchin that Google acquired in March, Analytics integrates with Google's popular AdWords system, and will vastly improve the quality and quantity of data provided to existing AdWords users. Those of you that don't use AdWords can still use Analytics by adding a simple javascript snippet to your web site.

Analytics features an elegant user interface that leverages modern web technologies like Flash and DHTML. Although it seems a little rough around the edges (the Flash components don't display correctly in Firefox on my Linux system) the service is moderately impressive. It can export data in several formats, including XML and CSV. With Analytics, you can determine where your visitors are coming from, which links on your site are getting the most hits, how long the visitors spend on various pages of your site, and more:

Learn how visitors interact with your website and identify the navigational bottlenecks that keep them from completing your conversion goals. Find out how profitable your keywords are across search engines and campaigns. Pinpoint where your best customers come from and which markets are most profitable to you. Google Analytics gives you this and more through easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports.

It is still relatively difficult to get a good feel for the usefulness of the system at this point, but with over 80 pre-built reports, support for interactive report construction, and tracking for countless attributes, the amount of data it provides is downright prodigious. In addition to providing critical marketing data, it also tracks browser features so that web developers can make informed design decisions. Analytics will tell you the screen resolution and connection speed of your visitors, as well as whether or not their browsers support Flash and Java. Flash-rendered graphs are provided with each data collection so that you can get a quick visual overview.

Although it may not be especially useful compared to some of the critical features, the geographical map overlay is probably one of the coolest features. Analytics will generate a Flash-based map of the world that shows you which regions your traffic comes from. You can click individual regions to get additional statistics, and you can use Flash's built-in zoom feature to get a closer look at specific locations.

The site overlay mechanism is one of the other particularly interesting features. It will superimpose click statistics on top of your actual page so that you can (hypothetically) see what people are clicking just by browsing your site. During my experiments with Analytics, I had some trouble getting the site overlay feature to work correctly. Clicking the individual links in the site overlay caused the Analytics start page to load in the iframe rather than the actual content.

Analytics fits perfectly into Google's advertising platform and business model. Despite the bugs (which may be specific to Linux or Firefox) Google's newest service looks powerful and comprehensive. The value of the features and the benefits of AdWords integration will probably be more than enough to convince site owners to use AdWords rather than a competing service.

source:http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051114-5563.html

Author:	Brandon U. Hansen
Date:	11 November 2005
Summary:	Gas-electric hybrids are the most fuel-efficient passenger cars on the road and ecologically there isn't a more viable option. Until something big changes, though, the industry-high efficiency can't economically offset the steep sticker price.
News Post:	"It's All About the Green"

Andrew Stimpson said he was one of the luckiest people alive

Doctors say they want to investigate the case of a British man with HIV who apparently became clear of the virus.

Andrew Stimpson, 25, was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2002 but was found to be negative in October 2003 by Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust.

Mr Stimpson, from London, said he was "one of the luckiest people alive".

The trust said the tests were accurate but had been unable to confirm Scotsman Mr Stimpson's cure because he had declined to undergo further tests.

A statement from the trust said: "This is a rare and complex case. When we became aware of Mr Stimpson's HIV negative test results we offered him further tests to help us investigate and find an explanation for the different results.

I think I'm one of the luckiest people alive Andrew Stimpson Bacteria modified to fight HIV

"So far Mr Stimpson has declined this offer."

A trust spokeswoman added: "We urge him, for the sake of himself and the HIV community, to come in and get tested.

"If he doesn't feel that he can come to Chelsea and Westminster then he should please go to another HIV specialist."

'Miracle'

There have been anecdotal accounts before from Africa of people shaking off the HIV virus.

Mr Stimpson, who is originally from Largs in Ayrshire, said: "There are 34.9 million people with HIV globally and I am just one person who managed to control it, to survive from it and to get rid of it from my body.

"For me that is unbelievable - it is a miracle. I think I'm one of the luckiest people alive."

Mr Stimpson told the News of the World and Mail on Sunday that he became depressed and suicidal after being told he was HIV-positive but remained well and did not require medication.

Further tests

Some 14 months later he was offered another test by doctors, which came back negative.

He sought compensation but has apparently been told there is no case to answer because there was no fault with the testing procedure.

He has told the papers he would do anything he could to help find a cure.

Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National Aids Trust, said: "This appears to be a highly unusual case and without further tests it is impossible to draw any conclusions for people living with HIV.

"The virus is extremely complex and there are many unknowns about how it operates and how people's bodies react to it.

"Therefore, if this case were able to shed further light, it could be extremely valuable for research into treatments or a cure."

Vaccine clue

Aids expert Dr Patrick Dixon, from international Aids group Acet, said the case was "very, very unusual".

"I've come across many anecdotal reports of this kind of thing happening in Africa, some quite recently, but it's difficult to verify them," he told BBC News 24.

"You have to be rock-solid sure that both samples came from the same person, no mix-up in the laboratory, no mistakes in the testing, etc.

"This is the first well-documented case."

He said the case was important because "inside his immune system is perhaps a key that could allow us to develop some kind of vaccine".

source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4432564.stm

Max Planck Researchers discover a protein which is deadly for anthrax bacteria

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin discovered why lung, but not skin, anthrax infections are lethal. As reported in the newest issue of PloS Pathogen (November 2005) Neutrophils, a form of white blood cells, play a key role in anthrax infections. They can kill Bacillus anthracis by producing a protein called alpha-defensin. This discovery might now pave the way towards the development of new therapies for the fatal lung form of anthrax.

Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax. What makes Bacillus anthracis especially dangerous is that these bacteria can form spores. The spores are extremely resistant against environmental stress and can survive for years. Infection with Bacillus anthracis can take place either via the lung or through the skin. Interestingly, the lung form of anthrax is almost always fatal, whereas skin infections remain localized and are rarely lethal. In contrast to the lung form, the skin form of anthrax can be treated without problems and most patients recover.

During the past few years, Bacillus anthracis has also been used as a weapon for bioterrorism. Anthrax spores were sent in envelopes and inhaled and resulted in the death of 5 people in the USA.

Fig. 1: A human neutrophil takes up Bacillus anthracis.

Image: MPI for Infection Biology

The findings of the lab of Arturo Zychlinsky now help clarifying why the skin form is harmless in contrast to the lung form. After a skin infection with Bacillus anthracis, neutrophils are recruited to the site of infection. Neutrophils are white blood cells that can identify and kill microbes. In the skin, neutrophils take up the spores, which germinate inside the neutrophil to a vegetative ("growing") bacterium. This vegetative bacterium is then attacked and killed within the neutrophil. The scientists succeeded in identifying the substance responsible for the killing of the bacteria. After fractionation of neutrophil components only one protein remained which is sufficient for killing Bacillus anthracis: alpha-defensin

This mechanism is not effective in the lung form of anthrax. Here, the number of neutrophils recruited to the site of infection is known to be low, and insufficient to kill bacteria. Thus, inhaled spores can germinate and spread through the organism. The scientists in Berlin now hope that their discovery will help to develop new drugs against the lung form of anthrax. There might be the possibility that the inhalation of alpha-defensin might kill vegetative bacteria in the lung and prevent dissemination.

source:http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2005/pressRelease20051027/index.html

(CP) - A stay-at-home mother of three who created a website to alert the government about allegedly dangerous environmental problems in her southwestern Ontario neighbourhood is facing a $2 million libel suit by one of the developers she reported on.

Louisette Lanteigne of Waterloo, Ont., said she grew sick of what she saw during construction in her new subdivision and what appeared to be questionable building practices and labour-code violations.

She said she was constantly keeping her kids and their friends out of trouble, as they would keep running into hazards around their neighbourhood. She petitioned city council and got help but new problems would appear as quickly as the old ones got fixed, she said.

"They call me an environmental activist, but I see myself as more of a mom who's just trying to be heard," said the 36-year-old mother of three girls aged 21 months, nine and 12.

"My kids were at risk and nobody helped me, and I'm worried about other kids too, that's the bottom line," she said in a telephone interview, breaking into tears. "Nobody protected me and now I'm getting sued."

She launched her website in April to document her complaints and as a means for the province's Environment and Labour ministries to view the evidence she collected. She made about a dozen postings with photos and stories of sightings around her area.

Her efforts led to letters and kudos from various government officials for reporting alleged violations. Then-environment minister Leona Dombrowsky wrote her to say, "Your advocacy on behalf of your neighbourhood is commendable and I encourage you to contact the ministry . . .to report any further incidents."

Environment Ministry spokesman John Steele said work by people like Lanteigne is of great value because there aren't enough ministry workers available to spot every infraction.

"Obviously we can't have staff everywhere all the time, so we depend on the public out there as surrogate eyes and ears for the ministry," Steele said. "They're an important part of the ministry's work."

But not everyone was happy with her reports.

On Sept. 16, Lanteigne received news that she was being sued for libel by developer Activa Holdings Inc., one of the largest developers in the region.

The statement of claim said "the malicious, high-handed and arrogant conduct of the Defendant warrants an award of punitive or exemplary damages to ensure that the Defendant is appropriately punished for her conduct and deterred from such conduct in the future."

The company sought $2 million and an order to have the allegedly libellous material taken offline.

"The website contains numerous untrue statements and defamatory statements about Activa," said the company's lawyer Greg Murdoch.

"Activa is in this unfortunate position where it has to proceed with this lawsuit."

The statement of claim outlines stories by Lanteigne involving diesel oil spills on subdivision sites, unlocked oil tanks, roofers working without proper safety equipment and possible contamination of soil and water.

Activa claims the website has caused damage to its reputation and launched the lawsuit only after Lanteigne refused to apologize and take down the site.

The statement of claim states Lanteigne acted "in bad faith with knowledge that (her words) were false, or with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity." It states that the articles were "deliberately written in a tone of language intended to discredit and harm the reputation of the Plaintiff."

Lanteigne said she stands by everything she wrote and isn't backing down.

"I learned the only way they could get me to remove the site was with an injunction, and an injunction would mean they would have to bring this information in front of a judge," Lanteigne said.

"I thought, 'That's excellent,' because I need a judge to see what's going on here."

Some U.S. states have seen so many libel or defamation lawsuits that legislation has been created to help people take on cases against more powerful opponents.

The legislation is typically called anti-SLAPP, an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

The laws reduce the risk of fighting lawsuits because if the plaintiff loses, they are responsible for all the legal fees. In Lanteigne's case, she will have to pay her lawyer regardless of the outcome.

"Typically with David-Goliath-type situations where a citizen is faced with large legal costs and aggressive litigious companies, it takes a lot of courage to persevere," said Rick Smith, executive director for advocacy organization Environmental Defence Canada.

While Lanteigne may not have $2 million to pay Activa, she does have a lot to lose and could be forced into bankruptcy.

Murdoch said Activa realizes it's risking negative PR but the company thinks the lawsuit is the only way to defend its reputation.

"Ultimately, they're confident it will be resolved in their favour," Murdoch said. "They're confident the right public perception will come about."

source:http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2005/11/13/pf-1305275.html

"Lasers are now commonly used for surgery. With them, you can recover a better sense of vision. Or a tumor inside your body can be eliminated. But these laser light beams, which are currently enclosed inside optical fibers, can harm you if they escape from their enclosures. But now, according to Technology Review, MIT researchers have designed smart optical fibers which can monitor their status while the laser is doing its magic inside you and shut it down if a fiber wall is about to break. So far, the technology is only working in labs, but it could be used for medical applications in a few years."

source:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/13/1630200&tid=191&tid=126

The Supreme Court might have stirred up a bigger problem than it settled when it ruled last June that file-sharing networks such as Grokster could be sued if their members pirated copyrighted digital music and video.

Since then, some programmers have announced they would pursue so-called darknets. These private, invitation-only networks can be invisible to even state-of-the-art sleuthing. And although they're attractive as a way to get around the entertainment industry's zeal in prosecuting digital piracy, they could also create a new channel for corporate espionage, says Eric Cole, chief scientist for Lockheed Martin Information Technology.

Cole defines a darknet as a group of individuals who have a covert, dispersed communication channel. While file-sharing networks such as Grokster and even VPNs use public networks to exchange information, with a darknet, he says, "you don't know it's there in the first place."

All an employee has to do to set one up is install file-sharing software written for darknets and invite someone on the outside to join, thus creating a private connection that's unlikely to be detected. "The Internet is so vast, porous and complex, it's easy to set up underground networks that are almost impossible to find and take down," says Cole.

He advises that the best—and perhaps only—defense against darknets is a combination of network security best practices (such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems) and keeping intellectual property under lock and key. In addition, he says, companies should enact a security policy called "least privilege," which means users are given the least amount of access they need to do their jobs. "Usually if a darknet is set up it's because an individual has too much access," Cole says.

source:http://www.cio.com/archive/110105/tl_filesharing.html

"According to eWeek.com Microsoft is adopting the agile methodology called Scrum to get software built faster. Is it working? They seem to be claiming that Scrum and Extreme Programming have helped them get recent releases such as SQLServer out the door faster with better quality. Many other large organizations are also adopting agile methods including Yahoo, and Google. Are agile methods the next big thing in software development?"

source:http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/13/0545244&tid=109&tid=8

"Recently companies, such as Verizon with their FIOS service, have begun to migrate from legacy copper to fiber optics. Corning (admittedly one of the largest fiber optic cable makers) is running an article which explains why it is actually cheaper to go for the fiber optics."

source:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/13/063215&tid=230&tid=215

According to BBC, new studies suggest that water vapor rather than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason why Europe's climate is warming. The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise. This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2. Even though 2005 will probably be warmest year, climatologists still differ in opinion"

source:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/12/2312251&tid=99&tid=14

12 November 2005 -- According to Nature, the world's pre-eminent scientific magazine, Assistant Professor Shashank Priya of the Materials Science and Engineering Program at the University of Texas at Arlington is successfully using pocket-sized mini windmills to power wireless network of sensors in remote locations.

As Dr Priya himself wrote in an article published early this year in the Japan Journal of Applied Physics, "practically, on-site small scale successful harvesting of electrical energy from wind energy can solve various existing challenges and evolve new applications."

Essentially, Priya's challenge was to develop a windmill with a diameter of just 10cm which works by flexing piezoelectric crystals as it rotates, causing them to generate a current. A 'gentle breeze' of 16km/h is enough to generate the 7.5mW necessary to power a small electronic sensor. Such windmills are designed to solve the problem of powering Wi-Fi kit in remote locations. Geologists, for instance, can monitor seismic activity using wireless-enabled sensors located across large geographical areas.

Priya and other Materials Science & Engineering researchers have created two versions of inexpensive generators utilizing wind power. As wind turns a propeller, a cam on the propeller shaft causes flexing in a series of bimorphs that are arranged in circular or stacked patterns. The researchers have created output power of 5 - 50 mW using wind flow of 5 - 10 mph from their crude but inexpensive - less than $20 - prototypes.

Developments by Dr. Priya and his team have been published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. This week they offered further confirmation as well as details in Applied Physics Letters.

Potential uses of the wind-powered generators include powering remote sensing and communications devices. Most research in this area - small-scale energy-on-demand - has centered on expensive generators such as fuel cells and photoelectric or thermoelectric devices.

Since minor vibrations can also create a charge, Dr. Priya foresees piezoelectric bimorphs being utilized to power a variety of small devices, including insulin pumps powered by the vibrations of a beating human heart or portable radios and CD players powered by the vibrations caused by walking, running or riding a bicycle.

The article this week in Nature says wireless networks have freed us from miles of cumbersome wiring needed to carry information, but the electronic 'nodes' of such networks still need power. If geologists want to place hundreds of sensors on a mountain to monitor seismic activity, for example, they either have to supply electricity using cables or hike out to each sensor every six months or so to replace batteries.

"The problem is keeping the nodes powered all the time," says Priya, adding that wind power could be the answer.

Priya says there are four possible ways to address this problem (1) Enhance the energy density of the storage systems (2) reduce the power consumption of the wireless nodes, (3) develop self-powered nodes by generating or scavenging power and (4) develop other novel methods for powering the nodes.

Priya explains: "Out of these various possible solutions the most efficient and practical method is to develop self-powered nodes by scavenging energy from the wasted mechanical vibrational energy. The largest source of vibration energy around us is Wind. Trapping the vibration energy from wind energy to generate electricity at small scale can evolve a new generation of distributed power sources."

Priya's group is already a leader in the piezoelectric energy harvesting technology with various harvester prototypes, “Piezoelectric Windmill” and “AutoPiezo”. His windmill is about 10 centimetres across,and is attached to a rotating cam that flexes a series of piezoelectric crystals as it rotates. Piezoelectric materials generate a current when they are squeezed or stretched, and are commonly used to make a spark in gas lighters. Priya has found that a gentle breeze of 16 kilometres per hour can generate a constant power of 7.5 milliwatts,which is more than enough to keep an electronic sensor running. He unveiled his windmill earlier this year,and has now followed up with precise details of the device's abilities.

Priya has an undergraduate degree from Allahabad University (1996) and a graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Science (2000), Bangalore. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003.

source:http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=111205035839

"The Army is developing a new chewing gum to help soldiers fight dental problems in the field. The gum takes the place of brushing teeth, which the soldier in a combat situation might not have time or means to do. This sounds like the perfect solution for the geek on the go!"

source:http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/12/1540205&tid=99&tid=14

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Internet giant Google is offering to cloak its home city in Silicon Valley with free wireless "Wi-Fi" computer service, the company confirmed.

Google's proposal to "unwire the city" will be considered by the Mountain View city council on Tuesday, according to Ellis Berns, manager of economic development in the town where Google has its headquarters.

"Right now, we can't see a downside," Berns told AFP. "It seems like a pretty positive deal for the city."

Berns said his staff studied Google's offer and will recommend it be accepted by city council members. If the deal is accepted, Google will turn all of Mountain View into an Internet "hot spot" by June 2006, Ellis said.

"Providing free Wi-Fi access in Mountain View is one way Google can support the citizens and businesses in the community where we are headquartered," said Chris Sacca of Google's new business development unit.

"This proposal is in the spirit of making the world's information easily and quickly accessible."

The offer to Mountain View follows one Google made two months ago to provide free wireless service to the entire city of San Francisco, just to the north. San Francisco is considering the bid, according to Sacca.

Mountain View, with a population of about 70,000 people -- about one-tenth that of San Francisco -- would be the first city to be converted to a free wireless Internet zone by Google, Berns said.

The city is home to an array of technology companies, including VeriSign and Veritas and a Microsoft computer campus, according to Berns.

Sacca indirectly denied online rumors that the company is interested in building a nationwide wireless Internet network.

"Google has no plans at this time to expand our Wi-Fi efforts beyond the Bay Area," he said.

Google's offer to Mountain View is in exchange for a five-year renewable lease permitting the company to mount its equipment on utility poles in the city, Berns said.

"It is kind of a test for Google," Berns said. "It gives them a chance to check it out, test the market, and it gives the city free wireless."

Under the terms of the deal, the basic wireless internet access would be free, but Google could charge users fees for premium services.

For its part, Mountain View can make similar deals with other companies interested in providing wireless services.

If Google decides to stop providing the service, the contract gives Mountain View the option of buying the system and running it themselves, Berns said.

source:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1509&ncid=1505&e=2&u=/afp/20051111/tc_afp/usinternetgoogle_051111000816

The giant crocodile was a fearsome predator (Image: National Geographic)

The fossilised remains of a crocodile that ruled the oceans 140 million years ago have been discovered in Patagonia.

Scientists have nicknamed the creature Godzilla, because of its dinosaur-like snout and jagged teeth.

The US-Argentine team of researchers believes the animal was a ferocious predator, feeding on other marine reptiles and large sea creatures.

The species is formally known as Dakosaurus andiniensis and has been unveiled in the journal Science.

Strange morphology

Unlike modern crocodiles, it lived entirely in the water, and had fins instead of legs. It measured 4m (13ft) from nose to tail and its jaws alone were a third of a metre (1ft) long.

Crocodiles became widespread during the Cretaceous Period (146 to 65 million years ago).

Other marine crocodiles alive then had long, slim snouts and needle-like teeth, which they used to catch small fish and molluscs. But this creature had a dinosaur-like snout and large, serrated teeth.

"These sorts of features are also present in carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex," said co-researcher Diego Pol, of Ohio State University in Columbus, US.

"It shows a really unexpected morphology that nobody thought could be present in a marine crocodile."

Family tree

Palaeontologist Zulma Gasparini, of the National University of La Plata, Argentina, first came across a "Godzilla" specimen in 1996 in the Neuquen Basin, once a deep tropical bay of the Pacific Ocean.

Prof Zulma Gasparini and the skull (Image: Marta Fernandez)

But it was little more than a fragment and provided few clues to the creature's nature and habits.

However, two further specimens have recently been discovered, including a complete fossilised skull.

Computer analysis of the bones shows D. andiniensis belongs on the family tree of crocodiles. Scientists believe it evolved a different feeding strategy from its contemporaries.

The shape and size of its jaws and teeth suggest it hunted large marine vertebrates such as the giant marine reptile, Ichthyosaurus, rather than small fish.

source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4424734.stm