Thursday, March 16, 2006
Pentagon plans cyber-insect army
The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. 
The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later.
Experts told the BBC some ideas were feasible but others seemed "ludicrous".
A similar scheme aimed at manipulating wasps failed when they flew off to feed and mate.
The new scheme is a brainwave of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is tasked with maintaining the technological superiority of the US military.
It has asked for "innovative" bids on the insect project from interested parties.
'Assembly-line'
Darpa believes scientists can take advantage of the evolution of insects, such as dragonflies and moths, in the pupa stage.
"Through each metamorphic stage, the insect body goes through a renewal process that can heal wounds and reposition internal organs around foreign objects," its proposal document reads.
The foreign objects it suggests to be implanted are specific micro-systems - Mems - which, when the insect is fully developed, could allow it to be remotely controlled or sense certain chemicals, including those in explosives.
The invasive surgery could "enable assembly-line like fabrication of hybrid insect-Mems interfaces", Darpa says.
A winning bidder would have to deliver "an insect within five metres of a specific target located 100 metres away".
The "insect-cyborg" must also "be able to transmit data from relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment. These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc."
'Fiction'
Scientists who spoke to the BBC news website were unconvinced.
Entomology expert Dr George McGavin of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History said the idea appeared "ludicrous".
"Not all wacky ideas are without value. Some do produce the goods. My feeling is this will probably not produce the goods," he said.
"What adult insects want to do is basically reproduce and lay eggs. You would have to rewire the entire brain patterns."
Dr McGavin said it appeared impossible to connect the technology to the right places during the metamorphic phase, particularly with regard to flight.
Prof Andrew Parker, research leader at the Natural History Museum's zoology department and a specialist in bio-mimetics, said the concept was not too far fetched but had its limits.
Technology could help direct an insect to chemicals such as in roadside bombs, he said, but controlling full flight was "a long way off".
Entomology expert at the museum, Stuart Hine, agreed it was plausible to use insects to detect explosives.
But he added: "I feel that the reality of such cyborg fusion between insect and machine lies squarely in the realms of fiction."
To receive micro-signals from the insects would require a dish "quite close and several feet in diameter, rendering it a less than covert operation".
Darpa's previous experiments to get bees and wasps to detect the smell of explosives foundered when their "instinctive behaviours for feeding and mating... prevented them from performing reliably", it said.
Darpa was founded in 1958 to keep US military technology ahead of Cold War rivals.
Its website says it has around 240 personnel and a $2bn (£1.1bn) budget. Supporters say much of its work has been successful, but it has also drawn criticism for unusable "blue-sky" projects.
A former director said in 1975: "When we fail, we fail big."
source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4808342.stm
Red Hat pledges 'integrated virtualization' platform
SAN FRANCISCO -- Red Hat brought its commitment to virtualization technology into sharper focus this week with the release of a product roadmap that includes virtualization technology built into its enterprise version of Linux.
Red Hat Inc. executives also detailed plans to work with Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp., Network Appliance Inc. and XenSource Inc. to simplify virtualization installations for customers using those platforms.
Beginning with Red Hat's release of Fedora Core 5.0 this month, users will have the opportunity to preview Red Hat virtualization technology, said Brian Stevens, Red Hat chief technology officer. Fedora Core is a Linux distribution developed by the community-supported Fedora Project, sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora was derived from the original Red Hat Linux distribution, but support for Fedora comes from the greater community, and not Red Hat.
"With Fedora Core 5, we will take the rocket science of virtualization away from the end user and get virtualization out-of-the-box experience into their hands," Stevens said.
This summer, Red Hat will make available Virtualization Migration and Assessment Services along with an Enterprise Virtualization beta. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which the company scheduled for general availability by the end of 2006, is expected to feature fully integrated virtualization.
Tim Yeaton, Red Hat's vice president of enterprise solutions, said the company will also provide integration and support for Xen virtualization technology. Xen lets a user run multiple copies of Linux on the same computer or server. Xen is also a hypervisor, which is software that manages a computer's hardware resources so the resources can be shared by multiple operating systems.
Xen scores software and hardware improvements
In recent months, Xen has undergone a series of software improvements that let the technology work with Microsoft Windows and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Solaris operating systems. Hardware improvements allow the technology to run on systems using Intel Itanium processors, Sun SPARC and other x86-based hardware.
As part of the company's integrated virtualization program, AMD and Intel will work with Red Hat to make sure their virtualization-enhanced chipsets -- like AMD's Opteron and Itanium -- are tightly integrated with the initiative.
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The news from Red Hat appeared to fulfill a pledge made to customers by Stevens in February. Stevens recently said server virtualization and cost reduction were Red Hat customers' top interests and that his team planned to deliver commoditized virtualization in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 (RHEL5), the company's upcoming new Linux distribution release.
Other specific details of the Red Hat integrated virtualization program include:
- A development and quality assurance environment, which will allow developers to reduce the time and complexity of writing and testing code on diverse target systems
- Support for hardware abstraction, which will let IT managers explore the latest hardware using existing software stacks without the expense of extensive qualification and migration processes
Five reasons why you should never use PostgreSQL -- ever
Within the past two years, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have all released freely available versions of their flagship database servers, a move that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. While their respective representatives would argue the move was made in order to better accommodate the needs of all users, it's fairly clear that continued pressure from open source alternatives such as MySQL and PostgreSQL have caused these database juggernauts to rethink their strategies within this increasingly competitive market.
While PostgreSQL's adoption rate continues to accelerate, some folks wonder why that rate isn't even steeper given its impressive array of features. One can speculate that many of the reasons for not considering its adoption tend to be based on either outdated or misinformed sources.
In an effort to dispel some of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding this impressive product, instead, I'll put forth several of the most commonplace reasons companies have for not investigating PostgreSQL further.
Reason #1: It doesn't run on Windows
PostgreSQL has long supported every modern Unix-compatible operating system, and ports are also available for Novell NetWare and OS/2. With the 8.0 release, PostgreSQL's support for all mainstream operating systems was complete, as it included a native Windows port.
Now, you can install the PostgreSQL database on a workstation or laptop with relative ease, thank to an installation wizard similar to that used for installing Microsoft Word or Quicken.
Reason #2: No professional development and administration tools
Most users who are unfamiliar with open source projects tend to think DB administrators manage them entirely through a series of cryptic shell commands. Indeed, while PostgreSQL takes advantage of the powerful command-line environment, there are a number of graphical-based tools available for carrying out tasks such as administration and database design.
The following list summarizes just a few of the tools available to PostgreSQL developers:
- Database modeling: Several commercial and open source products are at your disposal for data modeling, some of which include Visual Case and Data Architect.
- Administration and development: There are numerous impressive efforts going on in this area, and three products are particularly promising. pgAdmin III has a particularly long development history and is capable of handling practically any task ranging from simple table creation to managing replication across multiple servers. Navicat PostgreSQL offers features similar to pgAdmin III and is packaged in a very well-designed interface. A good, Web-based tool is phpPgAdmin.
- Reporting: PostgreSQL interfaces with all mainstream reporting tools, including Crystal Reports, Cognos ReportNet, and the increasingly popular open source reporting package JasperReports.
Reason #3: PostgreSQL doesn't support my language
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Today's enterprise often relies on an assortment of programming languages, and if the sheer number of PostgreSQL API contributions available are any indication, the database is being used in all manner of environments.
The following links point to PostgreSQL interfaces for today's most commonly used languages: C++, C#, JDBC, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and Tcl.
Interfaces even exist for some rather unexpected languages, with Ada, Common Lisp and Pascal all coming to mind.
Reason #4: There's nobody to blame when something goes wrong
The misconception that open source projects lack technical support options is curious, particularly if one's definition of support does not involve simply having somebody to blame when something goes wrong.
You can find the answers to a vast number of support questions in the official PostgreSQL manual, which consists of almost 1,450 pages of detailed documentation regarding every aspect of the database, ranging from a synopsis of supported data types to system internals.
The documentation is available for online perusal and downloading in PDF format. For more help, there are a number of newsgroups accessible through Google groups, with topics ranging across performance, administration, SQL construction, development and general matters.
If you're looking for a somewhat more immediate response, hundreds of PostgreSQL devotees can be found logged into IRC (irc.freenode.net #postgresql?).
You can plug in to IRC chat clients for all common operating systems (Windows included) at any given moment. For instance, on a recent Wednesday evening, there were more than 240 individuals logged into the channel. Waking up the next morning, I found more than 252 logged in, including a few well-known experts in the community. The conversation topics ranged from helping newcomers get logged into their PostgreSQL installation for the first time to advanced decision tree generation algorithms. Everyone is invited to participate and ask questions no matter how simplistic or advanced.
For those users more comfortable with a more formalized support environment, other options exist. CommandPrompt Inc.'s PostgreSQL packages range from one-time incident support to 24x7 Web, e-mail and phone coverage. Recently, Pervasive Software Inc. jumped into the fray, offering various support packages in addition to consulting services. Open source services support company SpikeSource Inc. announced PostgreSQL support last summer, along with integration of the database into its SpikeSource Core Stack.
Reason #5: You (don't) get what you (don't) pay for
To put it simply, if you require a SQL standards-compliant database with all of the features found in any enterprise-class product and capable of storing terabytes of data while efficiently operating under heavy stress, chances are PostgreSQL will quite satisfactorily meet your needs. However, it doesn't come packaged in a nice box, nor will a sales representative stand outside your bedroom window after you download it.
For applications that require Oracle to even function properly, consider EnterpriseDB, a version of PostgreSQL, which has reimplemented features such as data types, triggers, views and cursors that copy Oracle's behavior. Just think of all the extra company coffee mugs you could purchase with the savings.
source:http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1172668,00.html
