Technology

Xunlight, a startup in Toledo, Ohio, has developed a way to make large, flexible solar panels. It has developed a roll-to-roll manufacturing technique that forms thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells on thin sheets of stainless steel. Each solar module is about one metre wide and five and a half metres long

Hackers love a challenge. And more than that, they love cash. That’s what Telesign found out this week. A provider of voice-based authentication software, the company challenged hackers to break into its StrongWebmail.com Web site late last week. The prize? US$10,000. On Thursday, a group of security researchers claimed to have won the contest, which challenged hackers to break into the Web mail account of StrongWebmail CEO Darren Berkovitz and report back details from his 26 June calendar entry. The hackers, led by Secure Science Chief Scientist Lance James and security researchers Aviv Raff and Mike Bailey, provided details from Berkovitz’s calendar to IDG News Service. In an interview, Berkovitz confirmed those details were from his account

Those are some of the sounds that have been missing from computer graphic simulations of water and other fluids, according to researchers in Cornell’s Department of Computer Science, who have come up with new algorithms to simulate such sounds to go with the images. The sounds produced by pouring and splashing water actually result from the vibration of trapped air bubbles. Cornell researchers can simulate those sounds by computing how the bubbles would behave. The work by Doug James, associate professor of computer science, and graduate student Changxi Zheng will be reported at the 2009 ACM SIGGRAPH conference Aug. 3-7 in New Orleans. It is the first step in a broader research program on sound synthesis supported by a $1.2 million grant from the Human Centered Computing Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to James, assistant professor Kavita Bala and associate professor Steve Marschner

Google has rolled out an experimental new search product called Google Squared. Google Squared does not provide a list of links to web pages, like with a traditional Google search, but presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a square. Users of google.com/squared can then build, modify and refine their square through further Web searches. Unlike a normal search engine, Google Squared doesn’t find webpages about your topic — instead, it automatically fetches and organises facts from across the internet, Google said in a preview of the product last month

Twenty-five years ago, inside the bowels of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, a young artificial intelligence researcher received his first desktop computer — the Soviet-built Elektronika 60, a copy of an American minicomputer called a PDP-11 — and began writing programs for it. But not numerical ones. He ended up creating one that would infest the dreams of those who played it, spurring addictions and even the suspicion that it was a Russian plot to divert the youth of America in a pointless exercise

The Federal Court has granted interim orders against three companies over allegations of setting up false dating profiles and SMS spamming. The Australian Communications and Media Authority alleges that the three companies involved — Mobilegate, Winning Bid and Jobspy — had set up false dating profiles to deceptively obtain user details and had sent SMS messages persuading people to reply to the messages, which were charging them up to $5 per message. They had also used images of people without consent

BitTorrent’s user base is growing month by month and has reached a level where reputable marketing research companies have started to look into the phenomenon. Over the years Nielsen Media has optimised their ratings system for television, radio and films — but on the other hand their BitTorrent traffic estimates are far from accurate

Like most San Franciscans, Charles Pitts is wired. Mr Pitts, who is 37 years old, has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs an Internet forum on Yahoo, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. The tough part is managing this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge. You don’t need a TV. You don’t need a radio. You don’t even need a newspaper, says Mr Pitts, an aspiring poet in a purple cap and yellow fleece jacket, who says he has been homeless for two years. But you need the Internet