A computer that carries out calculations using tiny bubbles instead of electricity has been developed by US researchers. The microfluidic
computer performs calculation by squeezing bubbles through tiny channels etched into a chip. It can perform all of the logical operations needed to make a general-purpose computer. In practise, such a computer would be much bigger than a PC and about a thousand times slower. Nevertheless, the bubble-based computer could lead to improved microfluidic technology for chemical analysis
Google’s e-mail service is almost ready to accept all comers, nearly three years after the online search leader shook up the Internet by offering users an unprecedented amount of free storage and displaying ads based on the content of the correspondence. Effective Wednesday, the Mountain View-based company removed the invitation-only restrictions on its Gmail service in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Brazil. Google opened up the service last year in several other parts of the world, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Egypt. Invitations to open a Gmail account are still required in North America, Asia and most parts of the South America, but Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne said those restrictions will be lifted very soon
. Even then, Gmail will retain a beta
tag to signify the company still considers the service to be in a testing phase
The DNS Root Servers were attacked overnight. It looks like the F, I, and M servers felt the attack and recovered, whereas G (US Department of Defence) and L (ICANN) did less well
A new assessment from Deloitte & Touche predicts that global traffic will exceed the Internet’s capacity as soon as this year. Why? The rapid growth in the number of global Internet users, combined with the rise of online video services and the lack of investment in new infrastructure
If you’re worried about what your neighbours think of you why not follow Malaysia’s lead and ban the journalists who are intent on asking those tricky questions
The New Media division will disappear under a wide-ranging restructure announced by ABC managing director Mark Scott today. Mr Scott says the changes will enable the ABC to maintain its leadership in the digital media world. The changes to be introduced in coming weeks in consultation with staff includes pursuing the potential for new revenue streams afforded by digital technology, including video-on-demand, the digitisation of the ABC archive and partnerships to disseminate ABC content more widely
Steve Jobs has written an essay on the Apple site about DRM, iTunes and the iPod. Perhaps it was prompted by the uncomfortable pressure the EU has been putting on Apple to open up the iPod. Jobs places the blame for the existence and continuing reliance on DRM squarely on the music companies. Quoting: Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly
— via Slashdot
To help make kids aware of alternatives to proprietary software the Ile-de-France, the political district of greater Paris, will give 175,000 school children and apprentices USB keys loaded with open-source software. With a word-processing program, audio and video playback capabilities, an email client and an IM client, these are essentially computers on a stick. The council touts this as representing for students a tool of freedom and mobility between their school, cybercafes and their home or friends’ PCs
For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world’s oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace
A German court on Monday ruled that police cannot remotely search criminal suspects’ computer hard drives over the Internet without their knowledge. The decision of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe bars police from using the online Trojan horse
method, which involves using a computer program to search through remote hard drives over an Internet connection, unless parliament passes a law explicitly allowing it. Police will still be allowed to seize evidence from computer hard drives when conducting searches in person
Almost all printers secretly print dots without your consent which are invisible to the naked eye and apparently Xerox and possibly others have included this technology which FBI is using to keep an eye even on groups such as Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. The EFF has released a guide explaining how to read the date time, and printer serial number from forensic tracking codes in a Xerox DocuColor color laser printout
I’m sure many people wondered if Google will release a presentation tool, after building Google Docs&Spreadsheets. Well, the answer is yes, and the code-name of the tool is Presently (a play on Writely, the name of the online word processor bought by Google). You will be able to convert a document into a presentation, create slides and view the presentation in full-screen
The BBC Trust, an independent oversight body, they are now allowed to release their iPlayer
, enabling the download and viewing of BBC owned content such as Doctor Who. Unfortunately the Trust also mandated the use of DRM to enforce a 30 day playable period, and exempted classical music performances from being made available. There will now be a 2 month consultation period. According to one of the trustees, the Trust could still change its mind if there was a public outcry and it was backed up by evidence
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has issued a warning to ISPs to come clean about their broadband speeds. ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says he is unhappy with the use of the phrase up to
in some advertisements about Internet speeds. He has told the Sydney Institute any service provider continuing to make misleading statements may face litigation
Police in the United States are investigating a media company for causing a massive security scare after police overreacted in Boston. A marketing campaign for Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force turned into a day-long terrorism scare for the city and a public relations nightmare for Turner Broadcasting System Inc over a bunch of blinking boxes that were mistaken for bombs. Major disruptions occurred throughout metropolitan Boston, beginning at 8am local time and then in the afternoon, as calls came in about suspicious-looking devices attached to bridges, roadways and an MBTA bus station
Researchers at the University of Southern California have designed a phosphorescent dye molecule that emits near-infrared light and have used it to make long-lasting organic light-emitting diodes. The diodes could be used to make a cheap and flexible near-infrared display that would be unreadable to the naked eye but could be read with night-vision goggles. Such a display could be integrated into a soldier’s uniform or a device that could be stashed in a pocket, allowing soldiers to read communications at night without being spotted by enemy snipers
Along with today’s iPod Shuffle line additions, Apple has released the promised 802.11n Enabler for compatible Macs. The software is available via a software download from the Apple Store for $2.99 (US$1.99) unless you buy the Airport Extreme base station which includes the software at no additional cost
One of the main challenges in developing microscale robots lies in miniaturising their power and propulsion. Now, researchers in the US may have found a solution to this problem, by exploiting the natural movement of bacteria to propel micro-objects through water
Adobe Systems intends to submit its ubiquitous PDF format to ISO as part of its ongoing format war with Microsoft and Vista. The announcement comes the day before Microsoft’s competing format XPS (XML Paper Specification) ships with the new Windows Vista operating system and Office 2007 software suite. Formally known as Metro, XPS has been described as a PDF killer
intended to break PDF’s decade-long role as the de facto standard for printable documents
Because the new 45-nanometer transistors from IBM and Intel are smaller, they can switch on and off more quickly, roughly 300 billion times per second in Intel’s case. Intel has code-named its new 45-nanometer chips Penryn and plans to produce next-gen Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Xeon chips this year, all with Penryn designs
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