The tweenbot, a cardboard-bodied, cheerful little bugger, is equipped with a flag stating its intended destination. Since it can only move forward, it depends on the kindness of strangers to guide it and remove obstacles. In New York City, we might expect the smiley-faced tweenbot to be stabbed, stomped, mugged, or covered in graffiti, but every single one of the journeys was completed without a hitch. Pedestrians would stop and help the little guy when he was trapped against a curb or headed into traffic, and point him in the right direction
Telecommunications in Silicon Valley were disrupted, and it had nothing to do with hackers. Vandals clipped thick AT&T fibre-optic cables to take out landline phones, wireless services and broadband Internet for tens of thousands of customers. While services were restored, the incident showed infrastructure systems are vulnerable
Dye-sensitised solar cells work by absorbing photons on an inexpensive thin-film composed of dye molecules attached to a titanium oxide layer on a glass or plastic substrate. When the dye molecules absorb a photon, the resultant excitation injects electrons into the titanium, which transports them to the negative electrode. Dye-sensitised solar cells are favored as a thin-film material because they work in low-light conditions and are fabricated with environmentally benign materials compared to silicon solar cells. However, silicon cells have more than twice the efficiency, as much as 20 percent compared to less than 10 percent for dye-sensitised solar cells. If diatoms could triple the efficiency of dye-sensitised solar cells, they could potentially offer comparable efficiency at a lower cost, especially in low lighting conditions
Last week, the French Parliament passed a new law requiring Internet service providers to cut off Internet access for persistent copyright offenders. Since the parliament voted in favor of the law, everyone — including the most fanatical critics — believed that it would easily pass through Senate and the National Assembly — but it didn’t. After a two hour discussion, the law was rejected by the National Assembly with 21 votes against and 15 votes in favour. According to early reports, the Socialist deputies changed their initial position and decided to vote against the law after witnessing the mass opposition from the French public
Top Google executives charged with building a local data centre for the search engine giant have postponed a visit to Australia until after the federal Government’s $15 billion national broadband network contract announcement. The delay comes as vendors involved in the discussions express concern as to the economic viability of building Google’s data centre. The search engine giant has been looking for more processing power and support for its local operations as it seeks to deliver web-based applications to enterprise and government customers
Biomimetic adhesives aren’t new, but Simon Fraser University PhD graduate Dan Sameoto has developed a new method of creating microscopic, mushroom-like plastic structures in order to produce a dry adhesive that mimics the stickiness of gecko feet. And he is prepping his innovation for outer space
Since the government has finally declassified the program, the people who worked at Area 51 can now talk about A-12 OXCART, a Wicked Secret program to build an test a Mach 3 spyplane at Nevada’s Groom Lake. You may know it as the forerunner of the SR-71 Blackbird. The LA Times talks to survivors of the program — via Boing Boing
Google search results are now based on a best guess of the user’s location, using the IP address. Search users can also specify a default location for Google to use. The new Google location capability works on all computing devices and browsers, a change from previous smartphone technology that required Windows Mobile and Internet Explorer
Libraries and archives from around the world have come together in a project to share their collections of rare books, maps, films, manuscripts and recordings online for free. Almost four years in the making, the World Digital Library will launch on 21 April, functioning in seven languages — Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish — and including content in additional languages. A prototype of what will be on offer includes a voice recording of the 101-year-old grandson of an American slave, a 17th-century map of the world and 19th-century Brazilian photographs. The brainchild of James Billington, from the US’s Library of Congress, the project has been developed by Unesco and the Library of Congress, along with 32 other partners from around the world, including national libraries from Iraq, Egypt, Russia, Brazil, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Uganda. As well as documents and recordings, the digital archive will also feature videos from curators explaining why they are important and what they reveal about a culture, and the option to translate material into different languages. Users will be able to browse and search by place, time, topic and type of item, with material to also include musical scores, prints, photographs, architectural drawings and other significant cultural materials
Apple has followed through on its promise to remove all digital rights management (DRM) from music sold on the iTunes Store. The company also unveiled tiered pricing for individual songs and albums. All songs on the iTunes Store are now available at 256kbps AAC encoding, which Apple says is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings
Google launched an updated version of Gmail for iPhone and Android phones that takes advantage of some advanced features from their browsers. Gmail’s mobile site can now be used even when you’re offline thanks to iPhone’s offline storage and Android’s implementation of Gears. If the data network drops out on you, rest assured that Gmail won’t. You’ll still be able to open recently read messages and to compose over a flaky, or non-existent, network connection.
Some other enhancements: Gmail loads faster, there’s a floating toolbar that includes options like archiving or reporting spam and the interface is more consistent
The federal Government has terminated the tender process for its national broadband network project and will instead look to partners to build a $43 billion fibre to the home network. A new company, National Broadband Network Corporation, will be created to build the network. It will be jointly owned by the Government and the private sector, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said. Mr Rudd said not one of the private bidders for the NBN’s request for proposals met the government’s requirements. None of the bids offered value for money,
Mr Rudd said. The panel noted the rapid deterioration of the global economy had a significant impact on the process
The board of Sun Microsystems was reportedly divided as it rejected a $7 billion purchase offer from IBM. Sun also reportedly terminated its agreement to negotiate exclusively with IBM, and IBM withdrew its offer. The action was reminiscent of Yahoo’s rejection of Microsoft, but Sun appears to have few suitors other than IBM
A pet dog which was washed overboard and believed drowned has been found four months later — as a castaway on a remote Australian island. Sophie Tucker — named after the famous US entertainer — vanished as Jan and Dave Griffith sailed through stormy waters off Queensland last November. But unknown to her grieving owners, the plucky dog survived a long swim across shark-infested waters to an island. There she lived on a diet of baby goats until being found by visiting rangers. The Griffiths were amazed to hear of the discovery and have now been reunited with their pet
Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a whites only
victory. Many who fought Nazi Germany during World War II did so to defeat the vicious racism that left millions of Jews dead. Yet the BBC’s Document programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers — who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces — were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital
It could take up to eight weeks for Sydney’s electricity supply to return to normal after the latest blackout, EnergyAustralia said over the weekend. About 50,000 homes and businesses in the northern part of the Sydney CBD, parts of Surry Hills and the Eastern Suburbs lost power on Saturday after a transformer tripped at 10.28am (AEDT). It is the second time large sections of the city have suffered power outages within the past week, with the first occurring during the Monday afternoon peak-hour. About 20 key CBD building managers have been asked to reduce their air conditioning and other non-essential electricity use
Fears that over 100 jobs from Western Australian Energy company Synergy would be outsourced to an Indian IT company were yesterday laid to rest. Western Australian Shadow Minister for Energy Kate Doust had said earlier this week that Synergy was negotiating with an Indian company with the goal of sending IT jobs abroad. Energy Minister Peter Collier said he would take the concerns to the company and yesterday announced a plan developed with Synergy to make sure no Western Australian jobs would be sent overseas as part of Synergy’s business transformation program to introduce new SAP-based customer care and billing systems
Italian police have found more than 100 immigrants, including 24 Afghan children, living in the sewer system beneath railway stations in Rome. The children range in age from 10 to 15 years and are now being looked after by the city’s social services. They were found when the railway police followed up reports of children living near the city’s stations. The police say they do not speak Italian and broke into the sewers by removing manhole covers. The charity Save the Children Italy says that more than 1,000 unaccompanied children arrived in Rome last year from various countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America
The CSIRO‘s legal win against Hewlett Packard over the use of its patented wireless technology could mean big bucks for the Australian science agency, says a patent attorney. The four-year lawsuit was brought by the CSIRO over the use of its Wi-Fi technology, which has been widely used as industry standard in computer products by major international corporations. The CSIRO was granted patent for its IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g Wi-Fi products in 1996, but since has been used extensively, regardless. The companies have agreed on an undisclosed settlement amount and Davies Collision Cave patent attorney, Neil Shoot, says it is highly likely there will be a similar outcome in the other litigation cases the CSIRO is involved in
The dusty stacks of the nation’s great university and research libraries are full of orphans — books that the author and publisher have essentially abandoned. They are out of print, and while they remain under copyright, the rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. Now millions of orphan books may get a new legal guardian. Google has been scanning the pages of those books and others as part of its plan to bring a digital library and bookstore, unprecedented in scope, to computer screens across the United States. But a growing chorus is complaining that a far-reaching settlement of a suit brought against Google by publishers and authors is about to grant the company too much power over orphan works
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