Your next laptop could have a continuous power battery that lasts for 30 years without a single recharge thanks to work being funded by the US Air Force Research Laboratory. The breakthrough betavoltaic power cells are constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotopes as the energy source. As the radioactive material decays it emits beta particles that transform into electric power capable of fueling an electrical device like a laptop for years
In Sweden, the Jernhusen company, which owns Stockholm’s central station, is planning to channel passenger warmth to heat a 13-storey office block being built next to the station. Heat exchangers in the station’s ventilation system will convert the body heat into hot water, which will be pumped into the heating system of the building
Sony BMG Music Entertainment will offer tracks in MP3 format, without DRM, from 15 January in the US and from late January in Canada. The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card’s covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears’ Blackout
and Barry Manilow’s The Greatest Songs of the Seventies
After losing some of its lustre on the personal computer, embattled Internet icon Yahoo is hoping to outshine Google and other rivals on the mobile phone. Yahoo has opened its mobile platform so outside programmers can develop new applications for Yahoo pages accessed on mobile handsets. Yahoo hopes the mini-applications, known as widgets
, will help attract more on-the-go users, which will bring the company more money from advertising
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have found a way of using sunlight to recycle carbon dioxide and produce fuels like methanol or gasoline. The Sunlight to Petrol project essentially reverses the combustion process, recovering the building blocks of hydrocarbons
A malicious Facebook Widget actively spreading on the social networking site ultimately prompts users to install the infamous Zango
malware. The tremendous success and lightning fast expansion of Facebook empowered the social networking giant with an impressive user base. Needless to say, in a digital world where web traffic equals money, such a user base attracts spammers, virus/spyware seeders, and other ethic-less online marketers like honey would attract flies — via Slashdot
Bill Gates and the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences this week donated $30 million to an ambitious telescope that researchers say will be able to survey the entire sky every three nights — something never done before. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project got $20 million from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10 million from Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates. Expected to see its first light
in 2014, the 8.4m LSST will survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple colors every week with its 3 billion-pixel digital camera, probing the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy and opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move
The longest-running search for radio signals from alien civilisations is receiving 500 times more data from an upgraded telescope and better frequency coverage than project planners anticipated, meaning the SETI@home project is in dire need of more desktop computers to help crunch the data
Until the early days of the Blair government the RAF’s nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key. There was no other security on the Bomb itself. While American and Russian weapons were protected by tamper-proof combination locks which could only be released if the correct code was transmitted, Britain relied on a simpler technology
Time Warner’s Warner Bros studio has said it will exclusively release high-definition DVDs in Sony Corp’s Blu-Ray format, dealing a big blow to Toshiba Corp’s rival HD DVD technology
Just before year’s end, ICANN/IANA sent out a short message saying that on 4 February 2008, IANA will add AAAA records for the IPv6 addresses of the four root servers whose operators have requested it.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is mostly responsible for the global Domain Name System, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the part of ICANN. That means that as of 4 February 2008, it will (theoretically) be possible for two IPv6 hosts to communicate across the IPv6 Internet without having to rely on any IPv4 infrastructure. It’s been a long journey to get to this point
Russia’s top-level domain — with the ASCII suffix .ru — translates into Cyrillic as .py, the domain name of Paraguay. That could pose security problems for Russian users. Kim Davies, who controls the domain names at the international domain naming agency Icann told the Guardian: Russia has a second top level domain name of .ru in ASCII code, but is pushing for .rf in Cyrillic.
The internationalised domain name gives them an opportunity to do things which are now being tested in China, where they are currently using Chinese characters for three top-level domains: .net, .com and .cn
The UK government has published guidelines for the application of a law that makes it illegal to create or distribute so-called hacking tools
Carbon may be losing its monopoly over the nanoworld. According to the latest calculations, tubes built out of the element boron could have many of the same properties as carbon nanotubes. And for some electronic applications, they should even be better than carbon
An Apple patent has recently surfaced for a dynamically changeable OLED keyboard. The keyboard would rely on OLEDs to provide the graphics on the key surfaces. The patent application also details how such a keyboard would be manufactured
Last month security researcher Benjamin Googins determined that Sears installed ComScore spyware without adequate disclosure. Sears said, yes we tell people about tracking their browsing. On 1 January spyware researcher Ben Edelman weighed in, noting that Sears’ notice occurs on page 10 of a 54-page privacy statement, and twits Sears because its installation identifies the software as VoiceFive
and later claims it’s coming from a company called TMRG, Inc
even though a packet sniffer confirms the software belongs to ComScore, adding “These confusing name-changes fit the trend among spyware vendors — via Slashdot
An antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple on 31 December charges the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market. The complaint takes issue with Apple’s refusal to support the Windows Media Audio format
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently reported that two research teams have developed a new porous foam of an alloy that changes shape when exposed to a magnetic field. The NSF states that this new material is able to remember its original shape after it’s been deformed by a physical or magnetic force. This polycrystalline nickel-manganese-gallium alloy is potentially cheaper and lighter than other materials currently used in devices ranging from sonar to precision valves. It also could be used to design biomedical pumps without moving parts and even for space applications and automobiles — via Slashdot
HECToR, the largest supercomputer in the UK, is around five times more powerful than its predecessor, HPCx, which is also at the University of Edinburgh. It measures up well internationally, sitting at 17 in the top500.org list of the most powerful computers in the world
It is not just the average net user who is a fan of social network sites, so are hi-tech criminals. So say security professionals predicting what net criminals will turn to in 2008 to catch people out. The quasi-intimate nature of the sites makes people share information readily leaving them open to all kinds of other attacks, warn security firms. Detailed information gathered via the sites will also help tune spam runs or make phishing e-mail more convincing
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