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Issue no. 18, 2002 Published: May 03, 2002
Adobe wins Flash patent lawsuit
Intel to make chipsets for disposable cellphones
Cellphone radiation could exceed limit in train carriages
Genetically engineered viruses make liquid crystal structures
Liquid crystal displays 'painted on'
New advances in quantum cryptography
Here come the ratbots
Researchers create high-tech fibre
Supercomputer predicts materials strength
Pain from computer use more common than thought: study
Surveillance cameras to predict behaviour
SETI@Home celebrates major milestone
Mobile phones 'an obsession' for couples

Adobe wins Flash patent lawsuit
Software maker Adobe Systems won its lawsuit Thursday claiming that rival Macromedia infringed on the company's patents. Adobe filed the suit in August 2000, alleging that the user interface of Macromedia's Flash web animation tool infringed on Adobe's patent for 'tabbed palettes', a feature that allows users of design software to rearrange the work space on the PC screen. The jury agreed with Adobe and awarded the company $2.8m in damages. Adobe said it also expects a judicial injunction preventing Macromedia from selling the infringing software. A trial is scheduled to begin in the same court Monday regarding Macromedia's first countersuit, charging that Adobe's Photoshop image-editing software and its GoLive Web design software infringe on two patents that Macromedia holds for editing tools. A second Macromedia countersuit is not yet scheduled for trial.
ZDNet May 02, 2002	back to top

Intel to make chipsets for disposable cellphones
Disposable diapers. Disposable cameras. And now, disposable cell phones. US company Hop-On said on Wednesday that it had struck an agreement with Intel to provide chipsets for its disposable cellphones. Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, has a small second- generation chipset business, and is more than happy to sell the older products, an Intel spokesman said. Hop-On said Intel will provide chipsets using the TDMA cellphone standard for use in its disposable phones worldwide. Initial target markets will be in the US and Latin America, the company said. Hop-On's disposable cellphones, which it says are recyclable, will carry an hour's worth of prepaid calling minutes in the US.
Yahoo / Reuters May 01, 2002	back to top

Cellphone radiation could exceed limit in train carriages
Passengers on packed trains could unwittingly be exposed to electro- magnetic fields far higher than those recommended by the International Committee for Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP), according to Tsuyoshi Hondou, a physicist from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. Japanese commuter trains are often packed with people surfing the web on their mobile phones. The trend spurred Hondou to find out what effect this had on the electromagnetic radiation in a train carriage. For a standard train carriage, with a carrying capacity of 151 people, Hondou's calculations show that it is possible to exceed ICNIRP exposure limits if 30 people, each with a mobile phone that emits radio waves at a power of 0.4 watts, all use their phones at the same time. The peak power a mobile phone is allowed to produce is two watts. Hondou says his findings point to what could become a new environmental issue, especially as new wireless devices come onto the market.
New Scientist May 01, 2002	back to top

Genetically engineered viruses make liquid crystal structures
If you want to build a molecular-scale computer chip you will need tiny builders. Researchers in Texas used a virus as their nano-construction worker. Genetically engineered to grab up zinc sulphide, these 'viral semiconductors' arrange themselves into highly ordered structures that may serve as the raw material for future nanoscale devices. The researchers genetically engineered a virus to carry random bits of protein in its outer coat, and comparing each altered virus' ability to latch onto zinc sulphide particles. They used the 'best binding' virus to infect bacteria where it could make millions of copies of itself. Added to a zinc sulphide solution, the viruses attached themselves to the semiconductor material, grew zinc sulphide nanocrystals at their ends, and assembled themselves into a highly ordered hybrid film with the attached particles. By tinkering with different solution concentrations and applied magnetic fields, the researchers were able to alter the stacking direction of the film's layers.
MSNBC / AAAS May 02, 2002	back to top

Liquid crystal displays 'painted on'
Liquid crystal displays could soon be painted straight on to surfaces, using a technique currently being refined by researchers at Philips laboratories in the Netherlands. The technique could potentially allow manufacturers to make displays more quickly because the liquid crystal mixtures do not have to be carefully poured between two surfaces. The mixture is painted across a surface covered with electrodes and then treated with two different wavelengths of UV light. The first treatment solidifies part of the mixture to create a grid. This separates the surface into different cells, which act as the pixels of the display. The second treatment creates a hardened layer above the cells. Conventional LCDs pass current between the top and bottom layer to switch the cells on and off. The current 'twists' the crystals, altering their ability to transmit light. But the new display changes the alignment of the crystals by altering the current flowing between the electrodes on only the lower surface.
New Scientist May 02, 2002	back to top

New advances in quantum cryptography
A new technique for encrypting messages called quantum cryptography might result in the first unbreakable codes of the 21st century. The technique combines a reliable, decades-old encryption method with a new and simple way of distributing the encryption key - by using the laws of quantum mechanics. Anytime this subatomic process is observed, it is immediately disturbed by the observer. Two parties exchanging a quantum-protected encrypted message would know immediately if a third party was trying to eavesdrop. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US said they have been successfully sending and receiving messages using the quantum technique and believe it can be made foolproof. It works over both wired and wireless media and in good weather and bad.
Tech Review / UPI Apr 30, 2002	back to top

Here come the ratbots
Guided rats controlled through implants in their brains could one day be used to search for landmines or buried victims of earthquakes, according to scientists at the of the State University of New York. The extraordinary experiment involves researchers steering five rats through an obstacle course by remote control. Electrodes were implanted into areas of the rat brain responsible for sensing reward as well as those that process signals from their whiskers. The commands and rewards were transmitted by radio from a laptop computer to a backpack receiver strapped to each rat. The scientists were able to make the rats run, turn, jump and climb where they wanted from distances of up to 500 metres away. The ratbots negotiated an obstacle course which involved climbing a vertical ladder, running along a narrow ledge, hopping down a flight of steps, squeezing through a hoop and descending a steep ramp.
BBC News May 01, 2002	back to top

Researchers create high-tech fibre
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created high-performance mirrors that can be formed into hair-thin fibres and woven into fabrics or even paper. Future fabrics woven with the mirror fibres could create clothes that reflect and protect against invisible microwaves and radiation. When incorporated into paper, the super-thin fibbers could create hidden 'bar codes' that would be visible only when scanned by specific colours of light. That could lead to documents that would be nearly impossible to forge or duplicate. The MIT mirror fibre uses multiple layers of two materials - a polymer, or plastic, and a chalcogenide, an inorganic glass substance. The large difference in the index of refraction between these materials causes a strong backward scattering of light, leading to high reflectivity. The result: A 'perfect mirror' that reflects all light from any angle with very little loss due to absorption by the mirror's materials.
ABC News Apr 27, 2002	back to top

Supercomputer predicts materials strength
Using one of the world's most powerful supercomputers as a 'microscope', IBM and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists in the US believe they can demonstrate a major advance in simulating the strength of materials. The supercomputer allows scientists to create simulated cubes of materials containing up to one billion atoms. They then deform the cubes to see how they break, what makes them strong or weak, stiff or flexible. This technique, called creative computer visualisation, can reveal stress responses at the atomic level, with cracks moving at supersonic speeds and expanding tangles of defects developing deep inside the cube that can harden a tough and flexible material to the point of brittle fracture.
Tech Review / UPI Apr 30, 2002	back to top

Pain from computer use more common than thought: study
More than half of computer users developed neck or shoulder symptoms during the first year on a new job, a new study has found. For three years, researchers at the Emory University in Atlanta tracked 632 men and women who were hired for jobs requiring 15 hours or more per week of computer use. The workers' posture and risk factors were assessed at the beginning of the study, and the dimensions of their work stations were measured. Every day, the participants recorded their work practices and incidence of musculoskeletal symptoms in their neck, shoulder, hands or arms. Participants who reported symptoms were then examined for specific musculoskeletal disorders. The results showed nearly 40 per cent of participants developed a hand or arm symptom each year while using a computer and 21 per cent actually developed a disorder. Poor posture and improper positioning of the monitor, keyboard and mouse are all risk factors for injury.
CBC News Apr 29, 2002	back to top

Surveillance cameras to predict behaviour
CCTV cameras that can predict behaviour could play a vital role in the fight against crime. The software, dubbed Cromatica, is being developed at London's Kingston University to improve security on public transport systems but it could be used on a wider scale. It works by detecting differences in the images shown on the screen. For example background changes indicate a crowd of people and possible congestion. If there is a lot of movement in the images it could indicate a fight. It could also detect unattended bags, people who are loitering or even predict if someone is going to commit suicide by throwing themselves on the track. The biggest advantage of Cromatica is that is allows the watchers to sift the evidence more efficiently. Transport systems across Europe have expressed interest in the software and it has already been tested at London's Liverpool Street station.
BBC News May 01, 2002	back to top

SETI@Home celebrates major milestone
The SETI@Home project will receive its 500 millionth result this week. The project, which uses the spare computing power of volunteers from around the world to analyse data in a search for intelligent alien life, has received 497,976,462 results to date. By Saturday it should cross the 500 million mark. Faced with 50Tb of information to analyse, SETI@Home asked the public for help back in 1999. Volunteers downloaded a screensaver from its website and turned their computers' idle time to crunching numbers for the project. SETI@Home has now clocked up almost one million years of computing time, with 453,000 computers running continuously in the last 24 hours. Although the project is yet to find evidence of alien life, it has recently concentrated on processing more promising signals.
VNUnet UK May 01, 2002	back to top

Mobile phones 'an obsession' for couples
Modern couples are becoming obsessive about keeping in touch by mobile phone, according to a new survey from Orange. The figures suggest that one in three couples exchange over 10 calls and text messages daily. Some of these calls are made within minutes of saying goodbye in the morning, and more than 80 per cent ring a partner to update them on their journey to work. Some 67 per cent will use the phone to nag a loved one into doing something they had forgotten, and 28 per cent use the phone to check what's on the menu for dinner. Brett Kahr, a senior fellow in psychotherapy at Regent's College in London, insisted that the trend was healthy. 'Before the era of mobile phones, husbands and wives had fewer opportunities to communicate with one another during the course of the working day,' he said. However, New York psychologist Dr John Gladford said that there was a certain amount of control involved in some calls between partners. Some people use the mobile to make sure that their partner is not being unfaithful, he said.
VNUnet UK May 01, 2002	back to top