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Issue no. 25, 2002 Published: Jun 21, 2002
Brussels plans tough mobile phone laws
US probes anti-competitive practices
Mobile phones cause human cell changes - study
Quantum teleportation technique improved
Nano-stamps make smaller, cheaper chips
Philips develops drive to run tiny CDs
Motorola develops memory chip
Sun's free software aimed to undercut Microsoft
Global digital photo printing network planned
Wal-Mart offers major boost to Lindows
Net 'brain' has all the answers
'Tooth-phone' provides covert chat
Electro-boy crashes computers

Brussels plans tough mobile phone laws
Telecommunications companies face tougher regulation in the market for mobile telephone calls under plans unveiled on Tuesday by the European Commission. Brussels wants to crack down on high 'call termination fees', the prices mobile companies charge fixed line operators for connecting to their networks. The prices of 'roaming' - where customers from one mobile network use another - and the use of existing 'local loop' cables to provide high-speed internet access through traditional phone lines, will also be subject to stricter rules. The Commission's recommendations, which will now be subject to a month of consultations, could pave the way for action by national authorities to force telecoms companies to cut the prices of some of their most lucrative services.
Financial Times Jun 17, 2002	back to top

US probes anti-competitive practices
A US antitrust investigation into the $12bn global memory chip industry now involves all major players plus a handful of smaller Asian companies trying to survive in a cut-throat market. The world's top four makers of DRAM - Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor, Micron Technology and Infineon Technologies - accounting for 70 per cent of the market last year, had by Thursday confirmed that they were all part of the probe, which appears to focus on the sharp price swings that have battered the industry since autumn 2001. Memory chip makers have been battered by fierce competition and overcapacity that has driven prices below the cost of production. Analysts said US regulators might be looking into whether memory makers had teamed up to keep prices low in order to drive out weaker rivals, easing future competition. However, it is still not clear what the specific charge is or who it is being levelled at.
New York Times / Reuters Jun 20, 2002	back to top

Mobile phones cause human cell changes - study
A study by scientists in Finland has found that mobile phone radiation can cause changes in human cells that might affect the brain. The study at Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) found that exposure to radiation from mobile phones can cause increased activity in hundreds of proteins in human cells grown in a laboratory. The study focused on changes in cells that line blood vessels and on whether such changes could weaken the functioning of the blood-brain barrier which prevents potentially harmful substances from entering the brain from the blood stream. The study found that a protein called hsp27 linked to the functioning of the blood-brain barrier showed increased activity due to irradiation and pointed to a possibility that such activity could make the shield more permeable. The researchers declined to speculate on what kind of health risks that could pose, but a French study indicates that headache, fatigue and sleep disorders could result.
New York Times / Reuters Jun 20, 2002	back to top

Quantum teleportation technique improved
Scientists at the Australian National University say they have successfully 'teleported' a laser beam encoded with data, breaking it up and reconstructing an exact replica about one metre away. Their work replicates a similar experiment in the US in 1998, but the Australian team believes their technique is more reliable and consistent. The teleportation technique makes use of quantum entanglement. When particles are fundamentally linked in this way, performing an operation on one will have the same effect on the other, even if they are physically separated. At this stage, the technique can only teleport light by destroying the light beam and creating an exact copy at the receiving end from light particles known as photons. The scientists said their technique's main use will be as a way to encrypt information and for a new generation of super-fast computers. But they believe it could soon be used for teleporting matter.
Space.com / AP / New Scientist Jun 18, 2002	back to top

Nano-stamps make smaller, cheaper chips
A new method of imprinting nanoscale features on silicon using a microscopic 'stamp' could allow more complex computer chips to be manufactured faster and more cheaply than is currently possible. Microchips are currently manufactured using photolithography. This process can create features 100 nanometres in size, but scaling down much further is expected to prove very complicated and costly. The new method, Laser-Assisted Direct Imprint (LADI), has been developed by a team at Princeton University. It is less complicated, much faster and can already create features measuring just 10 nanometres. A quartz mould with the required imprint is created and placed on top of the silicon. A laser pulse fired through the mould melts the top layer of the silicon, and allows the desired structure to be imprinted. The LADI process still has some drawbacks. For instance, it has not been demonstrated that it can imprint multiple layers on a chip. Despite these challenges, LADI has received good reviews.
New Scientist / Scientific American Jun 20, 2002	back to top

Philips develops drive to run tiny CDs
Dutch consumer-electronics giant Philips is demonstrating a prototype miniature disc drive that uses a coin-size disc capable of storing nearly twice as much data as a standard-sized CD. The drive uses 3cm discs that can store up to 1GB of data. The prototype drive measures just 5.6 by 3.4 by 0.75cm - suitable for use in portable devices such as digital cameras, handhelds and cell phones - but the company is continuing to work to shrink the drive. The increased storage is made possible by way of blue-laser technology. Blue lasers have shorter wavelengths than red lasers, which are used in current optical CD drives to read data off discs. Philips also said that it has been able to radically reduce the size of optical disc drive systems, particularly the building-height of the drives, which is seen as crucial given the space constraints of portable devices.
ZDNet / Reuters Jun 20, 2002	back to top

Motorola develops memory chip
Motorola has developed a memory chip that extends battery life and improves the performance of phones and PCs. Dubbed magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) the technology combines several functions onto a single chip. The device holds its memory even when shut off. This means that a cellphone using MRAM would 'wake up' at once when turned on, rather than taking time to boot up as is now the case. Also, the new devices would deliver more reliable performance, according to the company. PCs with MRAM would not lose data if they crashed or were accidentally switched off. Motorola wants the product to be on the market within two years and is teaming up with two other semiconductor makers, Philips Electronics and STMicroelectronics, to complete its development and marketing.
VNUnet UK Jun 17, 2002	back to top

Sun's free software aimed to undercut Microsoft
Sun Microsystems announced a free software initiative aimed at undercutting Microsoft in the battle to set the standards of the next-generation internet. Sun and Microsoft see a world of 'web services' in which clever software anticipates users' needs. For that to happen, a layer of backbone software must stitch together computers that run operating systems and translate data between applications. Contrary to Windows, Sun's Java platform already runs programs while sitting on top of many operating systems. The next step is aimed at cementing the ascendance of Java. For that reason Sun plans to give away for computers that run Windows, Linux and Unix operating systems a basic version of its application server, a type of backbone software that runs custom applications necessary for web services and communicates data between applications. The aim of the strategy is that developers wooed by free software will create programs for its systems, rather than Microsoft's.
New York Times / Reuters Jun 19, 2002	back to top

Global digital photo printing network planned
The imaging industry is planning a global digital printing network. The Common Picture eXchange Environment would let digital camera users make prints anywhere in the world. The aim is to make the finishing process for digital images as convenient as it is for film. Companies already on board include Eastman Kodak, Fujifilm and Hewlett- Packard. Industry group the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) says the network could be up and running as early as next year. The plan is to develop a web-based framework that would let consumers transmit digital photos from their PCs or ATM-style kiosks. The network would let them upload, download and order prints of digital pictures at any retail location in the world. The first step will be to create an open technological standard for the network. This is expected to be in place by the end of the year.
Ananova Jun 17, 2002	back to top

Wal-Mart offers major boost to Lindows
US retail giant Wal-Mart has announced that is to offer PCs built around the controversial Lindows operating system. Lindows is a version of the Linux operating system that allows users to run Windows applications, according to Lindows founder Michael Robertson. Earlier this year, Lindows survived a legal challenge from Microsoft which claimed that Lindows had strategically named itself to confuse customers and cash in on the Windows brand.
VNUnet UK Jun 17, 2002	back to top

Net 'brain' has all the answers
An internet 'brain' that could replace human interaction has been invented by Cambridge University researchers. The system, dubbed Metafaq, can answer e-mailed questions and also guide surfers through websites. The system is about to be used by Sony to offer technical support to PlayStation users. Users going on the Sony website can browse the Metafaq knowledge base or e-mail it questions. Simple questions such as whether PlayStation 2 can be used to play DVDs or when the next game will be released can be answered quickly and easily by Metafaq. If the question cannot be answered by the system, it will be forwarded to a human being. The response is then e-mailed back and added to the knowledge base. So the more questions that are asked, the brainier Metafaq becomes.
BBC News Jun 20, 2002	back to top

'Tooth-phone' provides covert chat
A prototype radio device designed to fit inside a human tooth and provide covert mobile phone communications has been created by two UK students. The device currently consists of a digital radio receiver that converts radio signals into sound and a tiny vibrating component, which conveys sound to the wearer's inner ear through bone vibrations and is therefore only audible to its wearer. Its inventors say the tiny receiver could be configured to receive sound from an external device, such as a mobile phone, a radio or a computer. They also say it would be relatively simple to fit the gadget with a microphone, to allow it to return a radio signal to another device. The device is currently wired to a battery. But power could be generated as people eat, speak or wiggle their heads by an electro-magnetic micro-generator embedded in the tooth, the inventors suggest.
New Scientist Jun 20, 2002	back to top

Electro-boy crashes computers
A student in a Romanian town can crash computers and electrical appliances just by standing near them. When the 20-year-old man moved into a nine-storey apartment building in the town of Iasi, computers started to fuse, bulbs shattered, fuse boxes would explode and lifts carrying people would get stuck, news agency RIA Novosti reported. The manager of the building told the press that when he shook the student's hand, 'I had a feeling as if I touched a bare electric wire.' Residents in the apartment called in a priest, thinking that the electrical breakdowns might have been caused by a demon, but everything remained useless. In the end, after televisions broke in every apartment of the building and internet connections proved impossible, the residents took the case to court demanding that the student move out. Romanian scientists claimed that the boy has a very strong biomagnetic field, and it was this that caused all the troubles.
VNUNet UK Jun 18, 2002	back to top