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Issue no. 7, 2003 Published: Feb 14, 2003
EU pushes greater internet, telecom competition
New Microsoft complaint filed with EU
iSCSI receives industry approval
Neuro-Chip reads brain signals
Scheme smoothes parallel processing
Space technology helps the blind
New technology sees through objects
Dyes boost solar cells
'Denim' solar panels to clothe future buildings
New UK trials of internet access over power lines
Chip making faster internet access on cell phone possible
Gaming 'is good for you'
French police seize bullet-firing mobile phones

EU pushes greater internet, telecom competition
Europe's incumbent telephone operators could be forced to open up their lines to rivals looking to offer cheaper, high-speed internet access to homes and businesses, under an EU proposal announced Wednesday. The European Commission recommended that EU countries act to force telephone companies to open networks to competitors, aiming to provide a needed jolt for internet and some telephone services. The EU sees widespread broadband as vital for assuring European competitiveness. Ultimately, the Commission wants regulators to ensure national phone companies do not hamper competitors' use of their infrastructure when such access is essential for them to offer high-speed internet or long distance services.
Yahoo / Reuters Feb 12, 2003	back to top

New Microsoft complaint filed with EU
A computer trade group has filed a complaint against Microsoft to the European Commission, alleging the latest XP version of Windows gives the software giant an illegal advantage that kills competition. The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed its complaint as the Commission nears a decision over whether Microsoft committed illegal practices with older versions of its software. The Commission said the new complaint would be examined, but would not affect the investigation that has been underway for more than three years into Microsoft, which officials hope to wrap up in coming months. The 260-page complaint says the Commission should look at Microsoft's tactics as an overall, coordinated effort designed to maintain a monopoly, instead of examining them piecemeal. The CCIA says Microsoft has bundled a host of programs into Windows XP. The group wants Microsoft to break out these bundled products so that new competition can develop, which could ultimately lead to a rival for Windows.
ZDNet / Reuters Feb 11, 2003	back to top

iSCSI receives industry approval
A key standards body has given its blessing for a new technology that allows storage area networks to be built using existing Ethernet networking. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) approved the iSCSI standard. SCSI is a widely used standard for connecting hard drives to computers; iSCSI lets that happen over a network connection such as a company Ethernet network or even the internet. iSCSI holds the promise of letting multiple computers tap into a pool of storage systems. The major competitor for iSCSI is the existing Fibre Channel protocol, which offers high performance and is well-established in the marketplace, but requires separate networks. By contrast, iSCSI works with existing computer networks. While not widely used today, iSCSI holds the potential to be less expensive and less difficult to use.
ZDNet Feb 12, 2003	back to top

Neuro-Chip reads brain signals
Researchers at Infineon Technologies AG and the Max Planck Institute in Germany have developed new semiconductor technology that will allow scientists to read electrical signals in living nerve cells. Being able to read and record the signals, with the aid of computers, will help scientists better understand how the brain works and could eventually lead to treatments for neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's, according to Infineon. The researchers successfully recorded electrical signals in neurons from the brains of snails. The Neuro-Chip, about the size of a fingernail, has 16,000 sensors that monitor electrical pulses in cells submerged in electrolyte nutrient fluid that coats the semiconductor and keeps the neurons alive. Amplifiers embedded in the circuitry enable each sensor to detect and process the low voltage signals throughout the different cell layers. The data can then be transmitted to a computer and eventually transformed into a colour picture for analysis.
CNN / Reuters Feb 11, 2003	back to top

Scheme smoothes parallel processing
Large problems that involve simulating events that have many variables - such as the workings of financial markets - require faster calculations than today's desktop PCs can offer. One strategy is to distribute portions of a problem to several different computers that can work on it in parallel. It is a complicated proposition, however, to portion a problem into discrete tasks, coordinate often far-flung processors as they solve interrelated parts of the problem, and then put the parts together to form an answer. Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mississippi State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Florida State University are using the mathematics that describes crystal growth patterns to coordinate the timing of large numbers of parallel processors without the top-down management of a central plan. The work could lead to more efficiently running systems that coordinate tasks like assigning channels on-the-fly to cell-phone users.
Technology Review / Technology Research News Feb 13, 2003	back to top

Space technology helps the blind
A new navigation tool to help blind people find their way around city streets is about to be tested under a new European project using advanced European Space Agency (Esa) satellite technology. Current satellite navigation based on the global positioning system (GPS) lacks the precision needed for detailed navigation along city streets. To improve the accuracy of GPS positioning, Europe is developing the Egnos system, which broadcasts augmentation signals through geo-stationary satellites, enabling receivers on the ground to correct errors in GPS signals. To prevent buildings obscuring the Egnos signal, Esa created a complementary technology, known as SisNet, to relay the signal in real-time over the internet using wireless networks. The new handheld system, developed by Spanish company GMV Sistemas, makes use of this technology to improve the accuracy of GPS positions to a few metres, making it sensitive enough to locate obstacles in the street. GMV Sistemas' personal navigator for the blind, called Tormes, includes a Braille keyboard, a voice synthesizer and a GPS receiver.
BBC News Feb 10, 2003	back to top

New technology sees through objects
Researchers in Europe have made advances with a new technology that could one day be used to detect explosives or biological weapons in parcels, locate cancers beneath the skin, reveal the state of wounds beneath dressings and see through fog. The scientists with the StarTiger project, sponsored by the European Space Agency, were able to take the first 'photographs' using terahertz radiation and released images of a hand taken through a 15 millimetre stack of paper and pictures taken of the human body through clothing. Terahertz radiation lies on the boundary between radio and light, with wavelengths too short for normal radio antennae to pick up and too long for normal optical techniques. The technology could theoretically carry wireless data at superfast terabit speeds. The waves can pass through some solid objects, just like radio waves. Like light the radiation can be focused and create images as if the intervening material were translucent. By analysing the frequencies given off, the chemical and physical characteristics of the hidden object can be worked out.
ZDNet Feb 12, 2003	back to top

Dyes boost solar cells
US researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have made a new type of device for use in solar cells, which they believe could provide a low-cost alternative to traditional silicon-based cells. In conventional solar cells, the creation of charge carriers, their transport and separation, together with collection of the current, is carried out within the semiconductor itself. Therefore, the semiconductor needs to be free of impurities, which increases production costs. But the researchers have developed a multi-layer device that separates the light-absorption and charge-carrier transport processes. Photons are collected using 'photoreceptor' dye molecules placed on the surface of a gold film, which rests on a layer of semiconducting titanium dioxide. The photoexcited electrons from the dye molecules are first transferred to the gold layer and then to the conduction band in the titanium dioxide layer, thus producing a current. The device is based on electrons only, which makes it less sensitive to impurities.
PhysicsWeb Feb 08, 2003	back to top

'Denim' solar panels to clothe future buildings
Buildings of the future could be 'clothed' in a flexible, power- generating material that looks like denim. The material, developed by Canada-based Spheral Solar, can be draped over almost any shape - greatly expanding the number of places where solar power can be generated. The new, cheap material is made of thousands of silicon beads sandwiched between two thin layers of aluminium foil and sealed on both sides with plastic. Each bead functions as a tiny solar cell. The aluminium sheets give the material physical strength and act as electrical contacts. The manufacturing process uses waste silicon from the chip-making industry, which is melted down and shaped into spheres about one millimetre across. The spheres' bumpy surface offers a large light absorbing area, giving the material an efficiency of 11 per cent. This is comparable to the performance of conventional photovoltaic cells, and much better than proposed flexible designs based on conducting polymers.
New Scientist Feb 12, 2003	back to top

New UK trials of internet access over power lines
Five years after electricity firm Norweb in the UK tried and failed to commercially deliver 1Mbps internet access over power lines, rival firm Scottish Hydro-Electric has completed technical trials delivering access at twice the speed. Scottish Hydro-Electric has been running the trials since last July, delivering speeds of up to 2Mbps over its power network. The company is now planning two larger trials in towns in Scotland and southern England to be up and running before the end of the year. The new service could be made available to Scottish Hydro-Electric's three and a half million customers across northern Scotland and the south of England.
VNUnet UK Feb 13, 2003	back to top

Chip making faster internet access on cell phone possible
A chip that uses a cell phone as a modem for internet access has been unveiled in Australia. The chip lets cellphone users receive high-quality face-to-face video and other streaming media at rates faster than a home broadband connection. Developed at Bell Labs in Australia, the chip works on a next-generation cellphone network and can run programmes at up to 24 megabits per second - almost 20 times faster than a traditional T1 line. The 'turbo decoder chip' lets users of any wireless device on a 3G network conduct video conferences, tap into corporate data behind a company firewall, and send and receive multimedia applications such as MP3 tunes, video clips and PowerPoint presentations.
Yahoo / ANI Feb 13, 2003	back to top

Gaming 'is good for you'
Computer games are good for you, say researchers who studied the social interactions in the popular shoot-em-up Counter-Strike. Since Counter-Strike was released in March 1999, the online game has become the most popular online multiplayer shoot-em-up. Its uncomplicated premise masks a complex culture that social scientists are uncovering. Researchers at Loyola University, Chicago, have spent hours studying Counter-Strike culture by taking part in games, interviewing players and reviewing text files of in-game banter. The importance of the social side of Counter-Strike was revealed in the constant banter, in-jokes and insults that people exchanged during play. To outsiders this game talk can be impenetrable and lead people to misinterpret what is going on. Games such as Counter-Strike that rely on trust and co-operation give rise to strong communities and good friendships, the researchers say. As a result players prefer to game with people they know rather than strangers and they tend to tone down the bad language when those they do not know well are present.
BBC News Feb 12, 2003	back to top

French police seize bullet-firing mobile phones
French police seize mobile phone guns French police have seized two mobile phones capable of firing bullets. Police in Rouen discovered the guns, outwardly identical to normal mobiles phones, in a raid on the home of a suspected gangster. When examined the fake phones revealed a chamber compartment for four .22 calibre bullets, which could be shot out of the aerial. A local police chief said the phones would be lethal at 10 metres. The weapons are believed to be from eastern Europe and to have appeared in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2001, according to police.
VNUnet UK / Reuters Feb 10, 2003	back to top