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Issue no. 13, 2003 Published: Mar 28, 2003
Software trebles speed of net data transfer
Email traffic patterns can reveal ringleaders
Ruby slows light at room temperature
Network builds itself from scratch
Mobile calls sounding better
Researchers develop nanoscale rubber hoses
Tiny mirrors make holographic video
Bio-battery runs on shots of vodka
Microsoft sets e-mail limits to fight spam
Wrist phones introduced in Japan

Software trebles speed of net data transfer
A new record for speedy transfer of data over the internet has been set with the help of a latest piece of software. The software more than trebles the speed at which information can be sent over the internet. It changes the way that computers monitor and respond to online traffic conditions. Researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have sent data 3,500 times faster than a typical broadband connection - at about 7 gigabytes a minute, setting a new speed record for data transfer. They designed the software with physicists in mind. But it could help biologists, engineers and medics swap information. And it might one day distribute online films to cinemas or homes. At top speed, the new technique could send a DVD movie in less than five seconds.
Yahoo / ANI / Nature Mar 27, 2003	back to top

Email traffic patterns can reveal ringleaders
By looking for patterns in email traffic, a new technique can quickly identify online communities and the key people in them. The approach could mean terrorists or criminal gangs give themselves away, even if they are communicating in code or only discussing the weather. Researchers of Hewlett-Packard's labs in Palo Alto, California, tried to identify distinct communities within HP's research lab by analysing the IT manager's log of nearly 200,000 internal emails sent by 485 employees over a couple of months. They used an algorithm that looks for the critical links that form bridges between separate groups. By severing these links one by one, the algorithm gradually isolates people into different communities of groups. The technique revealed 66 communities at the lab, 49 of which contained people who all worked in the same department. In most of the others, the people were collaborating on a project. The team then used a standard algorithm that arrange the network in the least tangled way possible. This showed that the managers tended to cluster in the middle.
New Scientist Mar 27, 2003	back to top

Ruby slows light at room temperature
Researchers at the University of Rochester, NY, have slowed light down to the speed of a train using a ruby at room temperature. They cut the speed of light in a vacuum from 300,000 kilometres per second to a sluggish 57 metres per second. They used a laser to make a ruby crystal transparent to light of a very narrow range of wavelengths. The technique is known as spectral hole burning because it opens a window in something that otherwise refuses to let light pass. 'Slow light' has been around for several years, but previously it could be made only at very low temperatures and in exotic gasses. Now slow light might be used in telecommunications and computer networks in which information is sent and processed as signals that can hop between electronic circuits and fibre-optic transmission lines. Engineers could delay or stop light pulses to synchronise or store them.
Nature Mar 26, 2003	back to top

Network builds itself from scratch
Researchers from Humboldt University in Germany have devised a way for electronic agents to efficiently assemble a network without having to rely on a central plan. The researchers modelled their idea on the methods of insects and bacteria whose communications lack central planning, but who manage to form networks. Insect, bacteria and slime mold communities coordinate growth processes based on interactions among chemical trails left behind by individuals. The researchers set up a similar network using a computer simulation of electronic agents moving randomly across a grid containing unconnected network nodes. Rather than determining the structure of a network in a top-down approach of hierarchical planning, agents found nodes and created connections in a bottom-up process of self-organisation. This type of network quickly addresses failures and disturbances. If the position of the nodes is changed or a link is broken, the network adjusts accordingly. The work could eventually be used for self- assembling circuits, groups of coordinated robots and adaptive cancer treatments, according to the researchers.
Technology Research News Mar 26, 2003	back to top

Mobile calls sounding better
Soon you may no longer have to shout to make yourself heard when you make a call on your mobile phone. Researchers at Philips have found a way to dampen the background noise that often intrudes on phone calls made on the move. The technology will first be used in phones that use headsets and could find its way in handsets within a few years. The researchers have developed a series of algorithms that analyse the sounds entering the microphone of a handset. The system needs input from two separate microphones, such as one on the body of a handset and one on an associated headset. The algorithms compare the input from the two sound sources and works out what is talk and what is background noise. Noise cancelling systems have been used for a long time in some passenger aircraft to ensure that the sound track for in-flight films is not drowned by the noise of the jet's engines. These active noise cancelling systems work by generating sounds that are a mirror image of the engine noise and cancel it out.
BBC News Mar 26, 2003	back to top

Researchers develop nanoscale rubber hoses
Researchers from Cornell University have found a way to fabricate flexible tubes whose diameters are 100 nanometres - ten times narrower than those used in today's microfluidic systems. The tubes could be used to make stacked, interconnected fluidic networks designed to shunt fluids around biochips that sense and analyse chemicals. The researchers hit on the method when they noticed that depositing a certain type of polymer into tiny silicon grooves caused the polymer at the tops of the grooves to close across the gaps, forming tubes. They realised the process could be used to make tiny networks of tubes for use in microfluidics. The method is also compatible with conventional chipmaking processes, and so can also be used to integrate the networks with electronic chip components. The process could be ready for practical use in less than two years, according to the researchers.
Technology Review / TRN Mar 25, 2003	back to top

Tiny mirrors make holographic video
Researchers from the University of Texas have devised a three- dimensional video system that cuts down the compute power needed to project 3-D images by using an 800,000-mirror device designed for two-dimensional digital projectors as a sort of holographic film. A hologram is a two-dimensional representation of the interference pattern of light coming from a three-dimensional object. The researchers hit on the idea for their holographic video when they realised that the individual mirrors of a digital micromirror device could function like the light-sensitive grains of holographic storage media. The researchers modified the device to project the interference pattern of light to create three-dimensional video. The method could yield practical three-dimensional heads-up displays in one to two years, x-ray machines in two to three years, workstations and flight simulators in three to five years, medical imaging equipment and movies in five to ten years, and live TV in 10 to 15 years, according to the researchers.
Technology Research News Mar 25, 2003	back to top

Bio-battery runs on shots of vodka
An enzyme-catalysed battery has been created that could one day run cell phones and laptop computers on shots of vodka. The key is a new polymer that protects the fragile enzymes used to break down the ethanol fuel, according to scientists at St Louis University in Missouri. The enzymes are sensitive to slight changes in pH and temperature and can rapidly degrade and become inactive. In order to prevent this, the researchers coated the cell's electrodes with a polymer that has specially tailored pores. These maintain a neutral pH, while being small enough to trap the enzymes yet big enough to let the alcohol pass through. The new bio-batteries have power densities 32 times greater than those of other groups, according to the researchers. Toshiba has just unveiled its first miniature fuel cell, which uses a metal catalyst and runs on methanol. But the main advantage of ethanol is that it is more readily available. 'We have actually run our cells off vodka and gin,' said one of the researchers.
New Scientist Mar 24, 2003	back to top

Microsoft sets e-mail limits to fight spam
To cut down on junk e-mail, Microsoft is capping the number of e-mails that users of its free Hotmail service can send each day. By limiting to 100 the number of messages that could be sent in a 24-hour period, Microsoft's MSN division hopes to stop people from using its service to send the unsolicited messages, known as spam. Microsoft said it viewed the limit as a reasonable cap that would affect less than 1 per cent of its active subscriber base of 110 million. The company would not disclose its previous cap. The limit took effect earlier this month. It does not apply MSN 8 subscribers or those who purchase extra storage on Hotmail.
CNN / AP Mar 26, 2003	back to top

Wrist phones introduced in Japan
Mobile operator NTT DoCoMo has announced it has begun selling the Wristomo, a mobile phone worn on the wrist. While companies such as Motorola and Siemens have shown off working prototypes - and the UK famously demonstrated the pub-detecting watch - the Wristomo is likely to be the world's first wristwatch-phone sold commercially. To talk into the Wristomo, users have to unlatch and unfold it from the wrist, so that it becomes more like a normal clamshell-style phone - users do no speak into their wrists in Dick Tracy fashion. There is a small grayscale LCD panel on the device. The chunky, 18mm thick and 113g wrist-phone comes with PDA-like functions and can be synchronised with desktop organisers such as Microsoft Outlook. The wrist-phone can also browse websites and get email through a 64Kbps downloads and a 32Kbps upload wireless data link. NTT DoCoMo claims a talk time of 120 hours and a stand-by time of 200 hours for the Wristomo.
Yahoo / CNETAsia Mar 27, 2003	back to top