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Issue no. 14, 2003 Published: Apr 04, 2003
Software piracy 'damages economies'
Sweden, Denmark beat US as top web-savvy nations
Competition watchdog raids France Telecom offices
Grid computing: poised for biggest test yet
Hybrid DVD-CD fails to impress in tests
Infrared headset nixes radiation
Paint-on plastic makes cheap displays
PC screen turns into speaker
Mozilla to replace Netscape code with leaner browser
AMD reveals futuristic transistor designs

Software piracy 'damages economies'
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is hoping to convince international governments, trade associations and companies that cracking down on piracy pays on a macroeconomic level. The antipiracy group released a study suggesting that increasing copy protections could generate jobs and tax revenue. The study found that, in general, nations with the lowest piracy rates had the largest IT sectors, as measured as a share of the countries' gross domestic product (GDP). Conversely, countries with high piracy rates, such as China and Russia, had the smallest IT sectors. The BSA said that reducing software piracy could speed the growth of the IT industry, which in turn could create jobs and bolster weak economies. The study, which examined 57 countries, also predicted that a 10-point reduction in the rate of piracy over four years could generate 1.5 million jobs and $64bn in taxes worldwide, and double the IT sector in countries such as Russia. The report said the resulting taxes could then be used to fund education, healthcare and law enforcement.
Silicon.com / CNET Apr 02, 2003	back to top

Sweden, Denmark beat US as top web-savvy nations
Sweden has overtaken the US as the web-savviest nation on the planet, research by IBM and British magazine The Economist showed. One other European country, Denmark, was also more aggressive in taking advantage of the internet than the US, according to the study. Of the 60 countries surveyed, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were at the bottom of the list with 2.37 and 2.52 points respectively out of a possible 10. Sweden scored 8.67, up from 8.32 a year ago. The US was little changed at number three with 8.43 points, on par with the Netherlands and Britain. The differences were small between the top 14, all scoring more than eight points as a result of plentiful cheap internet connections, software and technical support, legal and government frameworks and internet loving populations. Absent from the top 15 were France and Italy, which were clearly second league in 'connectivity' and 'consumer and business adoption'.
Reuters Apr 01, 2003	back to top

Competition watchdog raids France Telecom offices
After receiving several complaints of illegal business practices to retrieve customers, the French competition watchdog has raided the offices of the country's largest telecom company France Telecom. Customers as well as the lobby group of France Telecom's competitors Afrost sent complaints about the operator trying to persuade customers who moved to alternative carriers, a practice known as 'win-back'. Inspectors from the consumer and competition unit of the economy minister have made forays into France Telecom's retail shops, customer call centres and other offices.
Telecom Paper Mar 31, 2003	back to top

Grid computing: poised for biggest test yet
IBM will collaborate with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) to create the world's largest data grid to help CERN physicists virtually recreate the first moments of the 'big bang'. IBM's Storage Tank technology will be deployed in its first real-world test to handle the extraordinarily amounts of data that CERN's new particle collider will produce when it goes online in 2007. Data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be generated in such quantities that in three years the Storage Tank-based grid will have to manage and process one petabyte (a million gigabytes) of information. IBM's Storage Tank technology, which has been in research and development for over two years, ties together servers in multiple locations over an IP network and allows the distributed storage network to look and behave like a local file system, no matter where or on what operating system the data reside.
Internet Week Apr 02, 2003	back to top

Hybrid DVD-CD fails to impress in tests
An attempt to create the Holy Grail of home entertainment - a disc that plays on any DVD or CD player - has been branded a failure by an international working group. Consumers currently have to choose between CD for stereo music, DVD-Video for full-length movies with digitally compressed surround sound, and DVD-Audio with uncompromised surround sound, plus short video clips. In an attempt to produce one disc that does it all, experimental Multi Format hybrid discs were pressed by Warner. The Multi Format discs were tested by a consortium of fifteen members of the DVD Forum. They used 49 different DVD-Audio players and 133 DVD-Video players. Half the DVD-Audio players incorrectly played the Multi Format discs as simple CDs, and a quarter of them either refused to play at all or gave random results. And nearly two-thirds of the DVD-Video players incorrectly played the hybrids as CDs; and a fifth of the players refused or worked randomly.
New Scientist Mar 31, 2003	back to top

Infrared headset nixes radiation
Hands-free headsets may help you keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, but the devices may also be exposing you to electromagnetic stress by amplifying the phone's radiation. A headset connects to the phone by an electrical wire, and research has shown that the wire can act as a conduit for microwave radiation, which has been tagged as a possible health risk. The earpiece of cell phones also contains an electromagnetic coil that turns electric signals into audible signals, but in doing so gives off electromagnetic radiation. A researcher at the University of Warwick in England has devised a hands-free cell phone that sidesteps the problem by replacing the headset wire with a plastic pipe that carries infrared, or heatwave signals, and replacing the electromagnetic coil with a piezoelectric crystal. This type of headset could be used with any mobile phone on the market today, and would be only slightly more expensive than existing headsets, according to the researcher.
Technology Review / TRN Mar 28, 2003	back to top

Paint-on plastic makes cheap displays
A research team from Germany has developed a process for producing plastic, full-colour flat screen displays that is simpler and potentially cheaper than today's manufacturing methods for organic light-emitting diode screens. The researchers' process could produce colour screens that are comparable in quality to current flat screen displays, but are more rugged and require less power. The simpler method could translate into cheaper full-colour screens for electronic devices. Key to the method is a polymer that emits light and also has photoresist properties that allows the polymer to be patterned into the separate tiny dots needed to produce a screen. The researchers made the displays by spreading light-emitting polymers on a surface, exposing the polymer layer to spots of ultraviolet light, then washing away the underexposed portion of polymer. The method could also be used to pattern polymers to make electronic devices like transistors, sensors and even wires.
Technology Review / TRN / Nature Apr 01, 2003	back to top

PC screen turns into speaker
British company NXT has found a way to turn a computer display into a speaker, without interfering with the quality of the picture. Its SoundVu technology has already been built into two models by Japanese electronics giant NEC. NXT argues the SoundVU technology has major advantages over conventional speakers. It says the technology distributes frequencies evenly across a room, producing what audio buffs call a universal 'sweet spot'. The technology works by placing a thin acrylic panel over the computer display. This is attached at the edges to a couple of exciters. These moving coil motors make the acrylic screen vibrate to produce the sound. But NXT say their technology could be built into other products such as flat-screen televisions or even mobile phones.
BBC News Mar 31, 2003	back to top

Mozilla to replace Netscape code with leaner browser
The organisation that produces the Mozilla browser put out a new roadmap representing a shift in policy designed to make the browser leaner and faster. The Mozilla Organisation said it will make the browser significantly leaner and faster, shifting the code base from Netscape Navigator to the Phoenix browser. Mozilla.org also said it will break out the mail and news clients for Mozilla into separate components. In addition to the browser, Mozilla.org will work on refining the mail companion application to Phoenix, now called Minotaur. The new work will be based on a new toolkit used by Phoenix, code-named Thunderbird. The organisation will also centralise coordination of Mozilla-related open source projects to a few people.
Internet Week Apr 02, 2003	back to top

AMD reveals futuristic transistor designs
AMD researchers have created and demonstrated a new Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator transistor, the company said. The silicon-on- insulator design technique uses special materials to better isolate transistors inside a chip, with the aim of increasing performance and reducing power consumption. The new design is 30 per cent faster than some of the best published results seen so far, the company said. The company has also demonstrated a new strained silicon transistor based on a metal gate design. That technology has shown 20 per cent to 25 per cent better performance than conventional strained-silicon transistors, AMD said. But the new transistor designs, which are still in the research and testing stages, will not be incorporated into chips that will be available anytime soon. They are expected to play a role in AMD's chip manufacturing in the second half of this decade, the company said.
Yahoo / CNET Apr 03, 2003	back to top