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Issue no. 5, 2004 Published: Feb 13, 2004
Microsoft source code leaked out
Music industry raids Kazaa offices
Lindows wins in US court Microsoft ruling
France outlines plans for electronic administration
Intel makes light work for chips
Tiny scales weigh virus
Smart switching could solve communication tangle
Electricity teleportation devised
People lie more on the phone than by email
Study: Women over 40 biggest online gamers

Microsoft source code leaked out
Microsoft says parts of the tightly guarded blueprints of its Windows operating system have been leaked over the internet. Microsoft said it did not know how much of the source code had been leaked, or how many people may have access to it. Hackers with the code could exploit the operating system and access machines running Windows. The other threat to Microsoft is the fact that such access could provide a competitive edge to its rivals, who would gain a much better understanding of Microsoft's technology. It is the second major security breach announced by Microsoft this week. On Wednesday, it said there was a security flaw in certain Windows editions that allows hackers to access many of the hundreds of millions of computers worldwide that use the system. The company could not immediately pinpoint the source of the latest leak, and has contacted law enforcement authorities. It is thought to comprise parts of the source code for Windows 2000 and Windows NT.
BBC News Feb 13, 2004	back to top

Music industry raids Kazaa offices
Investigators from the Australian recording industry raided the Sydney offices of internet file-swapping network Kazaa last Friday in search of evidence to support allegations of copyright infringements. The Federal Court gave major Australian record labels permission to raid 12 premises in three states to collect evidence against Kazaa, said the Music Industry Piracy Investigations. The group is owned by Universal, Festival Mushroom Records, EMI Music, Sony Music, BMG Australia, and Warner Music Australia. The raided sites included the office of Kazaa owner Sharman Networks, the homes of two of the company's executives, three Australian universities and internet service providers. Kazaa's Media Desktop software, a programs that let users swap music, movies and other computer files, has 3 million to 4 million users at any given time.
CNN / AP Feb 06, 2004	back to top

Lindows wins in US court Microsoft ruling
The legal battle with Microsoft that has seen Linux reseller Lindows running the gauntlet of the US courts over trademark infringement seems to be finally going in the open-source company's favour. The naming spat has been running since 2001 and has seen Lindows lose out in similar wrangling in the Netherlands and Sweden. The US District Court in Seattle ruled Wednesday that the jury in the case should 'consider whether the Windows mark was generic' before Windows 1.0 entered the marketplace in 1985. It also said that even if the 'primary significance' of the term is not generic today, the trademark is not necessarily valid. The upshot is that Lindows can continue using its name for now, but legal hurdles remain. The judge postponed the current March 1 trial date, itself a delayed start, to an unspecified time, pending an appeal from Microsoft.
Silicon.com / CNET News Feb 11, 2004	back to top

France outlines plans for electronic administration
The French government has unveiled a four-year plan to put more government services online. Project ADELE (Administration Electronique) aims to simplify, secure and speed up citizens' interactions with local authorities, national government departments, and other public bodies dealing with health and social security by coordinating and linking together the online activities of these organisations. From 2006, the electronic infrastructure supporting the nationwide health insurance smart card system will be upgraded so that the French can securely authenticate their identity online. At the same time, an electronic version of the French national identity card will be introduced, based on a common standard. The goal of the project is to simplify life for French citizens, putting an end to the 'paper tax', or the need to take a half day off work to deal with simple administrative matters in person. Project ADELE defines 140 measures to be taken and 300 services to put online.
The Standard / IDG Feb 09, 2004	back to top

Intel makes light work for chips
Scientists at Intel have found a way to use silicon to move light around rather than just electrons. The breakthrough could make it much easier to use light inside computer processors as well as make it cheaper to build fast computer networks. Intel said that the technology should start showing up in devices by the end of the decade. Silicon has become the material of choice for computer processors because it is cheap and because electrons move through it in ways that can be easily controlled and do useful work. Now Intel researchers have found a way to do make silicon do almost the same thing with light at speeds almost 50 times faster than anyone has demonstrated before. The scientists have built a silicon modulator that can send a billion pulses of light a second down fibre-optic cables. They say that they can boost the pulsing speed of their modulator tenfold by the end of the year. The breakthrough could help the net run faster, accelerate the speed of processors and perhaps lead to ultrahigh-definition displays.
BBC News / Nature Feb 12, 2004	back to top

Tiny scales weigh virus
How much does a virus weigh? About 10 femtograms, according to scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who have created tiny weighing scales that can detect the mass of a single virus particle. That is about one trillionth as much as a grain of rice. The researchers weighed the virus by using a tiny springboard. The board, made from a sliver of silicon just 30 nanometres thick, wobbles naturally at a frequency that can be measured by bouncing a laser off the tip. When a tiny object such as a virus sticks to the end of the springboard, the frequency of the wobble changes by an amount that corresponds to the weight of the virus. Making these tiny scales is not a technological feat in itself - such devices have been made before. But the researchers plan to adapt their scales to turn them into tiny virus detectors. They intend to coat the springboard with antibodies that will only allow one particular type of virus to stick to the scales. If the frequency of the springboard changes, it would mean that the virus is present in the air.
Nature Feb 11, 2004	back to top

Smart switching could solve communication tangle
Someone walks into your office as you are in the middle of a confidential phone call. Your only option is to cut the call short, and either phone back later or switch to more discreet email or instant messaging. Now IBM engineers are developing a system that makes the switch seamlessly, without breaking the flow of your discussion. At present, both callers must switch, but the developers say as speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies improve, this may not be necessary: one could use text while the other stays on the phone. The new system, called Mercury, will track where you are at work, at home, in the street and plug you into the medium you prefer, whether it be cellphone, email, instant messaging, pager or landline phone. Mercury can also be made 'context aware', by detecting whether a laptop is running a presentation, for example. You could then set it to refrain from sending a message that would interrupt a business presentation, but allow it through if a game is being played.
New Scientist Feb 08, 2004	back to top

Electricity teleportation devised
Researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands have devised a way to teleport electricity. Teleportation is possible at the atomic scale, and was discovered a decade ago for photons in free space. The researchers' proposal works for electrons contained in conductors, and could eventually be used within computer circuits. A major obstacle to quantum teleportation is that in a metal or semiconductor electrons exist in a crowd, dubbed the Fermi sea, making individual electrons difficult to isolate and manipulate. When the two carriers of electrical current - negatively charged electrons and positively charged holes - meet, they cancel each other out. The researchers have postulated that an entangled electron, however, could continue its existence at a distant location. The method could eventually be used to instantly transport information between the quantum bits, or qubits, of a quantum computer if electrons could be transported over distances of around 100 microns.
Technology Review / TRN Feb 09, 2004	back to top

People lie more on the phone than by email
Communications technologies are far from equal when it comes to conveying the truth. The first study to compare honesty across a range of communications media has found that people are twice as likely to tell lies in phone conversations as they are in emails. Jeff Hancock of Cornell University asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week. Hancock found that lies made up 14 per cent of emails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of face-to-face interactions and a whopping 37 per cent of phone calls. People appear to be afraid to lie when they know the communication could later be used to hold them to account, Hancock says. People are also more likely to lie in real time than if they have time to think of a response. Hancock hopes his research will help companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate. For instance, the phone might be the best medium for sales where employees are encouraged to stretch the truth. But work appraisals, where honesty is a priority, might be best done using email.
New Scientist Feb 11, 2004	back to top

Study: Women over 40 biggest online gamers
Think teenagers are spending all night long playing online games on the computer? Wrong - it is their mothers burning the midnight oil. AOL released a study showing that US women over the age of 40 spend nearly 50 per cent more time each week playing online games than men and are more likely to play online games daily than men or teens. Of those women over 40 who had formed online friendships more than 20 per cent converted those virtual connections into real-life relationships. Fuelling the arguments of those who say that gaming takes away from other activities, 44 per cent of the women over 40 said they spend less time watching TV or movies, reading or being physically active because of their game play. More than a quarter of those women play their favourite games between midnight and 5 am. Women in the poll tended to favour word and puzzle games. The survey was conducted online with 3,613 respondents between mid-December and mid-January.
CNN / Reuters Feb 11, 2004	back to top