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Issue no. 19, 2004 Published: May 28, 2004
Downloaders 'unfazed by lawsuits'
Microsoft prepares for battle with Google
Broadband stealing television viewers
Linux kernel locked down
Researchers create mechanical single-electron transistor
UMC researchers boost SOI chip speed by 30 per cent
Chips cooled by nanotubes
Square bar codes ease mobile web browsing
Viewers turns books into 3D
Spammers fussy over zombie recruits
Rearchers develop memory glasses

Downloaders 'unfazed by lawsuits'
The threat of legal action has done little to deter European internet users from downloading pirated music and films, according to a research company. Albums and films account for 70-80 per cent of all internet traffic in Europe, traffic filtering firm Sandvine has reported. Sandvine also reports a difference in the way files are downloaded between US and European consumers. European users tend to swap bigger movie-size files, leading to a concern that the film industry will begin to suffer as much as the music industry, it said. But there has been conflicting research into the effects of the legal threats, with the industry itself reporting that its policy of suing was working well to reduce the amount of piracy in the US. There are hopes that the growth of legal download services including iTunes and Napster will kick-start a culture of more legal consumption of music via the internet.
BBC News May 24, 2004	back to top

Microsoft prepares for battle with Google
Microsoft is looking beyond internet searches, heading into its battle with Google with technology designed to allow people to scour their e-mails, personal computers and even hefty databases for information. The technology is designed as a major search improvement for users trying to grapple with an increasing amount of digital information, offering a single hunting system instead of several different search engines, file management systems or other tools. Microsoft plans to release an early version of the technology soon, as part of the company's push to compete with internet search leader Google. A final version is expected in the next 12 months.
GlobeTechnology / AP May 27, 2004	back to top

Broadband stealing television viewers
European TV broadcasters are losing viewers to the web, according to a new report by UK-based research firm Strategy Analytics. A survey of 800 Europeans revealed that some 56 per cent have cut down on TV time since subscribing to broadband. Strategy Analytics notes that in other media, such as newspapers and radio, companies have fended off declining reader and listener numbers by moving to the web and providing interactive content and services not found in traditional formats. The firm says that TV broadcasters have these weapons, and others, to defend against declining viewer numbers. A separate report from Strategy Analytics estimates that Europe will have 33.5 million broadband subscribers by the end of this year, representing 20 per cent of all homes. By 2008, the figure will be 41 per cent, with penetration as high as 60 per cent countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium, where there are strong competitors to incumbent telecoms.
The Register / ElectricNews.Net May 27, 2004	back to top

Linux kernel locked down
Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), which promotes adoption of Linux, said on Monday it is putting in place a new system to better track and document changes to the operating system's kernel. The group, which employs Linux creator Linus Torvalds, said the new system will require that contributions to the Linux kernel only be made by developers who agree to submit code under 'appropriate' open-source licences. The system puts in place an agreement called the Developer's Certificate of Origin, or DCO. The DCO will ensure that acknowledgement is given to developers for contributions and derivative works, and to those contributors who receive submissions and pass them, unchanged, up the kernel tree, according to OSDL. The DCO is intended to eliminate questions and legal battles over the origin of Linux code contributions. The new system will not help answer questions about code already included in Linux. But it will help with future releases, according to the OSDL.
Silicon.com / CNET News.com May 25, 2004	back to top

Researchers create mechanical single-electron transistor
Physicists in Germany and the US have built a single-electron transistor that operates using a nanometre-scale vibrating arm. The device was built using a simple two-step process and does not need a surrounding cooled to cryogenic temperatures like previous devices of its kind. The transistor is a type of device known as a nanoelectromechanical system (NEM). NEMs can be potentially routinely manufactured to high tolerances on the scale of nanometres, an important attribute in the quest to build ever smaller logic devices. Moreover, NEMs can operate at and beyond radio frequencies making them ideal for IT applications. The transistor features a silicon arm about 200 nanometres long. The researchers covered the tip of the device with a gold 'island' and then placed the tip between two electrodes, known as the source and drain. By applying an AC voltage to one of the electrodes with a frequency that matched the resonant frequency of the arm they were able to make the arm vibrate between the electrodes. This resulted in a flow of electrons from the source to the island, and then tunnelled towards the drain.
PhysicsWeb May 26, 2004	back to top

UMC researchers boost SOI chip speed by 30 per cent
Researchers at Taiwan's UMC, the world's second largest chip foundry, have developed a way to use quantum tunnelling to improve the performance of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) transistors. UMC dubs the new technique Direct Induced-induced Floating-Body Potential (DTFBP) and says it gives PMOS transistors a 30 per cent higher drive current over standard SOI elements. Crucially, using DTFBP does not make the fabrication process any more complex, UMC says. Tunnelling is the quantum mechanical phenomenon by which an electron can pass through a energy barrier it ought not to be able to traverse due to insufficient energy of its own. As transistors get smaller and smaller, such effects play an increasingly important role in chip design. UMC's system tweaks the transistor structure to manipulate the effect of tunnelling to prevent the so-called floating-body effect, which results in erratic transistor behaviour when the supply voltage is reduced.
The Register May 26, 2004	back to top

Chips cooled by nanotubes
As the transistors that make up a computer's logic circuits become smaller, they allow for more electrical signals between circuits in a given time period. This, in turn, creates more waste heat, which must be dissipated to keep the computer from overheating. Researchers from Purdue University have found a way to use carbon nanotubes to ionise air and generate minuscule air currents that can be used to cool computer chips. The researchers were able to produce the ionising effect by discharging electrons between nanotubes spaced 10 microns apart. The researchers created an air current by switching the voltage rapidly so that groups of ionised, or charged, air molecules were attracted to successive groups of nanotubes. The goal is to produce a cooling device small enough to be integrated into a 10-millimeter by 10-millimeter chip. The researchers' device would be appropriate for laptop computers and could open the way for higher-power chips to be used in laptops.
Technology Research News May 26, 2004	back to top

Square bar codes ease mobile web browsing
New software based on square bar codes could make surfing from mobile phones far less fiddly by allowing cellphone cameras to automatically load up web addresses. The open source software, called Semacode, puts to good use the web browsers and cameras that now come as standard in most mobile phones, by making the phone act like a bar code reader. Data corresponding to a web address is encoded in a pattern of black and white squares, called a data matrix. This is an existing open standard normally used in manufacturing for tracking parts. The Semacode software loaded on the phone decodes the image to produce the web address (URL). The aim of Semacode is to link the physical world with the online world by enabling people to look up information without the fiddly business of having to type in a URL on a tiny keypad. For example, someone could scan a code posted on a bus stop with their phone to quickly look up a web page showing when the next bus is due.
New Scientist May 20, 2004	back to top

Viewers turns books into 3D
Researchers in New Zealand have developed a way of overlaying illustrations in children's books with 3D images that can help readers explore subjects in more depth. A special viewer, shaped like high-tech opera glasses, can detect which part of a book the reader is looking at. With the flick of a switch, the reader can then be transported into a 3D virtual world corresponding to what they are looking at. Software linked to the viewer can draw 3D images from the reader's viewpoint. So far the device, developed by New Zealand's Human Interface Technology Lab, has been used to turn some of the books of writer and illustrator Gavin Bishop into animated works. But the team has also prepared virtual reality sequences for a human anatomy textbook that includes a 3D human heart.
BBC News May 24, 2004	back to top

Spammers fussy over zombie recruits
The Bobax worm, which started circulating almost two weeks ago, is one of the first worms to conduct a bandwidth test on its infected host to see if it is worthy of being used as a spam zombie. Although Bobax is unlikely to spread very far because larger companies have already applied the relevant Microsoft patches, its behaviour shows that virus writers and professional spammers have taken control of more than enough computers to fulfil their requirements - and are now able to get fussy about which ones to use. The worm has a bandwidth testing utility built in, which is used to help the virus authors decide if the infected machine has a fast enough internet connection to be used as a spam relay. The virus performs its bandwidth test by instructing the infected computer to download a large file from a public FTP site. Once the virus has collected some bandwidth statistics, it contacts the virus's author so it can be used as required, depending on the spammer's bandwidth requirements.
ZDNet May 21, 2004	back to top

Rearchers develop memory glasses
British and German scientists are developing memory glasses that record everything the user sees. The glasses can play back memories later to help the wearer remember things they have forgotten. Researchers at the University of Bielefeld and the University of Surrey Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering say their glasses do not just record what the user sees but also allows the user to 'label' items so information can be used later on. The wearer could walk around an office or factory identifying certain items by pointing at them. Objects indicated are then given a blank label on a screen inside the glasses that the user then fills in. The researchers say it could be used in industrial plants by mechanics looking to identify machine parts or by electricians wiring a complicated device. In other cases the glasses could be worn by people going on a guided tour, indicating points of interest or by people looking at panoramas where all the sites could be identified.
Ananova May 20, 2004	back to top