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Issue no. 34, 2004 Published: Oct 15, 2004
EU approves €1.75bn for tech research
Mobile phones increase tumour risk, study says
European Commission signs deal for '.eu' domain
Intel chips 'favoured' in public tenders
Intel pulls plug on 4-gigahertz chip
Atomic register offers route to quantum computing
Vein camera keeps injections on target
Nanotubes form transparent film
A lighter approach to computer control
Paralysed man sends e-mail by thought
Google search becomes personal
Open source MySQL to borrow Microsoft code
New gadget translates languages
Program cracks crosswords

EU approves €1.75bn for tech research
The EU has approved EUR 1.75bn of funding over the next two years for research into future and emerging technologies. The funds are being made available under the Sixth Framework Programme, FP6, the EU's major source of support for technology R&D. FP6 has a budget of EUR 19bn, over the period 2002/6 and organisations of all sizes throughout the EC can apply for funding. The money will be allocated in three stages. The first two will focus the main objectives of the programme, supporting the overarching theme of 'anywhere, anytime natural access to Information Society Technology services for all'. There are five broad areas of research that FP6 will funding through the IST strand: Applied IST research addressing major societal and economic challenges; Communication, computing and software technologies; Components and microsystems (including nanotech research); Knowledge and interface technologies and IST future and emerging technologies. More information on the areas that qualify can be found at http://www.cordis.lu/fp6/ist.htm
The Register Oct 13, 2004	back to top

Mobile phones increase tumour risk, study says
Ten or more years of mobile phone use increases the risk of developing acoustic neuroma, a benign tumour on the auditory nerve, according to a study released by Sweden's Karolinska Institute. The institute, one of Europe's largest medical universities and a clinical and biomedical research centre, awards the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. The risk was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held and there were no indications of increased risk for those who have used their mobile for less than 10 years. The Karolinska Institute said 150 people with acoustic neuroma and 600 healthy people participated in the study. The study found that the risk of acoustic neuroma was almost doubled for persons who started to use their mobile at least 10 years prior to diagnosis. The mobile phone industry has said there is no scientific evidence of negative health effects from use of mobile phones.
Yahoo / Reuters Oct 14, 2004	back to top

European Commission signs deal for '.eu' domain
The European Commission on Wednesday signed a contract with a consortium of three European registries to run the proposed .eu top-level domain. EURid, which was created by the country-level registries of Belgium, Italy and Sweden, says it will now negotiate with ICANN to have .eu put in the root and, once that is done, intends to operate a 'sunrise' period for registrations. During the two-month sunrise period, organisations who can prove ownership of a trademark registered in any of the 25 European countries will be given a chance to acquire their .eu domain names. After that, any person or organisation with an 'official address' in an EU country will for two months also have precedence. Once that two-month period is up, registrations will be open to all-comers. Exact confirmation of the details of just how the sunrise period will operate have not been announced, and EURid is understood to not yet have drafted a dispute resolution procedure.
Yahoo / ZDNet UK Oct 14, 2004	back to top

Intel chips 'favoured' in public tenders
The European Commission is investigating public tender procedures in France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, arguing that they unfairly benefit Intel, the US chipmaker. Brussels has given the four countries two months to justify their procedures, and is threatening to take the four governments to court if their replies are unsatisfactory. The dispute concerns a number of recent tender procedures in which authorities requested that bidders had to provide Intel microprocessors or microprocessors with a certain 'clock rate' a specification that favoured Intel chips. The Commission argued that such demands could violate European Union public procurement rules and provisions against barriers to cross-border trade in the EU. While it conceded that authorities may demand certain standards of performance, Brussels argued that they should not specify a particular brand. Earlier this year, the Commission issued similar challenges to Germany and Italy. The two countries have since replied and Brussels said on Wednesday that it was still studying their responses.
Financial Times Oct 13, 2004	back to top

Intel pulls plug on 4-gigahertz chip
The world's largest chipmaker Intel announced that it will not make a much-touted 4-gigahertz version of its Pentium 4 PC processor. Instead, Intel will release another chip that has fewer gigahertz but is made faster in other ways. The public change of tune hints at more problems at Intel, which has struggled with production and inventory. In recent months, Intel delayed several chips and recalled defective ones. It overestimated demand, creating an inventory glut and was forced to hastily copy a popular chip from rival AMD. The cancellation is part of Intel's effort to fix those problems, it says. It will free up engineers to work on upcoming 'dual core' chips, which have two processors and are therefore faster. The chips that will replace Intel's 4 GHz processor get a performance boost from more short-term memory storage. That keeps more data handy, so the chip spends less time retrieving it.
USA Today Oct 15, 2004	back to top

Atomic register offers route to quantum computing
The fundamental memory component of a quantum computer - called a register - has been built for the first time using a string of atoms by Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany. The researchers built the register using caesium atoms, which are slowed down and trapped inside a laser beam. This could offer a more reliable way to build a working quantum computer than other techniques, they suggest. The researchers were able to 'write' to the quantum register using microwave radiation, putting the electrons orbiting the caesium atoms into a different quantum state. The radiation effectively boosts the electrons into a position between their two natural orbits around the nucleus - a state known as superposition. The quantum state of each atom was confirmed using another laser and a highly sensitive digital camera. But the next step is to get two or more qubits within a register to interact with one another in a 'logic gate' - the most basic step in information processing. This would enable the computer to perform calculations.
New Scientist / Physical Review Letters Oct 08, 2004	back to top

Vein camera keeps injections on target
A new device is about to go on trial in a US hospital, aimed at preventing the discomfort and delay of botched attempts to pierce veins for injections and blood tests, and to cut the time it takes to set up potentially life-saving intravenous drips. The vein contrast enhancer (VCE), invented by a biomedical engineer at the University of Tennessee, uses a near-infrared camera to capture a real-time video image of the patient’s veins, a PC to enhance the contrast of the image and a desktop video projector to display it on the skin. An array of near-infrared LEDs surrounding the camera’s lens illuminates the skin at a wavelength of 740nm. This wavelength is strongly absorbed by blood, but is scattered by the surrounding tissue. The vein contrast enhancer can detect veins up to 8 mm below the surface of the skin. Three prototypes will begin clinical trials at a hospital in Tennessee later in 2004.
New Scientist Oct 06, 2004	back to top

Nanotubes form transparent film
Researchers from the University of Florida and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have found a way to make flexible, transparent films of single-walled carbon nanotubes that have a maximum amount of contact between nanotubes within the film, which makes the film a good electrical conductor. The film could eventually be used to make foldable computer displays, infrared cameras and line-of-sight optical communication devices. The researchers made the films by suspending nanotubes in liquid, filtering them out using a membrane, then dissolving the membrane. The films have consistent thicknesses that can be controlled with nanoscale precision, according to the researchers. They have made films as large as 10 centimetres in diameter and 50 to 150 nanometres thick. The 50-nanometre film transmits 70 per cent of visible light and 90 per cent of infrared light. The researchers used the film to make an optical field-effect transistor, which changes transparency in the presence of an electric field.
Technology Review / Technology Research News Oct 14, 2004	back to top

A lighter approach to computer control
Fabrics woven from light-sensitive fibres could soon be embedded in computer and projector screens, making it possible to control computers by tracking the position of laser pointers, or other light sources, on the screen, researchers say. Researchers at MIT have borrowed techniques from the optical fibres industry to make long, light-sensitive threads. The new fibres respond to light because photons hitting the semiconductor core dislodge electric charges, affecting the voltage in the fibre’s metal wires. Current changes in a grid of such fibres can then pinpoint exactly where a light source is striking the surface. Embedding these grids in computer screens could provide a new type of interface. Instead of having mechanical mouse, a light beam could be used beam to communicate with the computer, because the screen would know where it was being hit, the researchers say.
New Scientist / Nature Oct 13, 2004	back to top

Paralysed man sends e-mail by thought
An pill-sized brain chip has allowed a quadriplegic man to check e-mail and play computer games using his thoughts. The device is the most sophisticated such implant tested in humans so far. Many paralysed people control computers with their eyes or tongue. But muscle function limits these techniques, and they require a lot of training. For over a decade researchers have been trying to find a way to tap directly into thoughts. In June 2004, surgeons implanted a device containing 100 electrodes into the motor cortex of a 24-year-old quadriplegic. The device, called the BrainGate, was developed by the company Cyberkinetics, based in Massachusetts. Each electrode taps into a neuron in the patient's brain. The BrainGate allowed the patient to control a computer or television using his mind, even when doing other things at the same time. Researchers report for example that he could control his television while talking and moving his head.
Nature Oct 13, 2004	back to top

Google search becomes personal
Google has released a preliminary version of a desktop program that will search computer hard drives, as well as the web. Search is becoming an increasingly competitive and lucrative arena. Google is the leader in this area and the launch of a PC search tool is its latest attempt to become even more indispensable to its millions of users. The desktop tool can be downloaded for free and lets people search e-mails in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, as well as files in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and in plain text. It also searches web pages viewed in Internet Explorer and instant messages in AOL Instant Messenger. Google said the software was based on its internet search engine. It takes a while to index a PC hard drive, but after that the search results will appear in fractions of a second. Aware of the privacy concerns raised over its e-mail service, Google has sought to stress that the company will not be able to peer into people's hard drives.
BBC News Oct 14, 2004	back to top

Open source MySQL to borrow Microsoft code
Code that Microsoft made available under a public license earlier this year will be used in the next production release of open source database MySQL version 4.1, which is due for final release in two weeks. Microsoft made the code for its Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset available under an open source licence in April 2004. The toolset is used by companies that develop applications for the Windows environment to build a Windows installation package. The code has been used by MySQL developers to generate binary install files for the Windows environment. The code is not used for the MySQL database itself but for building installers for the database and the administration tool which connects to the database. A Microsoft spokeswoman said on Monday that Microsoft is committed to providing tools to aid software development. She said: 'WiX is just one example of our engagement with the open source community and it helps software developers as they build software that runs on Windows.'
ZDNet UK Oct 12, 2004	back to top

New gadget translates languages
Scientists in Japan have invented a gadget that allows users to chat in another language - without having to learn any words or phrases. Electronics firm NEC is behind the device which converts spoken Japanese to English and vice versa. It consists of a speech recognition engine, translation software and a voice generator, and will be launched in Japan in the next few months. Spoken English or Japanese is recognised and converted into text by the speech recognition engine. The text is then converted from Japanese to English or the other way by translation software and the resulting text is vocalised by a voice synthesiser. The entire process takes about one second. The system will initially be aimed at Japanese tourists and business travellers and be available only in Japan. But the system can be adapted for other languages. NEC has already started working on a version that translates between Japanese and Chinese.
Ananova / New Scientist Oct 08, 2004	back to top

Program cracks crosswords
Computer engineers at the University of Siena in Italy have developed a computer program that can solve crosswords in any language. The program, called Web Crow, reads crossword clues, surfs the web for the answers and fits them into the puzzle. Web Crow works in two phases. In the first, it analyses the crossword clue and turns it into a simple query. Then it plugs the query into the internet search engine Google and uses a certainty score to rank the possible solutions in a candidate list. In the second phase, the program uses an algorithm to figure out which candidate words provide the best fit for the grid as a whole. The researchers says that the algorithms developed for Web Crow could find a use elsewhere in artificial intelligence. For example, the part of the program that creates the queries could be used to develop software that can automatically extract useful information from the web.
Nature Oct 04, 2004	back to top