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Issue no. 41, 2004 Published: Dec 10, 2004
EU patent decision delayed
Disney backs Sony in DVD format battle
Europe backs digital TV lifestyle
Lycos kills off its anti-spam zombies
Wireless network smashes world speed record
'Brainwave' cap controls computer
Scheme simplifies quantum chips
Cellphone sniffs out dirty bombs
File-sharing does not hurt most musicians - study
Laptop threat to male fertility

EU patent decision delayed
The EU Council will postpone its decision to make software patentable - a possible sign of mounting political pressure against the decision. 'The competitiveness council will not vote on this project before 2005,' Belgian minister Marc Verwilghen told his parliament on Tuesday. Verwilghen also told the parliament that there is a problem because the EU Council no longer has a qualified majority, according to a report by antipatent group Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). The lack of qualified majority has occurred due to a change in the voting weights of EU members, which means that the EU Council members that supported changes to the directive in May no longer have a majority vote. Over the last six months, numerous member states have expressed their concerns about the EU Council proposal.
CNET News / ZDNet UK Dec 08, 2004	back to top

Disney backs Sony in DVD format battle
Disney announced this week that it would release its films on Sony's Blu-ray DVD format - a week after three other Hollywood studios backed rival Toshiba's HD-DVD. The battle between the two formats, reminiscent of the 1980s fight between Betamax and VHS for control of the videotape format, will determine which product cinema fans will have to buy to view future releases. Disney said it is backing Sony because Blu-ray offers higher quality and was backed by most consumer electronics manufacturers. But Warner, Universal and Paramount are supporting Toshiba's HD-DVD product because they say it offers better anti-piracy guarantees. 20th Century Fox has yet to make a decision on which format it will use. In the manufacturers' camp, more than 90 consumer electronics companies, including Matsushita, Phillips, Thomson and PC makers Dell and Hewlett-Packard, are backing Blu-ray. But Sanyo and NEC are backing HD-DVD. Both products promise higher storage capacity, superior image quality and stronger anti-piracy protection.
The Guardian Dec 09, 2004	back to top

Europe backs digital TV lifestyle
How people receive their digital entertainment in the future could change, following the launch of an ambitious European project, the 'Networked & Electronic Media' (NEM) initiative. Its broad scope stretches from the way media is created, through each of the stages of its distribution, to its playback. The Commission wants people to be able to locate the content they desire and have it delivered seamlessly, when on the move, at home or at work, no matter who supplies the devices, network, content, or content protection scheme. The 10-year plan brings together the work of many currently running research projects that the EC has been funding for a number of years.
BBC News Dec 07, 2004	back to top

Lycos kills off its anti-spam zombies
The controversial attempt to attack spammers by bombarding their websites with traffic from thousands of individual PCs is over, one week after its launch. After a week of heavy criticism of the company's plan to launch DOS-like attacks on spammers, Lycos has thrown in the towel. In a statement Lycos said: 'We are astonished by the enormous resonance generated by the "Make Love No Spam" campaign. With this campaign we intended to raise a new impulse in the anti-spam discussion and therefore create awareness for the big economic and societal problems caused by spam. The campaign has reached its goal and thus will be stopped.' Lycos won huge amounts of publicity from its anti-spam tool, but also attracted a storm of criticism from experts claiming the scheme was poorly thought out, and a bad idea overall. Lycos forcefully denied both that it had launched any DOS-attacks on spammers, and that it took two Chinese websites offline.
ZDNet UK Dec 07, 2004	back to top

Wireless network smashes world speed record
A new world record has been set for transmitting data across a wireless network, claim researchers in Germany. A team at Siemens Communications research laboratory in Munich, have transmitted one gigabit of data per second across their mobile network. By contrast, the average wireless computer network can send only around 50 megabits of data per second. The researchers used three transmitting and four receiving antennas and a technique for boosting the amount of data that can be sent wirelessly, called Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Frequency-division multiplexing involves simultaneously sending multiple signals over different frequencies between two points. The technique can be prone to interference between different signals. But OFDM splits carrier signals into smaller sub-units which are synchronised to reduce interference. Recombining smaller signals in real time, however, requires considerable computing power. So the Siemens team developed new computer algorithms in order to send more data using existing hardware.
New Scientist Dec 10, 2004	back to top

'Brainwave' cap controls computer
A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer. Four people, two of them partly paralysed, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes. The research team, from New York State Department of Health and State University of New York in Albany, said the research was another step towards people controlling wheelchairs or other electronic devices by thought. The four people faced a large video screen wearing a special cap which meant no surgery or implantation was needed. Brain activity produces electrical signals that can be read by electrodes. Complex algorithms then translate those signals into instructions to direct the computer. Such brain activity does not require the use of any nerves of muscles, so people with stroke or spinal cord injuries could use the cap effectively.
BBC News Dec 07, 2004	back to top

Scheme simplifies quantum chips
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Maryland have brought practical quantum computers a step closer by proposing a type of quantum bit that is relatively easy to build. Qubit's represent the 1s and 0s of computer information. The qubits in the researchers' scheme are connected through the magnetic interaction between atoms rather than the influence closely positioned electrons have on each other. Ordinarily magnetic interaction would cause every qubit to be permanently connected to every other qubit. The researchers devised a method to connected and disconnect such qubits. The method allows qubits to be placed further apart than those of previous quantum architectures. This, in turn, allows them to be positioned by ion implantation, an easy-to-use technique that calls for shooting them into the silicon chip with a gun-like device.
Technology Research News Dec 08, 2004	back to top

Cellphone sniffs out dirty bombs
A smart phone that can detect radiation may soon be helping the police to find the raw materials for radioactive 'dirty bombs' before they are deployed. The phones will glean data as the officers carrying them go about their daily business, and the information will be used to draw up maps of radiation that will expose illicit stores of nuclear material. The detector is the brainchild of engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, US. Customs officers at ports and airports already wear pagers that detect radiation. But any radioactive material not picked up by border controls can be hidden in towns and cities, with little chance that it will be found. The LLNL engineers have turned a cellphone into a wireless sensor that will feed data into a new type of radiation monitoring network that they are calling a RadNet. The phone transmits radiation readings continuously over an always-on internet connection to a central computer. A GPS receiver in the phone labels the data with a time and location, allowing it to be used to build up a radiation map of an area.
New Scientist Dec 09, 2004	back to top

File-sharing does not hurt most musicians - study
Most musicians and artists say the internet has helped them make more money from their work despite online file-trading services that allow users to copy songs and other material for free, according to a study. Recording labels and movie studios have hired phalanxes of lawyers to pursue peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and have sued thousands of individuals who distribute copyrighted material through such networks. But most of the artists surveyed by the Pew Internet and American Life Project said online file sharing did not concern them much. Artists were split on the merits of P2P networks, with 47 per cent saying that they prevent artists from earning royalties for their work and another 43 per cent saying they helped promote and distribute their material. But two-thirds of those surveyed said file sharing posed little threat to them, and less than one-third of those surveyed said file sharing was a major threat to creative industries. Only 3 per cent said the internet hurt their ability to protect their creative works.
CNN / Reuters Dec 06, 2004	back to top

Laptop threat to male fertility
Thousands of men across the country will be crossing their legs and groaning in despair today when they learn that their trusted friend, the laptop computer, has become the latest threat to their manhood. Just months after they were warned that carrying mobile phones in their pockets might damage their sperm count, men now have to absorb the news that laptops can similarly threaten their fertility. Researchers from the State University of New York have revealed that a combination of the heat generated by the computers and the position of the thighs needed to balance the machines leads to higher temperatures around men's genitals. It is possible that years of heavy laptop use may cause irreversible or partially reversible changes in male reproductive function, according to the researchers. The researchers worked with 29 volunteers, measuring their scrotal temperature with and without laptops. The surface temperature of the computers rose from nearly 31C to nearly 40C after one hour, while the scrotal temperature had risen by 1C in 15 minutes of computer use.
The Guardian Dec 09, 2004	back to top