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Issue no. 8, 2005 Published: Mar 18, 2005
EU: 'Microsoft has not implemented server market'
International hackers attempt massive heist
Digital tax to aid poor nations
Google courts open-source developers
Online purchase could give you away
Web users reject cookies
Plasmonic computer chips move closer
Philips finds new material for future memory chips
New photofit 'evolves' a suspect's face
Mechanical chip promises huge data storage
Shaky hands? Mouse adapter promises relief
Chirac rivals Google with French online book plan
Microsoft targets passwords with biometric keyboard

EU: 'Microsoft has not implemented server market'
The European Commission said Thursday the results of its market testing showed Microsoft had not implemented the remedy demanded by the EU for the company's abuse of its dominant position in the server market. In March 2004 the EU ordered Microsoft to disclose information to its rivals in order that their servers could interoperate with Microsoft servers. The commission has since then engaged in market testing to determine if the way Microsoft was disclosing the information was in compliance with the ruling. Microsoft released details on its website, telling its rivals how to get licences for the information. But the commission says the problems are with access to technical documentation to evaluate whether or not it is worthwhile to take out a licence. Furthermore, rival server operators have to take out a licence for all of the information regardless of their needs. Microsoft promised it will work through the issues raised with the commission over the coming days.
EUBusiness / AFP Mar 17, 2005	back to top

International hackers attempt massive heist
UK's National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has foiled an international gang of hackers aiming to steal £220m from a Japanese bank in London. After gaining access to the IT systems of Sumitomo Corporation's London offices in October the gang installed key-logging software to record log-in codes and company documents. They had been planning to transfer the money to 10 bank accounts around the world. But the gang's movements were picked up and the NHTCU launched an investigation. In a joint operation with police forces around the world the hackers were stopped before any funds could be transferred. Police in Israel have arrested a man and charged him with money laundering and deception. It is alleged that he was set to receive millions of pounds, and police say their investigations are still ongoing. The investigation is an example of the new way police are working with businesses to deal with online crime quietly and effectively. The NHTCU operates under a Confidentiality Charter which means that police work with businesses under tight secrecy to track and stop online crime.
VNUnet UK Mar 17, 2005	back to top

Digital tax to aid poor nations
A plan for wealthy nations to contribute a digital tax to provide hi-tech tools for poor nations has been officially launched in Geneva. The idea is the brainchild of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Geneva is the first city to sign up. It plans to contribute 1 per cent of the profit companies make on public technology projects to the fund. Dubbed the Digital Solidarity Fund, the digital tax has the backing of France, Nigeria, Algeria and Senegal. The official launch of the fund was opened with a message from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The digital divide is acute between the information-rich Western nations and African nations, many of which lack basic infrastructure. The fund would help to provide not just internet access and computers, but mobile and satellite phones to aid e-learning and e-health projects. The tax is voluntary but it is hoped other countries and cities will follow Geneva's lead.
BBC News Mar 16, 2005	back to top

Google courts open-source developers
Google has launched a new site intended to serve as a central resource for developers working on applications related to the popular search engine. The new Google Code will be a repository for source code, application programming interfaces, or APIs, and other tools to assist developers working on Google-related projects, according to a welcome note on Thursday from Chris DiBona, Google's open-source program manager and former editor of 'News for Nerds' site Slashdot. The site also will profile current and ongoing projects. The initial tool releases include Perftools and Sparsehashtable, for developers working in the C++ language, and Goopy/functional, for Python developers. Tools will be distributed through the SourceForge open-source programming site, and releases targeting other languages and development toolsets will be made as the program matures, DiBona said.
ZDNet Mar 17, 2005	back to top

Online purchase could give you away
Retailers could guess your age, sex, birthday and wedding anniversary simply from the types of gifts purchased for you online and their timing, according to a patent granted to online retail giant, Amazon. The information could be used to remind your loved ones of an impending special occasion and offer gift suggestions. The patent describes software that automatically guesses when a gift is being purchased by extracting key words such as 'birthday' or 'anniversary' from an attached message. It might also note details such as the fact that the buyer has asked it to be gift wrapped or that the recipient address is different from the purchaser address. The software would then infer the recipient's age and gender according to the type of gift, the paper it is wrapped in and by cross-referencing any past appraisals of the items purchased. Amazon would remind potential gift purchasers by sending them emails or an alert when they log on to the website.
New Scientist Mar 15, 2005	back to top

Web users reject cookies
An increasing number of people are blocking cookies or deleting them to protect their privacy or security, according to a new study. Nearly 58 per cent of online users deleted the small files, which are deposited on computers to track website habits, the Jupiter Research 2004 survey found. As many as 39 per cent may be deleting cookies from their primary computer every month. The market researcher attributes the trend to heightened concern over privacy and security issues among internet users. Many people are using anti-spyware and firewall applications, it said. For online businesses, the trend means that cookies may not be an accurate method of tracking regular visitors to their websites. If users block cookies, accurate measurement is compromised and higher numbers may be categorised as anonymous, the study said.
Silicon.com / CNET News.com Mar 16, 2005	back to top

Plasmonic computer chips move closer
Computer chips capable of speeding data around by rippling the electrons on the surface of metal wires just got a step closer. Mark Brongersma, at Stanford University has found a new way to model the three- dimensional propagation of these ripples - called plasmons - in two dimensions. He says the new model will be crucial in the design of plasmonic components for computer chips. Plasmons travel at the speed of light and are created when light hits a metal at a particular angle, causing waves to propagate through electrons near the surface. Scientists would like to use plasmons to ferry data around computer chips because they could operate at frequencies 100,000 times faster than today's Pentium chips, without requiring thicker wiring. To develop the new, simpler model, Brongersma showed that the intensity pattern of a plasmon travelling across the surface of a metal strip was the same as for a light wave travelling through an optical fibre. This indicates that traditional 'ray-tracer' programs for modelling light waves should work for plasmons too.
New Scientist Mar 17, 2005	back to top

Philips finds new material for future memory chips
Researchers at Dutch Philips Electronics have come up with a new material to integrate memory in very advanced semiconductors featuring very thin circuits. The new material needs only a tiny voltage to switch between on and off phases, which is used to 'remember' the data stored on a chip. This makes it useful for future chips that will have thinner and smaller circuits and which will work with low power levels. The material will remember the data after the power of the chip has been switched off, similar to today's Flash memory chips. It will meet requirements for memory that needs to be integrated into a system on a chip by 2007 or 2008. By that time, chips will have circuits as thin 50nm, compared with today's leading edge 90nm chip making technology. The material used is a semiconducting alloy called Antimony/Tellurium, which switches its state when an electric current flows through, and then stays in that state until another electric current flows through. Another advantage of the new material is that it is cheap to make and that it can switch between phases very quickly.
Reuters Mar 16, 2005	back to top

New photofit 'evolves' a suspect's face
Half an hour after being mugged, the victim is again staring her attacker in the face. What the victim is looking at is an image on a police laptop running software that can 'evolve' a realistic likeness within minutes, while her memory is still fresh. Based on the sex, race and hairstyle of the person the witness remembers, the novel photofit system produces nine random faces, from which the witness chooses the one that seems the closest likeness. The algorithm then uses this face to mutate a new set of variants. The cycle continues until the witness is happy with the likeness. Each generation can be calculated in seconds, making the process far quicker than retrieving facial features from databases and trying them one by one. Each face is represented by an array of 50 numbers called principal components. Once a feature, say the mouth, is correct it can be 'locked', and the rest of the face evolved around it. In early tests, volunteers were about twice as likely to recognise a face constructed through the new software as through today's photofit mugshots.
New Scientist Mar 16, 2005	back to top

Mechanical chip promises huge data storage
A super-dense memory chip that stores data in the form of nanoscale holes in a plastic film has made its public debut at the CeBIT electronics exhibition in Hanover, Germany. IBM's 'Millipede' technology promises very high capacity thanks to its use of holes just 10nm wide. This means that a square chip measuring 2.4cm on a side should be able to store 125gb, says the company, equivalent to 25 DVDs. The Millipede chip achieves this by having an array of tens of thousands of silicon cantilevers. Each has a pointed tip that writes data by poking holes - representing a digital 0 or 1 - in the soft polymer below. The cantilever also reads the data when needed, by measuring a change in its electrical resistance when it drops into a hole. Electromagnetic actuators within the chip package move the polymer film beneath the cantilevers so that each tip can read and write within a 100-micrometre-square area. Data is erased using a heater in each cantilever which melts the polymer locally, smoothing the pits over for re-use. IBM hopes the technology could form the heart of future digital cameras, cellphones and USB memory sticks.
New Scientist Mar 14, 2005	back to top

Shaky hands? Mouse adapter promises relief
A mouse adapter developed by IBM compensates for trembling hands and could help millions of people worldwide. After deeming the device noncommercial, IBM licensed it to niche electronics company Montrose Secam in the UK. The device, which plugs in between a mouse and computer, filters signals to remove erratic movements such as those experienced by people with Parkinson's disease or hereditary disorders such as essential tremor. The adapter uses a small microprocessor to apply a digital low-pass smoothing filter to the motion data from the mouse. The effect is to suppress rapid tremor oscillations, which typically take place at a few cycles per second or faster, while leaving the slow, steady, progress toward the user's goal. A knob allows adjustment of the degree of smoothing, to suit the individual. It also has options to filter out short, inadvertent mouse clicks and to 'clean up' double-clicks that Windows would reject as too slow or too far apart.
ZDNet UK Mar 15, 2005	back to top

Chirac rivals Google with French online book plan
President Jacques Chirac told France's national library on Wednesday to draw up a plan to put European literary works on the internet, rivalling a similar project by US-based web search engine Google. Chirac gave the go-ahead for research into the project after Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads the national library, expressed concern that Google's plan to put books from some of the world's great libraries online would favour the English language (See ICT Weekly of Feb. 25). Chirac asked Jeanneney and France's culture minister to look at ways 'in which the collections of the great libraries in France and Europe could be made more widely and more quickly accessible by internet,' Chirac's office said in a statement. Chirac would seek support among other European countries in the coming weeks for a bigger, coordinated push to get Europe's literary works online.
Yahoo / Reuters Mar 16, 2005	back to top

Microsoft targets passwords with biometric keyboard
Microsoft has reacted to concerns over the inconvenience of passwords with the launch of a keyboard which uses biometrics to log on users to websites. The keyboard includes a fingerprint reader which will enable users to store their biometric ID and use that as authentication when logging onto password protected sites – having stored the passwords locally on the device. Microsoft claims the Optical Desktop Elite with Fingerprint Reader for Bluetooth offers a way of managing passwords without having to remember them. But the issue of security is one Microsoft, perhaps jaded by past criticism, neatly avoids. The emphasis of the Microsoft product range which also includes a mouse is very much on convenience, rather than security. The product manual even states: 'The fingerprint reader is not a security feature.' The company also advises against users storing passwords which are still highly sensitive, such as those used for banking.
Silicon.com Mar 10, 2005	back to top