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Issue no. 13, 2005 Published: Apr 22, 2005
Adobe to acquire Macromedia
Tech giants explore 'hybrid' DVDs
AMD releases dual-core server chips
EU warns about firms offering .eu internet address
Nikon's photo encryption reported broken
Superlens breakthrough
Minuscule microscope testing hope
Computer generates verifiable mathematics proof
Toshiba squeezes 3D images onto flat display
'Robotic' dental drill to be tested on humans
Ivory encore for dead piano greats
Project to open internet to blind
Mobile phonies

Adobe to acquire Macromedia
Adobe Systems, one of the world's largest providers of document-design software, will acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4bn, the companies announced Monday. Under terms of the deal, approved by the companies' boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of their Macromedia common stock. That will result in Macromedia stockholders owning about 18 per cent of the combined company when the deal closes. The transaction, contingent upon the approval of both companies' stockholders, is expected to be complete by the autumn. It also requires the approval of federal regulators. Adobe's software includes the popular Acrobat and Photoshop program. Macromedia makes the Dreamweaver and Flash web-design software. Combining the two businesses will allow them to create more powerful programs that can be used across multiple operating systems, which should pave the way for expansion into new markets, the companies said.
Washington Post Apr 18, 2005	back to top

Tech giants explore 'hybrid' DVDs
Technology giants Toshiba and Sony are in talks to come up with a compromise on the next generation of DVD format. The two have been pushing different formats which has so far split movie studios and technology firms. Toshiba, with NEC and Sanyo, is promoting the HD-DVD format, while Sony's Blu-ray technology is backed by a group including Dell and Samsung. Both want to avoid a format war. The technology and movie industries recognise that a format war, like the VHS-Beta battle in the 1980s which saw the death of the Beta video cassette, is undesirable. Toshiba said a single 'hybrid' format would be better for people and it said it would aim for that as a compromise. Sony is reportedly pushing Blu-ray's disc structure and HD-DVD software technology as a hybrid solution. Toshiba wants to use HD-DVD's disc structure, which is closer to that of DVDs now, and use Sony's multi-layer data recording technology.
BBC News Apr 21, 2005	back to top

AMD releases dual-core server chips
Intel may have come out with dual-core processors a few days earlier, but AMD says it is bringing out dual-core chips to the market where it counts. The chipmaker on Thursday released its first three dual-core Opteron processors for servers. It plans to follow that release with three more server chips and a desktop line during the next two months. Although desktop buyers will inevitably consume the performance that dual-core chips can provide, server customers will be able to use the performance almost immediately. Several applications and operating systems have already been retrofitted for running on dual-processor systems. Intel's dual-core chips, which debuted Monday, are designed for desktops. Its Xeon server chips will not come out before early 2006. Overall, a dual-core Opteron will outperform a single-core version running at the same speed by 40 to 70 per cent, depending on the application, according to AMD. Meanwhile, AMD's desktop chips will come out around June and will be called the Athlon 64 X2.
ZDNet / CNET Apr 21, 2005	back to top

EU warns about firms offering .eu internet address
Companies claiming to offer Europeans the chance to register in advance for a new .eu internet address may not be able to deliver on their word, the European Commission said on Thursday. The new address or domain will offer European companies and individuals an alternative to the .com suffix or having to list a series of national addresses in Europe. The new pan-European domain name will go live from the start of 2006. But some companies are already offering and charging individuals to register for a .eu internet address in advance. However, only public bodies and companies with a trademark can register in advance, during a so-called sunrise period lasting four months, the Commission warns. A precise date for the start of the sunrise period will be announced later this year.
Yahoo! / Reuters Apr 21, 2005	back to top

Nikon's photo encryption reported broken
A Massachusetts programmer says he has broken a proprietary encryption code that has effectively forced some Nikon digital camera owners to use the company's own software. Because Nikon scrambled a portion of the file, legal worries have kept third-party developers such as Adobe Systems from supporting Nikon's uncompressed 'raw' photos in their software. Nikon sells its Nikon Capture utility for $100. 'It's an open format now,' said programmer Dave Coffin, who posted the decryption code on his website this week. Coffin gained some fame in digital photography circles as the author of the popular Dcraw utility, which translates raw images from cameras into a nonproprietary format. Coffin said that the publication of his discovery may let Adobe include support for Nikon's file format in the next version of its Camera Raw software without violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
ZDNet / CNET Apr 21, 2005	back to top

Superlens breakthrough
Physicists at the University of California at Berkeley have made the first optical superlens from a thin layer of silver. The lens has a negative refractive index and can be used to image structures with a resolution that is about one sixth the wavelength of light - thus overcoming the so-called diffraction limit. The lens could have many applications, such as imaging nano-scale objects with light. Conventional, positive-refractive-index lenses create images by capturing the light waves emitted by an object and then bending them. However, objects also emit 'evanescent' waves that contain a lot of information at very small scales about the object. These waves are much harder to measure because they decay exponentially and never reach the image plane - a threshold in optics known as the diffraction limit. In 2003, the researchers already showed that optical evanescent waves could be enhanced as they passed through a silver superlens. Now they have taken this work one step further and have imaged objects as small as 40-nm across with their superlens, which is just 35-nm thick. Current optical microscopes can only resolve objects down to around 400-nm.
PhysicsWeb Apr 21, 2005	back to top

Minuscule microscope testing hope
Scientists at Cardiff University have developed a tiny microscope - the width of a human hair - which they say could revolutionise the examination of biological samples. The researchers say the optical biochip could help doctors test for diseases and develop new drugs. The team is looking to integrate the biochip into medical technology, such as diagnostic equipment. The biochip works by emitting tiny lasers which analyse a cell. Biological samples can be placed on the biochip - just visible to the human eye - which then relays what it finds via an electrical signal. In theory, the biochip could detect diseases such as HIV, malaria and some cancers, or aid drug development by analysing how a cell reacts to a substance. Cell diagnosis is currently done by traditional microscope or by hospital-based equipment.
BBC News Apr 17, 2005	back to top

Computer generates verifiable mathematics proof
A computer-assisted proof of a 150-year-old mathematical conjecture can at last be checked by human mathematicians. The Four Colour Theorem, proposed by Francis Guthrie in 1852, states that any four colours are the minimum needed to fill in a flat map without any two regions of the same colour touching. A proof of the theorem was announced by US mathematicians in 1976. But a crucial portion of their work involved checking many thousands of maps - a task that can only feasibly be done using a computer. So a long-standing concern has been that some hidden flaw in the computer code they used might undermine the overall logic of the proof. But now researchers at Microsoft, UK and INRIA in France have translated the proof into a language used to represent logical propositions - called Coq - and created logic-checking software to confirm that the steps put forward in the proof make sense. Microsoft hopes to develop a similar system for checking the logic used in computer programs, which could pre-empt some unforeseen bugs that cause programs to crash.
New Scientist Apr 19, 2005	back to top

Toshiba squeezes 3D images onto flat display
Toshiba this week claimed an imaging breakthrough with the development of technology that allows 3-D images to be viewed on a flatbed display without the need for special glasses. Viewing the display from an angle allows the viewer to experience 3-D images that appear to stand out several centimetres from the surface of the display. Toshiba said that its displays employ an integral imaging system that reproduces light beams similar to those produced by a real object, not its visual representation. Toshiba developed proprietary software that uses 10 or more views of an object, and which processes and reproduces the images in 3-D with a wide viewing angle. Specially developed middleware and dedicated circuitry supports fast playback of the images with only a graphics card. Toshiba is working to refine the technology to include integration of touch-screen controls, and expects to create commercially available products within two years.
VNUnet UK Apr 18, 2005	back to top

'Robotic' dental drill to be tested on humans
A 'robotic' dentist's drill is to be tested on humans in Europe and the US, and could represent the first step towards more automated dental procedures. The drill, developed by Israel's Tactile Technologies, is designed to take the complexity out of dental implant work. It could make operations cheaper, quicker and less painful for patients. A dental implant is a small metal pin fixed into the jaw to mimic a tooth's root. It is used to anchor replacement teeth and bridges and installing one normally involves complicated and lengthy surgery. Firstly, a frame is clamped onto a patient's jaw and very thin needles penetrate the gum to determine the location of the bone. This data is wirelessly transmitted to a PC, which combines it with CT scan data to configure a set of drill guides. The guides are then attached to the frame and finally the dentist presses a button to start the drilling in the precise location required. Once activated the drill is self-guiding but the practitioner can still alter the drilling process at any time.
New Scientist Apr 20, 2005	back to top

Ivory encore for dead piano greats
Next month music lovers in Raleigh, North Carolina, will be able to hear two of the greatest pianists of the 20th century in concert. Both the pianists, however, are long dead. Zenph Studios, a software company based in Raleigh, has found a way to take a music recording and convert it into a live concert played on real instruments. The concert will be a completely faithful rendition of the original pianists' work. Zenph resurrected a scratchy mono recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, made by Glenn Gould in 1955 and a recording of a Chopin prelude by Alfred Cortot in 1928. Zenph has found a way to extract the sounds from audio recordings and convert them into a high-resolution version of MIDI, the standard way of coding music for computers. Zenph says it has also solved the problem of polyphonic transcription - distinguishing several notes played simultaneously. The company will organise a concert, at which a Disklavier Pro piano will replay Gould and Cortot's work. The piano will replicate every note struck, down to the velocity of the hammer and position of the key when it was played.
New Scientist Apr 22, 2005	back to top

Project to open internet to blind
A three-year project to improve blind access to the internet has started at Queen's University in Belfast. Researchers are working to devise ways to guide the blind and visually impaired through the web, as part of the Enabled initiative. The EU has provided EUR 3.8m funding for the project which 13 other bodies across Europe are taking part in. As well as schemes involving tactile display screens and audio cues, there is also the potential to use mobile devices as audio guides for the blind. Trials will be carried out in Belfast in conjunction with the Blind Centre for Northern Ireland and the Royal National Institute of the Blind which will help organise user focus groups and training and evaluation sessions. Queen's University is the project leader and is joined in the project by 13 other universities and organisations across Europe.
BBC News Apr 19, 2005	back to top

Mobile phonies
Many people who use mobile phones in public, are faking their conversations to make themselves seem important. According a Rutgers University Center for Mobile Communications Studies report, a surprising number of people make fake phone calls on their cell phones just for the benefit of those around them. James Katz, a professor of communication at the university, said that in one survey he conducted, more than a quarter of people said they had faked it. Often it is to cover something up. Like if they are late for work they will wander into the office pretending to be talking to an important customer. Apparently, the bigger the deal on the phone, the more likely it is to be faked. According to the study, men will often pretend to be on an important call as they walk over to try and pick up a woman. A woman, on the other hand, will pretend to be on the phone to avoid being picked up. It is a wonder humanity ever gets the chance to breed.
The Inquirer Apr 21, 2005	back to top