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Issue no. 15, 2005 Published: May 13, 2005
US scientists create self-replicating robot
EU's Galileo does not want single satellite bid
Teamwork will beat the spammers
Painting nanowires into circuits
Quantum leap in secure web video
Researchers move step closer to biochips
Hot chips chilled with liquid metal
Net-powered computer goes on show
Cars safe from computer viruses
Gamers to rule their own virtual worlds

US scientists create self-replicating robot
Scientists at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York have created small robots that can build copies of themselves. Each robot consists of several 10-cm cubes which have identical machinery, electromagnets to attach and detach to each other and a computer program for replication. The robots can bend and pick up and stack the cubes. The researchers believe the design principle could be used to make long term, self-repairing robots that could mend themselves and be used in hazardous situations and on space flights. The experimental robots, which don't do anything else except make copies of themselves, are powered through contacts on the surface of the table and transfer data through their faces. They self-replicate by using additional modules placed in special 'feeding locations'. A video of the self-replicating robot can be viewed at: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050509/multimedia/050509-6-m1.html
Reuters May 11, 2005	back to top

EU's Galileo does not want single satellite bid
The Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), which is coordinating the launch of the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system, is opposed to a joint bid by two rival groups, a GJU spokesman said on Thursday. On Wednesday it emerged that two rival consortiums - iNavSat and Eurely - planned to join forces. But GJU, set up by the European Commission and European Space Agency, has not been informed of any joint offer and does not want the two groups to merge their bids. 'So long as we have competition we get better value for the public,' the spokesman said. He said GJU would announce its decision on who would become the preferred bidder to build and operate Galileo by the end of June. Galileo is due to go into service in 2008 with 30 satellites, mainly for civilian uses such as driver assistance and search-and-rescue missions.
Reuters May 12, 2005	back to top

Teamwork will beat the spammers
Today's anti-spam software-filters block messages that have content such as advertising slogans or sexually explicit words that is similar to that of spam emails already received and identified. Therefore, they cannot pick up new spam messages that are unlike any received before. But anti-spam programs would be vastly more powerful if they could pool information about spam. Researchers at the University of California and the University of Florida have now proposed a practical way of doing it. The team suggests adding software to standard email programs that could orchestrate a behind-the-scenes collaboration. When you receive a new message, your anti-spam software would first check it against your own database of known spam. If it doesn't find a match, it would then forward the same query to a few randomly selected email addresses in your contacts book. Similar software on each computer that receives the query would then check the message against its own spam database, and so on, until a match is found, or the message is deemed original.
New Scientist May 12, 2005	back to top

Painting nanowires into circuits
Researchers from Harvard University, US, say they have made functioning, high-frequency circuits from nanoscale building blocks for the first time. They say the nanowire-based devices could find a use in lightweight, portable electronics. The researchers made multi-nanowire transistors on glass substrates. They applied the nanowires to the substrate in solution and then used standard photolithography techniques to create circuits. Integrating two transistors made an inverter, while arranging three inverters in series resulted in a ring oscillator with a maximal oscillation frequency of 11.7 MHz. The technique has the advantage of being suitable for use at low temperature, enabling its application to plastic or glass substrates. The nanowire devices have much higher oscillation frequencies than circuits based on carbon nanotubes, which typically have oscillation frequencies of 5-220 Hz.
Nanotechweb.org / Nature Apr 29, 2005	back to top

Quantum leap in secure web video
Voice and video files streamed over the net could be made untappable and ultra-secure in the next few years thanks to a breakthrough by Toshiba. Scientists at Toshiba's Cambridge UK labs successfully demonstrated its Quantum Key Server system, which refreshes keys without interruption, on video. The self-managing system can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Toshiba's work showed that each frame in a video file could be encrypted using separate keys, which means that cracking one frame of a video - already difficult - would be useless unless all the other frames were cracked, too.
BBC News Apr 29, 2005	back to top

Researchers move step closer to biochips
Chemists at New York University have worked out a mechanism by which organic molecules can attach to the surface of semiconductors. The breakthrough could have far-reaching implications for the semiconductor industry, including improvement of human/computer interaction and the creation of applications such as biochips. The researchers examined how an organic molecule called Butadiene binds to a particular silicon surface using first-principles computer-based models. The mechanism could be used to predict how other organic molecules will attach to the surface and what products might be expected, the researchers say. They also 'reverse engineered' an organic molecule using only their computer model that was found to undergo the reverse reaction - a detachment from the surface - more easily than the original Butadiene used in the attachment studies. The findings suggest that the reaction chemistry at the semiconductor surface can be controlled by designing or tailoring molecules that exhibit specific desired properties in the reactions they undergo.
VNUnetUK May 09, 2005	back to top

Hot chips chilled with liquid metal
Piping hot processors could be cooled more efficiently and quietly using liquid metal instead of using fans to blow away the heat. The central processing chips inside most desktop and server computers are cooled using heat-absorbing solid metal 'sinks' and mechanical fans that generate continual air flow. But modern circuits can be so vastly complex that keeping them chilled is becoming increasingly noisy and power draining. But now Texas-based NanoCoolers has developed a liquid metal cooling system that draws heat away from a circuit by pumping liquid gallium alloy through a series of pipes. The temperature of the liquid is brought back down to normal within an ambient air-cooled chamber. Unlike water, the metal boils at 2000°C, which means it can absorb more heat without changing phase and becoming a troublesome gas. Furthermore, it can be pumped away from a heat source more efficiently by means of electromagnetic pumps, instead of hydraulic ones.
New Scientist May 05, 2005	back to top

Net-powered computer goes on show
Soon you could be using one fewer cable to keep your computer running. UK firm DSP Design has made a PC that gets electric power via a network cable rather than through a wall socket. Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) works because when data is sent down network cables it is represented by voltages. Some PoE equipment uses spare wires in cables that link computers back to network hubs and pump power down these. Others pump power down the same lines as the data traffic. The current PoE specifications have an upper limit of 15.4 watts. This is enough for Voip handsets, network hubs, webcams, smart card readers and video servers but it is far too low for most desktop PCs. But DSP Design's Poet 6000 draws only 12 watts by replacing a monitor with a flat-panel screen and using low power components. Ordinary laptops could also soon be getting their power from network cables as work is starting on specifications for PoE Plus which will be able to deliver 30-35 watts.
BBC News Apr 29, 2005	back to top

Cars safe from computer viruses
Finnish security firm F-Secure has proved that today's cars cannot catch computer viruses. After exhaustive testing F-Secure has failed to make a virus leap from a mobile phone handset to a car's onboard communications system. F-Secure did the tests in response to rumours that some Lexus cars had been infected by a virus. But the phone system on the vehicle did not respond to any of the attacks tried out by F-Secure researchers. The attempts to infect the car were carried out in an underground testing chamber to guard against the chance of accidental infection. The researchers used phones compromised with the Cabir virus to see if they would infect the car too. All the attempts at infection failed.
BBC News May 11, 2005	back to top

Gamers to rule their own virtual worlds
Multiplayer online games could be made more robust and immersive by using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking to let players store part of a virtual universe on their own computer. Researchers say blending P2P networking with online gaming could make virtual worlds more stable and, eventually, more expandable. Massive multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs, provide users with a complex virtual world in which to interact and act out adventures with others. But existing games require users to connect to a centralised server owned and maintained by the company behind the game. Although this makes a game easier to control and maintain, it also provides a single point of failure and can complicate expanding it for large numbers of player. Now researchers at France Telecom have built a simple role-playing game that works without the need for any centralised server. The project, called Solipsis, lets users interact within a virtual space hosted collectively on their own computers. A user expands the scale of Solipsis just by installing the software.
New Scientist May 12, 2005	back to top