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Issue no. 27, 2005 Published: Sep 23, 2005
European Institute of Technology on its way?
Mobile phones allowed in European skies
First PC/phone crossover virus found
Computer networks more vulnerable than ever
Opera makes its browser free, without ads
Tiniest remote-controlled robot created
MRI brain scan the ultimate lie detector
E-nose to sniff out hospital superbugs
Researchers develop more efficient file-sharing
NASA challenges inventors to design Moon diggers
Long life mobile battery 'vital'

European Institute of Technology on its way?
The European Commission has launched a consultation into whether the continent needs its very own European Institute of Technology. According to the EC, research into technology is needed to help boost employment and the economy. However, Europe's tech community is failing to translate research successes into an advantage for the region's businesses. One proposed answer to the problem is the creation of a European Technology Institute (EIT), which could help to attract and retain the world's best tech brains, according to EC president Jose Manuel Barroso. One of the key objectives for the EIT could be to bring together European researchers and academics with the business community in order to commercialise the fruits of tech R&D, the EC said. The public consultation aims to work out issues of the possible remit of EIT, its aims and structure. Once the consultation closes in November, the EC will decide if it wants further work to be done on the concept of an EIT and a paper will be prepared for the European parliament in March next year.
Silicon.com Sep 19, 2005	back to top

Mobile phones allowed in European skies
British Midland and TAP Air Portugal will permit passengers to use their mobile phones in the air next year, the two European airlines announced. Both companies will use base-station technology developed by OnAir, the Airbus-backed rival to Boeing's Connexion. OnAir uses pico-cell base-stations from Siemens, coupled with software from TriaGnoSys. The kit will be installed in 2006 with a view to commencing a trial service late in the year. However, there are a couple of restrictions. Passengers can use their phones only from 10,000ft and they will still not be able to use wireless devices during take off and landing.
The Register Sep 22, 2005	back to top

First PC/phone crossover virus found
The first mobile phone virus capable of infecting a PC has been found, signalling the beginning of a new breed of converged viruses. Experts at Trend Micro have detected the Cardtrp worm that affects handsets running the Symbian 60 operating system. Cardtrp spreads via Bluetooth and MMS, but if the phone has a memory card it sends a copy of a Windows virus known as Wukill onto the card. When the card is inserted into a PC the malware masquerades as a legitimate file icon to encourage users to open it. Once opened the code installs a backdoor on the PC and begins to harvest passwords before forwarding them on.
VNUnet UK Sep 22, 2005	back to top

Computer networks more vulnerable than ever
Software vulnerabilities that open computers up to malicious attacks are reaching record levels, while the methods hackers use to exploit them become more sophisticated, a new report warns. A total of 1862 new vulnerabilities were announced between January 1 and June 30 2005, according to computer-security firm Symantec in its biannual Internet Security Threat Report on Monday. This is a 31 per cent increase from the second half of 2004 and a 46 per cent increase over the same time period last year. Ninety seven per cent of the vulnerabilities were 'severe' and 73 per cent were classified as 'easily exploitable'. The increase is most likely to be because security researchers are getting better at discovering and reporting vulnerabilities, thanks to new software techniques. Symantec warns that the automated tools for finding vulnerabilities and for turning patches into exploit code are becoming more sophisticated.
New Scientist Sep 19, 2005	back to top

Opera makes its browser free, without ads
Opera Software ASA is now giving away its web browser and removing ads in an effort to broaden its user base and capture revenues by referring traffic to search engines and e-commerce sites. Before the availability of Opera version 8.5 this week, users who downloaded the browser had to either pay $39 or view ads while browsing. Its competitors carried no such requirement. Opera insists the move was not prompted by the success of Firefox, whose rapid growth in usage has threatened to push Microsoft's Internet Explorer's market share below 90 percent for the first time in years.
Yahoo! / AP Sep 21, 2005	back to top

Tiniest remote-controlled robot created
The tiniest mobile robot ever has been created by US researchers at the Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire. It is a sliver of silicon one hundredth of a millimetre thick that can be precisely steered like a remote-control car to move in any direction across the surface of a special plate. Powered by a grid of electrodes underneath a surface layer and steered by its tiny silicon paddle, the bot crawls around at a speed of about 200 micrometres per second and can push specks of dust, or other 'dead' robots. At 250 by 60 micrometres, the bot is narrower than a human hair and shorter than a full stop at the end of a sentence. It could be deployed to build or prototype other robots or micro-electromechanical systems. Movies of the micro-robot moving can be see at: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~brd/Research/MEMS/Movies/isrr05/.
New Scientist Sep 16, 2005	back to top

MRI brain scan the ultimate lie detector
Brain imaging techniques that can reveal when a person is lying are now reliable enough to identify criminals with near faultless accuracy. Neuroscientists using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans - which provide a computer-generated picture of the brain's workings - have developed a near 100 per cent accurate formula to separate lies from the truth, a report in the journal Nature reveals. The researchers believe that their test is now ready for real-life scenarios. The test works by monitoring the frontal lobes of the brain. When somebody lies, their brain inhibits them from revealing the truth, and this makes the frontal lobes more active. By analysing the brain activity during scenarios in which subjects tell both truths and lies, they have developed an algorithm that can identify each response with 99 per cent accuracy.
New Scotsman / Nature Sep 22, 2005	back to top

E-nose to sniff out hospital superbugs
An electronic nose that sniffs out infections could help hospitals tackle outbreaks of the antibiotic-resistant superbug MRSA. Culture tests routinely used to identify MRSA take two or three days to complete. But now researchers at the University of Warwick and doctors at the Heart of England Hospital, Birmingham, have come up with a test using an electronic sniffer that could cut the time to just 15 minutes. E-noses analyse gas samples by passing the gas over an array of electrodes coated with different conducting polymers. Each electrode reacts to particular substances by changing its electrical resistance in a characteristic way. Combining the signals from all the electrodes gives a 'smell-print' of the chemicals in the mixture that neural network software built into the e-nose can learn to recognise. The researchers first trained an e-nose to recognise the smell-prints of MRSA and the related MSSA by exposing them to nasal swabs from people carrying the infection. They then put their e-nose to the test using swabs from 150 patients whose infection status was already known from culture tests. The system correctly detected 96 per cent of those who had an S. aureus infection.
New Scientist / Sensors and Actuators B Sep 24, 2005	back to top

Researchers develop more efficient file-sharing
US Researchers have developed a tool to more easily share or search for large academic files - using the principles most associated with trading music and movies illegally. But unlike the free 'peer-to-peer' file-sharing systems that have drawn complaints and lawsuits from the entertainment industry, people who allow data to be exchanged over LionShare can place limits on who can view specific files. The secure, private network, initiated by Penn State, is meant for faculty, researchers, and students to trade photos, research, class materials, and other types of information that may be not be easily accessible through current technology. Normally, a researcher looking for data would need to conduct separate, time-consuming searches at individual repositories - virtual warehouses where research databases, photos, or other large files can be stored. It may also be difficult to download large data sets or video. LionShare combines the concepts of file-sharing and repository searching into a single search.
InformationWeek / AP Sep 21, 2005	back to top

NASA challenges inventors to design Moon diggers
Robotic scoopers and diggers will have their chance to plough through some simulated Moon dirt for cash in a new NASA challenge. Robots will go head-to-head in 2006 or 2007 to see who can move the most lunar dirt out of a sandbox and into a bin. The winning team will pocket $250,000. The contest, called the Regolith Excavation Challenge, is one of NASA's Centennial Challenges, designed to spur the technological innovation needed to send humans back to the Moon. NASA outlined how it intends to do this on Monday. Teams will build a device no heavier than 25 kilograms. They must be able to excavate at least 150 kilograms of dirt. And they must operate on 30-watt power supplies, the power provided by a solar array on a lunar rover. Teams will have 30 minutes to scoop, dig or push as much of the regolith as possible into a collection bin at the end of a sandbox. The robots must operate autonomously. No pilots or remote-control operators are allowed.
New Scientist Sep 22, 2005	back to top

Long life mobile battery 'vital'
Top of the list for the most desirable feature of a next generation mobile device is not some fancy new function, but a battery that lasts much longer, according to a report by marketing firm TNS Technology. Two-thirds of mobile and personal digital assistant owners in a marketing survey across 15 countries said two days' active battery life was vital. It also showed almost half wanted more memory, and a high-resolution camera. The findings come as the electronics industry scrambles to develop the next essential device in people's pockets. The report said that poor battery life on mobile devices was one of the main reasons people did not play more games, music and video on their devices more often. Fourteen of the 15 countries in the research agreed that a battery that lasted two days while in active use was essential. The exception was China; there respondents said that at least 20GB of storage capacity was the top must-have feature.
BBC News Sep 21, 2005	back to top