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Issue no. 6, 2007 Published: Feb 16, 2007
New mobile phone system to send cash home
Mobile phones to help Africa's health workers deliver
Scientists dubious of quantum claims
Chinese develop e-waste technology
IBM makes computer memory quicker
Satellite could see shadow of extra dimensions
Red Planet 'hiking maps' produced
Speed could kill for internet worms
MIT student invents device for wall crawling
Edible radios
Mobile phones 'second worst invention ever'

New mobile phone system to send cash home
Mobile communications operators and banks joined forces Monday to make it easier and cheaper for hundreds of millions of immigrants and migrant workers to send money home by using their mobile phones. The aim is to reduce to just a few per cent the transaction costs for sending small amounts of cash. Current costs run to 24 per cent for amounts as small as USD 50. A group of 19 mobile operators with networks in more than 100 countries and representing more than 600 million customers will create a global system that could double the number of recipients of international remittances to more than 1.5bn, while helping to quadruple the size of the remittances market to more than USD 1 trillion by 2012. MasterCard, which has a network of 25,000 member banks, will serve as a global hub linking national markets with the local payment systems run by mobile operators. The idea is that a person will be able to load cash into a mobile phone and order it sent to a mobile phone number in another country. The recipient will receive a message that the money has arrived, making the transaction as easy as sending a text message.
International Herald Tribune / Reuters Feb 12, 2007	back to top

Mobile phones to help Africa's health workers deliver
Mobile phone companies have announced a new USD 10m initiative to help health workers in Africa deliver quality services to HIV/AIDS patients. The Phones for Health project, launched this week, will equip workers in remote areas of Rwanda with mobile phones and software for exchanging information on patients. The workers will also be able to order medicines, receive news alerts and download treatment guidelines and training materials. According to the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), health workers in remote areas of the country rely on paper records - often out of date - to track diseases' spread and have no transport for gathering field data or collecting medicines. The new project aims to make things easier. Workers in the field can use phones to record patient information and send it to a central database via a high-speed network or text message. The information is then available to health officials via the internet and can be sent to field staff by sms. If the project in Rwanda is successful, it will be extended to other African countries, as well as Asia, and will also address other diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.
SciDev Feb 15, 2007	back to top

Scientists dubious of quantum claims
Quantum computing is such an elusive goal that even the company claiming to have the 'world's first commercial quantum computer' acknowledged it isn't entirely sure the machine is performing true quantum calculations. And independent quantum computing researchers said they are dubious of some of the claims made by D-Wave Systems because the privately held Canadian company has not yet submitted its findings for peer review, a standard step for gaining acceptance in scientific circles. D-Wave held its first public demonstration Tuesday of a machine it claims uses quantum mechanics to solve a certain type of problems, such as searching a database for matching molecular structures. But the company did not make the machine available for inspection and instead showed video from a remote location, saying it was too sensitive to be easily transported. D-Wave acknowledged that the machine is not a true quantum computer and is instead a kind of special-purpose machine that uses some quantum mechanics to solve problems. The machine currently runs at 16 qubits, the basic unit of quantum computing. That's less power than most standard computers and what the company calls a proof of concept. The company plans to have it running at about 1,000 qubits by the time the product goes on sale next year.
MSNBC / AP Feb 14, 2007	back to top

Chinese develop e-waste technology
Chinese scientists say they have developed a recycling and recovery technology designed especially for disposal of printed circuit boards. The researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University said printed circuit boards are an ideal target for recycling and reuse since they are self-contained modules of interconnected electronic components formed by a thin layer of conducting material deposited, or 'printed', on the surface of an insulating board. Such boards contain materials potentially toxic if released to the environment, but they are also a rich potential source of valuable metals and other materials that could be recovered and reused. The researchers say the technology they developed involves special crushing of scrap boards, followed by separation of the metallic and non-metallic materials with an electric field. The scientists say the technique has advantages over other methods proposed for recycling printed circuit boards.
PhysOrg / Environmental Science & Technology Feb 15, 2007	back to top

IBM makes computer memory quicker
IBM unveiled new computer memory technology Wednesday that it heralded as a boon for networking, gaming, and multi-media applications. IBM said its embedded dynamic random access memory (eDRAM) clocked record access speeds, and was designed to provide high performance without guzzling electricity. The company outlined the technical details of its breakthrough at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. IBM expects to make the eDRAM technology available in its 45-nanometer microprocessor line beginning in 2008. Tests of eDRAM showed it processed data 10 times faster than the DRAM technology commonly used in personal computers, according to IBM engineers.
Middle East Times / AFP Feb 15, 2007	back to top

Satellite could see shadow of extra dimensions
Some theories that attempt to unify all known forces into a single 'theory of everything' posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions beyond the three familiar ones. But string theory has proven stubbornly resistant to experimental tests. Now, physicists at the University of Wisconsin say the shape of the extra dimensions could leave an imprint in the afterglow of the big bang. This so-called cosmic microwave background, reveals the structure of the universe about 370,000 years after the big bang. They use a popular model of the universe's early growth called Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) inflation, which is inspired by string theory. It is one of a class of ideas called braneworld models, which state that our universe is like a sheet of paper floating in a higher dimensional space. Because we are confined to our 3D universe, we ordinarily have no way of seeing the extra dimensions. But the researchers show that in this scenario, the big bang's afterglow is affected by the precise shape that the extra dimensions take. The effects are subtle, however, and other inflation theories that do not require extra dimensions could probably produce similar signals. But if some other evidence is found to support the DBI inflation scenario, the new study shows that the detailed shape of those extra dimensions could be distinguished by Europe's Planck satellite, to be launched next year.
New Scientist / Physical Review Letters Feb 12, 2007	back to top

Red Planet 'hiking maps' produced
Scientists using data from a European space probe orbiting Mars have produced new topographic maps of the Red Planet. The European Space Agency (ESA), which compiled the maps, said it hoped the maps would become a standard reference for future research on the Red Planet. The data, from the Mars Express spacecraft, has also been turned into 3-D models of the surface of Mars. The topographic maps use contour lines to show the heights of the landscape. The contour lines are superimposed upon high-resolution images of Mars, taken by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard Mars Express. The maps are much like those of Earth used by hikers and planning authorities. The samples released by ESA show the Iani Chaos region of Mars because of its major topographical interest. It is covered in individual blocks and hills that form a chaotic pattern across the landscape. Mars Express entered orbit around the Red Planet in December 2003.
BBC News Feb 12, 2007	back to top

Speed could kill for internet worms
Computer security researchers are developing ways of protecting PCs from malicious programs known as worms by monitoring how fast data is sent through networks. The scientists at Penn State University in the US s have devised new anti-worm technology that can identify and contain worms milliseconds after an attack by analysing data packets' rate or frequency of connections, and their diversity of connections to other networks. That allows the technology they term 'proactive worm containment' to react more quickly to security threats. Many current security methods focus on 'signature or pattern identification' and cannot respond fast enough to prevent worms from exploiting networks. Those approaches often miss worms that mutate automatically, bypassing the existing anti-worm controls.
London Times / AP Feb 15, 2007	back to top

MIT student invents device for wall crawling
Nathan Ball, a mechanical-engineering graduate student at MIT, led a team that has invented a motorised pulley that will let paramedics and firefighters zip up the side of buildings sort of like Spider-Man. Ball is this year's recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, a USD 30,000 award for invention awarded to a student at the school every year. Ball's Atlas Powered Rope Ascender can pull a firefighter loaded down with 80 to 100 pounds of equipment up a 30-story building in 30 seconds. Trudging up the stairs weighed down with equipment that heavy can take six to eight minutes. A rope is fixed to the roof of a building or other surface where a firefighter or paramedic wants to go. Down below, the rope is woven through a series of specially configured rollers on top of a turning spindle on the Atlas. As the battery-powered spindle rotates, it pulls the rope through the device and hoists the person. Like a boat anchor, the Atlas exploits the capstan effect, which lets the rope grip tighter each time it wraps around a cylinder. As the grip tightens, more weight can be applied to the line. The key is that the Atlas also has a system that prevents the rope from overlapping or winding up on itself on the internal cylinder, thereby ensuring continuous movement.
CNET News Feb 14, 2007	back to top

Edible radios
Inventors keep coming up with new ways to exploit RFID tags. The latest brainwave, from Kodak, is to use them to probe a person's digestive system. RFID tags are tiny radio chips that resonate with a single echo when hit with a radio trigger. Kodak's digestible tags are harmless and intentionally fragile. The tags would be covered with soft gelatine that takes a while to dissolve in the stomach. After swallowing a tag a patient need only sit next to a radio source and receiver. They stop working when exposed to gastric acid for a specific period of time, providing a subtle way to monitor a patient's digestive tract. Kodak says that similar radio tags could also be embedded in an artificial knee or hip joint in such a way that they disintegrate as the joint does, warning of the need for more surgery. Attaching tags to ordinary pills could also help nurses confirm that a patient has really taken their medicine as ordered.
New Scientist Feb 12, 2007	back to top

Mobile phones 'second worst invention ever'
Mobile phones are the second worst items ever invented, according to a recent BBC poll. The communication devices were beaten only by 'weapons' as the worst inventions in a survey of 4,164 people for the BBC's Focus magazine. Mobile phones were the next worst invention, according to 17 per cent of those questioned. Nuclear power, television and the Sinclair C5 came joint third with nine per cent. The weapons category captured 35 per cent of the vote and included items as diverse as guns, explosives, biological weapons and atomic bombs. Surprisingly, religion snuck into the top 10 with two per cent of the vote. The poll ran on the Radio Times website and web surfers were allowed to type in any answer they wanted. The top 10 in full: Weapons (35%) Mobile phones (17%) Nuclear power (9%) Sinclair C5 (9%) Television (9%) The car (6%) Cigarettes (6%) Fast food (3%) Speed cameras (3%) Religion (2%)
VNUnet UK Feb 15, 2007	back to top