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To access her bank account online, Marie Jubran opens a Web browser and types in her Swedish national ID number along with a four-digit password. For additional security, she then pulls out a card that has 50 scratch-off codes. Jubran uses the codes, one by one, each time she logs on or performs a transaction. Her bank, Nordea PLC, automatically sends a new card when she's about to run out. As more Web sites demand passwords, scammers are getting more clever about stealing them. Hence the need for such "passwords-plus" systems. Scandinavian countries are among the leaders as many online...

<p>Even as his approval ratings dip in the wake of deepening turmoil in Iraq, George W. Bush continues to garner strong support from one deep-pocketed contingent: chief executives of major technology firms.</p> <p>From Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to Cisco Systems' John Chambers to IBM's Samuel Palmisano, chief executives of the nation's largest tech firms have written checks to the Bush campaign this election cycle.</p>

IBM's new Web-based software package aims to let corporations use as much or as little of Microsoft's software as they want -- or none at all If it stood on its own, IBM's $15 billion software group would be the world's second-largest software company, trailing only Microsoft (MSFT ). Yet, most of the software IBM (IBM ) makes runs on powerful server computers, and it figures only minimally in desktop computing. That's about to change. On Monday, May 10, Big Blue is set to roll out a major new advance in its software strategy -- an integrated group of products...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Microminiaturization has made possible swarms of autonomous robots using nothing more than off-the-shelf parts. But concentrating their wireless chatter and getting them to cooperate to solve problems may be five years away, the National Science Foundation cautions. It's putting $2.6 million into a five-year effort to turn multiple wireless robots into an emergency search-and-rescue team. "We want to help emergency response personnel by sending cooperative robots into an unknown site," said California Institute of Technology researcher Joel Burdick. "My team will be developing software that enables each of them to perform slightly different tasks that together accomplish...

Story last modified March 31, 2004, 2:47 PM PST California retains much of its allure as a tech center, but other states are chipping away at its technology edge, says a new report. Among the assets of the Golden State, home to Silicon Valley, are strong technology clusters, a venture-capital foundation and an excellent higher education system, while in the debit column is a declining ability to attract academic research funds, according to a study released Wednesday by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Milken Institute.A key setback for California was a drop in the number of business starts per capita. In...

Noah Johnson: Folding Proteins at Home By Barbara GibsonIn what is rapidly becoming a new world of democratic computing, Noah Johnson’s three Power Macs are humming quietly away, helping Stanford University scientists solve a complex problem that, one day, may help them fight disease. As part of a groundbreaking distributed computing experiment, Johnson and half a million other people are donating their spare computer capacity so Stanford can remotely simulate protein folding, an essential biochemical process that controls vital body functions. The project, called Folding@home, represents a sort of ad hoc democracy because anyone with an Internet connection can...

The entire functions of a radar system have been squeezed on to a single silicon chip about one fifteenth the size of a penny for the first time. The miniature system has been created by researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, US, who managed to fabricate all the sensing and communications components out of silicon. Their chip is capable of transmitting, receiving and directing high frequency microwaves. "Until now radar has been a very expensive very large bulky item," says Ian Gresham, an automotive radar engineer at M/A-Com in Lowell, Massachusetts. Gresham says the radar chip could...

The email has the following characteristics: From: (Spoofed) Subject: (One of the following) hi hello read it immediately something for you warning information stolen fake unknown Message: (One of the following) anything ok? what does it mean? ok i'm waiting read the details. here is the document. read it immediately! my hero [here is that true? is that your name? is that your account? i wait for a reply! is that from you? you are a bad writer I have your password! something about you! kill the writer of this document! i hope it is not true! your name is...

The world's first computer-assisted, minimally invasive hip replacement has been performed at Hadassah-University Hospital on Jerusalem's Mount Scopus. The hospital was chosen by two giant foreign companies, Zimmer and Medtronics, to be the pioneers in the use of its hardware and software because of its orthopedists' expertise in computer-assisted surgery, including the removal of shrapnel from the bodies of terror victims. In Zimmer's annual report to stockholders this week, the head of Zimmer specifically mentioned the first use of this advanced technology in Israel. Hadassah came out ahead of medical centers in England and Germany, but the technology will later...

<p>Facing a drop in funding and a tough job market for technology professionals, the Department of Labor is poised to kill a program that trains Americans to fill positions held by foreign guest workers.</p> <p>The department created the H-1B Training Program in the late 1990s as a way for Americans to learn skills in high demand by employers. The funding came from fees employers of foreign workers paid to get H-1B visas, which allowed the foreigners to take technical jobs that went unfilled during the dot-com boom. The Labor Department used those fees and other funding to pay $328 million in scholarships and grants to community groups to develop training programs for U.S. citizens and permanent residents.</p>

Knight, Smith in public spat BY PATRICK GONZALES A-J SPORTS EDITOR A popular Lubbock lunch spot was the scene Monday of a verbal dust up between Texas Tech Chancellor David Smith and head basketball coach Bob Knight. Knight and Tech athletic director Gerald Myers did not return repeated telephone calls Monday seeking comment. Smith would say only that the university will have a comment at the appropriate time. ``I can't comment on it. It's a personnel matter,'' Smith said. An eyewitness to the incident gave the following account to The Avalanche-Journal: Smith was having lunch with another Tech employee at...

A new Israeli invention called “Voice Analysis Eyeglasses” has created a new brand of lie detectors that make the need for wires and electrodes absolute. In fact, the new lie detector developed in Israel is so inconspicuous that one may not even know they are being monitored. The glasses provide lie detection analysis on the inside of their lenses about whoever is speaking at the time, claims Nemesysco, the Israeli company which developed the new technology. Mathematician Amir Lieberman at Nemesysco’s headquarters in the town of Zuran, developed the glasses for military, insurance claim, and law enforcement use. The technology...

A new e-mail worm that first appeared on the Internet this afternoon is spreading rapidly, according to leading security companies. The worm is being called several names by antivirus software vendors, including W32/Mydoom, Shimg, Novarg and Mimail.R. It is now being analyzed by the antivirus companies. Experts differed on the worm's payload, but said it is spreading faster than Sobig-F, the most widespread email worm of 2003. "It has been moving very quickly for the past three hours and has been generating a hell of a lot of e-mail," Vincent Gullotto, vice president of the Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team at...

ADA — Employees at Sykes were given news Tuesday they would be out of a job by early March. The Ada Evening News received several phonecalls from persons claiming to be Sykes employees who asked to remain anonymous. One caller said, “We were asked not to speak to the media.” Another employee of the computer support call center who asked not to be identified said she was afraid she would be fired and not be eligible for benefits if company officials knew she had talked to the media. Many of the callers blame the shut down on the opening of...

Israel's Amos-2 telecommunications satellite was to lift off just before midnight last night atop a Russian rocket in Kazakhstan, ensuring Israel's firm membership in the international space market. The 160-kilo satellite, built by Israel Aircraft Industries' MBT Division, is expected to eventually reach a geo-stationary orbit, where it will provide cellular phone and on-line data links, and television transmissions. Only seven other nations are capable of developing and producing communication satellites. As much as the design and construction of a communication satellite is a source of pride for this small country, the Zionist endeavor is almost totally a business venture...

<p>Ultra-wideband: Imagine a television that can wirelessly send three different programs to separate monitors. Low-power, low-cost, and with roughly 45 times the data transmission speed of run-of-the-mill Wi-Fi, this wireless technology is finally ready to debut in the living room.</p>

<p>The advertisement for the brand new Smith & Wesson handgun promised it all.</p> <p>"Safe for the expert," the ad stated. "Safe for the layman, his family and friends. Safe for the novice. Safe from the child and the careless. Safe from all possibility of discharge from a blow, fall, or any kind of accident.</p>

Associated PressIBM Claims Nanotech BreakthroughMonday December 8, 12:07 am ETBy Brian Bergstein, AP Technology Writer IBM Researchers Claim They Have a Nanotech Breakthrough That Works With Existing Chip Design NEW YORK (AP) -- Researchers at IBM Corp. claim they have made an important breakthrough in the race to design circuitry at the molecular level: a system that works with existing methods of electronics manufacturing. ADVERTISEMENT In a paper being released Monday at an industry conference in Washington, D.C., IBM researchers Chuck Black and Kathyrn Guarini say they used a naturally occurring pattern of molecules as a stencil to etch flash...

<p>The use of unmanned aerial vehicles and other technology could help curb smuggling on the U.S.-Mexico border, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday.</p> <p>Ridge said such technology could reduce illegal immigration and cut deaths among border-crossers. Many migrants die of heat exposure and in accidents while crossing the harsh Arizona desert.</p>

Whew! For a minute there I thought the growing trend of sending technology jobs overseas was another example of Silicon Valley companies caring more about profits than people. But no, no, no. Such thinking is wrong-headed. Ask the companies that are moving work to India, China and elsewhere. They're doing it to ``be close to our customers'' or to ``follow the sun'' or to ``free workers up to do more exciting jobs.'' They are definitely not -- and this is important -- they are not doing it to find cheap labor and bigger profits. In fact, such thinking is hurtful....