Free Republic

NEW DELHI: Increased use of satellite phones by terrorists is posing a serious problem for security agencies working at intercepting their communication traffic. As a result, the agencies have of late missed vital information that could otherwise have been used to prevent major terror attacks across the country because they do not have the sophisticated interceptor equipment required to monitor satphone traffic. The matter came to the fore at a high-level meeting of top security and intelligence officials in the home ministry to discuss the loopholes in the agencies’ functioning in the wake of Saturday’s serial blasts in Delhi. "Discussions...

Exploding carbon nanotubes could serve as bombs that kill tumors, scientists have discovered. In the last two years, researchers have reported killing cancer using nanotubes and hollow nanoparticles known as nanoshells. Investigators gave cancers injections of nanotubes or nanoshells and then heated them up to 130 to 160 degrees F with high-power lasers. Now nanotechnologist Balaji Panchapakesan at the University of Delaware and his colleagues report they can heat carbon nanotubes enough to explode using just low-intensity near-infrared lasers. "They work almost like cluster bombs," Panchapakesan said. "Once they are exposed to light and the resulting heat, they start exploding...

It’s an industry that’s getting the cash registers ringing and presenting India as the back office headquarters of the world. It’s also the industry that mostly employs jumpity post-adolescents who, a decade ago, would have either been part of the odd market survey team trying to check how much consumption interest there is in a to-be-launched lipstick, or would have been whiling away their time until they got married or a job, whichever came hurtling first. So it’s not Reliance or Infosys, but it’s a job that we apparently do well and, believe it or not, it’s work that a...

BEIJING - At a ceremony today in China's Great Hall of the People, AMD (NYSE:AMD) executives signed agreements with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and Peking University to license AMD x86 microprocessor design technology that will enable Chinese development of low-power and embedded computer solutions for consumer and commercial markets. AMD also announced the contribution of US$750,000 to support technology deployment for primary education in rural China and opened a new headquarters for AMD Greater China. "AMD and China share a deep mutual respect for the ability of technology to promote economic and educational opportunities," said AMD...

When and where on earth can you see the longest sunrise? And how long can you see it? Stumped? Well, then, sample another. What would you see from the moon more often: the sun or the earth? A five-member team of 14-to-17-year olds will hone their skills over the next 10 days to unravel a few more secrets that the skies hold. Their aim: to win as many medals as possible at the International Astronomy Olympiad that kicks off in Beijing on October 25. It will not be an easy task — they will be up against competition from over...

October 20, 2005 - Sony Computer Entertainment announced today the PSP Giga Pack for worldwide release later this year. The Giga Pack is a bundle that includes the PSP hardware, AC Adapter, standard battery pack, headphones with remote control, pouch, cloth, USB cable and a stand. And the best part: an included one gig Memory Stick.

Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. this week began marketing a technology that inexpensively adds face recognition to camera-equipped cellphones. Oki's "Face Sensing Engine" (FSE) "middleware" decodes facial images within 280mS on a 100MHz ARM9 processor, and can restrict access to mobile devices by recognizing their owners, the company says. Oki says its FSE technology can help protect sensitive personal information such as phone numbers and email addresses from unwanted access, in the event of loss or theft of a mobile device. The use of face recognition, based on the mobile device's built-in digital camera, eliminates the need for users to...

When technology attacks From 'BlackBerry thumb' to computer-vision syndrome, today's gadgets produce a host of painful side effects By Jonathan Sidener STAFF WRITER October 17, 2005 Grandma never knew how good she had it. Her telephone was attached to the wall. She never had to worry about dropping it in the toilet. Growing up stitching needlepoint, she didn't suffer from stress injuries inflicted by a video-game controller. She kept her photos in a shoe box. There was no chance of the Anna Kournikova virus wiping out her record of little Billy's first birthday party. She didn't have a "crackberry," as...

WASHINGTON — Technology and communications companies rank third on the list of U.S. and U.K. industries with the most litigation, according a new survey of manufacturing companies. The survey by the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, a leading intellectual-property litigator based in New York and Houston, found that the average U.S. manufacturer currently faces 40 lawsuits. Of those, an average of 18 were initiated in the last year. While product liability remains the largest generator of lawsuits, the survey found that intellectual property disputes are an emerging problem, especially for technology companies. IP and patent lawsuits accounted for an estimated...

Google has begun to make good on its commitment to plow a small fraction of the proceeds from its wildly successful stock offering into social investment projects. Funding for "good works" will largely be derived from the donation of 1 percent of the equity from last year's initial public offering, along with 1 percent of its annual profits. Google said Tuesday that it plans to organize its charitable work under the umbrella of a new organization it calls Google.org. The mission is to focus on vast issues like global poverty, energy and the environment. "These are big problems, so our...

Shares of Apple Computer Inc. continued to tumble Wednesday, after the company reported robust sales of its personal computers and still-sizzling iPods, but overall shipments of the digital music player falling shy of Wall Street's high hopes.

Gordon Moore - yes, he of transistor observation fame - came to the Computer History Museum last night. He sat. He chatted. He celebrated 40 years of being the most famous plotter on the planet. We ate cake. The museum sits in Mountain View, California not far from where Moore got his start at the Shockley laboratory and where he and seven others concocted the idea for Fairchild Semiconductor. Such trivia marks just the beginning of the semiconductor history tour Moore and his questioner fellow luminary Carver Mead walked the audience through during a two-hour session. It's hard to expect...

The MIT Media Laboratory expects to launch a prototype of its US$100 laptop in November, according to Nicholas Negroponte, the lab's chairman and co-founder. The facility has been working with industry partners to develop a notebook computer for use by children in primary and secondary education around the world, particularly in developing countries. The laptops should start appearing in volume in late 2006.

Do you know what happened to your data when you disposed of your last PC? With identity theft on the rise, it's important to make sure your information is removed before you get rid of that old hard drive. Thanks to the work of developer Darik Horn, there's an excellent tool to wipe data off of a hard disk: Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN). When DBAN is finished with your hard drives, the master boot record, partition table, and every sector of the drive will have been overwritten in accordance with one of five well-regarded industry guidelines. DBAN is powerful...

U.N. Defends Having Tech Summit in Tunisia By Nick Wadhams Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 28, 2005 9:20 PM EST UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Facing heated protest, the United Nations on Wednesday defended Tunisia's hosting of a U.N. summit about Internet access in the developing world, even though the north African nation has been repeatedly accused of rights abuses that include blocking Web sites it dislikes. Earlier this week, a coalition of human rights groups known as the Tunisia Monitoring Group issued a report that declared Tunisia unfit to hold the World Summit on the Information Society, set for November,...

Apple Computer cried "uncle" Tuesday, and promised it would replace defective iPod nano screens that have cracked. It won't, however, deal with users who claim that the device's case scratches easily. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, a "vendor quality problem" caused cracking on a small number of iPod nano screens, said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. The problem affected "less than one-tenth of 1%" of the nanos shipped, Schiller said. Users had posted messages on Apple's own support forums as well as other sites -- including financial services consultant Matthew Peterson's flawedmusicplayer.com...

The term "3G" proclaims the next revolution in wireless technology. It refers to the much-ballyhooed third generation cellular network services, currently available in the United States from Verizon, Sprint and Cingular. But after all the hype, is 3G living up to its broadband promise? Cellular wireless networks were originally created for voice-only communications. As their popularity grew, cellular network providers began to piggyback data on their networks. At first, this was great for simple text messages, but the masses soon clamored for full-blown Internet and e-mail access. Voice communications over cellular wireless networks has remained somewhat constant over the years...

Mozilla Web browsers are potentially more vulnerable to attack than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, according to a Symantec report. But the report, released Monday, also found that hackers are still focusing their efforts on IE. The open-source Mozilla Foundation browsers, such as the popular Firefox, have typically been seen as more secure than IE, which has suffered many security problems in the past. Mitchell Baker, president of the foundation, said earlier this year that its browsers were fundamentally more secure than IE. She also predicted that Mozilla Foundation browsers would not face as many problems as IE, even as their market...

Concerned over the critical shortage of math and science faculty in the United States, global IT major IBM has announced a programme that encourages employees to take up the teaching profession. The world's largest Information Technology company said on Friday that it would reimburse participants in its new transition to teaching programme up to $15,000 for tuition and stipends. Participants will also be able to remain at IBM while they conduct course work and training, the company said. "Many of our experienced employees have math and science backgrounds and have made it clear that when they are ready to leave...

SAN FRANCISCO: Two non-resident Indian scientists have created history by making the world's tiniest transistor entirely from carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes are rolled up sheets of carbon atoms and are more than a thousand times thinner than human hair. The discovery heralds a new era of ultra miniature electronics where standard silicon transistors are replaced with much smaller versions fashioned from carbon nanotubes. The new transistor is a Y-shaped nanotube with two branches that meet a central stem at a junction. The current flowing from one branch to another can be switched on and off by applying a voltage to the...