May 9, 2006, 10:46 PM CT

Court Halts Spyware Operations

One Operator to Pay More Than $4 Million; Another Ordered to Stop Collecting Consumers Personal Information.

An operation that deceptively downloaded spyware onto unsuspecting consumers' computers, changing their settings and hijacking their search engines, has been halted by a federal court at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. The judge has ordered the operators to give up to more than $4 million in ill-gotten gains. The court also ordered a halt to another spyware operator's stealthy downloads and barred the collection of consumers' personal information, pending trial.

The FTC sued both operations charging that the stealthy downloads of spyware were unfair and deceptive and violated federal law. Although the companies used different techniques to direct consumers to their Web sites and implement the downloads, the FTC alleged that both operations hijacked consumers' computers without the consumers' knowledge or approval, secretly changed their settings, and barraged consumers with pop-up ads. The spyware and other software the defendants installed caused many computers to malfunction, slow down, or crash, causing consumers to lose data stored on their computers.

The FTC alleged that Sanford Wallace and his company, Smartbot.Net, exploited a security vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer's Web browser in order to distribute spyware. The spyware caused the CD-ROM tray on computers to open and then issued a "FINAL WARNING!!" to computer screens with a message that said, "If your cd-rom drive's open.You DESPERATELY NEED to rid your system of spyware pop-ups IMMEDIATELY! Spyware programmers can control your computer hardware if you failed to protect your computer right at this moment! Download Spy Wiper NOW!" Spy Wiper and Spy Deleter, purported anti-spyware products the defendants promoted, sold for $30.........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

May 9, 2006, 0:01 AM CT

Nanotubes To Send Signals To Nerve Cells

Texas scientists have added one more trick to the amazing repertoire of carbon nanotubes -- the ability to carry electrical signals to nerve cells.

Nanotubes, tiny hollow carbon filaments about one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, are already famed as one of the most versatile materials ever discovered. A hundred times as strong as steel and one-sixth as dense, able to conduct electricity better than copper or to substitute for silicon in semiconductor chips, carbon nanotubes have been proposed as the basis for everything from elevator cables that could lift payloads into Earth orbit to computers smaller than human cells.

Thin films of carbon nanotubes deposited on transparent plastic can also serve as a surface on which cells can grow. And as researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and Rice University suggest in a paper published in the recent issue of the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, these nanotube films could potentially serve as an electrical interface between living tissue and prosthetic devices or biomedical instruments.

"As far as I know, we're the first group to show that you can have some kind of electrical communication between these two things, by stimulating cells through our transparent conductive layer," said Todd Pappas, director of sensory and molecular neuroengineering at UTMB's Center for Biomedical Engineering and one of the study's senior authors. Pappas and UTMB research associate Anton Liopo collaborated on the work with James Tour, director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory at Rice's Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice postdoctoral fellow Michael Stewart and Rice graduate student Jared Hudson.........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

May 8, 2006, 11:21 PM CT

New 'metal Sandwich' May Break Superconductor Record

After an exhaustive data search for new compounds, scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have discovered a theoretical "metal sandwich" that is expected to be a good superconductor. Superconductive materials have no resistance to the flow of electric current.

The new lithium monoboride (LiB) compound is a "binary alloy" consisting of two layers of boron -- the "bread" of the atomic sandwich -- with lithium metal "filling" in between, the scientists said. Once the material is synthesized, it should be superconductive at a higher temperature than other superconductors in its class, as per their results.

The scientists reported their findings in the May 5 online edition of the journal Physical Review B, Rapid Communications.

"To the best of our knowledge, this alloy structure had not been considered before," said Stefano Curtarolo, professor of mechanical engineering and materials sciences at Duke's Pratt School. "We have been able to identify synthesis conditions under which the LiB compound should form. And we think that if the material can be synthesized, it should superconduct at a higher temperature, perhaps more than 10 percent greater, than any other binary alloy superconductor."

"The significance of the work is not only the discovery of lithium monoboride itself, but also that this opens the door to finding derivatives that could aid in the search for additional novel superconductors," added Aleksey Kolmogorov, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the Pratt School. He said that once a new superconductive material is identified, researchers typically can manipulate the substance -- twisting it or doping it with other elements - to create related structures that might have even more appealing properties.........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

May 7, 2006, 11:11 PM CT

Huge Impacts From Tiny Tech

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) today announced the continuation of its first series of original essays in which industry experts predict profound impacts of nanotechnology on society. Eleven new articles by members of CRN's Global Task Force appear in the latest issue of the journal Nanotechnology Perceptions, published recently, complementing the prior issue's collection. Covering topics from commerce to criminology, from ethics to economics, and from our remote past to our distant future, this new collection illustrates the profound transformation that nanotechnology will have on every aspect of human society.

Ray Kurzweil, renowned inventor, entrepreneur, and best-selling author, explained, "As the pace of technological advancement rapidly accelerates, it becomes increasingly important to promote knowledgeable and insightful discussion of both promise and peril. I'm very pleased to take part in this effort by including my own essay, and by hosting discussion of these essays on the 'MindX' discussion board at KurzweilAI.net".

Nanotechnology Perceptions is a peer-reviewed academic journal of the Collegium Basilea in Basel, Switzerland. "We jumped at the chance to publish the CRN Task Force essays," said Jeremy Ramsden, editor-in-chief of the journal. "To us, these articles represent world-class thinking about some of the most important challenges that human society will ever face."........

Posted by: Sarah      Permalink         Source

May 7, 2006, 11:05 PM CT

How Does 'mechanochemistry' Work?

It's a bit like enzymes (if you know your chemistry): you fix onto a molecule or two, then twist or pull or push in a precise way until a chemical reaction happens right where you want it. This happens in a vacuum, so you don't have water molecules bumping around. It's a lot more controllable that way.

So, if you want to add an atom to a surface, you start with that atom bound to a molecule called a "tool tip" at the end of a mechanical manipulator. You move the atom to the point where you want it to end up. You move the atom next to the surface, and make sure that it has a weaker bond to the tool tip than to the surface. When you bring them close enough, the bond will transfer. This is ordinary chemistry: an atom moving from one molecule to another when they come close enough to each other, and when the movement is energetically favorable. What's different about mechanochemistry is that the tool tip molecule can be positioned by direct computer control, so you can do this one reaction at a wide variety of sites on the surface. Just a few reactions give you a lot of flexibility in what you make.........

Posted by: Sarah      Permalink         Source

May 7, 2006, 10:42 PM CT

Molecule Sorting Made Simple

IBM scientists have come up with a way to quickly separate very small numbers of molecules and deliver them precisely onto surfaces. Once fully developed, the new technique could improve medical lab tests and future nanoelectronic circuit manufacturing as well as other applications.

Central to the method is an atomic force microscope (AFM) that performs nanoscale operations using a tiny cantilever with a cone-shaped tip at its end. When an electrical field is applied to the tip, molecules will slide up or down its surface at characteristic speeds. By modifying the tip's surface and varying the strength and duration of the electric field, different molecular species can be separated from each other within a few milliseconds, more than 1,000 times faster than today's methods.

"Our initial tests used fragments of DNA - one with five base pairs, another with 16," said H. Kumar Wickramasinghe, IBM Fellow and co-developer of several different types of AFMs. "An electric field propelled these molecules down the 11.2-micron length of the AFM tip in 5 and 15 milliseconds, respectively. We controlled the passage of as few as 10 molecules, which indicates that this approach should be very useful for analyzing very small biological samples and in writing extremely small features".........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

May 7, 2006, 10:33 PM CT

Mobile TV: The user experience

Mobile TV - The user experience (10:14 min, video Subtitled).

What do mobile TV users say about the service. What attracts them to using mobile TV and are they prepared to pay.

Watch video........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

May 7, 2006, 10:13 PM CT

Knock Code Technology will open your door

The Israeli company E-lock has developed the first lock technology based on a Knock Code. This innovation is based on patented technology which uses a series of quick knocking sounds. The discrete mechanical knocks open the lock and are produced by a small device that can be carried by any authorized person. The device which opens the lock needs to touch the door (which can be made out of any material such as metal, wood, plastic or glass) to cause the lock mechanism to open. Since there is no keyhole or contact point on the door, this unique mechanism offers a significantly higher level of security then existing technology.

The device which produces the knocking sounds, also known as a 'KnocKey', includes a small keypad for entering a personal code, only when the correct code had been entered the device will produce the knocking sounds. The device can either be carried by hand or be attached to the door externally (but is not connected directly to the lock mechanism in any way). Each 'KnocKey' can be used to open up to 100 different locks using different codes. This can be especially useful in offices with a number of restricted areas.

The knock code is the combination of the time intervals between knocks produced by the 'KnocKey', and the knock code itself is encrypted and has billions of different combinations. Even more importantly, if an unauthorized person tries to record the knocking sequence and play it back in order to open the door, the lock will not open since the knocking sequence changes every time. Another advantage of the technology is that all 'KnocKeys' are the same, if the 'KnocKey' is lost or stolen, it is possible to simply buy another 'KnocKey' and enter your personal code. Both the 'KnocKey' and the lock consume fairly little energy and operate using Lithium ion batteries which can last a very long time.........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

May 6, 2006, 8:44 PM CT

Fuel Cells Savings

We've gone on the record saying fuel cells are at least 20 years away. But when will that make a big difference in our use of gasoline? A long, long time:

"The potential for hydrogen fuel cells having an impact that you'd notice is a long way away," says John Heywood, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. The estimates assume that competitive fuel cell vehicles will be available within 15 years, an achievement that will require improvements, for example, in hydrogen storage and production and fuel-cell costs. But even if and when fuel-cell vehicles come with the price and performance that consumers want, it will still take decades more before such new vehicles work their way into widespread use.

MIT is talking 60 years in regards to gasoline usage and nasty emissions before hydrogen makes a big enough difference for any of us to benefit from. So what to do?

Use less of the stuff. But MIT knows that's not the American way:

Heywood admits these ideas might not be rapidly adopted: "It's not American to conserve. We seem to have drifted into that attitude. Our culture doesn't bring us up to think about conserving. It brings us up to think about consuming".

We are totally diggin' the new subcompacts from the big 3 of Japan and are honestly hoping our big 2.5 from home announce competitors to those vehicles rather than announcing more of the same.........

Posted by: Jim      Permalink         Source

May 6, 2006, 8:03 PM CT

How To Attach Two Phone Wires To Make One

If you need a long phone cable in a pinch two shorter cables can be quickly spliced together until you can buy a real cable.

Steps.

Cut the wires. Cut one plastic connecter (plug) off of each wire, you should used dykes or wire cutters, but if you don't have those a knife or scissors will do. It is important that you cut opposite sides off otherwise the you stand a 50/50 chance of screwing up step three. If you look at the connectors with the hook down you should see four wires in this order Black, Red, Green, Yellow from left to right and the other connector will have them in reverse order. Cut the connector with the wires in BRGY off the first wire then the connector with the YGRB off the second wire. (See diagram).

Viewed with hooks facing down on all connectors. Cut the connector with the wires in BRGY off the first wire then the connector with the YGRB off the second wire.

Strip the insulation back. Using a sharp knife or razor blade remove an inch of the outer plastic covering from the end you just cut. This should reveal four wires, strip 1/2" off of each of these individual wires.

Property match the wires. If you cut the wires properly you should be able to match up the colors if you didn't just make sure the wire that is on the far left of one connector is on the far right on the other side of the wire. (See diagram).........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

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