ET deals: $816 for Dell XPS 8500 desktop with 23-inch IPS monitor

Our featured deal today has two things going for it that make it a great offer: it’s a bundle and the time of year. Manufacturers tend to offer better deals when you buy more at once, so a PC-plus-monitor bundle is a great way to save money on a new computer. The other factor working for this offer is the fact that we’re quickly approaching the next PC refresh cycle. Intel’s Ivy Bridge platform debuted in early 2012 and finally started shipping closer to the middle of 2012. The next refresh — Haswell — is coming soon and we’re seeing manufacturers offer more frequent and more aggressive discounts in order to move inventory.

The XPS 8500 is Dell’s bread and butter desktop, doing a little bit of everything at a great price. This mini tower model packs a Core i7-3770, with four cores that churn between 3.4GHz and 3.9GHz. 8GB of DDR3 RAM keeps the multi-tasking smooth and you’ve got a 1TB hard drive that will ensure plenty of storage space. It even had a 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7570 graphics card to handle multiple displays and HD video without a hiccup; it will probably even churn out a few gaming sessions for you too.
What really makes this bundle shine is the monitor: an UltraSharp U2312HM. The UltraSharps line of monitors share three common traits among all models that make them some of our favorites on the market: all use IPS LCD panels, fully adjustable stands, and offer a 3-year advance exchange warranty.
IPS LCD technology is the go-to tech for premium displays, giving the user extra-wide viewing angles and richer color. The U2312HM packs 1920×1080 pixels into its 23-inch IPS panel and will connect to nearly any video source via DVI, DisplayPort, and VGA inputs. Don’t worry if you wanted to hook your game console up to this beast, you can easily adapt DisplayPort or DVI to HDMI.
The desktop is backed up by Dell’s one year warranty that includes no-cost upgrades to on-site service and 24×7 premium tech support. With the UltraSharp, you still get the aforementioned 3 year advance exchange warranty. Should you ever have a problem, Dell ships you a replacement monitor straight away and you return your defective one on their dime. It even covers panel replacement should your monitor develop a bright pixel.
We’ve seen this bundle, with varying sized UltraSharp monitors, on sale numerous times before. Normally it runs around $850, marked down from $1100 to $1200. We saw a package with a smaller monitor for a few dollars less around Black Friday, but this bundle marked down to $816.99 with free shipping is the best offer we’ve seen in a while.

Laser pointers make super-fast 'optical Wi-Fi'

COMMONLY available laser pointers can zing data through the air across a room twice as fast as most USB cables or Wi-Fi routers. The new optical wireless promises to be cheap and easy to roll out in hospitals and other places where radio transmitters cannot be used.

Engineers at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan picked red and green laser pointers because they are cheap and easy to get hold of. The hardware used in a demonstration cost only about $600, says Hai-Han Lu, who led the work. "Hobbyists could do this at home," he told New Scientist.

The team replaced the pointers' standard batteries with a power source that switched each laser off and on 500 million times a second, and aimed two pointers at a light-sensitive detector 10 metres away. After processing, the signals contained less than one error per billion bits, a sign of high-quality transmission. Combining the two signals yielded a billion bits per second, double the data rates of USB 2.0 or high-speed radio-based Wi-Fi (Optics Express, vol 20, p 9919).

Fog, rain and snow make long-distance laser links through air impractical, but they could work for indoor use. A system along these lines could one day be useful for high-speed connections between smartphones.

IBM LEGAL VICTORY CRUSHES NEON'S JPRIME FEE-DODGING SOFTWARE

On May 31 IBM obtained a permament injunction barring Neon from selling its zPrime product, software that enabled many general-purpose mainframe jobs to run on specialty engines. Once moved, these jobs let users dodge software charges based on the use of general purpose computing capacity. The technical tricks were, as IBM seems to have shown, a violation of IBM's policies and practices and a breach of IBM's mainframe software licensing agreement. Game over.

The injunction appears to permit users of the jPrime product to continue running the code under the terms of their contracts with Neon. Neon appears to be obliged to do everything it can to unwind these deals short of defaulting on its obligations.

The personnel behind jPrime are specifically prohibited from using their knowhow to outfox IBM. They are also enjoined from sharing or making public their understanding of the IBM software that attempts to govern and meter workloads on IBM mainframes. Basically, IBM found a legal solution to the problems posed by jPrime but from the looks of things Big Blue could not come up with a technical remedy for the bill-beating technology.

Chips Hold the Key to Understanding the Human Brain

ScienceDaily (July 8, 2011) — Chips based on ARM processor technology will be linked together to simulate the highly-complex workings of the brain, whose functionality derives from networks of billions of interacting, highly-connected neurons.

The chips upon which this work critically depends were delivered last month, and have passed their functionality tests with flying colours.

They will form the system architecture for a massive computer, called SpiNNaker (Spiking Neural Network architecture), which aims to map out the brain's individual functions.

SpiNNaker could be a vital tool for neuroscientists, psychologists and doctors to help them understand complex brain injuries, diseases and conditions, and identify the most effective therapies.

The University of Manchester was selected to design the system architecture for the project, and received half of the £5m EPSRC grant which supported the work, while the universities of Southampton, Cambridge and Sheffield share the rest to work on other parts of the project.

Even though there will be up to one million ARM processors, -- technology used in most of the world's mobile phones- in the final SpiNNaker machine, computer scientists point out that this will enable them to recreate models of only up to 1% of the human brain.

The researchers, lead by Professor Steve Furber, believe the machine will be a vital tool for neuroscientists and psychologists to test hypotheses on individual brain characteristics.

The key challenge is developing and understanding the information processing of the brain and the extremely high connectivity of the brain cells. There are 100 billion neurons with 1,000 million connections in the human brain. In this system, the neurons emit spikes which are relayed as tiny electrical signals. Each impulse is modelled in SpiNNaker as a 'packet' of data, a very-much scaled down version of the way the internet carries information.

This packet is then sent to all connected neurons. Neurons are represented by small simple equations which are solved in real-time by software running on the ARM processors.

The electronic connections in SpiNNaker convey these spikes much quicker than the biological connections in the brain, hence SpiNNaker can transmit spikes as effectively and quickly with many fewer connections.

Test chips were brought out in 2009, but now the full chips, designed in Manchester and manufactured in Taiwan, have been delivered and will allow the scientists to develop much larger systems which can model the brain. Each chip contains 18 ARM processors.

The bespoke microchips are integrated in a single 19mm square package with a second microchip that provides substantial memory using 3D System-in-Package technology from Unisem Europe Ltd, who have packaging facilities in south Wales. This package delivers the computing power of a PC in a tiny space and for around one watt of electrical power.

Professor Furber, from the School of Computer Science, said: "We hope the machine will be able to model important functions of the human brain and help us gain key insights into their principles of operation.

"Developing and understanding the information processing in the brain is the key. We are actively engaging with neuroscientists and psychologists, both here at the University and elsewhere.

"This could ultimately be of great help for patients, for example, who have presented with reading problems caused by strokes or similar brain injuries. Psychologists have already developed neural networks on which they can reproduce the clinical pathologies.

"They then use these networks to test alternative therapies, to identify which is most effective in treating the patient's symptoms. At present they are limited in the fidelity they can achieve with these networks by the available computer power, but we hope that SpiNNaker will raise that bar a lot higher.

"We don't know how the brain works as an information-processing system, and we do need to find out. We hope that our machine will enable significant progress towards achieving this understanding."

ARM was approached in May 2005 to participate in the SpiNNaker project. A subsequent agreement paved the way to make ARM processor Intellectual Property (IP) available to the project, along with ARM cell library IP to aid design and manufacturing. The agreement allowed University of Manchester to manufacture chips for a system with 1 million ARM-based processors, as well as some smaller test systems.

"The ARM architecture is all about enabling the ARM partner ecosystem to produce smarter systems that are optimized for performance and power consumption," commented Mike Muller, Chief Technical Officer, ARM."SpiNNaker seeks to create a working model of the ultimate smart system, the human brain. Steve is part of the ARM family, so this project was a perfect way to partner with him and Manchester University, and for ARM to encourage leading research in the UK."

Video games sell more than DVDs and albums

The most popular item of entertainment last year was a video game, proving that adults are increasingly turning to games consoles as their main way of unwinding in the evening, rather than music or films.

For some years of the British video games industry has trumped the film industry in monetary terms, but that has been because the average video game costs in excess of £30, while most new DVDs cost less than £15 and a cinema ticket is usually less than £10.

However, statistics from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) show that in 2010, two of the top three titles in volume terms were video games, beating all forms of music, both physical and digital and DVDs. The most popular title of the year was Call of Duty: Black Ops, a so-called "shooter" game, involving the player pretending to be a soldier behind enemy lines during the Cold War. It sold 3.27 million copies between its launch in November and the end of the year, beating Avatar, the futuristic film, which sold 3 million.

This was despite Call of Duty's hefty price of between £35 and £50.

The third most popular tile was Fifa 11, the football video game, which sold 2.39 million copies. The DVD of Toy Story 3, the animated film, was the fourth most popular title, with 2.08 million copies sold.

In the top ten there was just one music title, Progress by Take That, which sold 1.93 millon copies.

Steve Redmond, spokesman at the ERA, said: "We've long been used to the idea that in value terms the video games industry is bigger than film or music. But it is a significant moment when a game outsells all over forms of entertainment.

"It's also a sign that the biggest titles, be it for music, film or games, are getting bigger and bigger, while the mid-range titles are getting squeezed."

Sales of video games actually fell by 12 per cent last year, with 62.9 million in total sold, hindered by the lack of new consoles or hand-held devices being launched by the hardware manufacturers, and the recession.

Guy Cocker, at Gamespot, the games industry website, said: "Many people will be surprised by how popular video games have become, but they are a key part of many people's lives and a hugely profitable industry."

He pointed out that the statistics would not have captured the increasing number of games that are played by people on their mobile phones, via "apps" or software applications, the most famous of which is probably Angry Birds, which has been bought by at least 12 million worldwide.

Last week Nintendo launched its 3DS, a hand-held games console that allows players to play 3 dimension games without the need to wear glasses. Nintendo said it sold 113,000 units during the first two days of sales, making it a faster seller than its previous hit, the Wii.

Macworld Expo 2011: Vito Technology updates the Walk apps

Russian company Vito Technology was in one of the booths around the Mobile App Showcase at Macworld 2011 last week, and they kindly sat down to show off new versions of their apps, all coming up in the next month or so as free updates on the App Store. Popular astronomy app Star Walk was first. It's getting a visual enhancement in the next version, with a brand new sky and a new look to the stars that's more visually interesting than the current setup. The other feature that will be added is a "calendar of celestial events," where things like meteor showers or lunar eclipses will be tracked (per your location) so that you can see when something interesting is coming up.

Later on, Vito wants to add other cultural displays to the app, including constellation charts and other star maps from Hawaiian, Arabic and Native American viewpoints. Star Walk is also going to be integrated into some of Macmillan's science textbooks, so students will be able to work directly with the app as they learn.

We also got to see updates for the other Vito apps, including Solar Walk and a very different Geo Walk.

Solar Walk is probably the slimmest of the three updates. It's also sporting a visual upgrade, though it's not as sweeping as the update to Star Walk. There's a new "galaxy view" featuring a zoomed-out view of the entire Milky Way, with stars aplenty shining all the way across the galaxy. There are also some interactive "movies" to view, which automate the app to show various heavenly bodies in motion. There's a size comparison in the app as well, so you can compare various stars.

Geo Walk is by far the most updated app in the latest beta; it's been completely redesigned. The globe is now placed in a classroom setting, and it's much more dynamic and colorful than the current version. There's a brand new view that lists points of interest from around the world in a browsable circle, so users looking for information have an easier method than just randomly wandering the globe. There's also a trivia mode, with information about POIs turned into a nice and casual trivia game. From what I saw, there aren't a lot of extras to trivia mode (it doesn't penalize for wrong answers or even keep score), but it's another interesting way to get at information in the app.

Vito is definitely keeping up on all of their apps, and customers are benefiting. All of these upgrades will be free to app owners, and we should see them on the App Store within a few weeks.

In future, cars might decide if driver is drunk

WALTHAM, Mass. – An alcohol-detection prototype that uses automatic sensors to instantly gauge a driver's fitness to be on the road has the potential to save thousands of lives, but could be as long as a decade away from everyday use in cars, federal officials and researchers said Friday.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited QinetiQ North America, a Waltham, Mass.-based research and development facility, for the first public demonstration of systems that could measure whether a motorist has a blood alcohol content at or above the legal limit of .08 and — if so — prevent the vehicle from starting.

The technology is being designed as unobtrusive, unlike current alcohol ignition interlock systems often mandated by judges for convicted drunken drivers. Those require operators to blow into a breath-testing device before the car can operate.

The Driver Alcohol Detection Systems for Safety, as the new approach is called, would use sensors that would measure blood alcohol content in one of two possible ways: either by analyzing a driver's breath or through the skin, using sophisticated touch-based sensors placed strategically on steering wheels and door locks, for example.

Both methods eliminate the need for drivers to take any extra steps, and those who are sober would not be delayed in getting on the road, researchers said.

The technology is "another arrow in our automotive safety quiver," said LaHood, who emphasized the system was envisioned as optional equipment in future cars and voluntary for auto manufacturers.

David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, also attended the demonstration and estimated the technology could prevent as many as 9,000 fatal alcohol-related crashes a year in the U.S., though he also acknowledged that it was still in its early testing stages and might not be commercially available for 8-10 years.

The systems would not be employed unless they are "seamless, unobtrusive and unfailingly accurate," Strickland said.

The initial $10 million research program is funded jointly by NHTSA and the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, an industry group representing many of the world's car makers.

Critics, such as Sarah Longwell of the American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association, doubt if the technology could ever be perfected to the point that it would be fully reliable and not stop some completely sober people from driving.

"Even if the technology is 99.9 percent reliable, that's still tens of thousands of cars that won't start every day," said Longwell. Her group also questions whether an .08 limit would actually be high enough to stop all drunken drivers, since blood alcohol content can rise in people during a trip depending on factors such as how recently they drank and how much they ate.

"It's going to eliminate the ability of people to have a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a ball game and then drive home, something that is perfectly safe and currently legal in all 50 states," she said.

LaHood disputed that the technology would interfere with moderate social drinking, and said the threshold in cars would never be set below the legal limit.

In Friday's demonstration, a woman in her 20s weighing about 120 pounds drank two, 1 1/2 ounce glasses of vodka and orange juice about 30 minutes apart, eating some cheese and crackers in between to simulate a typical social setting, said Bud Zaouk, director of transportation safety and security for QinetiQ.

Using both the touch-based and breath-based prototypes, the woman registered a .06 blood alcohol content, Zaouk said, so she would be able to start the car.

Laura Dean Mooney, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the technology could "turn cars into the cure."

While she did not foresee the alcohol detection system ever being mandated by the government, Mooney, whose husband died in an accident caused by a drunken driver 19 years ago, said she could envision it someday becoming as ubiquitous as air bags or anti-lock brakes in today's cars, particularly if insurance companies provide incentives for drivers to use those systems by discounting premiums.

PTCL establishes free PCOs for IDPs

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) in an effort to connect the displaced families from Swat with their loved ones and missing family members has established PCOs at five different relief camps. These PCO’s will provide free communication services to the IDP’s. Besides the company has also established medical teams and has donated medicines. PTCL doctors and paramedical staff will visit all the major relief camps on a rotation basis.

PTCL President and CEO Walid Irshaid, has stated that the PTCL will do its utmost to provide relief to the IDPs especially PTCL employees affected by this crisis. PTCL stands by the government of Pakistan to ensure that we fulfill our responsibility to help these war affected people, he said.

Around 300 PTCL staff families have been displaced on account of the confrontation going on in Swat. The management has decided to provide financial assistance to each of these families. The company has also arranged accommodation facilities for fourteen of these families and this number is growing on a daily basis as more and more staff families contact for accommodation.

PTCL has always played a proactive role during all difficult times to provide help to the people in the camps. It had generously donated during the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, during the Baluchistan earthquake and for Benazir Income Support Fund created for assisting poor families.

PTCL with its growing concern and empathy is certainly pulling all the strings to make things easier for the IDP’s, and its efforts are being highly acknowledged and applauded by people from all walks of life.

Microsoft counters Google with Hotmail overhaul

Windows Live Hotmail will get new online editing capabilities for Office documents as well as other enhancements for business users

Microsoft is trying to counter Google by overhauling Windows Live Hotmail with new online editing capabilities for Office documents, and more than two dozen other enhancements for business and home users.

Microsoft's refresh of Hotmail is being announced Tuesday, less than a week after the release of Microsoft Office 2010.

[ Take a look inside Office 2010, Microsoft's newest suite. | Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter and Killer Apps blog. ]

Microsoft strikes blow against Google with Office 2010

"The moment you receive an Office document as an attachment in Hotmail -- Word, Excel, or PowerPoint -- you can open and view the attachment online in any popular browser, on PC or Mac and even if Office is not installed," Microsoft said in its latest announcement. "This results from the seamless integration between Hotmail, SkyDrive [Microsoft's free online storage service] and the Office Web Apps, so you can send, receive and work on a document with others."

Google, of course, offers online editing of documents through Gmail's integration with Google Docs, and the ability to import Microsoft Office documents into Google's online office suite.

Microsoft is increasingly adding to its lineup of Web-based office tools, while offering integration with existing on-premise software installations of Microsoft Office.

New Hotmail features announced this week will be incorporated into the service over the next few months, Microsoft said.

Microsoft promised improvements in the visual quality of Office documents displayed in web browsers, and said it will be easy for users to move back and forth between the Web-based version and the Office software installed on their PCs.

The announcement acknowledges that users may still need to use the packaged software version of Office for "intensive editing tasks."

"If you need to perform intensive editing tasks, you can go from editing the document in your browser with the Office Web Apps to editing it in an Office application on your PC," Microsoft said. "When you're finished, any edits you made to the document on your PC will be automatically saved back into the cloud where you can then keep the document stored for only you to see or share it with others."

Hotmail and Gmail are locked in a battle for second place in the webmail market. Each have more than 40 million users in the United States, with Hotmail claiming a small lead over Gmail. Yahoo still has more than twice as many users as its nearest competitors.

In addition to further Office integration, Microsoft said the new Hotmail will have enhanced security with full-session SSL; smarter junk mail filters; and a "Trusted Senders" feature making it easier for users to distinguish between legitimate messages and scams.

Hotmail will also have conversation view -- a feature Gmail already has -- making it easier to view a single conversation that is spread out over many emails.

Hotmail users will be able to send up to 10GB of photos per message, and Microsoft, not surprisingly, is rolling out new mobile features to take advantage of the expanding smartphone market. For example, Microsoft said Hotmail will be optimized for rich mobile browsers and touch screens, while supporting "filters, in-line message previews, HTML messages, offline email viewing, conversation threading, the ability to flag messages, the option to turn header details on or off, and more."

Users will be able to synchronize email, calendar, and contacts between their phone and the Web using Exchange ActiveSync, and download new mobile Hotmail apps. Microsoft said Hotmail mobile apps will be unveiled on "BlackBerry, Nokia, and many other phones," but did not mention the iPhone or Google's Android platform.

Armed, Autonomous Robots "A Threat to Humanity"

Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield said that military leaders in several countries "are

quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war."

Unmanned surveillance aircraft have been used for years and are currently deployed by the U.S. military in Iraq, along with 4,000 military robots on the ground. Some of these robots are armed with large-caliber machine guns. Armed robot border guards are also used by South Korea and Israel, and other robots are in use by China, India, Russia and the United Kingdom.

To date, none of these machines are able to fire without a human pushing a button or pulling the trigger in some other deliberate way. But such robots are already under development, with the U.S. planning to invest $4 billion in research by 2010 and $24 billion by 2032.

"I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies me," Sharkey said.

Even non-autonomous robots would be easy for terrorists or other unauthorized personnel to capture, reverse engineer and then use for their own purposes, Sharkey warned. Such robots could provide an attractive alternative to suicide bombers.

"I don't know why that has not happened already," he said.

Technical obstacles to the development of autonomous killer robots include imbuing a machine with the ability to properly distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate targets, especially in a changing battle situation. This does not even take into account the ethical questions posed by abdicating decisions about life and death to a machine.

According to Ronald Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology, the U.S. Department of Defense's $230 billion Future Combat Systems Program calls for three classes of aerial and land-based robots, "but nowhere is there any consideration of the ethical implications of the weaponization of these systems."

New Breathalyzer Technology Detects Cancer, Asthma

(NaturalNews) Researchers are working to develop ways to test for various diseases simply by having patients breathe into a machine, according to an article published in the online edition of Optics Express. "If you go to the medical literature you will see tons of studies that correlate certain diseases with particular molecules found in the breath," said researcher Jun Ye. "One common example is nitrous oxide, which is associated with asthma." Ye and colleagues have successfully created a device that can analyze the millions of molecules contained in a single human breath. They believe the machine can easily be adapted to detect for a variety of lung-diseases as well. "It's very non-invasive," Ye said. "There's nothing to be scared of. No blood test, just a breath test." The machine is analyzes the content of a breath by bouncing lasers back and forth between two curved mirrors. These lasers excite the air, causing each molecule to give off a unique light signature. These signatures are then analyzed to determine the chemical composition of the air. This composition can provide important medical clues. In preliminary tests, for example, the breath of a smoker was found to contain five times the carbon monoxide concentration of other participants. "If you have asthma, your breath will have nitrous oxide, but nitrous oxide does not necessarily mean you have asthma," said Ye. "But if you see several different molecules all at once, and they are associated with asthma, then you have found a real fingerprint of a certain disease." Ye and his colleagues are working to make the machine even more sensitive, in the hopes that it can one day be used to identify even diseases that do not involve the lungs. "Once it's mass produced, the cost could be quite low," Ye said. "It could be put into every doctor's clinic so people could walk in and do painless breath tests and then walk away. They would get results in a day or so."

Intel Xeon® 'Nehalem-EX' Processor Presented by Intel

A new Intel® Xeon® processor codenamed "Nehalem-EX" has been revealed by Intel. Being able to deliver a number of new technical advancements and boost enterprise computing performance, the processor will be running the next generation of intelligent and expandable high-end Intel server platforms.

The Nehalem-EX processor, being ready to enter production later this year, will feature up to eight cores inside a single chip supporting 16 threads and 24MB of cache. Offering the highest-ever jump from a previous generation processor, its performance increase will be dramatic.

New reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features usually found in the company's Intel® Itanium processor family, such as Machine Check Architecture (MCA) Recovery will be available with Nehalem-EX.

the new Nehalem-EX processor, being ideal for virtualized applications, server consolidation, data demanding enterprise applications and technical computing environments, will be able to boost up to nine times the memory bandwidth of the previous-generation Intel Xeon 7400 platform, also doubling the memory capacity with up to 16 memory slots per processor socket, and offering four high-bandwidth QuickPath Interconnect links. Without the need for third-party chips to "glue" the platform together, Nehalem-EX will provide tremendous scalability, from large-memory two-socket systems through eight-socket systems capable of processing 128 threads simultaneously, while, with third-party solutions, additional scalability options including greater sockets counts will also be possible.

Some of the main advantages of Nehalem-EX are:

* Intel Nehalem Architecture built on Intel's unique 45nm high-k metal gate technology process
* Up to 8 cores per processor
* Up to 16 threads per processor with Intel® Hyper-threading
* Scalability up to eight sockets via Quick Path Interconnects and greater with third-party node controllers
* QuickPath Architecture with four high-bandwidth links
* Integrated memory controllers
* 24MB of shared cache
* Intel Turbo Boost Technology
* Intel scalable memory buffer and scalable memory interconnects
* Support for up to 16 memory slots per processor socket
* Up to 9x the memory bandwidth of previous generation
* 2.3 billion transistors
* Advanced RAS capabilities including MCA Recovery

Nehalem-EX, having new RAS capabilities for high-end enterprises, will be able to accelerate IT adoption of Intel-based platforms over RISC-based platforms by delivering a lower total cost of ownership, higher performance, lower electricity bills and the ability to standardize on a flexible IT environment.

LED light bulbs yield big savings in energy

August 13th, 2009 By Renee Schoof

LED Lamp with E27 Edison screw. Image: Wikipedia.

One way the United States could slash its electricity use, dependence on fossil fuels and emissions of heat-trapping gases is really quite simple: better light bulbs.

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The Department of Energy is backing research and development aimed at getting light-emitting diodes into common use in homes and businesses at a price that saves money. Hurdles remain: Costs are still high, the quality of what's on the market varies and not all the technical issues have been worked out. Energy experts are confident, however, that this new lighting is the future and that energy savings will be enormous.

Lighting consumes 22 percent of electricity in the United States. The DOE predicts that solid-state lighting -- which uses semiconducting materials to convert electricity into light, and includes LEDs -- has the potential to reduce energy use for lighting by one-third by 2030. That's the equivalent of saving the output of 40 large (1,000-megawatt) power plants, the greenhouse gas emissions of 47 million cars and $30 billion.

LEDs already light universities from Miami to Anchorage, Alaska, streets in many cities and an increasing number of businesses that need lights on all the time.

"In your home, lighting may be 10 percent of your bill. But in an office building it's probably 40 percent, and so if you reduce your lighting energy consumption by a large fraction, the savings will be huge," said James Brodrick, who leads the DOE's solid-state lighting program.

A fact sheet from Brodrick's office says this about LEDs: "In the coming decade, they will become a key to affordable net-zero energy buildings, buildings that produce at least as much energy annually as they use from the grid."

The technology is advancing quickly, and costs will continue to drop, Brodrick said. The DOE tests LEDs and sets performance and efficiency guidelines under its Energy Star program.

LEDs are directional lights, used in recessed lighting and under-counter lights, for example. They're not yet available as bulbs that cast light all around and fit in ordinary sockets.

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"There's an enormous and exciting potential, but we have a long way to go before we see anything besides directional lighting," said Jeffrey P. Harris, the vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit group that promotes energy efficiency.

Even so, LEDs already are used to light offices, hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

The DOE predicts that LEDs will have better performance capability than fluorescent lighting in the next few years, and that they'll continue to improve after that. They're now comparable with fluorescent fixtures in efficiency, and the DOE says its Energy Star LEDs last two to five times longer.

Cost is the biggest reason that LEDs aren't used more widely, Brodrick said.

A common PAR 38 floodlight at Home Depot, for example, costs about $35 online as an LED, about $3.70 apiece in a pack of 15 as a halogen floodlight and about $11 for a compact fluorescent.

Chuck Swoboda, the chairman and chief executive officer of Cree Inc. of Durham, N.C., a leading company in LED lighting, said that commercial use of LEDs would drive down costs, and that a lower initial cost plus the value of energy savings would make them attractive. "It's not that different from the argument of why you should put insulation in a home," he said.

LEDs have other advantages: They can be dimmed, don't emit heat, don't contain mercury -- unlike compact fluorescents -- and can produce warm-toned light.

Swoboda said that Cree was focusing on commercial sales now because that market was bigger than the residential market and commercial users got quicker paybacks from reduced energy and maintenance costs.

In April, Cree announced that it had a new LED PAR 38 bulb designed for stores and museums that uses 12 watts of power instead of 50 to 90 watts for a halogen bulb.

"What happens with LEDs is people think of them as things that go in your cell phone or things you put in the car dashboard, but they don't think of it as truly a lighting product," Swoboda said. "And so this was the latest innovation to kind of go out and show people you can pretty much do anything you can do in an incandescent bulb technology or in fluorescents with LEDs."

Home Depot, the world's biggest retailer of light bulbs, is starting to stock LED bulbs this summer and plans to have 10 kinds by September, said Jorge Fernandez, who's in charge of light bulb purchases for the company.

"There's definitely a lot of interest, but the price is high, and a lot of people say they're waiting to see when the price drops," he said.

Felicia Spagnoli, a spokeswoman for Philips Lighting Electronics North America, said commercial users could make up for the higher costs of LEDs in as little as a year or two.

"We can address environmental concerns at the same time we improve the quality and use of light," she said. "Many people when they think of doing good for the environment think it means going without or having lesser quality, but that's absolutely not the case with LEDs."

Philips is working on many kinds of LEDs, including one to replace a 40-watt incandescent bulb that's scheduled to be available next year, she said.

Derrick Hall of RE/Construct Inc. in Asheville, N.C., said that residential customers weren't asking for LEDs because of the high upfront cost. Still, he's hearing of some nonresidential customers who are looking into LEDs for the energy savings.

LEDs are much better than other lighting options, Hall said. The quality of the light is "far superior," they offer big energy savings and there's no cost to society for dealing with mercury, he said. Mercury, a neurotoxin, is found in small amounts in compact fluorescent bulbs.

Swoboda said that some of the biggest commercial users for LEDs now were fast-food restaurants, because LEDs' light makes food look appealing.

A McDonald's that opened in July in Cary, N.C., is lit almost entirely with daylight and LED lights. Ric Richards, the franchise owner, said the restaurant used 78 percent less electricity than a traditional one.

And the quality of the light?

"Awesome," he said. "The restaurant has great ambience."

Richards estimated that the upfront costs of the lighting would be paid back in two to four years with lower electricity bills.

In Washington, the Pentagon is installing LED lights in a large renovation.

Mark Buffler, an official in charge of technology in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said in a report that switching from conventional fluorescents to LEDs would conserve large amounts of energy _ 240,000 kilowatt hours annually _ and save money on maintenance and mercury disposal. Buffler also wrote that the project was meant to demonstrate the energy savings potential of LEDs for the rest of the federal government.

ON THE WEB

Department of Energy information on LEDs: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/index.html

Energy Star information on LEDs: http://tinyurl.com/mlgeqq

Online MS Office 2010: for free or not?

It was last week when Microsoft announced that they will offer a "Free" lightweight online version of Microsoft 2010, which includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. Since then, I started to read reviews and press releases of this move from Microsoft and started to draft a post regarding this big change that the company does. But what made me changed my mind to post that said draft is because of Michael Hickins's report on the Hidden cost of Microsoft's Free online office suite.


[Microsoft Office 2010 Logo and its Applications new logos]

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Just a quote from his post, "But wait – there’s more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs or $41,000, all CALs included if they want to share documents using the online version of Office 2010"
I bet its really clear that there is always a hidden agenda on that Free offerings. And as usual, at the end of the day, business is business.

At first, i enjoyed comparing these two online applications; namely Microsoft office live workspace and Google Docs, but at the end i would prefer to use Google docs than any other, most especially when i used it to convert office 2007 files into 2003. The two web versions of applications, have offer lots of advantages, doing some documents online anytime and anywhere but do Microsoft risks its sells of Office Applications (as we know, Office is the company's big cash drawer) and goes with online versions?


[Google Apps VS Office Live Workspace]

Office 210: The Changes

And now, as what i am always looking forward, is the idea and inquiry what could be the changes that Microsoft can offer rather than the online version thingy?


[2007 VS 2010: Ribbon Changes]

First of all, is the revision of the Microsoft Office 2007 trade mark, the Ribbon. In the offline version, Microsoft designed the Ribbon enclosed with a circular form on which at first i thought it was just another nonfunctional design until such time i learned that it is somewhat like a functional button having there the sub menus; New, Open, Save and others.
Another offering is the photo editing tools, which can now be accessed inside the Ribbon. You just need to open a picture file, then a format tab will show and you can now do some photo enhancement.


[Office 2007: Sub Menus under the Ribbon ]

And another ribbon inclusion program (which is excluded last 2007 version) is the Outlook 2010. It do now have full marked ribbon and is offering the same overall interface except its new feature Quick Steps. Excel and Word have no lots of new features on them not like outlook and of course the PowerPoint which give a video features in it.



Just a note, to access the lightweight version of office 2010, you all need a Windows Live ID (formerly hotmail account). But not so sure if you can have a total access on that package since Microsoft has not released any news about it although they have appended the word "free".

Cyber Attack Code Starts Killing Infected PCs

By Thomas Claburn

Read the Original Article at InformationWeek

Infected computers participating in the distributed denial of service attack on U.S. government and South Korean Web sites are set to destroy their own data.

The botnet-driven cyber attack on government, financial, and media sites in the U.S and South Korea includes a newly discovered danger: The malicious code responsible for driving the distributed denial of service attack, known as W32.Dozer, is designed to delete data on infected computers and to prevent the computers from being rebooted.

"Your machine is completely hosed at this stage," said Vincent Weafer, VP at Symantec Security Response.

The malicious code includes instructions to start deleting files when the infected computer's internal clock reaches July 10, 2009. That's today.

According to Weafer, the malicious code will attempt to locate files with any of more than 30 different extensions, such as .doc, .pdf, and .xls, copy the data to an encrypted file that's inaccessible to the user, and then overwrite the data in the original files. It targets files associated with office, business, and development applications.

The malicious code is also programmed to modify infected computers' Master Boot Records. The change renders computers inoperable following any attempt to reboot.

The impact of this self-destruct sequence should be minimal, however. Weafer said that he expects only a few thousand machines will be damaged. "I don't expect this to be a major issue, except perhaps in South Korea," he said.

The cyber attack against sites in the U.S. and South Korea began on July 4 and temporarily interfered with access to the Web sites of the Treasury Department, the Transportation Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

The South Korean Intelligence Service estimated that about 20,000 compromised computers -- mostly in South Korea -- had been ordered to conduct a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on U.S. and South Korean sites.

Given the timing, which coincided with a North Korean missile test, suspicions have been raised about the involvement of hackers in North Korea or possibly China.

In a press briefing yesterday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "[The attacks] are continuing, and we are taking measures to deal with this and any potential new attacks." He said he had no information about whether North Korea was involved.

It is possible to direct an attack of this sort from anywhere. According to Alan Paller, research director at The SANS Institute, the compromised computers participating in this attack are located all over the world, including the U.S. The bots that participate also vary over time, so that the source of the attack is constantly changing.

"The attacks have become increasingly sophisticated since the end of last week -- it started as a flood that was easy for network service providers to filter and then went through at least two increases in sophistication so that the flood looks more and more like legitimate traffic," said Paller in an e-mail. "Network providers have to work much harder to filter out malicious traffic that resembles legitimate traffic."

But with W32.Dozer already deleting files and crippling its hosts, the attacks should soon subside.

Google Chrome OS: Web Platform To Rule Them All

By Thomas Claburn

Read the Original Article at InformationWeek

With Chrome OS, Google aims to make the Web the primary platform for software development.

Google's plan to release its own operating system based on its Chrome browser is at once audacious and laughable. Microsoft Windows represents slightly less than 90% of the personal computer operating system market, a position it has held for years.

Google's industry ally, Apple, has managed to steal a few percentage points of market share away from Microsoft in the past twelve years under the singular leadership of CEO Steve Jobs. But Windows remains the dominant operating system, more dominant even than Google is in search.

And with the forthcoming release of Windows 7, Microsoft appears to be well-prepared to defend its empire.

It's hard to imagine a less promising business for Google to enter, especially given that Google plans to give Chrome OS away for free. And Google's grand plan to shake up the operating system market isn't made more credible by the absence of any actual programming code or substantive information about Chrome OS.

Yet, the fact that Google has partners that share its vision says something about the shakiness of Microsoft's position. Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba are all working with Google to help it re-imagine the operating system. So too is Intel, as The Register reports.

Google's decision to target the netbook market may help the prospects of Chrome OS. Although Microsoft has made a concerted effort to push Windows on netbooks to fend off low-cost Linux-based challengers, Google may find it easier to compete in the netbook market because access to cloud-based services and software is more valuable on devices with constrained resources than on high-powered desktop computers.

Steve Andriole, professor of information technologies at the Villanova School of Business, observed in an e-mail that Google's announcement comes at the right time, just as the industry is moving to smaller, more mobile devices.

He believes that both pricing and Google's vendor relationships will play major roles in determining the acceptance of Chrome OS.

The fact that Chrome OS applications will be written using open Web standards like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS might seem like a liability because Web applications still aren't as capable as applications written for specific devices and operating systems.

But Google is betting that will change and is working to effect the change on which its bet depends. Within a year or two, Web browsers will gain access to peripherals, through an infrastructure layer above the level of device drivers. Google's work with standards bodies is making that happen.

According to Matt Womer, the "ubiquitous Web activity lead" for W3C, the Web standards consortium, Web protocol groups are working to codify ways to access peripherals like digital cameras, the messaging stack, calendar data, and contact data.

There's now a JavaScript API that Web developers can use to get GPS information from mobile phones using the phone's browser, he points out. What that means is that device drivers for Chrome OS will emerge as HTML 5 and related standards mature. Without these, consumers would never use Chrome OS because devices like digital cameras wouldn't be able to transfer data.

Womer said the standardization work could move quite quickly, but won't be done until there's an actual implementation. That would be Chrome OS.

And as the long-foretold Internet of Things emerges -- allowing everyday objects to be addressed via online queries -- Chrome OS will be well positioned to help Google organize even more of the world's information than the company already handles.

Chrome OS will sell itself to developers because, as Google puts it, writing applications for the Web gives "developers the largest user base of any platform."

Iphone 3gs Lines

As you may have heard by now, AT&T has released official word that those who preordered an iPhone 3GS line will be able to pick them up from one of 2, 200 retail outlets or 211 Apple stores. However, some people won’t get theirs tomorrow but if you check your inbox you’ll find a email verification with your pickup date. In terms of pricing, new AT&T customers will pay $199 for the 16 GB version and $299 for the 32 GB. Existing customers that have fulfilled their contractual obligations will also be eligible for the same pricing while iPhone 3G customers whose contracts end in July, August or September of this year will be as well.

Existing AT&T customers who contracts aren’t up but want to upgrade early will have to pay a little bit (alot) more. In fact, it’ll be $399 for the 16 GB version and $499 for the 32 GB. Check out the press release after the cut for additional pricing plan details, what you’ll need to pick up your iPhone 3GS and a few feature explanations.

iPhone 3G S Available at AT&T Tomorrow

Locations Open Early at 7 a.m. For Customers Who Preordered In Store

DALLAS, June 18 AT&T* begins selling iPhone 3G S nationwide tomorrow morning in its more than 2,200 company-owned retail locations. In addition, AT&T today will begin shipping devices to customers who preordered online for arrival beginning tomorrow. iPhone 3G S will also be available tomorrow morning at all 211 U.S. Apple retail stores.

“The time is finally here. We’re more than ready to open our doors tomorrow and begin selling the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility & Consumer Markets. “We understand that customers are eager to get their hands on this great new device. So we’ve worked hard to make the experience as easy as possible.”

EARLY HOURS FOR PREORDER CUSTOMERS

Many customers have chosen to preorder iPhone 3G S in an AT&T store or online.

AT&T Store Preorders: Customers who preordered in AT&T stores can return to the same store beginning tomorrow morning, with their receipt, to pick up their order. Customers should be sure to check the e-mail notification they received for their actual arrival date as some preorders will arrive after June 19; dates are based on when preorders were made and available inventory. All stores will open at 7 a.m. local time to exclusively serve preorder customers whose orders are expected to arrive on June 19. Any customer is welcome to visit beginning at normal business hours, at which point all customers will be served on a “first come, first served” basis.

Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2009) — Light switches, TV remote controls and even house keys could become a thing of the past thanks to brain-computer interface (BCI) technology being developed in Europe that lets users perform everyday tasks with thoughts alone

The technology, which was demonstrated at CeBIT in Hannover in March, provides an innovative way of controlling the interconnected electronic devices that will populate the smart homes of the future, granting increased autonomy to people with physical disabilities as well as pleasing TV channel-surfing couch potatoes.

“The BCI lets people turn on lights, change channels on the TV or open doors just by thinking about it,” explains Christoph Guger, the CEO of Austrian medical engineering company g.tec that developed the application.

g.tec teamed up with a group of international universities and research institutes as part of the EU-funded Presenccia project to incorporate its BCI technology into virtual environments. As part of the project a fully functioning smart home was created in virtual reality (VR).

“It has a kitchen, bathroom, living room… everything a normal home would have. People are able to move through it just by thinking about where they wanted to go,” Guger says.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) equipment is used to monitor electrical activity in a user’s brain via electrodes attached to their scalp. After a period of training, the system learns to identify the distinctive patterns of neuronal activity produced when they imagine walking forwards, flicking on a light switch or turning up the radio.

Liberating possibilities for people with disabilities

Being able to move and control objects in virtual reality solely by the power of thought could offer new and liberating possibilities for people with physical disabilities. It could help amputees learn how to use a prosthetic limb, for example, or allow people confined to a wheelchair to experience walking in virtual reality, as one experiment conducted by the Presenccia researchers showed.

“A virtual environment could be used to train a disabled person to control an electric wheelchair through a brain-computer interface,” explains Mel Slater, the coordinator of the Presenccia project. “It is much safer for them to learn in VR than in the real world, where mistakes could have physical consequences.”

One application developed by g.tec lets people control a small robot with their thoughts, though the same system could easily be adapted to control a wheelchair instead. Four lights on a small box set to flicker at different frequencies provided the control mechanism using a method known as Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP).

“The top light, for example, was set to flicker at 10 hertz so, when the user stared at it, the EEG equipment registered that particular frequency in the user’s brain and instructed the robot to move forward. Looking at another light flickering at a different frequency would tell the robot to go left and so on,” Guger explains.

Thought-provoking typing

g.tec has adopted a different approach to allow people to type with their thoughts. Users sit in front of a grid of letters and numbers on a computer screen which flash in sequence and are told to stare at the character they want to type. The system registers their brain activity when the letter they are looking at is illuminated.

“With experience people can learn to type quite fast. I can average about one letter every eight-tenths of a second, a rate similar to typing with one finger,” Guger says.

Better hardware, software and a deeper understanding of EEG data has now made typing by thought power a practical application, particularly for paralysed people suffering from so-called locked-in syndrome who have few means of communication.

“Just two years ago, it took up to a minute to type a single letter and a whole day to train someone to do it. Now most people can learn to use the system in five minutes,” Guger says.

The accuracy of BCI technology has also greatly improved: g.tec was involved in a study that showed 82 percent of people could achieve 100 percent accuracy. “Five years ago there was only one person in the world known to be able to do that,” Guger notes.

Where will such rapid progress lead?

The g.tec CEO initially expects BCI technology to continue to gain ground in medical applications for the disabled and for rehabilitation, helping people who have suffered a stroke, for example, to regain use of their limbs. However, he believes it could become common in everyday environments. Having been tested in virtual reality, g.tec’s smart home application will soon be deployed in a real smart home being built as part of the SM4all project, which has received funding under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme.

g.tec, which was founded by Christoph Guger and Günter Edlinger in 1999 as a spin-off from the Graz University of Technology, sells its award-winning technology to companies, universities and research institutes in 55 countries.

This is the second of a two-part special feature on virtual reality and the Presenccia project funded under the FET Pro-active scheme of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for research.