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Cern lab goes 'colder than space'

A vast physics experiment built in a tunnel below the French-Swiss border is fast becoming one of the coolest places in the Universe. The Large Hadron Collider is entering the final stages of being lowered to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space. Once the LHC is operational, two particle beams will cross paths, smashing into one another with cataclysmic force. Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions, revealing fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being. The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the LHC will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang. Full Story BBC News_ 7/22/08

Further delay to Australia's national broadband network plan

Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government will fail to deliver its second-biggest election commitment on time after announcing yesterday that tenders for its $4.7 billion national broadband network will not be due until the end of the year so it has time to collect more information for bidders. Optus head of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai blamed Telstra for delays. "Telstra has been the root cause, not only in delaying the release of this information, but in holding Australia's broadband future to ransom to protect its own interests and its 50 per cent-plus margins on fixed networks." But Telstra spokesman Jeremy Mitchell said Telstra had done everything possible to provide the information sought by the Government and to make it available to other bidders. Full Story The Australian_ 7/19/08

Suez and Gaz de France form giant global energy firm

Shareholders in publicly-held GDF and the private Suez group Wednesday approved a merger, despite opposition from the EU and groups in France. The French government has said it hopes the new corporation will become a national energy giant. Suez has major water and waste treatment operations in addition to its energy arm. The deal amounts to the privatisation of GDF and it triggered strong objections from the French left and consternation on the part of unions. It also means that the state enters Suez as the biggest shareholder. Full Story AFP_ 7/16/08

Robot takes bomb disposal to another level

Orlando-based defense contractor Cubic Simulation Systems has rolled out its latest product -- a tactical robot that can disarm bombs, conduct video surveillance and perform other functions for military and law enforcement agencies, the company said Tuesday. The local subsidiary of San Diego-based Cubic Corp. developed the "unmanned ground system" as one of its first major product lines not related to military training simulator technology, officials said. Though robots are nothing new to police and military personnel, Cubic says its system advances the technology to a new level of effectiveness. Known as COUGAR, for Combined Operations Unmanned Ground Assessment Robot, the Cubic system packs a bundle of advanced audio, video and anti-explosive electronics into a compact ruggedized frame, officials said. Among its defining traits, Cubic said the six-wheeled system is less than two feet long, two feet wide and a half-foot tall; can be hand carried and fits under or inside a vehicle and other confined spaces. It uses a pivoting infrared camera that provides clear video images from a range of up to 500 feet and is armed with anti-detonation charges that can disarm explosives. Full Story Orlando Sentinel_ 7/16/08

China 'could reach Moon by 2020': NASA administrator

China is capable of sending a manned mission to the Moon within the next decade, if it so wishes, Nasa administrator Michael Griffin has said. The US space agency plans to return people to the lunar surface by 2020 using its new Orion spacecraft. Speaking to the BBC News website during a visit to London, Dr Griffin said: "Certainly it is possible that if China wants to put people on the Moon, and if it wishes to do so before the United States, it certainly can. As a matter of technical capability, it absolutely can." Chinese officials say there is no plan and no timetable for a Moon landing, and have expressed doubt that one could be made by 2020. Full Story BBCNews_ 7/15/08

Rural broadband customers to be offered 400mbps

The new technology is called Bonded DSL Rings (BDR) which relies on existing copper wire infrastructures. It is a patent pending technology from Genesis Technical Systems of Calgary, Canada. With BDR, telcos can deliver up to 400mbps to customers at one twentieth of the cost of fibre networks. Rural broadband has so far not kept up with bandwidth speeds in urban areas because there has not been an economical way for telcos or cable firms to deliver high bandwidth broadband services to rural customers. Bonded DSL Rings combines DSL and Resilient Packet Rings (RPR) technology to provide greater bandwidth and higher quality services. Full Story Computer Weekly 7/14/08

New RCA home antenna fills gap in over-the-air digital TV signals

Viewers looking for an alternative to soaring subscription TV bills should consider pairing a digital TV with a new RCA Flat Antenna designed to pick up more channels than a traditional "rabbit ears" antenna. In some markets, an over-the-air antenna and digital TV receiver will be the viewer's only option for receiving vital weather, traffic, and news information. Developed by its Indianapolis-based Research &Development team, the RCA ANT1500 Flat Indoor Antenna offers outstanding reception from multiple stations and minimizes the "cliff effect" of digital TV reception with its unique multi-directional capability. Now shipping to mass merchant and electronics retailers throughout the country, the ANT1500 has a suggested retail price of $59.99. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, sales of digital TV sets are expected to top 30 million units in 2008. And more than 20 million more digital TV converter boxes will be sold before full-power analog TV broadcast signals are switched off in less than eight months. Full Story News Release/Business Wire_ 7/10/08

Massive Internet security flaw uncovered

Security researchers on Tuesday said they had discovered an enormous flaw that could let hackers steer most people using corporate computer networks to malicious websites of their own devising. But there are two pieces of good news: First, no bad guys are known to be using the flaw yet. And second, in a possibly unprecedented display of industry cooperation, virtually every major software company affected is issuing patches to fix the problem. System administrators will have 30 days to apply those patches -- from the likes of Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Red Hat Inc. and others -- before the details of the flaw are disclosed at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. "This is about the integrity of the Web, this is about the integrity of e-mail," said Dan Kaminsky of security firm IOActive Inc., the man who discovered the flaw. "It's more, but I can't talk about how much more." Full Story Los Angeles Times_ 7/9/08 (logon required)

USDataNow Headlines June 22, 2008-July 22, 2008

ANTENNAS:

Laird Technologies releases new 90-degree dual slant 45 WiMax base station antenna

Full Story Business Wire_ 4/4/08

BROADBAND:

Strategy Analytics: Worldwide broadband subscriptions to reach 415 million this year

Full Story Centre Daily_ 5/28/08

ENERGY:

US and EU urged at G8 summit to cut biofuels

Full Story BBC News_ 7/7/08

Forbes Special Report: Utilities and regulators scare off energy efficient projects

Full Story Forbes_ 7/7/08