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Home All News Topics More Tech News
Tech News January-June 2005 June, 2005 100 million go online
in China China's economic boom is behind the dramatic rise as increasing personal wealth means more people are able to buy computers and go online. Full Story_ BBC 6/28/05 Gates' millions to
tackle disease in the developing world Jack Kilby, inventor
of integrated circuit, dies Nanotech delivers cancer treatment Scientists using nanotechnology have devised a way of delivering cancer drugs that could make them up to 10 times more effective in combating the killer disease. By attaching a chemotherapeutic drug to manmade nanoparticles, the team of researchers at the University of Michigan were able to smuggle it inside cancerous cells, delaying the growth of tumors in mice by up to 30 days -- the equivalent of three years in a human. Professor of biologic nanotechnology James Baker, who led the research, said that the treatment might eventually turn cancer into a chronic but treatable condition. Full Story CNN_6/21/05 Atomic ticker clocks
up 50 years May, 2005 Machines' way with words It has happened to most of us. The phone call you make to your bank is answered by a talking machine. It asks questions, you answer and then it asks more questions. Voice recognition systems are becoming more prevalent... and scarily efficient. There is no doubt that soon the androids will speak better than we do, and they are much, much cheaper... they are much, much cheaper... much, much cheaper. Full Story BBC News_ 5/28/05 Interactive 'Clickers' changing classrooms "Clickers," handheld wireless devices to provide student feedback to questions posed by professors in the lecture hall, are being used on hundreds of college campuses and are even finding their way into grade schools. They alter classroom dynamics, engaging students in large, impersonal lecture halls with the power of mass feedback. "Clickers" ease fears of giving a wrong answer in front of peers, or of expressing unpopular opinions. Full Story_ AP 5/13/05 DARPA says funding to universities rising The Pentagon has not cut funds for university studies of fundamental science and technology in favor of projects with more of an immediate impact to the military, the director of the Defense Department's research agency affirmed. The statement countered criticism from computer scientists who complained their funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been reduced at the same time the agency seems to be focusing more on near-term research projects. In the past, military-funded basic research at universities has led - eventually - to the Internet, databases and other new computer technologies. Critics fear that the military's shift from "blue sky" research would undermine the nation's technological leadership. Full Story_ AP 5/12/05 Indian firm unveils
low-cost Linux-based PCs Small box 'to end digital
divide' Solar firms say silicon shortage will stall growth Takashi Tomita of Japan's Sharp, the world's biggest solar-cell maker, warned of what he called a "vicious spiral" in which the market could grind to a halt as rocketing silicon prices meant suppliers could not afford to meet demand. The solar market currently supplies a fraction of 1 percent of the world's energy needs and is worth an estimated $7 billion annually. The industry may increase that proportion to 8 percent by 2030, according to the European Renewable Energy Council. Silicon makes up most of the earth's crust, but it is very expensive to purify into forms such as polysilicon that are used in the high-tech industry. Full Story Reuters_ 4/13/05 Nanotechnology's promise
for global poor Hide-and-seek alarm rousts sleepyheads from bed A 25-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology student has invented a revolutionary alarm clock that makes sleepyheads find it to quiet it. Designed to overcome abuse of the snooze feature on most alarm clocks, Gauri Nanda's "Clocky" falls to the floor and rolls away on the first push of the snooze button. To turn it off, a person must get out of bed and find it. Full Story Reuters_ 4/8/05 March, 2005 The music goes on Side A and the flip side is a DVD Matchbox 20's lead singer Rob Thomas's "Something to Be," due April 19 from Atlantic, part of the Warner Music Group, is among the first albums by a major artist to be released only on DualDisc, a new format being introduced by the major labels that includes a traditional CD on one side of a disc and DVD content on the other. At a time when the music business is still suing illegal file-sharers whom, the industry claims, are causing them to lose sales, the major music labels are hoping the DualDisc format will give them a multimedia carrot that can be used along with the legal stick. Full Story New York Times_ 3/21/05 (logon required) New computer mouse takes the tremor out of hands The device uses similar "steady cam" technology found in camcorders to filter out shaking hand movements. People with hand tremors find it hard to use conventional mice for simple computer tasks because of the erratic movements of the cursor on the screen. Most commonly associated with tremors is Parkinson's disease, but they can also be caused by other conditions like Essential Tremor (ET). Full Story BBC News_ 3/14/05
Singapore topples US
from top spot in world economies that make the best use of information
and communication technology (ICT) Nobel physics laureate Hans Bethe dead at 98 Bethe, who fled Nazi Germany and became a key figure in the development of the first atomic bomb, died at his home in Ithaca, New York, Cornell University said. He was 98. Bethe, who died Sunday, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1967 for discoveries about energy production in stars. He was emeritus professor of physics at Cornell, which he joined in 1935 after leaving Germany. Full Story Reuters_ 3/7/05 Adventurer Steve Fossett completes first nonstop, solo global flight without refueling After nearly three days in the air, his single-engine jet-powered experimental plane touched down in Salina, Kansas, 67 hours after leaving the same municipal air strip. The last day of Fossett's flight was troubled by a fuel shortage that could have jeopardized its completion. Full Story Reuters_ 3/3/05 Internet boom of '90s may never return to the Silicon Valley, says mayor of San Jose, California Even if the region doesn't experience the same intensity of economic growth it saw in the late 1990s, the area is steadily rebounding, said San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales. The peak of the Internet boom in Silicon Valley centered around San Jose came exactly five years ago as many investors were convinced that even unprofitable tech companies could do no wrong. Many start ups fueled by venture capital eventually went bust and Silicon Valley lost 200,000 jobs and was one of the worst-hit regions in a nationwide recession. Full Story Reuters_ 3/2/05 Steve Fossett's attempt to fly solo, non-stop around the globe without refueling has fuel worry His GlobalFlyer plane has reached China - half way around the world - but he has insufficient fuel to get him home to Kansas without favourable winds. Mission controllers will have to decide whether to call off the attempt before Fossett heads out over the Pacific. The adventurer left the US on Tuesday at 0500 GMT and was expected to return to the Salina airport on Thursday. Full Story BBC News_ 3/2/05 February, 2005 Jef Raskin, Mac interface
expert, dies at 61 Full Story CNET News.com_2/27/05 Bank of America loses a million customer records A "small" number of backup tapes with records detailing the financial information of government employees were lost in shipment to a backup center, Bank of America said. The tapes contained information on the customers and accounts of the U.S. government's SmartPay charge card program, which has more than 2.1 million members and annual transactions totaling more than $21 billion, according to the General Services Administration. Reports have pegged the number of cards affected at 1.2 million. Full Story _CNET News 2/26/05 Report: 'Digital divide' narrowing fast The "digital divide" between rich and poor nations is narrowing fast, the World Bank said on Thursday, calling into question a costly United Nations campaign to bring high-tech telecommunications to the developing world. The World Bank said in a report that telecommunications services to poor countries were growing at an explosive rate. Full Story_CNET News.com 2/24/05 Google's toolbar sparks
concern Rays to nab nuclear
smugglers European Parliament rejects bill to patent software The bill was backed by hi-tech firms that said they needed the protections it offered to make research worthwhile. Hugo Lueders, European director for public policy at CompTIA, an umbrella organization for technology companies, said only when intellectual property was adequately protected would European inventors prosper. But opponents of the bill said that it could stifle innovation, be abused by firms keen to protect existing monopolies and could hamper the growth of the open source movement. Full Story BBC News_ 2/17/05 PCs do 4,000 years work in three-month grid project for the Institute of Systems Biology Grids let ordinary desktops play a big role in helping humankind. Since November, thousands have joined the World Community Grid (WCG) which uses idle computer time to help solve serious health and social problems. Over 4,000 "teams" have been running a simple program which processes proteins. The Seattle-based Institute of Systems Biology is working out the role of proteins in bodies. By the time the project ends it is predicted that more than 20,000 years of computing will have been done. Full Story BBC News_ 2/17/05 Microsoft plans new version of Internet Explorer: IE7 offers better security The move is the latest in Microsoft's three-year effort to beef up security. Its products are the most-targeted by malicious programmers, and it has bought security companies recently, leading to speculation it may launch its own anti-virus program. Full Story Reuters_ 2/15/05 Blind student at New York's Cornell University develops software that turns colourts into musical notes so he can read weather maps Victor Wong, a graduate student from Hong Kong, enlisted the help of a computer graphics specialist and another student to do the programming work. The software assigns one of 88 piano notes to individually coloured pixels - ranging from blue at the lower end of this scale to red at the upper end. Mr Wong says the application is still very much in its infancy but he hopes one day it can give blind people access to photographs and other images. Full Story BBC News_ 2/14/05 Rogue code poses problems for Microsoft Microsoft has urged customers to apply its latest security patches, after several companies published "proof of concept" attacks that exploit the flaws that the updates fix. In a notice posted to its Web site, the software giant highlighted proof-of-concept documentation, or sample software code to illustrate how a flaw might be used to attack a system, from two security software makers: Finjan Software and Core Security Technologies. Full Story_ CNET News 2/11/05
Wiki Media Foundation, the group behind the Wikipedia online encyclopedia project, announced that search giant Google has volunteered to host some of its content on company servers. Google representatives refused to confirm a deal. Full Story_CNET 2/11/05 It's a warmer world,
but does that mean armageddon? Full Story Reuters_2/11/05 Scientists say they
often censor themselves Full Story MSNBC_2/11/05 Evolution pioneer Ernst Mayr dies aged 100 The Harvard professor of zoology passed away at a retirement community in Massachusetts, US, following a brief illness, his family said. Amongst many achievements, Mayr may be remembered most for pioneering the modern definition of a species. Full Story BBC News_ 2/7/05
January, 2005 In New Jersey, building contractors start to think 'green' Some of the leading developers, architects and land use experts who favor conservation-minded, environmentally sensitive projects gathered at Rutgers University recently to chew over the issue, and delivered a somewhat surprising consensus: even in this highly built-up state, where the profit motive has long prevailed, the green movement is beginning to take root. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a voluntary rating and certification system developed five years ago by the United States Green Building Council. Points are awarded for various aspects of environmentally friendly design, and buildings are given bronze, silver, gold or platinum LEED ratings. Full Story New York Times_ 1/23/05 (logon required) Global MapAid helps aid groups get real-time data, maps With a combination of handheld computers, satellite phones and innovative software, Global MapAid can quickly draft and update maps that show the washed-out roads and altered coastline, the location of aid centers, even areas with contaminated water. After starting as a student project, Global MapAid has registered as a nonprofit organization. Its founder and chairman, Rupert Douglas-Bate, hit upon the idea years ago while working on a relief mission to Bosnia. Trained as a water engineer, he was assigned to repair drinking water systems that he couldn't find. Full Story San Francisco Chronicle_ 1/17/05 IBM frees 500 software patents to encourage innovation The move means developers will be able to use the technologies without paying for a licence from the company. IBM described the step as a "new era" in how it dealt with intellectual property and promised further patents would be made freely available. The patents include software for a range of practices, including text recognition and database management. Full Story BBC News_ 1/11/05
'Best in show' at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show Everything from strange exercise equipment which requires the use of your entire body, to the largest plasma screen in the world which towers at 102 inches (2.6 metre), was on show. The BBC News website highlights a small selection of the products which caught the eye as the tech fair packs up for another year. Full Story BBC News_ 1/10/05 Physics goes in search
of a language to engage a new audience Science and technology can tackle poverty - UN A report for the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, on how to radically reduce poverty and hunger within 10 years says policymakers lack scientific inputs. The report, Innovation: Applying Knowledge In Development, was prepared by 27 international experts, the UN Millennium Project's task force on science, technology and innovation. It says science, technology and innovation have helped largely to eliminate poverty and hunger and have driven remarkable economic growth in much of south-east Asia and the Asian Pacific. Yet their potential for helping solve poverty and hunger elsewhere, most notably in Africa, is under-appreciated, the report says. Full Story BBC News_ 1/6/05 Top 25 technical innovations of the past 25 years: And No. 1 is ... You'll have to wait until Sunday, January 16, to find out. But it's not the cell phone (No. 2) or the personal computer (No. 3) or the ATM (No. 14) or the space shuttle (No. 20). The top 25 list was created by a panel of technology leaders assembled by the Lemelson-MIT Program, which promotes inventiveness in teens. Full Story CNN_ 1/5/05 Electronics industry battles for the living room Once the most technologically simple part of the average home, the living room is a high-tech battleground today as the consumer electronics industry seeks to digitize home entertainment and make it available anywhere, anytime. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) starting on Thursday in Las Vegas will set the agenda of what's in store in 2005 for the digital home-owner -- from ultra-high-definition television screens to music and video recorders and other networked appliances. Full Story Reuters_ 1/3/05 California sets fines
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