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April 15, 2003
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Dark Matter Exposed
As if it weren't strange enough that the cosmos is loaded with invisible and elusive matter, a new theory has the stuff wandering through the early universe like a drunken sailor.
The idea is a serious attempt to examine dark matter -- which is far more prevalent than normal matter -- by modeling its behavior, despite the troubling fact that no one knows what it actually is. The result is an animation showing how thousands of relatively small and invisible dark matter galaxies might have developed and still reside in the vicinity of our own Milky Way.
Chung-Pei Ma, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, unveiled the new theory here last week at a meeting of the American Physical Society. Ma envisions dark matter particles behaving like bits of dust bounced around by water molecules in a microscopic process called Brownian motion.
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Jump in Sars deaths
More people have died of a deadly flu-like illness Sars in Hong Kong in the last 24 hours than on any day since the outbreak started.
Health authorities announced on Tuesday that nine more people in the territory had died from Sars, taking the death toll to 56.
Three of the latest victims were previously healthy women in their 30s - one of whom underwent an emergency Casearean before her death to save her child.
Simon Parry, news editor of the South China Morning Post, told the BBC: "One thing that is worrying people is that the victims seem to be getting increasingly young.
SARS: PROBABLE CASES AND DEATHS
China 1,418 cases (64 deaths)
Hong Kong 1,190 (47)
Singapore 158 (12)
Canada 100 (13)
Vietnam 63 (5)
Thailand 8 (2)
Malaysia 4 (1)
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Intel, AMD to cut processor prices to boost demand
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) plan to cut prices of high-end products as they introduce new processors during the next few weeks to more significantly stimulate demand.
Downstream vendors have hoped both companies' price cuts would be able to boost buying sentiment. As the industry enters the traditional slow season in the second quarter, sales of processors have been relatively weak since the first week of April, local processor distributors said.
Intel is set to revise the price of its 400/533MHz FSB (front-side bus)-supporting 3GHz Pentium 4 processor down to US$401 when it introduces its 800MHz FSB-version product. Later next month, when it launches 800MHz FSB 2.8 and 2.6GHz processors, Intel will also lower prices of the respective 533MHz versions to US$262 and US$193.
AMD is planning to cut prices on its Athlon XP processors, ranging from the Athlon XP 2000+ to Athlon XP 3000+, at the same time it introduces its new 64-bit K8-core Opteron processors on April 22, according to local distributors. The greatest price cut is expected to be seen in the Athlon XP 3000+, exceeding 30%.
Despite the price cut schedule, some local channel vendors already lowered processor prices earlier this week, hoping to boost demand.
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AMD Ready to Drop the Hammer
Advanced Micro Devices has made itself into a consistent thorn in Intel's side with its Athlon XP desktop processors over the last few years, but hasn't made much headway against Intel's popular Xeon processors and notorious Itanium 2 processors for servers. On Tuesday, the company will unveil its Opteron server chip, which puts a new twist on a familiar technology.
The Opteron's launch event in New York comes after almost a year's worth of hype and promise from AMD. Based on the company's Hammer architecture, the processor uses 64-bit extensions to the x86 instruction set to allow users to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications on the same chip.
Chips for one-way, two-way, and four-way servers will be available on April 22, said Marty Seyer, vice president of marketing for AMD's server business, during an interview at Linuxworld in January.
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Techs Tangle With Privacy Regulations
April 15 is a national day of angst in the United States. But for many this year, the government-provoked pain arrived one day early.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a broad and complex set of federal privacy rules, went into effect Monday. HIPAA regulations are intended to give people more control over how their medical information is used. They affect anyone who works with or has access to medical information, from huge scientific research centers and big city hospitals to rural one-physician practices or any business that offers health insurance to employees.
Under the new rules, failure to properly protect medical information could result in fines of up to $250,000 and prison terms up to 10 years.
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Human genome finally complete
The biological code crackers sequencing the human genome have said they have finished the job - two years ahead of schedule.
Their announcement came less than three years after a "rough draft" was published to worldwide acclaim.
When UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and then US President Bill Clinton hailed the publication of the draft in June 2000, 97% of the "book of life" had been read.
The decoding is now close to 100% complete. The remaining tiny gaps are considered too costly to fill and those in charge of turning genomic data into medical and scientific progress have plenty to be getting on with.
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Research Shows Hazards in Nano Particles
A new review of research on nanoscale materials suggests that tiny particles are often toxic because of their size and are likely to pose health hazards, especially to workers making them.
Dr. Vyvyan Howard, a pathology specialist at the University of Liverpool who examined results from 27 studies published since 1984, said that the type of material a particle is made of appears to be much less related to how hazardous it is than its size at such small scales.
Dr. Howard said that nanoscale particles, which are made up of tens to thousands of molecules and are far smaller than human cells, are easily ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
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US rejects Iraq depleted uranium clean-up
The US says it has no plans to remove the debris left over from depleted uranium (DU) weapons it is using in Iraq.
It says no clean-up is needed, because research shows DU has no long-term effects.
It says a 1990 study suggesting health risks to local people and veterans is out of date.
A United Nations study found DU contaminating air and water seven years after it was used.
DU, left over after natural uranium has been enriched, is 1.7 times denser than lead, and very effective for punching through armoured vehicles.
When a weapon with a DU tip or core strikes a solid object, like the side of a tank, it goes straight through before erupting in a burning cloud of vapour. This settles as chemically poisonous and radioactive dust.
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More than 2.4 million use free IRS Web filing
More than 2.4 million people have used free tax preparation software provided through the Internal Revenue Service Web site to file their 2002 tax returns, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.
The figure does not include taxpayers who used the software during the week before the April 15 deadline, when the IRS gets a flood of last-minute returns.
The Internal Revenue Service exceeded its goal of 2 million users, despite complaints from consumer groups that taxpayers sometimes are subject to advertisements for other financial products. The program is free to encourage electronic filing.
"No one likes paying taxes. It's too confusing and time-consuming," said Treasury Secretary John Snow. "With this new free file Web site, we're seeing great success that has saved more than 2 million taxpayers time and money -- and an even bigger bonus is they get their refunds in half the time."
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First SARS Test Hits Labs
A German biotech company began distributing on Monday what it says is the first commercial test for a respiratory virus that has killed over 140 people and infected more than 3,300 worldwide, ravaging parts of Asia.
Hamburg-based Artus said it had developed the test for the virus causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, with the nearby Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in just two weeks and had begun distributing it free.
"We have had a wave of demand... We are providing it free of charge. It is an urgent medical need," Artus's marketing director Kay Koerner told Reuters, adding that the company may later seek financial gain from the test.
The test can detect the virus from throat swabs, sputum or feces and produces results in two hours, say its makers, who specialize in disease test kits. They said classical tests for antibodies typically took 10 to 20 days after infection.
Koerner said Artus had already sent test kits to a number of Asian countries, and laboratories in Australia, Germany and Scandinavian countries were also being supplied.
Artus, which has subsidiaries in Malaysia and the United States, is not stock market listed. It was set up as an independent company by the BNI.
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Prozac 'could beat cancer'
The anti-depressant drug Prozac could help doctors tackle cancer, says a UK-based research team.
The drug has been around for well over a decade, and is an established treatment for depression.
However, in recent years, doctors have suggested it might have other benefits.
Researchers from Birmingham University looked at the effects of a variety of chemicals on cancer cells of a type called Burkitt's lymphoma.
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Microsoft beats expectations
Microsoft beat Wall Street expectations Tuesday, chugging ahead despite a weak economy and slow technology spending.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant reported third-quarter earnings of $2.79 billion, or 26 cents a share, compared with $2.74 billion, or 50 cents a share, a year earlier. In January, Microsoft announced a two-for-one stock split, making the year-ago comparison 25 cents a share if the split is figured in.
Revenue rose 8 percent to $7.84 billion, from $7.25 billion a year earlier. Sequentially, sales declined from $8.54 billion in the fiscal second quarter. The company said operating income was up 13 percent, to $3.72 million from $3.3 million a year ago.
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Google founder wanted phones banned from HQ
Google co-founder Sergei Brinn left the Soviet Union when he was five years old, but was able to communicate something of the Stakhanovite work ethic to his co-founder US-born Larry Page.
Page wanted no telephones to be installed near the employees, lest they waste valuable company time making phone calls. This, and more, we learn from a New York Times feature on the company published on Sunday.
The boy wonders Page and Brinn created Google as a research project at Stanford University, but when the two scamps entered the real world, their dorm room eccentricities continued.
It was Page, we learn, who ordered telephones banned from the Google office as he thought they posed a potential distraction to the cubicle-bound staff. He was thwarted by local safety regulations, and as the Times reports "The building now has a phone system."
In the article, Page and Brinn are pictured in the now traditional setting - surrounded by infantile baubles and colorful toys - an innocent Michael Jackson world, where a magical Segway ride is a grasp away.
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Intel says chip sales fall while demand stays flat
Chip firm Intel said it had made net profits of $915 million on turnover of $6.75 billion.
Profits are down two per cent compared to the same quarter last year, while its sales were flat, in fact slightly down, compared to its financial Q1 last year.
The firm said its flash business had not performed as well as expected for the quarter, but its other bread and butter products also failed to shine .
Gross margin for the quarter came in at a slightly higher 52 per cent than it expected, because Intel managed to save money on wafer starts, sold stock it had, and also sold more higher margin products during the period.
Sales of its mainstay, microprocessors, were lower than expected. Chipset sales were flat, motherboard sales were lower, Ethernet product shipments were lower and so too were sales of flash memory.
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Cyberattacks with offline damage
What's virtual is virtual, and what's real is real. Right?
Maybe not.
Most experts think of cyberattack as something that will happen in the virtual world, with effects on, say, computer networks or access to bank accounts. Cyberattacks involving the use of online tools against the offline world would be much harder.
But a recent paper by a computer security researcher at Johns Hopkins University suggests that there are plenty of gateways that connect the cyberworld with the more familiar terrain of the physical world that some refer to as "meatspace." And since he is a security researcher, he does it by showing the potential for a cunning attack that crosses that gateway.
Aviel D. Rubin, the technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, describes in the paper with two co-authors a real-world attack that uses computers to automate tasks and the power of the Internet to disseminate information.
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'Oldest religious icon in Americas'
This image of a god or goddess with a fanged mouth and clawed feet may be the oldest religious icon in the Americas.
According to archaeologists, it pushes back the dawn of religion in the area by 1,000 years.
The fragment of a bowl dated to about 4,000 years ago bears the image of the Staff God - the main deity in the Andes for thousands of years.
The figure was found at a looted cemetery on the coast of Peru, 120 miles north of Lima.
The area appears to have been the ancestral home of pre-Inca civilisation.
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Mobile Phones Gain Virus Protection
SK Telecom, Korea's largest wireless carrier, along with anti-virus vendor Ahn Lab and mobile security specialist I.A. Security last week unveiled new anti-virus tools for mobile phones.
As part of the trio's eight-month development effort, SK Telecom provided wireless platform technology, with Ahn Lab developing a mobile anti-virus engine and I.A. Security supplying wireless security technology, officials said.
This new type of anti-virus software is similar to PC-operated products, preventing viruses from spreading, neutralizing new viruses, scheduling updates, scanning compressed files in real time and alerting users to security vulnerabilities.
The extended mobile security technology gives Ahn Lab and I.A. Security a jump-start in this new market while allowing SK Telecom to provide safe mobile Internet services.
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Judge nixes class action in Microsoft suits
A federal judge on Monday rejected class-action status for more than 60 consumer lawsuits pending against Microsoft, but allowed a more limited lawsuit alleging overpricing to proceed.
According to the ruling issued by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Maryland, Microsoft would not have to face a class-action consumer lawsuit because it would be difficult to identify a group of plaintiffs who would be considered typical buyers of Microsoft's software.
The ruling, which would make it more difficult for plaintiffs' lawyers to extract multimillion-dollar settlements from the software giant, comes after Microsoft settled its antitrust case with the federal government and most states in the past few months.
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NASA Takes A Look At Menacing Glacier in Peru
An Earth-monitoring instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite is keeping a close eye on a potential glacial disaster-in-the-making in Peru's spectacular, snow-capped Cordillera Blanca (White Mountains), the highest range of the Peruvian Andes.
Data from NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) is assisting Peruvian government officials and geologists in monitoring a glacier that feeds Lake Palcacocha, located high above the city of Huaraz, 270 kilometers (168 miles) north of Lima. An ominous crack has developed in the glacier. Should the large glacier chunk break off and fall into the lake, the ensuing flood could hurtle down the Cojup Valley into the Rio Santa Valley below, reaching Huaraz and its population of 60,000 in less than 15 minutes.
"Remote sensing instruments like Aster can serve a vital role in mountain hazard management and disaster mapping by providing rapid access to data, even in regions not easily accessible by humans," explained Dr. Michael Abrams, associate Aster team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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Want a job? Lose the 'wacky' e-mail
Job applicants who use 'wacky' e-mail addresses are far less likely to get the position, according to a poll of U.K. human resources managers.
Yahoo Mail discovered that the majority of HR managers will just disregard an application if it comes from an address that casts the applicant in a less-than-serious light. Two of the examples provided by Yahoo were "elvisthechicken2003" and "LarryLoonyLamb."
While most people now find it difficult to find an Internet service provider that can provide "yourname@ISP.com," due to the fact that most common names--and even most not-so-common names--have been taken, Alick Mighall, head of production at Yahoo Mail, urged users to play it straight when choosing their e-mail address.
"Applicants with wacky e-mail addresses may stand out from the crowd--but probably to their detriment, in the workplace. It's best to keep your e-mail boring and businesslike when job-hunting," Mighall said.
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Lawyers see security suit-riddled future
Harry the Hacker could leave a long trail of lawsuits in his wake.
At the RSA Conference 2003 here on Tuesday, lawyers outlined a hypothetical scenario, in which Harry the Hacker, angry because he's been fired, decides to put his computing skills to work for nefarious purposes. During his cracking spree, Harry's escapades include using the insecure system of We Care Hospital to launch an attack against a bank, stealing the credit card numbers of customers of an online porn company, discovering the medical records of his former boss, which indicate he has just tested positive for HIV, and posting those records on the Web.
Harry then absconds with millions and flees the country, leaving a path strewn with victims of identity theft, privacy breaches, and of course, staggering financial losses. Soon after, the finger pointing ensues.
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AOL targets spam e-mails
The largest internet service provider in the US, America Online is taking legal action to try to stop the flood of spam that has infuriated many of its 27 million customers.
AOL has filed lawsuits against more than a dozen individuals and companies who it says have sent millions of unsolicited messages through its electronic network.
In language reminiscent of the Pentagon, America Online says its lawsuits are aimed at leadership targets in a war against junk e-mails.
Spam accounts for as much as 40% of global e-mail traffic and is causing a headache for businesses, costing them billions in lost productivity.
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Mozilla: Phoenix and Minotaur to be renamed Firebird and Thunderbird
After months of discussion and further months of legal investigation, we're finally comfortable moving forward with new names. The new name for the Phoenix browser is 'Firebird'. The documentation and product strings will be updated soon. In addition to securing Firebird, we've also got the OK from those contributing legal resources to use the name 'Thunderbird' for a mail client. Hopefully this will be the end of naming legal issues for a while.
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Apple snaps up Universal domain name
There's still no official confirmation of whether the rumoured deal between Apple and Universal Studios will come to fruition, but it's obvious the maker of personal computers is champing at the bit.
Just in case the $6 billion comes off, it appears that Apple has registered the web site appleuniversal.com, ready for business to start.
The whois server reveals that appleuniversal.com is registered by Apple Computer Inc of Cupertino, just a few days ago, on the 11th of April.
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The Economist Tackles Linux
Larry Ellison, the boss of Oracle, the world's second-largest software firm, likes to make bold claims. Last week he was at it again, attacking his old foe, Microsoft, the world's biggest software company. Microsoft, he declared, risked being "wiped off the face of the earth" by Linux, the free, open-source operating system developed by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish programmer, and a team of enthusiasts. As always, Mr Ellison's prediction should be taken with a handful of salt. But it contains a germ of truth, because the rise of Linux is changing the dynamics of the computer business. Some of the industry's titans benefit from its advance, while others lose.
The appeal of Linux is clear. It is free, unlike such rival operating systems as Microsoft's Windows and Sun's Solaris. And it runs on almost any computer, providing compatibility, flexibility and further cost savings. Linux is used mostly to run servers, the back-office machines that handle e-mail, web pages, file sharing, and printing. Several Linux boxes can also be "clustered" together to create cheaply a machine with the power of a supercomputer.
Linux has yet to have much impact in the highest echelons of business computing: telecoms-billing systems, airline-reservation systems, and so on. But it is advancing steadily. Once limited to dotcoms, it is now used by such firms as Merrill Lynch, Verizon and Boeing. "2001 was the year of interest, 2002 the year of pilot projects, and 2003 is the year of deployment," says Avery Lyford of Linuxcare, whose software simplifies the adoption of Linux by big firms. A recent report by Gartner, a consultancy, says that "businesses are coming to regard Linux as a worthy alternative to Unix and Windows."
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Mars Or Bust
NASA picked landing sites Friday for twin rovers targeted for a January arrival at Mars to prospect for geological evidence that the Red Planet was once a warmer, wetter place hospitable to life.
The sites were selected after extensive analysis to maximize the chances for safe landings while ensuring a good scientific result from the mission.
Data gathered from NASA satellites orbiting the planet suggest both sites once abounded in water.
One is a crater into which a now-dry river apparently once emptied, perhaps filling the basin with a brimming lake. The other is a plain rich in hematite, an iron mineral that typically forms in standing water.
The sites, both near the equator in the southern hemisphere of Mars, are halfway around the planet from each other.
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Moor fires threaten rare bird
The future of a rare bird of prey is under threat after nesting sites in Lancashire were destroyed by fire.
Conservation group English Nature said two internationally important breeding areas for the hen harrier were wiped out in the fires, describing one of them as "intentionally targeted".
Up to 250 hectares of heather moorland were affected in the fire, within the special protection areas (SPAs) on Bowland Fell and North Pennine Moors.
On Monday, English Nature (EN) said the threat to the harrier was "dreadful news".
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Sony Revises New PS2 Model
SCE will release a new, upgraded version of the PlayStation 2 console, model number SCPH-50000, in Japan on May 15 for 25,000 yen (about US$207). The new model will support DVD-RW media (although it cannot actually write data to them) and 525p progressive scan DVD playback, and produce about 30% less noise thanks to a modified exhaust fan. However, it lacks the IEEE 1394 ports (aka FireWire) installed in earlier versions of the PlayStation 2.
At the same time, Sony also plans to release a new DVD remote controller, priced at 2,200 yen (about US$17). The revised remote has two extra buttons for opening and closing the PS2's disc tray and turning the power on and off. The new remote is matched by an integrated IR receiver in the console, obviating the need for a receiver plugged into one of the system's controller ports.
Dedicated fans of a few games like Armored Core may be disappointed at the lack of system link capability in the new model -- the ports were removed to balance the costs incurred by revising and upgrading other aspects of the console -- but DVD enthusiasts will certainly appreciate the addition of progressive scan support and more streamlined remote control functions, at an only marginal price increase. Sony plans to introduce the new model to markets outside Japan at some time after the Japanese release -- we'll likely learn more on the subject at E3.
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Technology brings on-demand Buses
People living in remote areas of the UK could find a new buses-on-demand scheme offers a fresh solution to the age-old dilemma of rural travel.
The transport system designed at the University of Newcastle uses sophisticated computer technology to provide flexible timetables, influence bus routes and even offer door-to-door services.
The pilot project in the north of England is being managed and funded by Northumberland County Council in partnership with the Transport Operations Research Group at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Early indications suggest that the Phone and Go scheme is proving a big hit with locals.
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Update: Bug Causes Intel to Stop Shipping New CPU
Intel has discovered a bug in a small number of its new 3.0GHz Pentium 4 processors, and has halted shipments of the processor to customers.
Early this morning, Intel spokesperson George Alfs contacted ExtremeTech's Nick Stam and PC Magazine's Rich Fisco, to inform them of the "temporary delay." According to Alfs, Intel placed the processor on temporary shipment hold because of the company's commitment to quality.
It is not known what the nature of the bug is. Intel discovered the bug in the course of final validation testing, according to Alfs, on a "very small number" of 800-MHz bus processors.
Alfs declined to comment on whether the bug was confined to the processor itself, or its interaction with the Canterwood chipset. However, the bug does seem tied to the FSB interface; a Canterwood chipset paired with a Pentium 4 that uses a 533-MHz front-side bus "is not affected by this issue," Alfs said.
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