Does Amazon's Tablet Future Lie With Microsoft?

A Department of Defense policy has opened up social networking sites to American troops, to help them stay in touch with friends and family on long deployments, and help the military increase recruitment. In an organization in which certain information simply cannot be shared, the new policy is seen as a remarkable nod toward openness.

"We need to take advantage of these capabilities that are out there, this Web 2.0 phenomena," David Wennergren, deputy assistant secretary of defense for information technology, told the BBC.

Under the policy, the social networks will be more open to all branches of the military and policing of them will be consistent. Before Friday, when the new policy took effect, the Army banned access to YouTube and other sites, and the Marines banned all networking sites.

Pornography, gambling and hate sites remain off-limits, and commanders will still have the ability to limit access to social media sites on sensitive missions. According to the DoD's news release, commanders who need to "safeguard missions" from social networking sites can do so by "temporarily limiting access to the Internet." But Wennergren said there are other, more traditional ways of compromising military safety.

"You can't just have the policy be that you're going to block access to MySpace," he told Reuters. "Because there are 10,000 ways people could still compromise a mission -- by making a phone call, or sending an e-mail."

In other words, the military has chosen to train its troops in safe social networking practices instead of banning them from using such sites altogether.

At the Huffington Post, David Meerman said the new policy put the Department of Defense ahead of most major U.S. corporations. "I think the big thing here is trust," he wrote. "If you're an employee who works for a company that blocks access, I suggest you tell them about the DoD."

Some said the new policy may be a sign that most social networking sites are more dull than dangerous. Kyle VanHemert of Gizmodo, for example, seemed to shrug. "It's always heartening when our government shows itself to be forward-thinking on matters of the Internet, and allowing DoD employees to use the Internet to its full, inane extent is definitely a step in the right direction."

When the Marines banned Twitter, Facebook and MySpace in August, 2009, it said that servicemembers who overshare could endanger themselves, their fellow troops, or their mission.

"These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries," the Corps said in a statement.

But troops have been using social networking sites to post videos and photographs from battle zones for years.

The Army's 10th Mountain Division, for example, has a blog. Last week, the division's commander, Major General James L. Terry, invited troops and their families to take on the subject of Don't Ask, Don't Tell ban on gays in the military. One gay soldier posted anonymously:

"I live in constant fear that my career could end at any moment. I hate having to hide who I am and there's not a day that goes by that I don't struggle with it. When I ended my relationship of 7 years, I couldn't talk to anyone about it. My relationship lasted longer than most military marriages and yet I have no support. I still go to work everyday having to put up a front that everything is fine, because as far as anyone was concerned I wasn't even dating anyone."

On Facebook, many troop divisions have their own groups where friends and family can keep track of their deployed loved ones. This one, from the Army's Task Force 2-29, has over 1,200 fans, and a regularly updated video feed.

And troops have also been posting raw combat footage from Iraq and Afghanistan on YouTube, videos that often resemble a violent music video. This footage of the 3rd Battalion in Iraq was edited by Corp. Jan M. Bender, in 2004:

Even the command has caught on. Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is on Twitter. A few weeks ago, Mullen used his feed to reiterate his support for the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. "Stand by what I said: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the right thing to do. Comes down to integrity," he tweeted.

And the USNS Comfort, the medical ship stationed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, has tweeted about its rescue efforts on Twitter. "Today we had our first baby born aboard!" they wrote a few weeks ago.

Filed under: Nation, World, Tech, Top Stories

Are Microsoft, Google Engaged In A Proxy War?

Late last year, Google filed suit against a small Internet site in Ohio, in an effort to collect $335,000 in unpaid advertising bills. In response, last month, the site countered with a 24-page antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of various "monopolistic abuses," The Wall Street Journal reports. Making things more interesting, the site's legal counsel just so happens to be Charles "Rick" Rule -- the longtime chief outside counsel on competition issues for Microsoft Corp.

Perhaps more interesting still, TheStreet.com suggests in no uncertain terms that "fear of a global conspiracy by Microsoft" led Google to plant to story in The Journal as part of a pre-emptive media campaign. "Google claims that Microsoft is launching a 'proxy war' using this collection of little cases to slowly build up a big case," writes the news outlet. "To retaliate, Google is using the Wall Street Journal as its own proxy for a court of law and taking its case against Microsoft straight to the public." 

News Corp.(NWS Quote), which owns the Journal, looks a little like a pawn in this game playing by these titans of technology.

Considering Microsoft's own comeuppance by antitrust authorities in the U.S. and Europe, it's easy to see why Google's paranoia was granted credibility by the Journal. Microsoft certainly makes no bones about its own concern over Google's Web dominance. But where's the proof?

For the time being, all we've got is tantalizing supposition by Google that makes for entertaining -- if not particularly useful -- reading.

Donegal doodler wins Google prize

Ruth Deeney's prize-winning Google doodle

A young Irish artist will have her work viewed by millions of internet users this week after winning a contest to have her drawing displayed on internet giant Google’s homepage
Ruth Deeney, a fourth-year student, from Loreto Community School in Milford, will now see her futuristic-themed drawing go online on Wednesday.
She also received a €10,000 technology grant for her school and a laptop for herself and her teacher.
More than 75,000 public votes were cast to select the four finalists in the Doodle 4 Google contest under the theme My Future.
Ruth’s drawing of a fortune teller gazing into a crystal ball was then handpicked for the number one spot by Google’s master doodler Michael Lopez.
Mr Lopez, who treated all 80 regional winners to a creative art class in Dublin, said choosing the top picture had been a tough task.
“I am delighted to return to Ireland this year to once again see the fabulous creativity and talent displayed by young Irish artists,” he added. “Ruth’s doodle will look great on Google’s home page.”
The public now has the chance to view all of the finalists’ doodles, at a special exhibition in Dublin’s Science Gallery which runs until Thursday.
Alice Mansergh of Google Ireland said the 80 regional winners should be very proud of their achievement.
“This is our second year running the Doodle 4 Google competition in Ireland and the standard of doodles from all entrants was again very high,” she said. “It was fantastic to see the support of the general public who voted for their local students and their favourite doodles.”
The three winners in the remaining age categories of the Doodle 4 Google competition are: Ellen Hayden, Scoil Bhride, Ballyboy, Co Offaly; Savannah Bergin, Scoil Rois in Galway; Ciara Hayley, Loreto Community School, Milford, Co Donegal.

Iran still failing to co-operate, says head of nuclear watchdog

IAEA chief's stance reinforces calls for sanctions over Tehran's failure to end uranium enrichment

Yukiya Amano at a press conference in Vienna today. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Iran is still failing to co-operate with the UN's nuclear watchdog, its new head said today, strengthening those voices calling for new sanctions to force Tehran to comply with international demands.
Yukiya Amano, addressing the first meeting of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since he took over as director-general, said he was unable to confirm that Tehran was engaged solely in peaceful nuclear activities "because Iran has not provided the agency with the necessary co-operation".
Iran immediately rejected the charge. "We have always welcomed and encouraged negotiations and talks," said its foreign minister, Manuchehr Mottaki, during a visit to Geneva.
The exchange came as the United States and Britain orchestrate support for new United Nations action against Iran for its failure to cease uranium enrichment. Russia has moved towards the western position in recent weeks, while diplomatic efforts are focusing on persuading China ‑ one of the veto-wielding "permanent five" members of the security council ‑ to back a new resolution.
Israeli officials said today they were optimistic that China would not use its veto after hearing Israeli arguments about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. Israel ‑ which unlike Iran has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty ‑ is the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
Amano, a Japanese disarmament expert, came under fire last month when he suggested Iran was trying to develop a nuclear-armed missile, fuelling fears in Tehran that he was taking a tougher line than his Egyptian predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei.
The first report produced during Amano's term used unusually blunt language to confirm that Iran had produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher purity — 20% — but said the Islamic Republic had failed to give inspectors the required advance notice. It also referred to the possible existence of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.
International attitudes to Iran hardened last autumn after it revealed a previously unknown nuclear facility in the mountains near Qom, apparently to pre-empt exposure by the United States.
Tehran insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

Scientists discover the motion of molecules in cell membranes

Researchers Sebastian Busch, Christoph Smuda, Luis Carlos Pardo and Tobias Unruh have published an article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), in which they demonstrate that the molecules in cell membranes move in a flowing motion rather than chaotically, as previously thought.
Researchers Sebastian Busch, Christoph Smuda, Luis Carlos Pardo and Tobias Unruh have discovered using neutron spectroscopy techniques that the molecules of a cell membrane do not move at random as previously believed, but rather in a flowing motion as suggested by various computer simulations. The discovery has a major impact on the regeneration of cell membranes and the biological mechanisms that involve membrane proteins.

They demonstrate that the molecules in cell membranes move in a flowing motion rather than chaotically, as previously thought.
The human body is formed by cells whose ‘skin' consists of a phospholipid membrane with amphipathic molecules that can repel and absorb water. This property enables them to self-organize into cell walls, in a manner similar to bricks being thrown in water and then moving to form the walls of a house. The membrane also has a surprising ability to regenerate itself. According to Luis Carlos Pardo, a researcher at the Department of Physics and Nuclear Engineering of the UPC, "although the molecules that form the membrane are huge in relative terms, they have the uncanny ability to move and this is precisely what is responsible for the self-healing process. Imagine the bricks of a house being able to rebuild a broken wall.."
The research team of the UPC's Materials Characterization Group has devised a Bayesian analysis method (fitting algorithm for Bayesian analysis of data, FABADA) that has refuted the idea that membrane molecules move chaotically by diffusion. Instead, the team has discovered that they form currents that run through the cell membranes like a river. "This means that their small-scale mobility is greater than previously thought," says Professor Pardo, a member of the team at the UPC's Nanoengineering Research Center.
Phospholipid cell membranes are a very interesting area of research due to their natural abundance (every human body contains several square kilometers) and their pharmaceutical applications.
A fascinating albeit obscure membrane
Cell membranes were largely unknown until just over a decade ago, when the development of nanotechniques yielded detailed information on their structure. Nevertheless, their movement dynamics remained a mystery that did not begin to be solved until the discovery of neutron spectroscopy, a technique that uses a beam of neutrons to reveal the properties of certain materials and for which Bertram Brockhouse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004.

New Solar Cell Discovery (BP)

Huge news out of CalTech last month, they have invented a new Solar Cell that is flexible and converts Solar Energy more efficiently. The project was funded by BP (BP)
PASADENA, Calif.—Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.
"These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials," says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech's Resnick Institute, which focuses on sustainability research.
This is a photomicrograph of a silicon wire array embedded within a transparent, flexible polymer film.
The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. "We've surpassed previous optical microstructures developed to trap light," he says.
Atwater and his colleagues—including Nathan Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry at Caltech, and graduate student Michael Kelzenberg—assessed the performance of these arrays in a paper appearing in the February 14 advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials.
Atwater notes that the solar cells' enhanced absorption is "useful absorption."
"Many materials can absorb light quite well but not generate electricity—like, for instance, black paint," he explains. "What's most important in a solar cell is whether that absorption leads to the creation of charge carriers."
The silicon wire arrays created by Atwater and his colleagues are able to convert between 90 and 100 percent of the photons they absorb into electrons—in technical terms, the wires have a near-perfect internal quantum efficiency. "High absorption plus good conversion makes for a high-quality solar cell," says Atwater. "It's an important advance."
The key to the success of these solar cells is their silicon wires, each of which, says Atwater, "is independently a high-efficiency, high-quality solar cell." When brought together in an array, however, they're even more effective, because they interact to increase the cell's ability to absorb light.
"Light comes into each wire, and a portion is absorbed and another portion scatters. The collective scattering interactions between the wires make the array very absorbing," he says.
This is a schematic diagram of the light-trapping elements used to optimize absorption within a polymer-embedded silicon wire array.
This effect occurs despite the sparseness of the wires in the array—they cover only between 2 and 10 percent of the cell's surface area.
"When we first considered silicon wire-array solar cells, we assumed that sunlight would be wasted on the space between wires," explains Kelzenberg. "So our initial plan was to grow the wires as close together as possible. But when we started quantifying their absorption, we realized that more light could be absorbed than predicted by the wire-packing fraction alone. By developing light-trapping techniques for relatively sparse wire arrays, not only did we achieve suitable absorption, we also demonstrated effective optical concentration—an exciting prospect for further enhancing the efficiency of silicon-wire-array solar cells."
Each wire measures between 30 and 100 microns in length and only 1 micron in diameter. “The entire thickness of the array is the length of the wire,” notes Atwater. “But in terms of area or volume, just 2 percent of it is silicon, and 98 percent is polymer.”
In other words, while these arrays have the thickness of a conventional crystalline solar cell, their volume is equivalent to that of a two-micron-thick film.
Since the silicon material is an expensive component of a conventional solar cell, a cell that requires just one-fiftieth of the amount of this semiconductor will be much cheaper to produce.
The composite nature of these solar cells, Atwater adds, means that they are also flexible. "Having these be complete flexible sheets of material ends up being important," he says, "because flexible thin films can be manufactured in a roll-to-roll process, an inherently lower-cost process than one that involves brittle wafers, like those used to make conventional solar cells."
Atwater, Lewis, and their colleagues had earlier demonstrated that it was possible to create these innovative solar cells. "They were visually striking," says Atwater. "But it wasn't until now that we could show that they are both highly efficient at carrier collection and highly absorbing."
The next steps, Atwater says, are to increase the operating voltage and the overall size of the solar cell. "The structures we've made are square centimeters in size," he explains. "We're now scaling up to make cells that will be hundreds of square centimeters—the size of a normal cell."
Atwater says that the team is already "on its way" to showing that large-area cells work just as well as these smaller versions.
In addition to Atwater, Lewis, and Kelzenberg, the all-Caltech coauthors on the Nature Materials paper, "Enhanced absorption and carrier collection in Si wire arrays for photovoltaic applications," are postdoctoral scholars Shannon Boettcher and Joshua Spurgeon; undergraduate student Jan Petykiewicz; and graduate students Daniel Turner-Evans, Morgan Putnam, Emily Warren, and Ryan Briggs.
Their research was supported by BP and the Energy Frontier Research Center program of the Department of Energy, and made use of facilities supported by the Center for Science and Engineering of Materials, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Caltech. In addition, Boettcher received fellowship support from the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.

Survey: 26 Pct Of Americans Get News Via Phone

Just over a quarter of American adults now read news on their cell phones, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

The survey results being released by the group Monday offer another sign of how people are changing they way they get information. Technology has been reshaping the news business and the way consumers relate to it for more than a decade. The latest shift is being driven by the exploding popularity of phones that can easily access the Internet.

The new study found that 26 percent of Americans get news on their phones. Pew doesn't have comparable data for say, two or three years ago. But evidence of the shift in habits can be seen in this finding: Younger cell phone owners are more likely to look for news on their phones. About 43 percent of those under 50 said they are mobile news consumers, compared with 15 percent of older respondents.

Still, some things don't change. Readers' No. 1 concern when they look for news on their phones: the weather. Of the 37 percent of cell phone owners who said they use the Internet on their phone, 72 percent said they check weather reports. Current events came in second with 68 percent.

Pew's survey offered a wide range of statistics on people's news habits. It showed people are not relying on one medium. Just shy of 60 percent of respondents get news from both online and offline sources. And 46 percent said they use four to six different types of media on a typical day.

The Web is also helping to turn the news into more of a social experience: More than 80 percent of respondents get or receive news via e-mailed links.

The results were based on telephone interviews with 2,259 people over the age of 18, conducted between Dec. 28 and Jan. 19. For questions to that entire group, the margin of error was 2.3 percentage points. On questions to just Internet users, the margin was 2.7 percentage points.

EU cell phone users to have limited online surfing

BRUSSELS — Mobile phone operators must now limit how much they charge customers for using the Internet within the European Union, after new rules went into effect Monday.

Customers have until July 1 to set a maximum monthly cost with their network, and those who do not will by default have a euro50 ($68) limit set.

Networks will send a warning when customers use up 80 percent of their allotment. At the limit, they will be cut off.

The European Commission has pressed networks into slashing roaming charges, leading to a 35 percent drop in the average cell phone bill to about euro20 a month, according to EU data.

But until now the cost of online surfing had remained unchanged. The EU office noted that German traveler was billed euro46,000 after watching a TV show in 2009 while roaming online in France, and a British student was charged euro9,000 for a month's roaming while studying abroad.

By setting a monthly Internet limit, the European Commission hopes that "the tendency for operators will be to bring the price of surfing the Web down," EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said.

Neelie Kroes, the new EU digital issues commissioner, called the new measure a step in "building customers' confidence to surf the Internet when traveling in Europe."

Network operators can now charge each other no more than 1euro per megabyte for downloading. National telecoms regulators are responsible for enforcing the rules with mobile phone operators, and the EU commission will report on the issue by June 2011.

Arlene McCarthy, a British Labourite in the European Parliament who was instrumental in pushing through the roaming legislation, said "European consumers can now determine just how much they're willing to spend on their mobile while they're abroad.

"It's a shame that despite the huge numbers of complaints, mobile operators dragged their feet and we have had to use the full force of the law to get consumers a fair deal on prices," she added.

LG plot first Windows Series 7 mobile: a business-like slider

LG will make a high-end Windows Phone 7 Series handset coming out around September they announced in New York. Microsoft's new Operating System for mobile phones should get a consumer friendly receptacle in the as-yet-unnamed LG handset.
Details are pretty vague but LG promise "a compelling and unique user experience", a Bing search engine (of course)
According to some grabbed pictures on Engadget, the phone is a buisness-like QWERTY keyboard device with hard corners and it is certainly capable of showing pictures of raspberries on it's homescreen (we imagine it has a few more tricks in its box, but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves here.)
Apparently LG and Microsoft have been working closely together for a while to bring Windows Phones to the market. The display of the phone in New York was the first time Microsoft has displayed Windows Phone 7 Series on a branded phone.