U.S. Tech Employment Hits Its Highest Point In Seven Years

The 2% unemployment rate matches other professional categories and is a big improvement from 5% in 2004.

The unemployment rate for IT occupations fell to 2%, and total IT employment has reached nearly 3.6 million, better than it has been the past seven years, according to the most recent household employment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The results paint a much better picture for the health of the IT profession than during the recession of 2003 and 2004, when the IT unemployment rate hit 5.3%. But a shift in the type of work U.S. tech workers do also is continuing. The biggest job gains the past year come for software engineers, IT managers, and network systems analysts. Programmers and support specialists continue to lose jobs.

Total IT employment of 3.58 million and the size of the available IT workforce -- 3.65 million working or unemployed -- are at their highest levels since the BLS started using these eight computer-related job categories in 2000. At 2%, the tech unemployment rate matches that of the larger management and professional class measured by BLS. Employers added about 93,000 computer-related jobs from a year ago.

The figures are based on an InformationWeek analysis averaging quarterly BLS household surveys for the past 12 months, as of June.

Programmers remain the third largest IT job category, employing more than a half million people and providing 15% of computer-related jobs. Programmer employment is down 26% from 2001, and 3% from a year ago. Support specialist jobs slipped 4%, and make up 9% of the tech workforce.

IT management jobs continue to grow, providing 12% (423,000) of computer-related jobs. Manager jobs are up more than 50% since 2001 and 22% since 2004, as more IT pros take a bigger role leading projects, managing systems, and coordinating outsourcers and others vendors.

Twenty-five percent of tech pros are employed as software engineers, and 21% as computer scientists and system analysts. Engineer jobs grew 3%, computer scientist and analyst jobs dipped 1%.

Technorati : Employment, Highest, Hits, Point, Seven, Tech, U.S., Years

50 years on, Sputnik achievement remains undimmed

Wavery and high-pitched, the beep-beep signal picked up on Earth signalled the dawn of a new era.

Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union's launch, on October 4, 1957, of Sputnik 1, the starting signal for the Space Race and a propaganda coup that Russia's present leaders can only envy.

The launch of the world's first man-made satellite, a silvery orb with four frond-like antennae and two radio transmitters, was at first obscure.

The official announcement was buried in leaden prose in the corner of a Pravda newspaper front page, the identity of Sputnik's creator kept a state secret.

But soon awed headlines in Western newspapers alerted Moscow to the true propaganda potential of Sputnik and as more space launches took place, carrying dogs and then the first spaceman, Yury Gagarin, the world was captivated by the achievement.

"The sense of pride was huge," recalled Olga Zenkova, leader of a children's group touring Russia's current cosmonaut training centre near Moscow, Star City, ready with carnations to lay at a statue of Gagarin.

"We felt we had to be first in everything."

The United States was caught badly off balance, flailing in its response as the Soviets launched a second satellite less than a month later, carrying Laika the dog, who was to die within hours.

The United States' hurried launch of the Vanguard satellite on December 6 that year was a flop, or "flopnik," as the London Daily Herald observed in a headline, barely getting off the ground before it burst into flames.

Some in the West immediately detected a threat: Britain's Manchester Guardian warned that Sputnik necessitated "a psychological adjustment" not only towards the Soviet Union but towards its military capabilities.

But in the early years, the space race, at least from Moscow's point of view, was less of a hostile affair than it was to become.

Sputnik's launch gave a psychological lift to Soviet society, marking a break from life under wartime dictator Joseph Stalin, who had died in 1953, and a sense of optimism in the new, easier era of Nikita Khrushchev.

"Society itself was very upbeat in the 1950s.... Space was associated with going beyond limits. In this case it was physics but it could be associated with going beyond tradition," said Boris Kagarlitsky, a writer on the period and director of the Moscow-based Institute of Globalisation.

"Although there was a military element in space projects... they were presented with a humanitarian aspect. The aspect of rivalry with the United States was not much evident in the beginning especially because the Soviets were leading."

As for Sputnik's creator, Sergei Korolyov -- dubbed "the chief designer" as his identity was kept from the public throughout his life -- he seems to have put behind him a painful past and thought only of work.

Science had literally saved Korolyov, securing his return from the Siberian Gulag prison system where he had been forced to work as a miner on trumped up subversion charges and where he lost most of his teeth and nearly 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) in weight.

He was brought to work alongside other scientists and in a letter to his wife in 1953 mourned the death of Stalin, the man behind the Gulag, writing: "How this pains the heart, brings a lump to the throat. This really is a nationwide immense sorrow."

It was with iron determination that Korolyov went on to build Sputnik, jettisoning a more ambitious design when he heard of rival US plans and taking obsessive care to ensure its aluminium surface was spotlessly polished.

Contemporary accounts report that the day the carrier rocket was rolled from its hangar in Kazakhstan, Korolyov led the other designers in absolute silence for the whole 1.5 kilometre (one mile) walk to the launch pad.

Today Moscow appears to have lost the initiative, as the West ploughs unprecedented sums into space exploration and Washington deliberates on how long to maintain the International Space Station (ISS), a joint project with Russia.

At the Moscow house where Korolyov lived until his death aged 59, a tour guide, Valentina Golovkina, suggests he would have been "a bit sad" to see how Russia fell behind and failed to put a man on the Moon.

President Vladimir Putin has pressed into service the image of Korolyov as he exhorts Russia's scientists to up their game. There are plans afoot to send a probe to Mars and for a manned Moon mission by 2025.

In March he voiced pride that Russia had "paved the way for space exploration" but added: "We must... acknowledge that a whole decade, perhaps even more, of economic difficulties has had a negative impact on the development of our space sector."

In the last months of his life, as Korolyov laboured in the face of numerous health problems, he might have been surprised to learn that Russia would one day transport paying "tourists" to the ISS.

The next short-term visitor, Malaysian Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who is to blast off in October under an intergovernmental agreement, recently paid his respects to Russia's space achievements.

And Peggy Whitson, a US astronaut scheduled to blast off to the ISS next month, also paid tribute to "chief designer" and his Sputnik programme.

"It's why were going to space. I really recognize that the 50 year Sputnik anniversary is important to the whole world, not just to Russia."

That perhaps would have been enough for Korolyov as he pondered the future from the comfortable Moscow town house with which he was rewarded and where he tried to keep fit with morning gymnastics in his study.

"He did say people would one day go to space on trade union holidays," recalled the museum guide Golovkina.

Microsoft Excel does some fuzzy math

Microsoft's Excel 2007 spreadsheet program is going to have to relearn part of its multiplication table.
In a blog post, Microsoft employee David Gainer said that when computer users tried to get Excel 2007 to multiply some pairs of numbers and the result was 65,535, Excel would incorrectly display 100,000 as the answer.

NOT SO EXCEL-LENT: Calculation Issue Update blog post

Gainer said Excel makes mistakes multiplying 77.1 by 850, 10.2 by 6,425 and 20.4 by 3,212.5, but the program appears to be able to handle 16,383.75 times 4.

"Further testing showed a similar phenomenon with 65,536 as well," Gainer wrote Tuesday.

He said Excel was actually performing the calculations correctly, but when it comes time to show the answer on the screen, it messes up.

Gainer said the bug is limited to six numbers from 65,534.99999999995 to 65,535, and six numbers from 65,535.99999999995 to 65,536, and that Microsoft is working hard to fix the problem.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Microsoft | Excel | David Gainer

Excel (Electronic) Assemblies Ltd

The Business

Excel Assemblies (EA) was established in 1987 in a small industrial unit, making cable harnesses to customer specifications. The company has a turnover of £3m and employs 95 people. EA has a blue chip customer base within the UK, which covers a range of industry sectors, from vending machines to weighing scales. EA is a customer focussed and quality driven business and this is reflected in its operational culture.

The company's business objectives are to:

Grow its blue chip customer base across the UK;
Expand the business by offering value added services and by providing higher-level assembly facilities;
Improve market intelligence and promotion of the business;
Minimise expensive on-site customer support to resolve minor problems;
Increase exchange of information between customers, such as data transfer of CAD files, and other trading information.

Use of eCommerce

An earlier project, to adopt EDI between EA and one of its major customers had failed, with both partners expressing disappointment. However, the sales and marketing director was benefiting from improved communications with customers through his use of an Internet account.

The company has implemented two ISDN lines for general eMail and using the Net to look for suppliers. EA also created a basic Web site. Experimentation with Internet based video conferencing was unsuccessful, due to lack of bandwidth. A fall-back position was to use a small Web cam, and to send still pictures as attachments to eMail. EA intend to use a digital camera to improve image quality.

One of their major supplies is sending them daily sales and manufacturing forecasts, using eMail with an attached spreadsheet, saving two days of a clerk's time per week, which equates to a saving of £4,600 per annum. The customer has also benefited by reducing EA's stock-holding of looms by 50%. In return EA has become the sole supplier and increased overall turnover by 10%.

Benefits & Issues

Real business benefits, and a clear return on investment in eCommerce, have been won by EA in the areas of operations and logistics. A stonger and more mutually profitable business relationship has also been developed, with one of EA's major customers.

The main areas to address for the future use of eCommerce are:

The use of their web site for marketing and business development;
To resolve the customer service and technical support inefficiencies;
Explore the benefits of eBanking for financial transactions between their customers and suppliers;
To provide Internet access for all employees that use a PC.

Technorati : Excel, Microsoft, does, fuzzy, math, some

2007 Laptop Buyer’s Guide

It's been a long time coming and we're proud to announce that Geek.com's Laptop Buyer's Guide has finally been updated. The last time we released a version of this the Pentium 4 Mobile was the hottest thing going, 512 MB of RAM was more than enough, and Vista was still a long way off.

The updated guide goes through a notebook piece by piece so you can find what you are looking for and then customize it so you get just what you want. By using the recommended gear, you can ensure your notebook won't be outdated any time soon, though the minimum guidelines will be great for a basic system, such as for work or for a student.

The last part of the guide ties into Geek.com's real-time pricing engine to get you up-to-date prices on all sorts of hardware. While you will probably be interested in buying a notebook and not building one, these links can help you see how much individual components are selling for, which can be helpful for comparing to the upgrade price of laptop manufacturer, or even for upgrading a laptop that you already own.

Laptop Buyer's Guid

Thinking of buying a laptop? Make sure you know what you're getting. Below, you'll find our recommendations to keep in mind when buying a PC laptop and detailed information on each component found both inside and outside of your laptop.

If you want to dive right in and configure your own laptop, check out our Laptop Buying Engine where you can choose by manufacturer, processor type, screen size, and more.

Also, read through our PC Laptop Buyer FAQ and if you have comments on our recommendations, bring them to our Forums.

Technorati : 2007, Buyer’s, Guide, Laptop

Cell phones double as electronic wallets in Philippines

It's Thursday, so 18-year-old Dennis Tiangco is off to a bank to collect his weekly allowance, zapped by his mother - who's working in Hong Kong - to his electronic wallet: his cellphone.

Sauntering into a branch of GM Bank in the town of San Miguel, Dennis fills out a form, sends a text message via his phone to a bank line dedicated to the service.

In a matter of seconds, the transaction is approved and the teller gives him $54, minus a 1% fee. He doesn't need a bank account to retrieve the money.

More than 5.5 million Filipinos now use their cellphones as virtual wallets, making the Philippines a leader among developing nations in providing financial transactions over mobile networks.

Mobile banking services, which are also catching on in Kenya and South Africa, enable people who don't have bank accounts to transfer money easily, quickly and safely. It's spreading in the developing world because mobile phones are much more common than bank accounts.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Hong Kong | Philippines | Dennis | Telecom | Filipinos

The system is particularly useful for the 8 million Filipinos - 10% of the country's citizens - who work overseas and send money home, like Dennis' mother, Anna Tiangco. Previously, she sent money via a bank wire transfer, which costs $2.50 and takes two days to clear. The cellphone method costs only 13 cents, and is nearly instantaneous.

"The good thing here is, wherever my children are, they can text me and I can send money immediately," she said by telephone from Hong Kong.

Consumers also can store limited amounts of money on their cellphones to buy things at stores that participate in the network - although this practice isn't yet widespread in the Philippines.

Many more Filipinos use their phones to send airtime values called "loads" to prepaid subscribers. A parent, for example, can send a 60-peso load to replenish a child's cellphone, charged to the parent's account.

While Japanese and South Korean consumers have been using cellphones as virtual wallets for several years, those systems use a computer chip implanted in handset that allows people to buy things by waving the phone in front of a sensor. The Philippine system relies on simple text messages, which cost just 2 cents to send.

The 41 million cellphone users in the Philippines are avid texters. The electronic connections have fostered a culture of quick greetings and forwarded jokes. Text messages also played a key role in mobilizing crowds that fueled the 2001 "people power" revolt that ousted President Joseph Estrada.

The Philippines' two biggest mobile service providers, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications, have harnessed this penchant for text messaging to enable consumers to enter the world of e-commerce.

Tapping into the cash flow from overseas Filipinos - who sent home $12.7 billion last year - Globe and Smart forged partnerships with foreign mobile providers and banks, as well as with local banks and merchants, to create a network that allows users to send and receive cash internationally.

When Anna Tiangco wants to send cash home, for example, she goes to a branch of her local provider, Hong Kong CSL Ltd., where a clerk credits her cellphone with the amount she has brought with her. She then transfers the money to family members via text messages - in essence instructing her providers to deduct money from her balance to the recipients she indicates.

If a cellphone loaded with cash values is lost or stolen, the money can't be tapped as long as the personal identification number isn't revealed. Control over the funds can be restored with a replacement SIM card from either mobile provider.

The system was "built for remote payments and for the unbanked markets," said Rizza Maniego Eala, president of G-Xchange, Globe's subsidiary in charge of its G-Cash money transfer service.

Eala said her company's 500,000 G-Cash users transfer about $100 million monthly, but she declined to say how many transactions involve remittances from overseas.

Smart offers a slightly different money transfer system, used by about 5 million Filipinos, that links cash or a debit card to a cellphone.

Users load up their phones with money via text messages. The card, which does not require a bank account, can then be used to purchase goods in establishments that accept MasterCard, or to withdraw cash from an ATM machine.

Smart Communications spokesman Ramon Isberto said each time the recipient spends the money, the sender receives a transaction message. That allows the sender to see how the funds are used.

"The added value there now is that Filipinos overseas have greater control over their funds. Believe me, that is important to them," he said.

Smart and UAE's leading telecommunications operator, Etisalat, have agreed to provide money transfer service to hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in the Middle East. Smart also will soon launch a remittance system in Bahrain in partnership with MTC-Vodafone and Ahli United Bank there, and Banco de Oro in the Philippines, Isberto said.

"The bank products remain clearly bank products. We positioned ourselves as an enabler for banks and other financial institutions to provide products and services to their customers in ways they would otherwise not have been able to," he said.

Aside from transferring cash and making purchases, both Globe and Smart also allow their users to pay bills with their phones. Anna Tiangco said she pays her family's electric bills in San Miguel from Hong Kong via text messages, just like she sends money.

"Even if we are far apart, it's like we are still together," she said. "This is like my wallet now."

Technorati : Cell, double, electronic, iPhilippines, phones, wallets

Beyond Your PC in 2008

Blindingly fast chips, flexible displays, nanotube cooling, and more: Tomorrow's technologies will change everything about computing, whether you're at home, at work, or on the road.
The pace of everyday living may be hectic, but the pace of innovation is downright frenetic. Technologies barely imagined a few years ago are now poised to change the face of computing, as digital devices continue to burrow into every aspect of daily life.

The world of science fiction is rapidly becoming fact, from tabletops that charge your laptop wirelessly to wall-mounted PCs that recognize your face and gestures. Thanks to breakthroughs in miniaturization, you'll be able to tuck products into your pocket that wouldn't have fit into your briefcase a few years ago, such as projectors and photo printers. The next generation of Internet technology will change everything from TV to Coke machines. And standard computer building blocks are growing ever more powerful, as processor makers squeeze more cores onto each chip and drive makers pack more bits into each platter--guaranteeing that even ordinary PCs of the future will be anything but ordinary.

In the pages that follow, we spotlight a dozen major innovations, from ones right around the corner to a few that won't show up until at least 2012. On multiple fronts, the future you've been waiting for has almost arrived. Here's what you need to know to prepare for it.

Technorati : Beyond, PC, i2008

LHC MACHINE OUTREACH

LHC - the aim of the exercise:
To smash protons moving at 99.999999% of the speed of light into each other and so recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the big bang. The LHC experiments try and work out what happened

Google Acquisition

A Senate hearing on antitrust concerns about the proposed merger between Google and DoubleClick occasionally turned tense yesterday, as Microsoft and Google brought their corporate rivalry to Capitol Hill.

The hearing was prompted by worries that the $3.1 billion merger would create a behemoth in the online advertising business, potentially risking consumer privacy and stifling competition.



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Google and DoubleClick respectively dominate search and image advertising on the Web. A combined company would help create ads targeted at consumers' interests while preserving Web users' privacy, Google said.

Microsoft, which is trying to get a bigger foothold in that growing business, is lobbying against regulatory approval of the merger, saying it would consolidate too much of the market. Microsoft also said the merger could put consumer privacy at risk by consolidating information about what people do on the Web in the hands of a single powerful company.

The hearing, hosted by the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, became more antagonistic after a series of claims and counterclaims about Google's competitive intentions.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith accused Google of unfairly cornering the market and placing consumer data at risk of security breaches, and then told the senators that he and Google General Counsel David Drummond were "friends off the basketball court."

Drummond seemed to bristle at that comment, saying he didn't know what Smith meant with the sports reference, and then moved on with his rebuttal.

The Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission are reviewing the Google-DoubleClick deal. Although Congress has no authority to block the completion of a deal, lawmakers could decide that additional laws are necessary to protect online consumer privacy. In a letter to the FTC in July, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection, said he hopes to hold a hearing on the issue.

"No one concerned with antitrust policy should stand idly by if industry consolidation jeopardizes the vital privacy interests of our citizens so essential to our democracy," said Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), chairman of the antitrust subcommittee.

The Google-DoubleClick deal is only one of a rash of acquisitions announced in recent months. Microsoft announced plans in May to acquire aQuantive, DoubleClick's less powerful competitor.

Drummond argued that Google has been at the forefront of privacy efforts, noting that it was the first search engine to make search records anonymous after a period of time. He also said it is in the company's best interest to protect consumers' privacy because it needs to maintain users' trust.

Some agreed with Google's argument that targeted advertising benefits consumers.

"The evidence is that the use of personal information by online advertisers produces substantial consumer benefits," Thomas Lenard, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, said at the hearing. Google and Microsoft are among the companies that support the foundation.

But Alissa Cooper, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the deal points to the need for greater consumer protections. "If they thought this merger pointed to a larger, industry-wide problem, Congress could create those now," she said in an interview.

MIT Pranksters Give Harvard the Halo 3 Treatment

Massachusetts Institute of Technology pranksters celebrated this past Tuesday's debut of Microsoft's Xbox 360 Halo 3 by transforming the statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard into the Master Chief character from the much anticipated video game.

The statue was outfitted with a helmet and toy assault rifle under the cloak of darkness the night before the release and removed by around 8 a.m. that morning. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Master Chief character's real name is John. See a picture of the hoax here.

While you might think conducting any prank that involves a gun -- real or fake -- would spell immediate trouble with law enforcement, MIT officials say they are working with students on a pranking code of conduct.

Recent MIT pranks have focused on such things as the release of the last Harry Potter book. Among other things, students set up broomstick parking spaces.

While it might have seemed like another MIT prank, Microsoft earlier this week acknowledged some Halo 3 discs that shipped were scratched. Microsoft said it will replace discs of its Halo 3 Xbox 360 game that came scratched.

Meanwhile, the Halo 3 flu was a concern among tech-savvy employers this week, as video game enthusiasts were expected to call in sick to set upon the game.
Source

MIT and Novartis in new partnership aimed at transforming pharmaceutical manufacturing

Novartis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have launched a long-term research collaboration aimed at transforming the way pharmaceuticals are produced.

The 10-year partnership, known as the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, will work to develop new technologies that could replace the conventional batch-based system in the pharmaceuticals industry - which often includes many interruptions and work at separate sites - with continuous manufacturing processes from start to finish.

The Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing combines the industrial expertise of Novartis with MIT's leadership in scientific and technological innovation. Novartis will invest USD 65 million in research activities at MIT over the next 10 years.

"This partnership demonstrates our commitment to lead not only in discovering innovative treatments for patients but also in improving manufacturing processes, which are critical to ensuring a high-quality, efficient and reliable supply of medicines to patients. Our collaboration with MIT, a worldwide leader in developing cutting edge technologies, holds the promise to achieve a quantum leap in the production of pharmaceuticals, a field which has received rather little attention in the past," said Dr. Daniel Vasella, Chairman and CEO of Novartis.

Novartis and MIT expect the technologies created in this collaboration will benefit patients and healthcare providers through a positive impact on supply availability and the quality of medicines. These technologies will also seek to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing activities.

"The Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing has the potential to revolutionize drug development and production," said Susan Hockfield, MIT President. "We are delighted to collaborate with Novartis to help improve the way that drugs are manufactured so that patients have quicker and more reliable access to the medications they need. The new educational opportunities that this program will provide for our students make this partnership even more exciting."

The pharmaceutical industry currently uses batch-based manufacturing that has been common for several years, even though other industries have moved to continuous manufacturing.

In this often time-consuming process, pharmaceutical active ingredients are synthesized in a chemical manufacturing plant. These ingredients are then shipped to a manufacturing facility, often at another site, where they are converted through defined processes into giant batches of pills, liquid or cream. With multiple interruptions, including transport to separate locations, each batch may take weeks to produce. In addition, manufacturing design and scale-up for a new drug are very costly and time-consuming.

Expected benefits of continuous manufacturing include accelerating the introduction of new drugs by designing production processes earlier; using smaller production facilities, with lower building and capital costs; minimizing waste, energy consumption and raw material use; monitoring quality assurance on a continuous basis instead of post-production batch-based testing; and enhancing process reliability and flexibility to respond to market needs.

The initial research of the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing will be conducted primarily through Ph.D. programs at MIT laboratories, and then transferred to Novartis for further development to industrial-scale projects.

The partners expect the Center's work to involve seven to ten MIT faculty members, as well as students, postdoctoral fellows and staff scientists. Novartis will commit its manufacturing and R&D resources and will pilot new manufacturing processes with one of its pharmaceutical products.

About MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a co-educational privately endowed research university, is dedicated to advancing knowledge and educating students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship to serve the nation and world. The Institute has more than 900 faculty and 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

MIT's commitment to innovation has led to a host of scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Achievements include the first chemical synthesis of penicillin and vitamin A, the development of inertial guidance systems, modern technologies for artificial limbs, and the magnetic core memory that led to the development of digital computers. Sixty-three alumni, faculty, researchers and staff have won the Nobel Prizes.

About Novartis
Novartis AG is a world leader in offering medicines to protect health, cure disease and improve well-being. Our goal is to discover, develop and successfully market innovative products to treat patients, ease suffering and enhance the quality of life. We are strengthening our medicine-based portfolio, which is focused on strategic growth platforms in innovation-driven pharmaceuticals, high-quality and low-cost generics, human vaccines and leading self-medication OTC brands. Novartis is the only company with leadership positions in these areas. In 2006, the Group's businesses achieved net sales of USD 37.0 billion and net income of USD 7.2 billion. Approximately USD 5.4 billion was invested in R&D. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis Group companies employ more than 100,000 associates and operate in over 140 countries around the world.

Team proves role of microRNAs in spread of cancer

MIT scientists have proved that microRNAs, tiny molecules that fine-tune protein production and play a powerful role in biological processes, can prompt otherwise sedentary cancer cells to move and invade other tissues.

Labs have been probing the relationship between aberrant microRNA levels and cancer for several years. They've shown that some microRNAs cause normal cells to divide rapidly and form tumors, but they've never demonstrated that microRNAs subsequently cause cancer cells to metastasize, or spread.

Now, working in the lab of MIT Biology Professor and Whitehead Member Robert Weinberg, Postdoctoral Fellow Li Ma has coaxed cancer cells to break away from a tumor and colonize distant tissues in mice by simply increasing the level of one microRNA.

The work appears in the Sept. 26 advance online edition of Nature.

"Li has shown that a specific microRNA is able to cause profound changes in the behavior of cancer cells, which is striking considering that 10 years ago no one suspected microRNAs were involved in any biological process," says Weinberg.

Ma began with a list of 29 microRNAs expressed at different levels in tumors versus normal tissue. She examined their production in two groups of cancer cells--metastatic and non-metastatic. Metastatic cancer cells (including those taken directly from patients) contained much higher levels of one microRNA called microRNA-10b.

Next, Ma forced non-metastatic human breast cancer cells to produce lots of microRNA-10b by inserting extra copies of the gene. She injected the altered cancer cells into the mammary fat pads of mice, which soon developed breast tumors that metastasized.

So what caused this stunning metamorphosis?

MicroRNAs typically disrupt protein production by binding to the messenger RNAs that copy DNA instructions for proteins and carry them to "translators." Ma used a program developed in the lab of Whitehead Member David Bartel to search for the target of microRNA-10b. She identified several candidates, including the messenger RNA for a gene called HoxD10.

Generally involved in development, Hox proteins control many genes active in an embryo. Some Hox proteins have also been implicated in cancer. HoxD10, for example, can block the expression of genes required for cancer cells to move--essentially applying the brakes to a migration process.

To test whether she had removed the brakes during her experiment, awakening the dormant migration process, Ma boosted the level of HoxD10 in the cancer cells with artificially high levels of microRNA-10b. The cells lost their newly acquired abilities to move and invade.

"I was able to fully reverse microRNA-10b induced migration and invasion, suggesting that HoxD10 is indeed a functional target," Ma explains.

"During normal development, this microRNA probably enables cells to move from one part of the embryo to another," adds Weinberg. "Its original function has been co-opted by carcinoma cells."

This research is funded by the Life Sciences Research Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology at MIT.

MIT community invited to State of the Institute forum on Oct. 2

The entire MIT community is invited to attend the State of the Institute Forum at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2, in Kresge Auditorium. At the event, President Susan Hockfield, Provost L. Rafael Reif, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Theresa M. Stone will speak about the current state of MIT and the year ahead. A question and answer period will follow.

At the conclusion of the forum, there will be a reception and lunch in Kresge Lobby.

For more information about the State of the Institute, please visit the State of the Institute web site: http://mit.edu/events/stateoftheinstitute/

India to develop own technology for space travel

India will develop its own technology to launch an astronaut into space rather than rely on outside support, the head of the country's space agency said Thursday.

India's space programme suffered in the past from sanctions imposed by the West, barring access to space material and technology transfers, after the country tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and in 1998.

"We have learned the hard way that we should have indigenous capability," said G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, in this southern city which is hosting a global conerfence on space technology.

"Only then will anyone respect you," Nair told a news conference on the penultimate day of the five-day event.

"In manned missions also that's the approach we will adopt."

India plans to launch a lunar probe in March or April next year and ISRO is firming up a proposal to try to send an astronaut to the moon at a date to be decided.

The country's launch rockets are not powerful enough to send a man from an earth orbit to the moon, requiring ISRO to almost double its launch capability, said Nair.

"If we have cooperation with the Russians or the Americans, it will speed up the process," said Nair. "But I am not sure how that will emerge because of the various technology control regimes that exist all around the globe."

Russia has a space tourism programme under which a return voyage and a week-long stay in space costs 20 million dollars, the official said.

"But there has to be an objective," he added. "Our thrust will be to develop the technology and use Indian launch vehicles to access space. Our capability to have human access to space is a must in the long-run and we will take action in this regard."

India to develop own technology for space travel

India will develop its own technology to launch an astronaut into space rather than rely on outside support, the head of the country's space agency said Thursday.

India's space programme suffered in the past from sanctions imposed by the West, barring access to space material and technology transfers, after the country tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and in 1998.

"We have learned the hard way that we should have indigenous capability," said G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, in this southern city which is hosting a global conerfence on space technology.

"Only then will anyone respect you," Nair told a news conference on the penultimate day of the five-day event.

"In manned missions also that's the approach we will adopt."

India plans to launch a lunar probe in March or April next year and ISRO is firming up a proposal to try to send an astronaut to the moon at a date to be decided.

The country's launch rockets are not powerful enough to send a man from an earth orbit to the moon, requiring ISRO to almost double its launch capability, said Nair.

"If we have cooperation with the Russians or the Americans, it will speed up the process," said Nair. "But I am not sure how that will emerge because of the various technology control regimes that exist all around the globe."

Russia has a space tourism programme under which a return voyage and a week-long stay in space costs 20 million dollars, the official said.

"But there has to be an objective," he added. "Our thrust will be to develop the technology and use Indian launch vehicles to access space. Our capability to have human access to space is a must in the long-run and we will take action in this regard."

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Czech Republic spearheads EU project to conceive next-gen airplane

Local plane manufacturers are leaving the gutter and looking for their place in the sky. The aviation industry has experienced some lean years since 1989, with many firms adhering to one imperative: Make smaller planes or perish. A portion of the industry is now staging a full-fledged recovery that builds off this downsizing, turning its small aircraft focus into an asset: Last year, local companies produced nearly one-third of the ultralight planes bought in the United States.Evidencing this specialization, 11 Czech companies are playing a significant role in a 1 billion Kč ($49 million) research and development project sponsored by the European Union, called CESAR, which is tasked with conceiving a new direction for aircraft manufacturing.“The CESAR project is going to bring about a new concept for a cost-effective small aircraft with five to 15 seats,” said Milan Holl, head of the Czech Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLÚ), which leads and coordinates the 40 companies and research institutes involved in the venture.While the research and development of large aircraft is backed by companies such as Boeing and Airbus, smaller aircraft development is hardly moving ahead, shackling small planes with outdated equipment and systems.The EU’s three-year CESAR project — short for Cost-Effective Small Aircraft — launched last fall. It should ultimately give birth to a concept for a small commuter plane with low development and maintenance costs and reduced environmental impact, Holl said.Half of the project’s budget comes from the EU and the other half is provided by participants. Approximately one-quarter of the EU grant — some 140 million Kč — is distributed among domestic companies.For Aero Vodochody, the country’s largest plane manufacturer, the project has been an opportunity to gain valuable experience with the small and prestigious club that leads Europe’s aviation industry, said Aero spokesman Vítězslav Kulich.Vlastimil Havelka, head of the Association of Aviation Manufacturers (AVL), agrees that the project is invaluable for connecting local companies to the West.“My experience is that face-to-face contacts are crucial in this business,” he said. “Moreover, Czech companies can learn a lot from partners in the West.”Go smallWhile Czech ultralight planes — which, befitting their name, are lighter, tinier and slower than normal small planes — are increasingly cluttering European and U.S. skies, the country’s larger commuter and military planes are now produced only in small numbers by a handful of firms, such as Aero and Letov. And even these firms depend largely on cooperation programs, supplying plane parts to big foreign makers.“After 1989, Czech makers’ close ties to the Soviet Union were cut,” Holl said, and while this reaped many rewards for the country, the aviation industry was decimated. During the communist era, Aero Vodochody alone produced 37 percent of all the military-training aircrafts sold worldwide, Havelka said. “Wherever Russians supplied their fighters, Aero supplied training planes.”That golden age is gone. Now, the industry employs only about 10,000 people. “There’s no way we can compete with, say, the British aviation industry, which has more than 100,000 workers and has been undisturbed by large economic and political changes,” Havelka said.After the 1989 revolution, a large number of aviation experts became unemployed. However, several of these experts had an entrepreneurial bent, which ultimately led them to develop smaller aircraft.Today, domestic aircraft manufacturers have a 30 percent share of the United States small but growing ultralight plane market, according to the AVL; they hold a similarly strong position in Europe. In 2006, the Czech Republic produced about 500 ultralight planes, though this production accounted for only a small fraction of the overall revenue in the aviation sector, which amounted to some 7 billion Kč.One manufacturer, Evektor, produced 130 ultralight planes in 2006. This year, production should rise to 180 planes. “The demand for ultralight planes is on the constant rise,” said Evektor development engineer Václav Zajíc.The booming ultralight plane market notwithstanding, Evektor wants to move further, planning to manufacture the Cobra, a four-seat plane. However, it’s not cheap to develop a new plane type.“The development of the Cobra has already cost us hundreds of millions of crowns,” Zajíc said. “Preparing its production will require us to swallow at least the same amount.” The company is now looking for a strategic partner willing to finance the project, while it continues to develop an even larger project: an aircraft with room for 14 passengers.The foremost objective for the domestic aviation industry is to become a powerhouse in the production of small commuter planes like this, to be used for regional transport, according to an industry development strategy being prepared by the AVL.However, some local aviation experts are aiming higher, beyond the firmament.“In the near future, we want to focus more on the space industry,” Holl said.

Drinking induces memories

Those who drink to drown their sorrows, thinking alcohol makes the brain and memory go fuzzy, are having a wrong notion.

A new study by scientists has revealed that while low levels of alcohol promote neutral memories and moderate amounts boost one's ability to remember, heavy drinking induces negative memories.

"Moderate levels of alcohol challenge the brain and it responds by improving memory. It is like the best way to build strength in a muscle is to challenge the muscle," The Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday, quoting lead researcher Professor Matthew During of University of Auckland as saying.

"Contrary to popular belief, we also found that excessive levels of alcohol enhanced memories of highly emotional stimuli. Our work suggests that heavy drinking actually reinforces negative memories," he said.

The scientists came to the conclusion after studying the effects on memory of moderate levels of alcohol consumption, equivalent to a glass or two of wine every day, and found they can enhance memory.

According to Prof During's fellow researcher, Maggie Kalev, low levels of alcohol "promoted neutral memories, such as remembering objects."

The findings have been published in the 'Journal of Neuroscience'.

So, drinking too much means you are more likely to remember the embarrassment of a boisterous binge -- from making an indecent proposal to dancing without your trousers on.

ISRO aims Mars mission

Hyderabad, Sept.27 With the mission to the Moon on course of preparations, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has now set its eyes on the red planet — Mars. ISRO has unveiled preliminary ideas of sending a spacecraft to Mars. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), will be capable of sending a 500 kg orbiter (spacecraft) to the Mars, said the ISRO chief, Mr N. Madhavan Nair.

With new excitement on lunar missions from countries such as Japan, China, India, Russia and the US and the US’s long-term programme to Mars, capturing the imagination at the ongoing 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), here, Mr Nair’s pointers to India joining the Mars bandwagon also seemed most appropriate.

He urged the scientific community to come up with ideas to crystallise the objectives for the Mars mission and thereafter a definitive project could be put in place. At present the technical capability to send a spacecraft to Mars exists, the ISRO chief said.

On the Moon mission, Chandrayaan I was on course and is expected to take off in the summer of 2008. With increased co-operation between ISRO and NASA (National Aeronautical Space Agency) of US, at least two US payloads are expected to fly on Chandrayaan I by the PSLV to the Moon’s orbit for studies, he said.

The ISRO is also ready with the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), which is a constellation of small satellites in the low earth orbit, intended to boost a wide range of communication systems.

The first of the seven satellites intended to be launched for the IRNSS would be scheduled for the end of 2008. The rest would be in place by 2011. The IRNSS is estimated to cost around Rs 1,600 crores and is India’s own regional answer to bigger GPS (Global Positioning Systems) projects like Galileo (Europe), Glonass (Russian) etc. The Chinese are also reportedly building their own regional constellation.

On the launch plans, Mr Nair said ISRO has decided to launch 60 satellites in the next five years from Sriharikota. These satellites would be used for communications, meteorology, studying oceans, atmosphere, environment and specific scientific projects.

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European space agencies keen on outsourcing work to India



Hyderabad: Top space organisations of Europe are keen to outsource sub-systems and components for their space missions to India but are unable to do so due to political hurdles.

Under the European Space Agency (ESA) rules, the 17 member organisations cannot outsource the work but some of them wished they were allowed to do this to leverage on the cost benefit and reliable Indian research and development.


"We would like to outsource to India but we can't do it because the money of European tax payers has gone into the space programmes and they would not like to see outsourcing taking away the jobs from the local people," Christophe Bardou, programme director of Arianespace's commercial directorate, told IANS.

The French commercial launch service leader, which is part of ESA, has an over three-decade-old relationship with India, having launched 13 Insat satellites for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) so far.

Bardou, who is attending the ongoing space expo being held here as part of the 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), was all praise for the Indian space programme saying it has strong political backing.

"There is a strong political will for space development. The Indian space industry has the wherewithal to develop key sub-systems and components with reliable technology," he said.

He said ISRO, which was now capable of launching medium satellites of two tonnes, would be able to double the capacity in two to three years with the launch of GSLV Mark III.

Arianespace, which has marketing arrangements with ISRO for light payloads, mini and micro satellites and PSLV, will next year launch the W2M satellite developed by ISRO under contract with Astrim for Eutelsat Communications.

DLR, the German Aerospace Centre, also feels that India was entering the big global market. "It has the advantage of good software development," said Ulrich Kohler of Institute of Planetary Research, DLR.

According to him, things move quickly in India unlike in Japan where there is too much bureaucracy.

Swedish Space Corporation, which is planning to use nano-technology in its space missions, said it would like to discuss outsourcing with India. "There are several areas where we can work together with India," Anna Rathsman of the Swedish Space Corporation said.

Argentine Court OKs Sex Change for Teen

A 17-year-old Argentine has won a court battle to undergo surgery to become a female, the first decision of its kind involving a minor in Argentina, news reports said Thursday.

Ending a three-year legal battle, a court in the central province of Cordoba authorized the surgery earlier this week.

In Argentina, the surgery requires court approval because of laws against mutilation.

A judge in 2004 initially ruled the teenager must wait until age 21, but the parents appealed and persuaded a court panel, the reports said.

Courts have withheld the name because the teenager is still a minor and the local media have not published the teen's identity.

In the U.S., no court permission is necessary but most doctors are hesitant to operate on minors, said Denise Leclair, executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education in Waltham, Mass.

An August court decision in Brazil required the public health system to pay for sex reassignment surgeries. At least eight other countries, including Canada, have similar policies.

But in most of Latin America, the surgery still requires a judge's permission, according to Alejandra Victoria Portadino, legal counsel with the Homosexual Community of Argentina

‘Developing sophisticated technology is feasible’

BANGALORE: Terming innovation the catalyst for growth and the key to a country’s progress, Vice Admiral (retd) Raman Puri on Wednesday said that “nothing less than a satyagraha is necessary” if India was to become self-reliant in technology, especially in the field of aerospace technology.

According to him the status of a country’s aeronautical prowess is a general indication of that country’s technological capabilities.

Speaking on “Strategy for Indigenous Capability Building in Aeronautics” at a function to commemorate the Foundation Day of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research at the National Aerospace Laboratories here, he said that the goal of self-reliance needed “will, structures and out of the box solutions, including public-private partnerships”.

Stating that developing sophisticated technology in India was not only feasible, but also cheaper than importing technology, Vice Admiral Puri said that even today the Indian armed forces were fighting with 70 per cent of armament from overseas.

“We cannot be a global power on imported hardware,” he said.

Though the Indian Air Force was the fourth largest air force in the world, it did not fly even one aircraft that had been designed and developed indigenously.

“If we are to improve our comprehensive air power, aerospace will have to play a big role. Look at China, they may have bought the Su-27, but they are also working on four major aircraft programmes. The Chinese have used reverse engineering, but have added Chinese science and concepts to it. We have to learn this fast,” he said

LCA


Calling for formation of a top level aeronautical commission that would steer indigenous programmes from concept to delivery, Vice Admiral Puri said that India could learn from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme.

“We can learn from the problems faced by the Aeronautical Development Agency in the development of the LCA,” he added.

He expressed the view that India must complete the LCA programme “no matter at what cost”. The Vice Admiral also stressed that India must follow up on the LCA programme. “Unlike the LCA which has taken us 20 years a new aircraft will take just five to seven years, and the cost will not exceed $1 billion,” he said.

Vice Admiral Puri, who retired as the Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC), said that if India wanted to break out of the environment placed on it by the geopolitical situation and technology denial regimes, the only way was thought building indigenous capability.

Five free Web apps we can't live without

From collaboration tools to database apps and more, these next-gen Web applications keep the Computerworld newsroom humming.

The current explosion of AJAX-powered Web sites has helped spawn countless next-generation Web apps offering everything from simple to-do lists to complex project management, not to mention the ability to share all kinds of things -- documents, calendar listings, photos, video and more.

But with so many sites out there and new ones cropping up almost daily, who's got time to try them all? Playing with dozens of Web apps to find ones you like can sort of defeat the purpose of many of these services: to boost your productivity.

Fortunately for you, we've already done a lot of this work. In the collaborative Web 2.0 spirit, we're sharing some of the favorite tools we use here at Computerworld. Even with their occasional flaws, we just can't stop using them.

From a simple to-do list to a robust drag-and-drop database builder, here are the ones we've found to be borderline addictive. (But we know we might have missed some, and hope you'll post your favorites -- with URLs -- in the comments area below.)

Web apps we can't live without:

The A-list

Ta-da List

PBwiki

Google Docs

Bloglines v3 beta

Zoho Creator

Honorable mention

Basecamp
Google Calendar
Carbonite

The A-list

Ta-da List

Any application has to balance the urge to offer lots of functionality with the need for an easy-to-use interface. But that's especially true for Web-based apps, where software bloat can be especially annoying because of slow connections and server wait times, and where users expect to point and click without having to read a 100-page manual first.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more streamlined, simple service than Ta-da List, which bills itself as "the Web's easiest to-do list tool." After opening an account, click "create a new list," name it, type in a task and click "add this item." Add more items by typing them in. Order the items by clicking on "reorder" and dragging items up or down.

Done rearranging? Click "I'm done reordering." When a task is completed, click the box next to it to move it down to the bottom. Edit or delete items (or the list itself) by selecting the edit link.

It doesn't get much simpler than Ta-da List.

That's pretty much it. There are no categories, no tags, no priority numbers. I typically use it when I've got a couple of different things in the works that I want to make sure I remember. It's simple, elegant and very quick -- easy enough to replace jotting down a list on a piece of paper, but with a cool AJAX interface.

And unlike a paper list, my Ta-da list is available anywhere I can get online; I can't misplace it. I can also share it with others, either for viewing only or as a group collaborative list. While there are Google ads on the site, they're fairly innocuous and don't feel intrusive while I'm using my list.

Ta-da List was created by 37signals, the company best known for the Basecamp project management service that spawned David Heinemeier Hansson's open-source Ruby on Rails project. Hansson is adamant about keeping all his software lean, and nowhere is that more true than Ta-da List.

If you must have more functionality in a to-do list, our sister site PCWorld.com recommends RememberTheMilk as a reinvented to-do list "in a snazzy interface that lets you make lists in configurable categories, all laid out on the front page as tabs." I agree that "adding to-dos is easy, though adding deadlines, notes and time estimates is unintuitive." Overall, RememberTheMilk seems like a bit too much work for what I'd get out of it, but for those who place a higher value on functionality than on elegance and simplicity, it's worth a look.

PBwiki is a handy collaboration tool.

PBwiki
Besides giving us the Web's most famous encyclopedia, wikis offer a handy tool for many other types of informal group collaboration. A lot of open-source projects use wikis to share technical information with their users as well as among developers. While there are plenty of free wiki software packages you can download and install, in-house installation also means in-house update, patching and support.

Initially recommended to our editorial team by one of our Web developers, PBwiki has turned out to be a useful tool to share information and advice about stories in the works and future story ideas. The site claims you can "use PBwiki to make a free wiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich," and that's pretty much accurate. And once the wiki is set up, adding pages or text to it is quicker and easier than logging into a more structured format.

Technorati : Five. free, Web, apps, can't, live, we, without

Another Shot at the iMac by Gateway

The new Gateway One is an all-in-one design that's the successor to Gateway's Profile series PCs.
Windows PC maker Gateway is making another attempt to appeal to consumers who might otherwise consider Apple's iMac with its new Gateway One, an all-in-one design that's the successor to Gateway's Profile series PCs. It's coming in November for US$1,299 to $1,799 depending on configuration.

The Gateway One features a 19-inch widescreen LCD display, wireless keyboard and mouse. The unit's designed to work with a minimum of visible wires -- USB and Ethernet interfaces connect to the computer through the same brick that carries power, using only one cable.

The Gateway One also comes equipped with a built-in webcam, 802.11n wireless networking, Intel Core 2 Duo processor and "hidden" stereo speakers integrated into the front panel. Two latches in the back provide users with access to components inside, and the Gateway One can be upgraded with standard SATA desktop hard drives.

The computer has a total of seven USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire port, two memory slots, two hard drive bays and a built-in CD-R/DVD-R optical drive. An optional TV tuner is available; the power module also includes an optical audio output jack and a coaxial audio output jack.

The $1,299 version will feature an Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 dual-core processor, Intel GMA X3100 graphics and 320GB hard disk. For $1799 you can get a T7250 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics and 500GB hard disk. A third model, available directly from Gateway, will cost $1499 and comes with a T5250 processor, Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics and 400GB hard disk.

Microsoft extends Windows ,XP's stay

Bowing to pressure from customers and computer makers, Microsoft plans to keep Windows XP around a little longer.

Large PC manufacturers were slated to have to stop selling XP after January 31. However, they have successfully lobbied Microsoft to allow them to continue selling PCs with all flavors of Windows XP preloaded until June 30, a further five months. Microsoft also plans to keep XP on retail shelves longer and will allow computer makers in emerging markets to build machines with Windows XP Starter Edition until June 2010.

The move indicates the continued demand for the older operating system, some nine months after Windows Vista hit store shelves.

In recent weeks, several PC makers launched programs that allow new PC buyers to more easily "downgrade" their Vista Business and Vista Ultimate machines to Windows XP. Fujitsu, which was among those lobbying for the change, has started including an XP restore disc in the box with all of its laptops running Vista Business.

"This allows the installed base of Windows XP users more time to manage the transition to Vista, which is important for some smaller companies with limited resources," Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product marketing for Fujitsu, said in a statement.

Dell also said it support's Microsoft's decision.

"We believe the additional time will help some customers to prepare for the transition from XP to Vista," the company said in a statement.

Microsoft, for its part, sought to downplay the impact of the move, disagreeing with the notion that there is still strong demand for XP.

"We wouldn't term it strong," said Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft's Windows Client unit. "We would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time."

Kutz said Microsoft had seen similar demand patterns with past releases and noted that in the past, old operating systems remained av.

MORE NEWS...

Microsoft extends XP sales to June 2008

Microsoft Corp. said it will keep selling its Windows XP operating system beyond January, in response to demand from customers.

The company decided to extend the deadline until the end of June to give customers -- particularly small businesses -- more time to switch to the new Windows Vista.

"Maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista," said Mike Nash, a corporate vice president for Windows product management at Microsoft.

While software retailers and major computer makers like Dell Inc. will stop offering XP next June, system builders, or smaller companies that make and sell PCs, will still sell the older operating system until the end of January 2009.

Nash said Microsoft's policy in the past has been to discontinue an old operating system four years after its launch. But because Vista reached consumers more than five years after XP, the company had to revise the rules.

"Making it available through June was a little bit better" for customers, Nash said.

In April, Dell, which had all but stopped selling XP to consumers, said it would bring back more XP machines after customers asked for it. At the time, Microsoft responded that only "a small minority of customers" were still interested in the old operating system.

Microsoft is also extending the availability of a version of XP aimed at customers in emerging markets, Windows XP Starter Edition, until June 30, 2010.

Technorati : Microsoft, XP's, extends Windows, stay

On Capitol Hill, Google and Microsoft spar over DoubleClick

senators on Thursday injected themselves into a high-stakes dispute between Google and Microsoft over whether the search giant's proposed acquisition of display advertising company DoubleClick presents antitrust or privacy concerns.

But after the hearing, which lasted almost two hours, it was still unclear where most of the senators stood. The top Democrat and top Republican on the Senate panel seemed more interested in asking questions than adopting the common congressional tactic of forcefully arguing on behalf of Google or Microsoft.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), the subcommittee's chairman, said at the outset that he would approach the topic with an "open mind," and by the time the hearing ended, that apparently hadn't changed.

"Both sides made very powerful arguments," he told reporters following the proceeding. "What the balance is, myself, I'm not sure."

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the committee's ranking member, was equally hard to read. He repeatedly referred to the online advertising sphere as "very interesting" and said he would have additional questions in writing for fans and foes of the merger.

The lack of political grandstanding meant the bulk of the hearing allowed the well-documented and long-standing rivalry between Microsoft and Google to play out yet again--this time, albeit, in a wood-paneled committee room on Capitol Hill. The companies compete in a wealth of markets, including advertising, search, office applications, instant messaging and mapping.

Seated side by side at a long table facing the mostly empty seats of politicians (it wasn't a lack of interest, Kohl claimed afterward, just a "complicated issue" and a "very busy" day for most of the subcommittee's 11 members), Google chief legal officer David Drummond and Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith outlined a now-familiar set of arguments for and against the estimated $3.1 billion deal announced in April.

In contrast to the lackluster participation from politicians, the public turned out in droves, with scores of men and women in suits forming a line snaking down two hallways. After the limited number of seats rapidly filled up, the committee permitted two rows of people to stand at the back of the room.

Much of the back and forth focused on two major issues: whether Google's acquisition of DoubleClick would diminish competition in the online ad space, potentially raising ad rates, and whether the merger would put Google in possession of massive stores of data on Internet users, thereby posing privacy concerns and stifling other ad companies' abilities to target ads as effectively.

Drummond repeatedly said the deal does not pose antitrust concerns because DoubleClick is not a rival to Google but a complementary business. He said that's primarily because DoubleClick is not in the business of buying and selling ads--rather, it simply provides the tools for displaying them--but Google is. Google's primary motive for purchasing DoubleClick is to strengthen its position in display advertising--that is, serving graphical ads--to supplement its already-dominant position in the text-based advertising market, he said, echoing earlier statements by CEO Eric Schmidt.

Repeatedly making comparisons between his company's proposed merger and Microsoft's $6 billion buyout of Net advertising firm Aquantive, Drummond urged Kohl, who was frequently the only senator present at the hearing, to look at the online advertising space more "holistically."

"We don't have a unique stranglehold on all of the information out on the Internet for online ad purposes," Drummond said. "There are other competitors in this space, (such as) Aquantive, that have the same kind of data."

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, for his part, said he sharply disagreed with the assertion that Google and DoubleClick don't compete with each other. He displayed for the committee a poster showing a screenshot of the social-networking site Friendster.com and noted that a single page contained ads delivered both by Google's Adsense network and by DoubleClick.

Google has argued that DoubleClick, with its ad-serving technology, provides the same services to its business that shipping companies such as FedEx or UPS do for Amazon.com. Smith countered by arguing that "Google is already Amazon and is already FedEx, and now they're proposing to buy the post office."

Smith also compared the deal, should it go through, to allowing the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq to combine. "Somebody could build an alternate exchange, but would anybody go there to take their company public?" he asked.

When given a chance to respond, Drummond argued that Smith's statement is "no more true than (the statement that) a company that delivers trucks from, say, the dock to the dealer controls the car or the truck market. It doesn't."

But there were few testy exchanges during the hearing. At one point, Kohl asked Smith whether he was implying that Drummond was not being entirely honest, to which Smith replied, "I'm not going to second-guess his motives," and patted Drummond on the shoulder in a way that suggested he wasn't trying to hurt his rival's feelings.

"We don't have a unique stranglehold on all of the information out on the Internet for online ad purposes. There are other competitors in this space, (such as) Aquantive, that have the same kind of data."
--David Drummond, Google chief legal officer

MORE NEWS...

Microsoft, Google spar over DoubleClick in D.C

.Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick was the subject of a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., today. Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, testified in opposition to the deal. His prepared remarks are available here. The prepared testimony of David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, is here: PDF, 6 pages.

Smith acknowledged that Microsoft isn't a disinterested observer. At the same time, he said the planned acquisition could hurt the market.

From his prepared remarks:

"If Google and DoubleClick are allowed to merge, Google will become the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising. This merger will almost certainly result in higher profits for the operator of the dominant advertising pipeline, but it will be bad for everyone else. It will be bad for publishers, bad for advertisers, and most importantly, bad for consumers."

The hearing also dealt with issues of data privacy. In this story, Wired News covers Drummond's live testimony, rebutting Microsoft.

From the story:

Microsoft has some gall saying that a post-DoubleClick purchase, Google will be dominating online ads because of its massive database on users, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond told a panel of senators Thursday.

"Microsoft is the largest purchaser of online ads, an email service with 280 million or so users and a billion in revenues from display ads," Drummond said. "They have a lot more information than Google has."

Technorati : Capitol, DoubleClick, Google, Hill, Microsoft, over, spar

IRobot develops cleaner, mobile phone

iRobot makes practical, reliable and autonomous robots that make a difference in
people's lives. From cleaning floors, pools, gutters and garages to helping you
stay connected with loved ones, our robots offer innovative solutions to
everyday needs.

Find out why millions of iRobot owners would never go back to life
without robots! Click one of the robots above to learn more.

IRobot Corp (IRBT.O: Quote, Profile, Research), a maker of vacuums and bomb defusers, said on Thursday it has developed a device for cleaning gutters on homes and a Web-controlled robot with a video phone.

Its shares shot up 5 percent to $19.99 after it issued a statement, helping pare declines on other news earlier this month that it lost a key contract to provide robots to the U.S. military.

IRobot's products will join a line that includes floor cleaners for consumers and bomb-dismantling robots sold to the military.

The $99, 2.25-inch high Looj drives under gutter straps propelled by a three-stage auger that sweeps out dirt, leaves and debris.

Users control the Looj from the ground, though they need to climb up and down a ladder at least four times -- to place and remove it.

Currently, most U.S. homes owners have to clean the gutters by hand and that process is more labor intensive.

IRobot said it was looking to revolutionize communications when it thought up ConnectR, the second product it debuted on Thursday, at the DigitalLife show in New York.

The robot has a top-mounted, tilt-and-zoom video camera, speaker, microphone and headlight to enable users connected remotely via the Web to see, hear and interact with people in the home
ConnectR does not have a video screen, so the people in the room can only hear the remote user, but cannot see expressions or gestures.

IRobot's consumer division president Sandra Lawrence said that while she was excited about its prospects, there was a chance ConnectR, which is still being tested, may not make it to mass production.

IRobot will sell those early adopters the machine for $200 and ask them to report bugs, describe their interaction it and provide requests for improvements. If the company decides to go ahead with a production model, the final cost to consumers would be about $500, Lawrence said.

"We are interested in finding out just what people are doing," she said.

Parents may be inclined to use them to check up on babysitters, who will know they are being watched when ConnectR wheels over and starts talking to them.

But for teenagers with snooping parents, ConnectR has a privacy button that can disconnect the remote user.


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Microsoft extends Windows XP's stay

Bowing to pressure from customers and computer makers, Microsoft plans to keep Windows XP around a little longer.

Large PC manufacturers were slated to have to stop selling XP after January 31. However, they have successfully lobbied Microsoft to allow them to continue selling PCs with all flavors of Windows XP preloaded until June 30, a further five months. Microsoft also plans to keep XP on retail shelves longer and will allow computer makers in emerging markets to build machines with Windows XP Starter Edition until June 2010.

The move indicates the continued demand for the older operating system, some nine months after Windows Vista hit store shelves.

In recent weeks, several PC makers launched programs that allow new PC buyers to more easily "downgrade" their Vista Business and Vista Ultimate machines to Windows XP. Fujitsu, which was among those lobbying for the change, has started including an XP restore disc in the box with all of its laptops running Vista Business.

"This allows the installed base of Windows XP users more time to manage the transition to Vista, which is important for some smaller companies with limited resources," Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product marketing for Fujitsu, said in a statement.

Dell also said it support's Microsoft's decision.

"We believe the additional time will help some customers to prepare for the transition from XP to Vista," the company said in a statement
Microsoft, for its part, sought to downplay the impact of the move, disagreeing with the notion that there is still strong demand for XP.

"We wouldn't term it strong," said Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft's Windows Client unit. "We would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time."

Kutz said Microsoft had seen similar demand patterns with past releases and noted that in the past, old operating systems remained available for around 18 months after the release of a new operating system.

"While Windows Vista sales are still going strong...we recognize there are some customers that need more time,"
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Microsoft extends XP sales to June 2008
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Microsoft Corp. said it will keep selling its Windows XP operating system beyond January, in response to demand from customers.

The company decided to extend the deadline until the end of June to give customers -- particularly small businesses -- more time to switch to the new Windows Vista.

"Maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista," said Mike Nash, a corporate vice president for Windows product management at Microsoft.

While software retailers and major computer makers like Dell Inc. will stop offering XP next June, system builders, or smaller companies that make and sell PCs, will still sell the older operating system until the end of January 2009.

Nash said Microsoft's policy in the past has been to discontinue an old operating system four years after its launch. But because Vista reached consumers more than five years after XP, the company had to revise the rules.

"Making it available through June was a little bit better" for customers, Nash said.

In April, Dell, which had all but stopped selling XP to consumers, said it would bring back more XP machines after customers asked for it. At the time, Microsoft responded that only "a small minority of customers" were still interested in the old operating system.

Microsoft is also extending the availability of a version of XP aimed at customers in emerging markets, Windows XP Starter Edition, until June 30, 2010.

A Note from Clifford Neuman

September 27, 2007

Kerberos was first deployed at MIT in September of 1986. In its more than two decades of use it has matured and blended into the background. Most Kerberos users have never heard of it and have no idea what it does. Designed in part based on much research that preceded it, a significant strength of the Kerberos system is the placement of the server at a management control point for authentication and related technologies, enabling other security technologies to work together.

Over the years there has been significant controversy as some organizations used Kerberos one way, and others used it differently. Kerberos was designed to work in such environments, with much of its future potential enabled through protocol hooks, waiting for other technologies to be developed that would use them. The bright future for Kerberos depends on our ability to standardize the technologies layered above Kerberos, and that provides the need for an organization like the Kerberos consortium.

I am delighted to see industry, academia, and the business community coming together to promote the growth of Kerberos into new areas. By working together, we will be able to use Kerberos to strengthen many core security technologies as they are deployed in federated environments. We will see advances in authorization, management, and even audit and intrusion detection. I look forward to working closely with all involved to ensure that the vision of Kerberos is fulfilled.

Prof. Clifford Neuman
Director, USC Center for Computer Systems Security
Principal designer, Kerberos

A Note from Clifford Neuman

September 27, 2007

Kerberos was first deployed at MIT in September of 1986. In its more than two decades of use it has matured and blended into the background. Most Kerberos users have never heard of it and have no idea what it does. Designed in part based on much research that preceded it, a significant strength of the Kerberos system is the placement of the server at a management control point for authentication and related technologies, enabling other security technologies to work together.

Over the years there has been significant controversy as some organizations used Kerberos one way, and others used it differently. Kerberos was designed to work in such environments, with much of its future potential enabled through protocol hooks, waiting for other technologies to be developed that would use them. The bright future for Kerberos depends on our ability to standardize the technologies layered above Kerberos, and that provides the need for an organization like the Kerberos consortium.

I am delighted to see industry, academia, and the business community coming together to promote the growth of Kerberos into new areas. By working together, we will be able to use Kerberos to strengthen many core security technologies as they are deployed in federated environments. We will see advances in authorization, management, and even audit and intrusion detection. I look forward to working closely with all involved to ensure that the vision of Kerberos is fulfilled.

Prof. Clifford Neuman
Director, USC Center for Computer Systems Security
Principal designer, Kerberos

MIT launches "Kerberos " authentication consortium

If MIT has its way, consumers will be enjoying the same single-sign-on authentication and authorization system that large corporations have been able to deploy.

MIT launched on Thursday the Kerberos Consortium, whose backers include Google, Sun Microsystems, Apple, Stanford University and the University of Michigan. The consortium is looking to take the Kerberos network authentication protocol and create a universal authentication platform to safeguard computer networks.

Although the protocol was initially developed for MIT's Project Athena and has been around for more than two decades, it has mainly been available to large corporate networks and not to John Doe consumer.

But with the surge in phishing attempts and other security threats on the rise, the single-sign-on authentication and authorization systems are viewed as another tool to combat identity thieves.

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The MIT Kerberos Consortium was created to establish Kerberos as the universal authentication platform for the world's computer networks.

Kerberos, originally developed for MIT's Project Athena, has grown to become the most widely deployed system for authentication and authorization in modern computer networks. Kerberos is currently shipped with all major computer operating systems and is uniquely positioned to become a universal solution to the distributed authentication and authorization problem of permitting universal "single sign-on" within and between federated enterprises and peer-to-peer communities.

The MIT Kerberos Consortium is intended to provide a mechanism by which the numerous organizations that have adopted Kerberos in the last two decades may participate in the continuation of what was previously funded as an internal MIT project. By opening participation in the ongoing Kerberos effort, it will be possible to expand the scope of the work currently performed to encompass numerous important improvements in the Kerberos system, and to engage in much needed evangelism among potential adopters.

Building upon the existing Kerberos protocol suite, we will develop interoperable technologies (specifications, software, documentation and tools) to enable organizations and federated realms of organizations to use Kerberos as the single sign-on solution for access to all applications and services. We will also promote the adoption of these technologies so that ultimately all operating systems, applications, imbedded devices, and Internet based services can utilize Kerberos for authentication and authorization.

Dawn Spacecraft Successfully Launched

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's Dawn spacecraft began its 1.7 billion mile journey through the inner solar system to study a pair of asteroids Thursday at 7:34 a.m. EDT.

The Delta 2 rocket, fitted with nine strap-on solid-fuel boosters, safely climbed away from the Florida coastline and launch complex 17B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. "We have our time machine up and flying," said Dawn Principal Investigator Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dawn is scheduled to begin its exploration of Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015. The two icons of the asteroid belt are located in orbit between Mars and Jupiter and have been witness to so much of our solar system's history.

By using the same set of instruments at two separate destinations, scientists can more accurately formulate comparisons and contrasts. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure shape, surface topography and tectonic history, elemental and mineral composition as well as seek out water-bearing minerals.

A critical milestone for the spacecraft comes in is acquiring its signal. The launch team expects that to occur in approximately 2-3 hours.

For the latest information about Dawn and its mission, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/dawn

NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Enroute to Shed Light on Asteroid Belt

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to study a pair of asteroids after lifting off Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:34 a.m. EDT.

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., received telemetry on schedule at 9:44 a.m. indicating Dawn had achieved proper orientation in space and its massive solar array was generating power from the sun.

"Dawn has risen, and the spacecraft is healthy," said the mission's project manager Keyur Patel of JPL. "About this time tomorrow [Friday morning], we will have passed the moon's orbit."

During the next 80 days, spacecraft controllers will test and calibrate the myriad of spacecraft systems and subsystems, ensuring Dawn is ready for the long journey ahead.

"Dawn will travel back in time by probing deep into the asteroid belt," said Dawn Principal Investigator Christopher Russell, University of California, Los Angeles. "This is a moment the space science community has been waiting for since interplanetary spaceflight became possible."

Dawn's 3-billion-mile odyssey includes exploration of asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. These two icons of the asteroid belt have been witness to much of our solar system's history. By using Dawn's instruments to study both asteroids, scientists more accurately can compare and contrast the two. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure elemental and mineral composition, shape, surface topography, tectonic history, and it will seek water-bearing minerals. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft and how it orbits Vesta and Ceres will be used to measure the celestial bodies' masses and gravity fields.

The spacecraft's engines use a unique, hyper-efficient system called ion propulsion, which uses electricity to ionize xenon to generate thrust. The 12-inch-wide ion thrusters provide less power than conventional engines but can maintain thrust for months at a time.

The management of the Dawn launch was the responsibility of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The Delta 2 launch vehicle was provided by United Launch Alliance, Denver.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners include Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M.; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg, Germany; DLR Institute for Planetary Research, Berlin; Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome; and the Italian Space Agency. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft.

To learn more about Dawn and its mission to the asteroid belt, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/dawn