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Thursday, November 8, 2007

Intel to Launch New Storage Platform


Intel to Launch New Storage Platform


Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has introduced a flexible, user-friendly new storage platform designed for small and home offices. The Intel Entry Storage System SS4200x is available as a hardware-only version, or comes complete with integrated software.


Based on the Celeron 400 Series Processor with DDR2 memory, the Entry Storage System SS4200x offers customizable shell design, compatible with many existing product portfolios, and an external SATA port for easy external storage expansion.


The fully integrated package includes software from EMC to create a flexible Network Attached Storage appliance for the small business, small office and home office markets that provides strong data access, sharing, protection and backup features. Available in December, the new storage systems will start at $500.






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Chemical Technology : Electrochemical method reads fingerprints more easily



 Chemical Technology : Electrochemical method reads fingerprints more easily


The team exposed the fingerprints to gold nanoparticles, which stick electrostatically to skin secretions"

Swiss scientists have developed a way to detect fingerprints by measuring the chemical traces they leave on a surface. Using a scanning electrochemical microscope (SECM) to detect invisible traces of sweat and natural skin oils, the team created a chemical picture of a fingerprint.


The advance comes from a team led by Christophe Champod from the University of Lausanne and Hubert Girault at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. They hope their method will make it possible to read fingerprints from textured or illustrated surfaces, such as banknotes, plastic and paper, and from wet surfaces. Conventional fingerprinting methods rely on optical detection and do not work well on surfaces like these.


An SECM has a very fine tip which can detect chemical changes on a surface. The team exposed the fingerprints to gold nanoparticles, which stick electrostatically to the skin secretions. They then added a layer of silver on top of the gold to help improve the contrast between the fingerprint and the background.


Claude Roux, Director of the Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Technology Sydney, is confident that the method 'has the potential to develop fingermarks on surfaces that are known to generate poor results with current techniques. In other words, latent fingermarks that remain undetected with current techniques could be made visible when using this method.'


The method 'could provide significant advantages for fingermark detection on a range of difficult surfaces,' agreed Chris Lennard, professor of forensic studies at the University of Canberra. 'However,' he cautioned, 'before such an imaging technique could be readily applied on items submitted for examination, the technology would need to improve so that larger areas can be scanned within a much shorter period of time. At present, the technique would be impractical for use in routine casework.'





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Chemical Biology::Bringing warhead efficiency to light


Bringing warhead efficiency to light


In CALI, chromophores (red) produce reactive species to inactivate a target protein


US scientists can now compare molecular warheads that inactivate proteins.


Chromophore assisted light inactivation (CALI) of proteins involves generating highly reactive species (often singlet oxygen) from a chromophore (the warhead) using light. The reactive species damages the target protein, inactivating its biological function. Thomas Kodadek, a chemical biologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre, explained that CALI can be used to 'knock-out the function of a protein to validate pharmaceutical targets or alternatively provide temporal control of protein inactivation for mechanistic studies.'


Organic chromophores often react with the reactive species they produce, limiting their effectiveness as CALI warheads. In this new research, Kodadek and his co-workers have developed a system for comparing warhead effectiveness. The system allows different chromophores to be covalently attached to a standard target protein through a simple coupling mechanism. This allows the chromophore efficiencies to be compared by measuring the remaining activity of the target.


Comparative experiments showed a ruthenium-based chromophore to be a more effective warhead than the commonly used organic dye fluorescein. The scientists demonstrated that the ruthenium chromophore can enter cells and inactivate a target, opening up the possibility of CALI experiments on living cells as well as cell extracts.





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Human Error Puts Online Banking Security At Risk


Human Error Puts Online Banking Security At Risk


Using an SMS password as an added security measure for internet banking is no guarantee your money is safe, according to a new Queensland University of Technology study which reveals online customers are not protecting their accounts.


Mohammed AlZomai, from QUT's Information Security Institute, said one in five online transactions was vulnerable to obvious attacks despite added security methods such as SMS passwords being adopted.


Mr AlZomai said the study had found that the security threat had more to do with the usability of the SMS system and human error, rather than any technical security problem.


"In response to the growing threat to online banking security, most banks have implemented special methods for authenticating a transaction," he said.


"A typical method is sending a one-time-password via SMS to the customer's mobile phone for each transaction.


"This means the customer must manually copy the password from their phone in order to confirm the online transaction."


But Mr AlZomai said customers were failing to notice when the bank account number in the SMS message was not the same as the intended account number. He said if this occurred it was a clear sign hackers had infiltrated the system.


As part of the study, QUT developed a simulated online bank and asked participants to play the role of customers and undertake a number of financial transactions using an SMS authorisation code.


Mr AlZomai said he then simulated two types of attacks - an obvious attack which was where five or more digits in the account number were altered, and a stealthy attack which was where only one digit was changed.


"It is worrisome that obvious attacks were successful in 21 per cent of cases," he said.


"And when transactions faced a stealthy attack, 61 per cent of attacks were successful."


He said this study showed that a significant number of users were unable to identify the attack. "This is a strong indication that the SMS transaction authorisation method is vulnerable," he said.


"According to our study only 79 per cent of users would be able to avoid realistic attacks, which represents an inadequate level of security for online banking."


Mr AlZomai said while this study highlighted the importance for customers to be vigilant when they were banking online, banks also had a responsibility to their customers. "We hope this research will allow online banks and other online service providers to be better prepared for these emerging risks."





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New Technology : Operated By Thought


New Technology : Operated By Thought


Wadsworth Center scientists have succeeded in developing a BCI that provided people who are severely disabled with the ability to use their personal computers. For example, they were able to word-process, send e-mail messages, and remotely turn on or off the lights or TV in their homes. A laptop computer and cap allow for portability and ease of use.



Neuroscientists have significantly advanced brain-machine interface (BMI) technology to the point where severely handicapped people who cannot contract even one leg or arm muscle now can independently compose and send e-mails and operate a TV in their homes. They are using only their thoughts to execute these actions.


Thanks to the rapid pace of research on the BMI, one day these and other individuals may be able to feed themselves with a robotic arm and hand that moves according to their mental commands.


"Our work has shown how important the learning process is when using brain-controlled devices," says Andrew Schwartz, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh. "By permitting the subject to adaptively recode the generated neural activity, the overall performance of the device is dramatically increased.


"Furthermore, as we have progressed in this work, it has become apparent that the basic idea of 'intention' during learning is very important and can be addressed by the direct observation of the neuronal transformations taking place during this fundamental processing," Schwartz says.


Among the research institutions conducting cutting-edge research on the BMI is the University of Pittsburgh, where scientists recently succeeded in developing the technology that allows a rhesus macaque monkey to mentally control a robotic arm to feed itself pieces of fruit. The robotic arm's fast and smooth movements were triggered by electrical signals that were generated in the monkey's brain when the animal thought about an action.


In previous studies, this lab developed the technology to tap a macaque monkey's motor cortical neural activity making it possible for the animal to use its thoughts to control a robotic arm to reach for food targets presented in 3D space.


In the Pittsburgh lab's latest studies, macaque monkeys not only mentally guided a robotic arm to pieces of food but also opened and closed the robotic arm's hand, or gripper, to retrieve them. Just by thinking about picking up and bringing the fruit to its mouth, the animal fed itself.


The monkey's own arm and hand did not move while it manipulated the two-finger gripper at the end of the robotic arm. The animal used its own sight for feedback about the accuracy of the robotic arm's actions as it mentally moved the gripper to within one-half centimeter of a piece of fruit.


"The monkey developed a great deal of skill using this physical device," says Meel Velliste, PhD. "We are in the process of extending this type of control to a more sophisticated wrist and hand for the performance of dexterous tasks."


Velliste and the other members of the Pittsburgh research team point out that imparting skill and dexterity to these devices will help amputees and paralyzed patients to perform everyday tasks.


The animal's thoughts emitted electrical signals that were recorded by tiny electrodes that the scientists had implanted in the monkey's motor cortex. A computer-decoding algorithm translated the signals into the robotic arm and gripper's movements.


In another study, a Washington University School of Medicine research team has generated new information about a long-held theory about the separate functions and responsibilities of the left brain and the right brain. In the process, the researchers, led by Eric Leuthardt, PhD, and his graduate students Kimberly Wisneski and Nick Anderson, have applied their findings to a new neuroprosthetic strategy to improve the rehabilitation of stroke and trauma victims who have suffered damage to either the right or left half of the brain.


"Classic understanding of brain function has asserted that one hemisphere, or one side of the brain, controls arm and leg movement on the opposite side of the body," Wisneski explains.


The team's new findings indicated that if the left hemisphere were damaged, the right side of the brain still had electrical signals that could be used to trigger right-sided arm and leg movement.


The scientists recorded the brain activity of six epilepsy patients in which electrodes were placed over the surface of their brain for reasons that were not connected to the purpose of the study. (The intracranial electrode arrays were implanted on the surface of each patient's brain to locate the brain areas that were involved with the patient's seizures.) "This access provided us with insights that could not be obtained using other methods," Leuthardt says.


The team recorded electrocorticographic signals while each patient opened and closed his or her hands. These recordings revealed brain activity in the hemisphere on the same side of the body in which movement was occurring. These same-side signals occurred at a lower frequency than did the signals emitted in the hemisphere opposite to the moving side of the body.


In addition, these same-side signals were emitted in spatially distinct areas of the brain and earlier in time in comparison to the hemispheric signals recorded for opposite-side hand movement.


"This evidence demonstrates that the brain encodes information regarding planning for movements of the same-sided limb and that this information is encoded in a way that is unique from that corresponding to opposite-side limb movements," Wisneski says.


The team next determined how these results could be used to improve the rehabilitation of stroke and brain injury patients. Their focus: the brain computer interface (BCI), an external device that was designed to benefit patients with spinal cord injury and other disorders that did not affect the brain. The BCI enables individuals to control with their thoughts alone a cursor on a computer screen, a wheelchair, or a robotic arm.


To benefit stroke and brain injury patients, the BCI would have to be adapted to respond to signals from only one side of the brain.


"To allow these patients to benefit from the use of a brain-computer interface, signals for control for two sides of the body must be acquired from the single functioning hemisphere alone," Leuthardt says. "In this paradigm, one side of the body -- the side opposite to the unaffected half of the brain -- would be controlled through normal physiologic pathways, and the other side of the body -- the side affected by the stroke and on the same side as the unaffected hemisphere -- would be controlled through neuroprosthetic assistance using same-side signals from the undamaged hemisphere."


Other scientists are studying the phenomenon in which neurons are active in the brain's motor cortex, not only when an individual bends a leg but also when he or she observes other people while moving their legs. This neural mechanism may help explain the development of innate skills such as speech and new motor skills such as a golf swing.


Graduate student Dennis Tkach and colleagues at University of Chicago hope to tap this neural mechanism to modify BMI systems for use by people who are paralyzed from spinal cord injury or related trauma. Currently the BMI's functioning depends on mathematical maps that connect brain cell activity to the action -- arm or leg movement, for example -- that the system is designed to replace.


Tkach says that the phenomenon of congruent neural activity may provide the mathematical maps of these paralyzed patients. "The existence of these neurons offers the means of creating this mapping by relating neural activity of the patient to an action observed by that patient," he says. "The neural activity is congruent because the way that the neurons fire during observation of familiar action is the same as the way they fire when the individual is performing that same action."


The University of Chicago study, which was conducted with rhesus monkeys, was the first to analyze a neural system that showed congruent activity with movement on a single cell level in the primary motor cortex.


The monkeys were trained to perform a video task in a two-dimensional, horizontal workspace located in front of them. They guided a circular cursor to a square target. Both the cursor and the target were projected onto the workspace. The animals controlled the cursor by moving an exoskeletal robot arm in which their active arm rested.


They were then trained to relax and watch a playback of the task they had just performed. During the playback, the monkeys saw either or both the target and the cursor on the screen.


"We varied visibility of the video task components in an attempt to gain a better understanding of what facilitates the neural congruency between observation and action," Tkach says. "The study showed that the presence of the goal of an action bears a greater impact on the strength of this congruence, while the observation of the motion to this goal carries minimal importance."


This result emphasized the importance of the goal as the facilitator of this action-like neural response, Tkach says.


The brain cell activity patterns were recorded from arrays of 100 electrodes surgically implanted in the monkeys' motor cortical areas. Because of these arrays, Tkach was able to obtain simultaneous neural activity data from a population of single cells along with a more global neural signal. Analyzing the data, he noted that the activity patterns of the neurons during the observation period correlated highly with the cells' activity patterns when the animal was using its right arm to guide the cursor.


"Our results lead us to believe that when presented with the observation of a familiar action the monkeys inadvertently generate a motor command that is very similar to one that would occur if the animal were to execute the behavior," Tkach says. The congruence of this motor command to the "actual" one was not an all-or-nothing phenomenon but instead spanned a continuum that was contingent upon the components of the observed action that was present.


In other work, Wadsworth Center scientists in Albany, N.Y., have succeeded in developing a BCI that provided people who are severely disabled with the ability to use their personal computers. For example, they were able to word-process, send e-mail messages, and remotely turn on or off the lights or TV in their homes. In the future, even more environmental control options will be available, says Eric Sellers, PhD.


The Wadsworth Center BCI system enabled a scientist with advanced amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), to communicate by e-mail with his research team. "It has allowed him to continue to direct a highly successful NIH-funded medical research program," Sellers says. "The initial results indicate that the BCI can function without close technical oversight and can improve communication ability and quality of life. This initial success suggests that a home BCI system can be of practical value for people with severe motor disabilities and that caregivers without special expertise can learn to support it."


Five severely disabled people have participated in the Wadsworth research program that evaluates the center's BCI system. The first participant, the 49-year-old scientist with ALS, has been unable to move any muscles in his body except for his eyes. For up to five to seven hours every day since February 2006, he has worn a simple electrode cap on his scalp that picks up the electrical activity generated by his brain. The cap recorded electroencephalographic (EEG, or brain wave) activity at eight scalp locations.


The user's brain waves were translated into simulated keystrokes. Software developed at Wadsworth presented rows and columns of a 72-element, 8" x 9" matrix that flashed in random order while the user paid attention to the element that he or she wanted to select. The software recognized that element and executed the appropriate keystroke. With this design, the patient could use the entire keyboard.


Sellers says that caregivers and family members learned to place the electrode cap on patients' scalps, enable the software, and generally maintain the system, which the researchers monitored remotely via data transferred weekly from patients' homes to the lab. To date, a total of five people with ALS have used the Wadsworth system in their homes.


In addition, the Wadsworth Center team has tested protocols in the laboratory that extend BCI functionality to benefit people with limited eye mobility, poor visual acuity, or difficulty maintaining gaze, impairments that can occur with severe motor disorders such as ALS, brainstem stroke, or cerebral palsy. For these individuals, the scientists have been developing a BCI system that uses auditory rather than visual stimuli.


In the auditory BCI system, the rows and columns of a 6" x 6" matrix of 36 letters and numbers are represented by six environmental sounds. For each selection, the user paid attention to the sound representing the column or row containing the desired choice. Thus far, most of the people who tested this auditory system in the lab used it with accuracy sufficient to support effective BCI operation.


The researchers also have been developing a BCI system that uses sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs), oscillations in the EEG recorded from the scalp over the sensorimotor cortex. The SMRs provided simple communication capabilities, and the people learned to use SMRs to control a computer cursor in one or two dimensions.





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Sony may quit advanced chip project


Sony may quit advanced chip project


Sony Corp. may withdraw from joint research on next-generation computer chips after agreeing to sell its production operations for the brains inside the PlayStation 3, a spokesman said Wednesday.


Sony has been working with IBM Corp. and Toshiba Corp. to develop manufacturing technologies for next-generation semiconductors.


But the group "is in talks with IBM and Toshiba to review the project," Sony spokesman Tomio Takizawa said.


Sony last month announced a basic agreement to sell its production lines for advanced chips, including the Cell microprocessor at the heart of the PS3, to Toshiba in a deal reportedly worth over one billion dollars,


"Given the sale plan, it would be unreasonable for us to continue research on manufacturing technologies" for next-generation chips, Takizawa said.


Instead, Sony's semiconductor business would focus mainly on manufacturing sensors used in high-vision handycams and digital cameras, Takizawa said.


The sale of the chip lines is part of Sony's efforts to refocus on its core consumer electronics business.


The company, which is recovering from a profit slump, invested heavily in developing the Cell microprocessor -- the brains inside the PS3.


But it is struggling to make a profit from the console in the face of fierce competition from rival Nintendo, with Sony's game unit deep in the red.




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Gas pumps with Internet service, color screens, and touch pads use Google Maps to guide drivers to nearby landmarks.



Cars and maps are kind of a match made in heaven. People get lost, and roads are confusing. Luckily, pumping gas is not, and despite some states like Oregon requiring people to pump your gas for you, most other places are a self-serve affair. The Associated Press is reporting that a new line of gas pumps from Gilbarco Veeder-Root, due to ship next month, will be equipped with a touch-screen panel that includes a slightly stripped-down version of Google Maps to let you browse local attractions like hotels, amusement parks, and restaurants that have been handpicked by the gas station's owner. When you've found what you're looking for, you can then print out the directions right from the pump. Stations that buy and install them simply need to hook up the pump to the Internet to get the things going.


Gasoline pump maker Gilbarco Veeder-Root on Wednesday unveiled a new service that lets drivers use Google Maps at the pump to get directions to destinations chosen by gas station owners.
The service, unveiled at the National Association of Convenience Stores conference in Atlanta, is part of Gilbarco's Applause media system, which has been incorporated in its Encore pumps with color screens and Internet connections. Applause is an extension of Gilbarco's SMART Merchandising system that retailers can use to display promotions and advertisements, and offer coupons through the pump's receipt printer.


Gilbarco plans to begin testing of the Google service early next month, company spokeswoman Lucy Sackett told InformationWeek. The company hopes to roll out the service later in the month to about 3,500 pumps across the United States.


The Google service will be very limited initially. Using the pump's touch pad, drivers will be able to choose a category, such as restaurants, hospitals, hotels, or landmarks, and then pick a listing and print a map to the location. Retailers will choose the listings.


Motorists will not be able to search for their own destinations, Sackett said. That feature is expected to be introduced later, but no date has been set. "We're looking at a number of options, depending on how the initial testing and roll out goes," Sackett said.


While of limited use to motorists, the initial service gives retailers the tools to enter marketing deals with local businesses. Besides offering maps to locations, gas station owners could also offer coupons to try to drive traffic to local merchants. "Based on the interest we're getting at the show, I think there'll be a lot of demand for this," Sackett said.


Gilbarco plans to add other services to its Internet-connected pumps in the future. Those services could include weather and traffic reports, public service announcements, or the ability to order, for example, a sandwich at the pump and have it ready in the store after the motorist finishes filling up.


Gilbarco declined to say whether it had entered into a partnership with Google. The search engine offers open software hooks that developers can use to embed Google services in applications. "That's more representative of the relationship," Sackett said.


Google makes its services available to third-party developers to further its goal of getting its search engine in front of consumers wherever they are, not just at a home PC. Not all uses of its services lead to money trading hands.


As another example of Google's constant effort to expand the use of its services, the company on Monday unveiled a Linux-based operating system for mobile phones that would offer easy access to Google e-mail, search, and other services. Google has rallied 30 companies around its open-source OS, including T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm and Motorola.





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