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20,568 articles from Sci-Tech Today

Chipmakers Looking Beyond Silicon

We're used to computers becoming obsolete almost as soon as they leave the store because of rapid advances in chip technology, but the whole science of silicon chips is starting to show its age. Industry leaders say it must be retired within 10 years and replaced with something better, if computer technology is to continue advancing at the current pace. It's not clear what that new...

Microsoft Loses Antitrust Appeal in Europe

The European Union's Court of First Instance has rejected Microsoft's appeal of the European Commission's 2004 landmark antitrust decision against the company, which concluded that the software giant had abused its dominant position in the computer industry "by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems." The Court of First Instance ruled "that the Commission did not...

SpiralFrog Challenges iTunes with Free Music Downloads

SpiralFrog.com, an ad-supported, free music and video download site, officially launched on Monday. The site, which was in beta testing for months, allows anyone to access and download files from a library of more than 800,000 songs and 3,500 videos. In addition to providing downloads, SpiralFrog lets music fans view millions of artist bios, reviews, discographies, and album art. Avid...

Microsoft Must Share Code with Rivals

Microsoft lost its appeal of a European antitrust order Monday that obliges the technology giant to share communications code with rivals, sell a copy of Windows without Media Player and pay a $613 million fine -- the largest ever by EU regulators. The EU Court of First Instance ruled against Microsoft on both parts of the case, saying the European Commission was correct in concluding that...

NASA Revamps Shuttle Repair Plans

NASA hopes to test a thermal tile patch on the next space shuttle mission that could have been used to fix the gouge that was carved into the bottom of Endeavour during last month's launch. The repair -- a squirt of goo -- was one of three methods NASA considered using before deciding the damaged tiles didn't need to be fixed in flight. Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said Friday he...

China Recalls Tainted Leukemia Drugs

Chinese authorities ordered the recall of tainted leukemia drugs blamed for leg pains and other problems, state media reported Sunday, the latest crisis to strike the country's embattled food and drug industries. Most of the drugs involved -- methotrexate and cytarabin hydrochloride -- have been recovered and authorities have traced the remainder, the Xinhua News Agency said. The report did...

California Stem Cell Agency Gets New Chief

A renowned Australian scientist was named to run California's $3 billion stem cell agency, the nation's biggest financial backer of human embryonic research. The committee that oversees the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine voted Friday at a meeting in Los Angeles to appoint Alan Trounsoun the institute's new president. "Alan is a world-class scientist," said Dr. George...

Doctor Details 9/11 Workers' Illnesses

Doctors treating sickened ground zero workers offered Congress a detailed diagnosis Wednesday of the ailments still affecting thousands after the Sept. 11 attacks, but warned that there's no way to determine how many more may become afflicted with life-threatening illnesses. Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine described three months of recent medical treatment to a...

Arctic Ice Retreating to Record Lows

Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane. The European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos taken this month showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, and ice retreating to its lowest level since such...


FRIDAY 14. SEPTEMBER 2007


Moon 2.0: Google Funds $30 Million Lunar X Prize

In a stunning expansion of the private funding of space exploration, Google said it is funding a contest to put a robotic rover on the moon by 2012. The Google Lunar X Prize is offering a $30 million purse -- a $20 million grand prize, a $5 million second prize, and $5 million in bonus prizes -- for a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that can roam the moon's surface for at least 500...

Chip Giants Back Universal Flash Spec

Seven semiconductor manufacturers have announced their commitment to the introduction of Universal Flash Storage (UFS) -- a new industry specification for removable memory cards and embedded memory chip products for use in next-generation mobile handsets, PDAs, portable media players, and digital cameras. Micron Technology, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Spansion, STMicroelectronics, and Texas...

Verizon Sues To Block Open Access to Spectrum

Verizon threw a wrench in plans for a quiet run-up to the Federal Communication Commission's January auction of the valuable 700-MHz spectrum. The telecom company filed a petition with a court of appeals to overturn the FCC's decision to attach open-access rules to part of the spectrum. The filing does not state any specific grounds for review, asserting merely that the FCC's rulemaking exceeds...

Prince Targets YouTube and Hires Web Sheriff

Back in Napster's controversial days of illegal file-swapping, Metallica led the charge against digital piracy that was running rampant on the site. Fast-forward a few years and witness the rise of individual recording artists once again taking action against illegal use of their musical masterpieces. Pop star Prince became the latest artist to lash out against unauthorized use of his songs...

Google Launches Crusade for Privacy

Drawing upon its clout as the Internet's most powerful company, Google Inc. is calling on businesses and regulators throughout the world to adopt international standards for protecting consumer privacy online and offline. The request, to be unveiled Friday in France, comes as the online search leader battles privacy concerns that threaten its plan to buy New York-based Internet ad service...

Microsoft Defends Stealth Windows Updates

Microsoft has crossed the line with some Windows users by secretly deploying software through Windows Update -- even to users who had turned off automatic updates. Microsoft has issued an apology, of sorts, but some security experts are still warning that the practice of updating Windows without user consent could lead to dire consequences. As its name suggests, Windows Update is a service that...

Study: Cutbacks Imperil Climate Research

The government's climate change research is threatened by spending cuts that will reduce scientists' observations from space and on the ground, a study says. A major problem, the National Research Council said Thursday, is the program director's lack of authority to organize spending and research among the 13 different agencies that study the impacts of climate. Nonetheless, the report...

EPA's Pace of Superfund Cleanups Slows

The Environmental Protection Agency will finish 24 Superfund toxic waste cleanups this year, far fewer than the average 76 completed annually during the Clinton administration. EPA initially targeted 40 Superfund sites for completed cleanups this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Forty cleanups were finished in fiscal 2005. Among the most common contaminants are asbestos, lead, mercury and...

Health Official Defends Walter Reed

The military's medical community got a black eye that "we didn't completely deserve" about conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the top Pentagon health official said Thursday at a ribbon cutting for a new amputee center. The defense of conditions at Walter Reed by Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health, was a departure from the message by many military...

Study: City Air Quality Is Worsening

A study released Thursday predicts more bad air days in the summer for Cleveland, Columbus and eight other eastern U.S. cities if global warming continues unabated. Those cities are expected to have an increase in unsafe air days caused by ground-level ozone, which is formed from a combination of vehicle and factory pollutants and sunlight and heat. The analysis was conducted by the...


THURSDAY 13. SEPTEMBER 2007


Cisco Partners with VMware on Virtualization

Cisco is integrating its VFrame Data Center technology with VMware's virtualization infrastructure to produce a key component of the gear-maker's vision for how enterprises should go about building their next-gen data centers. What Cisco is calling Data Center 3.0 "is all about establishing a scalable, low-latency, real-time resilient fabric" that can serve as the data center's foundation, said...

Canada Warns Google: Street View May Be Illegal

When Google turned on the Street View feature to Google Maps, it created quite a stir. The images provided by Immersive Media included shots of women sunbathing topless (face down), a man scaling an iron fence apparently in a burglary attempt, and marijuana plants growing in a San Francisco Victorian window, among other more mundane images. As much as the individuals pictured might wish they...

Feds: Iceman Was Internet ID Thief

A man who used the Internet alias "Iceman" stole credit card and identity information from tens of thousands of people by hacking into the computers of financial institutions and credit card processing centers, federal authorities said Tuesday. Max Ray Butler, 35, of San Francisco, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on three counts of wire fraud and two counts of transferring...

Details of the gPhone Begin To Emerge

Mention the name Google in cell-phone software circles these days and you're likely to get a lot of blank stares and awkward silence. It's not that these Silicon Valley startups have nothing to say about the world's largest Web search engine. The problem is, they can't. Many mobile-software developers in the Bay Area and beyond are hard at work cobbling together services and tools they hope will...

Google Founders Get Exclusive Landing Strip

NASA has quietly cut a deal with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who will get to park their Boeing 767-200 widebody jet, as well as two other Google jets, at NASA's Moffett Field in the heart of Silicon Valley. The price tag of that parking space? $1.3 million. NASA says that the deal includes the right to put scientific instruments and researchers aboard the plane and collect data...

Appeals Court Stays Ban on Qualcomm Chips

The U.S. Court of Appeals has granted Qualcomm a stay against an earlier ruling by the International Trade Commission that had banned the import of cell phones containing Qualcomm chips said to infringe on a Broadcom patent relating to a power-saving technique. "We are pleased that the Court of Appeals recognized the undeserved harm to parties who were not named in the lawsuit," said Qualcomm...