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Verizon Joined The LiMo Foundation™

Technology News Staff — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:52:26 +0000

Verizon has joined the LiMo Foundation™ as a Core member and will fill the final seat on LiMo’s board of directors. By participating in LiMo, Verizon hopes to help LiMo unify the mobile industry around openness and Linux as the key enablers to lowering development costs.

LiMo Foundation is open to all vendors and service providers in the mobile communications marketplace, including device manufacturers, operators, chipset manufacturers, integrators and independent software vendors. Verizon Wireless joins the foundation’s other 39 members in working within LiMo’s transparent governance model to shape the evolution of the LiMo Platform™, while remaining entirely free to deliver their own compelling and differentiated services to mobile customers.

Increasing Solar Cell Efficiency With NanoWires

Technology News Staff — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:19:11 +0000

University of California, San Diego electrical engineers have created experimental solar cells spiked with nanowires that could lead to highly efficient thin-film solar cells of the future.

Indium phosphide (InP) nanowires can serve as electron superhighways that carry electrons kicked loose by photons of light directly to the device’s electron-attracting electrode – and this scenario could boost thin-film solar cell efficiency, according to research recently published in NanoLetters.

Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

Technology News Staff — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:08:07 +0000

Young scientists and innovators from around the world arrived in Atlanta to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair presented by Agilent Technologies. Here at the world's largest pre-college science competition, more than 1,500 high school students from 51 countries, regions and territories compete this week for nearly $4 million in scholarships and awards. The top three winners will each be awarded a $50,000 scholarship by the Intel Foundation.

Channeling Traffic, The ORINOKO Project

Technology News Staff — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:55:16 +0000

How can traffic be monitored and controlled more effectively? In the ORINOKO project, scientists have developed methods of determining the traffic situation across a wide area, and have refined processes that enable traffic to be optimally channeled.

Traffic jams on the way to work, to the shops or to a holiday destination – a common experience for most of us. Traffic management systems can provide help. Various concepts and measures are being tested, for example in the transport research project ORINOKO (Operative Regional Integrated and Optimized Corridor Control). The project received funding to the tune of almost three million euros from the German federal ministry of economics and technology BMWi over a period of about three years.

USAF Counter-Biological Warfare Concept

Technology News Staff — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:03:35 +0000

The Air Force counter-biological warfare concept of operations recently reached a critical milestone, achieving initial operational capability across the service.

"It results from six years of analysis and testing," said Col. Steve Lucky, chief of the Air Force Strategic Plans & Policy Division at the Pentagon.

"Although these new procedures significantly improve our ability to operate in a biological warfare environment, there is still a significant amount of work to be done to fully prepare the Air Force to meet the threat," Colonel Lucky said. "Air Force major commands are working together to ensure the CONOPS reaches full operational capability by April 2009 and is successfully institutionalized across the service."

SPAM Act, Four New Rule Provisions

Technology News Staff — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:38:54 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission has approved four new rule provisions under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM or the Act). The provisions are intended to clarify the Act’s requirements. The provisions and the Commission’s Statement of Basis and Purpose (SBP) will be published in the Federal Register shortly.

The new rule provisions address four topics: (1) an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender; (2) the definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements; (3) a “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address”; and (4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

Cyberstalking Indictment

Technology News Staff — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:32:22 +0000

A Kansas City, Mo., man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for cyberstalking.

Shawn D. Memarian, 28, of Kansas City, was charged in an indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury on Thursday, May 8, 2008. That indictment was unsealed and made public today upon Memarian’s arrest and initial court appearance.

The federal indictment alleges that between July 15, 2006, and Sept. 1, 2007, Memarian engaged in a course of conduct consisting of malicious postings to MySpace, Facebook, Craig’s List and other Internet social sites in which he caused the personal identity information of Melissa Sandfort – including her home address – to be publicly displayed. At the time, the indictment says, Memarian had been served with a restraining order forbidding contact with Sandfort.

GaN Transistor, Alternative To Silicon Chip

Technology News Staff — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:03:23 +0000

Even before Weixiao Huang received his doctorate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his new transistor captured the attention of some of the biggest American and Japanese automobile companies. The 2008 graduate’s invention could replace one of the most common pieces of technology in the world—the silicon transistor for high-power and high-temperature electronics.

Huang, who comes from humble roots as the son of farmers in rural China, has invented a new transistor that uses a compound material known as gallium nitride (GaN), which has remarkable material properties. The new GaN transistor could reduce the power consumption and improve the efficiency of power electronics systems in everything from motor drives and hybrid vehicles to house appliances and defense equipment.

Water Power Technology Funding

Technology News Staff — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:51:04 +0000

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will fund up to $7.5 million for research and development to help advance the viability and cost-competitiveness of advanced water power systems. Through this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), DOE seeks partnerships with U.S. industry and universities to develop innovative and effective technologies capable of harnessing water power energy resources, including ocean wave, tidal, current and other water-based resources.

Contactless Chip Module, MasterCard PayPass™

Technology News Staff — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:16:18 +0000

The MasterCard PayPass™ enabled chip module has been lauched by MasterCard Worldwide and Toshiba Corporation. PayPass is a contactless payment feature developed and deployed globally by MasterCard. With this collaboration MasterCard and Toshiba plan to introduce the chip module in Japanese market by the end of 2008.

Designed using globally interoperable standards (ISO/IEC7816 and ISO/IEC14443), the chip module will be enabled with dual interface (EMV contact / PayPass contactless). The price gap will be kept to the minimum from the single EMV contact interface chip so that companies who currently adopt and deploy EMV contact chip can easily add and issue PayPass enabled cards with costs saved.