Week of Sun, 2006-11-05 00:00 to Sat, 2006-11-11 23:59

It was obvious when the space shuttle was first thought up that there would have to be some way to get the enormous equipment it was meant to carry out of its cargo bay and into space. A few different options were considered – an ejection device, for instance – but it didn’t take long to settle on the idea of a glorified crane, something that could pick the equipment up, move it over and let it go.

Intel Corporation will increase the size of the assembly and test facility it is building in Vietnam from 150,000 square feet to 500,000 square feet and raise its investment from the USD$300 million announced in February to USD$1 billion.

The new Vietnam facility will be the largest single factory within the Intel assembly and test network. With the additional capacity plans, construction is now expected to begin in March. Production will begin in 2009 and could eventually employ as many as 4,000 people.

The Boeing Company's HH-47 helicopter has been selected by the U.S. Air Force as the winner of the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) program competition.

The CSAR program calls for initial operational capability of the HH-47 aircraft in 2012. Under the program, which is valued at up to $10 billion, Boeing will build 141 production aircraft and four test aircraft at its Rotorcraft Systems manufacturing facility in Ridley Park, Pa., also home to the MH-47G Special Operations and CH-47F Chinook programs.

Cultivating a radio frequency identification (RFID) industry in Canada is the impetus behind a new RFID research and development laboratory.

The creation of the McMaster RFID Applications Lab (MRAL) was announced today at the RFID Journal LIVE! Canada conference in Toronto. The initiative is being led by McMaster University and supported by EPCglobal Canada, Hewlett-Packard, IPICO, RF Code, Deloitte, Sun Microsystems, LRNI, and Ontario Centres of Excellence. MRAL is located at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced today that it will hear the U.S. government's and AT&T's appeal of a district court's decision allowing the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) case against AT&T to go forward. The lawsuit alleges that AT&T collaborated in the National Security Agency's (NSA's) illegal spying program. The 9th Circuit did not rule on the merits of the appeal.

The University of Southampton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have announced the launch of a long-term research collaboration that aims to produce the fundamental scientific advances necessary to guide the future design and use of the World Wide Web.

The Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) will generate a research agenda for understanding the scientific, technical and social challenges underlying the growth of the Web. Of particular interest is the volume of information on the Web that documents more and more aspects of human activity and knowledge. WSRI research projects will weigh such questions as, how do we access information and assess its reliability? By what means may we assure its use complies with social and legal rules? How will we preserve the Web over time?

Engineering education that instills global competence is not keeping pace with the complex and highly dynamic development process of globalization. Study programs are not sufficiently international and cross disciplinary, the mutual recognition of degrees or curriculum modules is still in its infancy, and a worldwide accreditation system is nowhere in sight. In addition, there are many government-imposed barriers that hinder an international and, at the same time, research-oriented study program. Furthermore there are still hardly any cooperative projects between companies and universities that go beyond a national framework. These are the key findings of the “Global Engineering Excellence” study, which was initiated by Continental AG.

As phishing and pharming become more prevalent, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have taken steps to mitigate the risk posed by such online threats. Susanne Wetzel, Assistant Professor, and Liu Yang, Research Scholar, both in the Stevens’ Computer Science Department, will participate in and present their research findings at the Anti-Phishing Working Group eCrime Researchers Summit in Orlando , Nov. 16-17.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today announced the VIA CN800 digital media IGP chipset, a highly integrated core logic solution that offers PCI Express and DDR2 memory support, as well as a host of rich digital media features including the VIA UniChrome™ Pro graphics IGP with hardware MPEG-2 playback and DuoView+™ for dual monitor output.

Personalisation and interactivity will be the key drivers of mobile TV according to a new report commissioned by Nokia and conducted by Dr Shani Orgad from the London School of Economics. The report, titled 'This Box Was Made For Walking', examines the future impact of mobile TV on the broadcasting and advertising industries.

Robots running amok and destroying property may be a staple in science fiction films, but they aren't welcome in factories, warehouses and other places where automatic guided vehicle (AGV) forklifts are used. Under a cooperative research and development agreement with Transbotics, a Charlotte, N.C., AGV manufacturer, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is developing advanced sensor processing and modeling algorithms to help robot forklifts verify the location and orientation of pallets laden with goods.

If terrorists aren't already using it, it's only a matter of time. It's called steganography, a way to hide messages in seemingly innocent digital images. Apparently harmless JPEG files, such as family vacation photos containing hidden data, could be e-mailed or posted on the Web -- possibly activating terrorist cells.

BETONSPORTS, PLC and the United States have reached an agreement to an Order of Permanent Injunction, building upon the Temporary Restraining Order previously entered on July 17, 2006, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway announced today.

The court found that Betonsports PLC, a publicly traded holding company incorporated in the United Kingdom, did business in the United States by conducting illegal gambling businesses that offered wagering on sports and sporting events through Internet web sites and toll-free telephone services. Betonsports PLC took in wagers amounting to $1,104,519,000 in 2002, $1,238,459,000 in 2003 and $1,252,328,000 in 2004. Ninety-eight percent of this money was illegally taken in as sports wagers from gamblers in the United States, who placed their bets using toll-free telephone services and Internet web sites in reliance on fraudulent representations that to do so was legal. In fact, the Court found that such online gambling violates federal law. The Court’s extensive findings of fact supporting the Permanent Injunction were based upon the record of the firm’s and its associates’ criminal conduct, a record that Betonsports PLC did not challenge (although it did not formally admit the factual findings).

As part of their ongoing effort to improve traffic management in New York state and across the country, a team of transportation researchers will be testing an array of wireless, solar-powered readers to monitor traffic flow. In the coming months, the units will be deployed to collect traffic data during the morning commute on busy Capital Region roads.

Problems with electronic voting machine failures kept some polls from opening, created long lines, and left many voters puzzled about whether their votes were counted in Tuesday's high stakes election.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined a nationwide team of technology lawyers and other experts staffing nationwide call centers and legal command posts on Election Day. The volunteers chronicled election problems, assisted voters, and worked with election officials to pull malfunctioning machines wherever possible. By 8:00 pm ET on Tuesday, over 17,000 incidents, including machine-related problems, had been reported to the Election Protection Coalition's 866-OUR-VOTE hotline.

Juniper Networks, Inc. released results of the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Government Action Study: Progress and Promise of the U.S. IPv6 Transition. The company and SynExi, founded by globally renowned IPv6 experts, combined their talents to comprehensively examine, realize and highlight the status and successes of IPv6 transformation in the U.S. government.

The study indicates that 30 percent of federal and state/local government executives will be influenced by the transition to IPv6 in their IT purchasing decisions, which equates to $39 billion in government IT spending where IPv6 will have an impact; by 2008, IPv6 influence will jump to 44 percent, an estimated $62 billion.1

NEC Corporation today announced that Project Leader at the Next Generation Supercomputer R & D Center, RIKEN, Dr. Tadashi Watanabe (previous employee and Vice President at NEC Corporation), will be honored with the Seymour Cray Computer Engineering Award from the IEEE Computer Society. Dr.. Watanabe will be the first Japanese individual to receive this award. The award ceremony is to take place on November 15 during the Supercomputing 2006 conference that is being held from November 11 to 17 in Tampa, Florida, U.S.A.

The scientists have developed a simple ‘air shower’ device which, when fitted into existing showerheads, fills the water droplets with a tiny bubble of air. The result is the shower feels just as wet and just as strong as before, but now uses much less water.

The researchers, from CSIRO Manufacturing Materials Technology in Melbourne, say the device increases the volume of the shower stream while reducing the amount of water used by about 30 per cent.

SiCortex has introduced a family of ultra low power high performance Linux systems.

SiCortex implement a complete cluster node on a chip, including six 64-bit processor cores, multiple memory controllers, a high performance cluster interconnect and a PCIexpress connection to storage and internetworking. A complete SiCortex cluster node with DDR-2 memory consumes 15 watts of power, an order of magnitude less than the 250 watts used in a conventional cluster node.

With the help of tiny, transparent zebrafish embryos, researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Medical College are hoping to prove that a microscopic nanoparticle can be part of a “new class of radioprotective agents” that help protect normal tissue from radiation damage just as well as standard drugs.

Reporting November 7, 2006 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Philadelphia, they show that the nanoparticle, DF-1 – a soccer ball-shaped, hollow, carbon-based structure known as a fullerene – is as good as two other antioxidant drugs and the FDA-approved drug, Amifostine in fending off radiation damage from normal tissue.

According to a new study by a researcher in the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, most people find spam more intrusive and irritating than direct mail. The study, published in the fall issue of the Journal of Interactive Advertising, also explores why people find spam so annoying.

“Overall, spam definitely is regarded as more annoying, irritating and intrusive than postal direct mail,” said Mariko Morimoto, assistant professor of advertising. “That was pretty much our hypothesis. And while it’s easy to figure out that spam is more annoying, I also wanted to know why.”

The worldwide market for handheld devices continued along its downward path during the third quarter of 2006. According to IDC's Worldwide Handheld QView, total worldwide shipments of handheld devices fell to 1.1 million units, down 15.4% from the previous quarter and down 31.3% from the same quarter one year ago. This quarter constitutes the eleventh consecutive quarter of year-on-year decline for the worldwide handheld market.

With a $1.23 million grant, researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will be creating a distributed power "test-bed" to study how the electricity distribution grid might be affected by the widespread adoption of clean, renewable energy sources.

The two-year project, which is funded by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR), is designed to help understand the potential effects of meeting New York state's key alternative energy goal -- by 2012, more than 25 percent of power generation through renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and fuel cells.

Cisco reported its first quarter results for the period ended October 28, 2006. Cisco reported first quarter net sales of $8.2 billion, net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis of $1.6 billion or $0.26 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $1.9 billion or $0.31 per share. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., acquired during the third quarter of fiscal 2006, contributed net sales of $584 million during the first quarter of fiscal 2007.

IBM will license its "Clipped Tag" technology to Marnlen RFiD, who will begin production of the tags and offer availability immediately. The Clipped Tag allows consumers to tear off the majority of an RFID tag's antenna, reducing the tag's read range to just a few inches, ensuring consumer privacy while maintaining the benefits of the technology, such as product authentication or recalls.

The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation a contract for the company's Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder (LLDR).

The $15 million contract will fund LLDR upgrades for all shipments after 2009 as the Army continues to purchase and upgrade its premier dismounted electro-optic sensor from Northrop Grumman.

The Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder has been an essential piece of warfighting equipment in the U.S. Army's inventory. To make this highly effective equipment even more capable on the battlefield, the U.S. Army is funding system improvements that include decreasing system weight, increasing its ability to operate in low visibility conditions and replacing components no longer supported by vendors.

A new 32-bit digital flight control computer recently completed its first flight aboard the Taiwanese Air Force Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) C/D version, also known as the Shiang-Seng Fighter.

The new flight control computer, from BAE Systems, represents a substantial advance in processing power and control capability over the obsolete 16-bit computer it replaces.

The most powerful tunable laser in the world just shattered another power record: the Free-Electron Laser (FEL), supported by the Office of Naval Research and located at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab), produced a 14.2 kilowatt (kW) beam of laser light at an infrared wavelength of 1.61 microns on October 30.

"This wavelength is of interest to the Navy for transmission of light through the maritime atmosphere and for material science applications," said Fred Dylla, Jefferson Lab's Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director of the Free-Electron Laser Division. The FEL is supported by the Office of Naval Research, the Naval Sea Systems Command, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Joint Technology Office, as well as by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The laser's new capabilities will enhance a wide range of applications, such as shipboard antimissile defense and other defense applications as well as manufacturing technologies and the support of scientific studies in chemistry, physics, biology and medicine.

An award-winning IST research team has developed highly unusual mini-robots, or swarm-bots, that work as a team to overcome challenges. While their cooperative behaviour is inspired by the actions of the tiny ant, their abilities could eventually take them to outer space.

Imitating insects such as ants, highly mobile small robots can accomplish physical tasks that no individual robot of the same size could manage. But if more sophisticated versions appear, then such machines could complete coordinated tasks in a way that could revolutionise the way we think about our world today.

Students will compete in nine categories spanning software design and short film to challenges involving algorithms and programming. Students’ work will reflect valuable, real-world solutions that address the pressing global issue of education while giving them the opportunity to compete for generous cash prizes.

This year, Microsoft is calling on young programmers, artists and technologists around the world to bring their ideas to life in nine categories, each catering to a different talent:

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg have visualised vibration and rotation in the nuclei of a hydrogen molecule as a quantum mechanical wave packet. What is more, this has been achieved on an extremely short spatio-temporal scale. They "photographed" the molecule using intensive, ultrashort laser pulses at different points in time and compiled a film from the separate images. This allowed them to visualise the quantum mechanical wave pattern of the vibrating and rotating molecule (Physical Review Letters, Online-Edition, November 6, 2006).

Intel Corporation is shipping volume shipments of 65-nanometer (nm) NOR flash Multi-Level Cell (MLC) products, including the industry’s first 65nm 1Gigabit (Gb) monolithic part for cell phones. These new products are based on Intel’s StrataFlash® Cellular Memory (M18) architecture and are drop-in compatible with Intel’s high-volume, 90nm-based flash chips, ensuring an easy migration path for cellular Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs.)

Volvo Cars is launching FlexiFuel models powered by renewable bioethanol on several European markets this autumn. The green model range is also being extended and even Volvo’s new C30 will be offered with eco-optimised FlexiFuel power.

Three of Volvo’s nine models – the C30, S40 and V50 – are now available in an environmentally optimised FlexiFuel alternative. They are powered by a four-cylinder naturally aspirated engine producing 125 hp. Bioethanol and petrol are both filled in the same 55 litre tank. The fuel hoses, valves and gaskets have all been modified to withstand the more corrosive properties of ethanol. The injection valves have been reinforced and are also larger, since more fuel is injected into the engine because of the lower energy content of E85 compared with petrol. Moreover, the software calibration is updated for ethanol power. The engine management system precisely monitors the fuel mixture in the fuel tank and automatically adjusts both injection and ignition to suit.

A company that sent unsolicited commercial e-mail after consumers asked it to stop has agreed to pay a $50,717 civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law.

The FTC charged Yesmail Inc., doing business as @Once Corporation, with sending e-mail on behalf of its clients more than 10 business days after recipients had asked it to stop. According to the FTC’s complaint, Yesmail offers e-mail marketing services, including sending commercial e-mail and processing unsubscribe requests from recipients. The FTC’s complaint alleges that Yesmail’s spam filtering software filtered out certain “reply to” unsubscribe requests from recipients as “spam,” which resulted in Yesmail failing to honor unsubscribe requests by sending thousands of commercial e-mail messages to recipients more than 10 business days after their requests.

Research by a Sandia National Laboratories engineer and a University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center neurologist shows that brain injury may occur within one millisecond after a human head is thrust into a windshield as a result of a car accident.

This happens prior to any overall motion of the head following impact with the windshield and is a new concept to consider for doctors interested in traumatic brain injury (TBI).

John Verkade remembers just how it happened some 40 years ago: One of his Iowa State University graduate students, David Hendricker, stopped by to report somebody was stealing a little wooden applicator stick from a beaker.

Oh, Verkade said, that's just a prank. Go hide around the corner and do some peeking until the joker shows up again. Thirty minutes later Hendricker was back in Verkade's office.

HP will collaborate with SAP AG on research aimed at improving the flexibility, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of IT systems for businesses of all sizes.

HP Labs and SAP Research, the central research facilities for the two companies respectively, will work together on technologies designed to exploit synergies between HP’s Adaptive Infrastructure management technologies and SAP’s Enterprise service-oriented architecture (Enterprise SOA). Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The Cybermedia Center (CMC) at Osaka University has purchased 20 SX-8R vector supercomputers from the NEC Corporation. The new system has a peak performance of 5.3 TFLOPS and will be the largest SX series system acquired in Japan.

CMC plans to add a next-generation SX system in two years, whose peak performance is expected to exceed 20 TFLOPS (one trillion floating-point operations per second), a performance enhancement of 16 times that of the current system of SX-5/12M8 (peak performance: 1,280GFLOPS).

VMware Lab Manager, from VMware, Inc., enables enterprise software development organizations to more efficiently utilize software development and test lab assets, accelerate software development cycles and increase the quality of delivered software products.

VMware Lab Manager is optimized for use in the development, test and integration stages of an organization’s software lifecycle process, complementing VMware VirtualCenter, which supports the production-oriented stages of the process: staging, deployment and management of production software systems. These products together leverage the power and flexibility of VMware Infrastructure to provide the only complete, closed-loop software lifecycle automation framework that enables efficient, bi-directional management and movement of complex multi-machine software configurations through all stages of the software lifecycle. Users of the product can be local or remote to the VMware Lab Manager installation, enabling customers with remote development and test teams to share lab assets and machine images.

Open Text™ Corporation reported unaudited financial results for its first quarter that ended September 30, 2006.

Total revenue for the first quarter was $101.2 million, compared to $92.6 million for the same period in the prior fiscal year. License revenue in the first quarter was $28.8 million, compared to $24.9 million in the first quarter of the prior fiscal year.

HP today completed its acquisition of Mercury Interactive Corp.

The deal integrates Mercury’s application management and delivery and IT governance capabilities with HP’s portfolio of management solutions to create a new HP Software organization that will lead the industry in business technology optimization (BTO).

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, unveiled the SPH-P9000 Deluxe MITs at Mobile WiMAX Summit 2006. The SPH-P9000 is the true convergence device capable of voice and multimedia data communications through Mobile WiMAX technology.

The expected growth of Mobile WiMAX services will result in an increasing demand for multi-functional devices. The SPH-P9000 is a PDA-based device utilizing Mobile WiMAX and CDMA EV-DO connectivity. Users will have wireless access to the Internet utilizing Mobile WiMAX connectivity. Also, the CDMA EV-DO technology provides mobile phone connection for voice communication. With Microsoft Windows XP as the operating system, users will find the contents and applications familiar and easy to use for work and play.

Nokia signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army to evaluate Nokia technology in the areas of PCS, WCDMA 3G, GSM, WiMAX and advanced wireless networking protocols for potential military and defense applications. The CRADA with the Research, Development, and Engineering Command, Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) demonstrates the continued momentum of Nokia's government division in the U.S., particularly its expanding relationship with the Army.

Adobe Systems Incorporated and the Mozilla Foundation today announced that Adobe has contributed source code for the ActionScript™ Virtual Machine to the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla will host a new open source project, called Tamarin, to accelerate the development of this standards-based approach for creating rich and engaging Web applications.

Sony Ericsson has reached agreement in principle for acquiring the Swedish software company UIQ Technology AB, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Symbian Ltd. UIQ Technology, which uses Symbian OS™, licenses the UIQ user interface and application development platform to mobile phone vendors worldwide.

Sony Ericsson is already a licensee of UIQ Technology, and has been working closely with the company on UIQ version 3.0, which is included in Sony Ericsson’s P990 smartphone, M600 messaging phone and W950 Walkman® phone.

Geoscience measuring networks have gaps, for where there is no electricity, no data can be collected. Many remote regions are still white spots on the data landscape. A new energy system will soon remedy the problem.

Weather forecasts, disaster warnings, traffic reports – no-one today is willing to go without up-to-the-minute information. Residents want to find out how high a flood will rise, scientists track the development of earthquakes, and investors call for wind data from the site of a projected wind farm. All of these data can only be determined if a close-meshed network of automatically operating measuring stations is in place. But the network is patchy, for in many places there is no power to operate the equipment. In places where no power cables have been laid, the measuring stations have to operate self-sufficiently. At present, the necessary electricity usually comes from solar cells, but these are not always able to meet the energy requirements. Especially in winter, when the modules are covered with snow and ice and additional energy is needed to heat the sensors, the sun’s energy is not sufficient. Sometimes it is simply too expensive to generate electricity using photovoltaics alone.

An EU project team is working to combine satellite positioning with 3G mobile phone technology on a single chip. The result could unlock the future for applications like smart tourism services, smart transport management and even electronic guide dogs for the blind.

Satellite navigation or 'satnav' systems are enjoying growing popularity, especially in the transport sector where unit prices have dropped rapidly. The global market is already estimated to be worth some eight billion euro.

Infineon Technologies AG, introduced a method that can avoid one of the most common causes of defects in the production of highly integrated semiconductor circuits: the electrical failure of VIA contacts. "VIA" stands for "vertical interconnect" and refers to the contact between two metal layers in integrated circuits. Infineon developed the new method in collaboration with the Regensburg University of Applied Sciences (FH Regensburg) as part of its Automotive Excellence™ program, launched some three years ago to meet the automotive industry’s exacting quality requirements.

A Delta IV evolved expendable launch vehicle carrying a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellite was launched from the Space Launch Complex-6 here Nov. 4 at 5:53 a.m.

"I'm extremely proud of the precision with which the base and Vandenberg launch team planned and executed this Delta IV mission," said Col. Terry Djuric, the 30th Space Wing vice commander. "This west coast launch helped kick off the Air Force's yearlong 60th anniversary celebration."

Symantec Corp. to acquire Company-i

Corporate boards and executive management teams are focusing on reducing operational risk to ensure resilient business operations, trusted brands, and compliance with evolving regulations. In order to do so, these companies are turning to Symantec for help with IT risk management – balancing the costs and risks of technology. And, currently, there are significant opportunities to improve IT risk and cost levels in the data center.

Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 46, of Azusa, California, was arrested today by FBI agents after having been a fugitive for the past four months, announced J. Stephen Tidwell, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Goodin, who was known as “The Hacker,” was originally arrested in January 2006 on charges he operated an identity theft scheme known as “phishing.” During the scheme, Goodin allegedly sent thousands of fraudulent e-mails which appeared to be from America Online’s Billing Department to AOL subscribers, seeking their personal credit and debit card account information. The stolen information was later used by Goodin to make unauthorized purchases.

2007 Microsoft® Office system code is complete and its has been released to manufacturing (RTM). This gold code milestone concludes the largest Microsoft Office beta program to date, with more than 3.5 million people downloading Beta 2. The unprecedented quantity of feedback from beta testers and customers helped the Office development team effectively validate product quality and optimize performance. Microsoft Office RTM also marks a critical step toward worldwide business availability of the 2007 Office system, Windows Vista™ operating system and Exchange Server 2007 on Nov. 30, 2006. To underscore the significance of this new day for business, Microsoft executives will participate in events around the globe, including an event with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in New York. General availability of the products will follow in early 2007.

Rice University's open-source publishing platform Connexions today received a third-phase $1.7 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation that will allow Connexions to become more self-sustaining through new revenue-generating initiatives.

Founded in 1999, the nonprofit Connexions is one of the Web's first open educational resources. Connexions adapts open-source concepts to educational publishing, allowing anyone anywhere in the world to read, write, use and modify materials for free. The number of people using Connexions has grown by almost 70 percent during the past year, and the site today is attracting around 500,000 visitors each month.

Volkswagen inaugurated the new cold and climate test center at its Wolfsburg plant on Monday.

The new center, which cost about 30 million euros, is designed for comprehensive testing under a wide variety of climatic conditions at temperatures ranging from -40 to +150 degrees Celsius. Even direct solar radiation, humidities up to 95 percent, elevations up to 3000 meters and wind blast can all be simulated.

Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science today announced they have developed a new reverse osmosis (RO) membrane that promises to reduce the cost of seawater desalination and wastewater reclamation.

Reverse osmosis desalination uses extremely high pressure to force saline or polluted waters through the pores of a semi-permeable membrane. Water molecules under pressure pass through these pores, but salt ions and other impurities cannot, resulting in highly purified water.

The device looks like something out of an old science fiction movie, but researchers at Rush University Medical Center say it holds promise in the treatment of cancer.

The Perspecta® Spatial 3D system, developed by Actuality Systems, Inc., creates holographic images inside a 24-inch dome. The full-color, full-motion system can display images of the body revealing the exact location of tumors in true 3D space.

Spammers are out in full force, Postini announced, severely threatening corporate networks while seeking financial gain. Postini processed nearly 70 billion email connections from September to November, and saw a 59 percent spike in spam over that period. Unwanted email is currently 91 percent of all email, and over the past 12 months the daily volume of spam rose by 120 percent. Postini also saw a dramatic increase in overall email traffic with 10 billion more connections in October than in September.

The University of Surrey has been awarded a grant of £420,000 to utilize nanotechnology to develop cancer treatments. The grant is part of an international project: "Multifunctional Carbon Nanotubes for Biomedical Applications (CARBIO)" supported by the European Union under the Marie Curie scheme.

Carbon nanotubes have already found applications in engineering but so far any biological application has been hampered by their poor interaction with biological systems. The Surrey team has overcome this problem by wrapping DNA and RNA around carbon nanotubes making them biocompatible. The aim of the project is to attach additional molecules to the RNA-wrapped carbon nanotubes to target them towards cancer cells. In combination with laser treatment the carbon nanotubes may then be used to kill the cancer cells. Although there is still a long way to go before any new drugs based on this technology are developed, the scientists hope that their work will eventually lead to more effective treatments for cancer.

Texas Instruments (TI) has licensed the MIPS32® 24Kc™ processor core for its newest generation of Gigabit Ethernet IP Phone System-on-a-Chip (SoC) from MIPS Technologies, Inc.

TI's TNETV1051/1052/1053 devices are dual-core communications processors based on a 300 MHz MIPS32 24Kc core and TI's 150MHz C55x DSP, and are optimized with a comprehensive suite of IP phone applications software. TI's integration of the high-performance, low-power MIPS32 24Kc core onto the platform helps reduce the cost, development time, power consumption and complexity of IP phone solutions and accelerate manufacturers' time-to-market.

XenSource, Inc. will work with Citrix Systems, Inc., to provide Microsoft Windows® desktop support for deployment within the Citrix Dynamic Desktop Initiative. The solution is a brokering solution which will operate with XenEnterprise, a commercially-packaged server virtualization solution based on the Xen™ hypervisor, to provision the appropriate virtualized desktop environment.

Many of the vaunted applications of carbon nanotubes require the ability to attach these super-tiny cylinders to electrically conductive surfaces, but to date researchers have only been successful in creating high-resistance interfaces between nanotubes and substrates. Now a team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reports two new techniques, each following a different approach, for placing carbon nanotube patterns on metal surfaces of just about any shape and size.

Today, the vision of quieter and more environmentally friendly flying came a step closer as researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) unveiled their revolutionary concept for a silent aircraft.

Originally conceived as making a huge reduction in the noise experienced by people in the vicinity of airports, this highly-efficient design also offers improvements of around 25% in the fuel consumed in a typical flight compared to current aircraft.

Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc., are ahead of schedule on their development of the NAND flash memory joint venture, IM Flash Technologies.

Since the formation of IM Flash in January, the companies have brought online a state-of-the-art 300 millimeter (mm) NAND fabrication facility in Manassas, Virginia, and a Lehi, Utah, 300mm facility is on track to be in production early next year. The venture also currently produces NAND through existing capacity at Micron’s Boise, Idaho, fabrication facilities.

Boeing has acquired the first signal from the XM-4 satellite, indicating that the spacecraft is healthy and operating as planned. Over the coming weeks, the satellite will be maneuvered up to geostationary orbit where a series of in-orbit deployments and tests will be conducted to ensure that the satellite meets its specifications and is ready to begin operations for XM Satellite Radio, Inc.

NVIDIA Corporation to acquire PortalPlayer, Inc.

Under terms of the agreement, NVIDIA will pay $13.50 in cash for each outstanding share of PortalPlayer common stock, which represents a total purchase price of approximately $357 million, or approximately $161 million net of cash on PortalPlayer's balance sheet as of September 30, 2006. The purchase price represents approximately a 19 percent premium to the 20-day average closing price of PortalPlayer through Friday, November 3, 2006. This acquisition has been approved by the Board of Directors of each company and is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced that the number of subscribers to DoCoMo's 3G FOMA™ service surpassed the 30 million mark on November 4, 2006, approximately five years and one month since the service's launch on October 1, 2001.

DoCoMo attributes the rapid subscriber growth to its wide variety of services and contents taking advantage of 3G's high speed and high capability data transmission, an expanding line-up of 3G handsets, wider coverage area and improvements in call quality.

A strategic cooperation agreement for Mobile TV, Alcatel and ARCHOS™.

Within the framework of this agreement, ARCHOS will develop the world‘s first portable multimedia player adapted to Alcatel’s Unlimited Mobile TV solution, a hybrid terrestrial and satellite broadcast solution based on an evolution of the DVB-H standard in the S-Band (2.2 GHz). Commercial availability of ARCHOS S-Band compatible devices is expected in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Tektronix, Inc. signed an agreement to acquire Minacom

Complementing Tektronix’ network monitoring systems, Minacom’s active test solutions for VoIP, voice, video, Internet, Fax, and Fax-over-IP provide active troubleshooting, provisioning, and automated service quality monitoring that accurately reflects the real subscriber-experience. The combined products will provide an integrated end-to-end NGN network and service quality test platform for Tektronix customers worldwide, enabling them to provide the highest quality of service to their subscribers and to rapidly identify, localize and quantify service and network issues at all points from the core to the edge of the network.

Officials are saying the December launch of a tactical satellite, dubbed TacSat-2, will serve as the predecessor for rapid satellite production, launch and operation.

Managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate here, TacSat-2 has evolved into a responsive space demonstrator ready for flight in 24 months. Similar military spacecraft have taken 10 years or longer to go from the drawing board into space. In addition, the micro satellite provides an inexpensive alternative to most current defense-related space systems, which cost about 90 percent more.

Nokia opened a facility located in Silicon Valley. Nokia Research Center, which recently celebrated its 20 year anniversary, has a mandate to inspire innovation, drive renewal, and develop next generation mobile technologies. To foster open innovation, Nokia also announced a three-year agreement with Stanford University, to develop joint research projects on collaborative mobile computing and applications.

The S-LCD Corporation a Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - Sony Corporation joint venture, held a ceremony to celebrate a major milestone of the construction of the 8th-generation LCD fabrication line at the Tanjeong production complex.

S-LCD started mass producing LCD panels on the 7G line in April 2005, nine months after the company was officially launched. As a result of that collaboration, both Samsung and Sony have had access to a stable supply of large-screen LCD TV panels, helping the partners to become the global market leaders for LCD TV screens in the 40"-diagonal range.

Oracle has acquired SPL WorldGroup, a leading provider of revenue and operations management software for the utilities industry and tax management software for government organizations.

SPL delivers solutions for customer care & billing, mobile workforce management, outage & distribution management, and asset management that are specifically designed for electric, gas and water utilities. The company's broad suite of utility solutions supports critical operational business processes, services, markets and geographies. SPL also offers a complementary public sector tax management solution that provides a foundation to manage the financial relationships a governmental entity has with its constituents.

Volkswagen Research has developed a type of high temperature fuel cell (HTFC) that is one of a kind in the world. The high temperature fuel cell eliminates numerous disadvantages of low temperature fuel cells (LTFC) previously known and used in virtually every type of vehicle with this propulsion system.

The high temperature membrane developed by Volkswagen can in combination with newly designed electrodes be "driven" at temperatures of up to 120 degrees Celsius with no loss in performance. In the HTFC protons are exchanged via phosphoric acid. This acid has good electrolytic properties similar to water, yet demonstrates a higher boiling point. This is why a significantly simpler cooling system and water management is sufficient for the HTFC. And this significantly reduces the weight and costs. The space required for the fuel cell system is also lowered by more than 30 percent.