BORGZA'S Science & Technology UPDATES

[genmirajborgza786]

Man-sized sea scorpion claw found
How the creature compares for size with a human
The giant beast
The immense fossilised claw of a 2.5m-long (8ft) sea scorpion has been described by European researchers.
The 390-million-year-old specimen was found in a German quarry, the journal Biology Letters reports.

The creature, which has been named Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, would have paddled in a river or swamp.

The size of the beast suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were much larger in the past than previously thought, the team says.

The claw itself measures 46cm - indicating its owner would have been longer even than the average-sized human.

Overall, the estimated size of the animal exceeds the record for any other sea scorpion (eurypterid) find by nearly 50cm.

The eurypterids are believed to be the extinct aquatic ancestors of modern land scorpions and possibly all arachnids (the class of animals that also includes spiders).

"The biggest scorpion today is nearly 30cm so that shows you how big this creature was," said Dr Simon Braddy from the University of Bristol, UK.

It was one of Dr Braddy's co-authors, Markus Poschmann, who made the discovery in the quarry near Prum in western Germany.

"I was loosening pieces of rock with a hammer and chisel when I suddenly realised there was a dark patch of organic matter on a freshly removed slab," he recalled.

"After some cleaning I could identify this as a small part of a large claw. Although I did not know if it was more complete or not, I decided to try and get it out.

"The pieces had to be cleaned separately, dried, and then glued back together. It was then put into a white plaster jacket to stabilise it."

Super-sized meals

The species existed during a period in Earth history when oxygen levels in the atmosphere were much higher than today.


And it was those elevated levels, some palaeo-scientists believe, that may have helped drive the super-sized bodies of many of the invertebrates that existed at that time - monster millipedes, huge cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies.
But Dr Braddy thinks the large scales may have had a lot to do with the absence early on of vertebrate predators. As they came on the scene, these animals would have eaten all the biggest prey specimens.

"The fact that you are big means you are more likely to be seen and to be taken for a tastier morsel," he told BBC News. "Evolution will not select for large size; you want to be small so you can hide away."

The scorpions are thought to have made their first scuttles on to land about 450 million years ago.

While some would have taken up a fully terrestrial existence, others like Jaekelopterus rhenaniae would have maintained an aquatic or semi-aquatic lifestyle.


Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Man-sized sea scorpion claw found

Published: 2007/11/21 00:55:50 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

'Kill switch' dropped from Vista
Microsoft is to withdraw an anti-piracy tool from Windows Vista, which disables the operating system when invoked, following customer complaints.
The so-called "kill switch" is designed to prevent users with illegal copies of Vista from using certain features.

But the tool has suffered from glitches since it was introduced with many Windows users claiming that legal copies of Vista had been disabled.

Microsoft says its efforts have seen a drop in piracy of its software.

In a statement released by the company, Microsoft corporate vice president Mike Sievert, said: "Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine copies."

'Take action'

"They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Window Vista is not genuine and they need to take action."

Microsoft has described the new approach as a "change of tactics". It said efforts to tackle piracy had seen numbers of fake copies of Vista at half the level of XP, the previous Windows operating system.

The change will take effect with the release of Service Pack 1, a major update to Windows Vista.

Customers who buy a copy of Windows Vista or have the operating system (OS) installed when they buy a new PC are required to validate the OS with Microsoft.

An online tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage, checks the authenticity of the OS to determine if it was legally acquired.

The tool can "lock" Vista from further use if it believes it is an unauthorised copy. But many users have complained that the system is not working because legally bought copies result in error messages.

It was introduced in 2006 as a voluntary option, but became mandatory with the release of Vista, and had problems from the day it was introduced. Mr Sievert added: "It's worth re-emphasising that our fundamental strategy has not changed.

"All copies of Windows Vista still require activation and the system will continue to validate from time to time to verify that systems are activated properly."

Microsoft said it had pursued legal action against more than 1,000 dealers of counterfeit Microsoft products in the last year and taken down more than 50,000 "illegal and improper" online software auctions.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Kill switch' dropped from Vista

Published: 2007/12/04 13:17:57 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Rise in broadband use in Europe
A total of 42% of households in the EU now have a broadband connection, according to an official survey.
That represents a 12 percentage point rise on the figure for 2006.

The survey, carried out by national statistics offices across Europe, also appears to confirm a gender gap in use of the internet as people become older.

Almost one-third of men over the age of 55 use the internet at least once a week while the figure for women is less than one-fifth.

Web access

What is clear from the statistics is that internet access is gradually extending across the 27 states of the European Union.


During the first three months of 2007, 54% of households had an internet connection, up from 49% in 2006.

But, as the graph makes clear, the proportion of households with web access varies from 19% in Bulgaria to 83% in the Netherlands.

Internet access in the UK has risen by four percentage points to 67% and broadband connections have increased sharply from 44% to 57%.

A total of 150,000 households took part in the survey across the EU, with the exception of Malta.

Online chat

The survey also gives details of the extent of people's web skills.

While half of users had sent emails with attachments, around a quarter said they had been involved in online discussions, chatrooms or newsgroups.


Fifteen per cent had used the internet for phone calls and one in ten had created their own web page.

The figures confirm that the younger you are, the more likely you are to spend time on the internet.

As the graph makes clear, people over the age of 55 are the lowest web-users and women are well behind men.

Although only 19% of women aged between 55 and 74 access the internet more than once a week, that figure has almost doubled in the past three years.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Europe | Rise in broadband use in Europe

Published: 2007/12/04 18:50:57 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Quantum computing
Silicon electronics are a staple of the computing industry, but researchers are now exploring other techniques to deliver powerful computers.

A quantum computer is a theoretical device that would make use of the properties of quantum mechanics, the realm of physics that deals with energy and matter at atomic scales.
In a quantum computer data is not processed by electrons passing through transistors, as is the case in today's computers, but by caged atoms known as quantum bits or Qubits.

"It is a new paradigm for computation," said Professor Artur Ekert of the University of Oxford. "It's doing computation differently."

A bit is a simple unit of information that is represented by a "1" or a "0" in a conventional electronic computer.

A qubit can also represent a "1" or a "0" but crucially can be both at the same time - known as a superposition.

This allows a quantum computer to work through many problems and arrive at their solutions simultaneously.

"It is like massively parallel processing but in one piece of hardware," said Professor Ekert.

'Complex systems'

This has significant advantages, particularly for solving problems with a large amount of data or variables.

"With quantum computing you are able to attack some problems on the time scales of seconds, which might take an almost infinite amount of time with classical computers," Professor David Awschalom of the University of California, Santa Barbara told the BBC News website recently.

In February 2007, the Canadian company D-Wave systems claimed to have demonstrated a working quantum computer.

At the time, Herb Martin, chief executive officer of the company said that the display represented a "substantial step forward in solving commercial and scientific problems which, until now, were considered intractable."

But many in the quantum computing world have remained sceptical, primarily because the company released very little information about the machine.

The display also failed to impress.

"It was not quite what we understand as quantum computing," said Professor Ekert. "The demonstrations they showed could have been solved by conventional computers."

However, Professor Ekert believes that quantum computing will eventually come of age.

Then, he said, they will not be used in run-of-the-mill desktop applications but specialist uses such as searching vast databases, creating uncrackable ciphers or simulating the atomic structures of substances.

"The really killer application will probably be in designing new materials or complex systems," he said.


Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Quantum computing

Published: 2007/11/13 16:46:53 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

watch these amazing & knowledgeable videos of the computing fields follow link below

FUTURE OF COMPUTING
VIDEOS

Computer dinosaurs :
BBC News Player - Computer dinosaurs

Sand to silicon chip :
BBC News Player - Sand to silicon chip



Intel co-founder :
BBC News Player - Intel co-founder

Nano chip developer :
BBC News Player - Nano chip developer

Multi-core chips :
BBC News Player - Multi-core chips


Multi-core 'myth' :
BBC News Player - Multi-core 'myth'

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Hi-tech helps world's 'invisible'
By Mark Ward
Technology Correspondent, BBC News website



Handheld computers could help give a voice to the huge numbers of people that do not officially exist.
The gadgets are being used to gather data about the estimated one billion people who live in shanty towns.

The Mobile Metrix project aims to determine how big these communities are and discover what their lives are like.

The up-to-date data will be given to governments and aid workers to help fine tune projects trying to help these communities.

Teenage clicks

"We count the uncounted," said Melanie Edwards, head of the Mobile Metrix project at Stanford University.

Ms Edwards said many of the people who lived in the world's shanty towns did not feature on government records, and because of that estimates about the size of these communities and the quality of their lives was often old or wildly inaccurate.

One estimate of the people living in one shanty town, or favela, in Brazil put the population at somewhere between 5,000 and 60,000 people. Brazil is thought to have up to 700 favelas.

"If they are off by 55,000 in one community, as you take that up to national or international scale you realise how far we could be off," she said.

"We really do not have a clue yet billions [of dollars] are being thrown in that direction," said Ms Edwards. "These numbers are the ones that a lot of organisations are basing funding decisions upon."

"It's critical because how do you serve that population if you do not know who they are?" she asked.


The data could also help governments commit appropriate resources in the event of an outbreak of a disease such as bird flu.
The Mobile Metrix project aims to get accurate data about people in shanty towns by employing and training teenagers who live in the communities to go door-to-door and quiz people about their lifestyles.

Using a 100 question survey loaded onto handheld computers the uniformed workers employed by the project find out as much as possible about life living in these communities.

The numbers of teenagers employed in a particular community could vary, said Ms Edwards, depending on whether a sample or blanket coverage was needed.

In one trial project 12 agents using Palm handhelds surveyed 700 families to get a representative sample of the 28,000 people that lived in the area.

In a bid to tempt teenagers to sign up wages for project workers was set to be a little higher than the youngsters could earn from working as a courier for drug dealers.

Data gathering projects were always set up in partnership with leaders in communities and the aim was, said Ms Edwards, to create a training organisation and distribution system that can persist after the data gathering was done.

"Technology is one of the few things that can accelerate things more than most in terms of narrowing the gap," said Ms Edwards.

Mobile Metrix pilot projects have been run in Brazil but others will soon kick off in India and Kenya.


Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Hi-tech helps world's 'invisible'

Published: 2007/12/03 12:02:57 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Vodafone loses iPhone court case
Mobile provider Vodafone has failed to break up a deal giving rival T-Mobile the exclusive rights to distribute Apple's iPhone in Germany.
A German court overturned a temporary injunction it granted two weeks ago, which forced T-Mobile to sell iPhones that were not tied to a single network.

Vodafone objected to the exclusivity agreement and said customers should be able to choose between networks.

Apple has similar licensing agreements with O2 in the UK and AT&T in the US.

There has been much speculation about the details of the deals between Apple and the mobile providers, who are reported to be paying the US computer firm anything from 10% to 30% of their iPhone revenues.

"We are pleased with the outcome," said T-Mobile spokesman Rene Bresken.

'Hacking in'

In the two weeks since the temporary injunction was granted, T-Mobile sold the handsets without a network contract for 999 euros ($1,477; £719).

That price was a significant premium to the 399 euro cost for a phone with a two year T-Mobile contract.

T-Mobile has now promised that at the end of the two year contracts it will unlock the phones at no charge.

Despite the best efforts of Apple and the phone companies to tie consumers to one provider, programmes have been circulating online that allow users to unlock their iPhone so that it can be used on any network.

Apple in turn has warned that hacking into the phone's software could render the phones "permanently inoperable" when it releases software updates.

Apple still faces two lawsuits in the US from people alleging that preventing users unlocking their iPhones is an unreasonable restriction of consumer choice.

It has sold more than 1.4 million iPhones so far and hopes to sell 10 million in 2008.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Business | Vodafone loses iPhone court case

Published: 2007/12/04 16:30:44 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Chimps top humans on memory !

Young chimps have outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese researchers.

video link

BBC News Player - Chimps top humans on memory

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Google debuts knowledge project
Google has kicked off a project to create an authoritative store of information about any and every topic.
The search giant has already started inviting people to write about the subject on which they are known to be an expert.

Google said it would not act as editor for the project but will provide the tools and infrastructure for the pages.

Many experts see the initiative as an attack on the widely used Wikipedia communal encyclopaedia.

'Knol'

Writing about the project on the official Google blog, Udi Manber, one of the heads of engineering at the search firm, said it was all about sharing useful knowledge.

By indexing the web, Google strives to make information more easily accessible. However, wrote Mr Manber, not all the information on the web was "well organised to make it easily discoverable".

By getting respected authors to write about their specialism Google hopes to start putting some of that information in better order.

The system will centre around authored articles created with a tool Google has dubbed "knol" - the word denotes a unit of knowledge - that will make webpages with a distinctive livery to identify them as authoritative.

Mr Manber wrote: "A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read."

The knol pages will get search rankings to reflect their usefulness. Knols will also come with tools that readers can use to rate the information, add comments, suggest edits or additional content.

Revenue from any adverts on a knol page will be shared with its author.

Industry commentator Nicholas Carr said the knol project was a "head-on competitor" with Wikipedia. He said it was an attempt by Google to knock ad-free Wikipedia entries on similar subjects down the rankings.



Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Google debuts knowledge project

Published: 2007/12/15 08:09:25 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Microsoft accused on net browser
A complaint has been filed to the European Commission accusing Microsoft of stifling competition by tying its browser to Windows.
Opera Software said the close ties between Internet Explorer (IE) and Windows made it hard for rivals to be a serious choice for web users.

Opera also said Microsoft flouted web standards, making it much harder for browsers to be interoperable.

Microsoft said putting its browser in its operating system benefited users.

Unfair advantage

The EC confirmed that it had received the complaint from the Norwegian software firm and said it would be studied carefully.

The complaint said the bundling of IE with Windows gave the software giant an unfair advantage and made competition much more difficult.

In a statement Opera said it wanted the Commission to make Microsoft separate IE from Windows and pre-install alternative browsers on new PCs.

It also wants Microsoft to be forced to follow web specifications rather than its own "de facto" standards.

"Our complaint is necessary to get Microsoft to amend its practices," said Jason Hoida, Opera Software's deputy general counsel.

'Free to choose'

In response Microsoft said the company would co-operate with any enquiries and added: "We believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers already are free to choose any browsers they wish."

It added that the IE browser had been part of Windows for more than a decade.

The dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has been dented in recent years by the success of other net surfing programs such as Firefox.

Estimates vary but IE is thought to be used by approximately 80% of web users. Opera is believed to have a 1-2% market share of web users.

The complaint comes after Microsoft lost a long-running competition dispute with the European Commission.

After its final appeal against the ruling over its bundling of its media player with Windows, Microsoft had to pay a 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft accused on net browser

Published: 2007/12/14 10:28:12 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Hi-tech tools divide social sites
Social network sites are moving to make it much easier for software developers to write add-ons for the hugely popular web destinations.
Bebo, Facebook, Meebo and Friendster have unveiled plans to help them become more than places to keep in touch.

The add-ons will allow users to add extras, such as video and music clips, to the personal profiles they maintain.

The alliances behind the technologies also reveal the fierce competition between social sites for users.

Tough choices

In one of the broader announcements Bebo unveiled its Open Application platform which will produce a set of common interfaces that developers can use to create programs and applications that will work with the social network site.

At the launch Bebo unveiled partnerships with more than 40 developers, including NBC Universal, Flixster and Gap. A sample application produced using the tools allows Beboers to create an interactive avatar that models Gap clothes.

Significantly, Bebo's interface tools will work with Facebook's already announced development system. This will make it possible for the many developers who have written applications for Facebook to use their code almost unchanged for the Bebo network.

Despite the tie-up on tools, Bebo and Facebook will not become a unified network.


SOCIAL SITES: DAILY VISITORS
MySpace - 29 million
Facebook - 15 million
Friendster - 5.9 million
Orkut - 9.6 million
Bebo - 4.8 million
Source: ComScore July 2007

Bebo said it would also support Google's Open Social initiative which aims to create a unified system of tools that can be used on any and every social network site. The Open Social tools are due to appear in early 2008.
Social networking giant MySpace is backing Google's initiative.

In a further boost for Facebook instant messaging network Meebo announced its support for the tool set. Meebo said it had no plans to support Google's initiative.

At the same time Friendster announced that its development tools would be "open" so they can work on as many networks as possible. It has declared its support for Google's Open Social initiative.

Finally, Facebook has announced plans to license its development system to other sites. Since it was announced in May 2007 more than 7,000 applications have been written for Facebook.

This series of announcements shows how keenly contested this sector of the hi-tech market has become.

The deals and technological tie-ups are all about building up as large an audience as possible in a bid to dominate the sector.


Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Hi-tech tools divide social sites

Published: 2007/12/14 12:46:05 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

A very real future for virtual worlds
By Mark Ward
Technology Correspondent, BBC News website
Second Life has long been seen as the bell-wether for the growing interest in virtual spaces. Here, founder Philip Rosedale talks to the BBC News website about the past and future of the parallel world he is helping to create.

These are interesting times for Second Life. In the four short years it has existed, it has seen media coverage go from hysterical to hectoring. It has been hailed as both a harbinger of the next big thing and a brake on the burgeoning development of virtual worlds.

Speculation about its future has intensified as news emerged that chief technology officer Cory Ondrejka, who helped design and build Second Life, has left the company.

But said Philip Rosedale, one of the founders of Linden Lab which oversees the running of Second Life, the departure will not dent the vision all the original engineers had for their creation.

"Cory is a fantastic guy, he's fantastically capable and we will miss him a lot," said Mr Rosedale.


"Our differences are more about how to run the company and how best we organise ourselves as a company going forward," he said. "We really do not have any differences in strategic direction."
"There's not a shift in direction in the company that I wanted to make or Cory wanted to make that was incompatible," he told the BBC News website.

"We are a core of technologists in our heart," he said. "The first 10 people that joined, there are only two that have left, they are all engineers."

For the near future, Linden Lab is looking at ways of making the technology behind Second Life much more open and easy to use.

Web worlds

"We are still in the early days so the things that are wrong are still wrong," he said, "It is still hard to figure out how to use Second Life and how to find things."

In many respects, he said, online virtual worlds are at the point now that the web reached in the early 1990s.

"We have often had fun in the office finding quotes from the early 90s that map exactly to what they say about Second Life now, " he said, "that it's disorganised, you cannot find anything and there is a lot of crap."


We are at the very early stages of something very big
Philip Rosedale

Despite the scepticism from many quarters he is fervently convinced that virtual worlds are the future of online life.
"Virtual worlds are inherently comprehensible to us in a way that the web is not," said Mr Rosedale. "They look like the world we already know and take advantage of our ability to remember and organise."

"Information is presented there in a way that matches our memories and experiences," he said. "Your and my ability to remember the words we use and the information we talk about is much higher if it's presented as a room or space around us."

Equally important, he said, was the visibility or presence that being in a virtual world bestows on its users.

By contrast, he said, when visiting a website people are anonymous and invisible.

Shopping on Amazon might be much easier and enjoyable if you could turn to one of the other 10,000 or so people on the site at the same time as you and ask about what they were buying, get recommendations and swap good or bad experiences.


Many firms and educators were starting to use Second Life as an online collaboration space that helps them work together like they do in the real world but to which is added the malleability of a wholly digital space.
For virtual worlds to be able to extend this usefulness to the mass of people a lot of work has yet to be done, said Mr Rosedale.

What it might take, he said, was software that would let people browse virtual worlds like they do webpages. Built in to that software would be an identity management system that re-drew yourself to match those different spaces.

"I think it is going to happen, that kind of portability of identity is important but I could not hazard a guess right now about how quickly it will happen," he said.

"But," he said, "with a sufficiently open platform then people will move into it quite rapidly."

It might, he speculated, one day outstrip the web as a means for people to communicate and work together.

"Because virtual worlds like Second Life do not impose language barriers like the web does - that almost certainly means their ultimate utility range is larger," he said. "We are at the very early stages of something very big."

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | A very real future for virtual worlds

Published: 2007/12/14 15:42:19 GMT

© BBC MMVII

to go to the website you can visit :Second Life: Your World. Your Imagination.

 

[genmirajborgza786]

The sat-nav vs cabbie challenge

By Spencer Kelly
Click presenter


Satellite navigation does exactly what its name suggests - it takes readings from satellites orbiting the Earth and tells you exactly where you are on the planet. Then it gives you directions to wherever you want to go.


But how does this technology compare to the most fearsome of all navigators - the London cabbie? To find out, we pitched the wits of a top of the range sat-nav - the Tom Tom GO 720 - against a black cab.

We really wanted to test how good sat-nav was at getting us to a series of waypoints in the quickest time.

The latest devices come with traffic avoidance, which means they download traffic information and recalculate the route to avoid traffic jams. They can also find a number of different types of locations, including specific addresses, town centres, road junctions and points of interest.

Andy, the cabbie, who accepted our challenge also comes fully loaded with a near encyclopaedic understanding of London roads which is so famous amongst black cab drivers it is just called "the Knowledge".

But in his organic brain he also had an extra compartment marked "common sense".

The challenge

We chose waypoints that took us through extremely busy parts of London.


THE ROUTE
1. Box Hill
2. Wembley Stadium
3. Houses of Parliament
4. Greenwich Observatory

We would need to go from Box Hill in Surrey to Wembley Stadium, then the Houses of Parliament and finish at Greenwich Observatory.

In fact, if we had just followed the shortest route to our first waypoint - the new Wembley Stadium - we would have gone right through some of the worst traffic blackspots in the area.

The rules were simple. Andy the cabbie could choose whichever route he wanted, listen to traffic reports on the radio, and change route at any time. But so he did not get an unfair advantage, he was not allowed to use bus/taxi lanes to avoid any jams.

I had to do what the sat-nav said. No exceptions.

Country lanes and motorways

It was not long before our journey took its first unexpected turn. Instead of taking us straight onto the M25, the sat-nav directed us down a country lane and through Leatherhead town centre - not the most obvious route. We were a little sceptical, to say the least.

I was squeezing my car down a windy lane and I was convinced Andy the cabbie would be on the M25 by now.


But I was wrong. Andy had chosen to avoid the motorway and was paying the price.

After sitting in a queue for quite a while, he decided to turn round and head back to junction 9 of the M25.

As Andy decided belatedly to chance the motorway, I was already on it and the traffic avoidance system came to life.

Twenty seven miles ahead, it said, there was a 42 minute delay. The sat-nav looked for a quicker alternative route, and found one.

We left the M25 early, taking the M4 and then the smaller roads into London where the instructions got a bit more complicated

Celebrity instructions

Our directions were being voiced by none other than comedy legend John Cleese. He is one of several famous voices you can pay to download from the sat-nav's website.

You can also download free voices elsewhere, although these tend to be impressions. Cleese, however, is the real deal.

As both cars got within a few miles, things started to get desperate. I was stuck in a jam which the sat-nav did not seem to know about and Andy was nipping through a petrol station.

And then the most fantastic vision. Our first waypoint - the Wembley arch - lurched into view.

An hour and 12 minutes after starting, the sat-nav had got us there five minutes ahead of the cab.

I punched in waypoint two - the Houses of Parliament - and switched the voice to Yoda, who told me: "the congestion charge you must pay".

The sat-nav challenge was in full flow, and it was 1-0 to sat-nav. But the rest of the journey would take us into the maze of London streets, and there, the cabbie was on home turf.

The roads were getting narrower and windy, with many turnings, and in this situation I had to pay close attention to the sat-nav directions. With so many turnings in a short space, it was sometimes tricky to work out which left or which right it was talking about.

Changing fortunes

As I headed down Edgware Road, suddenly the cab overtook me. I had lost the five minute advantage and now we were entering the congestion of central London.

The sat-nav was keeping us on the extremely busy main road, routing us past Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. It did not consider the traffic to be busy enough to avoid and so we sat in the queues.

To be fair, there were no incidents or accidents on our route. There were just lots of traffic lights and lots of traffic.

The cabbie could nip down emptier side streets on a whim, cutting out lights and busier junctions.

As we sat in traffic around Piccadilly Circus, an MMS arrived, showing a photo of Big Ben. The taxi was already there. By now, sat-nav was lagging about 20 minutes behind the cab.

We came across a new cross-road junction which the sat-nav incorrectly thought was still a roundabout.

If I had wanted to, I could correct this information by pressing a few options on the sat-nav.

The next time I connected it to my PC, it would upload this correction to Tom Tom HQ.

In the end, the cabbie brain won. Andy was already having tea at the finish line by the time we hit waypoint three, the Houses of Parliament.

The final verdict - the cab beat the sat-nav by 27 minutes.


Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | The sat-nav vs cabbie challenge

Published: 2007/12/14 15:11:43 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Shock at $85k mobile phone bill
A Canadian man has been shocked to receive a mobile phone bill for nearly $85,000 (£41,000).
Piotr Staniaszek thought he could use his new phone as a modem for his computer under his $10 unlimited mobile browser plan from Bell Mobility.

He downloaded high-definition movies and other large files unaware that this incurred massive extra charges.

Bell Mobility has since lowered the bill to $3,243, but Mr Staniaszek says he intends to fight the charges anyway.

'Nobody told me'

The 22-year-old oil-field worker from Calgary said he thought a first bill for $65,000 in November was a mistake.

When he spoke to Bell Mobility he was informed the bill had climbed to nearly $85,000 after more downloading.


I'm going to try and fight it, because I didn't know about the extra charges
Piotr Staniaszek

He said he normally paid about $150 a month for his phone and used to be notified of high charges.

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like $100 over," he told CBC News.

"Here, I'm $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on."

Bell Mobility said they would lower the bill to $3,243 in a "goodwill gesture" to match the best data plan available for using mobile phones as a modem, the Globe and Mail reported.

The trouble stems from the new phone he received when he renewed his mobile phone contract.

The new model allows him to connect with his computer and download data.

"I told them I wasn't aware I would be charged for hooking up my phone to the computer. I'm going to try and fight it, because I didn't know about the extra charges."

Canadians complain that their mobile phone charges are much higher for comparable service in the United States.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Americas | Shock at $85k mobile phone bill

Published: 2007/12/13 11:48:11 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

'Digital locks' future questioned
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website

One of the world's largest hard disk manufacturers has blocked its customers from sharing online their media files that are stored on networked drives.
Western Digital says the decision to block sharing of music and audio files is an anti-piracy effort.

The ban operates regardless of whether the files are copy-protected, or a user's own home-produced content.

Digital activists say it is the latest step in a so-called war on copyright theft that is damaging consumer rights.

The shift to a digital world in which all forms of content, from books, music, and TV programmes to films, can be shared effortlessly around the world between people with an internet connection has produced an unprecedented upheaval in attitudes to media, copyright and consumer rights.

Professional content producers have struggled to adapt to this changing world and deal with rampant copyright infringement that threatens to undermine their businesses.


Digital restrictions management... is a restriction of our rights
Peter Brown, Free Software Foundation

The most popular method of copyright control in the digital age, Digital Rights Management (DRM), is a software - and sometimes hardware - solution designed to prevent copying and to control how different forms of media are used.

Peter Brown of the Free Software Foundation, a leading anti-DRM campaigner, said: "DRM and filtering attempts by firms like Western Digital are an attempt to take control of our computers.

"DRM is bad for society because it attempts to monitor what we do and how we live our digital lives. It is asking us to give up control of something which gives us some degree of democracy, freedom and the ability to communicate with a large group of people."

Western Digital has blocked users from sharing more than 30 different file types, if they are using the company's software, called Anywhere Access.

Mr Brown added: "DRM is never right because it takes away our rights as citizens."

He said all DRM solutions had been bypassed, rendering the technology useless.


"You can't stop the copying of ones and zeroes - its impossible," he said.

Paul Garland, head of intellectual property litigation at law firm Kemp Little, said it was not possible to say DRM was not working.

"Content creators are struggling to find a way to prevent mass distribution of their creations."

Alexander Ross, a partner at law firm Wiggin, said: "There is fundamentally two types of operation for DRM - to restrict usage, and track usage.

"That second element is essential and will remain essential - particularly for subscription services, which are beginning to take off.

"If we go down the subscription route, there must be control."

The common problem with DRM for many users is one of a lack of interoperability. Many of the world's leading content producers use DRM systems which are incompatible with one another.

The popular example is the majority of music bought and downloaded from iTunes, the world's most popular online music retailer, which can only be played in its original form on iPods, machines running iTunes and Apple's own wireless TV system.

However, iTunes does now sell a selection of music from EMI without DRM.


The biggest problem is that it is actually quite difficult as a consumer when downloading content to know what you are able to do with it
Paul Garland, Kemp Little

The BBC has been criticised for using a form of DRM for its TV downloads that means the programmes cannot be played on Apple Macs and PCs running Linux.

"The reason for a lack of standards across the industry is that there's no such thing as the industry," said Mr Ross.

"There is Steve Jobs and Microsoft and the two titans are at odds with one another. Between them they rule the market."

Mr Garland said: "The biggest problem is that it is actually quite difficult as a consumer when downloading content to know what you are able to do with it.


There is Steve Jobs and Microsoft and the two titans are at odds with one another. Between them they rule the market.
Alexander Ross, Wiggin

"If DRM is going to survive, there needs to be much greater effort to tell purchasers what they can or can't do with it."

Mr Ross said people had to understand they did not have the rights to do whatever they wanted with digital content.

One solution could be to develop information standards to inform people about the rights and restrictions around DRM, said Mr Garland.

He said: "Content owners are entitled to give you what rights they decide to give you; when you are downloading a piece of music, for example. They are also entitled to restrict you from circumventing the DRM.

"Trying to circumvent the DRM is an offence in itself. DRM is part of the law and a legitimate method of trying to protect your copyright content."

For the music industry the future looks less and less likely to involve DRM, said Mr Garland.

He said: "There is a backlash, people are concerned. The music industry is now talking a lot more about DRM-free products. DRM hasn't been the way to overcome the copyright infringement problem."

Mr Ross said that DRM as a copy protection tool might not last much longer.

"However, DRM as a track and rights management system is here to stay - as long as the music industry exists on a royalty model," he said.

Mr Brown said the industry did not need to use DRM, nor employ laws which prohibit the bypassing of DRM, in order to protect their financial interests.

"Media companies are trying to force people to think about copyright infringement almost in line with murder on the high seas.

"Copyright law is about copying and reproduction of work; that is on the statue books for everyone and is sufficient to tackle the problem.

"Digital restrictions management...is a restriction of our rights and the use we make of media files, that historically and legitimately we have been used to.

"The idea this is somehow protecting someone is untrue - it is an attack on us as citizens."

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Digital locks' future questioned

Published: 2007/12/10 16:54:25 GMT

© BBC MMVII