Joe's Tech News

598 XXX Sites shut down in China

2006-01-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

What : Chinese police have closed 598 Web sites in a crackdown on pornography, but online gambling and fraud are growing

When : The latest crackdown, launched in March, led to 25 arrests, the China Daily Newspaper said, citing figures from the Ministry of Public Security.

Why : The communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but has launched repeated campaigns to stamp out material deemed obscene or subversive.

Extra Facts : A 20-year-old Web site operator in eastern China was jailed in 2004 for 15 years for selling downloads of sexually oriented movies.

Internet users have no freedom in China? I don't know, really. Porn is ok for adults, isn't it?

Xbox modders face criminal charge

2005-12-21T05:39:00.000-08:00

U.S. prosecutors have charged three men with copyright infringement for selling modified Xbox consoles that enabled the Xbox console to play pirated games.

The criminal complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday named ACME Game Store co-owners Jason Jones, 34, and Jonathan Bryant, 44, as well as Pei "Patrick" Cai, 32.

The complaint alleges that Jones and Bryant sold Xbox systems that Cai modified with chips and hard drives that allowed users to copy rented or borrowed games onto the console for future play.

Jones and Bryant demonstrated the modified Xbox game consoles in their Melrose Avenue store. They charged from $225 to more than $500 for the modifications, depending on the extent of the modifications and the number of games preloaded onto the hard drive, according to a statement from prosecutors and the complaint affidavit obtained by Reuters.

During the investigation, undercover agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $265 to have a modification chip, a hard drive and 77 pirated games installed on an Xbox, according to the criminal complaint.

The original Xbox was released in late 2001 and now retails for around $150. Games for the system cost up to $50 each.

EBay cancel Plans to Offer Live Pets

2005-12-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. has canceled plans to allow live pets to be sold on its Web site after receiving thousands of angry letters from users.

The San Jose-based company has long banned the sale of live animals except fish and snails, and officials said Monday they were scrapping plans to create a separate classifieds category that would feature free ads from animal shelters and paid ads from breeders.

Over the weekend, an eBay manager revealed in a posting to an online message board that the company was considering lifting the ban, prompting letters from more than 2,000 users, most of whom urged that the ban remain, said company spokesman Hani Durzy.

Users were worried the listings would encourage puppy mills, where animals are sometimes bred in unsanitary conditions, and that it would be difficult to differentiate between legitimate animal shelters and unsavory sources.

"The feedback was pretty overwhelming," Durzy said. "Farms and for-profit commercial breeders wasn't something that they wanted to see."

Booming sales of pet supplies — and the possibility that users may want a pet listing service — had prompted the company to reconsider its ban on the sale of live animals, Durzy said.

TXU offers Internet over power lines

2005-12-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

The utility TXU Corp. said Monday it will offer high-speed Internet service over power lines to several million Texans as part of a $150 million project aimed at improving its ability to monitor the power grid.

The "smart grid" buildout will enable what would be the nation's largest broadband-over-power line Internet rollout.

Proponents say broadband-over-power line technology, or BPL, could be especially significant for rural areas, where high-speed Internet access has lagged due to the higher costs to telecommunications and cable companies of serving sparsely populated areas.

Though pricing and download speeds haven't been finalized, Current vice president Jay Birnbaum expects to compete directly with cable and DSL providers. BPL moves data at roughly the same speeds as cable or DSL lines.

Current's only existing widespread availability is through Cinergy Corp. in Cincinnati, where it charges between $20 to $45 monthly for Internet speeds of up to 3 megabits per second. Birnbaum wouldn't provide subscriber numbers but said the service was available to about 50,000 customers in Ohio.

Send E-Mail to Future

2005-12-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

The site is one of a handful that let people send e-mails to themselves and others years in the future. They are technology's answer to time capsules, trading on people's sense of curiosity, accountability and nostalgia.

"Messages into the future is something that people have always sought to do," said Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future. "In a way, it's a statement of optimism."

Matt Sly, 29, came up with the concept for FutureMe.org about four years ago. He was inspired one day after recalling how during his education he had been given assignments to write letters to himself.

Sly, who partnered with 31-year-old Jay Patrikios of San Francisco on the project, said the site has made maybe $58 through donations. He is adamant that FutureMe.org is not a reminder service and that users should think long-term.

The site lets people send messages 30 years from now, though Sly's numbers show most users schedule their e-mails to be sent within three years.

"We want people to think about their future and what their goals and dreams and hopes and fears are," he said. "We're trying to facilitate some serious existential pondering."

He said a large number of the messages sent do one of two basic things: tell the future person what the past person was doing at the time, and ask the future person if he or she had met the aspirations of the past person.

"The tone of the past person is not always friendly," said Sly, now a Yale University graduate student. "It's often like 'Get off your lazy butt.'"

Recently, Forbes.com jumped on the idea, offering an "e-mail time capsule" promotion. More than 140,000 letters were collected over about six weeks. Nearly 20 percent of the messages sent are supposed to land in the sender's inbox in 20 years; others requested shorter time frames. Forbes.com is partnering with Yahoo! and Codefix Consulting on the project.

"A lot of people have kind of been freaked out by it," said David Ewalt, a Forbes.com writer who worked on the project. "It really makes you stop and think about your life in a way that you usually don't."

Another type of future message service can be found at sites such as myLastEmail.com or LastWishes.com, which promise to send messages to loved ones (or less-than-loved ones) after you die.

Paul Hudson, co-founder of the International Time Capsule Society, said e-mail time capsules were new to him.

"Part of the value of time capsules are that they are thought processes in the present," said Hudson, a historian who teaches at Georgia Perimeter College. "You define yourself when you do a time capsule. It might be a good exercise in introspection."

But sometimes the past is best left behind, said Saffo, who personally finds the whole thing "sad and really weird."

"The lesson about all these things, it's the lesson from time capsules, is you have to be careful lest you set yourself up for enormous embarrassment in two decades," Saffo said. "Do you really want to be reminded that you thought ABBA was cool?"

Service providers try to make the delivery process fail-safe through partnerships or back up software, and they urge people to hang on to their e-mail address, but there's no ironclad guarantee that the message will ever arrive.

On FutureMe.org, where more than 112,000 messages have been written, many writers are confident enough to make their e-mails public.

"I hope that I've learned to take responsibility for my actions — to not be passive aggressive and to not avoid things that are scary for me," one wrote. "I hope I've changed a little."

Co-founder of futureme.org, Matt Sly

Screenshot of Futureme.org

FutureMe.org said that Forbes.com stole their idea to make time-capsule emails. You can read their announcement here.

Link: http://www.FutureMe.org

Spaceflight from Moscow to New York

2005-12-17T19:56:00.000-08:00

Russian scientists design an aerospace passenger plane, capable of flying at the speed of 30,000 km/h.

Specialists at the Moscow Institute developed a model of aircraft that is capably of carrying passengers and cargo to any location of the planet at a speed undreamed-of by modern aviators.

"The aircraft designed by the institute falls under the class of aerospaceplanes," says the director of the above institute. "It will use a usual runway for taking off and landing, like a usual airplane. But it will fly like a manned spacecraft when in midair," adds he.

The space plane will be able to reach a speed of 30,000 km per hour. According to researchers' estimates, such a speed will enable the space plane to fly from Moscow to Paris in 20 min, from Moscow to New York in 50 min, and from Moscow to Sydney in one hour and six minutes.

State-of-the-art engineering and new high-melting and high-module materials, new kinds of fuel and new design concepts are expected to be used for the building of the spaceplane. Hypersonic engines will be used for boosting the ship to such a speed. The engines are powered by oxygen and hydrogen and therefore environment-friendly.

The design space plane is 75 m long; its gross liftoff weight is about 800 tons (mostly due to fuel).The space plane will be capable of lifting from 10 tons to 45 tons of payload to 100 km or 200 km (anticipated movements altitude). The cost of cargo flights will be lower than that for the space shuttle missions. Carrying a kilo of payload by a space shuttle will cost a customer from $10 thousand to $20 thousand. The rates for the space place cargo flights will range from $100 to $200 per one kilo of payload.

Xbox Live to integrate with MSN Messenger

2005-12-17T03:14:00.000-08:00

Microsoft plans to allow Xbox Live users the ability the send instant messages to a friend’s cell phone. This plan will integrate Xbox Live with MSN Messenger, allowing your friend to inform you on your mobile to get ready for a session of Project Gotham Racing no matter where you are. This service is expected to roll out within 6 months. A current alternative would be calling your mates up to set a particular time for frantic gaming.

In an interview with the BBC News website, Mr Langridge explained that a team at Microsoft were working on integrating Xbox Live with its instant messaging program, MSN Messenger.

Around 18% of smartphones and PDas in Europe use Windows Mobile as the operating system, but by far the most popular software is Symbian.

"So on my device I sign in with my MSN account and it sets up Hotmail," explained Mr Langridge. "There is no service fee and you can do MSN messaging chats."

The alerts would be sent over the internet via Xbox Live and come to a mobile over the air as an instant message.

"It just pops up saying 'Dinky Dave wants to play Project Gotham Racing' with you," said Mr Langridge.

He said he could not say when the system would go live on the Xbox 360 console, but added: "It is six months or so. It is very, very near."

"You can see the integration that we are building with the Xbox 360, with phones and with PCs," he said.

South Korean Scientist Denies Faking Stem Cell Data

2005-12-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 16 - An embattled South Korean scientist struck back at his critics on Friday, declaring that his pioneering technology for cloning stem cells works and that he will produce proof within two weeks.

The atmosphere of disappointment and shock in Korea is almost palpable. "Psychological depression," "Could It Be Possible?" and "Bewilderment" are just some of the headlines splashed across the nation's front pages.

The reason for the dismay? On Dec. 15, a member of cloning pioneer Hwang Woo Suk's team alleged that the Korean scientist had fabricated evidence for a landmark discovery. If the allegations are true, "you can call this a day of national humiliation for Korean science," says Lee Wang Je, a top researcher at Seoul National University Hospital.

At a news conference in Seoul, Hwang admitted there were technical problems in the contested work but aggressively denied any wrongdoing. He said he was in the process of thawing several cell cultures saved from the experiments and would perform tests on them to prove the veracity of his work.

Saying he was "surprised and embarrassed" by the public assertions of scientific misconduct leveled by his former colleague, Roh Sung Il of the MizMedi Hospital, he lashed out at his critics, suggesting that Roh or perhaps one of Roh's co-workers had fudged results.

Hwang also told reporters that he has two new scientific reports containing "very significant and important results" that have been submitted for publication in a scientific journal. Those results, he said, would confirm his historic, but now questioned, findings: that he produced embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos genetically matched to patients who could benefit from them.

"Our research team made patient-specific embryonic stem cells, and we have the technology to produce them," Hwang asserted.

Ancient Civilization Unearthed in Syria

2005-12-16T18:54:00.000-08:00

CHICAGO - An excavation project on the Syrian-Iraqi border has uncovered an ancient settlement wiped out by invaders 5,500 years ago.

Discovered in northeastern Syria, the ruined city of Hamoukar appears to have been a large city by 4,500 B.C., said archaeologists Clemens Reichel and Salam al-Quntar, who co-directed Syrian-American excavations on the site.

Reichel, a research associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and al-Quntar, of the Syrian Department of Antiquities, jointly announced their discoveries on Thursday.

They said Hamoukar was a flourishing urban center at a time when cities were thought to be relegated hundreds of miles to the south.

The site is in the upper edges of the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys, near the
Iraq border. Reichel said it may have been settled as long as 8,000 years ago.

Scholars had long believed that urbanized societies started and were isolated in Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia. But excavations that started in 1999 at Hamoukar and at other sites in central Syria led to new ideas about the how urban culture spread in the region. Ancient Mesopotamia was a region that includes Iraq and parts of Syria.

This year, the Syrian-American excavations discovered evidence of the battle that toppled and burned Hamoukar's walls and ended the city's independence. Researchers found that invaders likely hurled more than 1,200 sling-fired bullets at Hamoukar and more than 100 heavy, 4-inch clay balls.

"The whole area of our most recent excavation was a war zone," Reichel said.

The ruins have preserved not only local pottery and artifacts, but also vast amounts of Uruk pottery.

"The picture is compelling," Reichel said. "If the Uruk people weren't the ones firing the sling bullets, they certainly benefited from it. They took over this place right after its destruction."

Reichel said if Hamoukar's residents were taken by surprise it will give researchers plenty to study because their possessions likely were buried with them under the debris.

Why Mona Lisa Smiles

2005-12-16T03:44:00.000-08:00

The mysterious half-smile that has intrigued viewers of the Mona Lisa for centuries isn't really that difficult to interpret, Dutch researchers said Thursday.
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She was smiling because she was happy — 83 percent happy, to be exact, according to scientists from the University of Amsterdam.

In what they viewed as a fun demonstration of technology rather than a serious experiment, the researchers scanned a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece and subjected it to cutting-edge "emotion recognition" software, developed in collaboration with the University of Illinois.

The result showed the painting's famous subject was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry. She was less than 1 percent neutral, and not at all surprised.

Leonardo began work on the painting in 1503, and it now hangs in the Louvre in Paris.

The work, also known as "La Gioconda," is believed to have portrayed the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The title is a play on her husband's name, and also means "the jolly lady" in Italian.

Harro Stokman, a professor at the University of Amsterdam involved in the experiment, said the researchers knew the results would be unscientific — the software isn't designed to register subtle emotions. So it couldn't detect the hint of sexual suggestion or disdain many have read into Mona Lisa's eyes.

In addition, the technology is designed for use with modern digital films and images, and subjects first need to be scanned in a neutral emotionless state to accurately detect their current emotion.

Lead researcher Nicu Sebe took the challenge as seriously as he could, using the faces of 10 women of Mediterranean ancestry to create a composite image of a neutral expression. He then compared that to the face in the painting, scoring it on the basis of six emotions: happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear and sadness.

"Basically, it's like casting a spider web over the face to break it down into tiny segments," Stokman said. "Then you look for minute differences in the flare of the nostril or depth of the wrinkles around the eyes."

Stokman said with a reading of 83 percent, it's clear happiness was the woman's main emotion.

Biometrics experts not involved with the experiment said the results were interesting even if they aren't the last word on the Mona Lisa.

"Facial recognition technology is advancing rapidly, but emotional recognition is really still in its infancy," said Larry Hornak, director of the Center for Identification Technology Research at West Virginia University.

"It sounds like they did try to use a data set, even if it was small, and that's typical of work in an area like this that's relatively new. It's an interesting result," he said.

Stokman said he knew the University of Amsterdam effort won't prove or disprove controversial theories about the painting. One is that it was actually a self-portrait of Leonardo himself as a woman.

"But who knows, in 30, 40, 50 years, maybe they'll be able to tell what was on her mind," Stokman said.

Hornak agreed the idea was entertaining.

"It's always fun to apply technology to areas of public interest, and sometimes you can come up with results that are very illuminating," he said.

Jim Wayman, a biometrics researcher at San Jose State University agreed.

"It's hocus pocus, not serious science," Wayman said. "But it's good for a laugh, and it doesn't hurt anybody.

InJapan: there's a vibrator in every handbag

2005-12-16T03:42:00.000-08:00

The buzz on Japan's streets nowadays is that just about any young woman is carrying around her own vibrator, according to Shukan Post (12/23).

Instead of the old days when aids were referred to as "adult toys" and carried a sleazy image, sex aids are now called "adult goods." It's apparently become so common that it's almost as though there's a vibrator in every handbag.

"In the past, nearly all our customers used to ask us to disguise the labeling on our packages so they looked like they were cosmetics or something, but now we get much fewer of those type of requests," Norie Oda, operator of the Happy Woman adult aid shop, tells Shukan Post. "I suppose people just don't see them as such a big thing anymore."

Eiko Yamada, proprietor of Shesta, another adult good shop targeting women, says there's more good vibrations around than a Beach Boys album, with the number of adult aid users skyrocketing, particularly among women in their late 20s to early 30s.

"Our sales are almost 200 percent what they were last year," Yamada tells Shukan Post.

Sanae Takahashi, CEO of Merci, another company in the same line of business, explains what has brought about the change.

"Before, there only used to be seedy stores that existed only for guys. But, over the past few years, (ubiquitous) discount store chains like Don Quijote have started selling sex aids over the counter and online sales are doing well, too," Takahashi says. "There has been a really rapid increase in the number of our single women customers, and those who come to the store as a couple. We did some marketing and monitoring and made sure we stocked cute shapes and colors that would appeal to women."

Japan's adult aid market for women has evolved quickly.

"You only used to be able to buy items that were either egg-shaped or made to look like a male organ. And they cost a small fortune, too,' an adult aid manufacturer tells Shukan Post. "Now they come in all sorts of shapes so complex it's hard to even tell they're vibrators. You can get some that warm human skin, others that emit a sweet smell when they're turned on. Prices vary, too, with the range starting at about 3,000 yen and going through to really classy models in the vicinity of 10,000 yen. Expensive models don't just jangle around, either. They also move up and down."

Shesta's Yamada says the typical sale is an item selling somewhere from 4,000 yen to 6,000 yen.

"They're about 15-centimeters-long, which is a size that fits nicely into a make-up pouch," she says. "And our most popular items share the common trait of having been made to be small and cute."

Ikumi Wakabayashi, a writer on the adult entertainment world, analyzes what's being called the "My Vibrator" phenomenon.

"It's been about 15 years since we moved from the sleazy world of 'Adult toys' to 'adult goods.' The change also brought about the creation of adult item stores catering to single women and couples, and the stores where all the employees were women. It's become much easier for women to buy adult goods. Online sales offering anonymity have also become the norm and sparked explosive sales," Wakabayashi tells Shukan Post. "Women's sexual awareness has progressed. More women now want to pursue sexual pleasure by themselves, as well as with guys. Young women have no problems with using adult goods." (By Ryann Connell)

Bathrooms for Transvestites

2005-12-15T06:07:00.000-08:00

Well, this ain't technology related. But I feel like this is interesting. Read on.

For most people, it's an easy choice: men's room or women's. A Brazilian city is trying to create an alternative for those who don't fit easily into either category.

A bill passed by the Nova Iguacu city council Tuesday would require night clubs, shopping malls, movie theaters and large restaurants to provide a third type of bathroom for transvestites. The city's mayor will decide whether to make it a law.

"A lot of lawmakers didn't want to deal with this issue, but it's a serious problem in society," said city Councilman Carlos Eduardo Moreira, who sponsored the bill. "It's a way to put an end to prejudice."

Moreira said he got the idea when dozens of transvestites showed up recently for a samba show. "It was a real problem. The women didn't feel comfortable having them in the ladies' room, and the men didn't want them in their bathroom either," he said.

Moreira said there are nearly 28,000 transvestites in Nova Iguacu, a city of about 800,000 on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

The issue has divided gay groups. Some feared it could segregate gays, while others said it addressed a real problem in the gay community.

"We see it as a way to open a discussion about civil rights," said Eugenio Ibiapino dos Santos, a founder of the Pink Triangle Association, a gay group in Nova Iguacu.

Honda's robot Asimo ready for office chores

2005-12-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

Only last year, Honda Motor Co.'s (7267.T) now-familiar humanoid robot, Asimo, was learning how to run and avoid tripping over obstacles. Now, the five-year-old droid is ready to take on simple office work, greeting visitors and fetching refreshments.

Japan's third-biggest auto maker, known for its cutting-edge robot technology, introduced on Tuesday a second-generation Asimo that can also push a cart weighing up to 10 kg (22 lb), walking straight, sideways or backwards with it.

With more joints and flexibility of movement, Asimo can now also grip and carry a tray of drinks, placing it safely on a table.

Demonstrating its latest tricks through video footage, Honda showed the 130 cm-tall (4.25 feet) Asimo addressing a mock visitor by name and showing her to a conference room, all the while maintaining a steady and natural distance from the guest.

"Welcome, Sato-san," Asimo said, bowing deeply as per standard Japanese etiquette.

By pre-programming the guest's name, meeting room and other data in an IC (integrated circuit) tag to be worn by the visitor upon arrival, an office worker can remotely send commands to Asimo, which in turn would pick them up through a built-in IC tag reader.

Behind the seemingly simple tasks are a myriad advanced sensor, image and voice recognition and other technologies that Honda says will be applied to its core automotive business to improve safety and other features.

The bubble-headed droid can also run twice as fast as a prototype unveiled last December, at 6 km (3.7 miles) an hour.

Always eager to entertain, Asimo prepared to demonstrate his increased speed by mimicking a runner stretching before a race, extending his arms and balancing on one leg at a time to loosen his ankles in a fluid, human-like motion.

Asimo then took his mark and, joints creaking, dashed across the stage, easing to a complete stop in just four quick steps.

Honda said it would start putting the new Asimo to use at its research and development facility in Wako, near Tokyo, from spring 2006. It will also eventually be made available for leasing.

Car Buried in 1957 to Be Unearthed in '07

2005-12-13T05:22:00.000-08:00

A Plymouth Belvedere that was buried in a concrete vault nearly 50 years ago as part of the state's golden anniversary celebration will be unearthed in 2007 as part of the Oklahoma centennial festivities.

The 1957 Belvedere is underground next to the Tulsa County Courthouse. Also buried with it were five gallons of gas and a case of beer.

Old news reports indicate the gas was buried in case internal combustion engines became obsolete by 2007 and no fuel was available. Other buried items include the contents of a woman's purse: 14 bobby pins, a lipstick, a pack of gum, tissues, a pack of cigarettes and matches and $2.43.

There was also an unpaid parking ticket, a bottle of tranquilizers and a spool of microfilm, which records the entries of a contest held to determine the winner of the car. The person to guess Tulsa's population in 2007 or the heirs of that person were to win the car and a $100 savings account.

Assuming an average annual interest of 5 percent compounded quarterly, such an account would be worth almost $1,200 today, if the account could be found.

The account was set up at a savings and loan that was taken over by Sooner Federal, which was liquidated during the savings and loan bust of the early 1990s. The committee has been trying to find the account, so far without success.

It's not clear exactly how the items were prepared for burial, or how they may have held up for all these years.

The Tulsa Historical Society and the centennial committee have been getting inquiries from all over the world about the car, including one from a Scandinavian who claims to have an exact twin of the buried Belvedere.

Tulsa's centennial committee car information: http://www.buriedcar.com

Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com

PC-to-phone service on MSN Messenger

2005-12-13T05:13:00.000-08:00

What? - Microsoft and US phone giant MCI have signed a deal to enter the fast growing computer-to-phone VoIP service. The snappily titled 'MCI Web Calling for Windows Live Call' will be available through Windows Live Messenger, the replacement service to MSN Messenger.

Where and When? - The service is currently being tested by MCI and Microsoft as a beta programme to subscribers within the US. However, the companies say they plan to extend the PC-to-phone calling services to the UK, France, Germany and Spain over the next few weeks.

How much? - Microsoft and MCI say that subscribers will be able to send and receive calls from more than 220 countries with rates starting at $.023 per minute to the US, Canada, the UK and Western Europe during the beta testing period. The companies say that the final pricing will be determined when the product officially launches in 2006.

How to signup? - Customers will be able to sign up for the MCI Web Calling service via the Windows Live Messenger client. MCI will manage customer registration, terminating calls, customer account management, customer support and billing for the PC-to-phone voice service. As with the Yahoo! service, customers will be able to buy phone credit from MCI in $5, $10 or $25 blocks for use with the service.

Swallowed nose re-attached to boy's face

2005-12-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

Czech surgeons have sewed back on the nose of an 11-year-old boy after it had been bitten off by a dog and remained in its stomach for two hours, Czech papers report.

Head of plastic and aesthetic surgery at Brno's St Ann Faculty Hospital, Dr Jiri Vesely, told the daily Pravo that the operation is unique.

"Sewing back a nose is not so exceptional in surgery. But we have looked in vain in the specialist literature for a case where a nose was sewed back that had stayed for two hours in a stomach," he said.

"It is proof that we are the first to do this."

The successful 11-hour operation was carried out at the hospital after a neighbour's dog attacked the boy on November 17.

Vets had to operate first to recover the nose from the dog's stomach.

The hospital then had to weigh up the risks of operating.

The nose was in a poor state and the risks of infection were increased after being in the dog's stomach.

Dr Vesely says the first critical 10 days since the operation have now passed without infection.

However, he says it is still not possible to describe the operation as completely successful.

"The nose should be fully functional. The sense of smell should be there and he should be able to blow his nose," Dr Vesely told the daily Lidove Noviny. -AFP

Samsung 8GB (R-DIMM)

2005-12-11T22:40:00.000-08:00

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has solidified its leadership position in the server memory market with a new 8GB product offering. Following the introduction of its
8GB Registered Dual In-line Memory Module (R-DIMM) in October, Samsung has now increased the density of its Fully Buffered Dual In-line Memory Module product line-up (FB-DIMM) to include 8GBs by adopting 80 nanometer 2Gb DDR for high-speed servers. This represents a significant leap forward in advanced server memory architecture.

OEMs that use Samsung's high-density memory can increase the amount of installed memory and keep slots in reserve for future upgrades. Samsung memory such as the new 8GB FB-DIMM is ideal for space-constrained applications in blade and 1U servers.

With Samsung's high-density memory modules, designers can take full advantage of increased memory support in the latest server operating system to maximize performance. In addition, Samsung is offering next-generation memory solutions such as the 8GB FB-DIMM to allow servers to benefit from ultimate memory density and bandwidth.

Samsung's complete product portfolio includes all variations of DRAM memory from DDR to DDR2, and R-DIMMs to FB-DIMMs with densities ranging from 512MB all the way to 8GBs.

Song site operators could face jail time

2005-12-11T21:49:00.001-08:00

The latest offense in the music industry's copyright war has been launched by the Music Publishers' Association, which represents U.S. sheet music companies. According to a BBC story, beginning next year the MPA plans to take legal action against Web sites that offer unlicensed song score and lyrics.

MPA president Lauren Keiser apparently doesn't want to stop at fining offenders. If authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective," he said, according to the story.

Keiser said the MPA will target big sites that people think are legitimate. He added that first the Xerox machine usurped his members' potential income, "now the Internet is taking more of a bite out of sheet music and printed music sales so we're taking a more proactive stance." Bloggers, however, wondered if jail time isn't taking things a little too far.

Nintendo DS leads Sony PSP in handheld gaming

2005-12-11T21:49:00.000-08:00

Nintendo confirmed that their Nintendo DS handheld system is the current generation market leader above Sony PSP.

At the recent UBS Global Media Conference, Nintendo has confirmed that the Nintendo DS handheld game system
is the current next-generation market leader for portable gaming, ahead of Sony PSP.

While Nintendo is not the home console market leader, the portable video game market does speak a different story. And, the portable video game market is growing.

The company said that the DS' worldwide sales are at more than 6 million units, leaving PSP's at 4.26 million for both Japan and the rest of the world. Meanwhile Nintendo's top-selling Nintendogs pup simulator has sold more than 950,000 copies in the USA since its debut in September.

In terms of the entire major handheld gaming market, Nintendo currently owns 72%, with Game Boy Advance at 41%, Nintendo DS at 31%, and PSP at 28%.

If anything is to turn around the opinion of those who dismissed Nintendo's approach, throughout the DS' first year, this should surely remind them that Nintendo's holding up very well.

Xbox 360 meets cold shoulder in Japan

2005-12-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp. launched its new Xbox 360 video game console in Japan on Saturday, only to find that it received a more subdued response than it did in Europe and North America.

The BBC quoted a senior store official as saying that the customer reaction had been somewhat "subdued", with fewer than 50 consoles sold in the first two hours.”

The next-generation Xbox 360, with a price tag of 39795 yen ($330) comes ahead of next year's launch of PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Revolution.

But despite the early market entry of Xbox 360, consumers in Tokyo appeared muted on Saturday in their enthusiasm in contrast to the excitement generated at the console's US debut on November 22.

Only about 10 people were in line when a central Tokyo outlet of the Bic Camera consumer electronics chain opened its Xbox sales counter at 7am.

"It's not going to be a big hit in Japan," said Kentaro Okamoto (26), one of the first Xbox 360 buyers. "I buy every new game console ... but normally Japanese customers only buy a machine when it's made by Sony or Nintendo."

Japan's games market is traditionally dominated by Sony and Nintendo.

Man Apologizes After Fake Wikipedia Post

2005-12-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

A man who posted false information on an online encyclopedia linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations says he was playing a trick on a co-worker.

Brian Chase, 38, ended up resigning from his job and apologizing to John Seigenthaler Sr., the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today.

"I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it, so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn't anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong," Chase was quoted as saying in Sunday editions of The Tennessean.

Chase said he didn't know the free Internet encyclopedia called Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool.

The biography he posted, which has since been replaced, falsely stated that Seigenthaler was linked to the Kennedy assassinations and had lived in the Soviet Union from 1971 to 1984.

The entry motivated Seigenthaler to write an op-ed piece for USA Today blasting Wikipedia's credibility. He described himself as a close friend of Robert Kennedy and said he had worked with President Kennedy. He said "the most painful thing was to have them suggest that I was suspected of their assassination."

Seigenthaler said he doesn't plan to pursue legal action against Chase.

He also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."

Chase said he created the fake online biography in May as a gag to shock a co-worker who was familiar with the Seigenthaler family. He resigned as an operations manager at a Nashville delivery company as a result of the debacle.

Yahoo! takes on Skype

2005-12-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

The Yahoo! Internet portal is extending the use of its VoIP capacity built into its Instant Messenger product to take on Skype. The company says that within the next few days it will be debuting a new service 'Phone Out', with cheap call charges from computers to phones, and 'Phone In', a budget priced subscription service for phone callers to call computer users.

Using the Phone Out service, calls to the US will cost $0.01 per minute to the US and less than US cents per minute to more than 30 international countries, including Argentina, Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea. Yahoo! will also offer pay-as-you-go credit in $10 and $25 increments. The current SkypeOut rate is 1.2p or €0.017 or US $0.023 per minute for calls to most popular destinations around the world.

Phone In service allowing users to receive calls on a PC from land lines or mobile phones will cost $2.99 per month or $29.90 per year. Further details of Yahoo!'s VoIP pricing policy are at voice.yahoo.com.

Measure stress through saliva

2005-12-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

Japanese medical equipment maker Nipro has built a gadget that can measure your stress levels through your saliva. The Cocoro Meter measures the level of amylase, a digestive enzyme found in pancreatic juice and saliva that increases when people are under stress.

To use the Cocoro Meter, you simply hock a loogey onto a chip and put it into the gadget for reading. The machine gives you a reading in the form of a number and a happy stick figure.

The meter currently is on sale in Japan for 19,800 Yen or roughly $164.

Finally, we'll have some proof for our wives and girlfriends that we really are under a lot of stress.

Is the Xbox 360 really that big a deal?

2005-12-11T01:50:00.000-08:00

The Xbox 360 is a complete entertainment center that is at least 360 times better than its predecessor, the un-enumerated Xbox.

The reason is what's inside this box. Xbox 360 is Microsoft's attempt to bridge the gap between PC and console games.

PC gamers once enjoyed graphic realism far superior to console gamers. Those days are over.

Microsoft created the Xbox 360 by taking a high-end gaming PC and putting it in a "shrink-o-matic" to reduce the footprint.

The heart of the system is an IBM PowerPC central processing unit with three processor cores running at 3.2 GHz, which is like having three separate processors. Designers added an ATI graphics engine capable of rendering up to 500 million triangles per second, 512 MB of RAM, a CD/DVD drive, three USB ports, digital video output, Dolby surround sound and an Ethernet connector.

Be still my spinning propeller!

But the Xbox 360 is not just a game console.

Plug in your Windows PC-compatible USB digital camera, flash-card reader or music player and view photos or listen to music.

With the built-in CD/DVD player, you can rip CDs to the hard drive as soundtracks for your games or view regular DVDs.

The price is $299 for the core system and $399 for the premium bundle.

The premium bundle adds a wireless game controller, a communications headset for Xbox Live, an Ethernet networking cable, a component A/V cable and, most importantly, a 20 GB hard drive.

An extra $100 for the hard drive and wireless is a no-brainer.

Nobody uses wires anymore, and you'll need the hard drive if you want to play any original Xbox games. You can get full details at www.xbox.com.

Major outbreak of the Sober worm

2005-12-11T01:48:00.000-08:00

A new outbreak of the Sober worm may be coming, security experts have warned, even as email systems worldwide work to get rid of the last infestation of the mass-mailing worm.

The next attack is hard-coded in the version of Sober that hit the Net on 22 November, iDefense, part of VeriSign, said in a statement Wednesday. Infected machines are set to download instructions and potentially mail out a new wave of Sober emails on 5 January, the security company said.

That leaves Internet users with less than a month to shore up their defences against Sober, which was the most prolific worm in 2005, security experts at iDefense said.

"The attack could have a significant detrimental effect on Internet traffic, as email servers are flooded," iDefense said.

Fake online biography on Wikipedia

2005-12-11T01:41:00.000-08:00

The mysterious person behind an "Internet character assassination" of veteran local journalist John Seigenthaler is a Nashvillian who said yesterday he never imagined that what started out as a joke would cause pain and ignite national debate.

Brian Chase, 38, said he created a fake online biography of Seigenthaler in May — linking the man to the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy — to play a trick on his co-worker. He said he didn't know that the Web site, a free Internet encyclopedia called Wikipedia, was used as a serious reference tool.

Chase, who has been an operations manager for a local delivery company, said he learned of the controversy Tuesday after Seigenthaler publicized it in newspapers. He hand-delivered an apology to Seigenthaler on Friday, and they spoke on the phone that night.

"I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn't anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong," said Chase yesterday.

"I'm very sorry that I wronged the man. He's a great guy. He's really a champion for freedom of speech, and to think that I used the thing that he champions, in a way that made him look bad and hurt him, I'm really sorry I did that."

Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, is the chairman emeritus of The Tennessean. The controversy over his fake biography started when a friend told him that a slanderous article about him was floating around the Internet, accessible to millions around the world.

The biography, which has since been taken off the site and replaced with a flattering version, said that Seigenthaler lived in the Soviet Union, started a successful public relations firm and was linked to the Kennedy assassinations.

Because Wikipedia allows anyone to add onto existing postings or create new ones, Chase's original note on Seigenthaler had been changed several times since May, adding vulgar epithets, Seigenthaler said yesterday. He said there may be Web sites that still post the original Wikipedia profile of him.

Yahoo Launches VoIP Service

2005-12-11T01:36:00.000-08:00

The Yahoo offering, to be available in 180 countries, will link with existing Yahoo e-mail and instant messaging features, and that appears to be what will distinguish the service from many of its competitors.

Calling plans will differ from country to country, but PC-to-PC calls among Yahoo users will be free. A "Phone Out" feature will enable callers to call from their U.S. PCs to public switched telephone network subscribers for a penny a minute to U.S. destinations and about two pennies to other countries.

The service and its linkage to other Yahoo features are largely based on technology developed by a team from Dialpad, which Yahoo acquired last year.

Another feature called "Phone In" is priced about $30 a year and enables a subscriber to receive incoming calls after picking a phone number.

Yahoo had previously offered some Internet voice calling features primarily through its instant messaging service, but Wednesday's announcement represents a major thrust into VoIP for the Internet media company.

Xbox 360 launched in Japan

2005-12-11T01:28:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp. will launch its Xbox 360 game console in Japan on Saturday, completing a three-continent launch that began in North America on Nov. 22 and continued in Europe on Dec. 2.

Microsoft began its Japan market push early. In May, when the rest of the world was learning about the Xbox 360 through a 30-minute sponsored program on MTV, Japanese media and retailers heard details direct from the company and game developers at an event in Tokyo. Japan was the only place where Microsoft held a live event that day.

The game console even has its own building in Japan: the Xbox 360 Lounge, a purpose-built structure in Tokyo’s trendy Omotesando district where people can walk in and try out the console. The facility opened on Nov. 2, three weeks ahead of the U.S. Xbox 360 launch, giving Japanese users an early taste of the machine.

One of the criticisms that local gamers had of the original Xbox was that its software line-up was heavy on first-person shooting games, which are popular in the U.S. and Europe but not so popular in Japan. Microsoft has commissioned three well-known Japanese game developers to produce titles that are more appealing to the Japanese audience. The games include “N3 Ninety Nine Nights,” by Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Q Entertainment Inc. and “Every Party” by Yoshiki Okamoto of Game Republic Inc. Developer Hironobu Sakaguchi is also working on a game for the console.

More than elsewhere, Microsoft faces significant competition in Japan from both Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Nintendo Co. Ltd. Both companies plan to launch new consoles in 2006, so some local gamers may hold off on choosing a next-generation console. Sony and Nintendo have yet to demonstrate prototype systems, so it’s so far impossible to tell just how well the three consoles will compare with each other.

Microsoft’s wish for strong sales has already given Japanese users one reason to smile. The company is making just one version of the console available here, but it is broadly similar to the higher-spec version available overseas and costs less. The console will cost ¥37,900 (US$320) compared to U.S. prices of $300 for the basic system and $400 for the higher-spec system.