V4 N39 -  6 March 2005

iTHINK ZONE
 

There have been a stream of outcries from multiple sources since the beginning of the year regarding the U.S.' failure to innovate and to educate students in science and engineering. A number of non-profit groups have completed studies on these subject and three of them are of special note. This week we present abstracts of three studies. They are long, but the full texts are even longer. There are links within or at the end of the abstracts to take you to the documents READ ON http://cyberzone.pacific-tier.com/iThink.htm
[Posted March 3 ]

OTHERS' THINK ZONE

INTEL'S OUTGOING CEO TALKS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF NEW IDEAS Intel's outgoing CEO pushed multicore technology, said Moore's Law will live on at Intel until at least 2011, and called broadband in the U.S. today "half-assed" and the U.S. educational system "a ticking time bomb" in his final keynote at IDF.
http://email.electronicnews.com/cgi-bin2/DM/y/ek8Z0HRQ8K0DbD0CQqH0EH

POLL: U.S. HAS CONSERVATIVE TACK ON INNOVATION U.S. technology executives identify innovation as essential to improving their competitiveness, yet their approach to innovation is conservative, mainly focusing on existing products and services, according to a study published Thursday by consulting company A.T. Kearney Inc.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/02/25/HNusinnovation_1.html?source=NLC-WIR2005-03-03

BIG PHARMA NEGLECTING NANOTECH
The U.S. pharmaceutical giants are investing almost no money and talent in nanotechnology, experts told UPI's Nano World. "The impact of nanotechnology on pharmaceuticals is not 10 years from now - it's two or three," said Matthew Nordan, vice president of research at Lux Research, a nanotech analysis firm in New York City.
http://www.spacemart.com/news/spacemedicine-05m.html

CARLY's WAY IGNORED INNOVATION
A former Hewlett-Packard engineer tells his version of how Carly Fiorina, HP's ousted CEO, wrecked the company's greatest asset: its labs.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/wo/wo_delio030405.asp?trk=nl

VoIP ZONE

COSTA RICAN TELCO LOBBIES TO CRIMINALIZE VoIP Costa Rica's state-owned telecommunications monopoly is lobbying to criminalize internet telephony. The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) is pushing for stringent controls over VoIP that at their most draconian could make internet telephony a crime, Costa Rican daily La Nacion reports.
http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9591631.html

VoIP CARRIERS LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL PEERING NETWORK Internet calls to landlines could get even cheaper, following yesterday's launch of an international peering network of VoIP providers. Fourteen companies have signed up to the free-of-charge interconnection service including Callme.se (Sweden), e-fon.ch (Switzerland), Magrathea Telecommunications (Great Britain), Musimi.dk (Denmark), MS Networks (Luxembourg), sipgate (Austria, Germany, Great Britain) and SIPphone (USA).

The service is brokered by e164.info which has built a central database of VoIP telephone numbers. e164.info is brainchild of a small German company, netzquadrat, which was set up by the founders of German VoIP provider sipgate/nufone.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/25/e164_info_voip_peering_service/

GOVERNMENT SWITCH TO VoIP SAVES MINNESOTA TAYPAYER MONEY In days of tightening budgets, some government agencies in Minnesota are ditching their Qwest telephone lines and switching to a new phone service called Voice over Internet Protocol. Three-quarters of the state's 55,000 phone lines are expected to be converted to VoIP over several years, said Jim Johnson, division director of network support services for the InterTechnologies Group.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/10988107.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

CYBERZONE

MMM. THIS MUSIC TASTES CREAMY
A musician with a unique form of synaesthesia hears music and experiences tastes like low-fat cream and mown grass, scientists say.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1315087.htm

COMCAST, VERIZON SET TO SQUARE OFF IN PORTLAND SUBURBS Verizon Communications is laying new fiber-optic cables in Washington County, Oregon, an area where Comcast is the dominant cable TV provider. Initially Verizon will use the lines only for phone and high-speed Internet service, but it's a good bet the telco will add TV service at some point, an analyst says.
http://www.rednova.com/modules/news/tools.php?tool=print&id=130796

ENDING THE GRID's GRID LOCK
Grid computing has long found a following in academia, the financial industry and pharmaceutical enterprises, but other industries have been slow to follow. Until now. By Karen Epper Hoffman.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/wo/wo_hoffman030205.asp?trk=nl

POWER ZONE

CHARGE A BATTERY IN JUST SIX MINUTES
A rechargeable battery that can be fully charged incredibly fast and lasts 10 times as long as today's models is showing promise in the US
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7081

20 MULE TEAM THINKPAD
Talk about a clean energy source. A New Jersey venture called a fuel cell for portable electronics based on sodium borohydride (Borax) -- a mineral often found in laundry detergent. Millennium has figured out a way to cause sodium borohydride to produce hydrogen, which is combined with oxygen in a fuel cell to generate electricity. The company was at Intel's Developer Forum in San Francisco yesterday showing off an IBM ThinkPad running on a prototype of the battery. Just 6 millimeters thick, the fuel cell provides about three hours of charge. Millenium's goal is to push that to eight.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11030972.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

NTT DEVELOPS HYDROGEN FUEL CELL FOR MOBILE PHONES Nippon Telegraph and Telephone has developed a prototype fuel cell that it believes can be made small enough to fit inside mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics devices.
http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,100026,00.html?nlid=AM

MAKING THE BEST OF GARBAGE GAS
Methane generated by rotting rubbish in landfill dumps could make a far greater contribution to the world's energy supply. A new way of harvesting the gas should mean that many landfill dumps that till now were thought to be too small to produce usable amounts of the gas will be able to provide a viable supply.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7048

BIO/NANO/MEMS ZONE

STARTUP USES TINY PROBES TO STORE DATA
Nanochip Inc. has developed prototype arrays of atomic-force probes, tiny instruments used to read and write information at the molecular level and hopes to offer its first product by mid-2007. These arrays can record up to one terabit in a single square inch.  That's the storage density that magnetic hard disk drive makers hope to achieve by 2010. It's roughly equivalent to putting the contents of 25 DVDs on a chip the size of a postage stamp.
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/

TOP U.S. BIOLOGISTS OPPOSE BIOFENCE BOOM Efforts to defend the US against bioterrorists - by throwing money at research - are backfiring, say 750 top scientists. Their letter to the head of the US National Institutes of Health represents a major rebellion. The researchers say the 15-fold increase in biodefence budgets is diverting research away from germs that, unlike putative weapons agents, already cause significant disease.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7074

COMPUTATION COMES TO LIFE
For years biologists have used computer models and high-performance computers to simulate and understand living processes. More recently, computer scientists have drawn inspiration from biology to immunize information systems against malware and to create algorithms that mutate without human intervention. In all such cases, the underlying computer architecture has remained traditional and unremarkable -- software running on silicon-based digital processors.

But now researchers are taking the marriage of computer science and biology to a remarkable new level, turning cells into living computers with programmable DNA and biochemical memories, sensors, actuators and intercellular communication mechanisms.
http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0%2C4902%2C99996%2C0.html?nlid=EMC

BIO-BRIEFS ZONE
Austin--Esoterix price may hit $240M
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1288624

Buffalo--New cancer drug is boon for WNY producer
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1288625

Memphis--Nurse recruiter becomes headhunter for biotech industry
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1288626

Philadelphia--Life Sciences: Genaera recruits Wyeth researcher to lead drug development
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1288627

Seattle--In Spokane, a biotech scramble
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1288628

St. Louis--California cord blood bank contracts with Provident:
Nonprofit to provide customer service to parents banking umbilical cord blood
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1288629

ASIA ZONE

'"I THINK CHINA IS OVERDONE."
Michael Marks, CEO of Flextronics, who predicts that electronics production may shift to other countries as costs increase in China.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7778607

HONG KONG OUTSOURCES TO CHINA
Hong Kong-based CSL, which runs a dual band mobile network through 1O1O, and One2Free is thinking of moving its call center to Guangdong. The company feels that this move will help it reduce cost by nearly 30%. CSL has also shifted its CRM operations to PCCW's call center located in Guangzhou. According to the chief executive officer of CSL, the company's 3G business is doing well and the company has enrolled 2000 subscribers since the time it started the services last December.

A BABY BUST EMPTIES OUT JAPAN's SCHOOLS
Shrinking population called greatest nationall problem.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W2RT04392148209A7C77F3CD0A93E0

CHINA's RETURNED OVERSEAS STUDENTS TOP 25,000 LAST YEAR Statistics released by the Ministry of Education on overseas students in 2004 show that China saw slightly less personnel going abroad for studies in 2004 while various returned overseas students increased by
24.6 percent over the previous year. Among them self-supported returned students increased by 27.5 percent. The total number of persons going abroad for studies in 2004 was 114,663, down by 2.2 percent compared with that in 2003.
FULL STORY [People's Daily Online]

PLDT YEARLY PERFORMANCE IMPROVES
According to the results announced by Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDT), the company has posted an increase in the net profit for the year 2004. The net profit for 2004 was pegged at $512.9 million. The increase in the net profit has been attributed to an impressive performance by the cellular operations. The mobile operations of the company are managed by Smart Communications Inc.
and affiliate Pilipino Telephone Corp. The number of cellular subscribers for 2004 was pegged at 19.2 million subscribers with an increase of 6.2 million during the year. The two companies control about 58% of the market.

WIRELESS ZONE

DARTMOUTH DEPLOYS NATION's LARGEST UNIVERSITY WiFi SYSTEM Already underway, Dartmouth is building one of the most advanced Wi-Fi networks in operation to support next-generation voice, video and data services to students and faculty throughout its 200 building, 1.5 square mile campus. Dartmouth has deployed over 350 Aruba dual-radio 802.11a+b/g access points and air monitors and 12 Aruba 5000 wireless LAN switches. Over the next several months, Dartmouth is replacing over 550 Cisco 350 802.11b APs with dual-radio 802.11a+b/g Aruba 70 APs...
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/Feb/1120457.htm
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/022805-dartmouth.html?tw

HOTSPOTS

San Francisco's Marina district gets free Wi-Fi; Motorola unwires the municipality of Buffalo,Minn.; and more.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,1f98,1,l0p5,ecft,jcj3,9ffi

SITE CITES

HOW FIREFOX WORKS
A Web browser is sort of like the tires on your car. You don't really give them much daily thought, but without them, you're not going anywhere. The second something goes wrong, you definitely notice. Options are out there, however -- some people call them "alternative browsers," and one of them has been steadily chipping away at Internet Explorer's dominance. It's called Firefox. In this article, we'll find out what makes Firefox different, what it can do and what effect an open-source browser might have on the Internet landscape.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/firefox.htm

Marty Plotnick's CyberZone is a weekly review of Hawaii technology and international technology news.  The Hawaii Technology Calendar is available on the front page of this site, with links and descriptions of events relevant to the Hawaii technology and telecommunications community.  CyberZone takes special interest in researching and collecting links to stories from international technology news sources of interest to CyberZone's readers.  If you have any comments or suggestions for improvements to his site and information resource please contact Marty Plotnick at martycri@lava.net