SPEED ZONE

COMCAST OFFERS 50 Mbps DOWNLOADS

Comcast, the largest US cable television operator, has started offering a super-fast internet service that allows customers to download a high-definition movie in 10 minutes. The new premium service was launched in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and marks a leap in connection speeds for Comcast. The new service offers speeds starting at 50 megabits per second, compared with the previous fastest connection speeds of 16 Mb per second. Comcast said the new service is aimed at residential and business customers. But at $US149.95  a month, compared with about $US50 a month for its usual service, it is likely to attract businesses or very heavy residential users, such as video game players or movie download fans.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4462982a28.html

HOMELAND SECURITY ZONE

STATE INTELLIGENCE CENTERS TAP INTO PERSONAL DATABASES

State Groups Were Formed After 9/11. Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040103049.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

NATURAL DISASTER ZONE

SCIENTISTS WANT YOUR MacBook FOR EARTHQUAKE DETECTION

Everybody knows you can't predict an earthquake. The only way would be to get inside a time machine, go into the future, and send back a message.

So seismologist Elizabeth Cochran of the University of California at Riverside will use thousands of computers to do just that.

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/03/quake_network

CYBERZONE

DATA BREACHES HIT 8.3 MILLION RECORDS IN FIRST QUARTER

At least 8.3 million personal and financial records of consumers were potentially compromised by data breaches at businesses, universities and government agencies in the first quarter of 2008, according to statistics released yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/02/AR2008040203511.html?wpisrc=newsletter

JUDGE TO RIAA: YOU CAN'T SUE OVER SONGS "MADE AVAILABLE"

A federal judge in New York has dealt the Recording Industry Association of America a setback in its thousands of lawsuits over piracy on peer-to-peer networks.

In a widely anticipated decision, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ruled Monday to reject the RIAA's claim that a Kazaa user who merely "made available" copyrighted music necessarily violated the law. Rather, he said, the RIAA would have to demonstrate that unlawful copying actually took place.

http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9908353-38.html

SOME HOTMAIL USERS STUCK FIRING BLANKS

Microsoft is scrambling to fix a bug in its free Hotmail email service that mysteriously deletes the body text from sent and received messages.

- http://www.stuff.co.nz/4459850a28.html

INTERNET HAS A TRASH PROBLEM, RESEARCHER SAYS

Somewhere between 1 percent and 3 percent of all traffic on the Internet is meaningless packets of information, used in distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS ) to knock Web sites offline.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/Internet-has-a-trash-problem_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-04-01

IBM FINE-TUNES MODEL FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT

IBM's research laboratories in the U.S. and India have fine-tuned technology to help model and manage natural disasters such as wildfires, floods, and diseases.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/IBM-fine-tunes-model-for-disaster-management_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-04-01

LAPTOP THIEVES FOILED BY TRACKING SYSTEM

Laptop tracking systems do work, and Absolute Software has a real-world example to add to its PR arsenal. The security tracking company's LoJack system has been used to catch alleged laptop thieves at a U.S. airport.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/03/Laptop-thieves-foiled-by-tracking-system_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-04-03

WATCHING IN ON OTHERS' CELL TV

Tired of hearing other people's cell phone conversations? It may get worse. Soon you may have to watch their favorite TV shows and YouTube videos as well, as they project them onto nearby walls.

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0010003JG10O&nl=2

SCIENCE ZONE

EVEN CHEAP MASKS STOP FLU SPREADING

Normal surgical masks help prevent people with the flu from spreading the virus just as well as more expensive face protection, a study shows for the first time.

http://abcmail.net.au/t/120981/681895/2584/0/

GREEN TEA HELPS BEAT SUPERBUGS, STUDY SUGGESTS

Green tea can help beat superbugs according to Egyptian scientists. Green tea is a very common beverage in Egypt, and it is quite likely that patients will drink green tea while taking antibiotics.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080330200640.htm

Just when you thought you had the whole diet/health thing figured out, Japanese researchers have announced findings that people with low blood cholesterol levels have higher death rates. Although they don't die of heart attacks, the study of 173,500 Japanese men and women found that the subjects died more frequently of cancer, infectious diseases, and suicide -- the men had a 60% higher mortality rate and the women 41% higher. ***Ed: What should be concerning to the drug companies is the fact that the researchers reckoned that apart from heart disease victims, the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs is unnecessary.**

http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNKS/Nni20080330D28JSN03.htm

ENERGY ZONE

HARNESSING DATACENTER HEAT FOR SAVINGS –

Rather than paying to cool the heat your servers generate, some organizations are taking a different approach – and putting all that hot air to valuable reuse. Read on:

http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2008/04/green_heat_ibm.html?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2008-04-03

ALGAE PLUS ENZYMES COULD HYPE HYDROGEN PRODUCTION

Argonne National Laboratory scientists are engineering algae's photosynthesis process to produce hydrogen gas by adding the enzyme hydrogenase.

Algae that naturally have hydrogenase produce only small volumes of hydrogen. With the enzyme added to photosynthesis the algae should produce as much hydrogen as oxygen.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/dnl-aco040108.php

http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20080403A2

PORTABLE HYDROGEN-GENERATING POWER SYSTEM COULD LIGHTEN SOLDIERS LOAD

Researchers are developing a portable, hydrogen-generating power system to power everything from laptops to communications gear for soldiers in the battlefield. The system transforms jet fuel into hydrogen and will relive soldiers from having to carry heavy loads of batteries. Individual soldiers carry between 20 to 40 pounds of batteries on standard four-day missions. The batteries power soldiers' personal portable electronics, such as GPS systems and night-vision goggles.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080328114403.htm

ASIA PACIFIC ZONE

Philippines

Globe sets aside USD450m for 2008 CAPEX

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=22449&email=text

IOC warns China over web access

China must ensure open access to the internet during the Beijing Games, Olympic officials say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7324155.stm

KT, SOFTBANK EARMARK $40 MILLION TO BUY IPTV CONTENT

A South Korean telecom and a Japanese telecom will put up a total of $40 million for a joint venture to buy exclusive rights for programming for their IPTV service, they said Thursday. Korea's KT and Japan's SoftBank said they expected that investment would expand to $100 million this year, an amount they said would enable them to buy about 19,000 programs for KT's Mega TV service until 2015.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2008/04/123_21877.html

WIRELESS ZONE

THE MAN WHO INVENTED MOBILE PHONES

When Martin Cooper invented the mobile phone 35 years ago, he envisioned a world with people so wedded to wireless connections that they would walk around with devices embedded in their bodies. - http://www.stuff.co.nz/4455567a28.html

IS GOBI A WiMax AND WIFI KILLER?

Qualcomm Inc.'s Gobi embedded laptop module is poised to offer an alternative to Wi-Fi and the emerging WiMax technology

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3071965/1423585/106490/2/

CANADA'S CRAIG WIRELESS START CALIFORNIA WiMAX NETWORK

The Canadian wireless broadband operator Craig Wireless Sytems has placed an order with Alcatel-Lucent for WiMAX equipment which will be used to construct a wireless broadband network in Palm Springs, California. The vendor is supplying 802.16e mobile WiMAX infrastructure, including base stations, wireless access controllers and an operation and maintenance centre (OMC).

Alcatel-Lucent will also provide network design, planning, installation and optimisation for end-to-end integration of the network, which will operate in the 2.5GHz band. 'The Alcatel-Lucent solution will enable us to hit the ground running in our new Palm Springs market and seize immediate opportunities to serve our customers with new mobile services and applications,' said Boyd Craig, President and CEO of Craig Wireless. Craig Wireless holds WiMAX spectrum in Canada, the US, Greece, Norway and New Zealand.

FULL ITEM FROM TELEGEOGRAPHY.COM

MOBILE BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS INCREASE BY 850 PERCENT

The worldwide number of mobile broadband subscribers using HSPA has increased by 850 percent over the past year, according to the GSM Association. But carriers are also running the risk of becoming a victim of their own success.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/31/Mobile-broadband-subscribers-increase-by-850-percent_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-03-31

TECHNOLOGY MAKES IT EASIER TO UNLOCK MOBILE PHONES

Unlock, hack, crack -- the terms used are numerous, but the result is the same: a mobile phone that will work with any SIM card on any carrier's GSM network in any country around the world.

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000CS7VJLC&nl=2

SITE CITE

TOP 10 REASONS TO BE PARANOID

The truth is out there ... and so is your data. And just because there are no virtual black helicopters following you doesn't mean somebody somewhere doesn't have a bead on who you are and what you are doing.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/31/14FE-top-10-reasons-to-be-paranoid_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-03-31