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14,759 articles from Sci-Tech Today
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FRIDAY 25. MAY, 2012
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23:53
Cisco Cius Tablet: Another One Bites the Dust
The networking giant has put the kibosh on its Cius tablet. The business-oriented Android device, marketed to enterprise users, failed to take hold in face of the "bring your own device" movement.O.J. Winge, Cisco's senior vice president in its TelePresence Technology Group, penned a blog post late Thursday that explained the decision. In it, he discussed how we are facing a workplace that is no longer a physical place, but a blend of virtual and physical environments.
He described it as a place where employees are bringing their preferences to work and "bring your own device" is the new norm, where collaboration has to happen beyond a walled garden, and any-to-any connectivity is a requirement, not a "nice to have."
"As we announced last week, findings from the Cisco IBSG Horizons Study on virtualization and BYOD shows that 95 percent of organizations surveyed allow employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the office, and, 36 percent of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices," Winge wrote. "These stats underscore a major shift in the way people are working, in the office, at home and on-the-go, a shift that will continue to gain momentum."
Doubling Down on Software That shift is causing Cisco to emphasize software rather than hardware. Winge noted that over the past year Cisco had delivered software like Cisco Jabber and Cisco WebEx across a variety of operating systems, tablets and smartphones -- and he reported "tremendous interest" in those software offerings as the world moves toward a post-PC era.
"Based on these market transitions, Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what's available today. However, as we evaluate the market further, we will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion...
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20:14Memorial Day is not just unforgettable: Thanks to Facebook, it's also inescapable. Salutes to troops past and present will be showing up every few seconds this weekend, if the pace of posting is anything like Memorial Day 2011.
Experts and everyday Facebook users says holiday posts are a contagious phenomenon, encouraging users to mark every celebratory moment online. "Likes" for Facebook's own flag-emblazoned Memorial Day page passed 102,000 by this week.
"The pressure is on to show you remember the birthday or national holiday," says Sara Linton, 28, of Oakland.
Linton says she'll post an image of one of her most precious possessions, a letter from her grandfather, Ted Linton, to his wife, her grandmother Thora, on VJ Day in 1945.
"I'm proud we get to honor people and remember what they did," Linton says. "Posting something unique and real makes Facebook less superficial."
Holiday posts are about the urge to be known, like getting a tattoo or putting a bumper sticker on the car says Sam Gosling, a psychology professor at University of Texas.
Ed Reiman presents his Facebook and Twitter identity as a husband, a grandfather and a retired businessman in Portland, Ore., and -- perhaps, most telling of all -- as a Vietnam War veteran.
Reiman, 65, tweeted at #USWarstories this week: "Was in Vietnam in the Army '67/'68 thru "Tet" survived think about it and friends I lost there everyday, but have lived well, raised a family have 'grands' and am now retired. I am blessed."
He has mixed feelings about the outpouring of Memorial Day posts.
"I think most folks are sincere, but I also think some people are trying to get rid of their own guilt for not speaking up sooner against the Vietnam War or for turning a cold shoulder to those veterans for 20 or 30 years," Reiman says.
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20:12Taking a calcium supplement to help stop bones from thinning puts people at a greater heart attack risk, a report in the journal Heart said Wednesday.
The study of about 24,000 people ages 35 to 64 found those who regularly took calcium supplements were 86% more likely to have a heart attack than those who didn't. Those who took only calcium supplements were twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who didn't take any vitamin supplements. Calcium supplements have been linked to kidney stones and bloating in other studies, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"Calcium supplements have been widely embraced by doctors and the public, on the grounds that they are a natural and therefore safe way of preventing osteoporatic fractures," the authors write. "We should return to seeing calcium as an important component of a balanced diet."
The study, aimed at seeing if calcium supplements affect cardiovascular risk, found no direct link between the supplements and heart attacks, nor did they identify brands of supplements. Participants answered questions about supplement use and diet in an 11-year health study.
The study did not look at what caused the heart attacks, but "supplements cause calcium levels to soar above the normal range, and it is this flooding effect which might ultimately be harmful," the authors write.
"Doctors who work with the elderly and people who are postmenopausal routinely tell them to take a calcium supplement," says Linda Russell, a rheumatologist and osteoporosis specialist at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. "It's really time to re-examine that philosophy. Other studies about calcium have been suggesting this in recent years, but maybe this study really should get doctors to rethink this approach."
Strategies for preventing bone thinning in postmenopausal women have recently come under review; the Food and Drug Administration warned in...
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20:12Chimpanzees and orangutans really do have personalities "like people," British researchers say.
The new findings address a long-standing debate about whether great apes possess human-like personalities or if such perceived behavior is an anthropomorphic projection of human observers, they said.
Using a statistical method to remove any biases in human observers of apes' behavior, researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland said their study suggests humans and apes really do share "personality dimensions," the BBC reported Wednesday.
"[Chimpanzees] have the same social problems that we do. They want to make friends and find mates and sort of gain position within their society," said Mark Adams, who conducted the research while studying for his doctorate at Edinburgh.
Alexander Weiss, a senior lecturer at the university who also worked on the study, agrees that chimpanzee personality is "highly similar" to that of humans.
Researchers categorize human personality into five "dimensions," he said. "Those dimensions are neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness."
The shared personality dimensions between chimps and humans are likely due to genetic similarities, Weiss said.
"Humans and chimps share a common ancestor about 4 [million] to 6 million years ago."
The research "vindicates both the view that chimpanzees have personalities and perhaps the more controversial statement that their personalities are quite similar to those of humans," Weiss said.
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20:12A sneezing monkey and a fungus named for a popular TV cartoon character are on a list of the top 10 new species described in 2011, U.S. researchers say.
A beautiful but venomous jellyfish, a night-blooming orchid and an ancient walking cactus creature are also on the list released Wednesday by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University.
"The top 10 is intended to bring attention to the biodiversity crisis and the unsung species explorers and museums who continue a 250-year tradition of discovering and describing the millions of kinds of plants, animals and microbes with whom we share this planet," Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist who directs the institute, said in an ASU release.
An international committee made their selection from more than 200 nominations of "species that capture our attention because they are unusual or because they have traits that are bizarre," said Mary Liz Jameson of Wichita State University, who headed the committee.
"Some of the new species have interesting names; some highlight what little we really know about our planet," she said.
A new fungus species looking more like a sponge than a typical mushroom has been named Spongiforma squarepantsii, after the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.
A monkey found in the high mountains of Myanmar, Rhinopithecus stryker, is distinctive for its mostly black fur and white beard and for sneezing when it rains.
A strikingly beautiful yet venomous jellyfish has been named Tamoya ohboya, a name selected by a teacher as part of a citizen science project who assumed that people who are stung exclaim "Oh boy!"
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20:12For years, varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned residents of the southeastern Appalachia region, once known derisively as the Melungeons. Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves or Gypsies.
Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking. The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence shows that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.
And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn't sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry.
"There were a whole lot of people upset by this study," lead researcher Roberta Estes said. "They just knew they were Portuguese, or Native American."
Beginning in the early 1800s, or possibly before, the term Melungeon was applied as a slur to a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border. But it has since become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.
In recent decades, interest in the origin of the Melungeons has risen dramatically with advances both in DNA research and in the advent of Internet resources that allow individuals to trace their ancestry without digging through dusty archives.
G. Reginald Daniel, a sociologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara who's spent more than 30 years examining multiracial people in the U.S. and wasn't part of this research, said the study is more evidence that race-mixing in the U.S. isn't a new phenomenon.
"All of us are multiracial," he said. "It is recapturing a more authentic U.S. history."
Estes and her fellow researchers theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black...
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18:38The Android invasion continues to sweep the globe, bumping up against the 60 percent mark in a research firm survey on quarterly market share.
At the same time, the news gets worse for one-time champion Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry devices' share slipped to single digits at 6.4 percent, less than half its market share in the first quarter of 2011.
Seamlessness Is Key More than eight of every 10 smartphones shipped in the quarter were powered by Google's Android operating system, which is available on a range of devices on multiple carriers from many manufacturers, said International Data Corp., based on its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
The company said Android's method of making the smartphone experience "intuitive and seamless" was the key to its success as competitors have struggled to challenge them. That means ensuring a steady supply of apps and content.
"In order for operating system challengers to gain share, their creators and hardware partners need to secure developer loyalty," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker program, in a statement releasing the study. "This is true because developer intentions or enthusiasm for a particular operating system is typically a leading indicator of hardware sales success."
Apple's iOS, however, continued to show solid growth, with a boost from 18 percent to 23 percent year-over-year, coming in at an impressive second place given that Apple only makes one device.
Last week Gartner gave it a 56 percent global share.
The news is less encouraging not only for BlackBerry but for Microsoft, whose Windows Mobile and newer Windows Phone 7 devices combined barely showed a pulse with a 2.2 percent share of the market, more or less the same as its 2.6 percent share in the first quarter of last year, despite Microsoft's partnership with Nokia and its Mango update. ...
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18:03Now that the dust has settled on IBM's Smarter Commerce Summit in Madrid, analysts are beginning to offer insight into what some of Big Blue's announcements really mean for cloud computing and the enterprises that are rolling forward with the technology.
IBM announced new software, dubbed IBM Commerce on Cloud, designed to improve data sharing and automate complex marketing and supply chain processes in the cloud. The idea is to help marketers improve customer service, increase marketing effectiveness and reduce operational costs.
IBM is in a unique position to provide value as it manages massive amounts of data and client transactions in cloud environments, including more than $100 billion in commerce transactions a year and 4.5 million daily client transactions. But is the story too complex to sell to its target audience?
A Multi-Platform Cloud Strategy IBM Commerce on Cloud promises the benefits of cloud economies, such as low upfront capital investment, pay-for-use models, and instant and ongoing scalability. While purchase motivations are different for B2B and B2C companies, IBM noted, their sales and marketing programs are becoming virtually identical.
IBM also improved several of its on-cloud collaboration networks in a move to accelerate collaboration and digital information sharing across demand and supply processes to offset the unpredictable nature of commerce. Big Blue also announced new pricing and trade promotion collaboration capabilities for DemandTec.
Finally, IBM is offering a new certified Digital Data Exchange Partner program that works to allow marketers to manage their marketing, promotions and customer behavioral analytics. The exchange also includes a "gold tag" approach designed to assure enterprises that analytics and marketing partners are all operating off the same, relevant data.
SmartCloud: A Smart Bet We caught up with Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT who attended the Smarter Commerce Summit, to get his thoughts on the event...
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17:39Google is tackling piracy with new zeal -- removing links to more than 1 million Web sites in the last month alone. But is Google publicly shaming some major corporations in the process?
The revelations come via Google's Transparency Report, which shows when and what information is accessible on Google services around the world. This year, Google expanded the Transparency Report with a new section on copyright. Specifically, Google is disclosing the number of requests it get from copyright owners -- and the organizations that represent them -- to remove Google Search results because they allegedly link to infringing content.
"We're starting with search because we remove more results in response to copyright removal notices than for any other reason," Fred von Lohmann, senior copyright counsel at Google, wrote in a blog post. "So we're providing information about who sends us copyright removal notices, how often, on behalf of which copyright owners and for which Web sites."
Taking Down 250,000 Links a Week The Transparency Report shows a rapid increase in the number of requests from copyright holders. Von Lohmann said it's not unusual for Google to receive more than 250,000 requests each week, which is more than what copyright owners asked Google to remove in all of 2009. In the past month alone, Google has received about 1.2 million requests made on behalf of more than 1,000 copyright owners to remove search results. These requests targeted some 24,000 Web sites.
"Fighting online piracy is very important, and we don't want our search results to direct people to materials that violate copyright laws. So we've always responded to copyright removal requests that meet the standards set out in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)," von Lohmann said. "At the same time, we want to be transparent about the process so that users and...
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16:50The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station for a historic docking Friday, captured by astronauts wielding a giant robot arm.
It succeeded in making the first commercial delivery into the cosmos.
U.S. astronaut Donald Pettit used the space station's 58-foot robot arm to snare the gleaming white Dragon after a few hours of extra checks and maneuvers. The two vessels came together while sailing above Australia.
"Looks like we've got us a dragon by the tail," Pettit announced from 250 miles up once he locked onto Dragon's docking mechanism.
"You've made a lot of folks happy down here over in Hawthorne and right here in Houston," radioed NASA's Mission Control. "Great job guys."
NASA controllers clapped as their counterparts at SpaceX's control center in Hawthorne, Calif. -- including SpaceX's billionaire maestro, Elon Musk, of PayPal fame -- lifted their arms in triumph and jumped out of their seats to exchange high fives.
This is the first time a private company has attempted to send a vessel to the space station, an achievement previously reserved for a small, elite group of government agencies. And it's the first U.S. craft to visit the station since the final shuttle flight last July.
The astronauts wasted no time getting the Dragon capsule into position for actual docking to the space station. The unmanned capsule is carrying 1,000 pounds of supplies on this unprecedented test flight.
On Thursday, the capsule came within 1 1/2 miles of the space station in a practice fly-by. It returned to the neighborhood early Friday so Pettit, along with Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers could capture it with a robot arm. First, the capsule went through a series of stop-and-go demonstrations to prove it was under good operating control.
NASA ordered extra checks of the Dragon's imaging systems as the capsule drew ever closer to the...
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16:29There were start-up companies galore at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this week in Manhattan. The AOL-owned conference is a forum for upstart companies and entrepreneurs to get in front of a crowd of investors and journalists. Here are three start-ups worth noting:
KurbKarma An app to help you land a parking spot? San Francisco-based KurbKarma says it connects people leaving desirable parking spots with people clamoring for them, rewarding both sides for the exchange. The app's goal is to help you find and reserve the right parking spot in cities such as New York and San Francisco, and find it with built-in navigation. The person who gives up the spot to you is "rewarded" with a KarmaKredit of $1. The free iPhone app is now available in the Apple App Store, and you get 10 KarmaKredits for signing up.
But will someone actually wait for a KurbKarma member to show up before they pull out of a space? The company says it designed the app to publish your spot to the community in less than 5 seconds. If no one reserves your space, no harm done. And the app reminds you what color and model vehicle you are trying to spot. But is a $1 KarmaKredit enough of an incentive to make this parking social network work? Only good parking karma will tell.
Open Garden For all the many places these days that let you tap into the Internet, a wireless connection to cyberspace still isn't ubiquitous. San Francisco start-up Open Garden promises to connect all nearby smartphones, tablets and computers in an encrypted "peer-to-peer mesh" network that would let anyone with the Open Garden app access the Internet for free. In effect, the network is pooling the Internet for everyone to use, with all capable devices -- those that have downloaded the app --...
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16:28Energizer Holdings hopes a new line of portable chargers can move it successfully into the smartphone and tablet era.
Sales of its traditional AA batteries have been flat or declining for the past several years. The most popular devices today -- Apple iPhones and iPads, Research In Motion's BlackBerrys and products that run on Google's Android operating system -- use batteries manufactured in Asia, researcher iSuppli says.
But as consumers flock to digital mobile devices that come with proprietary rechargeable batteries, Energizer sees a business opportunity.
"Battery drain is higher" than ever, says Cari Curtis, a product manager with Energizer. Just ask anyone in an airport who's desperately looking for a plug to recharge their next-to-dead phone.
"We want to provide portable power for smartphones and tablets," Curtis says.
Energizer's last attempt to solve the problem -- the Inductive Charger -- was released in 2010. The device lets you place products directly on its face instead of plugging in, but it wasn't a hit with consumers.
So this fall Energizer plans to roll out three potentially easier-to-use contemporary charging products:
Instant charger ($17.99 and $19.99). The compact unit fits in a pocket or purse and uses AA batteries to recharge a smartphone or tablet.
Portable smartphone charger ($54.99). Available in October, the device plugs into the wall for a recharge, and can then provide instant power for a smartphone that's either run out of juice or is about to.
Charging case ($64.99). This charging sleeve wraps around the iPhone and doubles the battery life.
Other companies -- ones with smaller footprints for the most part -- already are making inroads in the smart-charging market.
Innergie, a Taiwanese start-up with marketing offices in San Francisco, offers a host of USB chargers for laptops, phones and devices.
Its tiny $79.99 PocketCell, similar to Energizer's portable charger, plugs into the computer for an hour to...
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THURSDAY 24. MAY, 2012
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23:45If you like sharing photos quickly from your phone without attaching cables or e-mailing, sharing app Bump has good news.
By going to http://bu.mp, Android and iPhone users who have downloaded the free Bump app can select the photos they want to share, then tap the phone's against the space key to initiate the transfer. No additional software or hardware is required.
Share and Share Alike Bump previously allowed only sharing between smartphones equipped with its app.
Quick photo-sharing from increasingly sophisticated cameras is driving smartphone and mobile application development and sales as well as social media. On the same day Bump announced the new feature, Facebook unveiled a new specialized app for the iPhone to share multiple photos directly to Facebook, with 14 filters to alter them, reportedly developed before the social media giant acquired the Instagram filter app for $1 billion last month.
Photo sharing sites include Yahoo's Flickr, Instagram and Google's Picasa, though Facebook, with 900 million user accounts is still the king of photo sharing.
The Bu.mp Web site allows quick sharing via Facebook, Twitter or instant message, but the new Bump PC feature could be seen as a first step toward creating its own sharing network, says analyst Neil Shah of Strategy Analytics.
"Photo sharing is one of the things that propels the mobile system," Shah said.
He noted that like most tech startups, Bump is offered free but expects to add revenue-enhancing features later on.
"For the first few years they focus on getting the name out and building the brand," Shah told us. "Then they start expanding from light to paid versions."
Bump Technologies did not respond to our phone and e-mail requests for comment on the company's plans.
The Path to Profit Founded by former Texas Instruments employees David Lieb, Andy Huibers and Jake Mintz in March 2009 and later introduced...
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21:39European regulators criticized Google Wednesday for failing to provide transparent answers to a host of questions about the new unified privacy policy governing all of Google's Web properties.
European regulators had sent Google a set of privacy policy questions on March 16, and Google submitted its reply on April 20. However, the Paris-based Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes, or CNIL, said that it does not yet have enough information to complete its analysis.
Many of "the elements provided do not give a precise, clear and comprehensive response to our questions," said CNIL President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin. "Many answers merely provide illustrative examples without describing the exact processings, procedures or systems Google actually operates."
On Wednesday the CNIL submitted an extensive list of rephrased questions to Google that clarify the regulatory body's expectations concerning the nature of the information that it expects to receive by no later than June 8.
"The fact that Google's position on personal data proceedings is still unclear on many points after an in-depth exchange with the CNIL raises concerns," Falque-Pierrotin wrote in a letter to Google CEO Larry Page.
Lacking Basic Information Among other things, the CNIL wants to know how many times Internet users actually viewed Google's new privacy Web site from the last week of January through March 1st this year. And for comparison purposes, regulators also want Google to indicate the total number of Google services users.
"Given Google's extensive development and use of analytics tools, we are surprised that Google has not measured the impact of the campaign [notifying users about the privacy policy changes] in order to assess the efficiency of this information," CNIL regulators said.
The CNIL noted that Google has not yet delivered a complete list of its personal data processings, as defined by the European Data Protection Directive. Regulators also want to receive...
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21:14Here's a good question for Apple's personal-assistant app, Siri: "What information are you collecting about me?"
Apple isn't saying much about the data it stores from the service that has made the iPhone 4S a huge hit and how it's used. But the ability to collect that data is a cause for concern for big corporations like IBM.
The "Big Blue" computing giant says that Siri won't be helping IBM employees using iPhones check the weather, find directions or do quick Web searches. It's been banned by the company for security reasons. The company gives BlackBerry smartphones -- better known for security features -- to some employees, while others are alloweiri.d to use their own phone for company business, but that creates risks.
Risky Business "We found a tremendous lack of awareness as to what constitutes a risk," CIO Jeanette Horan told the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review.
So now, she says, "we're trying to make people aware." Using file-sharing services for documents is also prohibited, except IBM's MyMobileHub.
Because Apple sends all queries to its data center, the company is concerned that such information could reveal what employees are working on, jeopardizing corporate secrets.
Chester Wisniewski, a senior adviser at the cyber security firm Sophos, said IBM's approach may seem overly cautious, but addresses legitimate concerns.
"I think IBM is concerned because the voice recognition does not occur on the phone, rather it is done in the cloud," Wisniewski said. "Where are these cloud servers? Who operates them? Are the queries stored for any period of time? Are they securely erased after you get Siri's answer?"
Answers can be elusive; Apple's software license agreement for iOS, the iPhone's operating system, spells out that information will be collected by Siri or the Dictation feature and by consenting to use it users agree to let it be analyzed...
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20:44It shouldn't be a surprise. New CEO. New vision. Massive layoffs. HP CEO Meg Whitman on Wednesday began making her mark on the company with an outline for a multiyear "productivity initiative" designed to simplify business processes, advance innovation and deliver better results for shareholders.
Whitman expects her plan to save Hewlett-Packard $3 billion to $3.5 billion by 2014, the majority of which will be reinvested back into the company. HP is targeting three areas of strategic focus for its reinvestment: cloud, big data and security.
"These initiatives build upon our recent organizational realignment, and will further streamline our operations, improve our processes, and remove complexity from our business," Whitman said. "While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long-term health of the company.
"We are setting HP on a path to extend our global leadership and deliver the greatest value to customers and shareholders."
A Whitman Misstep? Whitman mentioned job losses. HP plans to slash 27,000 jobs as part of its restructuring. As of Oct. 31, 2011, that represents 8 percent of the company's workforce. Those layoffs will occur between now and the end of 2014.
We touched base with Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, to discuss the layoffs and his views on whether it's enough to right the HP ship. He told us it's not unusual for a new CEO to order a major downsizing.
"The rule of thumb is to not only make layoffs big and early in your term, but also to make it fast," Enderle said. "You don't want people worried about their job for any extended period of time and you don't want them to leave. If they do know they are going to be laid off, that can...
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20:05The world's first private supply ship flew tantalizingly close to the International Space Station on Thursday but did not stop, completing a critical test in advance of the actual docking.
The unmanned SpaceX Dragon capsule flew within 1 1/2 miles of the orbiting lab as it performed a practice lap and checkout of its communication and navigation systems.
Officials at NASA and the SpaceX company said the rendezvous went well, although the test results still were being analyzed. The historic linkup is on track for Friday.
It is the first U.S. vessel to visit the space station since NASA's shuttles retired last summer -- and the first private spacecraft to ever attempt a delivery. The Dragon is carrying 1,000 pounds of provisions.
The space station astronauts struggled with bad computer monitors and camera trouble as the Dragon zoomed toward them, but the problem did not hold up the operation. Indeed, all of the tests appeared to go well.
The astronauts successfully turned on Dragon's strobe light by remote control, but could not see it because of the sun glare and distance of several miles. The Dragon finally popped into camera view about 10 minutes later, appearing as a bright speck of light against the blackness of space, near the Earth's blue horizon. The two solar wings were clearly visible as the Dragon drew closer.
"Can nicely see the vehicle," Dutch spaceman Andre Kuipers said.
SpaceX's near-term objective is to help stockpile the space station, joining Russia, Europe and Japan in resupply duties. In three or four more years, however, the California-based company run by the billionaire who co-founded PayPal, Elon Musk, hopes to be launching station astronauts.
It is the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's strategy for NASA: turning over orbital flights to private business so the space agency can concentrate on destinations farther afield, like asteroids and...
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20:05A fossil discovery has scientists reconsidering whether a spine with multiple segments is a feature of land-dwelling animals only, U.S. researchers say.
The discovery of the identical anatomical feature in a 345-million-year-old eel-like fish suggests the complex anatomy arose separately from -- and perhaps before -- the first species to walk on land, the University of Chicago reported Wednesday.
Tarrasius problematicus lived in shallow bodies of water in what is now Scotland between 359 million and 318 million years ago. Like many fish, it was thought to have a vertebral column divided simply into body and tail segments.
A new description of Tarrasius by Chicago biologist Lauren Sallan, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, highlights a five-segment column much more similar to the spinal anatomy of land-dwelling animals called tetrapods, including humans.
The finding contradicts a common assumption paleontologists have used to determine from fossils whether an ancient species lived on land or in water, she said.
"It's the last trait to fall," Sallan said. "First, limbs were thought to show that a species was on land and walking, and now the vertebral morphology doesn't mean that they're on land either.
"So a lot of the things we associate with tetrapods actually arose first in fishes, and this is another example of that," she said.
The spine may have been useful in propelling the fish's body during fast swimming, she said.
"I think it must help with stiffening the body, because the tail is so flexible," Sallan said. "If you look at the general shape, it's more like a tadpole or an early tetrapod, so it might just function to hold the body steady because the tail is flapping."
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20:05There are smoke-free bars, smoke-free parks, even smoke-free college campuses. But a smoke-free country? New Zealand's government on Thursday squeezed smokers more than ever by announcing a 40 percent hike in tobacco taxes over the next four years. Prices here are already among the highest in the world, and by 2016 they will top 20 New Zealand dollars ($15) a pack on average.
Officials hope higher taxes and new restrictions will bring the nation of 4.4 million closer to a recent pledge to snuff out the habit entirely by 2025. Other countries have lauded the idea of trying to wean their populace off tobacco, but few, if any, have been willing to put a date on it.
Health officials here are so serious they recently considered hiking the cost of a pack of cigarettes to 100 New Zealand dollars ($75). Although that idea was dismissed, another measure, which will force retailers to hide cigarettes below the counter rather than putting them on display, will come into effect in July.
Smoking rates among New Zealand adults have fallen from about 30 percent in 1986 to about 20 percent today. Cigarette sales have fallen more sharply, suggesting that even people who haven't quit cut back as prices rose.
People who are still smoking aren't happy about where prices are going.
Chris Hobman said the cost is "horrendous" and could drive some low-income people to commit crimes to support their habit. He said the government needs to provide more support and alternatives to smokers if it's serious about making them quit.
Wellington resident Hayley Mauriohooho, who has smoked for about 20 years, said that although it would be good if more people quit, higher taxes won't stop her.
"It's quite ridiculous for the government to be concentrating on that," she said. "They have bigger things to worry about."
New Zealand's Cancer...
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20:05More high school students are enrolling in math and science classes and seeking online learning opportunities. Fewer want or are able to find jobs while in school.
Those are just some of the changes under way at the nation's high schools in how students are learning and what they are doing with their extra time, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Education Department.
The annual "Condition of Education" report said there has been a marked increase over the last two decades in the percent of high school graduates who had taken calculus, from 7 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2009. Overall, the percentage enrolling in math and science courses increased in all subjects except algebra I, a class many students now take in middle school.
Yet while more are enrolling, the report also states that scores have largely stagnated: Seventeen-year-old students performed neither significantly better nor worse on a national math and reading assessment than they did in the early 1970s. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress test in science found just 1 percent of high school seniors scored at the highest achievement level in 2009.
Three decades ago, the Department of Education released its landmark report, "A Nation at Risk," which raised concerns about academic achievement and called for students to take three years of math and science.
Nancy Songer, a professor of science education and learning technologies at the University of Michigan, said that once high school students finish their math and reading requirements, there is a noticeable drop in the number that pursue courses in those subjects as an elective.
"Even if we are seeing some bubbles of improvement in enrollment, we are still dramatically under-enrolled compared to what we will need in the future," Songer said.
In other subjects scores have also stalled: Seniors have performed...
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20:04U.N. climate talks ran into gridlock Thursday as a widening rift between rich and poor countries risked undoing some advances made last year in the decades-long effort to control carbon emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet.
As so often in the slow-moving negotiations, the session in Bonn bogged down with disputes over technicalities. But at the heart of the discord was the larger issue of how to divide the burden of emissions cuts between developed and developing nations. Developing nations say the industrialized world -- responsible for most of the emissions historically -- should bear the brunt of the emissions cuts while developed nations want to make sure that fast-growing economies like China and India don't get off too easy. China is now the world's top polluter.
"There is a total stalemate," said Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator for the European Union.
The negotiations in Bonn were meant to build on a deal struck in December in Durban, South Africa, to create a new global climate pact by 2015 that would make both rich and poor nations rein in emissions caused by the burning of oil and other fossil fuels. But on the next-to-last day of two weeks of talks there was little sign of progress, as different interpretations emerged on what, exactly, was agreed upon last year.
"There is distrust and there is frustration in the atmosphere," Seyni Nafo, spokesman for a group of African countries, told The Associated Press.
The European Union claims China and other developing countries are backsliding on commitments made in Durban to bring the discussion on emissions cuts from both rich and poor nations into one forum, instead of the current structure, which has two parallel negotiation tracks. Developing countries -- backed by climate activists -- accuse the U.S., EU and other industrialized nations of trying to...
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18:31Yahoo may have lost its CEO and its long-held title of search engine king, but the beleaguered Internet giant isn't giving up on search just yet. In fact, Yahoo just rolled out new software that it claims re-imagines the way people search and browse the Web.
Dubbed Axis, the new technology offers what Yahoo argues is the only search experience to allow consumers to enter a search and see and interact with visual results -- all without leaving the pages they are on.
Axis does this by integrating with any desktop browser and automatically connecting online experiences across multiple devices. It's available now for iOS devices and as a desktop plug-in for HTML5-enabled browsers.
"Our search strategy is predicated on two core beliefs -- one, that people want answers, not links and two, that consumer-facing search is ripe for innovative disruption," said Shashi Seth, senior vice president of Connections at Yahoo. "With Axis, we have redefined and re-architected the search and browse experience from the ground up."
Instant Search Answers That's the theory. But what does Axis look like in practice? Yahoo describes the innovation as a means to give you instant answers and visual previews so you can discover and explore content without interruption. The idea is to keep you moving forward in your search instead of returning to a page of blue links. You can swipe or click the next result on the results page.
Axis also allows you to move seamlessly across devices. For example, after you download Axis you can start a search on your computer, flip through the results while out on your iPhone, and finish the search at home on your iPad. It's akin to the concept of reading a Kindle book on multiple devices and picking up where you left off. Axis also lets you share content via...
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17:27Boston Children's Hospital has notified patients of a potential breach of protected health information as a result of a stolen laptop computer. A Boston Children's Hospital staff member lost the laptop while attending a conference in Buenos Aires.
Although the laptop was password-protected the files were not encrypted. A file containing patient information had been sent to the laptop as an e-mail attachment. That file included names, medical record number, date of birth, diagnosis, procedure and date of surgery for 2,159 patients.
"Boston Children's takes this incident and the protection of protected health and personal information extremely seriously," said Daniel J. Nigrin, senior vice president for Information Services and chief information officer.
"We take great measures to ensure that protected health information is never inadvertently released, and we are undertaking additional steps to prevent breaches such as this in the future. We deeply regret and apologize for any concern or inconvenience this situation may cause our patients and families."
Healthcare Sector Security Lax? The only saving grace: no patient financial data or Social Security numbers were involved. Boston Children's Hospital determined that although the file was not saved to the laptop's hard drive, it was still on the laptop in the e-mail attachment at the time of the theft. After extensive review and investigation, Boston Children's staff was not able to determine whether or not the file was accessible on the laptop.
We caught up with Neil Roiter, research director at Corero Network Security, to discuss how the Boston Children's Hospital breach fits in to the larger security story. He told us the reported breach of sensitive medical records of the hospital's patients is, unfortunately, the kind of story we've been hearing all too frequently from the healthcare sector.
"There have been numerous recent cases across the country involving lost or stolen laptops, missing...
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15:34Vizio is no stranger to defying the odds. The once little-known company came from practically nowhere to become one of the USA's biggest TV makers, wresting the title from the top electronics companies, including Sony. Its co-founder and CEO survived a plane crash more than a decade ago.
But now the company is making a move some say is so daring, it's almost crazy: taking on the world's biggest PC makers -- including Apple.
Consumers don't have to wait long to see Vizio launch what could be one of the biggest disruptions to the computer business in years. The Irvine, Calif.-based company, located in an area between Los Angeles and San Diego, down the road from a Christmas tree farm, plans next month to launch a line of computers. It will sell two ultra-thin notebooks, a laptop and two desktop computers that feature high-style design. And leveraging its household name in millions of living rooms, its computers will be designed to be easy to set up and get going right out of the box.
The pitch is simple: Vizio aims to give consumers computers a fit and finish that rivals Apple's Macintosh, yet running the familiar Microsoft Windows software that powers 90% of the world's computers. Vizio plans to pull this off with a lineup of stylish computers in carefully machined aluminum bodies carved by robots. And as it did with its flat-screen TVs, it will do so at competitive prices.
"PCs have become a sea of black plastic," says Vizio Chief Technology Officer Matt McRae, describing the lineup of Windows-based computers from other manufacturers, many of which focus on corporate customers where design is an afterthought. "We're building a product people want."
Vizio Gets Input from Suppliers In the process, Vizio has torn up the playbook on how PCs are designed and marketed. It is...
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15:31With phone lovers clamoring to get on their networks, wireless carriers are building new offramps. Major carriers are investing in ways to unload customers' data traffic from their airwaves into cheaper and more localized networks, such as Wi-Fi hot spots and small cellular base stations, which are designed for compact, heavy traffic areas such as stadiums and city centers.
Wireless companies say the new approach ("offloading" in industry parlance) will help meet customers' surging demand for more data bandwidth. Even as they build the next generation of faster wireless networks, called 4G LTE, carriers are discouraging heavy data users by eliminating unlimited data plans and enforcing monthly caps.
Such efforts have done little to slow the hunger for more data from ceaseless waves of users who watch Netflix and listen to Pandora at all hours via over-the-air networks. In North America, video and audio streaming now account for more than half of all domestic wireless data traffic, according to network management company Sandvine.
Cisco Systems estimates global mobile data traffic grew 230% in 2011.
"People tend to stream audio and video when they sit down," says Michael Davies, founder of tech consulting firm Endeavour Partners. Traffic tends to peak at certain times of the day, for example, lunchtime in Manhattan. "That's when offload becomes critical."
Balancing Act Offloading reflects the carriers' desire to strike a balance between encouraging more data use -- which produces more revenue for them -- while easing traffic at choke points during busy hours. "We want to make sure we can control the experience of our customers," says Hans Leutenegger, Verizon Wireless' vice president of network, South Area.
AT&T's customers are already seamlessly switched to Wi-Fi when they're in Starbucks, whose hot spots are operated by the carrier. AT&T also installed large Wi-Fi hot spots in several busy parts of Manhattan, such as...
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