24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Online Social Networks Bridge Gaps for Chronically Ill

Posted by the New York Times, this article explores the use of the internet, and specifically social networking sites by those too ill to socialise any other way.

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Landmark legal battle now means P2P File-Sharing and Link Sites have been Declared Legal in Spain.

In a landmark decision, the ripples of which are bound to have worldwide ramifications for the entertainment industry and file sharers alike. According to tie article posted on file sharing info site TorrentFreak, it was as a result of a case brought against link site owner Jesus Guerra by SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores or General Society of Authors and Editors, similar to our own Performing Rights Society aka PRS).

SGAE wanted to prosecute Mr Guerra for alleged abuse of copyright by the members of his site.

In the initial hearing, held in June 2009 SGAE sought to get an injunction to close the site down with immediate effect, in an effort to protect the intellectual property rights of its members. However, the judge surprisingly accepted the stance of Mr Guerra, who insisted his site was legal, providing the same links that could be found on any search engine.

The Judge, Raul N. García Orejudo dismissed the SGAEs request to shut the site with immediate effect stating: “P2P networks, as a mere transmission of data between Internet users, do not violate, in principle, any right protected by Intellectual Property Law.”

Now the case has been heard in its entirety, the outcome is nothing short of catastrophic for SGAE. Pivotal points in the case were firstly: Was merely providing a link to copyrighted material the same as the average search engine would provide, the same as distributing it.

Secondly: Did Mr Guerra actually make any money directly from providing this facility to the members of his site.

On both counts, the Judge found in favour of the site owner, stating that he considered non-profit file-sharing sites are legal, “P2P networks are mere conduits for the transmission of data between Internet users, and on this basis they do not infringe rights protected by Intellectual Property laws,”

This means that now in Spain, if someone wishes to use P2P networks like BitTorrent to source copyrighted material, as long as it is for non-profit reasons, it is entirely legal.

No doubt SGAE will appeal against the ruling.

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Add a Cache Clearing Button to Firefox

Nice walthro on How-To Geek on how to create your own cache-clearing button in Firefox for the privacy conscious

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Good old AVG, longtime purveyors of the famous AVG Free Antivirus software are now offering another great freebie.

“The AVG Rescue CD is a powerful must-have toolkit for the rescue and repair of infected machines. It provides essential utilities for system administrators and other IT professionals and includes the following features:

• Comprehensive administration toolkit
• System recovery from virus and spyware infections
• Suitable for recovering MS Windows and Linux operating systems (FAT32 and NTFS file systems)
• Ability to perform a clean boot from CD or USB stick
• Free support and service for paid license holders of any AVG product
• FAQ and Free Forum self-help support for AVG Free users”

Get it direct from AVG >HERE<

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Will Silicon be used to increase the capacity of Lithium Batteries?

Researchers at Georgia Tech have devised an anode for Lithium batteries incorporating embedded silicon nanoparticles. Electrical measurements in some experimental batteries have shown that these new hybrid carbon-silicon anodes have five times the capacity of a battery with a normal anode.

The new tech, should it see its way into mainstream manufacturing could have significant impact on everything from the new breed of Hybrid Vehicle to portable devices.

Details of the new self-assembly approach were published online in the journal Nature Materials on March 14.

“Development of a novel approach to producing hierarchical anode or cathode particles with controlled properties opens the door to many new directions for lithium-ion battery technology,” said Gleb Yushin, an assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “This is a significant step toward commercial production of silicon-based anode materials for lithium-ion batteries.”

Currently Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries work by transferring lithium ions between two electrodes, a cathode and an anode through a liquid electrolyte. The more efficiently the lithium ions can enter the two electrodes during charge and discharge cycles, the larger the battery’s capacity can be.

Existing Li-ion batteries contain anodes made from Graphite, (a form of carbon). New Silicon anodes are able to (theoretically at least) offer as much as a ten-fold capacity improvement over the current Graphite type, but the new Silicon-based anodes have as yet not been stable enough to be used on a practical level.

The new nanocomposite material solves that degradation problem, (expansion and contraction as the lithium ions enter and leave the silicon creates cracks that quickly cause the anode to fail), potentially allowing battery designers to tap the capacity advantages of silicon. This all  means that the new design can achieve a  higher power output from a given battery size, or allow a smaller battery to produce a required amount of power.

Thus far researchers have only put the new composite anode through more than a hundred charge-discharge cycles, but Prof. Yushin believes the material would remain stable for thousands of cycles because no degradation mechanisms have yet to become apparent.

“If this technology can offer a lower cost on a capacity basis, or lighter weight compared to current techniques, this will help advance the market for lithium batteries,” he said. “If we are able to produce less expensive batteries that last for a long time, this could also facilitate the adoption of many ‘green’ technologies, such as electric vehicles or solar cells.”

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

GlobalFoundries will invest up to $2.7 billion to increase chip production

GlobalFoundries, formally the manufacturing wing of Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), and now the world’s third largest independent semiconductor foundry has announced it will invest up to $2.7 billion during 2010 in order to increase capacity across it’s many facilities.

According to the article posted by TechEye.net  the major part will be invested in Fab 1. Most of the money will be used to for “the ramp of 32/28nm HKMG technology”

Fab 1 (previously Fabs 30 and 36 belonging to AMD) is situated in Dresden, the first manufacturing site of GlobalFoundries at its formation as a joint venture between AMD and the Abu Dhabi state investment vehicle Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC) and is planned to achieve an output level of 60.000 wafers per month when fully developed.

The money will also help develop 22-nm CMOS process and manufacture in a much larger volume. It is not clear however whether the new 22-nm facility will include a departure from the HKMG (gate-first high-K metal gate) CMOS processes being currently being manufactured at 32- and 28-nanometers to SOI (Silicon on insulator) technology

Tech site FudZilla has speculated that “The investment is part of Globalfoundries’ efforts to increase its market share by 50 percent by 2012. The company plans to seize 30 percent of the foundry marked by late 2012.”

The investment does demonstrate a significant investment in future manufacturing processes, and as GlobalFoundries is not releasing a full breakdown of exactly how the money will be distributed the industry can only wait and see what the next move will be.

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Facebook to open support centre in India 

According to the latest post on the Facebook Blog, the company is opening a new support centre in India. This comes only a week after the same blog announced that it was opening a new support office in the US.

In the statement, the reason for the new India office, it’s second international office, (the first being in Dublin, Ireland), was to support its burgeoning community around the globe.

Facebook now has more than 400 million users worldwide, seventy percent of which are situated outside the US.

“By having multiple support centres in a variety of time zones, we can provide better round-the-clock, multi-lingual support.” States Don Faul, a director of global online operations at Facebook and the originator of the blog article. “The new offices come at a significant time in our international growth. Seventy percent of the people using Facebook are outside the U.S. and are accessing the service from more than 70 languages. In India alone, we’ve seen rapid growth and now have more than 8 million people there actively connecting on Facebook with their friends, family, and other people they know, both within India and around the globe.”

The new support centre will be situated in India’s burgeoning tech-hub Hyderabad, also known as “Cyberabad”, and more traditionally, “City of Pearls”. The city is also home to the largest Microsoft R&D centre outside the US, as well as other well known tech giants like Dell, HP, Amazon, Google and many more.

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

Facebook secures patent for News Feed

According to All Facebook, the social networking giant has finally secured a patent for “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network” (i.e. news feed) , first filed with the US Patent Office in 2006. The full approved application ac be viewed online at patft.uspto.gov, and will undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences for sites such as Twitter and Google Buzz, and many others. Other sites using anything remotely resembling the techniques outlined in the patent document could see themselves embroiled in lengthy and costly legal wrangling if they wish to use the technology without agreement.

The patent credits Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with other top Facebook executives with the invention. To what ends this will affect the social networking community is unknown as yet, and can only be speculated at, at this time, as the details contained therein read as being general and ambivalent.

The resultant fallout ensuing from the publicizing of this document will no doubt play out over the coming weeks and months.

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24/03/2010 by 0iD.

BBC plans cuts to many services.

In the draft of a strategic review by the director General of the BBC Trust, Mark Thompson, there are proposed sweeping reductions in BBC services the Financial Times has reported.

The cuts could see many seemingly “unpopular” services such as 6 Music & The Asian Network digital radio stations go to the wall, along with a 50 per cent reduction in the BBCs online services, along with 25 per cent of the staff. Also on the media side, the BBC’s commercial publishing arm, Worldwide, is indicated to take a hit, along with the annual budget of £100 million reserved for primarily US and foreign TV imports.

The report is seen as a direct reaction to increasing pressure of criticism from politicians and rivals alike about the BBCs far reaching media operations, which have been slated for being uncompetitive and a overly expensive.

Already, according to The Times, the former Virgin Radio, now rebranded as Absolute Radio will be putting a bid in for popular teen digital radio station 6 Music.

Most of the cuts media-wise seem to be aimed at the younger/teenage area of BBC operations with BBC Switch and Blast also indicated in the proposals, in an area where C4 & ITV are traditionally seen as market leaders. BBC Three however, will remain untouched, and £25million will be re-directed to BBC Two in an attempt to raise standards.

A full synopsis of the report was posted by The Times online here.

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