At the 2007 Optical Fiber Conference, IBM scientists will reveal a prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight times faster than optical components available today. The breakthrough could transform how data is accessed, shared and used across the Web for corporate and consumer networks. The transceiver is fast enough to reduce the download time for a typical high definition feature-length film to a single second compared to 30 minutes or more.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., March 20 -- The world's first computers whose architecture can adopt different forms depending on their application have been developed by Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN).

Dubbed MONARCH (Morphable Networked Micro-Architecture) and developed to address the large data volume of sensor systems as well as their signal and data processing throughput requirements, it is the most adaptable processor ever built for the Department of Defense, reducing the number of processor types required. It performs as a single system on a chip, resulting in a significant reduction of the number of processors required for computing systems, and it performs in an array of chips for teraflop throughput.

German researchers have recently conducted a study to determine the effects of games that promote risky decisions on real-world driving. These researchers took a batch of subjects (both women and men), and divided them into three groups. The first group played first person shooter games, such as Medal of Honor. The second group played more calming/family-oriented games, like Crash Bandicoot. The third group played hardcore racing games such as Need For Speed. All test subjects got to play these games on a Sony PlayStation 2 on a gigantic 72" television. The results of this experiment drew parallels between racing games that promoted violent/risky decisions in the game and violent/risky decisions in real life. First person shooters and family-oriented games did next to nothing to a subject's driving ability. However, racing games did a ton to a subject's actual driving.

The EIAA (European Interactive Advertising Association) has proved in a recent report what we probably could have guessed ourselves. People who own wireless computers (such as the one I'm using right now) are very likely to do things such as contribute to websites (such as this one), make/spread user-generated content (like this), and review/rate content on websites like YouTube. On average, people who own a wireless laptop/device spend 18 hours a week on the internet, as opposed to 11 hours that the average wired user would spend. This is because, you guessed it, wireless users can bring their computer with them, instead of having to come to it.

In 2002, when MIT decided to experiment with placing course contents on the Web for open access, the university's officials knew they were breaking new ground and had no idea how the effort would be received.

On Tuesday, school officials revealed plans to make available the university's entire 1,800-course curriculum by year's end. Currently, some 1.5 million online independent learners log on the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) site every month and more than 120 universities around the world have inaugurated their own sites for independent learners. MIT has more than 1,500 course curriculums available online to date.

A group of researchers at Keio University in Japan has developed a new technology which uses bacterial DNA as a medium for long-term data storage. Although it's not incredible in terms of data capacity, the technology works by creating artificial DNA carrying information, which is then inserted into the bacterial genome sequence. After this, the DNA will multiply, reproducing the data. This can therefore act as a long-term method of storage because the DNA will be passed down from generation to generation - possibly for thousands of years (current storage methods will only last a few centuries). So far the researchers have only managed to encode "e= mc2 1905!", but there is potential for the future.

On the Christmas Day next year the highly anticipated next Star Trek movie will be in cinemas Paramount Pictures announced yesterday! After cancelling the Star Trek: Enterprise series in March 2005, the mediocre space combat game "Star Trek: Legacy", which even die-hard trekkies found to be a bitter pill, and more than 4 years without a movie it was about time for someone at Paramount to make a decision.
And like this another one decided to take the opportunity and to direct the upcoming motion picture: Jeffrey Jacob Abrams. J.J. Abrams, known for directing and producing Mission: Impossible III and the very famous and successful Alias and Lost series, teams up with the writers and producers Bryan Burk (Lost, Alias), Damon Lindelof (Lost, Crossing Jordan), Alex Kurtzman (M:i:III, The Legend of Zorro) and Roberto Orci (M:i:III, The Legend of Zorro).
With all these experienced people working on it I am really interested if Star Trek XI will meet my expactations.

Scientists at Shandong university in east China succesfully implanted micro electrodes in a pigeons brain. The electrodes simulate specific parts of the brain forcing the pigeon to comply with the given commands.
The technology is being improved so it could be put to practical use in the future. The pigeon is the second succesful remote control animal since a similar experiment on mice in 2005.

I am really sorry for posting a headline like this because this is a dead serious issue Lockheed Martin und Boeing are being faced with. Today CNN reported on television that every fighter lost all navigation and communications when they crossed the international date line. These problems remind me of some bugs discovered around the turn of the year 2000, which would rather not come to my mind when thinking about the world's most expensive stealth fighter (361 million US Dollars per unit!).

Since the project's inception, SETI has been searching for alien life in the depths of outer space. When Melinda Kimberly had her laptop stolen, SETI, which was loaded in the background, continued it's search for extraterrestrials. This meant that it continued to link to the SETI main network. Melinda's clever husband used SETI to search for those access attempts, logged the IP addresses of them, and then reported the stolen laptop with it's recent IP addresses to the police. The laptop was recovered with all data intact, and no arrests were made. SETI developers were reportedly very happy that their software "actually found something".

I had some sort of a debate lately regarding overrated power supplies and their necessity. And when I came to browse through the websites that I read on a weekly basis afterwards I found a very interesting article about how to prevent electrical fires caused by draining too much power from the wall outlets. Though the stated formulae, calculations and hardware devices are dedicated to the '110V world' only the theory behind is applicable to the rest of us with ease.

Daylight saving time arrives a little earlier - March 11 - and stays a little later - Nov. 4 - this year. And it's bringing a problem along with it that could affect everything from stock trades to airline schedules to your BlackBerry.

Software created before the law mandating the change passed in 2005 is set to automatically advance its timekeeping by one hour on the first Sunday in April, not the second Sunday in March. Congress decided that more early evening daylight would translate into energy savings.

The result is a glitch reminiscent of the Y2K bug, when cataclysmic crashes were feared if computers interpreted the year 2000 as 1900 and couldn't reconcile time appearing to move backward. If banks and other institutions aren't properly prepared, automatic stock trades reportedly might happen at the wrong hour, buildings that unlock at a certain time could stay shut, and airline flight schedules could be scrambled.MSNBC

According to research by the University of Rochester, video games with a lot of action may actually help to improve performance. During the project, researchers found that those who played video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their ability to identify letters in a cluster by 20%, a test similar to ones used in standard ophthalmology clinics. Those playing Tetris saw no improvement in vision, but those playing Unreal Tournament could see which way the "T" in crowd of other letter and symbols was pointing much easier than before.

For the first time in 66 years, there are an equal number of female and male finalists.

Forty high school seniors today were named finalists for the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) 2007. The competition is America's oldest and most prestigious high school science competition; six former finalists have won the Nobel Prize and others have been awarded the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Science and MacArthur Foundation fellowships.

Chemists from UCLA and the California Institute of Technology have managed to create an ultra-dense memory device capable of storing 100 Gb (gigabits) per square centimetre, an accomplishment which could lead to much smaller and more powerful computers than we have today. The memory uses a series of perpendicular nanowires crossing over each other, with 400 silicon wires crossed by 400 titanium wires, both 16nm wide. At each crossing are approximately 300 bistable rotaxane molecules which can act as switches and therefore be used to store data in a very small space.

Although the GPS device itself is not affected by this, the TomTom GO 910 has been reported to be carrying Trojans win32.Perlovga.A and TR/Drop.Small.qp. Any of the $599 units manufactured between September and November last year may have been manufactured with these two Trojans "pre-installed" for you. Apparently TomTom is aware of this, yet so far no warning has been released to consumers - although the viruses pose very little risk and if you keep your anti-virus software up to date you should be fine. TomTom claims "Appropriate actions have been taken to make sure this is prevented from happening again in the future." These Trojans can potentially spread to your PC if you connect it to synchronise information or load routes.

Microsoft, back in May, began promoting it's new "Windows Media Photo" standard, which has been since renamed HD Photo. Microsoft is very clear with it's ambitions: They want to replace JPEG as the primary format for pictures. While some would argue that overtaking JPEG as the most popular picture format is a bit overzealous, Microsoft has two figurative ace-in-the-hole's. The first is that Microsoft will be shipping it with Windows Vista. That means that people who use Windows Vista will be able to see HD Photo, regardless of the photo viewer. This isn't exactly the kind of thing you need to switch people to a picture format. So Adobe systems will patch Photoshop CS3 after it is released to support HD Photo. This will allow users to save their pictures in HD Photo. CNET editors call these methods "pervasive", but they could very well be effective. The picture below shows what the difference is between JPEG and HD Photo when talking about compression. The less color in the picture, the less distortion there is, so ideally a perfect compression would be pitch black.

According to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science, Washington State University, and the University of Leuven, a new dye has been developed which could potentially see much faster internet connections. Their work shows that the dye interacts more strongly with light than any other known material, possibly even 50% better. This would mean that if it was integrated into optical based networks or internet connections it could wield much faster transfer rates, as well as giving the optical tubes a more colorful appearance. So far, no predictions have been made about when this technology can be expected to become available to consumers, but it's likely to be a few years away yet.

AMD today announced the formation of a new Advanced Architecture and Technology Lab led by Rich Witek, AMD corporate fellow and chief architectural officer. The new lab will focus on technology and platform development beyond the five-year time horizon, further extending AMD's strong tradition of advanced silicon planning.

Google, the world's leading search engine, has signed a deal with NASA which will allow it to share some information captured by NASA via its website. The plans currently include 3D maps of the moon and Mars, weather satellite images and real-time tracking of the International Space Station. Other areas in which the two will be working together include Google Earth and making it easier to search for scientific data. Although a spokesperson for NASA said this would be available to every "American", it will probably be globally available.

All Skype subscribers will be able to access a new premium service: a lie detector. Made by KishKish, the lie detecting program is an add-on to Skype, which works by measuring the stress levels in a conversation. Neither Skype or KishKish have a general figure on how much the service will cost, though you can download trial versions of it here.

Matsushita Electric Industrial today announced that one of its subsidiaries, Matsushita Battery Industrial(MBI) is now ready to mass produce a new type of lithium-ion battery, which incorporates new technology improving safety. According to MBI, its new technology improves safety by forming a heat resistance layer (HRL) consisting of an insulating metal oxide on the surface of the electrodes. Even if a short-circuit occurs in these batteries, it will cease without causing the battery to overheat, instead of overheating and even burning in standart lithium-ion batteries. Matsushita currently holds 119 patents.

Microsoft is looking to dominate the future of technology when it unveils its first commercially available operating system for robots. Yes, you did read that correctly. Named "Microsoft Robotics Studio", this Windows-based platform intends to let people program their robots in a simple way. If you're thinking "will this work with my robot?" then you may be glad to hear it works with such hardware as iRobot's Roomba or Lego Mindstorm's NXT Tribot. It will be free for non-commercial use, but if businesses want to take advantage of it they will have to pay $399 for a license. So when someone learns how to hack your robot you could soon see it running out of the house with your wallet.

In a move that shows some care for the environment, Google and a few other companies are planning to turn their car parks and buildings in solar power sources. By putting solar panels on their Mountain View building in California, along with building mounted panels over some of the car parks, Google hopes to cut back on the power it draws from the national grid by providing almost a third of the power it will use. 9,000 solar panels will be used to provide 1.6 megawatts of power, and fitting them will prove quite a challenge on Google's angled roofs.

Well, whilst being filmed at least. The Asimo is Honda's super-advanced android, you've probably stumbled upon it on TV now and again. Anyway, at a recent demonstration the Asimo seemed to stumble on a set of stairs, falling straight onto its back, with his mechanics quick onto the seen to put a screen in place and see to its injuries. You just can't help but laugh when something designed to mimic human behaviour takes it a step too far. You can see the video via Engadget.