Microsoft developing (OCS)office communication server 2007

Sponsorder by : www.lustnews.blogspot.com

Microsoft Corp. is looking for develop their office communication server

While most enterprise IT shops today still don't know what Unified Communications really is, information systems leaders at Global Crossing in 2005 had a pretty good idea of what it was and how the company could benefit from it.

ADVERTISEMENT On Oct. 16, Global Crossing IS leaders will participate in the launch of Microsoft's UC platform and demonstrate how their UC implementation via Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 helped improve worker productivity by streamlining exception handling.

Microsoft Corp. is expanding its work with enterprise telephony vendors to make its Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 work more closely with office phone systems.

On Tuesday, at the launch of OCS, the company plans to unveil a formal program to certify interoperability between IP (Internet Protocol) phone systems and OCS. As part of that, Microsoft will discuss a specification to let enterprises migrate one building at a time to its software-based unified communications system and still have calls go across the organization as if on the same PBX (private branch exchange). Two models of Cisco Systems Inc.'s popular ISR (Integrated Services Router) branch-office platform will be among the products certified for this type of interoperability, according to Zig Serafin, general manager of Microsoft's Unified Communications group.

Microsoft's initiative, called the OCS 2007 Open Interoperability Program, will formalize work that has already been going on with some third parties. As that work has expanded, it's reached a point where it needs to be more organized, Serafin said. The idea is to let customers know what will work with OCS, and Microsoft will provide a table on its Web site where potential customers can check the certifications of third-party products.

Although promoted as an effort to coexist with the IP (Internet Protocol) phone systems now established or taking root in enterprises, the program also will make it easier for customers to migrate away from dedicated communications systems and phones themselves, the company acknowledges. Voice call control is new to Microsoft's unified communications system with OCS 2007, but the software giant envisions a day when separate platforms such as Cisco's CallManager won't be needed, industry analysts say.

Cisco, Avaya Inc. and other vendors have already moved the voice call-control functions of traditional circuit-switched PBXes (private branch exchanges) into server software, but they sell that software along with IP handsets and other gear. Microsoft intends OCS, together with Office Communicator 2007 client software or special OCS phones made by Polycom Inc. and LG Electronics Inc., to ultimately replace those dedicated systems.

There are three methods of interoperability that will be certified under the program.

- SIP CSTA (Computer Supported Telephony Applications) is based on a standard by the European Communications Management Association (ECMA). It lets users control calls through the Office Communicator client on the PC, though in most cases still using the handset and PBX.

- OCS Coexistence lets the user pick up a call on either the existing handset or a client that uses OCS, namely Office Communicator or a special OCS phone.

- Direct SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) interoperability allows for some parts of an enterprise to use traditional or IP PBXes and others to use OCS, with transparent connections between them using gateways, according to Microsoft. SIP is the emerging standard protocol for exchanging information on voice, videoconferencing and other communications sessions.

Microsoft has already certified gateway products from five vendors for Direct SIP interoperability, Serafin said. Among them are Cisco's Integrated Services Router 2851 and 3845. In fact, all ISRs with voice capability can interoperate with OCS, according to Mike Wood, [cq] director of product marketing in Cisco's access routing group. Gateways from Dialogic Inc. also have already been certified.

As a newcomer to telephony, Microsoft will take time to displace many standalone telephony systems, so interoperability will be critical, analysts said.

Most enterprises that adopt OCS still have phones connected to PBXes and will dial through the PBX, said Brent Kelly, [cq] a senior analyst at Wainhouse Research LLC. To start, most OCS users will keep their PBXes in place and take advantage of CSTA to gain the click-to-call benefits of OCS, he said.

"Right now, OCS doesn't have a voice model that's good enough for the enterprise," Kelly said.

However, there are a number of barriers to interoperability, too, said IDC analyst Nora Freedman. While Direct SIP interoperability is a good idea, it will take a long time to really work because SIP is so new, she believes.

"We're still battling proprietary SIP extensions from all the notable vendors," Freedman said.

Meanwhile, CSTA could be a distraction for enterprises trying to make the transition to unified communications because it brings yet another standard into the picture, she said. And for now, it's hard for early adopters to get theses kinds of systems put together, she added.

"Now we have a wealth of product but a drought of system-integrator experience in this," Freedman said. Resellers are working feverishly to build up their expertise, she said.

Microsoft's plan for telephony is bold, looking to eventually eliminate OCS as a separate product and make it, and telephony itself, just a set of features in applications, believes Zeus Kerravala [cq] of Yankee Group Inc. But for the time being, the job at hand is making OCS work with existing phones, he said.

"The first phase is just to get it out there,"

Technorati : communication server

This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds.

MIT finds new hearing mechanism
Discovery could lead to improved hearing aids

MIT researchers have discovered a hearing mechanism that fundamentally changes the current understanding of inner ear function. This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds. Its discovery could eventually lead to improved systems for restoring hearing.

The research is described in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of October 8.

MIT Professor Dennis M. Freeman, working with graduate student Roozbeh Ghaffari and research scientist Alexander J. Aranyosi, found that the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure inside the cochlea of the ear, is much more important to hearing than previously thought. It can selectively pick up and transmit energy to different parts of the cochlea via a kind of wave that is different from that commonly associated with hearing.

Ghaffari, the lead author of the paper, is in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, as is Freeman. All three researchers are in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Freeman is also in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

It has been known for over half a century that inside the cochlea sound waves are translated into up-and-down waves that travel along a structure called the basilar membrane. But the team has now found that a different kind of wave, a traveling wave that moves from side to side, can also carry sound energy. This wave moves along the tectorial membrane, which is situated directly above the sensory hair cells that transmit sounds to the brain. This second wave mechanism is poised to play a crucial role in delivering sound signals to these hair cells.

In short, the ear can mechanically translate sounds into two different kinds of wave motion at once. These waves can interact to excite the hair cells and enhance their sensitivity, "which may help explain how we hear sounds as quiet as whispers," says Aranyosi. The interactions between these two wave mechanisms may be a key part of how we are able to hear with such fidelity - for example, knowing when a single instrument in an orchestra is out of tune.

"We know the ear is enormously sensitive" in its ability to discriminate between different kinds of sound, Freeman says. "We don't know the mechanism that lets it do that." The new work has revealed "a whole new mechanism that nobody had thought of. It's really a very different way of looking at things."

The tectorial membrane is difficult to study because it is small (the entire length could fit inside a one-inch piece of human hair), fragile (it is 97 percent water, with a consistency similar to that of a jellyfish), and nearly transparent. In addition, sound vibrations cause nanometer-scale displacements of cochlear structures at audio frequencies. "We had to develop an entirely new class of measurement tools for the nano-scale regime," Ghaffari says.

The team learned about the new wave mechanism by suspending an isolated piece of tectorial membrane between two supports, one fixed and one moveable. They launched waves at audio frequencies along the membrane and watched how it responded by using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in Freeman's lab. That system can measure nanometer-scale displacements at frequencies up to a million cycles per second.

The team's discovery has implications for how we model cochlear mechanisms. "In the long run, this could affect the design of hearing aids and cochlear implants," says Ghaffari. The research also has implications for inherited forms of hearing loss that affect the tectorial membrane. Previous measurements of cochlear function in mouse models of these diseases "are consistent with disruptions of this second wave," Aranyosi adds.

Because the tectorial membrane is so tiny and so fragile, people "tend to think of it as something that's wimpy and not important," Freeman says. "Well, it's not wimpy at all." The new discovery "that it can transport energy throughout the cochlea is very significant, and it's not something that's intuitive."

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health

Using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in MIT Professor Dennis Freeman's lab, Freeman's team obtained this video of wave motion along the ear's tectorial membrane (at top, the actual video showing nanometer-scale displacements, and at bottom, the same video, motion magnified (Liu et al., 2005) to make the motion more apparent).
View via MIT TechTV

Technorati : hearing mechanism

passenger screening machines for Airlines"millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology"

It's the newest weapon in the TSA's air safety arsenal. It's called "millemeter" wave technology" and it's on the job beginning Thursday at the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

The machine creates a 3-d image of the passenger's body then sends it to a viewing station in another room where a TSA agent looks for potential threats.

"It's passenger imaging technology, so it allows us to see the entire image of the passenger's body and anything that might be hidden on the person" said Ellen Howe of TSA.

The new technology includes new privacy protection also. The screener in the viewing room can't see the passenger's face and the images from the machine are deleted, once the traveler is cleared to fly.

You'll see the new machine after passing through the first layer of airport security. It's an option for travelers selected for extra screening who don't want to be patted down by an officer.

"This way, they won't have to have anyone touch them, and they can get through the process very quickly" said Howe.

"You don't have to worry about being patted down, they don't have to have somebody there to pat you down. It'll save time, I think, if anything" said traveler Mark Bongiovi.

"Any time they can improve the process, make it more efficient for travelers, it's a good thing" said traveler Wendy Gilpin.

TSA officials say from start to finish the scan takes about 60 seconds. The field tests start Thursday in Phoenix and in the weeks ahead the TSA will be testing in other major cities.

THEnew type of walk-through security machine will debut at several U.S. airports in the coming days as the Transportation Security Administration tries out the latest in body scanning technology.

It's called "millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology," and it produces a more detailed picture than the metal detectors in use now at airports to screen for weapons and explosives..

Because it produces such a detailed image, however, technology and privacy experts at the American Civil Liberties Union are not satisfied that the new technology meets privacy standards.

In a written statement issued Thursday, Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU said the technology can pick up graphic body images and even medical details like whether a passenger has a colostomy bag.

Steinhardt called the screening an "assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate."

TSA spokeswoman Elle Howe said privacy will be respected with the new millimeter-wave technique.

"We want to preserve passengers' privacy and make them feel comfortable with trying a technology like this," she said.

A TSA officer will escort a passenger to the machine for the test, but the person looking at the actual body scans will be at a different location and will not see the passenger, the TSA said.

In addition, the scans will have a "modesty filter" to blur out faces, and no images will be saved.

But the ACLU expressed concern that TSA officers would not be able to resist the temptation to save images of certain people, such as celebrities, and that the plan to blur faces might later be changed.

This is how the new scanners work. The passenger steps into a machine where he or she is quickly scanned with radio waves.

Those waves reflect off the body to transmit a three-dimensional image of the passenger that looks like a fuzzy photo negative. A TSA officer studies the image on a screen and looks for unusual shapes that might mean a passenger is carrying something suspicious.

Passengers who are asked to undergo a second screening can choose a pat-down search or the millimeter-wave test.

The TSA says the machines scan a passenger twice, each scan taking less than two seconds. But it takes another minute or two for a screener to review the scans before signaling a passenger to move on.

The TSA demonstrated the screening technology at a news conference Wednesday near Washington
Howe said the millimeter wave is harmless and "can see more than a magnetometer," which is the first screening machine airport passengers encounter.

"A magnetometer only picks up metal or weapons, so this could see other materials that might be hidden on the body and it also produces an image" rather than just a beep, she said.

Asked if the millimeter wave could detect an object hidden in a body cavity, she said only that the TSA will learn more about the technology as it's tested at U.S. airports.

The TSA has been testing another type of imaging technology called backscatter. This technology also came under some fire because it shows very detailed body images -- which led some critics to call it an electronic strip search. So, the backscatter was altered and blurred to show more of an outline of the body.

The TSA will continue to test the backscatter scanners in some airports. TSA officials said they are a long way from deciding whether they'll settle on just one of these imaging technologies.

Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, begins using the new machines Thursday -- to be offered as an option for people who are asked to be screened a second time.

Los Angeles International Airport in California and John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport in New York are also slated to try the machines

Britain, Spain, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Thailand and the Netherlands are using the millimeter wave screening. In the United States, some courthouses and jails are trying it

Technorati : "millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology

Google Buys Into Microblogging (Jaiku)

That was actually a test. If you actually know what Jaiku is, you have probably already heard about the acquisition on Twitter or on Jaiku itself. In other words, you are on the vanguard of trying to evolve a new sensory organ devoted to instantly perceiving what your friends are doing at any moment (and at the same time, how to profit from the latest technology trends).
Otherwise, you probably assumed Jaiku is some game played with dice that Google will put in its employee lounges. I'll bet this second group represents something that rounds easily to 100 percent of the adult population.
For all of those people: Jaiku, like Twitter, is what has become known as a microblogging service that lets people send short blasts of information about themselves to their friends and to the public. The company is based in Helsinki, and was founded by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen. Not surprisingly both have been heavily involved in the mobile phone world. (Here are Google's blog post and Jaiku's FAQ on the deal.)
Despite the obsession of a small corner of Silicon Valley with Twitter, I suspect this is hardly a blip in the evolution of the Internet. The terms of the deal were not announced, but doubtless the company was sold for an amount in the millions or low tens of millions of dollars.
Google is not picking up a significant number of users in buying Jaiku. And I don't see any evidence that Jaiku has technology that is very hard to build. So we've got to assume Google is paying a lot of money to hire a small group of engineers it likes, as it tends to do.
This may also be a sign that Google has overstaffed its business development department and is doing deals just to keep them busy.
Still, Jaiku and Twitter, which recently raised money from Union Square Ventures, are onto something. AOL Instant Messenger showed that there is something very engaging about watching what other people we know are doing - logging on and off, putting simple information in their 'away' messages. Facebook found a way to amplify this with an easy to update "status" message, brilliantly aggregated into a personal newsfeed for each user. Twitter and Jaiku, of course, are the newsfeed without the rest of the service.
So the question here, of course, is whether status updates really will become a mass product on a standalone service, or whether they will be a feature of some other more complex offering.
You've got to bet that status, presence and so on constitute a feature. It's too easy to add these to other services that are more engaging. And I suspect that there are enough other sites wanting to expand their use for social communication that there will be many offers for Twitter whenever it decides it's time to sell.
Google, after all, has decided that it is simply too complex to create a new interface for each good idea and has been on a campaign to focus on developing "features not products." The best example of this is the integration of its instant message system into Gmail. Indeed, you can already see little orange icons showing which of your Gmail contacts are online at any given moment. And it is easy to imagine that this interface could easily add a stream of text or photo blasts too.
I'm sure some users would like that. What's not clear is why Google needed to buy a standalone company to offer it.
By the way, I asked Google for comment and haven't heard back yet. I'll update this post if they reply and add anything.

UPDATE: I just ran across this bit of fan mail to Jaiku from Tim O'Reilly. He is particularly enamored of how the service can integrate into the address book of a few high-end cellphones. As you start to dial a person, you can see their latest status update and where they are. As Google moves into the phone software business, it's possible that this sort of feature might be interesting. Google certainly has a fondness for services that relates to geographical location.
Source:

Google buys Finnish startup Jaiku.

Google announced on Tuesday it is buying Jaiku, a Finnish startup specializing in letting friends use mobile telephones to share what they are doing at any given moment.

Google is making a priority of following Internet users as they go mobile and is even reported to be crafting a "gphone" with an open-source software platform tailored to its online services.

Jaiku is a social networking and mini-messaging service that enables people to keep track of each others' activities while on the move using curt missives sent to mobile telephones.

The Helsinki-based firm founded early last year by Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen has been compared to the popular US-based service Twitter.

"Technology has made staying in touch with your friends and family both easier and harder," Google product manager Tony Hsieh wrote in a posting on the California firm's website.

"Living a fast-paced, on-the-go lifestyle is easier (and a lot of fun), but it's more difficult to keep track of everyone when they're running around at warp speed. That's why we're excited to announce that we've acquired Jaiku."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Last month, Google's quest for devotees in the booming world of mobile online services led to its purchase of Zingku, a startup company that streamlines sharing pictures, messages and more via smart phones..

About Jaiku
Jaiku is now a part of Google. For more details about Jaiku and Google, see the Q&A about the acquisition.

Jaiku's main goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their activity streams. An activity stream is a log of everyday things as they happen: your status messages, recommendations, events you're attending, photos you've taken - anything you post directly to Jaiku or add using Web feeds. We offer a way to connect with the people you care about by sharing your activities with them on the Web, IM, and SMS - as well as through a slew of cool third-party applications built by other developers using our API.

The most powerful instrument of social peripheral vision is your mobile phone. We've put in a special effort to create Jaiku Mobile, a live phonebook that displays the activity streams, availability, and location of your Jaiku contacts right in your phone contact list. We modestly believe it is the best solution out there for seeing what your friends are up to. Currently Jaiku Mobile is available for phones based on the Nokia S60 software platform (see the list of compatible devices).

Check out our Jaikido blog for updates about the service. We appreciate your feedback, so feel free to comment away on the blog - or join our feedback and ideas channel.

For an insider's view into things happening at Jaiku, follow the updates from Jaiku Team

Technorati : Google mobile, Jaiku

BT creates Wi-Fi community

BT and Fon have finally confirmed their long-expected partnership, thus creating the largest Wi-Fi community in the world.

Fon was founded in Spain in early 2006. Broadband users who sign up to Fon's community agree to share their Wi-Fi connectivity through a separate, secure channel. They do this either for a 50 percent cut of the fees charged to their visitors or for the privilege of being able to surf other users' connections for free, though the community has since changed its rules to allow its members to do both.

One of the biggest hindrances to Fon's expansion has been resistance from Internet service providers, whose terms and conditions have tended to prohibit sharing of broadband connections.

Now BT, the largest ISP in the United Kingdom, has given its approval. By doing so, the telecommunications company has effectively extended its Openzone Wi-Fi network across the 3 million BT Home Hubs--or at least those Home Hubs whose users agree to share their broadband connection.

It is not yet clear whether BT users who share their connection will get remuneration for doing so, though it is likely that they will gain access to BT's new nationwide wireless network, plus Fon's global network of almost 200,000 hot spots. It is currently unclear whether BT's business customers will be offered the same deal.

BT has also invested an undisclosed amount in Fon and gained a seat on its board.

"This is the start of something very exciting for BT," Gavin Patterson, the managing director of BT Group, said Thursday. "Today we are launching a people's network of Wi-Fi, which could one day cover every street in Britain. We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity. If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of Fon and BT Openzone hot spots today, without paying a penny."

Patterson continued. "We have built a public Wi-Fi network and 12 wireless cities already, but today, we are saying to customers: let's build a Wi-Fi community together, which covers everywhere and serves everyone."

Martin Varsavsky, Fon's founder and chief executive, said, "From the beginning, Fon users believed in the concept of sharing and in the people's ability to participate in building something important that would benefit everyone," he said. "With BT Fon, those beliefs have proved to be well-founded."

Rumors that BT and Fon were in talks about the deal have been circulating for over six months, but Thursday's announcement is the first official confirmation of the tie-in. The collaboration between the two companies also raises the possibility of a comprehensive global network of Wi-Fi sharers--with the blessing of ISPs.

Fon has inked similar deals with Time Warner Cable in the United States--though that service is yet to be rolled out--and Neuf Cegetel in France, so BT broadband customers who agree to share their connectivity will soon gain free access to their counterparts' broadband in those countries.

Robert Lang, Fon's European chief, told CNET News.com sister site ZDNet UK on Thursday that Fon had compromised, in that its users will have to pay, albeit at a discounted rate, to use BT's Openzone hot spots and Wireless Cities hot zones, rather than gaining access for free.

The deal means that users of BT Fusion dual-mode handsets will be able to use those devices in far more locations around the world than had previously been possible. Fon also has a software client that can be used on Nokia's Wi-Fi-enabled N series handsets.

source : www.news.com

Technorati : Wi-Fi

Google looking at privacy protections for users

Critics say the DoubleClick buyout may give Google too much power over online advertising

Google Inc. the world's Web search leader, told U.S. Senate lawmakers yesterday that the company is pursuing new technologies to protect the privacy of Internet users as it seeks to acquire advertising company DoubleClick Inc. ("see: Congress to scrintinize Google-DoubleClick acquisition")

Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, testified that the company was looking at the Internet display advertising business with a "fresh eye and evaluating whether changes can be made to innovate on user privacy in this space."

Critics say Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, an advertising tools supplier, may give the company too much power over online advertising. Google stores mounds of data on Internet-surfing habits of users and uses the information to make money by selling advertisements.

As a general matter, Drummond also sought to address antitrust concerns about the deal, describing it as pro-competitive.

Drummond sought to assure the lawmakers that Google was exploring new privacy protection technologies.

He cited as an example a possible new technology that Google called "crumbled cookie" in which information about an Internet user would not be connected to a single piece of identifying code, known as a cookie.

Google was also exploring better ways of providing notice within advertisements to identify who was responsible for them, Drummond said.

"We have consulted with numerous privacy, consumer and industry groups in developing these ideas and have endeavored to be responsive to their concerns," he said in written testimony for a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

Technorati : Google, forusers, looking, privacy, protections

New frontier for DNA team: A bar code for every animal

To build and develop career www.careerbd.net

---

perfume presents personality www.perfumeplus.zlio.com

---

Step into a forest in southern Ontario and a dizzying array of diversity pummels the senses: ferns line a stream, songbirds flit overhead, lichen pepper a tree stump, a mosquito finds the soft flesh on your arm.

Unless you have a degree in taxonomy, identifying all of the flora and fauna is an insurmountable task.

University of Guelph scientists hope to change that using something retail stores have relied on for years: bar codes. Researchers at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario are starting to assign a unique DNA identifier in the form of a genetic bar code to every animal species on the planet.

They are not alone in their quest. Since the idea was first published in 2003 by University of Guelph professor Paul Hebert, DNA bar coding has been adopted by 160 organizations in 50 countries and more than 31,000 species have been coded.

Experts believe it has a host of applications, from catching agricultural pests at the border to quickly identifying disease-carrying mosquitos.

It will help researchers discover species and trace evolutionary patterns, says David Schindel, executive secretary of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and host of next week's second international Barcode of Life conference in Taipei.

Scientists are bar-coding as many species as possible in an effort to create a global reference library, says Schindel.

Much like a fingerprint database, DNA bar-coding only works if there is a comprehensive catalogue from which to compare samples.

Barcoding will soon allow scientists to quickly identify hard-to-distinguish species within hours, rather than days. Taxonomists usually use physical characteristics, such as colour markings, to classify an animal. But that won't always work; scientists may only have a small piece of an organism to work with.

When dead birds carrying avian flu washed up on the shores of Scotland, it took weeks to identify the species as swans because they were so decomposed, Schindel says.

"If we could have bar-coded the species, we would have known what they were within a day and, possibly, where they came from," he says. "It would have been a big help for public health officials."

Hebert, who holds a Canada Research Chair in molecular biology, had long thought DNA could be used to identify species.

Scanning an animal's entire genome would cost too much and take too long, so he pinpointed a short piece of DNA - a section of a gene called cytochrome c oxidase 1, or CO1 - that could distinguish one animal from an other. It was a successful hunch, though it can't be used for plants.

"The results of the first wave of studies have been so positive that the plan to bar code all life is simply irresistible," Hebert wrote in an email while travelling in Korea.

He believes 500,000 animal species will be bar-coded within five years.

The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, which opened in May, houses the world's leading DNA bar-code facility. Robert Hanner, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph and co-ordinator of the Fish Barcode of Life Campaign, says the lab is able to code between 12,000 and 20,000 samples a month, for $2 a sample.

Agricultural groups have approached them to bar-code insects that affect Ontario crops, he says.

Critics say DNA bar-coding isn't nearly as accurate as promised.

Felix Sperling, a biology professor at the University of Alberta, points out bar coding seems to work best for identifying species, such as birds, that are easy to distinguish by physical characteristics.

It does not work as well for other plant and animal groups, such as lichen, fungi and parasitic insects, he adds.

That doesn't bother Spencer Barrett, a University of Toronto professor of evolutionary biology, who is looking for a piece of DNA that can be used to distinguish plant species.

"The next big frontier, the next big scientific question, is to identify all of the biodiversity on Earth," he says, noting only 1.7 million species have been named of some 20 million to 30 million species.

HOW IT WORKS

Scientists only need DNA from a single gene to identify most species of animals on Earth.

• First, a tissue sample is collected and sent to a lab, where DNA can be extracted.

• The target piece of DNA - a portion of a gene called cytochrome c oxidase 1 (CO1) - is copied many times, using a technique called polymerase chain reaction.

• The copies are sequenced to determine the exact order of the four base pairs (A,T,C,G) within the strand of DNA, which generates the specific barcode for that species.

• The barcode information, along with the animal's taxonomic name, photos, GPS co-ordinates of where it was found, and other distinguishing characteristics, are entered into the Barcode of Life data system. It's accessible to anyone at www.barcodinglife.org.

PROMISING APPLICATIONS

• Quickly identifying species of mosquitos that carry diseases, including those that carry West Nile virus or malaria.

• Checking for consumer products made from endangered plants or animals.

• Identifying invasive insect pests on agricultural shipments going in and out of Canada

• Environmental monitoring - mapping how birds shift breeding territories in response to global warming, for example.

• Tracing unwanted plant and animal ingredients in foods.

Technorati : DNA bar code

International Privacy Standard proposed by Google

This seems to me like it will be good for global businesses as a universal standard will allow a more streamlined approach to how to handle individual data.The world's largest Internet search company wants to create new ways to help keep Internet users safe.

Search giant Google Inc. will propose on Friday that governments and technology companies create a transnational privacy policy to address growing concerns over how personal data is handled across the Internet.

Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, will make the proposal at a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Strasbourg, France, dealing with the intersection of technology with human rights and ethics.

Fleischer's 30-minute presentation will advocate that regulators, international organizations and private companies increase dialog on privacy issues with a goal to create a unified standard.

Google envisions the policy to be a product of self-regulation by companies, improved laws and possible new ones, according to a Google spokesman based in London.

"We don't want to be prescriptive about who does that and what those standards are because it should be a collaborative effort," the spokesman said.

Other organizations have already made progress on privacy standards, he said. For example, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) created a nine-point Privacy Framework designed to aid countries without existing policies.

Google today proposed that governments and technology companies need to work together to create an international method that details how the personal information of users should be handled on the Internet. Google's Peter Fleischer, chief privacy officer, challenged members of the United Nations to help make sure user privacy remains safe.

"People look to us to show some leadership and be constructive," Fleischer said before speaking before the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. "By supporting global privacy standards, there will be a debate and part of that debate will be what are motives our."

A large problem is that privacy standards can vary greatly among countries, something that can cause issues for companies that operate in many countries. Along with not having a federal privacy law to protect consumers, laws in the United States often vary state-by-state: another roadblock that will likely need to be fixed.

Another problem facing companies such as Google is that many of the laws are extremely out of date when compared to how the Internet has progressed. An Internet law created by lawmakers just 10 years ago cannot fairly be used today.

"Privacy laws have not kept up with the reality of the internet and technology, where we have vast amounts of information and every time a credit card is used online, the data on it can move across six or seven countries in a matter of minutes," Fleischer said.

Assuming that data is passed through a small handful of information in a short amount of time, companies need to create a safeguard to make sure the data remains safe -- especially since a lot of nations have minimal data protection laws, Fleischer added.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) recently created a privacy framework that organizers hope will help nations modify existing laws that deal with user privacy and protection. However, much work must be done due to legal gray areas and loose translation of the privacy framework - for example, general principles are highlighted, but nations are responsible for their own enforcement.

Google already has spoken with Yahoo! and Microsoft over privacy standards, and now plans to speak with regulators from a number of different nations.

At a time when Google is worried about government regulation and laws over privacy, critics of the search engine company claim its recent acquisition of DoubleClick Inc are concerned Google now has the ability to store too much user data. Due to rising pressure from European officials, Google agreed to hold cookies up to two years only - the company originally scheduled cookies to be deleted in 2038.

Some other privacy standard

The P3P standard

The P3P specification has a double nature. On the one hand it is standardizing technical issues to facilitate the exchange of privacy meta information. On the other hand it requires the website to provide certain information necessary to enable the user of do-it-yourself privacy protection (e.g. the entity processing the data, types of collected data, purpose of collection and the type of processing). Requiring this information P3P sets a (minimum) privacy standard.

By offering a P3P policy, websites are giving a binding promise to their users that they will follow the P3P standard as a whole. It is part of the promise to provide the information required by the P3P specification truly and comprehensively. It also includes a careful interpretation according to the P3P specification of what personal identifiable data actually is. All things considered using P3P means agreeing on a legally binding (minimum) privacy standard between the parties.

Legal Privacy Standard

Some countries have their own data protection laws requiring i.e. special user information or allowing data use for special purposes only. These legal privacy standards are especially within European Union member states higher than the P3P specification's requirements (e.g. which information has to be provided in the P3P policy).

The relations between the P3P privacy standard, other legal privacy standards and the parties involved are illustrated in the following chart.

Technorati : International Privacy Standard

700MHz open-access conditions sued by Verizon

US FCC auction of a thousand wireless licences for the 700MHz frequency after Verizon Wireless has challenged the rules of the game.

The FCC has attached open-access requirements to a 22 megahertz block of spectrum for the auction in mid-January.

Most of the mobile phone industry hated the idea of attaching conditions to any of the 700 MHz spectrum, but AT&T liked it.

Winning bidders of the 22 MHz worth of licenses are allowed to use any devices and application on their networks, as long as they don't harm the rest of the spectrum. Fighting against the FCC is legally messy and will take ages. Verizon suing will mean that the auction could be delayed for years.

Verizon claims FCC action "violates the US Constitution, violates the Administrative Procedures Act … and is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law."

The move might create a backlash against Verizon. Lawyers approached by RCR News said that the rules were designed to allow consumers, for the first time, to use their handsets with any network they desire, and download and use the lawful software applications of their choice.

People might get miffed that Verizon is using the court system to try to prevent consumers from having any choice of innovative services

Tata Tele launches Web browser Moblie

Tata Teleservices has launched a Web browser mobile phone 'Samsung Explore' that is customised to access the Internet.

At Rs 5,499, the phone has other features such as 0.3-mega pixel digital camera, FM radio, MP3 player, mobile tracker, SOS alert and provision to insert external memory cards.

Starter kits and SIM cards would be additionally charged. Tariff plans for Internet access include Rs 10 a day, Rs 30 for 7 days and Rs 99 for a month - all offering unlimited access at speeds of about 156 kbps, Mr Srinivas Rao Sarapalli, Chief Operating Officer, Tamil Nadu Circle, Tata Teleservices, said at a press conference.

Both pre-paid and post-paid consumers can use this phone. The company currently has over 1.9 crore subscribers, about 60 per cent of who access the Internet via mobile phones.

The company expects to sell about 4,000 'Samsung Explore' handsets this month, Mr Sarapalli said.

Subscriber base

Tata Teleservices has about 9 lakh subscribers in Chennai and Tamil Nadu telecom circles and is investing about Rs 400 crore this year to expand network in the State.

It expects to add about 60 lakh subscribers pan India and is investing about Rs 4,000 crore in network expansion and other activities.

More

Tata Teleservices, in association with Samsung Telecommunications, unveiled a web browser fully optimised for mobile Internet here on Thursday.

The web browser is being introduced on the Samsung 'Explore' handset.

"This innovation opens up the Internet to those without access to a personal computer," said Pankaj Sethi, President (Value Added Services), Tata Teleservices. The access speed will be between 40 to 80 kbps, enabling viewers to open any web page in 20-30 seconds, he added. The browser, which is expected to be three to four times faster than GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), will enable the user to browse all websites, search and email. It will, however, not be possible to show videos in the current devices. The browser is based on the QSC6020 product from the Qualcomm single chip family. The Samsung 'Explore' handset, which also has a camera, FM radio and MP3 player, is priced at Rs. 5,499. Mobile Internet will come at prices ranging from Rs. 10 a day to Rs. 99 a month with unlimited access.

Chennai Correspondent writes:

According to Srinivas Rao Sarapilli, Chief Operating Officer, (Tamil Nadu Circle), Tata Teleservices, the web browser, powered by Novarra Inc., can be downloaded on a handset enabled with Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW).

Mr. Sarapilli said Tata Indicom aimed at expanding its subscriber base in Tamil Nadu from nine lakh to a million users by the year-end. Its country-wide user base is estimated to be around 19 million, which the company wants to expand to 25 million in the next few months.

Technorati : Tata Tele

Web TV show

MySpace still has a few cards up its sleeve -- including the connections it has to some of the top names in traditional media, thanks to its parent company, media and entertainment giant News Corp.

The social-networking site announced today that it has signed an exclusive deal with Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, the Hollywood duo that produced such hit TV shows as Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, for the rights to a new Internet drama the pair are working on, called Quarterlife.

Episodes -- or webisodes -- of the show, which follows a group of twentysomethings through the eyes of one young girl with a video-blog, will appear first on MySpaceTV, and then on the Quarterlife.com website.

Jeff Berman, the general manager of MySpaceTV, said in an interview that the show was a "landmark moment" for MySpace, and that it would be "the highest-quality serialized content ever to appear on the Internet. We're talking about the same production values as 24 or Prison Break."

There have been a number of episodic TV-style shows created for the Internet, including the popular Lonelygirl15 show, which was developed by a trio of unknowns and also appears on MySpaceTV. More recently, former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner's company created a show called Prom Queen, which aired on MySpaceTV and drew a large following.

Entertainment websites have been speculating for several months about a possible Internet offering from Mr. Zwick and Mr. Herskovitz, after a number of reports leaked out about TV writers and production staff working on something called Quarterlife. The Hollywood duo had a traditional TV show of the same name that ran briefly in 2005.

"We've been talking to [Zwick and Herskovitz] for the past several weeks, and we're delighted to be able to announce this," Mr. Berman said. The first "webisode" will be posted on MySpaceTV on November 11, he said.

Under the terms of the deal, the social-networking site has a 24-hour window during which the webisode will only be available on MySpaceTV. After that, it will appear on Quarterlife.com. Both sites will have interactive features, Mr. Berman said, but on MySpace viewers will be able to interact with the cast through their MySpace pages.

MySpace users and bloggers on other sites will also be able to "embed" the webisodes in their pages by pasting in a small chunk of code, as they can with video clips on other sites such as YouTube, Blip.tv and DailyMotion.

When asked whether the new show would have a mobile component involving cellphones, Mr. Berman said "stay tuned." He also said that MySpaceTV was working on several other projects with content creators in the entertainment community.

According to Mr. Berman, more than 50 million users stream video each month from their MySpace webpages, and the social-networking site as a whole produces 500 million individual video streams

Little More :24hoursnews sponsored by www.careerbd.com

Faced with Facebook's exponential growth, MySpace hopes to keep its users onside with what it says is the first network-quality television series produced directly for the internet.

The social network announced today it had secured the exclusive international distribution rights for Quarterlife, a new series from Emmy award-winning producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick.

MySpace Australia spokesman Darain Faraz said the deal was just the first of many shows it planned to offer through MySpace TV, which up until now has consisted mainly of user-submitted clips.

He said within the next few weeks the site would announce a number of "local content sharing deals" with Australian content providers.

"We are on the verge of announcing some fairly huge stuff," he said.

MySpace has 3.8 million registered Australian users but its growth rate now lags well behind Facebook's, which earlier this year surpassed 200,000 Australian users.

But where Facebook's expansion is now being driven by third-party applications, which have rapidly expanded the functionality of the site, MySpace is looking to hold on to its users through new features such as MySpace TV and Instant Messenger.

Quarterlife, which will premier in seven languages on MySpace's global sites on November 11, delves into the lives of six people in their 20s and charts their "coming of age as a part of the digital generation".

The show was unashamedly written to appeal to today's tech-savvy youth - the central character, a young woman named Dylan, is a blogger whose video diary divulges a few too many of her friends' closest secrets.

It purports to be a "truthful depiction of the way young people speak, work, think, love, argue and express themselves".

To that end, Herskovitz and Zwick - the force behind My So-Called Life, thirtysomething, Legends of the Fall and Blood Diamond - will invite their audience to participate in the ongoing development of the series "through writing and video submissions".

There will be 36 episodes in total and the producers plan to create a mini social network around the show through a website, quarterlife.com. It will also have its own profile page on MySpace, which MySpace says will include bonus content such as character profiles, behind-the-scenes video footage and storyline secrets.

Herskovitz and Zwick said the fact Quarterlife was an independent project meant they had full "creative autonomy", which isn't always possible when producing shows for traditional TV networks.

"For better or worse, Quarterlife is truly our own vision," Herskovitz said.

The Quarterlife concept was originally conceived three years ago as a TV pilot called "¼ life", developed for the US network ABC. The project was axed due to "creative differences" between the producers and ABC, after which the script was completely rewritten for an internet audience.

"When Emmy award-winning producers come to MySpace TV - you know this is reaching a whole new level," Myspace CEO Chris DeWolfe said in a statement.

In the US, MySpace has already dabbled extensively in digital broadcasting, securing the rights to a number of smaller series and short clips including the web series Prom Queen, a teen-oriented serial drama made by a US studio owned by former Disney boss Michael Eisner.

Technorati : Myspace, Web TV

Palm decides not to release Foleo

NEW YORK - Treo maker Palm Inc. will not release its smartphone companion product, the Foleo, Chief Executive Edward Colligan said in a posting on the company's blog.

The product, which was announced in May and was supposed to be released during the summer, looked like a small laptop and was said to incorporate a 10-inch (25.4-centimetre) screen, full-sized keyboard and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities. The Foleo was to use a Linux-based operating system and did not have a hard drive.

In a post on The Official Palm Blog late Tuesday, Colligan said the company decided to cancel the product and focus instead on its next-generation operating system and the initial smartphones that will work with it. He said the company will take a charge of less than $10-million (U.S.) for not releasing the product.

"Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision. Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do," Colligan wrote.

Enlarge Image

Palm founder Jeff Hawkins uses Palm's new Foleo in this undated photo. Seeking to recapture its innovative streak in mobile computing, Palm Inc. unveiled the laptop-like gadget with a full-size keyboard and 10-inch display to serve as a companion for smartphones. But the Foleo, which garnering dismal critiques from some analysts may never make it to stores. (Palm/AP)

He said the company's evaluation and early market feedback indicated there was still work to be done to make the Foleo a strong product, and Palm "can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus."

The Foleo may not be gone for good - Colligan noted that he and Palm co-founder Jeff Hawkins think the Foleo's product category has "enormous potential" and wrote that when a Foleo II emerges it will work on the company's new platform. Colligan didn't give a timeline for a new Foleo.

In a note to clients Wednesday, Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis C. McCourt, who has a "market perform" rating for the stock, said the company's decision is positive, because it lets Palm focus its limited resources on the smartphone market, which is large and growing quickly.

"We believe a new operating system combined with better hardware form factors are the key to accelerating growth in Palm's smartphone business, and we believe the transition of resources from the Foleo to the new operating system will prove a wise decision," he wrote.

Technorati : Foleo

USAJobs.gov Hit By Attack On Monster.com

USAJobs, the official job search site for the federal government, said Wednesday that more than 146,000 users had their account information stolen as a result of an attack on job search giant Monster.com earlier this month.

In mid August, attackers compromised Monster.com accounts gaining access to the company's resume database. With the help of a Trojan horse program targeted at Monster.com users, the attackers made off with the name, address, telephone number, and email address of at least 46,000 Monster.com users. Anti-virus giant Symantec later stated that as many as 1.6 million people may have had their information stolen in the attacks, which used e-mails that addressed recipients by their real names.

A snapshot of the letter Monster.com mailed to users affected by the attack.

Turns out that Monster Worldwide is the technology provider for USAJobs, which is run by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Peter Graves, an OPM spokesperson, said 146,000 USAJobs users were affected by the Monster.com attacks. Graves said OPM has received assurances from Monster that Social Security numbers were not compromised.

OPM is in the latter stages of alerting all two million USAJobs.gov users to be on the lookout for phishing scams that might try to take advantage of the stolen data to make their scam e-mails appear more legitimate. Graves said the first signs of the attack surfaced in July, after the organization received a complaint from a USAJobs user.

USAJobs users who receive a suspicious e-mail regarding a search are advised to forward it with the full header information to mayday@fedjobs.gov.

While it's nice to hear that Social Security numbers were not compromised in this attack, it's important to note that even an attack that compromises only names and e-mail addresses can be extremely useful for attackers in future scams. In April, Security Fix wrote about a highly successful phishing attack against Indiana University employees that was later determined to have been aided by a previous attack in which scammers made off with an e-mail address list of some 24,000 IU students and faculty. That attack netted up to 80 victims (while most phishing scams are spammed out to many thousands or millions of people, experts say it is unusual for scammers to haul in more than a few dozen victims).

Technorati : Monster
Del.icio.us : Monster
Ice Rocket : Monster
Flickr : Monster
Zooomr : Monster
Buzznet : Monster

IBM Claims New Nanotech Breakthrough

To explain how much storage capacity IBM's new breakthroughs in nanotech might mean somewhere down the line, IBM said that storing data on small clusters or individual atoms could mean that almost 30,000 feature-length movies, or all of the millions of videos on YouTube, could be stored on a device the size of an iPod..
If you already think your fingers are too big for some of today's small electronic devices, you likely won't be happy to know that new discoveries from IBM could make such devices much, much smaller and more powerful.
On Thursday, the Armonk, New York-based company announced what it called "two major scientific breakthroughs." Its researchers took a big step toward figuring out how to get individual atoms to hold a specific magnetic direction, which would allow them to store data. And they got closer to developing a logic switch between molecules, and even between individual atoms inside a molecule, which could lead to molecular or submolecular processors.

The research, detailed in two reports in the journal Science, does not mean that we'll soon be seeing a supercomputer the size of a grain of sand. But the research does take several important steps in that direction.

All YouTube Videos on an iPod

The work toward getting a single atom to store data involves measuring a property called magnetic anisotropy, which is how well an atom can maintain a specific orientation, representing the one or zero used in digital storage. The company said that, before the new breakthrough, no one had been able to successfully measure the magnetic anisotropy of individual atoms.

To understand how much storage capacity that could mean, it would be best if you were sitting down. IBM said that storing data on small clusters or individual atoms could mean that almost 30,000 feature-length movies, or all of the millions of videos on YouTube, could be stored on a device the size of an iPod.

"We are now one step closer to figuring out how to store data at the atomic level," said Gian-Luca Bona, an IBM manager of science and technology.

Speck of Dust

In addition to highlighting the storage breakthroughs, the researchers pointed the way to enormous processing power in extremely small sizes by developing a single-molecule switch that "can operate flawlessly without disrupting the molecule's outer frame."

Keeping the outer molecule intact is a critical advance of the new research. Among other things, it enabled researchers to use atoms inside one molecule to switch atoms in another, nearby molecule -- a basic logic switch. Earlier research at IBM and other labs has been able to switch inside single molecules, but it always changed their shape -- something you don't want to do if you're building logic gates or memory elements.

If single-atom storage didn't take your breath away, consider submolecular switches as the basis for logic gates and electrical circuits. IBM said some researchers speculate that such miniaturization could mean computer chips as small as a speck of dust.

While shopping for the fastest new piece of dust on the market is still some years away, researchers are moving on to the next step for the switches -- building a circuit, and then figuring out how to create a chip.

Technorati : Breakthrough, Claims, IBM, Nanotech, New
Del.icio.us : Breakthrough, Claims, IBM, Nanotech, New
Ice Rocket : Breakthrough, Claims, IBM, Nanotech, New
Flickr : Breakthrough, Claims, IBM, Nanotech, New
Zooomr : Breakthrough, Claims, IBM, Nanotech, New
Buzznet : Breakthrough, Claims, IBM, Nanotech, New

Sony shutting down Connect Music Store

steven (24hoursnews) - Sony Corp. will begin shuttering its Connect Music Store in March, the company confirmed Thursday.

Rumors of the shutdown began in June after the company laid off 20 people and allocated remaining staff and resources to the PlayStation group.

Behind the move is Sony's decision to support Windows Media Audio DRM in its new line of Walkman digital music players, also announced Thursday. The Connect service, and previous Sony portable devices, used a proprietary technology called ATRAC which never caught on. The new devices will now work with any other Windows Media-enabled digital music store, such as Wal-Mart and others.

The Connect deactivation will take place on a phased basis in North America and Europe. Specific timing for each region was not disclosed, but is not expected to begin until March. Connect's e-book service will remain operational.

Customers who bought ATRAC-encoded files can continue to manage their library with past Sony devices, but the company is advising them to back up their library to audio CDs, as future Walkman devices may not support the format.

Sony's new Walkman devices for the first time include video. The Sony Pictures Entertainment division is providing video content for the new devices via http://www.sonystyle.com, rather than Connect.

why?

Sony has announced that it is shutting Connect, its online music store, admitting defeat at the hands of Apple's iTunes.

The service - which sold songs in a proprietary format that prevented them from being played on non-Sony devices - will close in Europe some time after March next year, depending on demand, the company said in a statement.

Officially, the explanation given by Sony was that it had "listened to its customers," but sources at the company said that selling songs in the 'ATRAC' format - which was used only by Sony - went against the tide of making devices more compatible with a range of download services.

The next generation of Sony Walkman digital media players - details of which were released simultaneously with the Connect announcement - will use the Windows Media Player platform. The switch means that the new Sony devices will be able to download songs from third-party music sites, such as HMV and Napster, the company said. They will not work with Apple's iTunes store, however, which commands as much as 80 per cent of the market

"Customers don't want to be constrained in their music choice, and to fear that if they change computers or their device, they won't be able to use certain types of services," a source close to Sony said. "ATRAC was a a great codec [a type of audio format] and it served its purpose for a time, but the world has moved on."

The two new series of Walkman - the NWZ-A810 and the NWZ-S510, which will be available from October - will be able to download movie trailers, songs, and music videos from "a range of websites" that are Windows-compatible, Sony said in a statement. They will also be able to connect wirelessly with other Sony devices, such as the PlayStation 3.

Sony launched Connect in the UK in July 2004 as part of an attempt to provide an integrated music service that incorporated both the online platform and the device in a proprietary format, much in the manner of Apple's iPod-iTunes system.

The company has always been tight-lipped about how many customers the service had, but in 2005, Sony's vice-president for network services in Europe said that Connect had "done a lot of sales."

Ultimately, however, the service struggled to gain a foothold against Apple's iTunes store, which is by far the dominant player in the digital download market.

Today shares in Sony were down 1c, at $46.10.

Technorati : Sony Music Store
Del.icio.us : Sony Music Store
Ice Rocket : Sony Music Store
Flickr : Sony Music Store
Zooomr : Sony Music Store
Buzznet : Sony Music Store
Riya : Sony Music Store
43 Things : Sony Music Store