European micro robots win at IEEE games

Swiss and French micro robots walked away with gold at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Alaska this week.

In the Mobile Micro robotics test, six teams from Canada, Europe and the United States pitted sub-mm machines beside each other in three tests a 2mm dash an assembly task inserting pegs into designated holes and a freestyle contest.

In the 2mm dash, the microbot from Carnegie Mellon University broke the world record held by Switzerland's ETH Zurich with an average time of 78ms. The triumph was short-lived as, less than an hour later the French team shattered the mark with an average time of 32ms.

ETH Zurich was the champion in the assembly event with a perfect 12, steering 12 500µm pegs into holes at the edge of its 2mm arena. Runner-up was Carnegie Mellon whose microbot placed four pegs of nine. ETH Zurich's robot also captured the freestyle event, astonishing viewers with its unique ability to man oeuvre in three dimensions within its water-packed environment.

Australia's CSIRO Hits U.S. Carriers on WLAN Patents

The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) is suing three of the largest U.S. mobile operators, charging they infringed a patent by selling wireless LAN products.

CSIRO last year settled with 14 wireless LAN vendors, including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, after suing them in 2005 over the same copyright. The current lawsuits, filed in late February in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Texas, target AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA.

CSIRO is a government-funded research institute with facilities all over Australia. It claims tenure of U.S. Patent No. 5,487,069, issued in 1996, entitled "Wireless LAN," which it claims covers fundamental aspects of the IEEE 802.11a,b,g and n standards. In the three lawsuits filed in February, CSIRO is going after companies that are mainly sellers rather than makers of Wi-Fi products.

In three separate complaints, CSIRO alleges each mobile operator is deliberately infringing the patent because it informed them about the infringement last year. The agency is seeking vague damages as well as injunctions to stop the carriers from selling infringing products. CSIRO wants a jury to hear the case. One exemption to the complaints is that the allegedly infringing products don't include those made with Intel chips. Intel was one of the companies that settled with CSIRO last year.

Computer Solves Depiction Puzzles

A GROUP OF MIT boffin has come up with some tattered technology that allows a computer to solve jigsaw puzzles. According to a paper with the catchy title "A Probabilistic Image Jigsaw Puzzle Solver", which was presented to the 2010 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition? The idea was dreamed up by Taeg Sang Cho.

It can solve puzzles created from complex images like landscape photographs and can handle an almost unlimited number of colors. It has already solved a world record-setting puzzle with 400 pieces, beating the previous effort for computerized jigsaw solving.

Cho's technique uses simple squares, forcing the AI to rely entirely on color and pattern recognition. The software first scans for wide colour patterns, and by comparing those to a database of known images, arrange the pieces in an approximation of the final picture.

IEEE-SA ICSG's Free XML plan Brings New competence to Computer-Security Industry's allocation of Malware Samples

The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Industry Connections Security Group (ICSG) today announced the accessibility of a free XML schema designed to aid the quick, cost-effective sharing of samples of malware (malicious software such as viruses, worms and spyware) by computer-security organizations. AVG Technologies, McAfee Inc., Microsoft Corp., Panda Security, Sophos, Symantec Corp. and Trend Micro have adopted the flexible ICSG solution as part of their efforts to more quickly deliver the protection that their users most urgently need.

In 2009, Symantec identified more than 240 million distinct new malicious programs. The amount of time and assets that the computer-security industry spends in researching, processing and exchanging data on these millions of malicious files is substantial, said Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response. ICSG's XML schema not only makes the process significantly more efficient, it also enables an organization to prioritize the threats. It all adds up to faster rollout of more relevant protection for our customers.

India finds a voice in 4G

A hushed looking professor from IIT Chennai has been quite busy over the past months outside the classroom holding discussions, making presentations, liaising with Indian telecom operators. Slowly, he has been scripting an Indian story in the next generation international wireless standardization, which ensures that equipments talk to each other. In other words, assurance that a radio transmitter built by one company, for instance, effectively communicates with the radio receiver built by another firm.

The man in question, Bhaskar Ramamurthi heads the Centre of quality in Wireless Technology (CEWiT), a society set up jointly by the department of IT (DIT) and industry. One of its missions is to join in these standardizations, addressing Indian market requirements. Historically, the country has been missing the bus when it came to contributing to wireless standard setting. When research organizations and the industry woke up a few years ago, the 3G standard had already been finalized. They currently visualize a good chance with the 4th generation of radio technologies, which seeks to really enhance the capacity and speed of mobile telephone networks.

CEWiT is participating in two major ongoing 4G standardization efforts 802.16m and LTE advanced. 802.16 is a series of wireless broadband standards authored by the IEEE, an association that advances scientific innovation. Recently, the IEEE 802.16 Working Group convened in Bangalore to thrash out the new ‘m’ standard.

IEEE P2030 Smart Grid Functioning Group Conference To Be Held At Connectivity week, May 25-28, 2010

The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) announced details today of the next meeting of its P2030 Smart Grid Working Group for the clout engineering, communications and information technology industries, which will take place May 25-28 at Connectivity Week at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA. The Connectivity Week conference, which begins on Monday, May 24, is designed to blend technical discussions and application strategy into a cohesive understanding of how smart, connected devices and systems will shape the future, providing synergistic venue for IEEE’s P2030 Working Group meeting.

Individuals and organizations interested in shaping the smart grid can register online at Connectivity Week to attend the P2030 meeting in person. Registration includes access to the full Connectivity Week agenda. Alternatively, IEEE will again offer live meeting web conferencing for this event.

Vital Action Required To Secure Undersea Data Transmission, IEEE Statement Says

It’s not just media pirates and cyber-villains that Web safety experts are concerned about today. Add Somali pirates, terrorists, saboteurs, and petty scrap metal thieves to the list. A report issued by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) says vital action is needed to secure and expand our undersea cables, as a malicious attack or accident could interrupt the incredibly backbone on which the Internet depends, turning global commerce into turmoil.

Undersea cables handle the awesome majority of our communications, carrying more than 99 percent of all data traffic across the oceans. Those cables pass through choke points generally in places where larger bodies of water narrow, such as the Suez Canal or the Luzon strait between Taiwan and the Philippines. At such points cables are susceptible, and damage to them could down entire phone networks or stump data flow to entire regions.

Layer 8 Solutions Provides Power over Ethernet Clocks from Inova Solutions to Canadian Market

OnTime digital clocks block into an Ethernet jack on your local area network. No AC plug is required, so installation is inexpensive and it’s easy to move clocks around. Power is supplied over standard Cat-5 wiring using the IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet standard, the equivalent power source as Voice-over-IP telephones.

OnTime digital clocks are highly accurate and receive coordinated time updates automatically over the network. Inova Solutions keeps things simple by eliminating the need for dedicated software control one or hundreds of clocks from any PC on the network with a effortless telnet session. OnTime clocks will find an accessible Simple Network Time Protocol server on your network, or you can set up a new one, making synchronized time easy. Consistent and perfect time across an organization keeps things running proficiently and easily. In a corporate environment, time exhausted on waiting for co-workers to arrive at a meeting or training session translates directly into lost yield. Synchronized time in manufacturing environments promotes schedule observance, helping the entire team meet output goals. In healthcare facilities, matched time is critical to daily operations, whether it's checking on patients or delivering medications.

WiFi Camps to Combat It Away At 60 GHz

There's nothing more cruel in ICT than a values battle and there's one brewing over WiFi at 60GHz. It's the usual front line creation competing vendor groups going to market early because standards-setting is too slow.

A swath of international and basically vacant unlicensed 60 GHz spectrum has now become the official battleground for the next Wi-Fi wireless networking technology, IEEE 802.11ad.

The battle for persuade over unlicensed frequencies surrounding 60 GHz and a technology that will give clients access to this spectrum began this week, when interest groups began planning to gain leverage over the 802.11ad standardization process. The action will continue next week in Beijing, when the IEEE will pay attention to proposals for the informative standard.

Tamper Manifest CPU Warns Of Malicious Backdoors

Scientists have devised a chip design to ensure microprocessors haven not been covertly set with malicious backdoors that could be used to tap sensitive information or obtain instructions from adversaries.

The on-chip engines at the heart of these tamper evident microprocessors are the computer correspondent of cellophane shrink wrap or aluminum seals that flag food or drug packages that have been opened by someone other than the consumer. They are designed to monitor operations curving through a CPU for signs its microcode has been changed by malicious insiders during the design cycle.

At the heart of their proposal are two engines hardwired into a processor that continuously monitor chip interactions for anomalies. One of the engines, dubbed Trust Net, sends an alert whenever a unit executes more or fewer instructions than is expected. A second, called DataWatch, watches chip data for signs the CPU has been maliciously modified.

WiMAX Forum selects Mformation Service Manager for OMA DM Certification

Mformation Technologies Inc., a leading supplier of superior mobile device management (MDM) solutions, announced the WiMAX Forum has selected Mformation Service Manager for its OMA DM certification platform for 4G WiMAX devices. The Mformation solution is the central orientation point as part of the WiMAX Forum’s comprehensive Open Retail project that tests and certifies WiMAX devices for service activation and remote management.

Mformation’s solutions for OMA DM device management, as specified by the Open Mobile Alliance, allow operators to mechanically configure and manage devices. Activation and remote management of 4G WiMAX devices and services are central to helping operators and handset manufactures deliver a quality end-user experience right out of the box, said Ron Resnick, President and Chairman, WiMAX Forum.

Mformation Service Manager is a market leader and an excellent, strong reference platform for the capabilities upon which the WiMAX Forum relies on as part of our certification work. In addition to reducing the risks related with device management and service delivery for operators and device manufacturers, certification is critical element to driving the 4G WiMAX market forward to ensure products work in any operator network around the globe.

Fujitsu extends notebook battery runtimes

Fujitsu has improved the battery runtime of it's new Life book notebooks by as much as 75% from the earlier generation, with batteries that last through even the longest flights and workdays.

Energy-efficient notebooks and batteries transform into more efficient work days for users. For notebook users who are frequently on the road, struggling to find a power socket to juice up their notebook until the next stop can be time consuming and annoying.

Fujitsu Life books have constantly had long battery runtimes the latest generation of Li-Ion batteries and a second battery in the modular bay extend these even further. By using superior technologies such as low tolerance, well-matched circuitry and energy-efficient LED displays throughout the portfolio, Fujitsu's Life books are more competent than ever. Fujitsu's Life book E780 even reaches a battery runtime of as much as 18 hours.

Fujitsu's EcoButton offers another advance to battery life, by giving users a simple way to save energy and widen battery runtime. With the touch of a button, users can switch off the most resource-hungry functions such as Fire wire (IEEE 1394), card slots, optical disk drives as well as reducing display brightness. Fujitsu's green approach is also proven by independent organizations; most of Fujitsu's Life books have Energy Star 5.0 and EPEAT Gold certifications.

Power 10 to Go With 40 Gbe

Force10 Networks will integrate the rising IEEE standard 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40 GbE) into its switch/router solutions to offer the most reasonable incremental step from 10 GbE for dynamic data centers.

The company says that 40 GbE currently represents a more economical increase in Ethernet transmission rates than stepping up to 100 GbE technologies.

From the uplink at the server edge to the network core, Force10 plans to take a guidance role and develop solutions focused on this important emerging IEEE standard. 40 GbE is expected to be ratified by the IEEE in June.

It is an stimulating time as the outlay made by the industry over the past four years in 40 GbE and 100 GbE is set to conclude in June with the authorization of the IEEE P802.3ba standard, said John D'Ambrosia, chair of the IEEE P802.3ba Task Force and director of standards for Force10 Networks. This standard will offer the tools needed to add bandwidth and reduce intricacy in the data centre.

Michael Howard, co-founder and principal forecaster for carrier and data centre networks, Infonetics Research added the inevitable rout of data is causing scaling problems in data centers that are today limited to 10 GbE networks. Even though 100 GbE is preferred, data centre owners are looking for practical relief offered in the lower-cost 40 GbE. 100 GbE makes logic at some point as the technology becomes more cost effective, but customers want solutions to shorten their data centre networks and drive down costs today.

Atheros Aims Designed For Wi-Fi/Power Line Standard

Combining wireless technologies like Wi-Fi with powerline systems has been discussed for years, but a real constraint is rising in growth areas like the smart grid, home monitoring and full-house digital media networks. Having acquired a powerline chip specialist, Intellon, last year, Wi-Fi bigwig Atheros is looking to incorporate its technologies more closely and, in the process, try to create a de facto standard.

On acquiring Intellon last September, Atheros CEO Craig Barratt said the Wi-Fi/powerline combination, plus Ethernet, could take the role of the backbone of the home network. However, powerline has its own standards issues, with six different candidates, while other wireless platforms like ZigBee and Bluetooth are also looking to drive into the smart home. Atheros hopes its proposal will gather sufficient industry weight to help sort out the standards mess, and is focusing on a mesh networking approach.

A mesh acceptance Wi-Fi and powerline and also the MoCA (Multimedia over Coax) home networking stage would considerably enhance the conception of standardized in-home systems, says Atheros' CTO Bill McFarland. Speaking at the recent Embedded Systems Conference, he said. We are interested in consistency, but we will do it in a focused way. We are only talking about home networking. In the past, various attempts to create mesh standards have floundered because their remit was too broad, covering greatly different mesh applications from metro area networks to military to home.

U.S. Physicist Visualized the Perception of SMS In 1909

Texting may be a benefit in today's world, but the idea was visualized more than a century ago. And, it was a original American physicist who had predicted about the moveable messaging service, like the SMS, via a hand-held device in the 'Popular Mechanics' magazine in 1909, its Technology Editor Seth Porges has claimed.

Nikola Tesla, the physicist and a mechanical engineer, whose name lives on at the electric car maker Tesla Motors, saw wireless energy as the only way to make electricity flourish, according to Porges.

Telsa wrote in the magazine that one day it would be probable to 'transmit wireless messages' all over the world and likely that such a hand-held device would be simple to use and one day everyone in the world would communicate to friends using it, Porges said. This would accompany in a new era of technology, Telsa wrote in the publication.

Nikola Tesla was able to foresee technology which is still in its emerging forms a
hundred years later. He talked a lot about his other great zeal, which was wireless power.