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Researchers take a big step toward their goal of spy-proof communications via satellites.
European scientists have broken a distance record for sending quantum information from one place to another, paving the way for a system that relies on the laws of physics to provide communications that can't be tapped. If they can extend the reach of their signal a little further, they'll be able to use satellites to send perfectly secure data around the world.
The team used principles of quantum mechanics to create an encryption key in two locations simultaneously: one in a lab on La Palma, in the Canary Islands, and the second in an observatory on the neighboring island of Tenerife, 144 kilometers away. Such an encryption key can be used to encode data that only the sender and the receiver can decode.
"We want to see whether it is possible at all to establish worldwide quantum communication, worldwide quantum cryptography," says Anton Zeilinger, a professor of physics at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna, Austria. His team, along with a team led by Harald Weinfurter of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, in Garching, Germany, published its results online on June 3 in the journal Nature Physics.
To create the key, the team first had to create pairs of entangled photons. Entanglement, which Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," means that the fate of one photon is tied up with the fate of the other. Measuring any quantum mechanical property of one photon automatically changes that same property in its entangled partner, no matter the distance between them.
In this case, the team measured polarization. Light can be polarized in any direction; it's a measure of which direction the light waves are fluctuating in--horizontal or vertical, for example. Researchers created entangled pairs of photons by firing a powerful laser beam through a crystal. For each photon that went in, two weaker, entangled photons came out. The researchers bounced one half of each pair off a mirror to a local light detector on La Palma. They sent the other photon through a lens and out across the water, where a telescope on Tenerife caught it and sent it to a second light detector.
"I have these two photons, and if I measure them on both ends and I ask them, 'Are you horizontally or vertically polarized?'--a binary choice--they will give a random answer," says Zeilinger. "But because of the entanglement, both will give the same answer. On both sides you get a zero or on both sides you get a one."
Every time the detectors registered a photon and measured its polarization, that counted as a bit. A photon polarized in one direction was a one, and a photon polarized in the opposite direction was a zero. Add enough bits together, and you get an encryption key. And it's impossible to steal that key without the users' knowing about it. If someone were to intercept the flying photons , he could measure them himself, then send them on to the receiver. But the act of measuring them would change their quantum mechanical properties, so he'd be immediately exposed.
Encryption keys used today rely on the belief that it takes huge computing resources to break them, says Jeffrey Shapiro, of MIT's Optical and Quantum Communications Group. But if someone invents a vastly more powerful quantum computer, that advantage would be lost. In addition, the random sequences of numbers generated to make today's encryption keys aren't truly random. They're generated by mathematical operations, and a smart code breaker might be able to figure out the algorithm being used to generate them. Quantum bits, on the other hand, are completely unpredictable, so the keys based on them should be unbreakable. That's appealing to businesses that want to send financial data securely, as well as to governments, which have all sorts of sensitive communications. "We all know that the security of data is one of the essential issues these days," says Zeilinger.
"I think it's wonderful work," Shapiro says of the European group's paper. "The impressive thing about this is they've done it over such a long distance."
The best that researchers had previously done was to detect entangled photons across distances of about 10 kilometers. To improve on that, Zeilinger's team switched to a laser that emits light in pulses instead of a continuous beam. The pulsed laser only has a repetition rate of 249 megahertz--far slower than the 10 gigahertz lasers commonly used in optical communications networks, which limits how much of a signal can be sent in a given time period. The pulsed laser is also not quite as good as the continuous one at producing entanglement. But it's close, and it gave the team members much more control over when they were producing photons, which helped them separate the photons they wanted from stray light at the detector, so they could read the signal more reliably. The researchers also had to deal with atmospheric turbulence that distorts the photons' path. They used an automated system that continually adjusted the alignment of the telescope to take care of that, although the light beam still wandered over the detector somewhat.
The hope, Zeilinger says, is to improve the lasers and detectors enough that such free-space links work between ground stations and satellites, so that encryption keys can be sent from anyplace on Earth to any other. As most communications satellites orbit at heights of 300 to 500 kilometers, "with our 144 kilometers, we are getting there," he says.
The fact that the team covered that distance in free space "certainly is very significant," says Prem Kumar, director of the Center for Photonic Communication and Computing at Northwestern University. He has sent entangled photons over optical fiber, which is fine for short distances, he says. But because fiber absorbs photons, it's not practical for more than 100 to 200 kilometers, which wouldn't allow for worldwide distribution.
The researchers are part of a European consortium of about 20 groups, called SECOQC, working on secure communications based on quantum cryptography. The consortium aims to test a secure system in Europe sometime next year.


http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18838/

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Open Winamp and select Options and then Preferences…
(note: if you’re using the “classic version” skin, open the Winamp Preferences by clicking the Control+p keys on your keyboard)

Select Output from the Plug-ins section of the left window, and then select Nullsoft Disk Writer. Click Configure.

Click the Directory: button so you can choose a location to save the .wav files

Navigate to the folder you want to save the .wav files in.

Click OK to return to the Preferences window, and then Close to return to Winamp. Now select File -> Play file… and navigate to the folder with your .flac files. Select all of the .flac files by single-clicking the first file, holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then single-clicking the last file. When all of the files are selected, click Open

Press the Play button. Winamp will now decode the .flac files and turn them into .wav files. It typically takes about 20 seconds to convert a 5 minute song, but this depends on how “fast” your PC is.

Once Winamp is done decoding the files, make sure to set the Plug-ins -> Output back to DirectSound output, or the next time you try to play a file using Winamp, it will decode that file instead.

Check to make sure all of the .wav files were created.
Enjoy!

Continued...


http://www.simplehelp.net/2006/08/14...indows/#decode

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A prototype of what may be the next generation of personal computers has been developed by researchers in the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering. Capable of computing speeds 100 times faster than current desktops, the technology is based on parallel processing on a single chip.
Parallel processing is an approach that allows the computer to perform many different tasks simultaneously, a sharp contrast to the serial approach employed by conventional desktop computers. The prototype developed by Uzi Vishkin and his Clark School colleagues uses a circuit board about the size of a license plate on which they have mounted 64 parallel processors. To control those processors, they have developed the crucial parallel computer organization that allows the processors to work together and make programming practical and simple for software developers.
"The single-chip supercomputer prototype built by Prof. Uzi Vishkin's group uses rich algorithmic theory to address the practical problem of building an easy-to-program multicore computer," said Charles E. Leiserson, professor of computer science and engineering at MIT. "Vishkin's chip unites the theory of yesterday with the reality of today."
Desktop Parallel Processing
Parallel processing on a massive scale using numerous interconnected chips or computers has been used for years to create supercomputers. However, its application to desktop systems has been a challenge because of severe programming complexities. The Clark School team found a way to use single chip parallel processing technology to change that.
Vishkin, a professor in the Clark School's electrical and computer engineering department and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), explained the advantage of parallel processing like this: "Suppose you hire one person to clean your home, and it takes five hours, or 300 minutes, for the person to perform each task, one after the other," Vishkin said. "That's analogous to the current serial processing method. Now imagine that you have 100 cleaning people who can work on your home at the same time! That's the parallel processing method.
"The software' challenge is: Can you manage all the different tasks and workers so that the job is completed in 3 minutes instead of 300?" Vishkin continued. "Our algorithms make that feasible for general-purpose computing tasks for the first time."
Vishkin and his team are now demonstrating their technology, which in future devices could include 1,000 processors on a chip the size of a finger nail, to government and industry groups. To show how easy it is to program, Vishkin is also providing access to the prototype to students at Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County, Md.
From Theory to Reality
For years, the personal computer industry achieved advancements in computer clock speed, the fundamental rate at which a computer performs operations, thanks to innovations in chip fabrication technologies and miniaturization. Moore's Lawwhich dictates that the number of transistors on integrated circuits in computers will double every 18 to 24 monthswas coupled with a corresponding improvement in clock speed.
But no advancements in clock speed have been achieved since 2004. From an early stage, Vishkin foresaw that Moore's Law would ultimately fail to help improve clock speed due to physical limitations. This has guided his perseverance over his professional career in seeking to improve computer productivity by distributing the load among multiple processors, accomplishing computer tasks in parallel.
In 1979, Vishkin, a pioneer in parallel computing, began his work on developing a theory of parallel algorithms that relied on a mathematical model of a parallel computer, since, at that time, no viable parallel prototype existed. By 1997, advances in technology enabled him to begin building a prototype desktop device to test his theory; he and his team completed the device in December 2006.
The prototype device's physical hardware attributes are strikingly ordinary standard computer components executing at 75 MHz. It is the device's parallel architecture, ease of programming and processing performance relative to other computers with the same clock speed that get people's attention.
"Based on the very positive reactions of my graduate students this spring," Vishkin stated, "I knew that it was time to take the technology public."
Earlier this month, Vishkin and his Ph.D. student, Xingzhi Wen, published a paper about his newly-built parallel processing technology for the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures, and showcased it at a major computing conference, the ACM International Conference on Supercomputing (ICS) in Seattle.
At the ICS event, Vishkin allowed conference participants to connect to the device remotely and run programs on it in a full-day tutorial session he conducted, offering colleagues and student participants the opportunity to experience the prototype technology firsthand.
Vishkin also participated in a panel discussion at a special invitation-only Microsoft Workshop on Many-Core Computing on June 20-21 in Seattle, Wash. In August, Vishkin will present a keynote address at the Workshop on Highly Parallel Processing on a Chip in Rennes, France, held in conjunction with the 13th Euro-Par, an international European conference on parallel and distributed computing.
"This system represents a significant improvement in generality and flexibility for parallel computer systems because of its unique abilities," said Burton Smith, technical fellow for advanced strategies and policy at Microsoft. "It will be able to exploit a wider spectrum of parallel algorithms than today's microprocessors can, and this in turn will help bring general purpose parallel computing closer to reality."
Vishkin has filed several patents on his parallel processing technology since 1997. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, his research has also received significant interest from the computer industry, which he believes his technology will revitalize.
"The manufacturers have done an excellent job over the years of increasing a single processor's clock speed through clever miniaturization strategies and new materials," he noted. "But they have now reached the limits of this approach. It is time for a practical alternative that will allow a new wave of innovation and growthand that's what we have created with our parallel computing technology."
In addition to Xingzhi Wen, Vishkin's research teams includes students Aydin Balkan, George Caragea, Mike Detwiler, Tom Dubois, Mike Horak, Fuat Keceli, Mary Kiemb and Alex Tzannes, as well as electrical and computer engineering professors Rajeev Barua and Gang Qu.


http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/...ArticleID=1459

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You could call it switchzilla.
Sun Microsystems on Monday revealed the Constellation System, a high-performance computing platform that company executives claim will vault the company back into the top ranks of supercomputer manufacturers.
The linchpin in the system is the switch, the piece of hardware that conducts traffic between the servers, memory and data storage. Code-named Magnum, the switch comes with 3,456 ports, a larger-than-normal number that frees up data pathways inside these powerful computers.
"We are looking at a factor-of-three improvement over the current best system at an equal number of nodes," said Andy Bechtolsheim, chief architect and senior vice president of the systems group at Sun. "We have been somewhat absent in the supercomputer market in the last few years."

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas is currently preparing a Constellation system. If TACC can get enough Barcelona chips from Advanced Microsystems by October 15, its system will land near the top of the next Top 500 Supercomputers list, Sun says.
The TACC system will provide a peak performance of around 500 teraflops, or 500 trillion operations a second. A fully built-out Constellation system, with contemporary components, could hit a peak of 2 petaflops, or 2 quadrillion operations per second. In the last Top 500 Supercomputer list, published in November, IBM's BlueGene topped the list with 280 teraflops. (The new list comes out later this week.)
More details, along with other supercomputing papers from competitors, will be presented at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany, this week.
Sun's Magnum switch, based around the InfiniBand high-speed networking technology, is a honker. The largest InfiniBand switches on the market contain 288 ports, according to Bechtolsheim, and require leaf, or helper switches. (TACC's system will have two of the Sun switches.)
The density of ports, and the large number of them, creates a cascading effect in performance and pricing, he asserted. By deploying Magnum, which sports a "fat tree" style architecture where servers branch out from the trunk of switches, customers will need to install far fewer switches when building large computers, he said. Fewer networking boxes mean about one-sixth the number of cables.
"The cables cost more than the silicon" when it comes to the networking systems inside supercomputer clusters, he said.
Overall, Sun claims a fully built-out Constellation system will take up 20 percent less floor space.
The architecture of the system also cuts down latency, a big factor in performance. Because more boxes can connect directly to the switch, processors at distant nodes don't have to leap through as many connections to communicate, according to Sun. Specialized connectors further boost performance.
Sun has also improved the density of the blade servers that are part of Constellation. A 42U-high rack of the blades will hold 768 processor cores, assuming four core processors are used.
The storage system that comes with Constellation can hold one petabyte in two racks. While Constellation supercomputers are constructed out of these separate blades, storage systems and switches, the parts will be sold together rather than separately.
Constellation vs. Blue Gene/L
Bechtolsheim extrapolated on how a hypothetical Constellation system would do against a similarly configured hypothetical IBM Blue Gene/L system.
A Constellation with 131,000 processor cores could churn 1,080 teraflops, or calculations, per second. (A teraflop is a trillion operations a second). The system would also have 3 terabits per second of I/O bandwidth from the storage system.
A Blue Gene/L with 131,000 cores would operate at 360 teraflops and have only one terabit per second of I/O bandwidth with disk storage, according to Sun.
Both Constellation and Blue Gene/L are clusters--large computers created by lashing together large numbers of smaller servers.
"The main difference with BlueGene is the topology of the fabric," Bechtolsheim said. "The advantage (with Fat Tree architectures) is that you have constant latency between nodes."
IBM, Cray and others, of course, aren't exactly standing still. Each company is readying its own products and will make announcements at the International Supercomputing Conference. One source said IBM plans to debut its next-generation Blue Gene design, called Blue Gene/P, in which P stands for petaflop--a quadrillion calculations per second.
Sun also has to wait for Advanced Micro Devices.
Constellation blades can accommodate Sun's UltraSparc chips, AMD processors and Intel chips. AMD, however, currently provides better performance on floating point calculations than Intel's chips, according to Bechtolsheim. The TACC system is based around Barcelona. Whether or not the TACC system can make the next Top 500 list revolves around availability of Barcelona, which is due in the third quarter.
"It depends on AMD," he said.
Bechtolsheim also pointed out that supercomputers generally are less profitable than selling high-end servers to corporations, but companies use supercomputers to conduct research for their other product lines. Sun hence says it will play a more prominent role than it has in the past few years.


http://news.com.com/Sun+eyes+superco...3-6193207.html

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Opportunity's path at Victoria crater

WASHINGTON - NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is scheduled to begin a descent down a rock-paved slope into the Red Planet's massive Victoria Crater. This latest trek carries real risk for the long-lived robotic explorer, but NASA and the Mars Rover science team expect it to provide valuable science.

Image: The route followed by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover
Opportunity already has been exploring layered rocks in cliffs around Victoria Crater. The team has planned the descent carefully to enable an eventual exit, but Opportunity could become trapped inside the crater or lose some capabilities. The rover has operated more than 12 times longer than its originally intended 90 days.
The scientific allure is the chance to examine and investigate the compositions and textures of exposed materials in the crater's depths for clues about ancient, wet environments. As the rover travels farther down the slope, it will be able to examine increasingly older rocks in the exposed walls of the crater.
"While we take seriously the uncertainty about whether Opportunity will climb back out, the potential value of investigations that appear possible inside the crater convinced me to authorize the team to move forward into Victoria Crater," said Alan Stern, NASA associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "It is a calculated risk worth taking, particularly because this mission has far exceeded its original goals."
The robotic geologist will enter Victoria Crater through an alcove named Duck Bay. The eroding crater has a scalloped rim of cliff-like promontories, or capes, alternating with more gently sloped alcoves, or bays.
A meteor impact millions of years ago excavated Victoria, which lies approximately 4 miles south of where Opportunity landed in January 2004. The impact-created bowl is half a mile across and about five times as wide as Endurance Crater, where Opportunity spent more than six months exploring in 2004.
The rover began the journey to Victoria from Endurance 30 months ago. It reached the rim at Duck Bay nine months ago. Opportunity then drove approximately a quarter of the way clockwise around the rim, examining rock layers visible in the promontories and possible entry routes in the alcoves. Now, the rover has returned to the most favorable entry point.


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/mer-20070628.html

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A year ago that literary lion elicited a standing ovation in a banquet hall full of booksellers when he exhorted them to “defend your lonely forts” against a digital future of free book downloads and snippets of text. But this year, at BookExpo America, the publishing industry’s annual convention that ended yesterday, the battering ram of technology was back.
Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine who made his own splash last year with his book “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More,” returned to the convention to talk about the possibility of giving away online his next book — which he fittingly intends to title “Free” — to readers who were willing to read it with advertisements interspersed throughout its pages. (He still intends to sell the book traditionally to readers who’d rather get their text without the ads.)
Google and Microsoft both had large presences at the expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, where about 35,000 publishers, booksellers, authors, agents and librarians attended the four-day carnival of promotion for the all-important fall lineup of titles. A panel sponsored by MySpace.com, the social networking site, drew a standing-room-only crowd, as did another discussion on the influence of literary blogs. Vendors offering to digitize books proliferated.
There were also the usual flashy parties, giveaways and autograph signings at the convention, which is not open to the public. Celebrities sold out $35-a-head breakfasts and lunches (Stephen Colbert, Alan Alda and Rosie O’Donnell all had books to hawk), and impersonators stalked the exhibition hall. (Elton John, Borat and a twinkling star who could be mistaken for a banana with arms were all sighted.) And publishers and booksellers attempted to figure out the Next Great Book (popular galleys included Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke,” Alice Sebold’s “The Almost Moon” and “Loving Frank,” a debut novel by Nancy Horan.)
But in what has become another rite of the BookExpo in recent years, the industry continued to grapple with its evolving techno-future with a mixture of enthusiasm, anxiety and a whiff of desperation.
“I think there is going to be a lot of sturm and drang before we figure this out,” said Eamon Dolan, editor in chief of Houghton Mifflin. “There is a huge undertaking ahead. It is going to be rocky.”
Many of the independent booksellers, who have been buffeted by technological change for years, seemed quite philosophical about the need to move forward. Clark Kepler, president of Kepler’s Books and Magazines, an independent store in Menlo Park, Calif., visited a booth for a company that scans books and digitizes them, a technology that, on the face of it, would seem incompatible with a physical bookstore’s mission.
“In terms of the traditional bookstore it would not be good for us,” acknowledged Mr. Kepler, whose store closed its doors nearly two years ago because of financial problems set off in part by fierce competition from online retailers like Amazon.com. He was able to reopen shortly afterward when venture capitalists from Silicon Valley and other community members invested in the store. “But ultimately I think it is good for all of us as readers and seekers of knowledge to have that information available, so as a bookseller I need to rethink my position instead of saying, ‘I wish the world would stand still,’ ” he said.
Continued...



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/bo...rssnyt&emc=rss

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Like a tinfoil hat for your house, new technology promises to block hackers' access to your wireless transmissions—and protect against EMP attacks and explosions, to boot
Once manufactured under an exclusive contract with the U.S. government, this recently declassified window film is now available to the public. But don't expect to see it on store shelves anytime soon. Currently, it's only available directly from the manufacturer, and at prices that will likely make it prohibitive for all but the wealthiest home owners.
The two-millimeter-thick coating can block Wi-Fi signals, cell phone transmissions, even the near-infrared, yet is almost transparent, making it no more intrusive than conventional window treatments. It can keep signals in (preventing attempts to spy on electronic communications) or out, minimizing radio interference and even the fabled electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear blast.
The film has already been plastered across the windows of more than 200 government buildings, including structures operated by the departments of Defense and the Treasury, as well as in the homes of high-level members of the current administration.
"We are limited by confidentiality agreements to say exactly which buildings [the window film] is on," says Kent Davies, president of CPFilms, Inc., in Martinsville, Va., which manufacturers the protective covering dubbed LLumar Signal Defense Security Film. "But immediately after 9/11 one of the senior military officials talked about a window film that seriously protected against the damage from the plane crash. You can put two and two together and assume it was also protecting against wireless signals."
But Is It for You?
Unlike the built-in security measures present in nearly all wireless routers, Signal Defense Film doesn't come cheap. CPFilms declined to give details of their pricing structure, in part because their technology is only sold as part of an all-inclusive package (of which the film is one component).
In addition, some experts are skeptical whether there is—or should be—a market for the film outside of the government and large corporations.
"If you're military, sure, it's useful. But if you're a normal person, it's kind of dumb," says Bruce Schneier, a consultant and authority in the fields of cryptography and computer security. "The way you secure wireless is [by securing your computer]—this is the wrong point to apply the solution." Without means of encryption and software-based security, he asserts, "you're out in the open anyway." Schneier himself is so confident in his ability to secure his computers that he runs a completely open wireless network in his home.
On the other hand, despite the widespread availability of wireless security features, many organizations and individuals have failed to secure their networks. In 2005, for instance, hackers broke into the wireless network of a Marshalls department store by using an antenna to remotely intercept its transmissions. Using this access as a starting point they managed to steal more than 200 million credit card numbers from a central database of customer information. The wireless network they breached was protected by Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP), an older standard whose weak encryption can be cracked in under two minutes.
An internal audit revealed that the chain did not move quickly enough to convert its networks to the stronger Wireless Protected Access (WPA) standard. When the plot was finally uncovered, TJX, Marshalls's parent company, hired dozens of investigators and offered to pay for fraud monitoring for customers whose data was stolen.
Lisa Winckler, global director of research and technology at CPFilms, argues that the film has applications beyond simply blocking Wi-Fi signals, which are transmitted in the same unregulated 2.4-gigahertz band that is used by many cordless handsets. By shielding against signals across a wide swath of the electromagnetic spectrum, from 10 hertz to just shy of visible light, Signal Defense film can also thwart eavesdropping technology that depends on transmissions in the near-infrared, or terahertz range.
"With the advent of laser microphones," explains Winckler, "you can pick up voice data [through a window]. It's done every day in government."
Born of the Cold War
Many of these more exotic applications—including blocking the stray transmissions of keyboards, old-style televisions and computer monitors, and even LCD flat-panel displays—originated in the military's so-called TEMPEST program. TEMPEST was a code name for an initially classified effort to determine whether foreign governments could extract useful information from recordings of the stray electromagnetic noise generated by electronic devices. (In the first unclassified paper on the subject, published in 1985, Wim van Eck, then a researcher at Neher Laboratories in the Netherlands, demonstrated that it was possible to use a wireless antenna to reproduce the image on a television screen even when they were separated by a wall.)
"There was a huge movement in the government several years ago for TEMPEST protection," says Arthur Money, who was an assistant secretary of defense from 1999 to 2001 and has since become a consultant for defense contractors, including CPFilms. As a result, according to computer security expert Schneier, the government covered the windows of the National Security Agency's headquarters with a fine metallic mesh, and sandwiched metallic shielding between its wallboards.
In contrast to these early efforts, Signal Defense Film has the advantage of being inconspicuous. It is transparent to over 50 percent of the light that shines on it, "which is a lot," says Winckler, CPFilms's chief of research and development. "Sunglasses are always less than 5 percent transmission…. You could put this on the glass in an office building and most people would come in on Monday morning and not know it was there."
CPFilms's Davies sees applications for Signal Defense Film in everything from hospitals, which now have obligations under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to keep patients' records private, to the financial sector, where interior conference rooms might benefit from being shielded from electronic eavesdropping.
"Retailers are trying to make their environments more appealing by letting in more light," says Davies, "but in doing so they're also allowing more information to flow through the glass."
As Networks Proliferate, So Does Noise
As the number of wireless networks and devices multiplies, even individuals who aren't worried about security stand to benefit from increased electromagnetic shielding.
"We have had conversations with buildings, especially high-rise buildings where there is a lot of signal going on at the upper floors of those buildings," Winckler says. When the ambient signal from transmission towers, other networks and even microwave ovens becomes overwhelming, shielding a building can improve the performance of any wireless networks within its walls.
Starting in 2009 even some cars will have their own wireless networks. "Over time, you can imagine," former defense official Money speculates, "if you had cars stacked up at a stoplight, the amount of interference is potentially horrific. This film will probably be in every car window just to keep interference down, let alone for privacy reasons."
Winkler also notes that in the unlikely event of a nuclear terrorist attack, Signal Defense Security Film would help safeguard its users' electronics from the potentially devastating effects of an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. Although the sensitivity of such information prevents her from providing specifics on this feature of the film, she did note that it attenuates electromagnetic signals by 35 decibels, which translates into a greater than 99 percent decrease in signal strength.


http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...AC1C6DC382972F

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In the supersonic arena NASA is working on technologies both to reduce engine noise and dampen the sonic booms that are prohibited over land. Boom migration research was reaching a critical mass at NASA just prior to the aeronautics restructuring, which led to the cancellation of the follow-on demonstration project and ultimately set back any “quiet boom” demonstration by several years at least.

As part of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Quiet Supersonic Platform program, NASA Dryden hosted flights of an F-5 fighter with a highly modified nose that proved it was possible to “shape” (or tune) sonic booms. This was the Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration (SSBD).
Following SSBD, NASA was ready to demonstrate a quieter boom, says Peter Coen, principle investigator for the supersonic Project at Langley. “There’s no denying that. Now we are trying to take a step back and integrate that sort of technology and the tools for that with designs for higher performance. We’re now advancing supersonic technologies in a more fundamental way across a much broader front.”
All supersonic aircraft flying today create overpressures at critical points along their fuselage that coalesce into two shocks by the time they reach the ground, creating the characteristic double boom sound-actually two instantaneous changes in air pressure. The traditional boom signature is known as the N-wave.
SSBD modified the nose of the F-5 to prove it was possible to avoid the N-wave. But to complete the picture, NASA still must figure out how to shape the back half of the aircraft, where overpressures form around the wings and tail. “That’s a much more challenging problem, because you still have to generate lift efficiently.” Coen says.
The goal is to “trick the ear” into a lower perception of noise by getting away from the traditional N-wave signature, he says. One alternative is the “ramp-style” signature. This still involves an initial shock of small magnitude, but subsequent shocks only partially coalesce, creating a more gradual increase to peak overpressure that’s
Not registered by the ear as a loud sound.

NASA has partnerships with Gulfstream and Aerion, both of whom are working on concepts for supersonic business jets. But NASA’s sights are set a bit higher, on future supersonic airliners capable of carrying 100-200 passengers.
Anything larger is probably impractical for the time being, according to Juan Alonso, director of Fundamental Aeronautics at NASA headquarters in Washington. “It is very hard to actually make a 300-passenger supersonic jet quiet enough to fly supersonically over land without some very advanced technologies that we’re not investing in significantly today.” He noted.


www.aviationweek.com/awst

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SAPPHIRE Technology, the market leading provider of AMD/ATI based products today announced a relationship with industry giant Avnet Technology Solutions to market and distribute graphics accelerators across EMEA.
Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA is a part of Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT) - one of the world's largest B2B distributors of enterprise computing and embedded technology products. The agreement will see Avnet market and distribute SAPPHIRE products to leading edge PC manufacturers through its extensive network of resellers.
Avnet will market through dedicated sales divisions, concentrating on specific customer segments including value-added resellers (VARs), sub-distributors, system builders and PC assemblers.
SAPPHIRE is recognised as the global No.1 manufacturing partner for AMD/ATI based graphics solutions. It is acclaimed for the high quality and reliability of its products and has strong brand recognition through its innovation with silent cooling and special performance editions of its high end products for the enthusiast. The successful X1000 series offers a comprehensive range of Microsoft Vista Premium Certified solutions; and the recently introduced HD2000 series offers a new choice of price/performance options, together with being Vista Premium certified and DX10 compatible.
Rex Tsang, SAPPHIRE vice president of Sales and Marketing commented, "We are very happy to be working with Avnet, which supports an extensive network of customers offering cutting-edge solutions. SAPPHIRE brings the most comprehensive range of AMD/ATI graphics solutions enabling Avnet and SAPPHIRE together to take advantage of new opportunities within the growing System Builder and AMD markets across Europe, the Middle East and Africa"
Sukh Rayat, vice president of Avnet Computing Components EMEA, comments: "By combining the technical and logistical expertise of both Avnet and SAPPHIRE, we will be able to offer flexible, high quality solutions that will be of real benefit to our customers. By partnering with the premier manufacturers in each segment, Avnet is able to provide our customers with the best in class technology, enabling them in turn to become technology leaders in their fields. Sapphire's market-leading product range brings even more choice to Avnet's product portfolio – giving our customers the opportunity to meet the growing demand for graphic performance.
"Combining Sapphire with Avnet's award-winning relationship with AMD puts us in a strong position to offer market leading solutions to our customers."


http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9326

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A new process for printing plastic solar cells boosts the power generated by the flexible and cheap form of photovoltaics. Initial solar cells made with the technique can, according to a report in today's issue of Science, capture solar energy with an efficiency of 6.5 percent--a new power record for photovoltaics that employ conductive plastics to generate electricity from sunlight. Most photovoltaics are made from conventional inorganic semiconductors.

Solar solution: A new type of solar cell uses layers of two different types of conducting polymers
to increase the device’s efficiency. The design has achieved a record high efficiency for photovoltaics
that use conductive polymers to generate electricity.
Credit: Technology Review

The new process stacks multiple polymer layers within a single photovoltaic device to produce a "tandem" cell. Alan Heeger, who won the 2000 Nobel Prize for his codiscovery of electrically conducting polymers,
and his colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), created the process with a group from South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. Heeger says that the tandem architecture offers plenty of room for further improvement--enough to eventually make plastic solar cells practical in rooftop solar panels. "We see a pathway here toward even higher efficiencies," he says. "We can do significantly better than 6.5 percent in the near future."
Tandem cells, commonly employed in conventional solar panels, increase power output in two ways. The semiconductors in the different layers can be optimized to capture different bands of light, thus enabling the tandem device to absorb a broader spectrum of sunlight. And the multiple layers boost the voltage of the tandem device, yielding more power from every photon absorbed. "You do a better job of light harvesting and a better job of utilizing the photon energy," explains Heeger.
Until now, however, the tandem architecture spoiled plastic photovoltaics such as Heeger's, which are "printed" by spraying solutions of conductive plastics and other materials onto a plastic film. Layers of different plastics sprayed on top tended to mix, degrading rather than enhancing power output. Heeger and his colleagues beat the mixing problem by finding an effective spray-on separator to keep the layers in place.
The bottom cell is filled with a proprietary polymer first disclosed last year by plastic PV developer Konarka Technologies, based in Lowell, MA, which Heeger cofounded and for which he serves as chief scientist. The polymer (a derivative of polythiophene) absorbs both infrared and ultraviolet light. Next comes a titanium-suboxide layer, which seals in the bottom cell, provides a foundation for building the top layer, and, as it's a metal, efficiently carries away the charged electrons generated in both layers. Finally, the top layer sports a different type of conducting polymer that absorbs mostly blue and green light.
Heeger expects further efficiency strides as device developers gain experience with the cell's new materials. For example, in May, the UCSB researchers reported a processing tweak that doubles the power output of single cells made with Konarka's new polythiophene polymer. Heeger says that the processing trick was not used in the tandem cell.


http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19044/

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Actually, if the Bus Drops Below 1333MHz, It Won't Explode

Intel has a history of embracing new memory technologies, while arguably staying behind the curve in other areas of platform design and architecture. It's an interesting dichotomy, but it revolves around the fact that higher memory speeds affect every facet of system performance, while other platform features may not make the same impact.
But sometimes this strategy can backfire, as we saw during Intel's detour into RDRAM -- when the chipmaker was looking to capitalize on its processors' AMD-beating clock speeds, but neglected to address issues like memory cost, processor bandwidth requirements, and JEDEC memory-industry standards.
With the release of the new P35 and G33 chipsets, we can hope that Intel has learned from its mistakes and made the transition from DDR-2 to DDR-3 system memory at the right time -- instead of merely making it first.
The Intel P35 and G33
Although Intel has been known to shed platforms like a snake does skin, its newest round of desktop chipset releases takes a new angle. The company usually releases new CPUs and platforms concurrently, consigning the previous generation to instant obsolescence. But the P35 and G33 not only support the latest Core 2 Duo, Quad, and Extreme LGA775 processors, but are compatible with Intel's upcoming 45-nanometer-process "Penryn" chips as well. This is a real departure for the company, and this lineup could be the first Intel platform in a long time to show any real longevity, as Penryn isn't expected to show until the second half of this year and may not ship in volume until 2008.
The main improvement found in the new chipsets is the move to a 1333MHz processor bus, which represents a 266MHz jump from the previous 1066MHz ceiling. The new chipsets support CPU bus speeds from 800MHz to 1333MHz, can handle 8GB of dual-channel memory at up to DDR-2/800 or DDR-3/1066 or /1333 speeds, and include PCI Express x16 graphics. The dual format of the memory controller is interesting, but doesn't extend to mixing and matching, as only DDR-2 or DDR-3 can be used at one time.
The P35 and G33's GMCH Northbridge chipsets also support Intel Fast Memory Access -- yet another memory performance and optimization feature, which may pay higher dividends with the G33's integrated graphics core, as shared memory architecture puts a real strain on available bandwidth. The ICH9/R Southbridge offers up a few standard and optional upgrades as well, such as an enhanced Serial ATA controller, additional USB ports, Intel Turbo Memory to boost NAND flash performance, and Intel Quiet System Technology (enhanced fan speed control to cut noise).
There is very little difference between the P35 performance and G33 business chipsets. The most noticeable is the Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 core built into the G33, but it's a bit strange to see this step backward in integrated-graphics technology.
The GMA X3000 core of the G965 chipset is the current mainstream solution, as it offers hardware transform and lighting effects, unified shaders, and Shader Model 3.0/DirectX 10 support. By comparison, the older GMA 3100 is a very low-end DirectX 9 solution. It's as if Intel has decided that business users and value-conscious consumers will stick with Windows XP rather than Vista and won't require any real 3D hardware, which is odd considering that the next member of the family will be a G35 integrated chipset with an upgraded GMA X3500 DirectX 10 graphics core.
The launch has also been a bit confusing, as vendors started announcing products well before Intel officially introduced them. While only two new chipsets to date have been formally launched, Intel's made it no secret that there will soon be a full line of DDR-3-enabled products to replace the existing 975X/P965/Q965/G965/Q963 lineup.
The chipsets destined to join the P35 and G33 are the enthusiast-level X38, supporting PCI Express 2.0 and dual graphics; the mainstream Q35 with improved GMA X3500 integrated graphics; and the corporate-oriented Q35 and Q33.
You're Going To Need a Bigger Bus
The addition of DDR-3 memory support to Intel's chipset lineup was a great headline-maker, but after the dust settled, there were still some questions left unanswered. First and foremost, is high-speed DDR-3 even needed?
DDR-3 is the next evolution in memory technology, and doubles the prefetch buffer just as DDR-2 did compared to DDR. This means that the effective clock can be double the internal clock speed of DDR-2, transforming today's middle-of-the-road DDR-2/533 into DDR-3/1066. There are other improvements such as lower power and thermal requirements, but the added bandwidth is DDR-3's main draw. Of course, this also brings higher memory latencies; most DDR-3/1333 relies on CAS9 timings versus CAS8 for DDR-2/1066. DDR-3 is also much more expensive than DDR-2, although it should equalize out in the longer term.
A dual-channel DDR-3/1066 setup provides over 17GB/sec of memory bandwidth, far eclipsing the 10.6GB/sec maximum requirements of a 1333MHz processor. True, there's some overhead in memory operations, but even today's dual-channel DDR-2/800 configuration offers 12.8GB/sec of bandwidth, meeting platform requirements without breaking a sweat. Intel would need to move to an 1866MHz processor bus before dual-channel DDR-2/800 would feel the pinch.
All of this translates into a scenario where a P35 motherboard running a 1333MHz processor and dual-channel DDR-3/1066 -- or even /1333 -- yields virtually no performance improvement over a dual-channel DDR-2/800 -- or even /667 -- configuration, while costing significantly more. It's comparable to today's Core 2 processors' boasting a 1066MHz bus but offering next to no performance advantage when using DDR-2/800 rather than DDR-2/667. The higher latency of DDR-3 has been bandied around as the culprit, but that's part of its inherent design. While everyone's buzzing about DDR-3, good old DDR-2/800 would seem to be the best price/performance fit for the new Intel platforms.



http://hardware.earthweb.com/chips/article.php/3682476

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A method for making instant steam, without the need for electricity, promises to be useful for tackling antibiotic resistant ‘superbugs’ like MRSA and C. difficile, as well as removing chewing gum from pavements and powering environmentally friendly cars, reports Nina Morgan in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. ‘The value of instant steam lies in creating truly portable steam that can be generated intermittently on demand,’ says Dave Wardle, business development director at Oxford Catalysts.
The company is already in talks with UK specialist steam supplier OspreyDeepclean about possible applications for steam cleaning hospitals, Wardle adds. An as-yet unpublished 2006 study at University College London Hospital, commissioned by OspreyDeepclean, showed that dry steam applied at temperatures ranging from 150 to 180 C could destroy bacteria, including MRSA and Clostridium difficile, in less than two seconds, without the use of chemicals.
The new technology, devised by scientists at UK firm Oxford Catalysts, employs a precious metal catalyst to generate the steam at temperatures up to 800 C in just a couple of seconds, at room temperature and pressure. Steam produced by the technology is so-called ‘dry’ steam, generated by the highly exothermic reaction between methanol and hydrogen peroxide. While too expensive to replace the vast quantities of steam used routinely by industry, a reaction chamber the size of a sugar cube can pump steam at a rate of 7L/minute at temperatures up to 800 C.
The first application is likely to be a GumBuster backpack for removing chewing gum from pavements and other surfaces. The patented GumBuster technology currently requires a minimum of 3kW of electrical power to generate the steam used by each operator and relies on generators carried on trolleys or vans. Use of the catalyst technology ‘will make the system more portable and make it possible to place the steam when we need it, where we need it,’ says Thomas Stuecken, chief commercial officer at Proventec, the parent company of OspreyDeepclean.
Other more speculative applications for the steam for powering rockets and cars, and to provide mobile and portable power generation, are currently being considered.


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-ist072607.php

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Nature’s solution to producing fast contracting muscles is to use nanotechnology. The challenge for us is to mimic the intricacy of natural muscle in our artificial-muscle systems. The structure of skeletal muscle is hierarchical, with whole muscles consisting of many parallel muscle fibres (each an individual cell): each muscle fibre made of many parallel myofibrils; and each myofibril consisting of many parallel myofilaments containing different proteins. It is the action of the proteins that is primarily responsible for muscle contraction, although the careful nano to macro structure of muscles must also contribute to the advanced performance. It is pertinent to note that skeletal muscle is restricted to a hierarchical structure, as they are dependent on diffusion of ions, which become slow as the diameter of the fibrils is increased. The challenge for artificial-muscle scientists is to fabricate nanostructured systems with a high surface-area to volume ratio (like bundled nanofibres) that allow a high speed response without compromising the large force and movement. Amongst the myriad of approaches now available to produce conducting polymer nanostructures 60 is electrospinning. This is a conventional approach resulting in formation of conducting polymer nanofibres, depicted in Fig. 5. The challenge remains to align and tightly bundle these individual fibres into artificial-muscle arrays, while retaining the properties of the individual components.
Stepping back to the molecular/cellular systems, there is ample evidence that the control of the nanostructure of the interface will also be critical to performance. For example, it has been shown that protein and cellular adhesion is critically dependent on the nanotopography of the interface.
Over the past 5 years, a tremendous effort has gone into developing protocols that allow production of conducting polymer nanocomponents. Again, the challenge lies in the assembly of nanostructured interfaces from these components so that more effective biomolecular/ biocellular interfaces for bionic application can be produced.
Conclusions
More effective bridging of the bionic interface will impact greatly on many aspects of medical science. More efficient connectors to nerve cells will immediately enhance the performance of implants such as the Bionic Ear32 and the Bionic Eye.33 Efficient stimulation of oesteoblasts will assist in bone re-growth, and the promotion of endothelial cell growth is critical in wound healing as well as in the integration of implants including stents. Further development of artificialmuscle technology based on ICPs will also have a dramatic impact on those requiring assistance with movement either during rehabilitation or perhaps due to the loss of a limb.
In the case of artificial muscles, when we develop arrays of nano-fibre muscles the next challenge will be to develop inter-connects to each individual nanofibre, so that more or less muscle fibres can be recruited or retired from service as the demands of the situation change. Of course, the same processes occur in natural muscle systems facilitated by the tiny network of nerves connecting to each muscle cell.
As material scientists/engineers delve into the nanodomain, particularly with ICPs, the boundaries between electronics and biology become fuzzy. This is exactly what we want – a seamless transition between the hard world of electronics and the soft world of biology!


http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_Article...JournalCode=SM

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Peter Fisher is a professor in the Physics Department and head of the Particle and Nuclear Experimental Physics Division at MIT. He also holds appointments in the university's Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. Fisher is primarily involved in CERN's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment, which is designed to make high-precision measurements of cosmic rays. His primary physics interests are dark matter and high-energy interactions, and he is also interested in the development of new particle detectors. Fisher received a B.S. in engineering physics from the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1988 obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology. Since then, he has published numerous papers on neutrinos and the search for what cosmic rays are made of.

Peter Fisher answered viewer questions about particle smashing at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and much more on July 19, 2007. Please note that we are no longer accepting questions, but please see The Big Deal and our links and books section for more information.
Q: We keep hearing about particle accelerators. But do particles in nature go as fast as they will go, artificially, in the LHC? What is the purpose of particle acceleration?
Andre G., Guelph, Canada
A: There are naturally occurring cosmic ray particles of very high energy, much higher than we could ever make on Earth. In the early days, particle physicists used detectors on mountaintops and balloons to study cosmic rays. But then Ernest O. Lawrence built the first accelerator, which could produce many more particles than you could count on from cosmic rays. Accelerators also make particles with known energies, so it is much easier to study what happens when they hit each other.
Q: I “get” that the LHC is designed to collide particles in order to shatter them and reveal their “pieces,” but I don’t get how you actually project one single particle through the LHC tunnel, keep it moving, and then directed so specifically that it can collide head-on with an opposing particle. I also don’t get how you can do this repeatedly to have several collisions every second. Is there any way to explain that in a very simple and concise way?
Mary Beth, Excelsior, Minnesota
A: There is more than one particle in the accelerator; there are several thousand of bunches of particles (actually called a “bunch”) moving in opposite directions. Most of the time, these bunches are in different channels, guided by magnetic fields. At each experiment, the channels merge and the bunches cross through each other. Each bunch has about a billion particles, so when one bunch passes through another, one or two particles smash into each other, making a spray of particles the experiment detects.
Q: While watching the program on the LHC at CERN, I heard that it would generate about 40 million megabytes of data per second! Where and how would they store that much information, and for how many days? This is leading-edge technology for sure!
M. S. Keppler, Houston, Texas
A: Data storage is a huge problem. The experiments do generate about 40 million megabytes of data per second, but the data is very quickly analyzed to see what parts can be left out, and then it is compressed. Then, all the data is stored in large disk farms at CERN and copies are sent to remote sites all over the world for analysis. All the data is kept permanently. The storage is cutting-edge, and the information technology group at CERN is always assessing the latest technologies in both data storage and transmission. However, they are very careful to only use products that have been verified as totally reliable. Everything is commercial; no components are home-built. However, the data-handling system is unique in that it is one of the largest and fastest in the world.
Q: Anticipating the world of knowledge that may be revealed when the LHC is in operation, what kinds of results do you think the LHC will provide (e.g., information on other dimensions or perhaps universes, the potential for new technologies, etc.)? Is what you expect to see different from what you hope to see?
Christopher Boss, Battle Creek, Michigan
A: Actually, I’m not sure what to expect to happen at the LHC. We could see evidence for new universes or new dimensions, or something we did not expect at all. As far as technology is concerned, just building the accelerator and big detectors have pushed magnet technology ahead a great deal, not to mention computing, microelectronics, and superconductors.
[Editor’s note: To hear more about what physicists might find at the LHC, see The Big Deal.]
Q: I have a question, but first a prediction: I think that through the study of particle physics, we’ll be able to see other dimensions and gain the ability to “experience” these dimensions. Do you think this will ever happen?
J.C. Rivera, Puerto Rico
A: At the LHC, we could experience other dimensions by seeing new particles pop out of them and through our input detector. As we learn more about new dimensions, we will be able to design better experiments to experience more of their properties. However, if there are new dimensions, they will most likely be very small, so I doubt we will be able to move about in them.
Q: As to why gravity is so weak compared to the other forces, I’ve heard something to the effect that it may result from interaction with a parallel universe. If true, this might be confirmed by observing the higher energy levels created at CERN. I’ve heard little about this line of reasoning. Can you shed light on this?
Bob Whalen, Vista, California
A: There are some ideas that allow for the interaction between two parallel universes or the three space dimensions and one time dimension we live in and other dimensions. The LHC could detect particles that could explain a parallel universe or extra dimensions, but it would only be the very first step toward experimentally studying such a theory.
Q: Do you think the studies at CERN or elsewhere will be able to tell us more about space and time, or potentially make time travel possible?
Antonio Carlos Motta, Sao Paulo, Brazil
A: Perhaps: Several of the theoretical ideas relate our theory of gravity, which incorporates our ideas of space and time, with particle physics. So if we see certain kinds of new particles, we could learn more about the structure of space and time. Regarding time travel, it is very hard to say. Most of the ideas of time travel rely on your getting very close to incredibly massive objects (called “cosmic strings”). While it could be that the LHC tells us something about cosmic strings, actually using them to travel in time would be very difficult from a practical standpoint.
Q: Will the results of the subatomic particles that come out of the proton collisions give any evidence of dark matter in space? What specific subatomic particles has mathematics theorized we could expect to discover?
Jan DeMeerleer, Spokane, Washington
A: There is a very well-developed theory called “supersymmetry” that predicts dark matter is massive particles. There is no experimental evidence for this theory yet, and one of the main goals of the LHC is to see if supersymmetry is the correct theory or not.
Q: How do the experiments at CERN and the LHC relate to string theory? Could they potentially prove or disprove the theory?
Francisco Pedroso, Havana, Cuba
A: String theory is very abstract and has not really connected with what we can measure in a strong way. To really probe most ideas of string theory, we would need much larger accelerators than we have now. However, string theory does make some predictions we may be able to test at the LHC.
Q: Good luck with the LHC. I hope you find out how heavy Higgs is doing and get him to lighten up so I can float to work on an antigravity device or fold the space of my closet and “appear” inside my cubicle. These things always seem to cause as many problems as they solve, however, so that’s my question: What, if anything, do we feel we are headed towards and what are we trying to achieve? I know this is a broad question, but I’m assuming this is an infinite endeavor. Am I right?
Chris, Austin, Texas
A: Man’s nature is to pursue things we do not understand; in that sense, the LHC is part of an infinite quest. More specifically, what we are really after is first a list of all the different kinds of particles there are and second, how they interact with each other. It may be possible that this is achieved in our lifetime.
Q: When the accelerator is completed, how soon after do you expect confirmation of particles like the Higgs boson? Seconds? Minutes? Years?
Wes, Fitchburg, Massachusetts
A: How long depends mainly on the mass of the Higgs boson. A very light Higgs could take a long time, several years. A more massive Higgs boson could be seen in a few weeks. But remember, these are very complex experiments that will be operating for the very first time, and we have to be very careful we do not fool ourselves. My best guess it that it will take at least one year and not more than three years to observe the results.
Q: If the Higgs particle does not exist, what is the next step to answering the mystery of mass?
Rez, Houston, Texas
A: There are several theories that do not involve Higgs particles. These theories make specific predictions that may be tested at the LHC, so if we do not see the Higgs, we will have to look for evidence that one of the alternate theories is correct. But if we do not find evidence for an alternate theory, theoretical physics will have to come up with something new.
Q: Enough about what the LHC will tell us—what won’t the LHC be able to tell us about particle physics?
Nicole Ackerman, Stanford, California
A: Most likely, the LHC won’t tell us much about neutrinos. Neutrinos are very light, and the effects of their mass will not show up well at the LHC. There are several very important experiments studying neutrinos. One, called EXO, will even tell us if the neutrino is its own antiparticle. (Particles and their corresponding antiparticles have the same mass, but their other properties are opposite.)
Q: Is there a limit to particle size, large or small?
Cornelius Kleisma, Grand Rapids, Michigan
A: The range is very large: neutrinos weigh less than a billionth of a proton and light particles, photons, weight nothing at all. On the other end, the heaviest particles people think about have a mass 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the proton. The heaviest particle we know about, the top quark, weighs about 200 times as much as a proton.
As far as size, electrons really seem to have no size at all. The largest fundamental particle we know about is the proton, and it is about one 1,000,000,000,000,000th of an inch across.
Q: How “elementary” do you think you can go in particle detection? Could a bigger machine tell you more and if so, how much bigger would it need to be? Why does bigger, in the case of the LHC, seem to mean better?
John Casey, San Diego, California
A: The higher the energy of the particles, the stronger the magnets you need to bend them within a circle (the LHC exists in a circular underground tunnel). Since we can only make magnets of a certain maximum strength, we have to make our circles bigger to reach higher energies. In the early 1990s, the United States started building a machine three times more powerful than the LHC, and it was 80 kilometers (50 miles) around. But the project was cancelled.
A new project is starting to build the next accelerator called the International Linear Collider (ILC). The ILC will not be circular, but rather two linear accelerators 15 miles long pointed at each other. But the ILC won’t start for another 10 years or so.
Q: Should we continue to build larger accelerators to achieve more fundamental results, or do you expect this thing will answer all the questions nature allows us to answer? Thank you, and have fun in the rabbit hole!
Trevor Heitlauf, Orlando, Florida
A: We expect the LHC will give us a new set of questions to answer. Already, physicists are designing the ILC based on our best guesses about what will come out of the LHC. It takes a long time to design and build these machines, so we have to start the next one just when the current accelerator gets finished.
Q: Do groups of physicists reserve time at the LHC and perform what experiments interest them, or is there a general organization to what experiments are run and in what order? How does the process work?
Sue, El Cerrito, California
A: Each experiment has about 2,000 physicists who work together to make the experiment run. Everyone has to cooperate, or the experiments will not produce good results. The physicists decide as a group how the experiment will be configured and what data it will take. They then pour over the results and work together to agree on an interpretation. There are many, many different measurements that the experiments make, so there are teams who work on different parts. But before any result is made public, everyone has to agree.
Q: Who is funding the CERN project?
Nancy Jones, Gary, North Carolina
A: CERN is supported by the governments of its member states. Each government pays a fraction of its GNP (gross national product) to the operation of the lab and construction of the accelerator and experiments. In the United States, the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy support the U.S. physicists working at CERN.
Q: When the LHC goes online, hopefully, in 2008, can I be there to watch?
Sarah Warren,, Tucson, Arizona
A: CERN has many visitors’ days and several very good displays on-site. They will certainly have screens giving the machine status all over the lab. Have a look at www.cern.ch


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/science...10/02-ask.html

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Arootz, a developer of solutions for simultaneous distribution of video content through internet infrastructure, has raised $7 million from Israeli venture funds Gemini Israel and Genesis Venture Capital.
Arootz is developing technology to deliver, store and manage personalized, high quality, video content on millions of personal storage devices over existing broadband network infrastructures. The company platform enables network and content providers to offer their customers private label, broadband TV services that drive broadband revenue and brand awareness in a TV quality, personalized and network friendly solution.
Arootz started initial testing of its technology in February 2007 in a trial involving delivery of hours of high-quality video content to 10 households in Israel, according to a BusinessWeek article. A much larger trial of several hundred homes, in cooperation with some of Israel's leading content and service providers, is scheduled to take place this summer, with further tests in the U.S. and Europe set for later this year. The Israeli startup, which currently has 14 employees at his office in Netanya, hopes to begin marketing its solution in 2008.
Arootz was founded in 2006 by Professor Yechiam Yemini, the company current Chief Scientific Adviser, and Nir Michalowitz, Arootz VP R&D. Yemini, a Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, has co-founded Comverse, and System Management Arts (SMARTS) acquired by EMC in 2005. Michalowitz was Product Unit Manager for Microsoft’s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server.
The company CEO is Noam Bardin, who has co-founded Deltathree, where he has served for the past 10 years in a variety of executive positions including as Chairman, CEO and VP of Operations.


http://israeldigital.blogspirit.com/...7-million.html