Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was recently at the Seoul Digital Forum where he was asked to define Web 3.0 by an audience member.

IBM wants to improve communication between cars, roads, and drivers.

Vehicles are getting smarter all the time, thanks to a combination of sensor and wireless communications technologies. Car manufacturers say that tomorrow's drivers will be assisted by a wealth of safety information generated by vehicles that can talk to not only each other but to the roadway itself. But with so much data often comes information overload. And that's why computing giant IBM has launched a project to help the driver get the right information at the right time.

IBM calls the research initiative collaborative driving, and the company says it's designed to prevent accidents and reduce traffic congestion. The work will be spearheaded by the IBM lab in Haifa, Israel. "More than a million people die on the roads every year around the world, and people waste a lot of time and money sitting in traffic jams," says IBM researcher Oleg Goldshmidt. "You would like to help with both problems in any way possible."

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Spies watch rise of virtual terrorists

THE bomb hit the ABC's headquarters, destroying everything except one digital transmission tower. The force of the blast left Aunty's site a cratered mess.

Just weeks before, a group of terrorists flew a helicopter into the Nissan building, creating an inferno that left two dead. Then a group of armed militants forced their way into an American Apparel clothing store and shot several customers before planting a bomb outside a Reebok store.

This terror campaign, which has been waged during the past six months, has left a trail of dead and injured, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' damage. The terrorists belong to a militant group bent on overthrowing the government. But they will never be arrested or charged for their crimes because they have committed them away from the reach of the world's law enforcement agencies, in the virtual world known as Second Life.

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Plastic That Heals Itself

Researchers have developed a new material that can fill in its own surface cracks.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have made a polymer material that can heal itself repeatedly when it cracks. It's a significant advance toward self-healing medical implants and self-repairing materials for use in airplanes and spacecraft. It could also be used for cooling microprocessors and electronic circuits, and it could pave the way toward plastic coatings that regenerate themselves.

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MIT cuts the cord

In a perfect world, there'd be no wires. They clutter the view, get tangled behind desks and limit how far networks can reach. That's why the telegraph gave way to the radio. Cell phones unstrung telecommunications. Wi Fi liberated computer data.

Now even the last knotty wire that seemed destined to remain — the power cord — could be on its way out.

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Web 2.0 Explained

Text messaging could soon be the new way to call for help

Texting on your mobile could soon be the quickest way to call for police help.

The Government has given the go-ahead for a new 999 text-messaging emergency line which will work in tandem with the traditional call centre.

Soon typing in text speak "hlp 5-o sum1 hs brokN n2 my hous" - 'Help police, someone has broken into my house' - should summon an emergency response.


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NASA Nanotechnology Space Sensor Test Successful In Orbit

NASA recently tested the first nanotechnology-based electronic device to fly in space. The test showed that the "nanosensor" could monitor trace gases inside a spaceship. This technology could lead to smaller, more capable environmental monitors and smoke detectors in future crew habitats.

NASA's Nano ChemSensor Unit hitched a ride to Earth orbit on March 9, 2007, as a secondary payload experiment on the U.S. Naval Academy's MidSTAR-1 satellite. The sensor test was powered on May 24.

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Turning cars into wireless network nodes

Taking It to the Streets: UCLA Scientists Seek to Turn Cars Into a Mobile Communications Network

It's no secret Americans love their cars, and modern computer systems have enhanced vehicle performance and safety. For computer science professor Mario Gerla and researcher Giovanni Pau at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the next step is to take that digital processing power and push it outward even further — by using cars as computer nodes in a mobile network on wheels.

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Online and offline worlds merge

Google has launched a tool designed to make it easier for computer users to use online applications offline.

One of the key limitations of web services such as e-mail, word processing and calendars, is that they require a net connection to function.

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China To Use Computer Viruses As Cyberwarfare First Strike

The Defense Department reports that the People's Liberation Army is moving beyond traditional battlefields and into cyberspace.

The People's Liberation Army in China is building up its cyberwarfare capabilities, even creating malware that could attack enemy computer systems in first-strike attacks, according to a report from the Department of Defense.

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A Smarter Web

New technologies will make online search more intelligent--and may even lead to a "Web 3.0."

Last year, Eric Miller, an MIT-affiliated computer scientist, stood on a beach in southern France, watching the sun set, studying a document he'd printed earlier that afternoon. A March rain had begun to fall, and the ink was beginning to smear.

Five years before, he'd agreed to lead a diverse group of researchers working on a project called the Semantic Web, which seeks to give computers the ability--the seeming intelligence--to understand content on the World Wide Web. At the time, he'd made a list of goals, a copy of which he now held in his hand. If he'd achieved those goals, his part of the job was done.

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NATO says urgent need to tackle cyber attack

NATO defense ministers agreed on Thursday that fast action was needed to tackle the threat of "cyber attacks" on key Internet sites after Estonia suffered a wave of assaults on its computer networks last month.

"There was sentiment round the table that urgent work is needed to enhance the ability to protect information systems of critical importance," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told a news conference at a two-day meeting in Brussels.

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China won't scrap blog registry

New rules by a Chinese government-backed Internet group maintain strict controls over the country's bloggers, requiring them to register with their real names and identification cards
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The guidelines from the Internet Society of China (http://www.isc.org.cn), a group made up of China's major Internet companies, contradict state media reports this week claiming that China was considering loosening registration requirements for bloggers to allow anonymous online journaling.

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Aerospace companies target young recruits online

Justin Wong, an aerospace engineering student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was schmoozing on Facebook.com last fall when he came across a sleek Boeing job ad.

Wong, who had just interned at the aerospace company, saw the banner on the popular social networking site as a "two-way street" — a defence behemoth reaching out to today's youth in their virtual playground.

"My first impression was that Boeing is getting with the times," said the 21-year-old senior, who will work at Boeing's satellite division after graduation. "It shows the company is making an effort to talk to us on our level."

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The Reality of Terrorist Cyber War

Terrorist groups can use the Internet to create a brand image, market themselves, recruit followers, raise capital, identify partners and suppliers, provide training materials, and even manage operations.

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Microsoft introduces their new "virtual reality"

A Big Ball of Connectivity

An antenna that blows up like a balloon brings satellite communications anywhere, anytime.

No, it's not a giant beach ball. It's an ultralight, ultraportable antenna tucked inside an inflatable shell that can pull down a superfast broadband satellite connection at any location. The GATR-Com is designed for disaster-relief responders, far-flung video producers and front-line troops—anyone whose job (or life) depends on getting digital information—video, Internet, calls—in and out of remote places.

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Cyber-thieves 'richer than drug dealers'

A major global malware epidemic is putting greater wealth into the hands of criminals than ever before, according to new research from security software vendor PC Tools.

The company's Malware Research Center has witnessed disturbing trends such as blended attacks, a proliferation of 'toxic' root-kits and a 120 per cent increase in new crime-based threats.

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Internet Routing to Branch Into Space

April 24, 2007 — The Internet, which has done well to connect distant places and people, is now branching out even further — into space.

This month, the U.S. military announced a project to test Internet routing on orbiting satellites.

IRIS (for "Internet Routing in Space") will allow different branches of the military, such as the Army, Navy and Air Force, to communicate with each other instantly and spontaneously. It could also spread to the civilian market to give users in remote locations broadband service where no other electronic communication exists.

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