News
Google's products dig deeper into people's lives
May 16, 2013 9:56 am | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer | CommentsIn the latest display of its technological prowess and sweeping ambition, Google is rolling out another wave of products and services that will test how much more people want computers to control their lives and enhance their perceptions of reality.
Idaho spud giant bets on biotech potatoes
May 16, 2013 9:52 am | by JOHN MILLER, Associated Press | CommentsA dozen years after a customer revolt forced Monsanto to ditch its genetically engineered potato, an Idaho company aims to resurrect high-tech spuds. This month, tuber processing giant J.R. Simplot Co. asked the U.S. government to approve five varieties of biotech potatoes. They're engineered not to develop ugly black bruises. McDonald's, which gets many of its fries from Simplot, rejects those.
US judge in Ore. dismisses movie pirating lawsuit
May 16, 2013 9:43 am | CommentsA federal judge has dismissed a movie company's Internet piracy complaint against 34 Oregonians, saying the company was unfairly using the court's subpoena power in a "reverse class-action suit" to save on legal expenses and possibly to intimidate defendants into paying thousands of dollars for viewing a movie that can be bought or rented for less than $10.
Russians attempt to topple Google in Vietnam
May 16, 2013 9:41 am | by CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press | CommentsA Russian-financed search engine seeking to challenge Google's dominance in Vietnam is redirecting queries for some politically sensitive terms to the American company's website, apparently as a way of avoiding government anger or legal liability for sending surfers to sites containing criticism of the ruling party.
Experts: Smartphones another avenue for hackers
May 16, 2013 9:38 am | by TONY WINTON, Associated Press | CommentsSmartphones are increasingly popular not only with consumers, but also with thieves who see the devices as another way to tap into bank accounts and other sensitive information, experts say. Many consumers simply don't realize how vulnerable their Androids, iPhones and other devices can be. An April study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said threats are proliferating....
Tiny camera in Illinois offers bug's eye view
May 16, 2013 9:36 am | CommentsA tiny new camera developed at an Illinois university is giving researchers a bug's eye view. The camera created by a research team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is about the size of a penny and mimics insects' bulging eyes. It features 180 micro-lenses, giving it a panoramic field of view....
Wind farms get pass on eagle deaths
May 16, 2013 9:26 am | by Dina Cappiello, Associated Press | CommentsIt happens about once a month here, on the barren foothills of one of America's green-energy boomtowns: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground. Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime....
Google boosts photo offerings to rival Facebook
May 15, 2013 7:57 pm | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE - AP Technology Writer - Associated Press | CommentsGoogle is digging deeper into its technology toolkit to turn its social networking service into a more formidable threat to Facebook, sprucing up its photo features at a time when sharing snapshots online and on mobile gadgets is growing more popular. Many of the 41 new features being added to...
Computer Sciences returns to profit in 4Q
May 15, 2013 4:40 pm | by The Associated Press | CommentsComputer Sciences returned to a profit in its fiscal fourth quarter, bolstered in part by a tax benefit and gain on the sale of an Australian IT staffing business. The company, which provides information technology services to a wide range of industries, also boosted its fiscal 2014 forecast for...
Facebook VP, former Diageo exec join Hertz board
May 15, 2013 3:49 pm | by The Associated Press | CommentsRental car company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. said Wednesday that a Facebook marketing executive and a former executive with alcohol maker Diageo have been elected to its board. Carolyn Everson is a marketing vice president for Facebook Inc. and a former Microsoft Corp. executive. The company...
Google unveils maps, photo, music features
May 15, 2013 3:36 pm | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE - AP Technology Writer - Associated Press | CommentsGoogle's sixth annual conference for software developers opened Wednesday with a chance for the company to showcase its latest services. Announcements included new features for online games, maps and search, a new music-streaming service and enhancements to its Google Plus social network,...
NIST demonstrates significant improvement of solar-powered hydrogen
May 15, 2013 1:11 pm | by EurekAlert! | CommentsUsing a powerful combination of microanalytic techniques that simultaneously image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers at NIST have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight.
Physicists discover a new kind of friction in the nano-world
May 15, 2013 1:00 pm | by Technische Universitaet Muenchen | CommentsWhether in vehicle transmissions, hip replacements, or tiny sensors for triggering airbags: The respective components must slide against each other with minimum friction to prevent loss of energy and material wear. Investigating the friction behavior of nanosystems, scientists have discovered a previously unknown type of friction...
Cells as living calculators
May 15, 2013 1:00 pm | by Massachusetts Institute of Technology | CommentsMIT engineers have transformed bacterial cells into living calculators that can compute logarithms, divide, and take square roots, using three or fewer genetic parts.Inspired by how analog electronic circuits function, the researchers created synthetic computation circuits by combining existing genetic “parts,” or engineered genes, in novel ways.The circuits perform those calculations in an analog fashion by exploiting nat...
Making frequency-hopping radios practical
May 15, 2013 12:33 pm | by MIT | CommentsResearchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory have developed a new method for manufacturing such filters that could improve their performance while enabling 14 times as many of them to be crammed on a single chip. The new method uses techniques already common in the production of signal-processing chips ...
