Wikia eyes Google, Yahoo

San Francisco - Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Friday he is putting the building blocks in place for a community-developed web search service that would rival search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Wales told a conference of software developers in Portland, Oregon, that his commercial start-up, Wikia, has acquired Grub, a pioneering web crawler that will enable Wikia's forthcoming search service to scour the web to index relevant sites. "If we can get good quality search results, I think it will really change the balance of power from the search companies back to the publishers," said Wales, chairperson of San Mateo, California-based Wikia. "I could be wrong about this, but it seems like a likely outcome." Wikia - which has helped groups set up thousands of Wikipedia-style sites on topics ranging from popular TV shows to specialist health or travel - plans to develop an "open source" web search service with the help of volunteers. Wales founded the anyone-can-edit Wikipedia encyclopedia, a non-commercial project that is one of the web's most popular sites. He also co-founded the Wikia ad-supported network of self-edited wiki sites. However, the two organisations have no formal ties. The new Wikia search service will combine computer-driven algorithms and human-assisted editing when the company launches a public version of the search site toward the end of 2007, Wales said. Human editors would help untangle terms with multiple meanings, such as palm, which can refer to location like Palm Beach, or generic topics like trees or handheld computers. Search results are generated via another open-source software project called Lucerne. Wales said he is looking at options to enhance Lucerne, but would not detail his plans. 'We have interest from a lot of other commercial players...' Grub was originally an open source project that was freely available to software makers to enhance as long as they shared any improvements they made. Wikia has acquired Grub from LookSmart Ltd, which had halted work on the project. Wikia plans to open up Grub to other developers to make improvements or to incorporate the crawler into other sites. Terms of the deal between Wikia (http://wikia.com) and LookSmart (http://search.looksmart.com/) were not disclosed. However, last week, San Francisco-based LookSmart, which provides banner and search-based online advertising to websites, said it had agreed to supply advertising across Wikia's network of wiki sites. Wikia had been using Google's advertising service. "We have interest from a lot of other commercial players in the search space," said Wales. Grub relies on distributed computing technology to power the crawler. Computer users who download the software at www.grub.org can share computer processing time when they are not using their machines, cutting the cost of Wikia developing its own network of computers to crawl the web. Open search is part of Wikia's broader push to promote the spread of free content publishing on the web. Wales's objective is to make explicit the editorial judgments involved in modern web search systems. Proprietary search systems such as Google Inc keep secret key details of how their search systems work to prevent spamming and for competitive reasons. Ultimately, Wales wants the Wikia search service to be available to other websites and smaller publishers who would be able to install a custom version of the service that points website visitors only to links with a specific site.

The Deafening Roar of the Shrug

AFTER so much attrition from doping, we could be forgiven for expecting the winning rider today in the Tour de France to be a 3-year-old on a tricycle who tests positive for nothing more ominous than apple juice.
Sport’s despairing week has brought another puncture to cycling’s credibility; Barry Bonds’s continued grim chase of baseball’s home run record; a game-fixing investigation of a professional basketball referee; and gruesome dog-fighting accusations against the Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Now a scorecard, a urine sample and sometimes even a police lineup are needed to keep up with the players.
“I’m not sure pro sports have had something this serious confront them in the last 50 years,” said Peter Roby, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, who has just been named the university’s athletic director.
The confluence of scandals might suggest that sport has reached some shocking nadir, at which celebrity, commercialism, multimillion-dollar salaries, doping and bad behavior have won out over authenticity and integrity in the pursuit of athletic excellence. But has it, really?
The legitimacy of competition, after all, has repeatedly been cast into doubt for more than a century. The American Thomas Hicks won the Olympic marathon in 1904 after taking strychnine to stave off exhaustion. College basketball had betting scandals in the 1950s; the N.F.L. had gambling problems in the 1960s; and the N.B.A. had a cocaine habit in the 1970s. Academic fraud persists in college sports. The carousel of corruption has never stopped spinning.
Yet, fans keep making accommodations. They rationalize, even persist in willful denial about the transgressions of their heroes, staying devoted to sport as entertainment and facilitator of moral development, however quaint that notion can seem.
Fans may be concerned about drugs in baseball, but not enough to stop buying tickets. In the steroid era, the major leagues remain on pace to set an attendance record for a fourth consecutive year. Bonds is often booed on the road over suspicions that his body has been corked like a bat, but his home runs still draw cheers.
“I’m sure people are saying this is the death knell of sports,” David Malloy, a sports ethicist at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, said of the current scandals. “But it’s a coincidence these things happened at the same time. I’m sure fans are still going to come and watch.”
Professional sports are “entertainment, business, pure and simple” and scandal should come as no surprise, Malloy said, adding: “I don’t think the average person cares that players are on steroids. I think they just want to see them hit the ball a mile out of the park.”
The gambling scandal involving the referee Tim Donaghy seems more troubling.
“In terms of impacting integrity, you can’t get much more serious than gambling,” Roby said. “If people don’t trust the games are real, it’s tough to keep them interested. You don’t want them to be predetermined. The beauty of sport is that a 1-6 team can beat a 7-0 team, and you want to think that is legitimate.”
But in truth, we don’t always care that the fix is in. One of the most popular programs on cable television features the theatrical fakery of professional wrestling.
The only real outrage displayed by fans in recent days was not in regard to sport, but to the government’s charge that Vick helped operate a dog-fighting ring that killed underachieving animals by hanging, drowning and bashing them into the ground. Vick was jeered on Thursday as hundreds gathered outside a courthouse in Richmond, Va., for his arraignment. He pleaded not guilty.
“People are animal lovers; if you own an animal, something he did becomes a little more personal,” said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
While the world’s most famous bicycle race is now under threat, only the most naïve have considered cycling to be clean. It seems inhuman to ask athletes to pedal their bikes at great speed some 2,200 miles in three weeks, often up tortuous mountain passes, without chemical assistance.
Fausto Coppi of Italy, who won the Tour in 1949 and 1952, was once asked if he ever fueled himself with amphetamines.
“Only when necessary,” he said.
How often was that?
“Most of the time,” Coppi replied.
Jacques Anquetil of France, a five-time winner, once said with sarcasm, “Do they expect us to ride the Tour on Perrier water?”
History suggests that baseball should think twice before imposing stricter control on the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Cycling and track and field, the two sports that have tried most ambitiously to catch drug cheats, have suffered an unintended consequence, losing much of their credibility — and the cover of plausible deniability — by flagging many top stars.
“The reward for doing the right thing is being labeled as having a drug problem,” said Craig Masback, chief executive of USA Track & Field.
There is a small but seemingly growing movement to legalize banned performance-enhancing drugs. Given the widespread drug use in society, some say it is unfair to single out athletes for punishment. Why allow Viagra as a performance enhancer, but not steroids, the thinking goes.
“The minute you become an adult, you should have a choice of whatever you want to put into your body,” said Andrei Markovits, who teaches a course in comparative sports at the University of Michigan. Athletes doctor themselves with Lasik eye surgery and the so-called Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery. Why not drugs? We can’t even agree on what an athlete should look like, given the hand-wringing about the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who runs on prosthetic legs.
In an interview before his death in 2005, Steve Courson, a former lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers and one of the first athletes to admit to steroid use, said it was time to acknowledge that the values taught in youth sport bore no resemblance to the values of elite sport. He suggested that childhood values were ethical fungo drills, for practice only, not applicable between the lines of big time sport, where athletes seek any edge they can get — from doping to stealing a catcher’s signs — and it isn’t considered cheating if you don’t get caught.
“Don’t give me any of that ‘Chariots of Fire’ stuff; cut the box of Wheaties bull,” said Charles Yesalis, a professor emeritus of health policy and kinesiology at Penn State University and a friend of Courson’s. “There’s nothing pure about it. The noble cause is all gone. These guys are entertainers, period, in the money sports. They’re not role models.”
In the end, Lapchick said, disappointment over these scandals will melt into numbness for fans accustomed to seeing corruption at all levels of society.
“I think we are a forgiving people and a sports-loving people,” Lapchick said. “We have the potential to forgive a lot of athletes who do stupid things, or at least the sports they play.”
But, he added, “I don’t think society is going to forgive Michael Vick, unless the charges prove wrong.”

Google's (GOOG) Back Door Wireless Grab

Google's (GOOG) Back Door Wireless Grab
Google (GOOG) has cut a deal with Sprint (S) to provide search and its GMail and calendar functions for handsets that will operate on Sprint's new WiMax network. The deal could expand to include customers on Clearwire's (CLWR) WiMax system as well.
As The Wall Street Journal points out: "Google's collaboration with Sprint comes as Google is battling in Washington to impose new rules for a coming auction of valuable radio spectrum." The search company may not have its way in terms of opening up the spectrum to more competition. AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless are doing what they can to block Google. They cannot afford to have an open systems where their handsets can be used on other networks and consumers can download wireless applications at will without paying their primary carrier a toll.
So, Google will go in the back way. If Sprint's WiMax network is successful, it could create the single biggest threat to the 3G plans of its larger competitors. And Google can make certain that the Sprint product can be feature rich.
In addition to the Google software, Sprint will open its system to allow consumers to download any handset-ready software, including VoIP applications
As the FT writes: “Google’s partnership with Sprint signifies one of the many avenues that the company is taking to enter the wireless space, with other paths bypassing mobile network operators entirely,” said Nick Holland, a senior analyst with Aite Group.
Google intends to win its fight for open wireless networks whether the FCC cooperates or not.

Google 'the most improved brand'

Google is the brand that has gained the most in value over the past year, according a survey of global brands.
The report from Interbrand found that Google's brand value had risen 44% in the past 12 months to $17.8bn (£8.8bn), which put it in 20th place.
Coca-Cola came top of the league for the seventh year running, despite its value falling 3%.
Nokia is the highest-ranking brand from outside the US, while American brands made up more than half of the top 100.
The brands are valued using sales and a consideration of how important the brand is in the sector.
In soft drinks, for example, branding is considered very important, while it is much less important to people buying garden tools.
The biggest faller was Ford, whose brand value fell 19%, putting it at number 41 in the league.
The report says that Ford's long-term decline demonstrates how an iconic brand can lose its way.
It highlights the carmaker's permanent discount policy in the US as a factor that has eroded the value of its brand.

Google, Sprint Nextel in WiMAX Tie

Google and Sprint Nextel have reportedly announced they will develop a new mobile Internet portal that uses WiMax wireless technology to offer Web search and social networking. As per the agreement, customers of Sprint's wireless broadband network will get Google services such as email, chat, social networking, calendaring, and so on -- beginning early next year.
Sprint will provide open standard APIs (application programming interfaces) to developers to enable Google Web services run on a wide range of WiMAX-enabled devices including NBs and phones. While the agreement spells cooperation, analysts do not rule out the possibility of future competition between the two companies. For instance, earlier this month, Sprint announced plans to connect its WiMAX high-speed services with those of Clearwire Corp. For Google too, as analysts point out, it's but natural for the company to increase its presence in the wireless sector by working with as many operators as possible. It is expected for the WiMAX service to be tested in Chicago, Washington, and Baltimore by the end of this year. WiMAX is considered slower than wired broadband but reportedly offers Web access speeds that are nearly 5 times faster than typical wireless networks.

Microsoft's master plan: be Google. Be Apple

Microsoft executives used the company's annual financial analysts' day to lay out their plans to grow the company in the face of the industry shift to software-as-services and mobile computing.
The plan? Having come to dominate its core software markets, it now wants to grow by becoming more Google than Google, more Apple than Apple.
As is usual for these types of events, Microsoft's evolving strategy was presented in terms of the last thirty years of computing - how the software giant morphed to tackle the GUI, client-server enterprise computing, and now the internet.
Despite naysayers on each occasion, the company has become a powerhouse in each of these areas, either leading the market or giving the specialists a run for their money.
So where does it go next? Judging by Ballmer's remarks yesterday, the company is simply following the money, creating a battle plan to take on Apple and Google on their own proven cash-making turfs.
"We're investing today in two new capabilities. We are going to be an advertising company, and we are going to be a devices company," Steve Ballmer said during the meeting.
Advertising is the revenue stream that supports software-as-a-service, he indicated, making it vital that Microsoft becomes better at selling and delivering ads, and not just on Microsoft's properties.
"We're the number three seller of internet advertising today," he said. "We sell primarily on our own sites, but we also sell Facebook, we now signed a deal to sell Digg, and a variety of other people. But we're number three. Number three is better than number four, but not as good as number two or number one."
On the road to number two, the company also yesterday announced the creation of a dedicated Internet Services Research Center, essentially a war room focused on brainstorming ways to better Google in search and advertising technologies.
The ISRC will be peopled by "crack research teams with brilliant minds and fires in their bellies", according to corporate vice president Harry Shum, who will lead the team.
Later yesterday, Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, took the stage to elaborate on how the company plans to grow as an advertising platform.
The strategy centers on Live ID, the user accounts that you need to create before you can use many of Microsoft's Live-branded web services. Microsoft has about 380 million such accounts under management at the moment, and wants more.
Google has focused largely on targeting advertising based either on the context of web pages or, primarily, the words and phrases users search for. While it has a system of user accounts, they're not strictly necessary to use its most interesting services.
Microsoft is instead putting its knowledge of the individual, via their Live ID at the forefront.
"This creates significant amount of opportunity for us to know more about the users when they are signed in versus just a cookie or an IP address," Johnson said. "As users are signed in, we can do a better job of behavioral targeting or ad targeting to these particular users, which is good for the user - more relevant advertising - and it's good for the advertiser."
In a few months Microsoft plans to release another version of Windows Live, which Johnson described as "A single suite of user services. A single download and install to the PC that will enable users to use these services whether they're on the PC, on the phone, or just directly from the browser."
This appears to be what Microsoft means by "software-AND-services", the term it has been grooming to replace "software-AS-A-service" in the minds of users over the last few months. Windows Live, in its current incarnation, is just a collection of web sites, rather than a download.
"We're going to drive very hard on continuing to expand the number of users we have using these Windows Live services," Johnson said.
Another area of focus is redesigning the existing web services to keep users on Microsoft properties for longer, creating more page impressions or minutes than can be monetized with advertising.
On the sell-side, Microsoft is also determined to build a platform for advertisers that it hopes to rival Google's AdWords. Microsoft's adCenter will this quarter start deploying ads targeted contextually against content within Microsoft's own sites, and this will be expanded to third-party publishers within the next 12 months, Johnson said.
Having plotted the demise of Yahoo and Google's, Microsoft executives then turned their attention to Apple, where slick hardware design and novel interface work on the iPod and iPhone have given the company a domineering mindshare position in mobile devices. A position that, naturally, Microsoft would like to erode to its own advantage.
"On the devices side, we need to embrace retail, hardware, hardware design where we need to," Ballmer said.
While executives yesterday stopped short of spelling out the company's hardware plans, Ballmer did say that Microsoft needs to look into consumer devices to stay relevant.
"I will get asked, do you really need to do consumer device?" he said. "And the answer is, we really do, because our ability to leverage our technology, our ability to innovate, our ability to drive growth, we need to have this business outlet for our software creativity to continue to grow, to continue to innovate, and continue to be relevant."
It's not an ideal situation for Microsoft's partners. Imitating Apple's strategy with the iPod and iPhone perhaps, Microsoft's mobile devices strategy will be more closed-system that its longstanding PC strategy, which by some standards could be considered "open".
"We're a believer in what we think of as a managed ecosystem," Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's devices business said. "If you want to compare two worlds, you can compare the open world and you can compare a closed world closer to an Apple model. We want to be in a place where the consumer's experience is managed but where there's openness for a broad variety of partners to participate."

Sony President: no plans for another PS3 price cut

OYAMA, Japan - Sony Corp. currently has no plans for a further price cut to its PlayStation 3 (PS3) game console following a $100 cut in the U.S., the electronics conglomerate's president said on Friday.
"We've announced the price cut in the U.S and have no additional plans beyond that at this time," Ryoji Chubachi told Reuters on the sidelines of a gathering of business executives in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.The price cut, announced earlier this month, had confused some industry watchers because it came just a few days after Chubachi told Reuters in an interview that the company had no immediate plans to lower the PS3 price.Sony's PlayStation 3 has been far outsold by rival Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii console in large part because of its lofty price. Even after the $100 cut, the PS3 at $499 is twice as expensive as the Wii.Sony announced on Thursday that it sold 710,000 units of the PS3 in the April-June quarter, less than a fourth of 3.43 million Wii consoles sold in the same period.Some analysts have said the $100 cut would not be enough to counter the momentum of the Wii and predicted that Sony would have to lower the price again in the near future.Sony's stock was up 0.6 percent at 6,390 yen in early afternoon trade, bucking a sharp fall in the broader market.Investors are buying Sony after the company announced on Thursday that its quarterly profit more than trebled on the back of strong digital camera sales and a softer yen, which far outstripped losses on the struggling PlayStation 3.

"Lost" world offers game, mobisodes, books

SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - Although Comic-Con International lost a scoop when ABC executives let slip this week that actor Harold Perrineau would rejoin the cast of "Lost," fans attending the show's panel Thursday were still rewarded with the first look at the video game based on the show.
Included in the more-than-hourlong discussion by the show's co-creator/executive producer, Damon Lindelof, and executive producer Carlton Cuse were 30 seconds of footage of the game being developed by Ubisoft.
And there's more to come from the "Lost" universe, Lindelof said
"It will allow us to focus our time and energy into creating separate medias like the game, mobisodes, another 'Lost Experience,' and we have a couple of cool book ideas that tie into the show," he said. "This will allow us to really supervise that stuff and be involved."
The first-person action game for the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and PC will be released in February to coincide with the debut of the fourth "Lost" season. Gamers will be able to play as a survivor of Oceanic Flight 815, exploring familiar locations, unraveling mysteries and puzzles as well as interacting with the main characters on the show.
Cuse noted that development of the game by Ubisoft's Montreal studios is in its early stage but promised it will be a "really cool" experience for fans.
Perrineau appeared during the panel, and though he offered little details on his character's return, he did say he had known about the move for some time but kept silent while he did other projects, including the film "28 Weeks Later."

Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center publishes new website with an array of new on-line features

(PRLEAP.COM) PLYMOUTH (MI): Shortly after publishing a stand-alone website for Performance Benchmarking (www.performancebenchmarking.org), its comprehensive manufacturing benchmarking service, Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC) announces a sweeping upgrade to its main website - www.mmtc.org. Significant new content has been added along with a completely revised navigation schema. "The new website plan was developed with the user in mind”, stated Mike Coast, President. "MMTC wants visitors of its website to have a pleasant and informative experience. The benefits of our array of services are apparent and the site user can follow links to more detailed information as desired. Also, MMTC Success Stories are readily available in an indexed archive along with many other MMTC publications."The site contains new features that previously were not available on-line including: easy-to-use events registration, data on MMTC’s positive impact on client companies and scrolling news items that are of interest to small and mid-sized manufacturers. Please visit our new website at www.mmtc.org. MMTC welcomes your comments and feedback on the new site.

New technology could end misery of flat congestion charges

A new infrared imaging system that automatically counts the number of people in moving road vehicles could offer a simple and cost effective solution to help lower carbon emissions and congestion.
Demand for innovative ways to encourage vehicle sharing is particularly acute in major cities as only 20% of the road capacity is used by multiple occupancy vehicles. With 80% of vehicles occupied only by the driver, congestion charge zones and toll gates are an increasingly common feature on Britain’s traffic black spots. But unless vehicle occupants can be easily counted, it is impossible to implement variable charging to encourage more journeys to be shared.
Dtect, the new technology developed by optical engineering experts at Loughborough University, can be used for a variety of scenarios where multiple occupancy could attract lower fees, such as congestion zones; toll roads, bridges and tunnels; high occupancy vehicle lanes and car parks. It illuminates the moving vehicle’s windscreen without distracting the occupants and then processes images using a patented formula to detect the number of occupants. Occupant identity and vehicle registration can be stored in case penalties need enforcing, otherwise this information is data protected. The process takes a fraction of a second and results can either be integrated into a larger automated traffic management system or transmitted to a remote terminal.Avingtrans Plc, who own Crown UK Ltd, the leading UK supplier of roadside camera housings, has recently made a major investment into the Loughborough technology. For John Tyrer, Loughborough inventor and director of Vehicle Occupancy Ltd, the company formed to commercialise the technology, this partnership is ideal: “Flat rate charges are not the answer to congestion and the resultant pollution. Getting more people to share their journeys can only happen with incentives like variable charging. We have developed the step change technology to make this happen and Avingtrans / Crown have the credibility to incorporate it into the market.”

PlayBox USA To Open

PlayBox Technology continues its expansion into international markets with the opening of an office in the USA. On 1st August, the doors open at PlayBox USA situated in Atlanta, Georgia to provide a full range of services for its existing and future American customers of its PC-based television playout systems.

With over 100 installations of PlayBox AirBox playout servers already in the country, PlayBox USA brings a full range of services directly to the rapidly growing number of customers in the US video broadcast market. Sales are supported both from Atlanta, where Van Duke who heads up the US operation as well as East Coast sales, and Los Angeles where John Biedenharn is responsible for the West Coast. The customer care operations include 12 months hardware support for PlayBox systems and an optional further 12 months extension. It also offers annual software maintenance contracts.Vassil Lefterov, General Manager of PlayBox Technology comments, “We have already established a considerable customer base in the USA and are delighted that we can now offer them a full range of local support. Also this move is well timed as we are now delivering HD playout systems and this is of great interest in the American market.”The opening of the US office is a further expansion of PlayBox’s rapidly growing global sales network with offices already including: Belgrade (Serbia and Montenegro), Bucharest (Romania), Istanbul (Turkey), Sydney (Pacific), as well as the London-based international headquarters.PlayBox Technology is an international communications and information technology company serving the broadcast and corporate markets worldwide. It is dedicated to the research, design, development and provision of broadcasting products, systems, solutions and services. With Over 3,900 TV channels powered by PlayBox Technology the chances are you will have experienced our solutions for yourself. PlayBox Technology has solutions for start-up TV channels, webcasters, interactive music channels and satellite broadcasters as well as local, regional, national and international broadcasters.

Robots Clear Waterways of Deadly Mines

Associated Press Writer
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla.As it slowly moves in the shallow water

like a small child playing in the surf. But the prototype device has a serious mission: destroying mines that could kill Marines and Navy SEALs as they come on shore. Such technology is considered the future of underwater bomb detection."It's a kamikaze vehicle, a suicidal robot," said Mathieu Kemp, a scientist with Durham, N.C.-based Nekton Research, LCC, which created the Transphibian.The 3-foot-long device, which will some day carry 14 pounds of plastic explosives and attach itself to an underwater bomb before igniting, can be maneuvered by a joystick, which Kemp demonstrated last month at the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Fest, an annual two-week gathering of researchers who design robots for military use.Experts with the Panama City Beach-based Naval Surface Warfare Center say such robots eventually will replace minesweeping ships and perform dangerous jobs now done by specialized divers.A 2003 mine-clearing operation in the port of Um Quasar, Iraq, was a major test for autonomous underwater vehicles. The technology helped the U.S. Navy clear a path for a British ship carrying 200 tons of food and emergency supplies. It took the AUVs about 16 hours to search nearly a square mile and help divers locate an undisclosed number of mines - a task the Navy says would have taken 21 days for divers working without the technology.In the future, scientists plan to put explosives on the AUVs to destroy the mines. Meanwhile, they are using them to quickly and accurately differentiate ocean clutter from mines."The closer in you get to any port or harbor, the greater amount of clutter you will encounter - tires, rocks, coral reefs - there can be so much clutter you would not believe it," said Daniel Broadstreet, a spokesman for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, which specializes in neutralizing underwater mines."To screen out all that clutter is a huge job and it takes some very, very technologically advanced sensors," Broadstreet said.The Um Quasar operation was a milestone for AUVs because it marked the first wartime use of the technology, said Tom Swean, team leader of the Office of Naval Research's Mine Warfare Science and Technology Program.Swean joined the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Va., in 1981, but his work took off in 1997 when the Navy SEALs got involved. They tailored the systems for missions including surveying the seabed, finding channels near the shore and locating mines."It was important that they have underwater vehicles that could not be seen very easily," Swean said. "Their missions are near shore and are very dangerous."A decade later, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed advances in unmanned and robotic technology, especially on land and in the air where robots routinely inspect improvised explosive devices and drones conduct air reconnaissance."It's gone from zero to 60 pretty fast," said Jeffery Bradshaw, a scientist at the Pensacola-based Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, which is working with the warfare center on a project to use robots for port security.The military is expected to spend more than $50 million on the acquisition of AUV technology in the next five years, Swean said. At the same time, more than $12 billion is expected to be spent on unmanned aircraft programs.The next steps for the researchers include creating robots that function alongside troops as members of an operational team and ones that work with other robots."If one robot breaks or if one of the human team members is in trouble, they would know how to coordinate interactions - sort of like buddies," Bradshaw said.Despite the interest in robotic technology, changes won't be immediate, Swean said. The Navy likely will phase out large mine sweepers, but it will need ships to deploy the robotic systems, he said.Among the robots with the most promise is the Transphibian, which is still being developed."It's a good example of a hybrid concept, it can swim in the water and it can crawl on the sea floor," Swean said as he watched a prototype splash along the waters near Panama City Beach. "The last piece is to efficiently and cheaply go out to a real mine and place a charge on it."

Samsung DisplayPort technology

In a move likely to confuse the average HD consumer, Samsung has developed the world's first LCD panel featuring the VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) approved DisplayPort 1.1 connection jack.
Said to be a rival to HDMI and successor to your DVI and eventually VGA connections, DisplayPort is unquestionably an exciting development but you have to wonder if its Q2 2008 launch date may have it stepping up a little late in the game.
Samsung's 30-inch LCD touts some impressive specs though. The DisplayPort technology transmits data at an furious 10.8Gbps data rate, which allows for an unbelievable 2560x1600 pixel count (compared to the current 1080p best of 1920x1080) for an unrivalled picture. Elsewhere there's a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 180-degree viewing angle, 6ms response time and 300cd/m2 brightness.
All very impressive but it's a long time until anyone will see it in the flesh. Let's just hope it's good enough to make it worth the wait.

Tech money: Chico schools chasing grants for welding, construction and media technology

Chico Unified School District is lining up for state money.
A pot of funds available for career and technical education, or CTE -- once called vocational education -- would help the district expand industrial technology programs at Pleasant Valley High School to include building construction, and would help make improvements to the Academy of Communication and Technology, also called ACT, at Chico High School.
This summer, a crew of students, along with instructors Miles Peacock and Jerry Joiner, have been busy working to redesign the space at Pleasant Valley that currently houses the welding program.
If plans for the department come together, the huge shop area that was once an auto shop will become the welding shop and the current, smaller welding room would become a new building construction shop.
This fall, the department will offer more sections of welding and one course in a new career pathway -- construction technology -- optimistically hoping the funding will come through, Peacock explained.
To prepare for more enrollment, Peacock, Joiner and 16 students in a summer Regional Occupational Program welding-and-construction class created new welding stations, replaced gates, moved and repaired storage units, painted and installed lockers, and performed other renovation work that doesn't require permits.
The complete remodel and modernization would cost about $270,000, and the district would have to foot half the total to qualify for the grant.
Some of the work already completed could count toward the district's match.
The introductory class, as well as the whole pathway, is a response to an increase in the number of students wanting to enroll in industrial technology classes and a growing market demand for skilled workers.
The department already offers three industrial arts course sequences -- engineering design, architectural design and welding technology -- with some courses overlapping.
While students worked determinedly Thursday morning, trying to finish their projects before the last day of class today, Peacock talked about all the work they'd accomplished.
Students Chad Millard and Justin Adkins labored to install the shop yard's rolling gate, to replace an old, narrow swinging gate, while Kelvin Miles dismantled pieces of old fence, saving reusable parts and putting those beyond use into a bin to go to the scrap yard.
Peacock pointed out huge pieces of equipment donated by local businesses, including a press brake, a mechanical shear, lathes, a drill press, a forklift and other equipment.
Industry partners have contributed more than $50,000 worth of materials, Joiner said.
But the largest cost outlined in the grant application is the power and ventilation system that the old auto shop would need to make it adequate for industrial technology, he said. That work will have to go out to bid and could cost as much as $200,000.
Eventually, the construction class could partner with an organization such as Habitat for Humanity and build a home, involving student work in every aspect, from design to woodworking.
Teachers in the Academy program at Chico High School have also written a grant application to reconfigure and modernize the program, at a cost of about $2.2 million.
The 13-year-old program needs to be aligned to new standards the state has set for career and technical education, instructor Ron Pope explained.
The current program, although in need of new equipment to meet industry standards, satisfies two career pathways in media and entertainment education: media and design arts, and production and managerial arts.
With grant funding, ACT could expand to include a third career focus, in performing arts.
The CTE advisory committee met Wednesday morning and put its stamp of approval on the grant applications, which will need approval from the board of trustees before being sent to the state by Aug. 3.
Staff writer Chris Gullick can be reached at 896-7760 or cgullick@chicoer.com.
BACKGROUND: Chico Unified School District has had some success in pushing through grants to help support its programs, partly because of the expertise of district grant-writer Liz Metzger.
WHAT'S NEW: The California Department of Education has a pot of money available, earmarked for career and technical education — $4.3 million designated for programs in the northern region that includes Chico.
WHAT'S NEXT: The grant applications must be approved by the board of trustees and are due to the state by Aug. 3.

New Report Will Provide a Thorough Market and Technology Analysis of the E-Paper Market

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c63988) has announced the addition of “E-Paper Markets: An Eight-Year Market and Technology Forecast” to their offering.
Electronic paper (e-paper) has recently burst onto the scene as a radically new display technology that matches the characteristics of paper in terms of flexibility and readability, but adds the ability for constant updating from a network. The first applications for e-paper have been found in book readers and novelty products, such as flexible clocks. But e-paper is a serious product with sizeable addressable markets, especially in signage and smart shelving and in roll-up mobile displays. Major electronics and materials firms, as well as the usual slew of start-ups are already investing heavily in this technology.
Nonetheless, many uncertainties and challenges beset the e-paper market. There are competing technologies -- electrophoretic inks and cholesteric LCDs, for example. Many of the products being designed with e-paper are entirely novel and have no established markets. E-paper-based book readers may be the next consumer electronics hit or the whole concept could very well crash and burn. Similarly, there are no established supply chains for e-paper products which has left technology developers to try and create them while at the same time attempting to manufacture their own products.
This new report will provide a thorough market and technology analysis of the e-paper market. It will analyze the key materials and production technologies and assess in which market segments they are likely to take off or fail. Applications sectors for e-paper that will be discussed and forecast include smart-shelves, smart cards, smart packaging, book-readers, cell-phone displays, computer displays, information displays, clocks and other novelty products. The report will also project performance improvements expected over the next eight years and assess the marketing importance of such factors as flexibility, system architecture, resolutions, backplane switching speeds, and color capability.
The report will also provide critical profiles of the leading providers of e-paper and a detailed eight-year market forecast of e-paper markets, broken out by application and technology. This report builds on the highly-regarded research previously published in the display and printed electronics sectors.
Contents:
Executive Summary
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: E-Paper Technology Trends
Chapter Three: E-Paper Market Analysis
Chapter Four: E-Paper Suppliers
Chapter Five: Eight-Year Forecasts of E-Paper Market
List of Exhibits
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c63988