Tech & Science

Roy J. Glauber (Harvard University) won half of this year's Physics Nobel Prize, and John L. Hall (University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology) and Theodor W. Hänsch (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching) each receive a quarter of the prize. Glauber clarified the quantum nature of light. He showed how light composed of discrete quantum particles (photons) can be reconciled with the wave-like behavior of light. His theoretical work laid the foundations of quantum optics. Hall and Hänsch developed method

Demosphere.net, an underground political forum, has started a new wiki on Tuesday to be used for the design of their socio-political voting software, which is currently under development. Using the wiki, the public can collaborate with project members to resolve issues inherent in such a complex system. A Beta version which will let students debate, discuss and vote on issues that affect their community, should be available on college and university campuses for the start of the Fall 2006 Semester. The wiki uses the MediaWiki platform, and con

A new redesigned US $10 bill was introduced at a ceremony yesterday on Ellis Island. The new bill adds three new background colors; red, yellow and orange. It continues to feature Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary. The $10 bill is the third US bill to switch from the traditional green. The $20 and $50 bills were redesigned to feature color within the past two years. The improvements in digital technology have made it much easier for counterfeiters. "Ten years ago, 1 percent of (counterfeit) bills were produced on digital equipme

Technology weblog Engadget has published exclusive photos of the yet to be released Palm Treo 700w. The Palm Treo 700w is the first Palm handheld to run Windows Mobile No official announcement has yet been made. Palm may choose to make the official announcement at the upcoming CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment trade show. The CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment trade show is one of the phone industry's largest trade shows. Palm Chief Financial Officer Andrew Brown said in a interview with CNet last month, that a Windows Mobile based smartphon

Recently, Google had released Google Desktop 2 (beta), software that aims to provide information on a side-bar that sticks to the right end of your screen. Content on Google Desktop include e-mail searching, news and weather, subscribing to RSS-syndicated websites, and more features. One particular feature of Google Desktop is how it sends anonymous information of your computer use to Google (at option) in order to help choose RSS feeds and the like for you. This is much akin to how spyware works, however, said features can be disabled rather

US doctors are to interview 12 patients with a view to performing the first ever transplant of a human face. The Cleveland Clinic will choose between seven women and five men to find the person most suited for the experimental procedure, which is a radical and controversial solution to extreme facial scarring or disfigurement. Having practiced the procedure on bodies donated for medical research, the Cleveland Clinic team believe they have a 50% chance of success. The procedure will not live up to science-fiction predictions and give the rec

Opera Software has ended the use of ads in the zero cost version of its Opera web browser. Opera is intended as closed source software, its license states that You shall not modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software or any part thereof or otherwise attempt to derive source code or create derivative works therefrom. . Until now the program displayed an advertisement when being used, however the program had an option that would remove the advertisement in return for a fee. Company Officials expressed hope that th

NASA has announced plans for sending humans back to the Moon, as a first step to Mars. A 2018 lunar mission is proposed, where a crew of four would remain on the Moon for as long as a week. A minimum of two lunar missions a year is planned, with astronauts remaining as long as six months. Some of the technology had previously been proposed for replacement of the Space Shuttle. Astronauts will be launched in a capsule, similar in concept to that used for the Project Apollo but three times larger. The top part of an Exploration Transportatio

Scott Stevens, weatherman at KPVI-TV in Pocatello, Idaho claims that someone used Russian KGB technology to create Hurricane Katrina. According to a brief article published September 8, 2005 on Flashnews.com, Stevens blames the Japanese Yakuza mafia, who he says were attempting to manipulate futures markets via the natural disaster. Stevens' website, WeatherWars.info, includes documentation he has collected in an attempt to bolster his theories that energy weapons and airplane contrails are part of secret weather manipulating activities.

A team of scientists from universities in France and Brazil have developed a theory that explains the patterns of fine bubbles that arise in a freshly poured glass of champagne. The bubble patterns evolve as the amount of dissolved carbon dioxide changes in the glass. They start out as strings of bubbles that rise in pairs, then gradually transition to bubbles in groups of threes, and finally settle down in a clockwork pattern of regularly spaced individual bubbles. The researchers observed the carbon dioxide bubbles in a champagne glass as

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope entered a new era of science operations as September began, when engineers shut down one of the three operational gyroscopes aboard the observatory. The two-gyro mode is expected to preserve the operating life of the third gyro and extend Hubble's science observations through mid-2008, an eight-month extension. Switching off one gyro can preserve it for future use and extended two-gyro operational time for Hubble. The gyros are an integral part of Hubble's complex pointing control system. The system maintains prec

In New York, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative, British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke with "brutal honesty" about the UNFCCC's Kyoto protocol and global warming. Blair, a longtime supporter of the Kyoto treaty, recognized that countries will not accept the limits imposed on Kyoto: "No country is going to cut its growth." Of India and China, "They're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto." India and China are classified as developing countries in the Kyoto protocol, so they can get money and technology but are not