Tech & Science

Initial fears that the combination of storm damage and flood waters might produce a "toxic soup" in downtown New Orleans have been downplayed by experts in environmental science. While the threat of cholera, typhoid and other diseases is certainly increased by the contamination of the flood waters with sewage and corpses, many of the chemical companies located in or near New Orleans survived the storm without spilling dangerous contaminants into the flood waters. Of course, care should be taken to not ingest any of the flood water. People wit

The deadline for a compromise between Sony and Toshiba in the battle over the next generation DVD format is drawing closer as studios start planning their Christmas releases. Sony, with their Blu-ray Disc format, has already started embedding the new technology into their next-generation gaming console, the Playstation 3. Meanwhile, Toshiba has secured deals with both NBC Universal and Paramount Pictures to use their format, HD-DVD. Many industry watchers fear that the battle of these two formats will bring some serious consequences. Some

Commander Sergei Krikalev and flight engineer John Phillips began a planned six-hour spacewalk earlier today, their first in the four months both men have been on the station. This week Krikalev exceeded Sergei Avdeyev's record of 748 (non-consecutive) days in space. Their tasks include retrieval and replacement of several experiments, photographing a materials science experiment, retrieving radiation sensors, installation of a television camera for the first arrival of Europe's new cargo vessel and relocation of a grapple fixture for a crane

A year before the 9/11 attacks, through data mining a U.S. Army intelligence group had identified two terrorist cells, including Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers. Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, a liaison officer of a unit called Able Danger, has spoken on the topic. By analysis of non-military data, several of the terrorists with direct links to top Al-Qaeda leadership were identified. Able Danger also used publicly available information from government immigration agencies. Description on CNN of the technology involved: SH

Anti-virus software publisher Symantec has reported that outbreaks of two varieties of worm are imminent following system failures on two unnamed major corporate networks in the United Kingdom. After receiving several eyewitness accounts from on-site personnel this reporter noted similarities to the MSBlast worm which made headline news two years ago (on the 16th of July 2003) after causing massive outages. The worms are limited to Microsoft Windows products based on the NT architecture such as Windows 2000 or Windows XP, exploiting administr

At a hackers conference in Las Vegas with the spoofed name of Defcon, the Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells made a pitch to attendees; "If you want to work on cutting-edge problems, if you want to be part of the truly great issues of our time ... we invite you to work with us." Technology commentator Richard Thieme said that there are many Feds attending undercover; "You can't be deceived by the uniforms. I talked at the Pentagon, and one-third of the people in the audience I already knew from Defcon." Attendees who "out" the underco

At the Siggraph 2005 computer graphics convention in Los Angeles, California Tuesday, Star Wars creator George Lucas unveiled plans for a weekly computer-animated series based on the science fiction saga. The new show, to be called Clone Wars, will be a 3-D animated spinoff of the series and is to be produced in a Lucas facility in Singapore. Lucas already has done limited-run 2-D traditional animated television with Star Wars: Clone Wars shorts on the U.S. cable channel, Cartoon Network. Lucas said advances in digital technology allow an an

Seoul National University’s Hwang Woo-Suk has reported his findings in the Journal Nature after being involved in producing the first cloned dog. The dog, named Snuppy, was born on April 24. He is an Afghan hound. The issue presents a whole host of ethical questions for researchers in the stem cell field. Companies like Amgen are interested in the technology, as is accounted in Fortune Magazine for making human-safe pharmaceuticals. The business sector relies on technology improvements to make life saving realities. The Los Angeles Times h

The world leader in Bluetooth wireless communication technology, Cambridge Silicon Radio Ltd., announced today their acquisition of the software organisation UbiNetics for a sum of 48 million US dollars. Both companies based in Cambridge, UK, UbiNetics provides expertise in the development of communication protocol software to the Bluetooth giant. Additional UbiNetics offices in India and the People's Republic of China are also acquired.

As a result of IBM's officially setting the withdrawal date of its OS/2 operating system from the market, as well as its withdrawal of support, many OS/2 fans hope that the computer giant will release most or all of the operating system as open source software.

Granville Technology Group, who own brands such as TIME Computers and Tiny are to axe around 1,500 jobs just after the company went into administration. The company has already closed down all their 78 retail stores around the United Kingdom. It had emerged that all the group's directors, except its part-time chairman, have also resigned. Formerly known as the Time Group, it had been producing around 500,000 PCs a year. Its customers included businesses, schools and private individuals, and its products have been household names for several

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, announced the name of its forthcoming version of the Windows operating system from its headquarters in Redmond, Washington Friday. But in choosing the name "Vista," Microsoft may find itself in a legal fight. Microsoft has made a name for itself in legal circles as a company that fiercely defends its trademarks and other intellectual property. With the choice of "Vista," the tables may turn as it may face allegations of swiping another company's trademark. It appears the Vista name has already