2007 December:   Computing
Anchor:   Base Index
Other months:    November  January
Other areas:    Business  climate  education  health  international  Internet  science  social  technology  Others
Topics:    Companies  embedded  history  machinery  modelling  operating systems  patents  projects  robots  security  simulation  skills  software  speech  systems  translation  video gaming
Companies(see also in Internet) last  down  top   back  on

Steve Lohr, Tech "microclusters" form in Silicon Valley, IHT, 2007 Dec. 19 (Silicon Valley, the wellspring of the digital technologies fueling globalization, is itself a collection of remarkably local clusters based on industry niches, skills, school ties, traffic patterns, ethnic groups, even weekend sports teams)
Tech giants form tiny chip group, BBC, 2007 Dec. 18 (seven of the world's leading chip makers are collaborating on chips which contain transistors with features just 32 billionths of a metre wide)
Bobbie Johnson, Opera accuses Microsoft of anti-competitive behaviour, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 13 (the Norwegian company Opera, which produces a rival browser, says consumers are sick of Bill Gates' Microsoft making choices for them)
Microsoft trials XP on XO laptop, BBC, 2007 Dec. 6 (Microsoft is to begin field tests of Windows XP working on the so-called $100 laptop, or XO, early in 2008)
Embedded Computers and Robots up  down  top   back  on

Alok Jha, £2m to develop i-Snake robot for keyhole surgery, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 29 (team of surgeons and engineers to develop a new generation of surgical robots allowing more complex operations)
i-Snake 'will transform surgery', BBC, 2007 Dec. 29 (experts are developing a flexible surgical robot—the i-Snake—which they say could revolutionise keyhole surgery)
AP, Arm bot wins Robot of the Year, The Age, 2007 Dec. 24 (a mechanical arm that picks 120 items a minute from a conveyor belt won Japan's Robot of the Year award today, defeating a dozen other flashier finalists, including a walking humanoid, a firefighter robot and a transparent torso for simulating surgery)
Nick Carr, The oldest profession combined with the newest technology, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 13 (CyberLover's ability to fool people in chatrooms may make it the first successful example of AI)
Bobbie Johnson, Flirty computer program raises ID theft fears, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 11 (according to analysts at online security company PC Tools, the robot—known as CyberLover—is being used by criminals to gather information on internet chatters)
Technology Quarterly: Unmanned and dangerous, Economist, 2007 Dec. 8 (unmanned aerial vehicles are a vital tool of modern warfare; once-harmless drones are now deadly attack aircraft; where did the technology come from, and where is it going?; part of a special report)
History up  down  top   back  on

Jonathan Fildes, Home computing pioneer honoured, BBC, 2007 Dec. 29 (one of the designers of the classic BBC Micro computer is recognised in the New Year Honours list)
AP, Telephone turf war may change history, The Age, 2007 Dec. 28 (in The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret, journalist Seth Shulman argues that Bell - aided by aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner - got an improper peek at patent documents Elisha Gray had filed, and that Bell was erroneously credited with filing first)
Malcolm Penn, An industry built on sand, BBC, 2007 Dec. 17 (sixty years ago three scientists in the US invented the transistor—the tiny switches at the heart of all silicon chips)
Weblogs rack up a decade of posts, BBC, 2007 Dec. 17 (the word "weblog" is celebrating 10 years since it was first coined to describe online journals)
Leader, The etiquette of telecommunications: Getting the message, at last, Economist, 2007 Dec. 15 (a parable of manners from Victorian dentists to modern airlines)
Victoria Shannon, 15 years of text messages, a 'cultural phenomenon', IHT, 2007 Dec. 5 (since cellphones were not yet designed to type out and send individual letters of the alphabet, Neil Papworth, then a 22-year-old engineer, sent his historic greeting to Jarvis's phone from a computer keyboard)
Machinery(see also in Technology) up  down  top   back  on

PA, Virtual worlds to look more like ours, The Age, 2007 Dec. 27 (a new generation of "super chips" is being designed to make computer games more lifelike)
AP, MIT spinoff's little green laptop computers a hit in remote Peruvian village, IHT, 2007 Dec. 24 (doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago)
Bill Thompson, Microsoft puts upgrade in a spin, BBC, 2007 Dec. 17 (Microsoft make it unnecessarily difficult to upgrade from an Xbox 360 to the Elite)
John Markoff, Iomega enters deal to acquire Chinese maker of disk drives, IHT, 2007 Dec. 13 (Iomega, an American distributor of computer data storage equipment, said that it was entering into a complex $310 million deal to acquire ExcelStor, a Chinese contract maker of disk drives)
Asher Moses, Dell bets on Tablet 2.0, The Age, 2007 Dec. 12 (the tablet PC has languished in relative obscurity for years, but Dell hopes to lead a revival with its new Latitude XT)
Technology Quarterly: Hafnium and chips, Economist, 2007 Dec. 8 (a new recipe involving a hitherto obscure element is the latest way to make microprocessors even faster; part of a special report)
Reuters, Here comes the supercomputer on a chip, The Age, 2007 Dec. 7 (IBM breakthrough brings closer the day when supercomputing will be done on a single chip)
Reuters, Physical therapists prescribe Wii time, The Age, 2007 Dec. 7 (a hospital has been using the Wii for about four months to help people recovering from strokes and spinal cord or traumatic brain injuries)
Light to shrink computer clusters, BBC, 2007 Dec. 6 (supercomputers could one day be the size of a laptop thanks to research by IBM scientists)
Gigi Douban, Wii's senior moment, The Age, 2007 Dec. 6 (Nintendo's new game console is a surprising hit with the elderly)
Jack Schofield, How the low-powered Wii moved aside the big boys, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 6 (coming up to its second Christmas, the Nintendo Wii is still in short supply in the US and the UK; how ever did it see off its competitors from giants Sony and Microsoft?)
Asher Moses, Australia's cheapest laptop sells out, The Age, 2007 Dec. 5 (Taiwan computer maker Asus might have underestimated the local demand for its diminutive Eee PC, as the $499 laptop is now virtually sold out in Australia)
Operating Systems(see also Software) up  down  top   back  on

Charles Arthur, Leopard is nothing for Apple to purr about, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 13 (it seems lots of people are "downgrading to Tiger" having been disappointed with Apple's latest version of OS X, codenamed Leopard)
Larry Barrett, VMware Unleashes Virtual Infrastructure 3, Datamation, 2007 Dec. 11 (the virtualization leader has updated its software to simplify the transfer of data between storage arrays)
Microsoft trials XP on XO laptop, BBC, 2007 Dec. 6 (Microsoft is to begin field tests of Windows XP working on the so-called $100 laptop, or XO, early in 2008)
AP, Microsoft axes Vista 'kill switch' feature, The Age, 2007 Dec. 6 (Microsoft dumps feature that disables programs on users' computers if it suspects the software is pirated, opting instead for a gentler approach based on nagging alerts)
Projects and Systems(see also in Business) up  down  top   back  on

AAP, Brumby won't rule out spending more on tickets, The Age, 2007 Dec. 25 (Victorian Premier John Brumby has not ruled out giving transport ticketing company Kamco more money to deliver Melbourne's new ticketing system dubbed myki)
David Rood, 'Smart' ticketing system a year late, The Age, 2007 Dec. 19 (the trouble-plagued $500 million public transport smartcard myki will not be operational until the second half of 2008—up to a year behind schedule)
Patrick Wintour, ID card Information chief calls for review of plans, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 5 (review plans in wake of the release of 25 million names and addresses on benefit records, justice select committee told)
Security(see also in Internet and Technology) up  down  top   back  on

Patrick Wintour, Personal details of millions of learner drivers lost by contractor in Iowa, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 18 (Ruth Kelly apologises for latest lapse in data security; missing disc 'not readily usable by third parties'))
Bobbie Johnson, Flirty computer program raises ID theft fears, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 11 (according to analysts at online security company PC Tools, the robot—known as CyberLover—is being used by criminals to gather information on internet chatters)
Simon Jenkins, Comment: In the age of leaky data, there is no such thing as a secure online computer, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 7 (PCs have a multitude of uses, but, as a string of recent scandals illustrate, private information storage is not one of them)
Wendy M Grossman, How secure are your online passwords?, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 6 (you might think that your passwords are safe, but a few minutes on Google could be enough to crack them)
Simulation and Modelling(see also Video Gaming) up  down  top   back  on

Clint Witchalls, Lab comes one step closer to building artificial human brain, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 20 (people once scoffed at the ambitious project in Switzerland, but its researchers have just succeeded in simulating part of a rat's brain in silicon)
Technology Quarterly: Reality, only better, Economist, 2007 Dec. 8 (superimposing computer graphics on the real world, instead of displaying them on screens, has many potential uses; part of a special report)
Technology Quarterly: Getting serious, Economist, 2007 Dec. 8 (virtual worlds are being put to serious real-world uses—and are starting to encounter some real-world problems; part of a special report)
Skills(see also Video gaming and in Education) up  down  top   back  on

Wii players need to exercise too, BBC, 2007 Dec. 21 (playing "active" computer games such as the Nintendo Wii is no substitute for playing real sports, warn experts)
Computer knowledge 'undervalued', BBC, 2007 Dec. 14 (computer skills are still undervalued in the UK board room, software giant Microsoft claims)
Jason Hill, Playtime just got heaps more fun, The Age, 2007 Dec. 11 (interactive games are among Australia's favourite sources of entertainment, with consumers splashing out more than $1 billion this year on gaming software and consoles)
Software(see also Operating Systems) up  down  top   back  on

John Markoff, As chips speed up, software is lagging, IHT, 2007 Dec. 17 (a leading computer scientist has warned that an easy solution to programming chips with dozens of processors has not yet been discovered)
AP, Netherlands adopts open source software, The Age, 2007 Dec. 14 (the Dutch government has set a soft deadline of April 2008 for its agencies to start using open-source software—freely distributed programs that anyone can modify—the Netherlands Economic Affairs Ministry said on Thursday)
Tom Stuart, Developers take REST with Rails, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 13 (the latest version of the Ruby on Rails development framework shows off a style that could benefit web users and programmers alike)
Joshua Greenbaum, The End of Upgrades: A Manifesto, Datamation, 2007 Dec. 10 (we're angry and we're not going to take it: upgrades suck, and it's time that they sucked a whole lot less; way past time, if you ask me)
Technology Quarterly: Don't invent, evolve, Economist, 2007 Dec. 8 (the inventor's traditional trial-and-error approach can be automated by software that mimics natural selection; part of a special report)
Speech Processing and Translation(see also in Social) up  down  top   back  on

Victor Keegan, Opinion: Has [speech] recognition finally come of age?, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 13 (two recently released products allow you to ring a number, dictate a short message to yourself and have the result emailed to you later as a reminder)
Video Gaming(see also Simulation and Skills, and in Social) up   first    top   back  on

Mark Ward, Online games battle for top spot, BBC, 2007 Dec. 26 (challenges to the dominance of World of Warcraft over online games and gamers look set to emerge in 2008)
Xbox games tackle drink driving, BBC, 2007 Dec. 24 (the Scottish Government is to target young drink-drivers by placing adverts on virtual billboards in Xbox 360 games)
Wayne Timmo, Virtual rugby kicks off, The Age, 2007 Dec. 21 (a pair of New Zealand internet entrepreneurs is hoping a series of online sporting games in which fans compete to lead their team to virtual victory will be a winning business model)
Victor Keegan, Comment: Game on for virtual football world, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 20 (if Football Superstars lives up to expectations, it could help turn virtual worlds from a geeky diversion into a mainstream activity)
UK gamers spend £1.5bn on titles, BBC, 2007 Dec. 19 (sales of video games in the UK are at an all-time high, with more than 78 million titles sold in 2007)
Censors battle for Manhunt 2 ban, BBC, 2007 Dec. 17 (British censors seek a judicial review to block the sale of controversial video game Manhunt 2)
Alexandra Topping, 'Sadistic' video game beats ban, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 11 (banned for its 'casual sadism', game now to be released in UK)
Technology Quarterly: Playing or processing?, Economist, 2007 Dec. 8 (the distinction between gaming and useful processing is beginning to blur, for both people and machines; part of a special report)
Jack Schofield, How the low-powered Wii moved aside the big boys, Guardian, 2007 Dec. 6 (coming up to its second Christmas, the Nintendo Wii is still in short supply in the US and the UK; how ever did it see off its competitors from giants Sony and Microsoft?)