2007 September:   Computing
Anchor:   Base Index
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Topics:    Companies  embedded  history  machinery  modelling  operating systems  projects  robots  security  simulation  skills  software  speech  translation  video gaming
Companies(see also in Internet) last  down  top   back  on

John Naughton, Why Microsoft is taking everyone at Facebook value, Observer, 2007 Sep. 30 (what are friends for and how much are they worth?; this is topical because rumours abound that Microsoft is contemplating buying a stake in Facebook, the social networking site)
Nick Miller, Worldwide web of intrigue surrounds Facebook face-off, The Age, 2007 Sep. 26 (news that Microsoft is pondering an investment in social networking site Facebook the latest in series of chess moves as IT and media titans fight for a stake in the future of the internet)
AP, Palm struggles to keep up in smartphone market, IHT, 2007 Sep. 25 (Palm has been hurt by deep-pocketed rivals and by missteps, and it remains shackled to an aging operating system that has fallen behind others in user-friendly features)
Nick Mathiason, The guardian of cyberspace, Observer, 2007 Sep. 23 (his company has spearheaded the global fight against internet crime, but Symantec's chief executive John Thompson believes there is still much more to be done - and that this is one job that must not be left to Microsoft)
Nick Mathiason, Microsoft in row over lobby tactics, Observer, 2007 Sep. 23 (Microsoft in a row over an attempt to rally opposition against rival Google's proposed acqusition of internet firm DoubleClick)
Gary Barker, The right information furnishes the road to success, The Age, 2007 Sep. 21 (a kid from Bairnsdale with a knack for computers has had a dream run onto the world stage of IT)
Microsoft: A matter of sovereignty, Economist, 2007 Sep. 22 (what the European Court's ruling means for the technology industry)
Reuters, Intel promising chips with everything, The Age, 2007 Sep. 21 (Intel is on the verge of making its biggest push yet into mobile consumer electronics)
David Gow, EU hits back in row with US over Microsoft ruling, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 20 (a public row breaks out between European Union and US anti-monopoly officials over Monday's Microsoft ruling)
Steve Lohr, IBM offers free PC software, IHT, 2007 Sep. 18 (IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations)
David Gow, Three US chip-makers could be next targets for trust busters, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 18 (Brussels now expected to step up its cases against three other US technology groups, including the dominant microprocessor manufacturer Intel)
US probe into memory chip firms, BBC, 2007 Sep. 17 (US authorities have launched an investigation into the practices of firms that make memory chips used in MP3 players and digital cameras)
Graeme Wearden, Microsoft loses antitrust appeal, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 17 (European court upholds landmark fine and sanctions)
Steven Chorch and Jeffrey St Onge, Software maker seeks bankruptcy protection amid IBM lawsuit, IHT, 2007 Sep. 16 (SCO Group, the software maker that sued International Business Machines for copyright infringement, filed for bankruptcy protection 10 days after conceding that much of the case should be dropped)
Software: Liquid concrete, Economist, 2007 Sep. 15 (as software shifts to an "on demand" model, can SAP move with the times?)
Chris Edwards, Can Palm find a way to survive?, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 13 (after the troubled maker of PDAs cancelled its Foleo device, analysts are concerned about the future of the company)
Bloomberg, Intel still holds edge in chip war, but AMD isn't giving in, IHT, 2007 Sep. 10 (the so-called quad-core chips, the next generation of the Opteron line by AMD, allow faster calculating and greater energy efficiency, features sought by companies running large data centers and server farms)
Buoyant sales outlook for Intel, BBC, 2007 Sep. 10 (chipmaker Intel predicts that strong demand means its three month results will beat earlier forecasts)
Hiawatha Bray, Virtual Iron sees benefit in VMWare's success, IHT, 2007 Sep. 5 (Virtual Iron is riding the wave of free publicity generated by the VMware offering, and by Citrix Systems' $500 million purchase of the virtualization software company XenSource the following day)
Personal computers: The PC industry is proving to be surprisingly lively, Economist, 2007 Sep. 1 (worldwide PC shipments have lately been growing by about 12% a year, yet this figure does not do justice to the market's current dynamism)
Embedded Computers and Robots up  down  top   back  on

Ivan Berger, What's the setting for a snowy beach at dusk?, IHT, 2007 Sep. 20 (the computing power inside even the cheapest cameras today allow a photographer to get even better ones - if they can decipher the myriad shooting modes designed into the devices)
Tom Simonite, Tripedal robot swings itself into action, New Scientist, 2007 Sep. 20 (like humans, it exploits gravity to save energy with each step, but it also flips its entire body upside-down with each stride)
Mason Inman, 'Pulp-based computing' makes normal paper smart, New Scientist, 2007 Sep. 19 (boxes that sense the weight of their contents and books that talk back when pages are turned could be developed using technology being tested by researchers at MIT in the US; they are making paper with wires, sensors, and computer chips embedded, a technology dubbed 'pulp-based' computing)
Kurt Kleiner, Mechanical mole could seek out disaster survivors, New Scientist, 2007 Sep. 17 (Thunderbirds becomes reality as researchers construct a digging robot that they say could rescue people buried in rubble)
AP, Meet Zeno, the artificial boy, The Age, 2007 Sep. 14 (social robots could soon engage in conversation and convey human emotion)
Mark Ward, Online worlds to be AI incubators, BBC, 2007 Sep. 13 (artificial intelligences could soon be living and learning inside online worlds such as Second Life)
Matt Walcoff, The worker you have to plug in, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 13 (IvanAnywhere doesn't look like much, but the robot devised by Ivan Bowman makes remote working and interacting with colleagues easier)
Patricia Carswell, Technobile, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 6 (my car has a mind of its own on safety - but I would like to regain control of some decisions, please)
History up  down  top   back  on

Patricia Maunder, All grown up, The Age, 2007 Sep. 20 (how computer animation has finally come of age)
AP, Digital smiley face turns 25, The Age, 2007 Sep. 19 (in 1982, Scott Fahlman typed a colon followed by a hyphen and a bracket)
AP, First virus hatched as a practical joke, The Age, 2007 Sep. 3 (what began as a schoolboy prank has earned Rich Skrenta notoriety as the first person ever to let loose a personal computer virus)
A look at major computer viruses over 25 years, The Age, 2007 Sep. 3
Machinery up  down  top   back  on

Spy charges for US computer duo, BBC, 2007 Sep. 29 (two computer engineers in the US state of California have been charged with conspiring to steal microchip designs to sell to the Chinese military)
John Naughton, In the laptop of the gods, Observer, 2007 Sep. 30 (one of the most interesting developments of modern times is the One Laptop Per Child project; nb: second item in column)
Steve Nunn, Time for the IT crowd to go green, BBC, 2007 Sep. 24 (our computer-dependent society needs to rewire its green thinking in order to curb the growing impact of technology)
Jonathan Fildes, '$100 laptop' to sell to public, BBC, 2007 Sep. 24 (a low-cost laptop, designed for children in developing countries, will go on sale in North America)
Jonathan Fildes, Big future beckons for tiny chips, BBC, 2007 Sep. 19 (Intel founder Gordon Moore says chips should continue to get more powerful for at least another decade)
Graeme Philipson, Devices put to a screen test, The Age, 2007 Sep. 18 (as form follows function, TVs, PCs and mobile phones will always be discrete, never mind convergence)
Anne Eisenberg, Where broadband Internet is headed: To the kitchen, IHT, 2007 Sep. 16 (Hewlett-Packard's new TouchSmart IQ770 PC is designed for that kitchen of the future, where people turn on the computer - along with the coffeepot - and then check the screen for the weather, ball scores and the family calendar as they prepare breakfast)
AP, Global laptop project raises its price again, almost double original $100 goal, IHT, 2007 Sep. 14 (leaders of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child that was spun out of MIT acknowledged Friday that the devices would cost $188 if mass production, expected to begin this fall, were to start now)
Chris Edwards, Can Palm find a way to survive?, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 13 (after the troubled maker of PDAs cancelled its Foleo device, analysts are concerned about the future of the company)
John Markoff, Act 2 for an IBM scientist, IHT, 2007 Sep. 10 (if an idea that Stuart Parkin is kicking around in an IBM lab here is on the money, electronic devices could hold 10 to 100 times as much data in the same amount of space)
Technology Quarterly: The trouble with computers, Economist, 2007 Sep. 8 (they may be powerful, but computers could still be easier to use; might new forms of interface help?)
Personal computers: The PC industry is proving to be surprisingly lively, Economist, 2007 Sep. 1 (worldwide PC shipments have lately been growing by about 12% a year, yet this figure does not do justice to the market's current dynamism)
Operating Systems(see also Software) up  down  top   back  on

AP, Palm struggles to keep up in smartphone market, IHT, 2007 Sep. 25 (Palm has been hurt by deep-pocketed rivals and by missteps, and it remains shackled to an aging operating system that has fallen behind others in user-friendly features)
Michael Fitzgerald, For a simpler cellphone system, add software, IHT, 2007 Sep. 23 (software radio appears to offer an elegant solution to what has been a vexing problem: how to have a single handset, like a cellphone, communicate across multiple networks)
Andrew Brown, A childlike pleasure can be derived from a computing catastrophe, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 6 (it's not a proper computer crisis until you have forgotten what the trivial problem was you were trying to fix before catastrophe overwhelmed everything and left you sitting in front of lump of plastic that won't boot)
Projects up  down  top   back  on

Michael Cross, British e-government fails to achieve the X-Factor, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 27 (the UK police portal displays the sad message: 'Not available at present; please contact your local force')
AP, Technical problems delay virtual U.S. border fence, IHT, 2007 Sep. 20 (because of a software problem, the first high-technology "virtual fence" on the United States' borders remained inoperable this week, three months after its scheduled debut)
John Carvel, Concern over NHS's IT systems after 50 view celebrity's details, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 19 (incident raises doubts about the security of the government's £12.4bn IT upgrade scheme)
Lia Timson, Electoral commission takes modern approach with Genesis, The Age, 2007 Sep. 18 (the multimillion-dollar IT upgrade now rolling out at the Australian Electoral Commission is intriguingly titled Genesis)
NHS audit: Big spender, unwise spender, Economist, 2007 Sep. 15 (the danger in throwing a lot of cash at the NHS was that much of it would be soaked up in higher costs rather than producing more health care)
Fears over NHS e-records system, BBC, 2007 Sep. 12 (the introduction of electronic patient records as part of a £6.8bn NHS IT upgrade comes under attack from MPs)
Stephen Moynihan, Taxpayers facing big ticket bill, The Age, 2007 Sep. 6 (Victorian taxpayers could be liable for millions of dollars in compensation to the operators of Melbourne's train and tram networks)
Patrick Gray, Quo is me, at AAPT, The Age, 2007 Sep. 4 (Telecommunications and internet service company AAPT has blamed service provisioning delays on problems with its new customer management software, Hyperbaric)
Health-care information: Getting better, Economist, 2007 Sep. 1 (doctor, am I going to die?; and other important questions)
Gun control in Pennsylvania: Up in arms, Economist, 2007 Sep. 1 (why tighten the rules right in hunting season?)
Security(see also in Internet and Technology) up  down  top   back  on

Guy Browning, Weekend: How to ... use passwords, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 29 (the average person has 19 separate passwords to operate effectively in the real world and generally remembers three)
AP, Digital peeping Toms, The Age, 2007 Sep. 21 (the head of a leading security software vendor denounces the use of cookies)
Leon Gettler, Australia fails in IT security, The Age, 2007 Sep. 20 (businesses in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region are among the biggest targets for hackers and security attacks, according to a global survey)
John Carvel, Concern over NHS's IT systems after 50 view celebrity's details, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 19 (incident raises doubts about the security of the government's £12.4bn IT upgrade scheme)
Nick Miller, Queensland brains crack the code of 3x5, The Age, 2007 Sep. 18 (a team of researchers at Queensland University has recently set a world-first benchmark using a quantum computer to find the prime factors of 15)
Google calls for web privacy laws, BBC, 2007 Sep. 14 (Google calls on governments and business to agree a set of global standards to protect internet privacy)
Pete Warren, Lost hospital disk raises fears about protecting personal data, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 13 (keep your hard drives safe, warn experts, as a survey finds more discarded ones with sensitive information)
Charles Arthur, Do social network sites genuinely care about privacy?, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 13 (they do - since it is only by guarding it jealously and then selling it that they can make any money)
Peter Ker, Name game rise sparks fraud fears, The Age, 2007 Sep. 8 (a record number of Victorians changed their names over the past year, prompting calls for mandatory reporting of name changes to police, and concerns over fraud and security loopholes)
Sony confirms security problem, BBC, 2007 Sep. 3 (electronics giant Sony confirms a recently discovered security flaw in its products and says it will issue a fix)
Simulation and Modelling up  down  top   back  on

Automated decision-making: The death of expertise, Economist, 2007 Sep. 15 (Super Crunchers, Ian Ayres; the sheer quantity of data and the computer power now available make it possible for automated processes to surpass human experts in fields as diverse as rating wines, writing film dialogue and choosing titles for books)
Liz Seward, Dark matter clues in oldest stars, BBC, 2007 Sep. 14 (the earliest stars may hold clues to the nature of the Universe's mysterious dark matter, simulations suggest)
Mark Ward, Online worlds to be AI incubators, BBC, 2007 Sep. 13 (artificial intelligences could soon be living and learning inside online worlds such as Second Life)
AP, When machines outsmart their makers, The Age, 2007 Sep. 10 (according to futurists gathered for a weekend conference, information technology is hurtling toward a point where machines will become smarter than their makers)
Amanda Schaffer, Mind games: therapy brings war back home to veterans, The Age, 2007 Sep. 1 (exposure therapy, in which patients are asked to confront memories of a trauma by imagining and recounting it in detail, has long been a psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder; but virtual reality may make exposure therapy more effective)
Skills(see also Video gaming and in Education) up  down  top   back  on

Niki Cardwell, Computer dance gets pupils active, BBC, 2007 Sep. 15 (a computer dance programme has succeeded in getting even young people who hate sport to take exercise)
Stephen Cauchi, Just think, playing those mind games computes, The Age, 2007 Sep. 9 (using your noodle to stem mental decline is food for thought)
Tom Geoghegan, Mind games, BBC, 2007 Sep. 6 (one of Britain's top scientists is putting her name to computer games designed to keep the brain fit)
Software(see also Operating Systems) up  down  top   back  on

AP, Excel glitch: it doesn't add up, The Age, 2007 Sep. 28 (Microsoft's Excel 2007 spreadsheet program is going to have to relearn part of its multiplication table)
Victor Keegan, Ignoring open source is costing us dear, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 20 (you would have thought that a Labour government would have latched on to this new cooperativism)
Steve Lohr, IBM offers free PC software, IHT, 2007 Sep. 18 (IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations)
Big sums: Of greed and ants, Economist, 2007 Sep. 15 (nature could help design even smarter algorithms)
Software: Liquid concrete, Economist, 2007 Sep. 15 (as software shifts to an "on demand" model, can SAP move with the times?)
Technology Quarterly: Piecing history together, Economist, 2007 Sep. 8 (the German Democratic Republic bequeathed a 600m-piece puzzle to the reunified country; it is about to be solved using software)
Kevin J O'Brien, Microsoft's bid for 'open' document format is unexpectedly rebuffed, IHT, 2007 Sep. 4 (a global panel of software experts Tuesday unexpectedly rebuffed Microsoft's bid to get its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard, complicating the software maker's effort to extend its dominance to the burgeoning field of "open" documents)
Michael Fitzgerald, Scrybe, an information manager to organize our many organizers, IHT, 2007 Sep. 2 (Scrybe's tools include a clever interface that features zooming calendar boxes that become bigger when scrolled over; the ability to print in multiple formats, including wallet- and pocket-friendly versions; and a novel notepad that accepts text and images from the Web as well as the usual typed-in notes)
Speech Processing and Translation(see also in Social) up  down  top   back  on

David Smith, Computer turns prosaic dunces into lyrical poets, Observer, 2007 Sep. 30 (software claims to hone anyone's written English)
Edmund Tadros, Photocopier that speaks English, Japanese, Chinese, The Age, 2007 Sep. 30 (Japanese company Fuji Xerox has demonstrated a photocopier that can translate text into a number of languages while keeping the original formatting of the document)
Geoff Adams-Spink, Virtual worlds open up to blind, BBC, 2007 Sep. 17 (online virtual worlds could soon be accessible to blind people thanks to research by students at IBM in Ireland)
Geoff Adams-Spink, Technique links words to signing, BBC, 2007 Sep. 15 (a group of students working for IBM develops technology that automatically converts the spoken word to British Sign Language)
Liz Seward, Scientists warn of 'vocal terror', BBC, 2007 Sep. 14 (computer simulations of the voice are becoming so good that they might pose security concerns)
Video Gaming(see also Skills) up   first    top   back  on

Aleks Krotoski, Comment: Pac-Man's evil children, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 27 (the Halo 3 frenzy reflects a rise in the popularity of computer games that has traditional media fretting)
Computer game hots up if kids act bored, New Scientist, 2007 Sep. 24 (by analysing users' responses, a new program predicts how much fun a game is, and can change the play to keep excitement levels high)
Laura Parker, The $300m space invader, The Age, 2007 Sep. 24 (a computer game about rebel humans battling evil aliens who have taken control of the Earth could become the biggest phenomenon in entertainment history)
Asher Moses, Now it's nantendo: elderly game for new technology, The Age, 2007 Sep. 24 (forget knitting, bridge and bingo; residents at the Amity nursing home in Greenacre are hooked on a new pastime: Nintendo Wii)
Reuters, AP, Another setback for Sony's PlayStation 3, IHT, 2007 Sep. 20 (Sony said Thursday that it was putting off the start of its "Home" virtual world service for PlayStation 3 until spring)
Asher Moses, Online 'soapie' game to help troubled youth, The Age, 2007 Sep. 17 (a youth welfare group has come up with a novel way to improve mental health in young people: an online video game)
Daniel Ziffer, Girls just wanna have fun as video game sales boom, The Age, 2007 Sep. 15 (video games were once the domain of young males, but that is changing as the industry embraces new audiences, particularly women)
Aleks Krotoski, I am living in terror of an assassin with a water gun, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 13 (computer games do not prepare you for a real-life first-person shooter, and I am not James Bond)
Guardian, To kill or not to kill - you decide, The Age, 2007 Sep. 11 (games such as BioShock present players with real moral choices)
Technology Quarterly: The ultimate game gear, Economist, 2007 Sep. 8 (new furniture, controllers and screens are helping to make video games even more immersive and realistic)
James Meikle and Tania Branigan, Internet controls or citizen service, rival leaders tackle child protection, Guardian, 2007 Sep. 7 (TV psychologist to head online and video review; Tories outline 'patriotic' volunteering for teenagers)
Reuters, Online features boost video game revenue, The Age, 2007 Sep. 7 (video games with online components bring in more than twice the revenue as those played offline, a research firm said in a report to be published on Thursday)
Nintendo dominates in console war, BBC, 2007 Sep. 3 (Nintendo sold nearly a quarter of a million machines in Japan during August, whilst Sony sold just over 80,000 PlayStation 3s and Microsoft just 11,000 Xbox 360s)
Margaret Robertson, State of Play: Man versus machine, BBC, 2007 Aug. 28 (computers playing computer games may sound odd, but it's an example of the ongoing man versus machine debate)