Robot - and gardener: MIT droids tend plants

A class of undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created a set of robots that can water, harvest and pollinate cherry tomato plants. The small, $3,000 robots, which move through the garden on a base similar to a Roomba vacuum, are networked to the plants. When the plants indicate they need water, the robots can sprinkle them from a water pump. When the plants have a ripe tomato, the machines use their arms to pluck the fruit. Even though robots have made few inroads into agriculture, these robots' creators hope their technology eventually could be used by farmers to reduce the natural resources and the difficult labor needed to tend crops. Last spring, Daniela Rus, a professor who runs the Distributed Robotics Lab at MIT, began a two-part course. In the first semester, the students learned the basics of creating and using robots. By the fall, the students were ready to have robots tackle a real-world problem. Rus and Nikolaus Correll, a postdoctoral assistant in Rus' lab, challenged the students to create a "distributed robotic garden" by the end of the semester. The 12 students broke into groups, each tasked with solving a different problem, such as creating the mechanical arm needed to harvest the tomatoes or perfecting the network that let the plants and robots share information. By the end of the fall term, the "garden" inside Rus' lab was green and growing. Now there are four cherry tomato plants nestled into a plywood base covered in fake grass. Next to each pot is a gray docking station for the robots.

AT&T Offer $50 Netbooks....!!!!!!

AT&T will begin selling netbooks with integrated wireless Internet cards, selling them for as low as $50 — with a data plan contract, of course. The rollout will begin in Atlanta and Philadelphia. AT&T is also looking to enter the e-book market, according a company exec quoted by Bloomberg at the recent trade show in Las Vegas hosted by industry organization CTIA Wireless: The Kindle, which lets users download books over Sprint Nextel Corp.'s network, has done a "phenomenal job," and AT&T wants to be part of that market, Glenn Lurie, head of emerging devices at AT&T, said today. — Bloomberg.com Verizon has also expressed interest in entering the e-reader fray, saying it had been approached by five (undisclosed) companies interested in a wireless connection like that of the Kindle. The takeaway: AT&T's netbook announcement, along with an earlier one from Verizon, suggests these tiny laptops are increasingly being positioned as much as an additional mobile network-connected device as a supplemental computer. It's unclear if the AT&T exec's remarks on e-readers are anything more than an off-the-cuff response to the success of the Kindle. But the notion of another carrier joining Sprint — the carrier the Kindle uses — in the e-book business is intriguing.



Wireless access to content is one of the most compelling aspects of the Kindle, giving it the edge over competitors like the Sony Reader (which we've covered in the past). The other is access to the huge library of e-content — Amazon's 250,000 Kindle titles in the case of the Kindle. And to offer a compelling option to the Kindle, AT&T, Verizon, or any other carrier, will need to find a content partner with a competitive library. It isn't immediately clear who might be able to offer that (perhaps other than Sony, with its Reader library.)

Audi S8 - 2009

The 2009 Audi S8 offers a good bundle of driver aids, including adaptive cruise control and blind spot detection. It has a good iPod interface, an excellent Bluetooth cell phone system, and an exceptional stereo--with the right kind of music. Its Quattro all-wheel-drive and air suspension deliver good control. The navigation system is badly in need of an update and offers no advanced features. Fuel economy is abysmal. The 2009 Audi S8 is a very powerful big sedan with some excellent handling features, but it doesn't offer all of the latest in-dash gizmos, and you trade a luxury ride for performance. Specifications: Body style: Sedan ; Trim levels: S8 ; Available Engine: Gas

Samsung (T-Mobile) SGH-T639

Product summary The good: The Samsung SGH-T639 has decent call quality and a solid feature set including Bluetooth, a speakerphone, and a music player. The bad: The Samsung SGH-T639 has flat controls and a sensitive audio sweet spot. Also, it lacks voice commands, and its 3G services are not yet operable.



The bottom line: Though it's not 3G quite yet, the Samsung SGH-T639 is a satisfying midrange phone in the meantime. Specifications: Band / mode: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband) ; Talk time: Up to 240 min ; Combined with: With digital camera / digital player ;

HTC Mogul PPC-6800 (Sprint)....

Product summary The good: The Sprint Mogul by HTC runs the latest Windows Mobile 6, has more memory included, and has a thinner design. It also boasts Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and EV-DO support as well as a 2-megapixel camera. Sprint will also offer an over-the-air update post-launch that gives you access to the Sprint Music Store.



The bad: Some elements of the Mogul's hardware as well as speakerphone volume and quality is sub-par. A slower processor and limited program memory can sometimes slow down performance.



The bottom line: The Sprint Mogul by HTC brings some needed design and feature updates to its predecessor, and refreshes the carrier's staid lineup of smartphones. It has some performance issues, but is worth the upgrade. Specifications: OS provided: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional ; Installed RAM: 64 MB ; Processor: QUALCOMM 400 MHzMSM7500

AT&T try to sell wireless broadband laptops

AT&T Inc. is going to go beyond cell phones and test selling laptops in its stores in Atlanta and Philadelphia.
The move, announced Wednesday at a trade show in Las Vegas, comes as the cell phone market is starting to saturate, and wireless carriers are looking for ways to expand into other gadgets.
Just as it does with cell phones, the phone company will subsidize the price of laptops when the customer signs a two-year contract.

In Atlanta, customers will be able to buy a small "netbook"-type laptop for $50 if they sign up for home and wireless broadband service for $60 per month.
That offer is also new for AT&T: it normally charges $60 per month for wireless access alone. It is being tested only in Atlanta.
AT&T stores in both Atlanta and Philadelphia will be selling more expensive laptops as well, ranging up to a Lenovo X200 for $850 when bought with wireless broadband. Lenovo Group Ltd. sells it for $1,120.

Dallas-based AT&T started subsidizing netbooks sold at RadioShack Corp. stores late last year, bringing the price to $100, down from $500, for buyers who signed up for wireless broadband.

Giant Internet worm set to change tactics April 1

SAN FRANCISCO - The fast-moving Conficker computer worm, a scourge of the Internet that has infected at least 3 million PCs, is set to spring to life in a new way on Wednesday — April Fools' Day.

That's when many of the poisoned machines will get more aggressive about "phoning home" to the worm's creators over the Internet. When that happens, the bad guys behind the worm will be able to trigger the program to send spam, spread more infections, clog networks with traffic, or try and bring down Web sites.

Technically, this could cause havoc, from massive network outages to the creation of a cyberweapon of mass destruction that attacks government computers. But researchers who have been tracking Conficker say the date will probably come and go quietly.

More likely, these researchers say, the programming change that goes into effect April 1 is partly symbolic — an April Fools' Day tweaking of Conficker's pursuers, who for now have been able to prevent the worm from doing significant damage.

"I don't think there will be a cataclysmic network event," said Richard Wang, manager of the U.S. research division of security firm Sophos PLC. "It doesn't make sense for the guys behind Conficker to cause a major network problem, because if they're breaking parts of the Internet they can't make any money."

Previous Internet threats were designed to cause haphazard destruction. In 2003 a worm known as Slammer saturated the Internet's data pipelines with so much traffic it crippled corporate and government systems, including ATM networks and 911 centers.

Far more often now, Internet threats are designed to ring up profits. Control of infected PCs is valuable on the black market, since the machines can be rented out, from one group of bad guys to another, and act as a kind of illicit supercomputer, sending spam, scanning Web sites for security holes, or participating in network attacks.

The army of Conficker-infected machines, known as a "botnet," could be one of the greatest cybercrime tools ever assembled. Conficker's authors just need to figure out a way to reliably communicate with it.

Infected PCs need commands to come alive. They get those commands by connecting to Web sites controlled by the bad guys. Even legitimate sites can be co-opted for this purpose, if hackers break in and use the sites' servers to send out malicious commands.

So far, Conficker-infected machines have been trying to connect each day to 250 Internet domains — the spots on the Internet where Web sites are parked. The bad guys need to get just one of those sites under their control to send their commands to the botnet. (The name Conficker comes from rearranging letters in the name of one of the original sites the worm was connecting to.)

Conficker has been a victim of its success, however, because its rapid spread across the Internet drew the notice of computer security companies. They have been able to work with domain name registrars, which administer Web site addresses, to block the botnet from dialing in.

Now those efforts will get much harder. On April 1, many Conficker-infected machines will generate a list of 50,000 new domains a day that they could try. Of that group, the botnet will randomly select 500 for the machines to actually query.

The bad guys still need to get only one of those up and running to connect to their botnet. And the bigger list of possibilities increases the odds they'll slip something by the security community.

Researchers already know which domains the infected machines will check, but pre-emptively registering them all, or persuading the registrars to neutralize all of them, is a bigger hurdle.

"We expect something will happen, but we don't quite know what it will look like," said Jose Nazario, manager of security research for Arbor Networks, a member of the "Conficker Cabal," an alliance trying to hunt down the worm's authors.

"With every move that they make, there's the potential to identify who they are, where they're located and what we can do about them," he added. "The real challenge right now is doing all that work around the world. That's not a technical challenge, but it is a logistical challenge."

Conficker's authors also have updated the worm so infected machines have new ways to talk to each other

growth of iPhone gaming submitted by iGames Summit

When the iPhone was first announced, few people would have anticipated the waves the device would make in the gaming community.

 Now, only a few days before San Francisco’s Game Developers Conference, a separate iGames Summit addressed the growing popularity of the iPhone gaming platform.

New Laptop Technology

Laptop or notebook computer technology is advancing at
a blistering speed. Ferrari fast. So fast that by the time
you purchase your new laptop, it's probably already
obsolete or out of date. A sobering thought considering
the hefty prices you have to pay for a high-end laptop.

But laptop technology is changing so fast new innovations
are coming on stream.There is a
whole new generation of notebook technology every two years
or less. Therefore, unless you buy or upgrade your laptop
each year you're falling behind what these sleek little
powerhouses can now deliver.

What you really have to keep in mind are the outcomes
of all this new technology.?
Basically, these new technologies have made laptops smaller, faster and more powerful. With every new improvement the laptop is closing the gap between its main rival -- the desktop computer.Notebook computers are now out-selling desktops for the first time in history. Laptops are replacing the old desktop computer, whose days may just be numbered. It won't be long before laptops are also out-performing them as well.

Here's a quick run down of some recent Notebook Developments:

Sonoma Chipset
The new Sonoma Platform, Intel's next-generation Centrino
Chipset is already on the market. Members of the Sonoma
club are growing daily - Sony, IBM/Lenovo, BenQ, Dell,
Samsung, Acer, and Toshiba... another 80 or 90
'Sonoma-endowed' products will be released very shortly.First, wireless connections will be easier with the integrated tri-mode 802.11a/b/g, already dubbed by some as the 'wireless trinity'! This will make it easier to stay
connected no matter where you are. Improved performance will be experienced because the new Pentium M's have a 533MHz frontside bus, supported with up to 2GB of DDR2 DRAM, Serial ATA Hard Drive, and
PCI Express, plus improved integrated graphics, including Intel's Hi-Def Audio. All are possible with the Sonoma
Platform.

PCI Express
PCI(Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express is a new
standard for expansion cards that comes in different
versions. Presently, we have the x16 and x1 lanes, which
will be followed by x4 and x8 versions. It offers increased
bandwidth for example, x1 lane offers 500MB/sec instead of
just 133MB/sec for PCI.

Graphics Card
These are always improving. A Graphics Card handles the
graphics or visuals on your notebook. If 3D graphics and
games is a pastime, you will want to buy the highest
quality system. Some of the higher end products are:
ATi Mobility Radeon 9800, X800, and FireGL V3200 or
Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator 900.If you can, go with a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 graphics
card or for the real game diehards.Gamers will be aware of NVIDIA SLI technology, ATI's
CrossFire and Hyperthreading. All new stuff that's
bringing the gaming experience up to a higher level of
perfection that would even be worthy of a Spielberg or
a Lucas Production.

64 Bit Laptops

Most systems today run on the 32 Bit System. Keep in mind,
the major difference between a 32-bit and a 64-bit system
is the amount of memory that they support. Around 4 GB for
32-bit and 8 GB and up for the 64-bit. Right now -- Intel,
Apple, and AMD all offer 64-bit systems.

Dual Core Notebooks
Two is better than one!
Dual core laptops are now on the market. The gaming industry
is the starting point for many of these advanced systems.
For example, the British Laptop maker Rockdirect now produces
Xtreme 64, a gaming laptop with AMD’s new dual core Athlon 64
X2 processor. This same laptop also sports the ATI Mobility
Radeon X800 XT graphics card that features 16 pixel pipelines,
an industry first for notebooks.

Built-in Cellular Modem
Most high-end laptops now come with an integrated
tri-mode 802.11a/b/g for wireless WI-FI connections.

The Avant-Garde: LumiLED Display
Be on the look-out for LED monitors in the near future.
The brightness, colors and backlighting technology in LED
monitors will be quite different from LCD displays.

On the Horizon:
19 or 20 Inch Laptop Screens
There is a rumor, only a rumor, that Dell is coming out
with a 19-inch laptop in early 2006. There is also buzz
that LG-Philips has a 20-inch LCD panel which could easily
be used by laptop makers if they want to explore this
market area. Andre the giant will be pleased!