Panasonic Toughbook 30

Priced at $3,649, some users may think that Panasonic have overdone their sarcasm on this one but as you can see the latest Toughbook 30 is one serious looking laptop. You see what I always think is that not many jobs really warrant someone to need to buy a Toughbook, I mean you wouldn’t have one of these if you just worked in an office all day even though its pretty cool. The main difference from the Toughbook 30 from previous Toughbooks is that this one sports Intel’s Centrino 2 with vPro, expanded memory capabilities, 40 percent longer battery life, larger capacity hard drives and optional SSDs. Full breakdown of specs and gallery after the break…

Panasonic Toughbook 30 Clamshell Laptop: Select Features and Specifications*

– Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo SL9300 1.6GHz

– Intel(R) Centrino(R) 2 with vPro(TM) technology

– 6MB L2 Cache

– 1066 MHz FSB

– 2-4GB DDR2 RAM (667 MHz)

– Intel(R) GS45 (GMA 4500MHD) video adapter

– 13.3″ display

– Circular polarization, anti-glare and anti-reflective screen
treatments
Checked out our new photo gallery page yet? We would love to hear some feedback from you!


– 9 to 1000 nit LCD brightness (touchscreen model)

– Concealed Mode

– Intel Wireless WiFi Link 5100

– 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n

– Optional Gobi 3G Global Mobile Internet (HSPA, EV-DO Rev. A)

– 160GB SATA (shock-mounted & quick-release) hard drive

– Optional 32GB SSD

– Up to 10 hour battery life (14 hours including optional 2nd battery)

For additional Toughbook 30 product specifications, go to: http://www.panasonic.com//toughbook/30

Panasonic Toughbook 19 Convertible Tablet PC: Select Features and Specifications*

– Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo SU9300 1.2GHz

– Intel(R) Centrino(R) 2 with vPro(TM) technology

– 3MB L2 Cache

– 800 MHz FSB

– 2-4GB DDR2 RAM (667 MHz)

– 10.4″ LED backlit display

– Circular polarization

– 4 to 1000 nit LCD brightness

– Concealed Mode

– Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 5100

– 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n

– Optional Gobi 3G Global Mobile Internet (HSPA, EV-DO Rev. A)

– 160GB SATA (shock-mounted & quick-release) hard drive

– Optional 32GB SSD

– Touchscreen display or optional dual touch display (Digitizer +
Touchscreen)

– Up to 10 hour battery life

For additional Toughbook 19 product specifications, go to: http://www.panasonic.com//toughbook/19

Brown sets targets for science

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has set targets to increase the number of pupils in secondary school in England taking science subjects. 

In the next five years, Mr Brown wants to double the number of pupils taking "triple science", which includes biology, chemistry and physics. 

He also wants to have access to science as single subjects in 90% of schools. 

Mr Brown, speaking at Oxford University, says he wants to "ring-fence" science during the recession. 

The prime minister emphasised the economic importance of protecting the investment in science. 

Teacher training 

"Some say that now is not the time to invest, but the bottom line is that the downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science. We will not allow science to become a victim of the recession," said Mr Brown.  
There were promises to help redundant workers re-train as teachers


There were also promises to offer "personalised support from education consultants" for graduates made redundant from science and technology companies who are considering re-training as maths or science teachers. 

Mr Brown set out targets to increase the number of pupils taking the triple science option, at present taken by 8.5% of students. By 2014, he said he wanted to double this figure, representing an extra 100,000 pupils. 

There was also a target to increase the number of pupils taking A-level maths, from 56,000 to 80,000 in the next five years. 

The Conservatives' Schools Secretary, Michael Gove, rejected the promises. 

"The government's latest promises are completely meaningless given Labour's appalling record on science. 

"The reality is that thanks to their reforms the number of children taking only one science GCSE has doubled in the last year alone, and there are whole areas of the country where not a single child sits three sciences at GCSE." 

Specialist teachers 

Mike Harris of the Institute of Directors said there was an important economic need to provide specialist science and maths teachers in schools to help nurture the subject and to protect the supply of graduates in these fields. 

"The uncomfortable reality is that despite reservoirs of good will, considerable industry engagement and positive government intervention, the number of graduates in the key Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] disciplines has at best remained pretty flat in recent years. This must be turned around, and quickly." 

There have been warnings about the difficulty in recruiting specialist science teachers. 

Last summer, a report from the University of Buckingham found that almost one in four secondary schools in England no longer has any specialist physics teachers. 

On the wider issues associated with the "knowledge economy", Mr Brown stressed that he would maintain the increased momentum in expenditure he outlined as Chancellor in the 2004, in his 10-year Science and Innovation Investment Framework. 

This should see public spend in the science base of the UK rise to £6.3bn by 2010/2011.

LG GD900 Crystal with transparent keyboard

The LG GD900 Crystal which LG debuted at the GSMA World Congress, will be the world’s first phone with a transparent design handset. Not everything on the slider handset is transparent but the rear slider is translucent and the keypad gives off a brilliant glittering glow. Specs on technical details on the LG GD900 was limited, but LG will make sure to bring out the specs for review later this year.Expect the LG GD900 clear handset phone to show up in stores sometime in the third quarter of 2009. When the phone gets opened, it will be sure to attract everyone’s attention, since a light will illuminate the transparent keyboard, watch the video below and see how it works.According to the manufacturer, the device will not be just a fashion accessory (I’m sure that’s what you are thinking right now ), but will also incorporate high-tech features and will come with a bluetooth headset which will be just as impressive!

Latest LG solar phone concept from MWC

Here are pictures of LG’s latest concept phone from the MWC last week, it is equipped with solar panels allowing it to help the environment by reducing the need to use non-renewable resources. When you think of technology and gadgets that harvest solar energy I tend to think of large chunky panels but in fact the concept phone below is quite the opposite.It’s a slider phone and though its just a prototype, 10 minutes of charging under natural light could give 3 minutes of run time, that’s not bad at all considering that power has just come out of no where

Google users hit by mail blackout

Google has apologised for the outage that hit business and consumer users of its popular e-mail service. 

The GMail service went offline at 0930 GMT and, Google claims, was unavailable to all for "approximately two and a half hours". 

But anecdotal evidence suggests it was out of action for many users for about four hours - one of the longest downtimes ever suffered by Google. 

More than 113 million people use Google mail worldwide, according to comScore. 

In a statement posted on its official Google blog it said: "We're really sorry about this, and we did do everything to restore access as soon as we could.". 

It said its engineers were still investigating the "root cause" of the problem. 

"We know how important GMail is to our users so we take this very seriously," it added. 

It said that those getting back into their e-mail may have to fill in a captcha form that asks people to decipher and re-type some scrambled letters before getting access to messages. 

According to comScore, Google has the world's third most popular web mail service behind Hotmail with 283 million users and Yahoo with 274 million e-mail users. 

Professional suite 

More than a million business around the world use Google's professional suite of applications, including e-mail. Google itself relies on the service and press spokespeople for the firm were unable to e-mail journalists with statements regarding the problem. 

Professional users are covered by a service level agreement that promises to be 99.9% operational in any calendar month. 

The "premier edition" of the Apps service costs $50 (£34) per user for a year. 

According to Google, its e-mail service suffered an average of 10 to 15 minutes of downtime per month in 2008. 

The last outage of note was in August 2008 when users were unable to use Google Mail for "a couple of hours". 

After the incident Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Mail, said in a blog post: "We're conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly." 

On its support page for Google Mail, the firm said "A number of users have had difficulty accessing GMail today. 

"The majority are now able to access their e-mail accounts again and we're hoping to have service restored for the remainder very soon."

How to install and run Mac OS X on Dell Mini 9 netbook

There isn’t yet a netbook from Apple at the moment and as you will be able to recall on the post in which we wrote about netbooks which were capable of running Mac OS X, only the Dell Mini 9 and MSI Wind achieved full scores. That’s why there is now a proper guide released from Gizmodo showing you how you could install and run Mac OS X on your Dell Mini 9 and hackintosh it into a proper Mac netbook (or mini MacBook?). So before you get started, you will need to make sure you have the following.

Dell Mini 9 With 16GB SSD or higher (8GB SSDs will techincally work, but it will take some fiddling not covered by this guide)
Retail copy of OS X 10.5.x (NOT an OEM copy that comes with a new Mac)
A USB flash drive 8GB or higher
An external USB DVD drive
The “Type11″ Bootloader: DellMiniBoot123v8.01.iso.zip (download link in this forum post)
Blank CD to burn bootloader image (I actually used version 8.0 of Type11 on my CD-if your boot process with 8.01 is different than what’s spelled out in this guide, you can download 8.0 here. Both should work.)
Windows PC for preparing the flash drive (if DVD drive works fine, this is optional)

As you can see this guide does require you to already have purchased a few things, it’s advisable to have the 16GB SSD version rather than the 8GB SSD Mini 9 which we featured recently in our review. You will also need to have a retail copy of Mac OS X and not the one you got given when you purchased a Mac.

Stealthier Mac Attacks

A new technique lets hackers targeting Apple's OS X cover their tracks more effectively.Fans of Apple computers often boast about superior security. But as Macs have gained in popularity over the past few years, this has brought much more attention from hackers. At a presentation scheduled to take place today at the Black Hat DC computer-security conference in Washington, DC, one security expert will reveal a technique for attacking the Mac operating system--OS X--without leaving a trace.

Similar techniques have targeted both Windows and Linux machines for several years. They allow an attacker to cover her tracks, eliminating vital evidence that an investigator might normally use to prove that a machine has been compromised; they might also allow the investigator to put together details of the incident. Bringing the technique to the Mac, however, required a significantly more sophisticated approach.

The technique that will be outlined at Black Hat DC allows an attacker to remove virtually all trace of an attack against OS X, after compromising the system using another exploit.

Vincenzo Iozzo, a student at the Politecnico di Milano, in Italy, explains that the technique allows an attacker to break into a machine without leaving a trace in its permanent memory, which means that evidence of the attack will disappear as soon as the victim's computer is turned off. Such a technique could be used, for example, in combination with another software flaw to covertly replace a legitimate version of Apple's Safari Web browser with a malicious one that logs the user's keystrokes and sends them to the attacker.

Normally, when a user runs an application, the code runs in various parts of the computer's memory. In OS X, a file format called Mach-O is used to specify where in the computer's memory the application's processes should run. Iozzo studied the Mach-O file format in order to predict in advance where these processes could be found. The technique identifies an active process (such as that for Safari) and injects malicious code into the space in memory where it is running. When the system reads from the expected location, it executes the attacker's code instead of the legitimate program. Since the technique leaves no trace, Iozzo says that it can only be detected using software that watches for intrusions on a network.

Predicting where to inject the malicious code is made more difficult by a security feature in OS X that stores the variables needed to keep the attack untraceable in random locations within memory. However, Iozzo discovered a way to anticipate where the variables would be stored based on pieces of information that remain unchanged.
Dino Dai Zovi, an independent security researcher who specializes in Macs, says that Iozzo's work is "very interesting," particularly given the difficulties that he needed to overcome to make the stealthy technique work on OS X.

Dai Zovi says that, for now, there are few Mac attacks sophisticated enough to need protection of this kind. But he adds that the technique could prove an effective way to get past advanced antivirus software in the future.

Attackers haven't focused much on the Mac to date because its smaller audience means smaller potential gains. But Dai Zovi notes that this is starting to change, and he says that researching the system's vulnerabilities now should give defenders time to prepare for future malware.

Iozzo says that it may take time for Apple to respond to his technique because it exploits fundamental elements of the operating system's structure that can't be changed with a simple software patch. He says that it may require a larger upgrade, such as the introduction of the new version of OS X, called Snow Leopard, which is scheduled to ship in 2010.

In the meantime, Iozzo says that users can protect themselves by keeping their systems up to date with any security patches released for OS X. Since the technique relies on other flaws that an attacker might exploit, users should focus on reducing those other threats as much as possible, he says.

However, the technique could soon pose a threat to another kind of device. Iozzo says that he is currently working with another security researcher to extend his technique to the iPhone.

17-inch MacBook Pro unibody non-removable battery can be removed

So after some geekiness this morning, let's get back on track and show you some interesting gadget dissection findings courtesy of iFixIt. The folks there recently got their geeky surgical hands on Apple latest MacBook Pro which features a new type of battery technology which as you would expect from the likes of the Apple iPhone - it's not removable (by ourselves that is).

So as you will have already guessed, this new MacBook Pro battery is actually removable. found out that the battery is actually removable. Though requiring bottom chassis access, the battery was not difficult to replace or remove. Apple secured the battery with three tri-wing battery inside the MacBook Pro’s case. But the main good news is that users can definitely replace the battery by themselves but it will most likely break Apple’s warranty.

So as you will have already guessed, this new MacBook Pro battery is actually removable. found out that the battery is actually removable. Though requiring bottom chassis access, the battery was not difficult to replace or remove. Apple secured the battery with three tri-wing battery inside the MacBook Pro’s case. But the main good news is that users can definitely replace the battery by themselves but it will most likely break Apple’s warranty.

Hackers target Xbox Live players

Xbox Live is being targeted by malicious hackers selling services that kick players off the network. 

The booting services are proving popular with players who want a way to get revenge on those who beat them in an Xbox Live game. 

The attackers are employing data flooding tools that have been used against websites for many years. 

Microsoft is "investigating" the use of the tools and said those caught using them would be banned from Xbox Live. 

"There's been a definite increase in the amount of people talking about and distributing these things over the last three to four weeks," said Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Communications. 

Attack tool 

"The smart thing about these Xbox tools is that they do not attack the Xbox Live network itself," he said. 

He said the tools work by exploiting the way that the Xbox Live network is set up. Game consoles connecting to the Xbox network send data via the net, and for that it needs an IP address. 

Even better, said Mr Boyd, games played via Xbox Live are not hosted on private servers.  
The tools mean anyone with a few dollars can boot rivals off Xbox Live


"Instead," he said, "a lot of games on Xbox Live are hosted by players." 

If hackers can discover the IP address of whoever is hosting a game they can employ many of the attacks that have been used for years against websites, said Mr Boyd. 

One of the most popular for the Xbox Live specialists is the Denial of Service attack which floods an IP address with vast amounts of data. 

The flood of data is generated by a group of hijacked home computers, a botnet, that have fallen under the control of a malicious hacking group. 

When turned against a website this flood of traffic can overwhelm it or make it unresponsive to legitimate visitors. 

When turned against an Xbox owner, it can mean they cannot connect to the Live network and effectively throws them out of the game. 

"They get your IP address, put it in the booter tool and they attempt to flood the port that uses Xbox traffic," said Mr Boyd. "Flooding that port prevents any traffic getting out." 

Skill set 

The hard part, he said, was discovering a particular gamer's IP address but many malicious hackers had honed the skills needed to find them. 

Some interconnect their PC and Xbox and use packet sniffing software to hunt through the traffic flowing in and out of the console for IP addresses.  
The hackers target the way Xbox consoles connect to the net


Others simply use con tricks to get the target to reveal their net address. 

The technical knowledge needed to hunt down IP addresses was quite high, said Mr Boyd, but many of those who had the skills were selling their expertise to those keen to hit back at their rivals on the Xbox Live network. 

For $20 (£13) some Xbox Live hackers will remotely access a customer's PC and set up the whole system so it can be run any time they need it. 

Some offer low rates to add compromised machines to a botnet and increase the amount of data flooding a particular IP address. 

Defending against the attack could be tricky, said Mr Boyd: "There's no real easy solution to this one." 

Although IP addresses regularly change, people could find it takes hours or days for their ISP to move them on to a new one. 

In response to the rise in attacks, Microsoft said: "We are investigating reports involving the use of malicious software tools that an attacker could use to try and disrupt an Xbox LIVE player's internet connection." 

It added: "This problem is not related to the Xbox Live service, but to the player's internet connection. The attacker could also attempt [to] disrupt other internet activities, such as streaming video or web browsing, using the same tools. 

In its statement Microsoft warned: "This malicious activity violates the Xbox Live Terms of Use, and will result in a ban from Xbox Live and other appropriate action. 

It urged anyone falling victim to such an attack to contact their ISP to report it and get help fixing it. 

In January 2009 Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had more than 17m members.

Nokia N86 8-megapixel camera phone

This year’s Mobile World Congress hasn’t been a massive event for Nokia, but they have now unveiled the next and upcoming N-Series flagship. The new Nokia N86 is a slider phone featuring an 8 megapixal camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, autofocus, fast mechanical shutter that should reduce motion blur and a dual-LED flash. Importantly, photos can be geotagged due to the integrated GPS. It also has a 8GB internal memory with a TV-out and a microSD slot. It has a numeric keypad with t9ers, good news for txters. Other highlights of the Symbian S60 phone include a 2.6-inch, scratch-resistant OLED display, stereo Bluetooth support, Wi-Fi, e-mail support, an FM transmitter, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.Overall, it is a nice and easy to use phone. 

RACE TO FIND ALIEN EARTHS

NASA is gearing up for a space race that's expected to point to the first truly Earthlike worlds beyond our solar system - and, like the race to put the first human on the moon, this marathon will take several years to run.

The roots of the race go back more than a decade, as astrophysicist Alan Boss explains in his new book, "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets." That's when pioneers in the planet-hunting field started detecting worlds around suns beyond our own.

The techniques used back then couldn't find other Earths in planetary systems like our own. The first method, pioneered by Polish astronomer Alexander Wolszczan at the Arecibo Observatory in 1991, could detect Earth-scale planets (and perhaps even the first known extrasolar dwarf planet) around radio pulsars - but those planets were thought to be burned-out cinders and not Earthlike at all.

In 1995, astronomers began reporting the detection of Jupiter-scale planets around normal stars, by precisely measuring the gravitational wobble those planets induce in the stars themselves. (Our interactive tutorial explains how it's done.) As the years have gone by, planet-hunters have gotten smarter about using that "Doppler wobble" technique, and they've also trained sensitive telescopes on faraway stars to measure the slight dimming in their light as alien planets make their transits over the stars' disks.

This transit method takes center stage in the next phase of the planet-hunting space race: The European Space Agency's Corot satellite, which was launched a little more than two years ago, has a head start. Just this month, members of the Corot science team announced the discovery of a "hot super-Earth" that is less than twice Earth's size.

Next month, NASA picks up the pace with the launch of its Kepler satellite, equipped with a planet-seeking telescope that has some advantages over Corot. Astronomers expect Kepler to turn up some true Earthlike planets, in Earthlike orbits, around sunlike stars.

"If Kepler comes up empty-handed - boy, it'll turn out to be virtual harakiri," Boss, a member of the Kepler science team, told me earlier this month. "But there's little chance of that."

The first fruits of the $550 million Kepler mission won't be the coolest alien Earths, Boss cautioned. "Often the oddballs are the earliest ones to find, for some reason," he said. Boss expects the Kepler team to announce the mission's first discoveries of hot Jupiters and hot super-Earths within a month after science operations begin.

The biggest factor behind that schedule has to do with the time scale of a planet's orbit. It takes at least three orbits for astronomers to confirm that the dimming of the star is really caused by a planet rather than, say, the brightness cycles of a variable star or a binary-star system. If the planet is extremely close to its star - which would be an oddball orbit by solar system standards - that won't take long. For example, the hot super-Earth identified by Corot completes an orbit in just 20 hours.

Farther-out planets will require more time to orbit, and therefore more time to detect.

"The earth, by definition, will take at least three years to get," Boss said. "Roughly four years from now, we will be beginning to make our claims for Earthlike planets around solar-type stars."

Boss' book traces the buildup to the Kepler mission through a series of time-stamped entries, reading almost like a diary. It's often been said that politics can get as messy as sausage-making - and based on Boss' accounts of Kepler's budgetary travails, the same can be said for pre-launch mission planning.

Along the way, Boss also delves into the deep scientific issues of the planet search:
Are new planets built from the core up, like dirty snowballs, or do they whirl into shape like stars are thought to do? (Boss says both processes come into play.)

How do you define stars, brown dwarfs, sub-brown dwarfs, planets and dwarf planets? (Boss was involved in many of those discussions, including the IAU's efforts to define planethood.)

What will it mean if (or when) Kepler finds those alien Earths? (Boss says finding out how many such planets exist among the more than 100,000 star systems that Kepler is expected to survey will reveal "the most basic parameter in any estimate of the prevalence of life in the universe.")

Kepler's primary mission is due to last three and a half years, but Boss hopes that the spacecraft will be up for some extra laps around the racetrack. Which mission will be the first to reveal just how common alien Earths are? Corot or Kepler? Considering that Boss is on Kepler's team, he's not the best person to handicap this race objectively. But in the end, it doesn't really matter who reaches the finish line first.

"Either way," he writes, "after centuries - if not millennia - of speculation and wondering, we will finally know just how crowded the universe really is."

SMART PHONE USERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF MALWARE

It isn't only the president who needs extra security for his BlackBerry. All of us with smartphones that have Internet access, e-mail and the ability to handle sensitive written or financial documents should consider paying closer attention to where and how we're using the devices, experts say. 

Most of all, they say, know where your phone is at all times and don't leave it in the care of strangers or by itself on a desk at work. The latter is something a lot of us certainly do.

"There's software out there that will let people image what's on a phone, or download that information in a matter of minutes, put it back on a desk and nobody will know their information is lost," said Michael Kessler, president of Kessler International. The computer and cell phone forensics company works with government agencies, as well as corporate clients and law firms. 

"We see that in situations where temporary employees will come into a business, and have access to the work area. People leave their phones on their desks. And it's just a matter of someone picking up the phone, downloading the information from another cubicle, then sticking the phone back on the desk, and you never know your information has been downloaded." 

Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer for the SANS Institute, a security research organization, says the biggest threat for cell phone users is leaving their devices behind somewhere, or losing them. And perhaps putting too much data on the device.

"The information stored on a phone should be limited to information that is required while on the move," he said. "Some phones allow the user to store spreadsheets and other office documents. If any passwords are stored on the phone, they should be encrypted."

Check the cab
In a report last fall, "Guidelines on Cell Phone and PDA Security," the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Computer Security Division cited a report which said there would be 8 million phones lost in 2007, including 700,000 smartphones. 

The government agency also said that one Chicago taxi company recorded more than 85,600 cell phones and 21,400 personal digital assistants left behind in the company's taxis during a six-month period, compared to more than 4,400 laptops. 

So far, NIST noted, problems from malicious software, or malware, including spyware, viruses and spam, have been "limited" on cell phones compared with desktop and networked computers. 

The agency said that's largely because of the number of different operating systems, including Windows, BlackBerry, Apple's Mac OS, Linux, Symbian and Palm, on cell phones which helps fragment the number of "potential homogeneous targets." 

That also means there is no "one size fits all" security solution for cell phones, but there are some common issues to monitor.

Wi-Fi can be more vulnerable
As smartphones grow in popularity, so too does interest by thieves, not necessarily for the devices but for the information they hold. 

That information can be easier to obtain, for example, if you're getting to the Internet using Wi-Fi from your cell phone, versus a wireless carrier's network. 

While Wi-Fi generally transmits data more quickly than 3G, or a third-generation wireless network, it's also more vulnerable unless you take extra steps to encrypt what you do when using the phone. 

"Wi-Fi is dramatically less secure than a cell phone network," said Dan Hoffman, chief technology officer of SMobile Systems, which makes cell phone security software, a growing industry. 

"If you're on a 3G network, there will be encryption by the wireless carrier. When you're on Wi-Fi, there's not going to be encryption, and your data will literally be flying through the air." 

"The phone network is reasonably secure," said Ullrich. "However Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have a number of problems that allow others in the proximity to listen in." 

Mobile banking Web sites do take extra security measures to protect users' data. But other sites do not, leaving it up to the user to do so. 

"There are ways to encrypt data using Wi-Fi, but it's more an issue of the user being aware" of knowing do to that in the first place, Hoffman said. 

Bluetooth awareness
Bluetooth, the short-range wireless technology used in cell phone headsets, can also provide an entry point for an intruder or eavesdropper. 

"Depending upon how it is configured, Bluetooth technology can be fairly secure," the federal Computer Emergency Readiness Team noted in a "Cyber Security Tip" sheet last summer. 

However, CERT said, "unfortunately, many Bluetooth devices rely on short numeric PIN numbers" — the default, out-of-the-box setting for many headsets is "0000" — instead of more challenging passwords or passphrases. Again, it's up to the user to change the default password. 

Without doing so, someone who's within about 30 feet of your headset could access or corrupt your data. 

"One example of this type of activity is called 'bluesnarfing,' which refers to attackers using a Bluetooth connection to steal information off of your Bluetooth device," CERT said. 

"Bluetooth has been used in the past to trick users to install viruses or to download phone books from the phone," said Ullrich.
Put Bluetooth in 'hidden' mode
CERT recommends disabling Bluetooth devices when they're not being used, and when they are, put Bluetooth in "hidden" mode, which prevents other Bluetooth devices from recognizing your device. 

It's also important to be aware of where you're using Bluetooth to "pair" a phone and headset, or put the two in what's known as "discoverable" mode, so that the devices can find each other. Being in a public wireless area, or "hot spot," poses a greater risk for interception, CERT said, than if you're at home or in your car. 

One of the first things smartphone users should do is establish a password for access to the phone itself. Most of us don't really want to do that — it delays us from quickly getting to our e-mail or the Web, but it is a basic, preventative measure. 

Once your data is on your smartphone, back up that information to a computer, and make sure you do such backups regularly.Hoffman of SMobile Systems says even stronger steps are needed. 

"What people need to be able to do is to remotely lock their devices, be able to remotely back up the data and be able to remotely delete the data so nobody can access their devices." 

His company's Secure Shield software for consumer mobile phones does that, and also provides anti-virus, anti-spam and firewall protection. A version for BlackBerrys costs $39.99, and is $29.99 for Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. The company also has software in the works for the iPhone. 

Like computer anti-virus software, the phone security software must be renewed every year. 

McAfee, one of the leading makers of security software, said Monday in an annual report about mobile security that half of all global phone manufacturers reported malware infections, voice and spam attacks, third-party application problems or "incidents" that caused problems with wireless carriers' network capacity. 

"Overall, there has been a dramatic upswing in the number of incidents ... including exploits that affected manufacturers' device functionality, users' privacy and even network or service capacity — in many cases by more than double over the last year," the company said.

Corporate 'wipes'
A "remote wipe" feature, to delete information from the device if it has been lost or stolen, is available to BlackBerry customers whose companies use BlackBerry Enterprise Server 

Remote wipe capabilities are also offered on other devices, including the iPhone and phones using Windows Mobile, when they use Microsoft's Exchange Server. As with BlackBerrys, an IT administrator must give the OK for a remote wipe to be done. 

BlackBerrys, made by Research In Motion, come with several strong security options for business and non-business users, including encryption. It's up to the user to enable, or turn that encryption on. 

Also, e-mail messages sent and received through the BlackBerry Internet Service are protected using Secure Sockets Layer protocol, a RIM spokesperson said, "if the external messaging server supports SSL encryption." Content protection, too, can be enabled to protect information such as address book, calendar and memo entries. 

Even so, President Barack Obama's wanting to keep his BlackBerry raised concerns. It was decided that he will continue to use the device, but on a very limited basis with a limited number of people. 

A long-distance eye
Another company, Maverick Mobile Solution, is testing a program for Symbian-based phones (those largely from Nokia) that not only encrypts data, but also sends a text message to the owner with the location of the stolen phone.

LG Arena KM990 officially announced

We only spoke about it a week ago and now LG has officially announced their latest flagship - the LG Arena KM990 at the Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona. I know some have been asking us when exactly the Arena will be available in the UK, we can now confirm that it will arrive very shortly next month! Meanwhile, we’ve got an official demo video of the new and very exciting 3D cube user interface (UI) for you to see right after the break.

UK, February 16, 2009 - LG Electronics, a worldwide technology and design leader in mobile communications, today announces the launch of LG ARENA (LG-KM900) at the Mobile World Congress 2009. ARENA is packed with the latest multimedia features and uses LG’s new and intuitive 3D User Interface (UI).

ARENA is the world’s first global handset to feature Dolby Mobile surround sound to deliver a totally new and enhanced audio experience for both video and audio content. The UI is the perfect 3D gateway to enter ARENA’s amazing multimedia environment which creates a fresh new way of delivering a portable entertainment experience. The standard 3.5 mm audio jack means ARENA can be used with any pair of headphones.
“What really makes ARENA special is the new LG intuitive 3D UI, which is unlike anything that has appeared on a phone before,” said Dr. Skott Ahn, President & CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “We surveyed consumers and found that they were unhappy with current interfaces. They wanted a simple, fast and fun way to use multimedia and additional features, but also an experience that was dynamic and interesting. We’ve done this so well with our brand new UI that it will set new standards for handsets in both functionality and fun.”

3D User Interface

Intuitive
Intuitive and 3D touch-menus take the fuss out of searching through contacts and multimedia content, perfect for anyone more comfortable with a traditional analogue experience. Reel Scrolling menus appear as if they are on a film reel, providing vivid icons for each feature that are instantly recognisable. Dragging a finger across the reels allows users to scroll through each feature option.
In ARENA’s camera mode, an intuitive on-screen dial, similar to those found on many high-end stand alone cameras, makes it easy to customise shot settings for picture-perfect results.

Fast
ARENA’s UI was designed to reinforce the advantages of touchscreen technology from the offset, eliminating any unnecessary menus and complicated navigations. At its core is a cube layout that provides four customisable home screens that provide quick access to all features by flipping the cube with just a flick of a finger. With multiple faces, the cube allows for four times more shortcuts than a single screen, making navigation easier and enhancing overall usability.
Cube layout
ARENA’s Elastic Lists make it easier to browse through contacts and other menu listings. When touched, the listed items stretch like a rubber band to provide more detailed information, options or easy editing. This eliminates the need to switch to a new screen, saving time and making it easier to browse the other options available. The smooth and quick transitions on screen are a result of a powerful AMD processor working together with LG’s 3D UI.

Fun
Colourful and vivid graphics give ARENA a sense of dynamism and fun. ARENA’s dynamically designed graphics are particularly evident in the phone’s Floating Image Gallery. When held upright, the phone displays photos neatly in rows. But flip the phone on its side and the photos automatically cascade off the screen and reappear much larger. Sliding a finger from top to bottom will show photos taken on different days. Dragging a finger from left-to-right shows photos taken on the same day.
Going one step further, its Tactile Analogue Alarm Clock and Radio Tuner make it almost feel like moving a clock’s hands or turning an actual dial.

Multimedia Features that Come Alive
Dolby Mobile surround sound technology unleashes the power of unrivalled audio for movies and video and delivers rich, resonant sound. Featuring a range of equalizer presets to fit all genres and individual tastes, further enhances the listening experience. A built-in FM transmitter allows ARENA to play music wirelessly whether it is through a car or home stereo system.

“The new LG intuitive 3D UI offers superior functionality, speed and ease of use unlike anything seen before, the LG ARENA really is taking touchscreen technology to the next generation,” says Jeremy Newing, head of marketing, LG Mobile UK. “Partnering with Dolby Mobile and its audio expertise has ensured that LG is bringing new and exciting handsets to the market, that give users the opportunity to engage in a wholly new multimedia experience.”

ARENA’s large 3.0” full touchscreen display has an incredible WVGA resolution, which is four times sharper than QVGA. With the clearest LCD screen available on a mobile phone, ARENA is ideal for watching DVD quality DivX or Xvid movies on the go.

D1 recording capabilities capture DVD resolution video content that remains crisp and sharp when played back on a large screen. ARENA allows recording up to 120 frames per second so when played back in slow motion records every detail.

ARENA has the capacity to store up to 40GBs of music, image and movie files with 8GB of internal memory and up to 32GB with an external micro SD slot. The battery life provides up to 30 hours of MP3 playtime and 300 hours of standby time.

The range of high-end camera features and excellent image quality make the ARENA’s five megapixel comparable to that of a stand alone camera; with the ability to set the camera to auto or manual focus enables the user to capture every special moment.

ARENA’s 3G HSDPA 7.2 networks and Wi-Fi capabilities allow for audio, video and photos to be uploaded easily onto social networks so users can share their multimedia experience online. ARENA provides additional support for Google Mobile Service including Google search, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Blogs; A-GPS and geo-tagging are is also available and the multi-touch capabilities greatly enhance the web surfing experience.
All of these multimedia features are packed in ARENA’s sleek and refined silver or black titanium metal body, perfectly sized to grab and go at just 105.9 x 55.3 x 11.95 mm. A tempered glass finish protecting the screen ensures long-lasting durability, designed to keep the phone looking sophisticated and clean.

Officially launched at Mobile World Congress, LG ARENA will be available in Europe in March.

Sony Ericsson’s iPhone killer Idou announced

Sony Ericsson previewed their latest iPhone killer, scheduled to appear in summer 2009, during the company’s press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The full touchscreen phone called Idou (Sony Ericsson does seem to have plans to change this code name to a more commercial friendly name in the future!) features a 3.5-inch touchscreen and a massive 12.1-megapixel camera, all running on a Symbian OS, more details to be revealed very soon!

The bar for the digital camera feature on mobile phones has been raised today with introduction of Sony Ericsson’s Idou. This iPhone Killer will have 12.1-megapixel camera with Xenon flash. The main display is 3.5inch with 640×320 resolution running Symbian S60 OS. Launch date is most likely sometime in the second half of 2009. Stay tuned for more news.

Jalopnik tests out latest auto parking system from Ford

Do you hate parking? Especially if you have a large or rather bulky car, it is sometimes difficult to park properly and those from the UK will definitely know how precious empty parking spaces are in places like London. In the video after the break, Jalopnik tests out Ford’s latest in technology auto parking system called the Active Park Assist. Yes, as you can tell from the name, it really does all the parking for you, no steering necessary and it does it quite well!

Wooden USB flash drive plus post it dispenser

This is something that should be quite useful to have especially if you work along side a laptop all the time. This simple USB drive is made from a small piece of wood on the outside, equipped with 2GB on the inside and in addition to that a stack of post it, this is quite a clever idea I must say.

OLED Blackberry concept: Blackberry 7130 meets the Optimus Keyboard

No more debate on what’s best, which type of keyboard suits who, because the Blackberry 7130 has just met the Optimus Keyboard - meet the OLED Blackberry concept…

MICROSOFT BOUNTY FOR WORM CREATOR

A reward of $250,000 (£172,000) has been offered by Microsoft to find who is behind the Downadup/Conficker virus. 

Since it started circulating in October 2008 the Conficker worm has managed to infect millions of computers worldwide. 

The software giant is offering the cash reward because it views the Conficker worm as a criminal attack. 

"People who write this malware have to be held accountable," said George Stathakopulos, of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group. 

He told BBC News the company was "not prepared to sit back and let this kind of activity go unchecked". 

"Our message is very clear - whoever wrote this caused significant pain to our customers and we are sending a message that we will do everything we can to help with your arrest," said Mr Stathakopulos. 

Arbor Networks said as many as 12 million computers could be affected globally by Conficker/Downadup since it began prowling the web looking for vulnerable machines to infect in October. 

Malicious payload 

The Conficker worm is a self-replicating program that takes advantage of networks or computers that have not kept up to date with Windows security patches. 

It can infect machines via a net connection or by hiding on USB memory drives used to ferry data from one computer to another. Once in a computer it digs deep, setting up defences that make it hard to extract.  
The worm can also spread via USB flash drives.


The worm slithers through networks by guessing usernames and passwords. Security specialists recommend hardening passwords by mixing in numbers, punctuation marks and capital letters. 

The virus reports in to its creators for updates by visiting a web domain. It generates the name of the domain itself using a complicated code which security firms have cracked to track the growth of the worm and block its progress. 

Malware such as Downadup can be triggered to steal data or turn control of infected computers over to malicious hackers which pool them into larger armies of so-called botnets. 

These networks of compromised machines can be used to send spam, as dead drops for stolen or pirated data and to launch attacks on other machines. 

Although Downadup is widespread its creators have yet to activate its payload to steal data or launch other attacks. 

It has caused costly headaches for network administrators dealing with users locked out of their accounts when the worm correctly guesses a password. 

While Microsoft says it does not know the intention of the worm's creator, it wants to ensure it does not wreak any more havoc. 

Experts say users should have up-to-date anti-virus software and install Microsoft's MS08-067 patch - also known as KB958644. 

Global response 

Microsoft has also partnered with security companies, domain name providers, academia, internet companies such as AOL and others on a co-ordinated global response to the worm.  
Millions of computers have been hit by Conficker


Also included is the US Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. 

"The best way to defeat potential botnets like Conficker/Downadup is by the security and Domain Name System communities working together," said Greg Rattray, chief internet security adviser at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann). 

"Icann represents a community that's all about co-ordinating those kinds of efforts to keep the internet globally secure and stable." 

Sasser worm 

In 2003 Microsoft created its reward programme with $5m (£3.4m) in funding to help law enforcement agencies bring computer virus and worm authors to justice. 

This reward for help in tracking the creators of Downadup is the first time in four years that the company has put up some cash in response to a worm outbreak.  
Microsoft hopes its bounty has started the countdown to finding its creator


"We have not seen this type of worm or one of its class since 2004," said Mr Stathakopulos. 

In 2005 Microsoft paid out $250,000 (£171,000) to two individuals who helped identify the creator of the notorious Sasser worm. The author was arrested and sentenced by the German authorities. 

Rewards of $250,000 were offered over three other major computer worm threats known as Blaster, MyDoom and Sobig worms. 

Those perpetrators have never been caught.

Resident Evil 5 Preview

Publisher: Capcom Entertainment

Developer: Capcom Entertainment

Category: Action

Release Dates

N Amer - 03/13/2009

Since it debuted on the PlayStation a decade ago, Capcom’s Resident Evil franchise has been not only the storied publisher’s most popular series, but also one of the most popular amongst all video games. Now, the publisher is almost ready to launch the fifth entry to the series proper, the long-awaited and highly-anticipated Resident Evil 5. GameZone was recently given some hands-on time with the title, and the results are what RE fans would hope for - an action-packed, exciting and often terrifying adventure.

As I’m sure most RE fans would know by now, Resident Evil 5 follows series hero Chris Redfield to the fictional African area of Kijuju as he investigates some strange happenings with a connection to the events that Leon Kennedy experienced in Europe during Resident Evil 4. Early on in his investigation, he meets Sheva Alomar and learned that some of the strangeness can be blamed on a man by the name of Irving. It doesn’t take long before the locals start to exhibit signs of the Las Plagas parasites that infected the Spanish cult in Resident Evil 4, forcing you to put a new spin on your search whilefending off the infected inhabitants of Kijuju.
The controls should immediately feel comfortable to anyone who played Resident Evil 4. You control Chris from an over-the-shoulder view, holding down the trigger button in order to aim your weapon and the bumper button to arm your machete for melee combat. One new addition to the game’s interface is the inventory screen, which appears in real-time on the screen, without letting stopping the action, similar to the system employed in Dead Space.

The biggest new feature contributing to the gameplay in Resident Evil 5 is the cooperative element. With Sheva, you’ll go through the game working together, sharing items and ammo and using each other to get to areas that neither of you would be able to access on your own. Unlike many AI-controlled counterparts in video games, Sheva doesn’t require a lot of handholding; she’ll fight competently and collect items when needed. In the preview build, there were some moments that Chris would have to provide cover for Sheva while she ran an objective, and she for him at certain moments. Additionally, you’ll be able to share your inventory with her and vice versa, telling her to pick up new items should you not have room in your inventory, or ammo if she’s in need.The game also has some pretty large scale boss battles. The chainsaw wielding enemy from RE4 makes a return within the sequel’s context, as do some larger enemies, including a giant mutant bat creature. You’ll have to employ some sense of strategy when fighting the bosses, who often have a specific weakness that needs exploited.
Graphically, Resident Evil 5 is shaping very well. The character models look fantastic and feature some really impressive facial animation, and the environments look great and have some really cool destructible elements. The explosion effects are also great and look pretty realistic. The sound is pretty nicely done, with atmospheric music and good voice acting.If the preview build is any indication, Resident Evil 5 is turning out to be a great action game and a worthy successor to the franchise. Look for it this March.

RUSSIAN AND US SATELLITE COLLIDES

US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date.The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said. 

The risk to the International Space Station and a shuttle launch planned for later this month is said to be low. 

The impact produced a cloud of debris, which will be tracked into the future. 

Since the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, it is estimated about 6,000 satellites have been put in orbit. 

Satellite operators are all too aware that the chances of a collision are increasing.

The Americans are now following the debris path from the impact. It is hoped that most of it will fall to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. 

Shuttle launch 

The concern is whether the debris will spread and pose any risk to the ISS, which is orbiting the Earth some 435km below the course of the collision. 

According to the Washington Post, a Nasa memo said officials determined the risk to be "elevated" but have estimated it as "very small and within acceptable limits".
Nasa spokesman John Yembrick said the ISS had the "capability of doing a debris-avoidance manoeuvre if necessary". 

He said this had happened on just eight previous occasions during the course of its 60,000-plus orbits. 

Officials said there were no plans to delay the launch of Nasa's space shuttle Discovery later this month, although that would be re-evaluated in coming days. 

Nicholas Johnson, an orbital debris expert at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth-observing satellites at higher orbits and closer to the collision site were at greater risk of damage. 

'Extremely unusual' 

Communications firm Iridium, based in Bethesda, Maryland, said it "lost an operational satellite" after it was struck on Tuesday by the Russian satellite. 

It said its clients may experience some brief outages until it had temporarily fixed the problem by Friday. 

Iridium said it hoped to replace the 560kg satellite, launched in 1997, with one of its in-orbit spares within the next 30 days. The firm described it as an "extremely unusual, very low-probability event", stressing that it was not caused by any fault on its part. Russia's space forces confirmed the collision with the defunct 950kg (2,094lb) satellite. 
"A collision occurred between an Iridium 33 satellite and a Russian Kosmos 2251 military satellite," Major General Alexander Yakushin said. 

The satellite was launched in 1993 and ceased to function two years later, he said according to the AFP news agency. 

Russia has not commented on claims the satellite was out of control. 

Littered orbit 

Space debris experts say the chances of such collisions have been rising. 



A Nasa reconstruction showing how the satellites may have collided

Litter in orbit - caused in part by the break-ups of old satellites - has increased to such an extent that it is now the biggest threat to a space shuttle in flight. 

Mr Johnson said that at the beginning of this year about 17,000 manmade pieces of debris were orbiting Earth. 

The items, some as small as 10cm (four inches), are tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network - sending information to help spacecraft operators avoid the debris. 

Of the 6,000 satellites sent into orbit since 1957, about 3,000 remain in operation, according to Nasa. 

Europe has just initiated its own space surveillance programme. One of its main weather satellites had a near miss in December with a Chinese object. The Europeans knew nothing about the threat until the Americans contacted the European Space Agency to inform it of the danger

Dell Latitude XT2 tablet pc with multi-touch

Dell yesterday has unveiled a much improved new Latitude, the Latitude XT2. The new Dell Latitude XT2 is a tablet pc which features a multitouch screen! Also with better performance, enhanced security and improved manageability than the previous generation.Multi-touch capabilities on the Dell Latitude XT2 will allow users to use natural gestures like a pinch or tap for scrolling, panning, rotating and zooming that work with productivity applications they use every day. Dell’s integration of multi-touch screen technology allows customers to use the full real estate of the display, as opposed to just the touchpad. Other features of the XT2 include an amazing 11 hours battery life, full-size keyboard, touchpad, point stick, battery-free pen, Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300, SATA HDD or SSD, and DDR3 RAM up to 5GB.The Latitude XT2 will start with a price tag of $2,399 and is already available at the Dell site (US), hopefully we’ll see this also on the UK site soon!

Kindle 2.0

The new Kindle is less than a centimeter thick, weighs 300 grams, and turns pages 20 percent faster than its predecessor. The e-ink technology powering its screen is also a newer generation, displaying sixteen shades of gray rather than four.The device betrays a plan to dominate the transition from printed books to electronic ones.At a press conference held at the Morgan Library in New York City this morning, Amazon announced a new version of its Kindle electronic reading device. While the new device offers important improvements over the original Kindle, it is most significant as a sign of Amazon's ambitions to dominate the transition from printed books to electronic ones.

The Kindle 2's biggest new feature is text to speech, powered by software from Nuance. The device can read a book aloud to a user, and is designed to make it easy to switch between reading and listening. At Monday's launch event, Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, demonstrated this technology by having the Kindle read from the Gettysburg Address. The device betrayed the stilted speech that is characteristic of most text-to-speech software, but nonetheless pronounced the words clearly and accurately.

Most of the other changes to the Kindle are improvements designed to further its ability to "disappear" while the user is reading, as Bezos put it. At just under a centimeter thick, the device is smaller; is, at 300 grams, slightly lighter than the previous version; and turns pages 20 percent faster, Bezos said. The e-ink technology powering its screen is also a newer generation, displaying sixteen shades of gray rather than four. And the Kindle 2 has enough storage space for 1,500 books instead of just a few hundred. The Kindle 2 will sell for $359 and, as with the first Kindle, will come with free wireless access to Amazon's store.

While these updates may be welcomed by prospective users, the Kindle 2 is most significant as part of a strategy that Amazon is developing to deal with the anticipated shift away from the printed word. 

Amid signs that the market for electronic books is finally gaining momentum, Amazon could face stiff competition not only from other electronic reading devices, such as Sony's e-Reader, but also from increasingly capable smart phones and other portable Internet devices.

For example, last week, Google announced that it had reformatted more than 1.5 million books for reading on iPhones and Android phones. Although Google's offering currently consists of only public-domain books, Frances Haugen, product manager for Google Book Search, says that the company intends to work with partners to offer new books as well.

Comet Lulin to grace night skies

During the next few weeks, a fine comet bright enough for observation in binoculars and possibly even with the naked eye will provide a fine skywatching target when weather permits. 

Comet Lulin will be closest to Earth on Feb. 24 and prime viewing will occur than and on surrounding nights. For sharp-eye viewers with dark, rural, skies, the comet is expected to be visible as a dim, fuzzy star. 

People living in cities and suburbs are not expected to see the comet with the naked eye, but binoculars and telescopes will reveal its cloudy head and perhaps a striking tail, too. Comets are unpredictable, however, so it's impossible to say how bright this one might become.
Already Lulin is a fine target for small telescopes, producing several striking photographs in the predawn sky. The object is best found using a sky map tailored to your location. 

The discovery
The comet was photographed by Chi Sheng Lin using a 16-inch telescope at the Lulin Observatory at Nantou, Taiwan on July 11, 2007. But it was a 19-year old student, Quanzhi Ye at Sun Yat-sen University in Mainland China who first recognized the new object on three images that were taken by Lin. 

Initially it was thought to be an asteroid, new images taken a week later revealed the telltale presence of a faint coma.  

The discovery was part of the Lulin Sky Survey project to explore the various populations of small bodies in the solar system, especially objects that possibly could pose a hazard to the Earth. As such, the comet has been christened Comet Lulin, more formally known to astronomers as Comet C/2007 N3. 

This comet is the brightest since the surprising outburst of Comet Holmes more than 15 months ago and in the coming weeks will become favorably placed in the evening sky. During mid-to-late February it will probably be about magnitude 5 or 6, making it perhaps visible to the naked eye in dark, rural locations and easily observable in binoculars or small telescopes. 

Unusual orbit
Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has calculated that Comet Lulin passed through the perihelion point of its orbit (its closest approach to the sun) on Jan. 10, 113 million miles (182 million kilometers) from the sun. However, while the comet is now receding from the sun, its distance from the Earth is decreasing, with a minimum of 38 million miles on Feb. 24.  

R. Ligustri (www.castfvg.it) / RAS Observatory
The green ball is the comet's atmosphere, or coma, measuring about 311,000 miles (500,000 km) wide, or three times the diameter of Jupiter. The coma contains cyanogen (CN) and diatomic carbon (C2), two gases that glow green when exposed to sunlight. 

For this reason, the comet should be at its brightest during the last week of February; then it will fade fast by mid-March. 

The orbit of Comet Lulin is very nearly a parabola, according to Marsden. It is also rather unusual since it is moving through space in a direction opposite to that of the planets at a very low inclination of just 1.6-degrees from the ecliptic. As such, because it is moving opposite to the motion of our Earth, the comet will appear to track rather quickly against the background stars as one observes the object from one night to the next. 

In addition, over the next three weeks, the comet will appear to rise an average of about 20-minutes earlier each night. Right now, it is best seen in the predawn sky. 

Rapid track 
On the night of Feb. 7, for instance, Lulin will rise above the east-southeast horizon around midnight and will appear at its highest in the sky toward the south at the break of dawn. But on the night of the 24th, when it will be passing nearest to Earth, Lulin will be visible all night, rising in the east at dusk, peaking high in the south shortly after midnight and setting in the west around sunrise. 

Currently located in the constellation Libra, Comet Lulin will appear to move on a northwest trajectory, crossing over into Virgo on Feb. 11 and passing 3-degrees north of the 1st-magnitude star Spica in Virgo on Feb. 16 (for comparison, your clenched fist held at arm's length measures about 10-degrees in width).  

On the night of Feb. 23, now virtually at its peak brightness, the comet will be sitting just 2-degrees south-southwest of the planet Saturn, which you can use as a benchmark to locate the comet. Moreover, around this time, Comet Lulin will be racing at more than 5-degrees per day -- that's roughly the equivalent of the distance between the stars Dubhe and Merak, the "Pointer Stars" of the Big Dipper; so even a few minutes of watching with a telescope should reveal the comet's slow shift relative to background field stars. 

On Feb. 27, the fading comet will slip just 1-degree south of the 1st-magnitude star, Regulus in Leo. And come the night of March 5, Lulin -- by then probably between magnitudes 6 and 7 and no longer visible without binoculars or a telescope -- will pass to within 2-degrees of the famous Beehive Star Cluster in Cancer. 

Look for an Antitail
Comets are visible because radiation from the sun releases gas and dust from the comet. That material then shines with reflected sunlight, creating a cloudy head, or coma, and sometimes one or two tails. 

Even when it's at its very brightest, naked-eye observers probably see Comet Lulin as resembling only a dim, fuzzy star. In binoculars, or a small telescope the comet may resemble an apple on a stick; that is, the comet's diffuse head or coma should appear round and somewhat condensed toward its center, with perhaps a tinge of blue or green, while a narrow tail of gas extends out to the northwest.
In addition, telescopic observers should also look for a "spike" of light, pointing in a direction opposite to the tail. This strange effect, called an "antitail," is caused by a thin sheet of dust that is expelled by the comet but normally is visible for a brief interval when the Earth passes through the comet's orbital plane.  

But because Earth will remain in the comet's orbital plane through February and on into March, there will be an ongoing chance of catching a glimpse of the antitail as well.

POD CAR

Pod car: A picture of the first vehicle of the Masdar City personal rapid transit system, unveiled at a conference in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

A novel kind of transit system, in which cars are replaced by a network of automated electric vehicles, is about to get its first large-scale testing and deployment. Two of these Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems are being installed this year, one at Heathrow International Airport, near London, and one in the United Arab Emirates, where it will be the primary source of transportation in Masdar City, a development that will eventually accommodate 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses and is designed to emit no carbon dioxide. 

PRT systems are supposed to combine the convenience and privacy of automobiles with the environmental benefits of mass transit. Automated electric vehicles, or pods, each designed to carry from four to six people, wait at stations throughout a city or development, like taxis waiting at taxi stands. A person or group gets in a pod and selects a destination and the vehicle drives there directly. 

The concept isn't new--the basic idea goes back at least to the 1950s. But it hasn't caught on for a variety of reasons, including the cost of the initial systems and the difficulty of integrating them into existing cities. A number of small test systems have been installed, and one system that is similar to a PRT has been in operation in Morgantown, WV, since the 1970s. But the systems at Heathrow and in the UAE will be the first real-world demonstrations of a true PRT.

Although PRT systems vary, the basic design involves a network of stations connected by a track that loops past all of the stations in a system. Large networks can include many interconnected loops. When a vehicle leaves a station, it travels along an on-ramp until it merges with the main loop. When it reaches the destination station, it exits this central loop via an off-ramp. The ramps allow individual pods to stop at a station while others pods continue to travel at top speed along the main track. As a result, it can be faster than buses, which have to stop frequently. Simulations suggest that the systems could run with as little as half a second between each vehicle, but the initial systems, such as the one in Masdar City, will keep the vehicles three to four seconds apart--enough to stop a pod should the one in front of it suddenly break down. A central computer controls the traffic. 

At both Heathrow and Masdar City, the vehicles will be battery-powered, driverless cars. The system at Heathrow--built by Advanced Transport Systems, based in Bristol, UK--uses cars powered by lead-acid batteries along a concrete track and guided by laser range finders, says Steve Raney, a consultant for the company. For Masdar City, a Dutch company called 2getthere has developed cars powered by more-advanced batteries made of lithium iron phosphate. The pods travel on pavement equipped with embedded magnets placed every five meters, which the vehicle uses, along with information about wheel angles and speed, to determine its location, says Robert Lohmann, the marketing manager at 2getthere. When a person selects a destination, a central computer designates a path for the vehicle, and an on-board computer makes sure the car sticks to the path. (The system is being used now to control vehicles that transport cargo in warehouses.)

20$ CHEAP LAPTOP

The super-cheap laptop project meets with widespread skepticism

Yesterday, India unveiled a prototype laptop that will reportedly cost only $20. Dubbed Sakshat, the machine is meant to bridge the digital divide and provide a means for delivering online educational materials to students in more than 18,000 colleges across the country. But the prospect of producing any kind of laptop so cheaply has been met with widespread skepticism.

The pioneer laptop in this area is the XO machine created by the nonprofit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) foundation. This machine was originally meant to cost $100, but the price now stands at $188. While the foundation maintains that it can break the $100 barrier--and may even reach $75 in its next-generation version--creating a $20 machine is all but impossible, says Jim Gettys, OLPC's former vice president for software. 

"I don't understand how anyone can build anything for real at that price," Gettys says. "There are too many components that cost $20 by themselves, never mind as a package." He mentions that even in volume, a low-cost screen runs to more than $20, while touch pads and keyboards cost $5 to $10 apiece, and memory and processors cost considerably more.

Sakshat was reportedly unveiled yesterday morning in Tirupati, India, by the Indian Education Ministry. According to these reports, Sakshat has two gigabytes of random-access memory and wireless and fixed Ethernet connections, consumes just two watts of power, and will be available in retail outlets in India in six months. Generally, though, the announcement raised more questions than it answered about what had actually been achieved.

R. P. Agrawal, India's secretary of secondary and higher education, who is leading the project, did not reply to messages, and there appeared to be no direct, official online announcement. But according to reports, the laptop was created over several months in a cooperative effort involving India's Vellore Institute of Technology; the Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore; and the Indian Institute of Technology, in Madras.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of OLPC, also expressed skepticism over the price. "Wish the $20 laptop were true," he wrote in an e-mail, adding that if the laptop's claims were "close to true," it would be "a sign of great success" for OLPC in spurring development of low-cost machines for students around the world. "The technical data we have received to now suggests it is very inferior, but that does not matter at all," he added.

Vivek Pai, a computer scientist at Princeton University working on computing solutions for the developing world, says that, at a $20 price point, "it might be more plausible if we were talking about a 'fat keyboard' type of system that connects to a TV." After reading press coverage of the machine's specs, he adds that "it might be fine as an e-book reader, but I don't believe it will be a general-purpose machine."

Whatever the cost and capabilities of the machine, the effort may represent something of a turnaround for the Indian government. In 2006, Sudeep Banerjee, then the Indian minister of education, criticized the OLPC laptop and educational software as "pedagogically suspect" and added, "We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools." But yesterday, the aims of the Sakshat project seemed remarkably similar to those of OLPC, right down to the development of online content and digital textbooks from major publishers. 

Part of the reason that the laptop might be so cheap is because of government subsidies. A report in the Times of India said that government agencies would provide funding for related infrastructure.