... And Now Cyber Hugging

Feel like a hug when you are miles away from home... don't fret... James Teh, interaction and entertainment research centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has developed a "hug suit" of sorts for poultry, and intends to extend it to humans... soon...

According to Teh, people will soon be able to touch their pets or children across cyberspace with his innovation, that seeks to transmit sensation via the Internet.

"Poultry Internet" is Teh's immediate focus, especially since he feels strongly about chickens, saying that though they are badly treated they make highly intelligent pets.

The "Hug" technology involves the pet fowl wearing a wireless, sensor-rigged "jacket", moving inside its coop in the "home" set-up, and being tracked by a video camera.

The information is transmitted via the internet to the "office" set-up, wherein a 3D model of the pet moves exactly like its live counterpart.

When the owner touches this model, the instructions are translated into data and reproduced as a series of vibrations, on the jacket worn by the hen.

Teh said that the system which is being tested, will give the chicken the feeling of being touched by its owner. Teh has been working on this project for 2 years, along with center director - Adrian David Cheok and center manager - Lee Shang Ping.

Of course with the recent alarm raised over the possibility of an "avian flu" pandemic spreading across large parts of South East Asia, one wonders as to why anyone would want to touch a chicken... whether actually or virtually...

However Teh's "Poultry Internet" technology promises to be just a fore-runner to the real thing i.e. "human-to-human virtual hugging".

Teh plans for children to wear wireless, sensor-rigged "pyjama suits", similar to the chicken "jackets". Each suit will receive signals via the internet, and interpret the data to adjust to changes in pressure and temperature. In effect, children will actually get a "hug" from their parents and vice-versa, if parents wear these suits as well.

Cheok expressed the view that there will be a huge demand for these suits, especially with parents going out frequently on business, and hugging and touching being considered inseparable parts of communication.

Netgear Settles Lawsuit on Wi-Fi Speed Claims

Netgear has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of inflating the data speeds of its Wi-Fi networking devices in advertising materials.

In a November 23 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Netgear said it has agreed to pay $700,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit initiated in June 2004. A second lawsuit, filed in February, was voluntarily dismissed in favor of the 2004 lawsuit.

Under terms of the settlement, customers who purchased Netgear wireless devices between January 1999 and this month will be eligible for a 15 percent discount on the purchase of a new wireless device. The agreement must be approved by the Santa Clara County Superior Court in California.

Netgear, based in Santa Clara, also agreed to change its advertising for Wi-Fi devices to say that the data speeds advertised are the maximum rate but that "actual throughput will vary" depending on several factors. On Netgear's Website today, advertising for its RangeMax 240 Wireless Router included a statement saying that data speeds of up to 240 mbps may vary.

Netgear will also to donate $25,000 worth of its equipment to charity as part of the settlement, dated November 17.

Toshiba Boosts Flash Memory Speed

Toshiba is planning to double the read/write speed of its NAND flash memory chips in the next year.

NAND flash memory is used as the basic storage in devices such as digital cameras, music players and memory cards and faster chips could mean faster data transfers between computers and the devices.

At present, Toshiba's flash chips can read and write data at 6MB per second but this will be doubled to 12MB per second sometime next year when the company begins producing chips on a new manufacturing line.

The company currently makes most of its NAND flash chips on a 90-nanometer production line but plans to start up a state-of-the-art 52-nanometer line in 2006 on which the chips will be made.

The nanometer measurement refers to the size of the smallest feature on the chip and is a standard gauge of the manufacturing line. Smaller numbers mean a more advanced line and these are typically capable of producing physically smaller chips that are both cheaper and use less energy.

Initial chips will have a capacity of 2GB.

Google Base Debuts for Hosting All Content

Responding to the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for information, Google has begun publicly testing Google Base, a service designed to host and make searchable "all types of online and offline content," the Mountain View, California, company announced.
Described as an extension of existing Google content collection efforts, such as Web crawl, Google Base lets large companies and individuals alike post data in the form of categorized items that Google will host and make searchable for free, according to Bindu Reddy, a company product manager, in an early-morning entry in Google's official Web log.
Google Base appears to be Google's most concrete move to date into the realm of user-generated content and tagging, popularized by services such as the Del.icio.us social-bookmarking site and Yahoo's Flickr photo-sharing site.
The range of items that users can post on Google Base encompasses such disparate things as poems, events, recipes, research papers, products, and job postings, according to information on the Google Base Web site.

Oracle Keeps on Making Deals

Oracle may be taking smaller helpings from the smorgasbord of software companies prime for purchase, but the software giant hasn't lost its appetite. On Nov. 16 it announced the acquisition of two small, privately held security companies Thor Technologies and OctetString.
Oracle didn't disclose the price paid -- likely the equivalent of a rounding error compared with multibillion dollar acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel, the latter of which was approved by the Justice Dept. on Nov. 16 Including its two latest buys, Oracle has done or announced 13 deals in 2005 -- and the year isn't over yet. Most have been focused on buttressing Oracle's defenses against German powerhouse SAP.

PalmSource Joins LiPS forum

PalmSource, Inc. has joined the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum as a founding member of the group. The LiPS Forum is a consortium of companies working together to accelerate the adoption of Linux in fixed, mobile and converged devices.

Alongside PalmSource, the founding members include France Telecom/Orange, FSM Labs, Huawei, Jaluna, MontaVista Software, MIZI Research, Open Plug, Arm, Cellon and Esmertec.

The primary goal of the LiPS Forum is to establish standards for the growing numbers of companies providing Linux-based technologies for mobile, fixed and converged telephony terminals. The LiPS Forum intends to support device manufacturers and operators in bringing to market Linux-based devices at a lower cost, while facilitating the programming and development process for software and semiconductor vendors.

New UltraSparc server chip

Sun debuted the UltraSparc T1, also known as the Niagara chip, touting that it uses only about 70 watts of electricity -- which the company claims is at least half the power of most server chips on the market. The T1 also features eight so-called processing cores on one chip to boost power.
Sun expects to have servers out that use the T1 by the end of the year. The servers, part of Sun's SunFire product line, also will run the company's own Solaris version of the Unix operating system that is common in the server marketplace.

Sony stops making anti-piracy CDs

Sony has said it will suspend the production of music CDs with anti-piracy technology which can leave computers vulnerable to viruses.
The move came after security firms said hackers were exploiting the software to hide their creations.
The software has been used by viruses to evade detection by anti-virus programs and infect computers.
Sony said it had a right to stop people illegally copying music, but added that the halt was precautionary.