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JULY |
Newsletter |
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Issue
44 |
Computer Learns Sign Language by Watching TV
It's not only humans that can learn from watching television. Software developed in the UK has worked out the basics of sign language by absorbing TV shows that are both subtitled and signed.
While almost all shows are broadcast with subtitles, some are also accompanied with sign language because it is easier for many deaf people to follow.
Shows with both text and signing are a bit like a Rosetta Stone – a carving that provided the breakthrough in decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics from an adjacent translation in classical Greek.
So Patrick Buehler and Andrew Zisserman at the University of Oxford, along with Mark Everingham at the University of Leeds set out to see if software that can already interpret the typed word could learn British Sign Language from video footage.
By Collin Barras
Hydrogen Production from Waste Materials
Engineers at Leeds University are developing an environmentally friendly system that enables hydrogen to be extracted from waste materials, such as vegetable oil and the glycerol by-product of biodiesel.
The aim is to create the high-purity hydrogen-based fuel necessary not only for large-scale power production, but also for smaller portable fuel cells.
By Claudine Beaumont
Cyber Attackers Target South Korea and US
North Korean hackers are suspected of launching a cyber-attack on some of the most important government offices in the US and South Korea in recent days, including the White House, the Pentagon, the New York Stock Exchange and the presidential Blue House in Seoul.
The attack took out some of South Korea's most important websites, including those of the Blue House, the defence ministry, the national assembly, Shinhan bank, Korea Exchange bank and the top internet portal Naver.
Ahn Jeong-eun, a spokeswoman for Korea Information Security Agency, said the websites of 11 organisations had either gone down or had access problems.
The Associated Press reported that the White House, Pentagon and New York Stock Exchange were also targeted, but apparently deflected the electronic barrage. South Korea's Yonhap news agency said military intelligence officers were looking into the possibility that the attack may have been carried out by North Korean hackers and pro-North Korea forces in the South.
It resembles an attack that began last Saturday on government websites in the US, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber-crime.
By Matthew Weaver
Vodafone agrees new Carphone deal
Carphone Warehouse is to restart selling Vodafone mobile phone contracts, three years after Vodafone pulled the products from the retailer.
Vodafone stopped allowing Carphone Warehouse to sell its range of pay monthly deals in 2006 after a dispute over how much commission it had to pay.
Vodafone instead signed an exclusive deal with Carphone Warehouse's main High Street rival Phones4U.
Taken from Inch Ka Chka
O2 signs Palm Pre exclusive deal
Mobile operator O2 has won an exclusive deal to sell the Palm Pre in the UK.
O2 said the phone would be available in the UK in time for the winter holidays. No details have been given of how much it will cost when it goes on sale.
The Palm Pre smartphone is seen as a rival to Apple's iPhone because of its web-centred operating system and innovative interface.
In the UK, O2 has had an exclusive deal to sell Apple's iPhone handset since November 2007.
Taken from BBC.co.uk/news
Jackson Memorial Gives Web Boost
Michael Jackson's memorial service is being seen as helping to solidify a new era for the internet.
Analysts and industry watchers said the power of the web was displayed in its ability to let people interact, share and also produce content on the day.
Global web traffic was as high as 33% above normal during the event at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.
"The web lets us connect and see the story from multiple views unlike TV," said Mashable's Ben Parr.
"This is more than a turning point. It's about giving users more than one view as well as opportunities to not only be a consumer but a producer.
"I have seen people with their iPhone 3GS's recording video from inside the Staples Center and sharing it with the world," said Mr Parr who is an associate editor with Mashable, the world's largest blog focusing on social media.
Mr Parr said he believed this service would turn out to be one of the biggest events on the web.
By Maggie Shiels
Limited-Colour Screens Could Boost Cellphone Battery Life
Flat-panel displays based on organic LEDs are tipped to replace the now-ubiquitous LCD panels, thanks to a host of benefits including greater energy efficiency. Now researchers have shown that OLEDs can be made even more frugal by carefully choosing the balance of colours used to make up an image.
Each pixel in an OLED screen is made from a spot of polymer that emits coloured light when supplied with power, and each uses different amounts of energy depending on the colour being displayed. At the same brightness, yellow, for example, uses less energy than magenta.
"Colours with equal perceived brightness don't necessarily use the same amount of energy," says >Johnson Chuang of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, who led the study.
Read More ...By MacGregor Campbell
One Tonne 'Baby' Marks its Birth
Sixty years ago the "modern computer" was born in a lab in Manchester.
The Small Scale Experimental Machine, or "Baby", was the first to contain memory which could store a program. The room-sized computer's ability to carry out different tasks - without having to be rebuilt - has led some to describe it as the "first modern PC".
Using just 128 bytes of memory, it successfully ran its first set of instructions - to determine the highest factor of a number - on 21 June 1948.
"We were extremely excited," Geoff Tootill, one of the builders of Baby told BBC News. "We congratulated each other and then went and had lunch in the canteen."
Mr Tootill, and three other surviving members of the Baby team, will be honoured by the University and the British Computer Society at a ceremony in Manchester.
By Jonathan Fildes
Military mega-lasers are too hot to handle
Hight energy laser weapons have been hailed as the future of anti-missile defence, but they may be further from being battle-ready than military chiefs hoped.
In recent tests, several prototypes have suffered serious damage to their optics at intensities well below the expected levels of tolerance. "Optical damage has been quietly alarming upper management in most major programmes," Sean Ross of the US Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico told a meeting of the Directed Energy Professional Society in Newton, Massachusetts, last week. There are also big problems managing the waste heat generated by high-intensity beams.
Laser weapons require mirrors and lenses to focus powerful beams onto distant moving targets, and to compensate for atmospheric perturbations that can reduce the power they deliver. The higher the intensity of the beam, the more likely it is to damage the surface of its optical components.
Optical surfaces are designed to withstand powers up to a specific damage threshold, but tiny flaws or irregularities - which can be extremely difficult to spot - reduce this threshold by making them more vulnerable to heat. Contaminants deposited on the surface can also reduce this threshold by forcing the surface to absorb energy.
By Jeff Hecht
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