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Search engines beware
Technology
NEWSPAPERS are fighting to regain control of how their stories appear online. The World Association of Newspapers announced last week it is developing an automated system for granting search engines permission to use their content. The move follows a Belgian court ruling this month in which Google was found guilty of infringing the copyright of Belgian newspapers by publishing verbatim excerpts of their stories in search results on its news site. The WAN’s new system, Automated Content Access Protocol, converts print publishers’ terms of use into a form that the search engines’ robotic “crawlers” can understand. It says the system, to be launched this year, will help avoid future legal clashes between search engines and publishers.
248 cities around the world will have a municipal Wi-Fi service by the end of 2006. By 2010 there will be an expected 1500 networks
Nearly half of a sample of 1000 US citizens thought the risks of nanotechnology too great
Benefits will outweigh risks Benefits and risks will be about equal Not sure
7%
18% 26%
49%
SENDING an email in one of the 24 script-based languages spoken in India, such as Hindi or Kannada, is difficult because the appropriate keyboards are hard to come by. Now a web service called QuillPad is being launched that will let millions of Indians send emails in their mother tongue. To use QuillPad, you write messages phonetically using the
Latin alphabet on a standard QWERTY keyboard, and watch the words appear in one of five chosen language scripts. The software generates script symbols that match the sound of the phonetically spelt word, getting it right around 95 per cent of the time. Until now, the only software that could do this required the user to learn a complex set of rules to translate keystrokes into script symbols. QuillPad will soon cater for all 24 of India’s major languages.
GIZMO
NANOTECH, NO THANKS
Risks will outweigh benefits
–Any port will do–
Online ‘quill’ lets you email in Hindi
SOURCE: IN-STAT
Search engines beware
charged and switches off the power. It takes 5 hours to fully charge the battery from flat, but 10 minutes is sufficient to deliver enough charge to keep a wireless mouse running for the rest of the day, for instance. There is a penalty when charging from a laptop, however. Moixa’s tests show that this drains around 10 per cent of the laptop battery’s power. The USB batteries go on sale in the UK in mid-October, and then roll out across Europe, with a US launch later. A pair will cost a hefty £13, but Moixa director Chris Wright hopes to cut that. Mobile phones may be next. “We’ve already built a prototype cellphone battery with USB charger,” says Wright. “So if you talk for an hour and need to charge your phone, you simply find the nearest USB socket and plug it in.”
SOURCE: WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS
A drawback of the portable gadget revolution is having to carry the chargers needed to keep them going. Even gadgets that use AA-size batteries use a variety of chargers. Now Moixa Energy of the UK has come up with an ingenious alternative: an AA battery that does away with the need for a charger by using a USB socket. Nearly all computer equipment and even some hi-fis and video players now have USB ports for connecting peripherals such as memory sticks or digital cameras. These ports supply 5 volts to whatever is connected. To recharge Moixa’s nickel metal hydride battery, you flip open its top and plug it into the USB socket. A circuit inside lowers the supply to around 1.4 volts, and a sensor detects the temperature rise when the battery is
USBCELL
COMPUTER AS POWER PLANT
Many people don’t use the out-of-copyright books available on websites because they take so long to print out. An ink-jet printer that might one day print up to 1000 pages a minute could change that. The College of Judea and Samaria in the Israeli settlement of Ariel, in occupied Palestine, says the device it is developing will print an entire page in one pass, without a print head having to move back and forth across the page. Californian inventor David Schwartz has filed a patent (US 2006/0182300) on a hypersensitive microphone. Instead of using sound waves to force a heavy diaphragm to move, it fires a laser beam through a volume of moist air. Incoming sound waves make water droplets in the air vibrate, which modifies the laser beam’s strength in sync with the sound – in other words, making it act as a microphone.
“There’s just no way to replicate 1000 cellphones going off at once” Composer David Baker, who wants the audience to use their phones during the debut performance of Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra at the Chicago Sinfonietta music festival next month. Green and red lights will tell people when to turn their phones on and off (Reuters, 22 September)
www.newscientist.com
30 September 2006 | NewScientist | 29
NEWSPAPERS are fighting to regain control of how their stories appear online. The World Association of Newspapers announced last week it is developing an automated system for granting search engines permission to use their content. The move follows a Belgian court ruling this month in which Google was found guilty of infringing the copyright of Belgian newspapers by publishing verbatim excerpts of their stories in search results on its news site. The WAN’s new system, Automated Content Access Protocol, converts print publishers’ terms of use into a form that the search engines’ robotic “crawlers” can understand. It says the system, to be launched this year, will help avoid future legal clashes between search engines and publishers.
248 cities around the world will have a municipal Wi-Fi service by the end of 2006. By 2010 there will be an expected 1500 networks
Nearly half of a sample of 1000 US citizens thought the risks of nanotechnology too great
Benefits will outweigh risks Benefits and risks will be about equal Not sure
7%
18% 26%
49%
SENDING an email in one of the 24 script-based languages spoken in India, such as Hindi or Kannada, is difficult because the appropriate keyboards are hard to come by. Now a web service called QuillPad is being launched that will let millions of Indians send emails in their mother tongue. To use QuillPad, you write messages phonetically using the
Latin alphabet on a standard QWERTY keyboard, and watch the words appear in one of five chosen language scripts. The software generates script symbols that match the sound of the phonetically spelt word, getting it right around 95 per cent of the time. Until now, the only software that could do this required the user to learn a complex set of rules to translate keystrokes into script symbols. QuillPad will soon cater for all 24 of India’s major languages.
GIZMO
NANOTECH, NO THANKS
Risks will outweigh benefits
–Any port will do–
Online ‘quill’ lets you email in Hindi
SOURCE: IN-STAT
Search engines beware
charged and switches off the power. It takes 5 hours to fully charge the battery from flat, but 10 minutes is sufficient to deliver enough charge to keep a wireless mouse running for the rest of the day, for instance. There is a penalty when charging from a laptop, however. Moixa’s tests show that this drains around 10 per cent of the laptop battery’s power. The USB batteries go on sale in the UK in mid-October, and then roll out across Europe, with a US launch later. A pair will cost a hefty £13, but Moixa director Chris Wright hopes to cut that. Mobile phones may be next. “We’ve already built a prototype cellphone battery with USB charger,” says Wright. “So if you talk for an hour and need to charge your phone, you simply find the nearest USB socket and plug it in.”
SOURCE: WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS
A drawback of the portable gadget revolution is having to carry the chargers needed to keep them going. Even gadgets that use AA-size batteries use a variety of chargers. Now Moixa Energy of the UK has come up with an ingenious alternative: an AA battery that does away with the need for a charger by using a USB socket. Nearly all computer equipment and even some hi-fis and video players now have USB ports for connecting peripherals such as memory sticks or digital cameras. These ports supply 5 volts to whatever is connected. To recharge Moixa’s nickel metal hydride battery, you flip open its top and plug it into the USB socket. A circuit inside lowers the supply to around 1.4 volts, and a sensor detects the temperature rise when the battery is
USBCELL
COMPUTER AS POWER PLANT
Many people don’t use the out-of-copyright books available on websites because they take so long to print out. An ink-jet printer that might one day print up to 1000 pages a minute could change that. The College of Judea and Samaria in the Israeli settlement of Ariel, in occupied Palestine, says the device it is developing will print an entire page in one pass, without a print head having to move back and forth across the page. Californian inventor David Schwartz has filed a patent (US 2006/0182300) on a hypersensitive microphone. Instead of using sound waves to force a heavy diaphragm to move, it fires a laser beam through a volume of moist air. Incoming sound waves make water droplets in the air vibrate, which modifies the laser beam’s strength in sync with the sound – in other words, making it act as a microphone.
“There’s just no way to replicate 1000 cellphones going off at once” Composer David Baker, who wants the audience to use their phones during the debut performance of Concertino for Cellular Phones and Orchestra at the Chicago Sinfonietta music festival next month. Green and red lights will tell people when to turn their phones on and off (Reuters, 22 September)
www.newscientist.com
30 September 2006 | NewScientist | 29