Sync Files Between Your Computer and External USB Drives

Microsoft Synctoy is a must-have utility to help you synchronize files in different directories of the same computer or between a computer and external storage devices like the iPod and USB pen drives.

As in the figure above, you first select a pair of folders that you want to keep in Sync via Synctoy. Then decide the action - should the two folders be clones or only the new files have to be copied ?

SyncToy supports wild-cards in file names (like *.exe or holiday_*.jpg) so you can decide what files are included or excluded during the sync process.

And using SyncToy is completely risk free - it has a wonderful preview feature that lets you see what operations would take place during the run without performing any changes on your computer.

In pictures: A year in technology

Microsoft began the hard sell of its latest operating system in January. Vista, was designed to be ultra-secure, a claim disputed by some security researchers.

In pictures: A year in technology

After months of rumours, Apple boss Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in January. It first went on sale in July and fans queued for days to get their hands on the device.

The iPhone was great, except for its restrictions. And guess who's dialing up a better mobile Web now?

You'll balk if I label 2007 "The Year of the iPhone." True, news of Apple's new device hit the world within two weeks of New Year's 2007 and dominated tech coverage pretty much incessantly afterward. But as several cynical Salon letter writers pointed out at its launch in late June, the iPhone, cool as it was, failed to revolutionize human relations. "Hey, did your iPhone end the war? No, it didn't, so shut up!"

But tech doesn't work that way. Only a handful of Macheads seriously expected the iPhone to deliver an exit strategy in Iraq, cure AIDS and forestall foreclosure on millions of subprime mortgages. Most techies had lower expectations, and it's true that for some of us, the iPhone didn't meet even those. As a phone, the thing didn't stand out. It lacked, moreover, several necessary features, and more than a few people still can't get the hang of its damned keyboard.

Still, every conversation about tech in 2007 spirals into a conversation about the iPhone; the device, as I wrote after two weeks using it, marks a new way of living. For some people constant access to the Internet is a pleasant dream, while for others it's a dreaded nightmare. This year, for all of us, it became a reality, the unavoidable future.

Apple skeptics point out that cellphones have offered on-the-go access to the Web for years, long before the iPhone came along. But that's a bit like deriding the utility of the internal combustion engine on the basis that horses did basically the same thing. The iPhone's mobile Web is fundamentally different from anything that has come before -- hassle-free, easy to use and functionally the same as the browser on your desktop.

And this suggests the iPhone's true impact -- it forced us, for the first time, to confront the thorny public policy issues that the mobile Web will raise, issues sure to consume Silicon Valley, Hollywood and regulators in Washington for the foreseeable future.

Take telecom policy. Until recently, "network neutrality" -- the proposal to prohibit Internet service providers from imposing discriminatory rules on the network lines coming into our homes -- was an issue most experts associated with the wired Internet, not wireless networks.

We get mad when Comcast or AT&T monkeys with what we can do on the Web at home, but few took notice that cellular carriers have always restricted our behavior on wireless networks -- they dictate what phones we can use, which programs we can run on those phones, and what we can do with those programs. For a long while, the prohibitions raised few objections because the mobile Internet was too useless to get very worked up about.

The iPhone altered our calculus of concern. By illustrating the possibilities of the mobile Web, the phone cast wireless networks as ground zero in the battle for computing freedom.

Ironically, Apple itself wound up on the wrong side of the fight. Among my chief complaints about the iPhone was Apple's policy prohibiting third-party developers from creating programs for it. The restriction undoubtedly came about as a consequence of Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T, which, like other wireless companies, is afraid of wayward applications hurting its bottom line. If you were free to use the Internet phone service Skype on your iPhone, you might make very cheap calls overseas -- and why would AT&T want to let you do that?

The restrictions showed up Apple CEO Steve Jobs' idea that his phone was a full-fledged mobile computer. The iPhone did seem to have the potential to act as a true minicomputer -- but if it remained closed, it could never match the wizardry we're used to on the desktop.

In late September, Apple moved to shut down hackers who had rigged the phone to run in unapproved ways. Many customers were apoplectic. Apple subsequently promised that it would offer a way for programmers to create their own iPhone apps -- a recognition that the iPhone's true utility lies in the innovation that developers across the world will bring to it.

If Apple's innovation pointed to the possibilities of a wireless Web, another company moved aggressively to realize those possibilities. Right, Google.

During the summer, the search firm pushed the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a set of "openness principles" on the 700 MHz band of radio space, a wireless bounty that the government will offer to high rollers at a grand auction early in 2008.

Google did not persuade regulators to make the spectrum fully open, but it did win some benefits for consumers. Specifically, the FCC set aside a block of radio space on which wireless firms will not be allowed to prohibit customers from running devices and applications of their choice. Google also announced it would bid for wireless space, and it unveiled Android, an open-source operating system for mobile phones that will allow developers to create applications that run on a wide range of phones.

Google's not doing these things altruistically, of course. The company sees billions in the wireless Web: More people using the Internet means more people using Google's services.

Fans of the search firm see its moves as a rare instance when private ambition aligns with the public good. After all, Google's gambit has already produced gains for customers. Phone companies wary of a direct fight with Google are now tripping over themselves to bring a measure of openness to their networks.

But how long can we trust Google -- a firm that now dominates every aspect of our digital lives -- to protect our interests? The year ends with that cliffhanger.

When, a decade from now, you think back on these times, you may well remember the iPhone's launch as a mere footnote to a more momentous story: 2007, the year the mobile Internet got its start -- or, you know, the year Google finalized plans to take over the world.

Intel's Ultrasmall Flash Hard Drive

The chip maker has announced a drive that could bring the power of desktop computers to handheld devices.


Intel introduced one of the smallest flash-memory-based hard drives on the market. The chip, also known as a solid-state hard drive, competes with similar chips from Samsung, which store data in gadgets such as Apple's iPod nano and iPhone. But the Intel chip comes with a standard electronics controller built in, which makes it easy and inexpensive to combine multiple chips into a single, higher-capacity hard drive.

The move highlights Intel's effort to establish itself as a leader in flash-memory chips and to make them a replacement for the bulky and conventional magnetic hard drives that store data on most of the world's computers. Smart phones and so-called ultramobile computers will require some kind of dense, durable storage system in order to bring the power of desktop computers to handheld devices.

Since it found its way out of the lab in the late 1990s, flash memory has revolutionized consumer electronics. Because flash-memory chips are smaller, more rugged, and more energy efficient than magnetic hard disks, they have been the ideal replacement for hard drives in handheld devices such as MP3 players, and even in some high-end laptops. Flash is a solid-state memory technology, which means that it has no moving parts and stores data using silicon transistors like those found in microprocessor chips. Because it uses microprocessor technology, it also roughly follows Moore's Law, the prediction that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years. For processors, this means that they get faster, but for flash-memory chips, it means that data storage doubles. And the market has responded to flash's burgeoning capacity: in 1999, the flash-memory market was nonexistent, but in 2007, it amounts to $15.2 billion.

At a press event, Don Larson, the marketing manager of Nand products at Intel, showed off the new chip. Called the Z-P140, it's about the size of a thumbnail and weighs less than a drop of water. It currently comes in two- and four-gigabyte versions, which are available to manufacturers for use in handheld devices. The first products featuring the new chips will be available in January.

Since the new solid-state drive has standard control electronics built in, it can be combined with up to three other Intel chips that don't have controllers, for a maximum of 16 gigabytes of storage, says Troy Winslow, flash marketing manager at Intel. While that may not seem like a lot compared with the 160-gigabyte hard drives in desktop computers, Larson pointed out that two gigabytes is enough to run some operating systems, such as Linux, along with software applications. The chip's electronics also allow it to work well with Intel processors, which make it useful for the ultramobile-PC market. And by 2010, Larson said, Intel expects to be able to cram 64 gigabytes of storage into a piece of silicon about the size of the new chip.

Flash has drawn criticism because its memory cells, which hold the electrical charges that represent data, tend to wear out quickly. But Winslow says that in the new chips, a memory cell can have data written to it and erased from it up to 100,000 times. And to ensure that no single cell gets overused, the chips have "wear-level" algorithms programmed into them, which evenly distribute reading and writing. Thus, flash memory could start to show signs of wear in about five years, depending on how it is used. In addition, the static electric field that holds charge tends to degrade over time; data losses in this case could occur after about 10 years.

Researchers at Intel and other companies are looking for the next solid-state technology that could replace flash. Winslow says that Intel is currently testing phase-change memory, a type of memory in which the crystal structure of a material changes in response to heat; particular orientations of the crystal correspond to 1s and 0s. Phase-change memory has many of the benefits of flash, such as its ruggedness and small size. But data can be written to it many thousands of times faster than it can to flash.

Two Users Can Work On The Same Computer At The Same Time

Do you have a spare computer monitor lying unused in some corner of the house? You can easily convert that monitor into a proper PC by just attaching it to one of your existing computers - no additional hardware required.

And do not confuse this setup with Microsoft Multipoint or dual-screens - here two monitors are connected to the same CPU but they are two separate computers. Two users can simultaneously perform different tasks on each of the monitor using their own keyboard and mouse.


This is possible through a free software called Userful which is essentially a Linux Live CD. You connect the two monitors to one computer, pop the CD inside and boot.

Now two users can surf different websites, access their personal emails, write documents and more at the same time on their personal screens. They’ll also have access to common devices like the printer and scanner attached to the main computer.

This solution may appeal when you have basic computing requirements or have no budget for an extra computer.

Does Your Computer Take Too Long To Boot Up ?

If your Windows PC is taking a lot of time to start-up, chances are that too many programs and Windows services are configured to launch automatically when you log on.

To fix this issue, you can either manually clear the start-up folder and registry entries or just download the excellent Autoruns 9.0 utility from Microsoft.

Autoruns shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and the entries are in the order in which Windows processes them.

You can select the services, executables and registry entries that may be responsible for the long start-up time and uncheck them to disable.

Getting Started with Bluetooth Stereo Audio

Halmstad, sweeden - Wireless Audio Headset (WAH) is a new firmware from Free2move developed for the Multimedia Bluetooth module F2M03MLA. The firmware is designed for easy connectivity to mobile phones incorporating the latest audio features in the Bluetooth technology. Following Bluetooth profiles are supported in WAH: A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSP and SPP where all profiles are acting as the headset side for communication with e.g. mobile phones. The firmware can either be controlled individually with a button interface or from an external microcontroller using the UART interface with easy to use AT-commands. The F2M03MLA module with the WAH firmware is typically embedded into high-end Bluetooth stereo headsets.

F2M03MLA is a low power embedded Bluetooth v2.0 multimedia module with an on board antenna, integrated stereo amplifier and a 32 bit Digital Signal Processor (DSP) for audio coding and advanced noise and echo cancellation. With a transmit power of up to +8dBm and receiver sensibility of down to -81dBm combined with stereo sound and low power consumption the F2M03MLA is suitable in most audio applications. Developers can easily implement a wireless solution into their product even with limited knowledge in Bluetooth and radio design. The module is fully Bluetooth v2.0 qualified and it is certified according to CE and FCC.

To evaluate the F2M03MLA together with the Wireless Audio Headset firmware, Free2move offer the evaluation kit F2M03M-KIT which is an evaluation board with extensive I/O functionality for both data and stereo audio applications. The on-board I/O interfaces are USB, serial port, digital (SPDIF, PCM) and analogue audio. The evaluation board is primarily made to evaluate the Wireless Audio firmware but it is also possible to use for other firmwares and customer specific applications. The evaluation board gives the possibility to upgrade the Bluetooth module with new firmware or updates using Free2move's Flash Utility software which is included in the kit.

Flash Utility is Free2move's generic application software which allows the user to easily change and upgrade the firmware as well as changing advanced settings on the Bluetooth module. Flash Utility automatically search for, and download, the available firmware updates from the Free2move server, which makes it very easy for customers to enable new firmware releases in a fast and simple manner.

Easily Transfer Emails from Hotmail to Gmail Via Outlook Connector

Your geek friends have convinced you to make that switch from Windows Live Hotmail to Gmail but the problem is how to move old Hotmail email messages and folders to the new Gmail address ? Hotmail doesn’t support IMAP or POP3 and it will take years to manually forward individual emails from Hotmail to Gmail.


No worries, there’s a wonderful solution that costs $0 and comes from Microsoft itself - its the Office Outlook connector and works with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.


Here’s a step by step guide on moving emails from Hotmail to Gmail via Outlook:

1. Install the Outlook connector and then configure your MSN Hotmail / Windows Live Hotmail accounts with Outlook.

2. Once you have all your Hotmail email message available locally inside Outlook, configure Gmail IMAP access inside Outlook.

3. Now copy or just drag-n-drop the Hotmail folders (downloaded in Step 1) over your Gmail Inbox folder in Outlook. Its the same migration procedure as described in a previous tutorial - Backup Outlook Email to Gmail.

As your Outlook synchronizes with Gmail, all your Hotmail messages will become available inside Gmail as well. And if you have multiple Hotmail accounts, this trick will help you consolidate email messages from all those account at one place.

Related: Move Emails from Gmail or Hotmail to Yahoo!

ISRO plans colony on moon, to send robots for recce

In what may well be the first step towards establishing the first “human colony” on the moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is examining the possibility of establishing a robotic set-up or unmanned mission on the moon.

Called Chandrayaan I and II, the basic objective of the project is to examine whether a robotic set-up can function as a stopover to refuel reusable spacecraft for various planetary missions and, eventually, create a self-sustaining environment to support a human colony on the moon.

Chandrayaan I, which is scheduled for launch in April 9, 2009, will examine the possibility of processing Helium-3 to produce energy, said M Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan, Isro.

Chandrayaan II is being planned sometimes between 2013 and 2014 .

Helium-3 is considered a very good source of energy unlike thorium, plutonium or uranium that have radiation effects.

“The robotic set-up can also find the existence of water, from which we can get hydrogen and oxygen to use as propellants,” Annadurai added.

The concept of having an outpost is driven by the fact that any spacecraft being launched from the moon will require one-sixth the amount of propellant it would need on earth.

“Basically we can escape the earth’s gravity,” explained Annadurai.

Isro has added a new 32-metre indigenous antenna in the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu, Bangalore, to track Chandrayaan-I.

Chandrayaan II is scheduled for December 2010. This will be in partnership with Russia, an agreement for which was signed during the last visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Russia.

The estimated cost of the Chandrayaan missions is approximately Rs 386 crore each.

During Chandrayaan II, Isro is also planning to land robots near the polar region of the moon to drill the polar ice cap and study the availability of water.

“If water is available, we will be able to collect helium and with hydrogen as the base, it is possible to feed the whole robotic base there," said Annadurai, adding that a human colony can eventually be established in the long run if the system becomes self-sustainable.

Bluetooth Security

In any wireless networking setup, security is a concern. Devices can easily grab radio waves out of the air, so people who send sensitive information over a wireless connection need to take precautions to make sure those signals aren't intercepted. Bluetooth technology is no different -- it's wireless and therefore susceptible to spying and remote access, just like WiFi is susceptible if the network isn't secure. With Bluetooth, though, the automatic nature of the connection, which is a huge benefit in terms of time and effort, is also a benefit to people looking to send you data without your permission.

Bluetooth offers several security modes, and device manufacturers determine which mode to include in a Bluetooth-enabled gadget. In almost all cases, Bluetooth users can establish "trusted devices" that can exchange data without asking permission. When any other device tries to establish a connection to the user's gadget, the user has to decide to allow it. Service-level security and device-level security work together to protect Bluetooth devices from unauthorized data transmission. Security methods include authorization and identification procedures that limit the use of Bluetooth services to the registered user and require that users make a conscious decision to open a file or accept a data transfer. As long as these measures are enabled on the user's phone or other device, unauthorized access is unlikely. A user can also simply switch his Bluetooth mode to "non-discoverable" and avoid connecting with other Bluetooth devices entirely. If a user makes use of the Bluetooth network primarily for synching devices at home, this might be a good way to avoid any chance of a security breach while in public.

Still, early cell-phone virus writers have taken advantage of Bluetooth's automated connection process to send out infected files. However, since most cell phones use a secure Bluetooth connection that requires authorization and authentication before accepting data from an unknown device, the infected file typically doesn't get very far. When the virus arrives in the user's cell phone, the user has to agree to open it and then agree to install it. This has, so far, stopped most cell-phone viruses from doing much damage. See How Cell-phone Viruses Work to learn more.

Other problems like "bluejacking," "bluebugging" and "Car Whisperer" have turned up as Bluetooth-specific security issues. Bluejacking involves Bluetooth users sending a business card (just a text message, really) to other Bluetooth users within a 10-meter (32-foot) radius. If the user doesn't realize what the message is, he might allow the contact to be added to his address book, and the contact can send him messages that might be automatically opened because they're coming from a known contact. Bluebugging is more of a problem, because it allows hackers to remotely access a user's phone and use its features, including placing calls and sending text messages, and the user doesn't realize it's happening. The Car Whisperer is a piece of software that allows hackers to send audio to and receive audio from a Bluetooth-enabled car stereo. Like a computer security hole, these vulnerabilities are an inevitable result of technological innovation, and device manufacturers are releasing firmware upgrades that address new problems as they arise.

Latest Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 CPU

It’s been 3 weeks I last touched this blog, sorry everyone. I’m back now after a few busy and hectic weeks, though I’m suppose to enjoy my holidays.

Anyway, let’s take a look of the latest Intel processors, Pentium Extreme Edition 955
.
The speed for this Dual Core CPU is clocked at 3.46GHz, which is currently the highest speed for desktop computer. It is utilizing a faster FSB (Front Side Bus) too, at 1066MHz.

As I mentioned is an earlier post, saying Intel Processors are able to go beyond 4GHz by utilizing the latest 65nm process technology, this processor is manufactured using 65nm technology instead of 90nm that most of the new desktop processors are using. The lower the process technology means lower processor’s power requirements and more processors can be produced in a silicon wafer, hence, lower the manufacturing cost.

Using 65nm process technology, 955 is operating at 1.20 - 1.33V operating voltage range while drawing a power of approximately 130 watts.
As compared to the last CPU Intel released, Pentium Extreme Edition 840 that runs on 3.2 GHz, Pentium Extreme Edition 955 doubles the amount of Level 2 (L2) cache from 2MB to 4MB (2MB for each core) !

Seagate Barracuda 750GBSeagate Technology has just announced the release of the world’s first 750GB desktop hard drive. The first shipments of this huge capacity internal hard drive was yesterday (April 26, 2006). The external model with the same capacity will be released this coming Monday, May 1, 2006.

Seagate’s latest 750GB harddisk is part of the new Barracuda 7200.10 family which currently having 2 models ST3750640AS and ST3750840AS. Barracuda 7200.10 harddisks are built on perpendicular recording technology, a new technology that increases data density while decreasing moving parts for a more dependable drive.

Google's bid on Wireless Spectrum

Google confirmed Friday that it will bid on wireless spectrum, the first step toward the establishment of the company's long-rumored wireless network.
Google will file a bid with the FCC on Monday for a portion of the 700-MHz band, which the FCC is auctioning off. The bid does not include any partners, Google said.
According to the bidding rules – assisted by Google and public interest groups earlier this year – the winner of the auction must allow any consumer to download any software they wish onto the mobile phone, and to use and device they can on the wireless network. The rules go into effect if the reserve price of $4.6 billion is met.

Analysts have said previously that actually building the network could cost an additional $17 billion.
"We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are," said Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive of Google, in a statement. "Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet."

FireFox 3 is more Vulnerable than IE7 : A report

Microsoft today published a report that evaluates the security performance of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox through a detailed comparative look at vulnerabilities. The “Web Browser Vulnerability Analysis” report finds that over a period of three years, Internet Explorer proved to have fewer vulnerabilities than Mozilla Firefox. The report research, conducted by Jeff Jones, Security Strategy Director in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, examines in detail the volume and severity of vulnerabilities in the two browsers and includes these key findings:

• Microsoft has fixed 87 total vulnerabilities (across all supported versions of Internet Explorer) while Mozilla has fixed 199 vulnerabilities in supported Firefox products
• Internet Explorer experienced a lower volume of reported vulnerabilities across all categories of severity (high, medium, low)

For most people, their web browser is central to their interaction with the Internet, connecting to global web sites and helping them consume online services providing everything from booking flights to banking services to online shopping. This reality makes browsers a key tool when evaluating the security experience of users as the browser interprets Web content and programs delivered from around the world.
Over the past few years, there has been much discussion of the need for improvements in browser security, but few hard data studies performed to support assertions concerning the security of available browsers.
I've just finished up and posted for download a vulnerability analysis of Internet Explorer and Firefox, including fixed and unfixed vulnerabilities, that covers roughly the past three years since Firefox first released.
As usual for these, I want to post one chart as a teaser to get you to go look at the full report. In this case, I'm choosing one that looks at alternative upgrade paths. Let's say you deployed Firefox 1.0 and then Firefox 1.5 came out - did you upgrade immediately or did you wait until support for Firefox 1.0 was ending? (... or maybe you're still using 1.0... tsk tsk) Same question for 2.0.

Danish Electric Car Scientists Extend Range of ZAP Xebra to 152 Miles With New Battery Management Technology

Lithium Balance Develops Battery Management Technology for ZAP
Electric car scientists at Lithium Balance in Copenhagen and ZAP of California announced results of their latest tests of a new battery management system for lithium batteries, reporting that the Xebra pickup traveled 152 miles on a single charge.



Electric car scientists extended the range of an electric car by five times to 152 miles using lithium-ion batteries and a proprietary battery management system. California's ZAP and Denmark's Lithium Balance plan to offer an upgrade for the ZAP Xebra pickup in the near future.


Since January, ZAP and Lithium Balance, formerly Eco Tech A/S, have been collaborating on the development of the new battery management system. ZAP has acquired the exclusive distribution for the technology for integration into its electric vehicle development.
Two Xebra electric vehicles are being used for testing the Lithium Balance battery management system at facilities in Copenhagen. In July, a similar test resulted in a distance traveled of 100 miles per charge.
Lithium Balance's new system helps maximize the efficiency and performance of lithium batteries. The overall system is smaller and lighter, increasing the energy density by eight to ten times compared to the lead acid batteries that are common in today's electric cars. Lithium Balance claims the new system also improves the safety and reliability of large-scale lithium battery packs for automotive applications.
ZAP is currently marketing the Xebra electric sedan and pickup through a global distribution network of auto distributors, dealers and service centers. The Xebra is a unique 'city-car' designed to provide an energy efficient alternative for commuters, multi-car families, businesses and government fleets.

Tough new rules for solar car race

A Dutch team's solar-powered car in the 2003 World Solar Challenge. The new rules mean the car must be built to allow the driver to sit upright and get in and out unaided (File photo). (AAP: Steve Strike)

The World Solar Challenge for cars powered only by sunshine is on this weekend in Darwin, and for the first time in its 20-year history, organisers are making it tougher, demanding that today's sun-fuelled contraptions conform to the designs of more conventional cars.

They have been years in the making. Now these solar prototypes are going through final adjustments before Sunday's race.
Cars of every weird and wonderful shape will showcase the latest in solar technology as they travel from Darwin to Adelaide.
But with solar power almost verging on mainstream, race director Chris Selwood says organisers have set a new challenge by redefining the car.

"We've taken 25 per cent of their solar cells away from them so their power generation capacity is cut by a quarter," he said.
"We've given them an aerodynamic disadvantage by telling them that the driver should sit in a normal, upright seating position and not laying down in the car as they have in the older cars, and certain practical things, like the driver has to get in and out of the car unaided."

The tougher rules make it unlikely this year's race will set any speed records, which is just as well because for the first time, drivers have to contend with the Northern Territory's new 130-kilometres-per-hour road limit.
And in keeping with the green theme, organisers have included a Greenfleet category for cars powered on alternative fuels like canola oil, hydrogen and ethanol derived from sugar cane.
One team is confident it won't have to refuel at all during the 3,000-kilometre trip. New Zealander Cam Feast says his team, Bios Fuel, has developed a revolutionary car that runs on waste oil and water
"If you just took waste oil and water and you poured it into an engine, it will blow up, basically. It will blow the injectors off," he said.
"What Steve has worked out is a way of bonding the structures of the waste oil and the water so that they actually bond together, and then can be used to burn and create energy in an engine."

He says he is literally burning up waste.
"What we're doing is taking this waste stream, taking the energy from that and converting it to fuel," he said.

For Wireless USB, the Future StartsNow

Universal serial bus technology has made it easier to connect peripherals to PCs than prior methods, such as serial and parallel ports. USB lets users attach peripherals and other devices—such as digital cameras, game controllers, hard drives, printers, and scanners—without having to install individual drivers or use expansion cards, all without rebooting the computer. However, USB requires connections via cables, which can become a jumble when many devices are involved. And the cables limit the distance over which users can connect devices. To address this issue, a number of companies—including Alereon,Belkin International, D-Link, Fujitsu, Gemtek Technology, Hewlett-Packard, Icron Technologies, Intel, Lenovo, LSI Corp., Realtek Semi-conductor, Samsung, Staccato Communications, Synopsys, and Wisair—are beginning to release products based on wireless USB (WUSB). “There is significant interest among both computer and con-sumer-electronic vendors to move from wired to wireless peripheral connections,” said Brian O’Rourke, principal analyst for market research firm In-Stat. The use of consumer electronics with computers in home-entertainment systems has created a market for WUSB products, which offer easier implementation and communication of multimedia between devices than wired USB provides, said Synopsys product marketing manager Eric Huang. Moreover, the technology would let users move around with connected mobile devices beyond the reach of cables. The initial WUSB products will be dongles and hubs, but vendors will release computers and devices with built-in WUSB capabilities later this year, Huang predicted. Proponents believe large-scale WUSB sales are just over the horizon. As Figure 1 shows, In-Stat estimates there will be 4 billion USB-enabled devices worldwide by 2011, with 503 million, or 12.6 percent, using WUSB. This year, In-Stat predicts, out of 2.5 billion USB devices, only 3 million, or 0.1 percent, will be WUSB-enabled. However, the technology is new and faces potential problems once widely implemented, said Rob Enderle, principal of the Enderle Group, a market-research firm.


HERE COMES WIRELESS USB

HP, Intel, Lucent Technologies(now part of Alcatel-Lucent), Microsoft, NEC, and Royal Philips Electronics developed USB, which debuted in 1995 as an interface to connect peripherals to computers.
Several companies formed the Wireless USB Promoter Group in February 2004 to define the WUSB 1.0 specification, with the help of about 100 other members. The group completed the work in May 2005. The USB Implementers Forum(USB-IF; www.usb.org) now supports and promotes wired and one wireless flavor of the technology, whose current versions are USB 2.0 and WUSB 1.0. The USB-IF has a Certified WUSB(CWUSB) program that verifies computers’ and devices’ compliance to the WUSB approach that the forum supports. CWUSB lets systems transmit USB wirelessly via ultrawideband radio technology. However, vendors such as Icron that don’t use CWUSB provide a type of wireless USB that works with Wi-Fi as well as UWB.

Device that will scan text, recognize and translate it, and speak it aloud.

If you've been following along, you've noticed that Hewlett-Packard is aggressively trying to make money from innovations from its HP Labs. We had the color-matching technology for makeup users and the drug injections using printer technology.

Now the world's largest PC-maker is licensing some of its scanning technology to help create a device that will scan text, recognize and translate it, and speak it aloud.

Mouscan, a South Korean company, along with HP, said Friday that it will be using HP's scanning technology for its Voiscan product, which is expected to go on sale next year. Voiscan eventually will be sold to people with sight impairments, foreign-language students and international travelers.
The scanning technology isn't exactly new for HP. It used it for a product called CapShare, a handheld scanning device that output images to a PC. That product, introduced in 1998, was discontinued a few years later because it was just a portable scanner.

But now, by combining the scanning technology with Mouscan's ability to optically recognize text, translate it and vocalize it, you have a new device about the size of a cell phone with a lot of cool potential. Imagine you're a traveler trying to read a foreign-language article, document or even a menu. You just wave the Voiscan over the document for a few seconds and it quickly organizes the text and begins reading it aloud. It also can output to another device so you can see the translation.

This is nifty for travelers as well as students trying to pick up another language, by presenting a quick way of understanding a foreign language and seeing how it's used every day. The last scenario is for vision-impaired people, who will be able to gain information about printed documents that are not in braille.
It starts with HP's technology, which is able to piece together a document by waving a scanning device over it. Give it a couple seconds and several good passes and the image is assembled.

I'm still unsure how the whole thing will come off. The key will be the speed and accuracy of the translation. I've tried some free online translation programs, and they're not always right or even close to capturing the exact text. But if Mouscan can put it all together, I think they could have a real winner.