Nybble 2008.03.17

N Y B B L E   M O N T H L Y   N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2008.03.17 Issue No. 198

I have just about given up trying to educate my friends as to what is
scam/spam/chain emails and what is not. There's only so many times you
can explain why it's impossible for Ericsson to give away free phones
to everyone. There's no way AOL and Microsoft will be able to track
how many times you have forwarded a piece of email. And there's no
such thing as a virus that will crash your whole computer by
overwriting your boot sector. Frankly, my dear, CNN and McAfee don't
give a hoot even if such a virus exists.

Before, I used to write short dissertations as to why a particular
hoax email can't be true. Then, I started replying with a link to the
appropriate Snopes article. Nowadays, I simply delete the offending
emails. It's like fighting a losing battle. Given that the use of
email is now almost universal, I reckon its proper use, including
email etiquette, should be taught in schools.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the email newbies
about it. Thanks.

_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Self-Healing Rubber
* Cheap High-Speed GiFi Chip
* Robot Gas Attendant
* Unlimited Free Music Downloads to LG Mobiles
* Self-Cleaning Clothes
* Harvesting Energy from Clothes
* Speedcabling as a Sport
* Sperm from Bone Marrow
* Nybblets
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh

_________SELF-HEALING RUBBER_________
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13354

Polymer chemists at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher
Educational Institution (ESPCI) in Paris, France have developed a
self-healing rubber that binds back together after being snapped or
punctured. When the material melds together again, under gentle
compression at room temperature, it has just as much strength as it
had before. The material could eventually make it a cinch to repair
holes in shoes, snapped fan belts and punctured kitchen gloves. It
might also make strange new products possible, for instance bags that
can be ripped open and then resealed.

Regular rubber gets its strength from the fact that long chains of
polymer molecules are coupled, or "crosslinked," in three different
ways: through covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bonding between molecules.
Of these three bond types, only the hydrogen bonds can be remade once
a material is fractured, although normally there are not enough
hydrogen bonds for the rubber to re-couple in this way. The solution,
therefore, is to simply get rid of the ionic and covalent bonds, and
let only the hydrogen bonds perform the crosslinking. The material is
synthesised from fatty acids and urea, which are cheap and renewable.
The only downside is that the material is weaker than regular rubber.

_________CHEAP HIGH-SPEEP GIFI CHIP_________
http://snurl.com/21x75

After almost a decade of R&D, Professor Stan Skafidas and his team at
the Melbourne University-based laboratories of NICTA, the national
information and communications technology research centre, unveils the
"GiFi" chip. The tiny five-millimetre-a-side chip can transmit data
through a wireless connection at a breakthrough five gigabits per
second over distances of up to 10 metres, and is predicted to
revolutionise the way household gadgets like televisions, phones and
DVD players talk to each other. For example, an entire high-definition
movie from a video shop kiosk could be transmitted to a mobile phone
in a few seconds, and the phone could then upload the movie to a home
computer or screen at the same speed.

The team is the first to demonstrate a working transceiver-on-a-chip
that uses CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology -
the cheap, ubiquitous technique that prints silicon chips. The chip
uses only a tiny one-millimetre-wide antenna and less than two watts
of power, and would cost less than $10 to manufacture. It uses the
unoccupied 60GHz "millimetre wave" spectrum to transmit the data,
which gives it an advantage over WiFi (wireless internet).

The high-powered team included 10 PhDs students from the University of
Melbourne and collaborated with companies such as computer giant IBM
during the research.

_________ROBOT GAS ATTENDANT________
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL0448185920080204

After seeing a robot milking a cow, petrol station operator Nico van
Staveren had a eureka moment - why not get robots to fill a car tank?
No messy hands or smell of petrol anymore. So with the help of some
Dutch inventors, they recently unveiled a 75,000 euro (US$111,100)
car-fuelling robot called "Tankpitstop". The first of its kind, it
works by registering the car on arrival at the filling station and
matching it to a database of fuel cap designs and fuel types. A
robotic arm fitted with multiple sensors extends from a regular gas
pump, carefully opens the car's flap, unscrews the cap, picks up the
fuel nozzle and directs it towards the tank opening, much as a human
arm would, and as efficiently.

Nico van Staveren hopes to introduce the "Tankpitstop" robot in a
handful of Dutch stations by the end of the year. It works for any car
whose tank can be opened without a key, and whose contours and
dimensions have been recorded to avoid scratching.

_________UNLIMITED FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS TO LG MOBILES_________
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49295528,00.htm?fullread

London-based Omnifone announced the launch of MusicStation Max -- a
worldwide mobile music download service that offers 'free' unlimited
downloads of music from the four major labels (Sony BMG, Universal,
EMI and Warner), directly to mobile phones over the air. In the UK,
Omnifone will offer a catalogue of 1.5 million tracks.

The service will launch in the first half of this year with handsets
manufactured by LG. Participating mobile networks will offer the
special MusicStation Max phones, and will offer service plans that
include an unlimited data plan to be used for music downloads. This
lets users download, listen to and store an unlimited number of tracks
from all four major music labels, on their mobile phone. Each
MusicStation Max phone comes with PC and Mac software that's connected
to the phone contract. Every time a song is downloaded to your phone,
the same song is downloaded to your computer for playback through your
PC speakers. It's DRMed, so no transferring to iPods, CDs or other
handsets. After the phone's contract is up, users can continue to play
songs downloaded to their handsets and computers already, or purchase
a new handset in order to continue accessing new music.

_________SELF-CLEANING CLOTHES_________
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/20306/

Researchers at Monash University, in Victoria, Australia, have found a
way to coat fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break
down food and dirt in sunlight. The researchers, led by organic
chemist and nanomaterials researcher Walid Daoud, have made natural
fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp that will automatically remove
food, grime, and even red-wine stains when exposed to sunlight.

Titanium dioxide, which is used in sunscreens, toothpaste, and paint,
is a strong photocatalyst: in the presence of ultraviolet light and
water vapor, it forms hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize, or decompose,
organic matter. However, these nanocrystals cannot decompose wool and
are harmless to skin. Moreover, the coating does not change the look
and feel of the fabric. Titanium dioxide can also destroy pathogens
such as bacteria in the presence of sunlight by breaking down the cell
walls of the microorganisms. This should make self-cleaning fabrics
especially useful in hospitals and other medical settings.

To make self-cleaning wool, Daoud and his colleagues use nanocrystals
of titanium dioxide that are four to five nanometers in size. The
researchers chemically modify the surface of wool fibers, adding
chemical groups called carboxylic groups, which strongly attract
titanium dioxide. Then they dip the fibers in a titanium dioxide
nanocrystal solution. In experiments involving red-wine stains,
Titanium-dioxide-coated wool shows almost no sign of the red stain
after 20 hours of exposure to simulated sunlight, while the untreated
wool remains boldly stained. Other stains disappear faster: coffee
stains fade away in two hours, while blue-ink stains disappear in
seventeen hours.

Daoud expects self-cleaning wools to be available in the market within
two years, once sufficient laboratory and industrial trials have been
completed.

_________HARVESTING ENERGY FROM CLOTHES_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7241040.stm

Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed
novel brush-like fibres that generate electrical energy from movement.
Weaving them into a material could allow designers to create "smart"
clothes which harness body movement to power portable electronic
gadgets. The team says that the materials could also be used in tents
or other structures to harness wind energy.

The nano-generators, as the technology is known, consist of pairs of
fibres that look similar to tiny, bendable bottle-brushes. At the core
of each fibre is a Kevlar stalk. On the surface, nanowires made of
zinc oxide are grown in solution. One of the bristled fibres is also
dipped in gold to act as an electrode. When the pair is scrubbed
together they create a small amount of electrical energy. Experiments
with the prototypes showed that two 1cm-long fibres could generate a
current of four nanoamperes and an output voltage of about four
millivolts. The team is optimistic they can optimise the design we can
get up to 80 milliwatts per square metre of fabric - that could
potentially power an iPod.

The technology could also find a use in healthcare - powering tiny
medical devices like a true cochlear implant or heart pacemaker, or a
delivery mechanism for subcutaneous drug delivery implants or
antibiotic drug reservoirs for preventing infection in retinal implants.

_________SPEEDCABLING AS A SPORT_________
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7240939.stm

A new "sport" based around unraveling the mass of wires that can
typically be found beneath computer desks the world over is taking off
in the western US. The first "speedcabling" competition took place in
an art gallery in Los Angeles and was won by LA-based web developer
Matthew Howell.

The challenge was devised by IT professional Steven Schkolne. The idea
came to him two years ago when he started wondering if others shared
both his skill and his passion for detangling cables. Contestants are
faced with a tangled mass of six Ethernet cables of various lengths.
Their task is simply to separate them in the fastest time. To get them
to replicate the conditions of the wires found snaking and choking
their way around hard drive units, monitors and printers in offices
worldwide, Schkolne first started by tangling them in a figure eight.
Then he threw the bundles in a clothes dryer for three minutes - no
longer attached to any computer unit, naturally. After untangling the
Ethernet cables, the contestant is supposed to hold the full cable
above his head. Crucially, the cables also have to be able to carry a
network signal after detangling.

The prize? A $50 gift certificate for dinner at a local Italian
restaurant.

_________SPERM FROM BONE MARROW_________
http://snurl.com/21x76

British scientists are ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm,
cutting men out of the process of creating life. The breakthrough
paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are
biologically their own. Gay men could follow suit by using the
technique to make eggs from male bone marrow.

According to New Scientist magazine, the researchers at Newcastle upon
Tyne University want to take stem cells from a woman donor's bone
marrow and transform them into sperm through the use of special
chemicals and vitamins. Newcastle professor Karim Nayernia has applied
for permission to carry out the work and is ready to start the
experiments within two months. The biologist, who pioneered the
technique with mice, believes early-stage 'female sperm' could be
produced inside two years. Mature sperm capable of fertilising eggs
might take three more years. Early-stage sperm have already been
produced from male bone marrow.

The team say their technique will help lead to new treatments for
infertility, a little understood condition that affects one in six
couples. Scientists warn, however, that the research is still in its
infancy and any treatment is still many years away from use in
hospitals and clinics. There are also fears that children born from
artificial eggs and sperm will suffer severe health problems, like the
mice in the Newcastle experiments. Couples who have children from
artificial sperm created from women would be able to have girls only.
This is because the female sperm would lack the Y-chromosome needed
for boys. Critics also warn that it sidelines men and raises the
prospect of babies being born through entirely artificial means.

_________NYBBLETS_________
* Alcatel-Lucent researchers have recorded an optical transmission
record of 16.4 Tbps over 2,550 km in Villarceaux, France
* Tiny Alaskan village of Kivalina is suing a multitude of oil, power
and coal companies for contributing to global warming
* Canon plans to embed photographs with the user's iris metadata for
copyright protection
* Batteries using QuantumSphere's nanoparticle technology will have
5x more energy density and 3x more power than alkaline cells

_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
lrcDB
http://lrcdb.org/

vozMe
http://vozme.com/index.php?lang=en
Text to mp3

Google Reader Mobile
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/05/google-reader-mobile.html

net2ftp
http://www.net2ftp.com/
A web-based FTP client

_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
Today I received an issue of Time Magazine dated next week! Have the
publishers of Time finally invented a form of "Time Travel"?

_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is
essential to your own.
~ Robert Heinlein ~

_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Which company was first in Silicon Valley?
The first "technology" corporation to move into California's Silicon
Valley was Hewlett-Packard, in 1938. Stanford University engineers
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their company in a Palo Alto
garage with $1,538. Their first product was an audio oscillator bought
by Walt Disney Studios for use in the making of Fantasia.
Source: Arcamax Trivia

_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
The Washington Post had a contest wherein participants were asked to
tell the younger generation how much harder they had it "in the old days."
In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In winter,
we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction.
In my day, we didn't have rocks. We had to go down to the creek and
wash our clothes by beating them with our heads.
In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition
on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated.
Back in my day, they hadn't invented electricity. We had to watch
television by candlelight.

_________DOWNLOADABLE DOWNLOAD_________
TipCamp
http://www.utipu.com/app/
Freeware screen recorder

KB Piano
http://gfsoftware.com/kbp_information.html
Virtual piano

Excel Password Remover 98
http://www.straxx.com/excel/password.html

That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
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