UPI Hi-Tech articles from March 2006

UPI Hi-Tech archives from March 2006

The Web: Become a Harvard man -- online.
March 1, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 1 (UPI) -- You may not be able to relocate to Cambridge, Mass., but these days you can still earn a diploma from Harvard University's extension school -- thanks to distance learning on the Internet....

Internet Explorer 7.0 makes waves.
March 1, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- After winning the browser wars and vanquishing its chief competitor, Netscape, the folks at Microsoft decided it was time to take a break from improving its industry standard...

ICANN and VeriSign settle over dot-com.
March 1, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Commerce will now have to judge whether to sign-off on the agreement approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Tuesday night on the...

Nano World: New microphone microscope tip.
March 2, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 2 (UPI) -- New microscopic probes resembling mergers between needles and microphones could help speedily measure chemical and mechanical properties of a material or a drug with just one poke, experts...

Budget divides Indian IT down the middle.
March 2, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 2 (UPI) -- A day after the local IT hardware industry uncorked the bubbly for receiving unprecedented sops from the Indian 2006 Budget that gave local manufacturing a fillip, it appears that it...

Xbox 360: Roundup and Review.
March 2, 2006... Byline: CHRIS BARYLICK AND LISA PICKOFF-WHITE WASHINGTON, March 2 (UPI) -- In the ensuing war of the third-generation video-game consoles, Microsoft launched the first volley this past November with the release of its Xbox 360. Despite...

'Bringing together the best in Europe'.
March 2, 2006... Byline: GEORGINA VOSS LONDON, March 2 (UPI) -- With the planned formation of a "European Institute of Technology" announced last week, the EU hopes to bring European innovation and knowledge back into the global picture. The institute,...

Wireless World: Clandestine communications.
March 3, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 3 (UPI) -- New wireless technologies being developed by a secretive government agency in collaboration with private contractors may dramatically improve communications for homeland defense among...

New bill promotes Net neutraity.
March 3, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 3 (UPI) -- A new bill in the Senate seeks to prohibit network operators from charging content providers extra for faster delivery of their content to consumers over the Internet, or in favor of...

Hutchison Telecom rejigs India operations.
March 3, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 3 (UPI) -- After remaining closely held for years and keeping the Indian telecom investors' hopes on tenterhooks for over a year it appears that Hutchison Telecommunications International...

Networking: E-mail as slow as snail mail?
March 6, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 6 (UPI) -- You send a crucial e-mail on a Monday morning, but it doesn't arrive in the client's mailbox, across town, until Thursday afternoon. You lose a pending deal. Exasperating? Yes, but...

AT&T's BellSouth buyout plan worries many.
March 6, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- While some industry analysts worry that AT&T's eyes may have become bigger than its stomach in bidding for BellSouth, consumer groups fear that the deal will only lead to bigger profits for...

Hotmail banks on speed for better service.
March 6, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 6 (UPI) -- It's free and available worldwide, but Hotmail isn't known for its speedy access. What's more, if you're a dialup internet user, particularly in a developing country, the situation is...

Nano World: Twin-barreled nano-eyedropper.
March 7, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 7 (UPI) -- Devices resembling crosses between eyedroppers and double-barreled shotguns only nanometers or billionths of a meter wide can create droplets 10 times smaller than a red blood cell for use...

iVillage wins big from NBC buyout.
March 7, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- As venerable as NBC Universal may be with its vast empire of television and film networks, it is still not beyond buying out smaller, niche Internet companies catering to a targeted...

Love on the information suitor highway.
March 7, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- Angie Vasconcellos started dating online two years ago before she moved to Arizona but broke off the relationship before it got too serious. "It's easy to meet people from the...

Interview: Alienware's gaming challenge.
March 7, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- Childhood friends and Alienware co-founders Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila never thought their love for computer games would lead to a place out of this world. Together, they have...

Israel marks National Safe Internet Day.
March 7, 2006... Byline: LEAH KRAUSS HADERA, Israel, March 7 (UPI) -- Israel held its second annual National Safe Internet Day on Tuesday, with workshops, lectures and activities for children and parents nationwide. "We have to take into consideration...

The Web: Death, taxes and Internet spam.
March 8, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 8 (UPI) -- Receiving a lot of e-mail spam lately? If you're like most Americans, the answer is probably a categorical "yes." Blame it on the Internal Revenue Service. Income tax return filing time is...

Wireless-security campaign steps up.
March 8, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 8 (UPI) -- Talking about connectivity on-the-go and being concerned about storage capacity is no longer a sign of being a geek, but rather very much part of everyday life for many people. Yet as the...

China's surging appetite for 3G.
March 8, 2006... Byline: GEORGINA VOSS LONDON, March 8 (UPI) -- With more than 10 million potential subscribers of third-generation mobile phones at the ready, China seems ready to continue shaping its role as a powerful force in the adoption of new...

Interview: Intel's media gamble.
March 9, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- Intel is the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturer, but the chipmaker is eager to be seen as a media company too. Its recently released Viiv standard promises to standardize...

Move over TiVo, MythTV is here.
March 9, 2006... Byline: CHRIS BARYLICK WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- Frustrated by the slow, advertising-laden cable experience provided by AT&T Broadband, programmer Isaac Richards took matters into his own hands by coming up with his own solution to the...

Virus makes classified data go online.
March 9, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- File-share can be a dangerous business, or so Japanese government agencies are finding out the hard way. Two weeks after the country's Maritime Self-Defense Force found out that some...

Internet tech dazzles FOSE convention.
March 9, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- Perhaps the U.S. government can rest a little easier over its battle with Internet censorship in China, knowing there is software that could circumvent the Chinese's online censor program....

Lycos gets into online gaming.
March 10, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) -- Internet search giant Lycos entered the online gaming war this week with the launch of its Lycos Games service. The online program offers free games, as well as pay-for-play,...

Wireless World: Stop, diamond thief!
March 10, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 10 (UPI) -- An aspiring diamond thief takes a job at a jewelry company's warehouse, surreptitiously planning to scam his employer out of some of its lucrative inventory over the coming months. It's...

Globe Talk: Vodafone's sayonara problems.
March 10, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) -- The deal is not yet sealed, but expectations that Vodafone will abandon operating in Japan have already been welcomed by industry analysts. But while retreating from the competitive...

Nano World: Nano origami supercapacitors.
March 10, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 10 (UPI) -- Origami with features just nanometers or billionths of a meter large can fold into electrically chargeable supercapacitors, experts told UPI's Nano World. For decades, the electronics...

India says no to Google Earth's peering.
March 10, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 10 (UPI) -- Concerned over distinct satellite images of its strategic installations that Google makes available online, India has decided to mask some of the sensitive images itself. ...

Wal-Mart to sell Verizon prepaid wireless.
March 10, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) -- Verizon Wireless further entrenched itself in the battle for prepaid wireless phone customers Thursday, announcing that their INpulse pay-as-you-go service is now available at all U.S....

Cell phones help track traffic flow.
March 10, 2006... Byline: LEAH KRAUSS BINYAMINA, Israel, March 10 (UPI) -- An Israeli company says it has developed a system for managing traffic by tracking drivers' cell-phone signals. Based on the idea that most people keep their mobile phones on...

A new digital revolution.
March 10, 2006... Byline: BURGESS EVERETT WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) -- The rise of digital music may spell not just the death knell of the CD, but also a revolution in the way music is actually produced. For hip-hop, techno and dance music in...

Preparing for the worst with telecom.
March 13, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO DOHA, Qatar, March 13 (UPI) -- As telecommunications bureaucrats from across the globe debate in the Qatari capital on how to standardize telecommunications infrastructure worldwide, they are united at least on one...

Networking: Storage blues.
March 13, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 13 (UPI) -- Computer companies once constantly extolled the "paper saving" virtues of e-mail. But now, with government regulators compelling the retention of many new records, storage requirements are...

Bloggers revisited in campaign-finance law.
March 13, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- A bill that would exempt bloggers from campaign-finance laws was approved Thursday by the Committee on House Administration and comes just in time as the Federal Electoral Commission will...

Trib outs CIA.
March 13, 2006... Byline: T.K. MALOY WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- It's hard keeping secrets -- even on the Internet. In a Sunday story that somewhat rattled the CIA, the Chicago Tribune reported that using the Net and a variety of easy to use online...

Nano World: Nanofibers for brain repair.
March 14, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 14 (UPI) -- Self-assembling biodegradable scaffolds made of fibers only nanometers or billionths of a meter wide helped repair brain damage and return vision in surgically blinded hamsters, experts...

Aspiring for a broadband revolution.
March 14, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO DOHA, Qatar, March 14 (UPI) -- There are more mobile phones and computers in the world's poorest countries than ever, but it's far too early to declare that the technological divide between industrialized and...

Supercom looks to RF tags for revenue.
March 14, 2006... Byline: LEAH KRAUSS BINYAMINA, Israel, March 14 (UPI) -- Smart Card maker Supercom's "next generation market" for the coming year will be radio frequency asset and people tracking, the newly appointed chief executive officer told United...

News enters the future.
March 14, 2006... Byline: T.K. MALOY WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- The newspaper industry and its moguls may go the way of the dinosaur, according to media baron Rupert Murdoch, who hailed a new "age of discovery" that has included the dawn of the digital...

New security toolbar rates e-mail senders.
March 14, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- Internet users have a new ally in the uncertain world of e-mail, as security vendor CipherTrust this week unveiled a toolbar for e-mail clients that lets users know how trustworthy the...

The Web: Wagering on 'March Madness'.
March 15, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 15 (UPI) -- This spring, the annual ritual of the NCAA basketball tournament -- colloquially known as "March Madness" -- begins once again. Online, a similar, high-stakes rite commences once more too:...

Tech ed key to Qatar's post-oil growth.
March 15, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO DOHA, Qatar, March 15 (UPI) -- Perhaps no one in Qatar is aware of the fact that the country's energy wealth will run out sooner or later than its leader, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Described by some as a...

Microsoft looks to StepUI.
March 15, 2006... Byline: CHRIS BARYLICK WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- In the midst of this year's recent TechFest, an internal event where Microsoft demonstrated over 150 internal projects currently in development, the world's largest software company...

Nano World: DNA origami could make devices.
March 15, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 15 (UPI) -- A novel technique can fold strands of DNA to create virtually any desired two-dimensional structure, including words, geometric patterns and even a map of the Americas and smiley faces...

Telecom FDI under scanner.
March 15, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 15 (UPI) -- The recent reorganization of Hutch-Essar, the Indian telecom subsidiary of Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, which has resulted in a flap with its local majority...

Telecoms innovating emergency improvements.
March 15, 2006... Byline: MEREDITH MACKENZIE WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- A conference Wednesday that brought together professionals from the telecommunications industry, academia and governments is seeking to iron out problems in interoperability and...

PTO unveils new patent filing system.
March 16, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- A new electronic patent application filing system to be used by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was launched Thursday by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Known as EFS-Web,...

Nano World: Fuel-driven nano-based muscles.
March 16, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 16 (UPI) -- Nanotechnologists in Texas have developed two different kinds of artificial muscles powered by fuels such as hydrogen or alcohol that are up to 100 times stronger than natural muscles,...

Spat over Palestine clouds telecom meeting.
March 16, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO DOHA, Qatar, March 16 (UPI) -- Trying to bridge the digital divide may unite countries worldwide in theory, but not if that includes Palestine. Or so that was one of the outcomes of the International Telecommunication...

AMD CEO speaks on innovation and tech.
March 16, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- The microprocessor is the single-most important ingredient in information technology, says Dr. Hector Ruiz, chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Without it there would...

Wireless World: Attack of the 'botnets'.
March 17, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 17 (UPI) -- A botnet -- or robotic network -- sends an instant message to your smart phone. You think it is from a friend and open the IM. But it's not a chatty note at all, as the automated message...

Internet music engines fuel discovery.
March 17, 2006... Byline: LEAH KRAUSS We've all been there: You're in the record store and want to try something new, but the only thing looping through your head is the Top 40 radio station. Step away from the Jessica Simpson album. Internet music engines...

Rising salary may blunt India's BPO edge.
March 17, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 17 (UPI) -- Despite the fact that with an expected growth of nearly 28 percent in the financial year 2005-06, scorching growth continues to be the trend this year too, India's money spinning...

'Quaero' becoming a reality.
March 20, 2006... Byline: GEORGINA VOSS LONDON, March 20 (UPI) -- Nearly a year after its launch, the European multimedia search engine "Quaero" looks more like a high-tech reality than its critics had initially taken to be. Following the recent launch...

Networking: 'Corridor Warriors'.
March 20, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 20 (UPI) -- They are called "corridor warriors." They're the 21st century's revised version of "road warriors," those late-20th-century business professionals, last seen scurrying about airports, with...

High bills may put damper on mobile growth.
March 20, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Gone are the days when cell phones are used simply to make phone calls. For any trend-conscious user, having a built-in camera is de rigueur, while an MP3 player combined with the mobile...

Tech remodeling the art gallery scene.
March 20, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- What may seem at first glance to be black scribbles amidst white backgrounds are actually displays of varying black particles moving in calculated mathematical parameters shown via LCD...

Internet TV strides forward in Germany.
March 21, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- Internet television took another step forward Tuesday following Deutsche Telekom's announcement that it would join forces with software behemoth Microsoft to develop Internet protocol...

Treo vies with BlackBerry for top spot.
March 21, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA WASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- The folks at Microsoft, never known for straying away from a fight, have been quietly working on improving its mobile windows operating system to directly challenge BlackBerry's...

Homeland Security network gets an F.
March 21, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- If the Department of Homeland Security were a high school student, it would be in severe danger of getting left back. For the second consecutive year the department has received a...

The Web: Software, on demand.
March 22, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 22 (UPI) -- Major software players like Microsoft Corp., Oracle and SAP have started responding soberly to a trend that has been slowly escalating for years: selling "on demand" software. Such software...

Dot-xxx proposal under consideration.
March 22, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) -- While legislative pressure has been revived to create a dot-xxx Internet domain in order to better filter pornographic Web sites, some groups, including the American Civil Liberties...

Standing vigil for analog TV.
March 22, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) -- Run for the hills, Feb. 17, 2009, is the day of the apocalypse. This is the day that will affect almost every American household, as it's the drop-dead date for analog television to...

Analysis: Indian IT mart booming says NASSCOM IDC.
March 22, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 22 (UPI) -- Information technology isn't simply a big export for the Indian economy. The surge in the domestic economy has meant that demand for IT services within India's own borders is...

EU presses for broadband's way forward.
March 22, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) -- Great as the World Wide Web may be as a source of entertainment and information, it's not enough for people to go online. Rather, Internet access is only truly useful with a broadband...

Game developers converge on San Jose.
March 22, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA SAN JOSE, Calif., March 22 (UPI) -- The official kickoff to the 2006 game developer's conference starts Wednesday with a keynote address from Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment. Experts say...

PGP founder unveils new VoIP security.
March 23, 2006... Byline: CHRIS BARYLICK WASHINGTON, March 23 (UPI) -- Somewhere out there, someone is a little too curious about your data. This is the main concern of Phil Zimmermann, the creator of the industry standard PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)...

Pay your cell-phone bill by watching ads.
March 23, 2006... Byline: LEAH KRAUSS BINYAMINA, Israel, March 23 (UPI) -- Hate cell-phone bills? Israeli customers of mobile operator Orange who have 3G phones will soon be able to kiss their bills goodbye -- if they're willing to watch a few commercials...

China Telecom upbeat despite 3G worries.
March 23, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 23 (UPI) -- As wealthier Chinese in big cities snap up multi-functioning mobile phones and those living in remoter areas buy their first basic handsets, the country's biggest phone carrier would...

Sony sees the online light.
March 23, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA Sony Computer Entertainment President Phil Harrison announced Wednesday the pending launch of the PS3's brand-new online service, currently dubbed the "PlayStation Network Platform," which will be the...

Globe Talk: The homeland-security business.
March 24, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- For those in the business of providing security with the government as their principal client, the landscape after Sept. 11, 2001, has been a new world, with sweeping changes not only in...

Wireless World: Wirelessly monitoring ECGs.
March 24, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 24 (UPI) -- An elderly woman has a heart attack. Paramedics arrive on the scene at her home a few minutes later and begin to revive her, and hook up an electrocardiogram transmitter to her chest, and...

World wireless revenue to surpass fixed.
March 24, 2006... Byline: LEAH KRAUSS TEL AVIV, Israel, March 24 (UPI) -- Global service revenues from wireless phone service will surpass those of fixed lines for the first time by the end of 2006, according to a telecommunications research firm. And,...

Movies-for-download making inroads.
March 24, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- U.K. movie-goers now have easier access to Hollywood blockbusters anywhere they go thanks to Universal Pictures. The studio giant will allow customers to purchase movies to keep in...

VCs seek dot-com success stories in India.
March 24, 2006... Byline: INDRAJIT BASU CALCUTTA, India, March 24 (UPI) -- Manik Arora of Battery Ventures, the Silicon Valley-based VC that prefers to call itself a "lead institutional investor in its portfolio companies," spends a lot of time researching...

Nano World: Bone cells grow on nanotubes.
March 24, 2006... Byline: CHARLES Q. CHOI NEW YORK, March 24 (UPI) -- Scientists have for the first time found that bone-forming cells can proliferate on carbon nanotubes, which are among the strongest materials known. This suggests nanotubes could one day...

It's a wrap, GDC top 12 list.
March 24, 2006... Byline: MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA SAN JOSE, Calif., March 24 (UPI) -- It's been a long week of talking game development tools, dealing with a cold and rainy San Jose, and listening to companies saying "Wait until E3," instead of answering...

Broadband in space.
March 27, 2006... Byline: STOKELY BAKSH WASHINGTON, March 24 (UPI) -- Broadband might be entering into space thanks to a collective team of MIT researchers developing a tiny light detector that could help speed up data transmission from planetary probes to...

Idol goes Underground with online contest.
March 27, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- As the fifth season of American Idol wraps up on television, Web site American Idol Underground is just beginning its Big Push contest, where unknown artists compete and get judged by...

Networking: Wiring the small office.
March 27, 2006... Byline: GENE KOPROWSKI CHICAGO, March 27 (UPI) -- Computer networks can dramatically cut costs and improve customer satisfaction, but only for major Fortune 500 and Forbes 400 companies, right? Perhaps that was the case last century, but...

Online service helps users trade DVDs.
March 27, 2006... Byline: ELLIOT SMILOWITZ WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- Your old DVD of "The English Patient" has been sitting on your shelves since you got it; meanwhile you want to get the DVD of "Saw II" but don't want to pay $20 at a retail store. ...

Analysis: Return of the Bell epoque?
March 27, 2006... Byline: SHIHOKO GOTO WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- As Lucent Technologies considers merging with French telecom equipment manufacturer Alcatel on the one hand, and AT&T continues to display its seemingly insatiable appetite to gobble up...