By Stewart Meagher
09 May 2008 - 11:23 AM

THE LONG-AWAITED and much-delayed update to Windows XP, Service Pack 3, is giving owners of machines with AMD hardware headaches aplenty it seems. The problems, which first arose just one day after the push, have been causing lots of noise on Microsoft support sites and angry user bogs.

One user reported, "I just installed Windows XP SP3 and after completing the processes and when the system reboots, the system cannot proceed to load the Windows. It just displays the flash screen of Windows then after it reboots again." Angry users have also reported that, after the installation, it is not even possible to boot in safe mode, usually the last resort before setting up a repeated forehead/screen interface.

Jesper Johansson, a former program manager for security policy at Microsoft and a well respected bogger on such things has provided some pointers as to where the problem might lie. According to Johansson, there appears to be two separate problems. One affects only AMD-equipped PCs sold by Hewlett-Packard. "The problem is that HP, apparently along with other OEMs, deploys the same image to Intel-based computers that they do to AMD-based computers," said Johansson.

"Because the image for both Intel and AMD is the same all have the intelppm.sys driver installed and running. That driver provides power management on Intel-based computers. On an AMD-based computer, amdk8.sys provides the same functionality. "

by Mary Jo Foley
May 8th, 2008 @ 1:42 pm

MySpace unveiled on May 8 yet another industry initiative to allow users and developers to share their social-networking data — a goal Microsoft also has in its sights. The first partners announcing their participation in MySpace’s Data Portability initiative include Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket (also owned by News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media) and Twitter. I didn’t see mentions in any of the Data Portability coverage I saw as to when/whether Microsoft might play here, too.

So here are the answers to those questions: Microsoft demonstrated in March at its TechFest Research fair a project codenamed C2. Microsoft’s C2 is a social-aggregation toolkit that can work across desktop, mobile and Web clients. It aggregates data, including friends, call history, photos, contacts and the like — from Windows Live Spaces, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, users’ email and other sources.

Although it is technically still a research project, C2 was set to begin internal testing at Microsoft in April. A couple of different Microsoft product teams, including the Windows Live for Mobile one, had expressed interest in incorporating C2 into future releases of their services.

by Stephen Shankland
May 8, 2008 10:48 AM PDT

Update 3:30 p.m. PDT: A correction: Although only travel modules could be sponsored at launch, now all can be. Also, there's no display ad opportunity at present, though the sponsorship can mean more prominence than text ads. Update 11:45 p.m.: I updated with new detail from Yahoo, further information from the site, and some analysis.

Yahoo has begun testing Glue Pages, a major new way to present search results that caters to its strength as an Internet portal. Glue Pages, which the company began offering in beta form to Yahoo search users in India, combine traditional search results with a wealth of other related information. Traditional search results appear in a strip on the left side of the page, while other modules appear that spotlight sponsored links, recipes, medical information, Wikipedia entries, stock charts, Flickr images, train schedules, restaurant lists, news, and even Google blog search results.

Yahoo's Indian team developed the feature and so far there are no plans to bring it to the United States or other areas, said spokeswoman Kathryn Kelly. "We encourage other regions to develop things that work for their regions," Kelly said. "If it does get traction, potentially something like it could launch in the United States." Yahoo pioneered Internet portals, all-purpose sites where people can find everything they need, but Google found a much stronger business model through an effective search engine that presents bare-bones results with text ads alongside.

Yahoo, though, hasn't given up, even though it continues to lose search share; In March the gap widened a bit more, with 59.8 percent of U.S. queries at Google and 21.3 percent at Yahoo, according to ComScore. The search is interesting for other reasons besides Yahoo's portal strengths.

By Jon Stokes
May 08, 2008 - 05:05PM CT

This past Monday, managed hosting company RackSpace announced that a subsidiary of theirs, Mosso, is currently beta testing a "cloud storage" service that will compete with Amazon's S3. Priced identically with S3 ($0.15/GB per month), Mosso's CloudFS will add another line to the ever-expanding menu of ways that users can keep files on remote, distributed, redundant storage.

What the announcement and subsequent press coverage didn't highlight, however, is how Mosso actually got into the cloud storage game in the first place. For a managed hosting provider that's already in the business of building, deploying, and managing servers, rolling out a cloud storage solution wasn't a hardware problem as much as it was a software problem. A RackLabs blog post tells the tale of how the company conceived of and implemented CloudFS.

The story is almost as interesting for what it does not involve as for what it does: there are no huge storage area network (SAN) devices. "Rackspace is a hosting company," John Engates explained in the post. "We have a ton of perfectly good older servers around that are not in use any more. First of all you take some of those 'seasoned' servers and you rebuild them from the ground up with exactly what you need. Heck we've got the parts. We don't need lots of processing power. We don't need much RAM. We need disk space and a lot of it."

He went on to discuss the company's new provisioning system: "The servers are easy to build, and we do that hundreds of times a day for our other customers. CloudFS servers can be slotted anywhere in the DC and they boot off the network. If one fails, we just stick another one in its place. Fast and easy." In other words, rolling out the hardware side of CloudFS required Rackspace to do exactly what it was already doing anyway, with hardware that it already had on hand.

By Michael DeAgonia
May 8, 2008

It has been just over six months since Mac OS X "Leopard" first shipped, bringing with it a slew of new features, a tweaked user interface, revamped underpinnings and -- as is often the case -- a healthy batch of complaints from users about problems. At the time, some in the Macintosh community even argued that Apple Inc.'s new operating system was released before it was ready for prime time.

Given that this was the first major update of the Mac operating system since early 2005 and that it had already been delayed once -- from April to late October -- Apple clearly didn't want to announce another delay. But did the company do a rush job in an effort to push its crown jewel out the door? Apple has taken steps in recent months to iron out any wrinkles that users have found.

With two major updates now under its belt (a third update is due out soon) as well as the release of numerous code tweaks and security fixes, Leopard has gained ground and maturity and has grown into a solid computing platform. Leopard promised enough new features to tempt Mac users to upgrade. Apple touted some 300 changes, major and minor:

Time Machine for automatic backups; a more powerful search tool, Spotlight; virtual desktops called Spaces; new Parental Controls to help users track what their kids are doing on the computer; Quick Look, which allows users to open files without having to first fire off an application; an updated user interface with a new Finder and Dock; elegant tweaks to mainstream Mac programs like Mail and iChat; and behind-the-scenes changes aimed at helping developers improve their own applications.

Publisher's Description:

Movie Label 2009 is our powerful yet easy-to-use movie collection organizer. It enables you to catalog your entire movie collection (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, movies on your harddrive, etc). It downloads all information about your movies and TV-series from the Internet, so there is no need for typing. Movie Label is built on a solid client/server database for optimal reliability and speed.

Latest Changes:

* Updated Firebird Database Engine to 2.1 (from 2.0.3)
* Case-insesitive search for Plot and Comments
* Various minor enhancements and fixes

Released: May 8, 2008
Publisher: Code|Aero Technologies
License: Shareware; $49.95 to buy
Limitations: Yes; 14 day timeout
OS Support: Windows (All)
Uninstaller?: Yes
Skin Support?: No; Supports XP Themes

Publisher's Description:

SUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware other products miss. Easily remove pests such as WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, and thousands more. Repair broken Internet Connections, Desktops, Registry Editing and more with our unique Repair System. Dedicated Threat Research Team scours the web for new threats and provides daily definition updates.

Released: May 8, 2008
Publisher: SUPERAntiSpyware.com
License: Freeware
OS Support: Windows 2000/2003/9x/Vista/XP
Uninstaller?: Yes
Skin Support?: No; Supports XP Themes

Game Accelerator is an all-in-one game optimization tool that allows you to play your games at the best level of performance possible.

To provide the gaming experience available, Game Accelerator is an all-in-one game optimization tool that allows you to run your games at the best possible performance by eliminating the performance and stability problems that make your games run slower than they should. This is done through easy one-click menu options that allow you to tailor your games to run faster based on your system hardware. The combination of optimization techniques used by Game Accelerator help significiantly improve your gaming experience, turning your computer into the ultimate gaming machine. Furthermore, to make your overall computer experience even smoother, an intelligent pop-up ad blocker is included to block those annoying spam pop-up and pop-under ads, as well as an easy-to-use system monitor taskbar that allows you to keep track of your computer's health.

Features include:

Improve gaming performance and stability through special game optimizations Tailor Game Accelerator to your computer hardware to make games run even faster for your system Stylish system monitor taskbar that allows you to keep track of your computer's health. Quick access to game optimization tools through the system tray icon
Integrated Laptop energy saving mode to keep your laptops running longer Integrated pop-up blocking capabilities to get rid of those annoying pop-up ads.

What's new in v7.3:
-Added special game optimizations for: Unreal Tournament 3, Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Need for Speed: ProStreet, BlackSite: Area 51, Warriors Orochi, The Golden Compass, Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis, Impossible Creatures
-Improved support for latest Intel and AMD CPUs
-Improved support for the latest Nvidia and ATI video cards

Author: Smartalec Software
Date: 2008-05-08
Size: 2.43 MB
License: Shareware $15.98
Requires: Win All

SmartFix Security Center 2008 is a cost-effective and all-in-one system security solution.

SmartFix Security Center was designed with the end-user in mind. Its easy to use interface and sleek design allow today's PC user to easily navigate and use the powerful security functions that are contained within.

Whether you are on the Internet extensively or only rarely share files with others, feel safe that SmartFix Security Center tools are protecting your PC in real-time as well as any providing you with the ability to fix historical
problems that your PC may have.

Protect your data today!

Feature list:

- Anti-Spyware: Protects your computer from harmful spyware and adware threats in real-time spyware protection and specially requested comprehensive spyware scans.
- Firewall: monitors Internet and network traffic to provide application-level protection for your PC against possible security threats.
- IntruShield: IntruShield protects against unknown security threats and hijacks by monitoring application behaviour and allows only trusted programs
to run.
- Anti-Spam: provides intelligent spam protection against that can customized to your personal preferences. Also protects against viral emails.
- Anti-Phish: identifies and alerts you to fraudulent emails asking for bank or personal information.
- File Shredder: erase files and documents from your hard drive, so they can never be retrieved again.
- Anti-Virus: provides online scan to protect your PC from harmful viruses as well as the latest security alerts.
- LiveUpdate: Fast and Easy to use, provides quick updates keeps your PC's protection current.

What's new in v4.2:
-updated spyware and security threat signature definitions
-improved real-time threat detection
-improve security core engine

Author: DefendGate Inc.
Date: 2008-05-08
Size: 3.10 MB
License: Shareware $15.98
Requires: Win All

Core FTP Lite - a free FTP Client with SSL/TLS, SSH/SFTP, site to site transfers, dragdrop, browser integration, user-friendly interface(s), FTP/HTTP Proxy, Socks 4/5 support, remote file searching, queue manager, auto retry and resume of transfers, transfer bandwidth control, htaccess editing, advanced dir listings, queueing of multiple FTP transfers on multiple sites, sessions, start, stop, and resume of FTP transfers, advanced directory listings, .htaccess editing, auto s/key support, keep alive, auto-reconnect, file permissions (chmod), and much more!

Free for personal and educational use.

Author: Core FTP
Date: 2008-05-08
Size: 3.31 MB
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

by Larry Dignan
May 8th, 2008 @ 11:32 am

Microsoft on Thursday previewed three critical bulletins for Microsoft Office and Windows and a moderate denial of service vulnerability for the company’s security software. According to Microsoft’s advance notification, the software giant will address the following in its Patch Tuesday update May 13:

* A critical remote code execution vulnerability primarily affecting Microsoft Office (Word) and another critical remote code execution flaw in Publisher. Affected software includes Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, Office 2007
* A critical Jet database engine issue that affects Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
* And a moderate bulletin was issued for a denial of service vulnerability in Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft Antigen, Microsoft Windows Defender, Microsoft Forefront Security.

by Elinor Mills
May 8, 2008 5:52 PM PDT

You think your personal information is priceless. But everything has a price, even your stolen bank account information. McAfee Avert Labs has discovered a price list that criminals use to buy and sell credit card numbers, bank account log-ins, and other consumer data that have been filched from unsuspecting Web surfers.

"Last Friday morning in France, my investigations lead me to visit a site proposing top-quality data for a higher price than usual," writes Francois Paget of McAfee. "But when we look at this data we understand that as everywhere, you have to pay for quality." For example, a Washington Mutual Bank account in the U.S. with an available balance of $14,400 is priced at 600 euros ($924), while a Citibank UK account with an available balance of 10,044 pounds is priced at 850 euros ($1,310).

There's even a guarantee that if the buyer is unable to log into the account within 24 hours, maybe because the owner of the data canceled the account, the buyer can get a replacement stolen account to use. Criminals can even buy skimmers, fake face-plates for ATM machines that steal credit card data when the card is swiped, and so-called "dump tracks" used to create fake credit cards, the McAfee blog entry says.

This follows on news earlier this week from Web security company Finjan of the discovery of a server containing stolen consumer and business data. Finjan said it found a server controlled by hackers that had more than 1.4 gigabytes of data--more than 5,000 log files--stolen from infected PCs. The stolen data included consumer and business e-mails, as well as health care patient data and bank customer data from individuals, financial institutions, law enforcement agencies, and other companies around the world.

By Joel Hruska
May 08, 2008 - 05:25PM CT

Google has been boosting its Google Apps product suite as fit for corporate use for months, with new security and deployment features arriving on a regular basis. The company's latest endeavor, Google Web Security for Enterprise, is now available, and promises to provide a consistent level of system security whether an end-user is surfing from the office or working at home halfway across town.

The new service is branded under Google's "Powered by Postini" product line and, according to the company, "provides real-time malware protection and URL filtering with policy enforcement and reporting. An additional feature extends the same protections to users working remotely on laptops in hotels, cafes, and even guest networks." The service is presumably activated by signing in directly to a Google service, as Google explicitly states that workers do not need access to a corporate network.

Unlike other Google-purchased companies languished for a long time after being acquired, the Postini brand and related products have been the foundation of many of Google's corporate-oriented initiatives this year. It's a marked contrast to the company's behavior in recent years, during which several companies were purchased and apparently left to rot with no clear sense of how their own products and services would be integrated into the Google product portfolio.

The service itself appears to allow company IT administrators a certain amount of fine-grained monitoring and control over end-user surfing, as illustrated in the screenshots below. The screenshot above shows the various filtering options an IT administrator can set for individual accounts. These permissions can presumably be tuned remotely—a machine leaving the office and the protection of the office firewall could be configured for tighter security even after the employee in question had left the building.

by Elinor Mills
May 8, 2008 10:16 AM PDT

Someone posted hundreds of flashing images and links to more pulsating images on the Epilepsy Foundation site, triggering severe migraines and near seizures for some visitors recently, the Associated Press reports. The recent attack was likely designed to cause seizures given that it is common knowledge that exposure to flickering images, such as those in video games and cartoons, can bring on such problems in people with photosensitive epilepsy, the foundation said.

Hackers exploited a security hole in the site's publishing software that allowed them to make numerous posts quickly in the support forum. Since the attack, policies have been changed so that visitors can't post animated images or create direct links to other sites, the report says. The FBI also is investigating the matter. Web site attackers have also targeted the blind, releasing malicious code earlier this year that disabled text-to-speech software used by Web sites for the visually impaired.

Researchers believe that attack was designed to cripple computers running illegal copies of the software. Last month, in a separate attack involving political sites, someone exploited a weakness in Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's Web site and redirected visitors to the community blogs section on rival Hillary Clinton's site.

by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
May 8th, 2008 @ 2:30 am

Vietnamese users turning to Mozilla’s Firefox to offer then security got a shock yesterday when the company revealed that the Vietnamese language pack for Firefox 2 was contaminated with malicious code and that this had been available for download for three months.

Because of a virus infection, the Vietnamese language pack for Firefox 2 was polluted with adware, Mozilla security chief Window Snyder said in a blog posting. “Everyone who downloaded the most recent Vietnamese language pack since February 18, 2008 got an infected copy,” she wrote. “Mozilla does virus scans at upload time but the virus scanner did not catch this issue until several months after the upload.”

Now, as someone who has started making the transition from Internet Explorer to Firefox, this is a worrying development. And to be honest, I’m not happy with Snyder’s explanation as to what went wrong:

Snyder did not know exactly how the adware code was added, but she said that this kind of problem could affect any software provider — open source or not. “In most software development environments the developers aren’t kept in a dark cave,” she said. “They browse the Web or take those laptops to a coffee shop.” “It’s just a fact of life,” she added.

By Drew Cullen
5th May 2008 16:35 GMT

Peter Gabriel's online music empire is reduced to a holding page, following the theft of servers from his web host over the weekend. According to the web monitoring firm Netcraft, Gabriel's servers are hosted by Rednet Ltd, although that appears to be a defunct brand of a UK company called Opal Telecom, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse. But details are sketchy and as it's a public holiday in the UK, we'll fill in the gaps tomorrow. In the meantime here is the message posted at time of writing on the web-savvy musician's site, PeterGabriel.com.

Real World, Peter Gabriel and WOMAD web services are currently off-line. Our servers were stolen from our ISP's data centre on Sunday night - Monday morning. We are working on restoring normal service as soon as possible.

By Jacqui Cheng
April 29, 2008 - 01:27PM CT

Blockbuster could be looking to get in on the new, premium movie channel being planned by Viacom, Paramount, MGM, and Lionsgate. As an investment partner, Blockbuster would be granted digital rights to programming on the still-unnamed channel, and if the talks result in a deal, then the venture will join the handful of other projects that Blockbuster is hoping will breathe new life into its struggling video business.

The news comes courtesy of "people familiar with the situation," who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The insiders noted that Blockbuster has been in talks about partnering with the studios for several weeks, although a Blockbuster spokeswoman would not comment directly on any specific plans. "We are busy transforming Blockbuster into a multiplatform provider of convenient access to media entertainment," she said. "To that end, we're exploring our options so it's not surprising there are rumors out there."

The channel will offer exclusive video-on-demand access to a number of movies from Paramount, MGM Studios, United Artists, and Lionsgate in addition to original TV series created by the studios. Viacom, the main investor in the venture, has apparently signed exclusive contracts with all parties involved, meaning that competitor Showtime will soon be losing out on content (it currently has contracts that are ready to expire with the same studios).

If successful, the new movie channel will provide some serious competition to big names like HBO, Showtime, and Starz, but critics have noted that there could still be some challenges ahead. For example, Showtime CEO Matthew Blank said earlier this month that he felt movie studios aren't worth as much as they used to be, and others have noted that cable companies might resist adding yet another channel to their already-massive lineups.

By Eric Bangeman
April 18, 2008 - 12:05PM CT

So far we've had grandmothers, dead people, disabled single mothers, and today, we can add another category to the list of those targeted by the RIAA: the homeless. Earlier this week, the RIAA decided to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit against Chaz Berry after learning he was living in a homeless shelter—but not until after a magistrate judge denied an earlier motion for summary judgment and recommended sanctions against the RIAA's attorneys.

Berry was sued by the RIAA in February 2007 for copyright infringement after an IP address logged by MediaSentry on a P2P network was traced back to his AOL account. When the time came for Berry to be served with a copy of the complaint, the RIAA discovered that he had vacated his apartment. A pretrial conference scheduled for April 19, 2007 was postponed for 60 days at the labels' request, due to the RIAA's professed inability to serve Berry with a summons at his last-known address.

The RIAA said in its April 17 filing that it was "conducting a thorough address investigation" so it could serve Berry with a copy of the summons. But that wasn't quite right: it turns out that the RIAA's process server slapped a copy of the summons "in a conspicuous place" at Berry's last known address on April 9—a full eight days before the RIAA said it couldn't locate him. The process server's attempts were detailed in an April 25, 2007 affidavit completed by the process server, who also said that a copy was sent via first-class mail to the same address.

In June 2007, the RIAA moved for a default judgment against Berry. In his Report and Recommendation issued in February of this year, Magistrate Judge Kevin N. Fox criticized the RIAA, calling its representation that it had made every effort to locate Berry "disingenuous." He found that the RIAA's statements were "not made in good faith" and recommended the imposition of sanctions against the RIAA's attorneys.

by Greg Sandoval
April 15, 2008 10:16 AM PDT

LAS VEGAS--Director Doug Liman pulled no punches when sizing up the quality of storytelling on the Web. The Internet simply hasn't produced any truly compelling stories, Liman, director of such hits as The Bourne Identity and Swingers, told an audience of several hundred Monday at the National Association of Broadcasters 2008 conference here.

But that doesn't mean it won't. He told the audience he believes it's just a matter of time before a star filmmaker bubbles up from YouTube, iFilm, or one of the other online video sites. "The reality is that the quality content isn't there yet," Liman said in an interview following the speech. "It's no different than going to Sundance (Film Festival) this year and people saying, 'The great independent film wasn't there this year.'

That doesn't mean it won't be there next year. Given the direction the Internet's going-- with more and more people working in that arena--you're going to see an Internet equivalent of Swingers." Swingers, starring actors Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, launched the then-unknown Liman's career. The 1996 film, about a group of unemployed actors trying to make it big in Hollywood, was made for $250,000 and grossed $6.5 million worldwide.

Had the Internet been more of an entertainment force then, perhaps Liman would have made his mark online first. He said the Web is tailor made for helping talented filmmakers with limited funds build a reputation. Liman, who said he might have gone into technology if he hadn't stumbled onto a movie camera at the age of 8, encouraged Web videographers in the audience by noting that "sometimes greatness comes from not having resources."

By Jacqui Cheng
April 15, 2008 - 11:31AM CT

Amazon MP3 has made quite a splash since it launched last September. Its wide selection of DRM-free content (the widest selection when it comes to the Big Four labels) and relative ease-of-use have made it a favorite among those who buy music online. It turns out, though, that Amazon's growth has not come at the expense of the iTunes Store, according to a new report by the NPD Group.

The data shows that Amazon may be able to continue growing alongside iTunes, although the two will probably butt heads one day if they want to compete for the top spot among music retailers. The market research firm said today that only 10 percent of Amazon MP3 customers had previously bought music through iTunes, showing that Amazon is building its own user base that is independent of the ones patronizing other stores.

In fact, there are a number of demographics that differ between Amazon MP3 and iTunes users, NPD says. Amazon has a stronger following among male users (64 percent, compared to iTunes' 44 percent), although iTunes is more popular among teenagers between 13 and 17 (18 percent, compared to Amazon's measly three percent). NPD believes that the difference in demographics is proof that the market for digital music is bigger than we think.

"The fact that Amazon’s early growth does not appear to be at the expense of Apple iTunes is a healthy indication that the digital music customer pool can expand into new consumer groups who have not yet joined the iTunes community," NPD analyst Russ Crupnick said in a statement. "Based on US CD sales, Amazon is among the largest sellers of physical music and boasts a substantial and loyal buyer base—many of whom may not be in the iTunes market sweet spot."

May 07, 2008

New details have emerged in the search for missing 19-year-old Middlebury College freshman Nicholas Garza that could link him to the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," which a group of retired detectives believes is responsible for the apparent drowning deaths of dozens of young men across the country.

Searchers have found smiley-face graffiti near Garza's campus like that painted near some of the locations where about 40 bodies have been discovered across 11 states, FOX 44 News reported. Garza’s mother thinks that discovery could link her son's disappearance to the deaths of the other mostly college-age victims. Volunteer searchers have come forward with pictures of the smiley face, found on a utility shed door a short distance from downtown Middlebury, Vt.

The photos were taken a week-and-a-half ago, when the group was scouring a river bank for clues. When the volunteers saw New York detectives describing the alleged gang of serial killers on national TV and saw pictures of the graffiti discovered in some of the other cases, they realized the striking similarity to the drawings they had photographed, FOX 44 reported.

The graffiti on the shed was almost identical to that painted near some of the spots where the young men's bodies have been found, typically in rivers. "When you're walking around, you notice there's graffiti but you're not paying attention to what's out there," Nicholas' mother, Natalie Garza, told FOX 44. Garza was last seen walking out of a dormitory Feb. 5.

May 07, 2008

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar says the death toll may reach 100,000 from a cyclone and its aftermath. She said the country's military junta is "paranoid," about the United States but is not blocking American aid in retaliation for past criticism. U.S. charge d'affaires Shari Villarosa estimates show 95 percent of buildings in the affected area are demolished, bridges are washed out.

She called the situation outside the former capital Yangon "increasingly horrendous," citing relief agency reports of shortages of food and drinking water. "There is a very real risk of disease outbreaks as long as this continues," Villarosa told reporters in a telephone call from Yangon. The death toll could hit or exceed 100,000 as humanitarian conditions worsen, she said.

She said that almost all the deaths are in the delta area. In Yangon, some 600-700 people may have died, she said. The U.S. military has put people and airplanes into position to work on any relief effort, as officials awaited word on whether the Asian nation would accept American help. Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that Myanmar must let the international community in to help.

She said the aid is to meet the needs of a humanitarian crisis, and not a matter of politics, Reuters reported. Villarosa did not sound optimistic. "It's a very paranoid regime," she said. "They are very paranoid about the United States." She said lower reaches of the Myanmar regime appear to recognize the magnitude of the problem, but the senior leadership is isolated and has not yet announced a final decision on how to handle outside aid.

By Jacqui Cheng
April 30, 2008 - 03:05PM CT

Japanese police are apparently trying some desperate measures in order to stop a string of suicides by asking ISPs to remove information on how to carry them out. Almost 50 suicides have been attempted within the last month using a newly-popular method of extracting hydrogen sulphide out of bath salts and detergent, the instructions for which are easily found on the Internet.

"Generating hydrogen sulphide is not illegal under current laws, but the risk is high for third parties to inhale the gas and, in worst case scenarios, die," the National Police Agency said in its statement, according to the AFP. The organization apparently sent the request to not only ISPs, but cable providers and other telecommunications companies as well. However, the request is only that: a request. Internal Affairs Minister Hiroya Masuda told the press that the government was not interested in blocking the questionable content, as it would mean "excessive restrictions on freedom of expression."

It's no secret that Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The country had 48.4 suicides per 100,000 people in 2004, according to the World Health Organization (that number is second only to Russia's, with a surprising 72.3 per 100,000 in 2004). It's a problem that Japanese officials have taken seriously for some time now, but are still trying to figure out ways to fix. Unfortunately, suicide is one of those issues that cannot simply be fought by blocking information from a single source, like the Internet. People have been killing themselves for thousands of years. If there's a will, there's a way—Internet or no.

In fact, research recently published in the British Medical Journal even noted that, while suicide information is plentiful online, suicide rates of those between the ages of 15 and 34 in England have dropped over the last decade, right alongside the blossoming of the Internet age. If England can somehow find a way to reverse the trend, there's hope for Japan, too. Education and outreach are much more productive methods of reducing the suicide rate than simply blocking or removing online information.

by Jennifer Guevin
April 27, 2008 7:49 PM PDT

The European Union launched Giove-B, the second (and last) test satellite in its $5.3 billion Galileo project, on Sunday, according to Reuters. The first test satellite, Giove-A was launched in December 2005. Giove-B will test the program's high-precision atomic clock and signal transmission, said Reuters.

Galileo is Europe's upcoming satellite radio navigation system, and it's the EU's largest space program. Galileo will eventually become an ultra-precise system of 30 satellites, but it has hit a few bumps along the way. First off, the project's launch date has been pushed back several times from the original goal of 2008 to the current goal of 2013. And unlike the United States' Global Positioning System, which was designed primarily as a military system with a free public side to it, Galileo was initially conceived of as a largely commercial venture.

But the project proved too ambitious to be sustained by the original public-private partnership. After some companies pulled out of the project, the EU voted to put more public funding toward it. Now, even that support isn't guaranteed. Fears that the project might spiral out of financial control prompted some U.K. lawmakers last November to call for a complete review of the U.K.'s involvement in the program.

Uncertainty about when Galileo will actually be up and running and how effective it will be compared to GPS has reportedly caused confusion among some companies in the mobile industry, who have been unsure which technology to support in their products (or whether they should support both). And while Galileo is still getting off the ground, demand for phones with GPS services is skyrocketing.

by Carl-Gustav Linden
April 22, 2008 6:20 PM PDT

High price and a strange color. No, we're not talking about a hairdo. Those are the two factors that have kept light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, from becoming a mainstream light source.

But that might change soon, said Zach Gibler, chief business development officer of Lighting Science Group, which plans to announce distribution deals with major retailers for its LED bulbs that screw into a regular socket. LED bulbs for household use have already been around for some time, but their success has been limited.

The main obstacles have been that they cost more than incandescent lightbulbs and emit a sometimes unnerving color of light. Lighting Science Group this week plans to introduce a portfolio of LED replacement white lightbulbs that it hopes will attract more consumer interest. The product line uses the same sockets as Edison bulbs.

According to Gibler, the bulbs perform well on a warmth and color rendering index--blue looks blue, yellow looks yellow, etc.--they have a long life cycle, and consume 80 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs. Gibler believes 2008 could be "the year of LED" for residential use and lighting in general.