Information Technology

Information Technology

W3C Endorses P3P 1.0 for Enhanced Web Privacy Control

P3P gives people more control over use of personal information on the Web

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation, representing cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language for expressing Web site privacy policies. Declaring P3P a W3C Recommendation indicates that it is a stable document, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its widespread adoption.

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Wireless Data Transfer Enhances Newspaper Delivery in Finland

Every night 2.1 million newspapers are delivered to mailboxes in Finland. In order to make the delivery even more effortless, wireless data transfer will be harnessed to aid newspaper carriers.

In the three-year TLX technology programme recently completed by Tekes, the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) has investigated methods of wireless control and monitoring of the newspaper delivery chain.

“In addition to various portable devices like mobile phones and PDA computers, i

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Next-Gen Clock-Free Computers: Faster, Safer, Smaller

Time is running out for the clocks that make our computers tick. Scientists have developed a new generation of hardware and software based on the simpler designs of the 1950s.

Asynchronous, or clock-free systems, promise extra speed, safety, security and miniaturisation. The new designs work well in the laboratory and are only awaiting the development of software tools so that they can be produced commercially, says Professor Alex Yakovlev and fellow researchers in the Department of Computin

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Boosting Fiber-Optic Networks with Innovative Chip Designs

New devices boost optical networks

Several technical requirements must be met until data from computers, TV stations or telephone network providers can be transported via fiber-optic cables to their destinations. Specialists from Infineon Technologies leverage their combined expertise to continuously improve the conditions for today’s and tomorrow’s fiber-optic applications with innovative chip designs. For example, the German technology foundry has developed a special device that ca

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Dr. Chris Solomon Wins DICON for Innovative E-Mail Solution

An inventive idea from Dr Chris Solomon of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) has beaten top International competition and won first prize in the prestigious European Digital Information Contents (DICON) competition.

Dr Solomon who has an active research programme in forensic imaging and a longstanding interest in the computational modelling, encoding and recognition of the human face said: `I was truly impressed by the quality of some of the prese

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Stable Silicon Layer Cuts Flat-Panel Display Costs

In a joint project between the Technology Foundation STW and the energy agency Novem at Utrecht University, researchers have developed new silicon layers which are more stable and cheaper than the present amorphous silicon layers. The electronic properties of the present layers in laptop screens and solar cells deteriorate if the material is under ‘stress’, for example due to sunshine or a voltage.

Flat-panel displays and solar cells have a substrate of glass or plastic, which is coated with

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First Wireless PDA Connects Seamlessly to Multiple Networks

+++ EURESCOM for the first time demonstrates seamless access with a PDA. +++

Premiere at the EURESCOM workshop `Wireless Access` in Heidelberg on 12 March: The EURESCOM project on `Bluetooth Access` presented the first PDA, which can seamlessly connect to different access networks, like LAN, Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, and GPRS.

In co-operation with the software company Birdstep from Norway and access point supplier Patria Ailon from Finland, the European project team implement

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New Search Algorithm Connects Users Through Web Communities

New algorithm exploits community structure of the web.

The web has spontaneously organized itself into communities. A new search algorithm that pinpoints these could help surfers find what they want and avoid offensive content.

Page builders can link anywhere. But they don’t, Gary Flake, of the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, and his colleagues have found. Instead, pages congregate into social groups that focus most of their attention on each other.

Web dir

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First MPEG-21 Application Launched by Ghent University Team

The research group Multimedia Lab of the Ghent University (Belgium) succeeded in putting the first MPEG-21 application online. MPEG-21 technology is the most recently developed technology for multimedia applications. After the MPEG-1, -2, -4, and MPEG-7 standards, MPEG-21 is currently considered to be one of the most promising new standard in the field of multimedia systems and applications.

The research activities of Multimedia Lab at Ghent University, Belgium (Department of Electron

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W3C Unveils New Draft Patent Policy for Royalty-Free Specs

Community and Member Feedback Shapes New Royalty-Free Draft

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today published a revised Patent Policy Working Draft which is based on strong, explicit commitments to producing Royalty-Free (RF) specifications. To achieve the goal of producing Royalty-Free specifications, the draft requires all who participate in the development of W3C Recommendations to make any essential patents they hold available for free.

The option which would have permi

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Light-Sensitive Plastic Magnets Could Transform Data Storage

Light-sensitive ’plastic’ magnets could replace your hard drive.

A ’plastic’ magnet that responds to light could lead to new ways of storing and reading large amounts of computer data. Light would be used to store information in cheap, fast and high-capacity ’magneto-optic’ memories.

The light-switchable magnet is the first to be made from organic (carbon-based) molecules. This means its discoverers, Arthur Epstein of Ohio State University in Columbus and Joel Miller of the

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Breakthrough in Quantum Computing: New Noiseless Qubit Unveiled

A team of physicists in the United States has made an important step towards making quantum computing a reality. Research into a new type of noiseless quantum information bit, or qubit, is published today in the joint Institute of Physics and German Physical Society journal, New Journal of Physics.

At a sub-atomic scale the laws of quantum physics lead to strange new properties of matter. For several years physicists have been trying to exploit this quantum weirdness to build a new type of `

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W3C Endorses XML Signatures for Secure Web Services

Joint work with IETF produces XML-based solution for digital signatures, foundation for Secure Web services

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued XML-Signature Syntax and Processing (XML Signature) as a W3C Recommendation, representing cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language for digital signatures. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its widespread

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Facial models allow "band-efficient" video communication

Is it possible to combine a three-dimensional wire model of a face with real pictures of the same face? And is it possible to get the computer that is forming the new image to follow the face even when the person in question makes sudden movements or partially covers her face with her hand? These are a couple of the research questions for the Image Coding Group at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Linköping University in Sweden. The aim is to find a new technology for information-efficient

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"Electronic Tongue" tastes fluids.

Several years ago an “electronic nose” was developed at Linköping University in Sweden. It was based on a number of different gas sensors and programmed to differentiate between various substances in air. This nose is now being joined by a corresponding sensor for fluids, the “electronic tongue.” The principle behind the “electronic tongue” is that a number of electrodes are submerged in the fluid. When a current is turned on across the electrodes the response varies depending on the liquid’s content

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Striped Nanowires: Tiny Innovations Transforming Electronics

Wires one-millionth of a millimetre wide change composition along their length.

Wires one-millionth of a millimetre wide that change chemical composition along their length, just as fruit pastilles change flavour along a packet, have been grown in the United States. These multi-flavoured nanowires can act as miniature bar-codes, diodes and light sources.

Conventional microelectronics components are etched into flat layers of semiconducting material. Charles Lieber and collea

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