Encryption

Like a serendipitously discovered Arabian lamp, computer screens have always needed one thing to work properly: a good rub. But IBM researchers have found a way to do away with the tiresome polishing. They have discovered a new process for manufacturing liquid crystal that could potentially improve screen quality and viewing angles whilst saving manufacturers, and hopefully customers, millions of dollars. The breakthrough holds the first real potential to
replace a nearly century-old technique that all producers currently use to build display products.

Internet content and technology provider ScreamingMedia Inc. said on Monday it reached a deal with Boeing Co., the world’s largest commercial aircraft maker, to provide passengers with broadband access services, including Internet and e-mail, while they fly.

We are licensing our core software, the SiteWare, which will sit on the ground in the Boeing
Connexion content center, said ScreamingMedia Chief Executive Kevin Clark in an interview, referring to the new service, named Connexion by Boeing.

Local phone giant SBC Communications will announce a step forward in its broadband Internet plans next week, touting superfast fiber-optic connections directly to homes and small businesses.

So-called fiber connections have long been viewed as the next step in broadband because they provide Internet access speeds beyond what is available through cable or DSL connections, or business-grade T1 or T3 lines. The new speeds would range from 10 megabits per second to 100mbps--or 200 to 2,000 times faster than a dial-up modem.

The age of wearable computers will truly be a fascinating and exciting one. With components getting smaller and more energy efficient each day, we will be able to wear our notebook computers instead of lugging them around in these huge cumbersome cases. This article has an enlightening look at this new trend; where it came from and where it will go in the future. Here's a clip:

Eliezer Yudkowsky has devoted his young life to an undeniably unusual pursuit: planning for what happens when computers become far smarter than us.

Yudkowsky, a 21-year-old researcher at the Singularity Institute, has spent the last eight months writing an essay that's half precaution, half thought exercise, and entirely in earnest.

The 20th century was an unprecedented time of invention and technological progress. From mass electrification to the auto and the airplane and on into the computer revolution, the world has been transformed many times over.

However, according to Joseph Bordogna, deputy director of the National Science Foundation, researchers should act as if this is merely prologue to future scientific exploration.

Full Story at CNET

The digital revolution is certainly upon us. With devices such as RCA's E-book, we'll soon be curling up by the fire with our hot chocolate in one hand, and our E-Book in the other. Here's a clip from the review:

The Economist has a great article up concerning Quantum computers and the difficulties behind them.

Do you folks remember that show "The 6 Million Dollar Man?" Well, it looks like some folks from the Pentagon do. Here's a clip from a new article we've just whipped up on this bionic subject:

They came out with silicon chips, then crystal chips and now... plastic chips?

It seems that we'll soon be able to see plastic semiconductors and single-electron transistors. In about five years, plastic circuits with highly efficient memory can be built with an inkjet printer without the use of toxic materials and logic circuits that stores information and switch under the influence of only a single electron.