Technology

Cox Communications is shifting more emphasis onto voice over Internet Protocol technology.

Many would-be "American Idol" voters are disenfranchised by overburdened phone lines and by "power dialers" who hog the system, the magazine Broadcasting & Cable reported.

According to the magazine's issue being released Monday, "the only people choosing the next 'American Idol" are the ones lucky enough to get through -- or skilled enough to get around -- tremendously overtaxed phone lines."

Fox TV, which airs the talent contest, has failed to address the difficulties viewers must overcome to log votes, the magazine said.

Aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his firm Scaled Composites took a giant leap early Thursday toward becoming the first private company to send a person into space.

Scaled Composites, funded by Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen, set a new civilian altitude record of 40 miles in a craft called SpaceShipOne during a test flight above California's Mojave Desert.

For many people, the digital home--where PC monitors are invisibly embedded in bathroom mirrors, and sensors and cameras are everywhere--represents a threat to human dignity and pride.

But to be honest, the concept is sort of cool, once you've seen a few demonstrations.

Cheating has gone high tech at Everett Alvarez High School, and administrators have the pictures to prove it.

School officials banned cellular telephone use after a student was caught using a camera phone to photograph an exam and trying to send it to a friend.

"All we are doing is stepping up the enforcement level, because of the student's flagrant violations," Principal Joe Rice said Monday.

Cheating by using camera phones and text messaging has become a nationwide concern.

Spintronics is a really neat phrase - an instant buzz-word.

Electrons' electro magnetic properties cause an interesting effect that you depend on. Absolutely.

It's called electricity and electric current is measured by the abundance, or lack, of electrons in the ferroelectric nucleus, better known as voltage or static charge.

Ferroelectric spintronics is, in turn, the method by which electric fields and photons change the properties of ferroelectric molecules.

When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ended its four-year collaboration last fall with dozens of blue-chip companies researching radio frequency identification technology, the group transferred much of its expertise to an emerging standards body known as EPCglobal.

Working with the results--and many of the same people from MIT's Auto-ID Center--EPCglobal is now pushing to create RFID standards using existing communications network infrastructure and the electronic product code, a system for assigning unique identification numbers to items.

About 80 percent of 1,000 British adults recently surveyed say they want a biometric identification card, citing concerns about illegal immigration and identity theft.

There was the 78, the 45 and then the MP3 -- all heralded as great innovations in music recording technology. Fast forward a bit and now, minutes after your favorite band sounds its last note, you can load a live recording onto a cigarette-lighter-sized hard drive hanging off your keychain.

Take it home, toss the digital files onto your computer and then e-mail it to all your friends with the message "Dude! These guys are awesome!"

Oh, how far we've come.

I heard a funny story a couple of months ago. A colleague of mine went to a presentation about a new piece of automation kit that enabled the remote control of various pieces of household equipment. "What's really great," enthused the presenter, "is that you can turn off the kitchen light when you are upstairs!" My friend couldn't resist the opportunity to ask the obvious, yet all-too-infrequent question. "Excuse me," he said. "Why exactly would anyone want to do that?" In the pause that followed, it became obvious that the presenter had not rehearsed an answer.