IE7 unleashed

Microsoft's much-anticipated IE7 browser is finally available for download, 18 months after Bill Gates announced plans to deliver Redmond's first major upgrade to its browser software since the release of IE6 in August 2001.

Key enhancements to IE 7 over IE 6 include anti-phishing features and improved ActiveX controls among several security improvements. The browser also promises enhancements to support web standards (such as HTML 4.01/CSS 2), the long-awaited introduction of tabbed browsing, and an integrated RSS feed reader. Many of these features are already included in Opera, and improved anti-phishing features will debut with the imminent (if delayed) arrival of Firefox 2.0, so to some extent market-leader Microsoft could be described as playing catch-up with its smaller rivals.

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Red Planet Double Team

NASA’s newest Mars orbiter has spied the plucky rover Opportunity perched at the rim of the red planet’s massive Victoria Crater as both vehicles explore the fourth planet from the Sun.

Appearing almost as a shiny boulder, Opportunity’s lumpy outline and its camera mast shadow can easily be seen in a high-resolution image of Victoria Crater taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and released by the space agency on Friday.

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The American Economy Dethroned By the Swiss ...

Switzerland was the most competitive country in the world in 2006, according to the yearly rankings published by the World Economic Forum . Yesterday, the people responsible for the rankings said the Confederation's public institutions and scientific research programs were the best in the world.

Our Swiss neighbors, who were number four last year, have thus managed to nose out the usual champions, Finland and Denmark, with the United States now dropping to number six in the rankings, two thirds of which are based on the results of a survey carried out of 11.000 of the planet's business executives.

"Switzerland has a well developed infrastructure in terms of scientific research," says Augusto Lopez-Claros, the chief author of this Global Competitiveness Report . "Good institutions and competent macroeconomic management, coupled with world-class educational attainment and a focus on technology and innovation, are a successful strategy for boosting competitiveness in an increasingly complex global economy," he added.

In addition to its infrastructure, Switzerland received good grades on its institutional framework, characterized by a "respect for the rule of law, an efficiently working judicial system, and high levels of transparency and accountability within public institutions." In this domain, the United States, very well noted for its technological innovation, has been outdone again this year: it has dropped five places in rankings because of the increasing mistrust on the part of economists of the burgeoning deficits and debt of the country. Washington is therefore number 69 of 125 in terms of "macroeconomic environment."


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Did Americans Build First Plane ... or was it a Brazilian?

[Editor's Note: According to the Brazilians, no one saw the flight of the Wright Brother's first flight, The Flyer, in 1903, and the flight in 1905 was not officially ratified. But the 1906 flight by Santos Dumont in his 14 BIS in Paris was ratified and registered].

Independently of who flew first and which flight proved more, the fact is that Santos-Dumont's Demoiselle surpassed all other in popularity and innovation as soon as it appeared. With his extraordinary capacity to understand the significance of these new aeronautical concepts, the Brazilian inventor executed great technological leaps in a very small number of steps, enormously speeding the evolution of aviation in its early years.

And unlike the Wright Brothers, Santos-Dumont made it a point not to patent his inventions. He freely distributed the blueprints for the Demoiselle to anyone who requested them. They were published in 1910 by the American magazine "Popular Mechanics" and made the tiny "dragonfly" the most popular plane in the United States and Europe. "The first airplane factory was for the Demoiselle," said Botelho.

And despite the long-standing dispute, the two aeronautical traditions will fly together, side by side, in the demonstration in Dayton, showing the world that there is room in the world for more than one father of aviation.

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NASA's Orion Capsule Will Fly in Seven Years

NASA has announced that Lockheed Martin will build America's new space capsule, called Orion. Expected to orbit Earth by 2014, Orion is expected to reach the moon by 2020. Although the capsule design has not been deemed to be especially exciting, unlike earlier capsules, Orion will be reusable. Melissa Block talks with U.S. Air Force Chief Scientist Mark Lewis about the spacecraft.

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Europe's first lunar mission reaches moon

BERLIN (AP) — Europe's first spacecraft to the moon ended its three-year mission Sunday by crashing into the lunar surface in a volcanic plane called the Lake of Excellence, to a round of applause in the mission control room in Germany.

Hitting at 1 1/4 miles per second, the impact of the SMART-1 spacecraft was expected to leave a 3-yard-by-10-yard crater and send dust miles above the surface. Observatories watched the event from Earth and scientists hoped the cloud of dust and debris would provide clues to the geologic composition of the site.

"That's it — we are in the Lake of Excellence," said spacecraft operations chief Octavio Camino as applause broke out in mission control in Darmstadt, Germany. "We have landed."

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A Vote to Quit the Electoral College

SACRAMENTO — Lawmakers sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill Wednesday that would make California the first state to jump aboard a national movement to elect the president by popular vote.

Under the legislation, California would grant its electoral votes to the nominee who gets the most votes nationwide — not the most votes in California. Get enough other states to do the same, backers of the bill say, and soon presidential candidates will have to campaign across the nation, not just in a few key "battleground" states such as Ohio and Michigan that can sway the Electoral College vote.

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Pluto loses status as a planet

Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.

About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly.

Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club.

Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh.

The ninth planet will now effectively be airbrushed out of school and university textbooks.

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The New Solar System

A controversial new proposal by the International Astronomical Union would reclassify an asteroid and a moon as planets, plus add one far-out object. Here's the whole mix. Continue to see each of the 12 "planets." Click to enlarge.

Scientists flock to test 'free energy' discovery

A man who claims to have developed a free energy technology which could power everything from mobile phones to cars has received more than 400 applications from scientists to test it.

Sean McCarthy says that no one was more sceptical than he when Steorn, his small hi-tech firm in Dublin, hit upon a way of generating clean, free and constant energy from the interaction of magnetic fields. 'It wasn't so much a Eureka moment as a get-back-in-there-and-check-your-instruments moment, although in far more colourful language,' said McCarthy. But when he attempted to share his findings, he says, scientists either put the phone down on him or refused to endorse him publicly in case they damaged their academic reputations. So last week he took out a full-page advert in the Economist magazine, challenging the scientific community to examine his technology.

McCarthy claims it provides five times the amount of energy a mobile phone battery generates for the same size, and does not have to be recharged. Within 36 hours of his advert appearing he had been contacted by 420 scientists in Europe, America and Australia, and a further 4,606 people had registered to receive the results.

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PC celebrates 25th anniversary

IT was no more powerful than a modern calculator, but the arrival of the original IBM personal computer 25 years ago was an epoch-making event in the evolution of modern life.

The PC has redefined modern life – from the way people work to the way they look for love, chat with friends and even shop.

The IBM 5150 PC was released on August 12, 1981, the product of a year's feverish development by a close-knit team of computer engineers working in Florida.

"Designed for business, school and home, the easy-to-use system sells for as little as $US1565," IBM's original press statement said back then.

That price is worth more than $US4000 ($5000) in today's money. But if you wanted colour graphics, two floppy disk drives and a printer, it would set you back triple the amount of the base model.

The PC weighed 11.5kg with one floppy disk drive fitted, over a third more than a present-day computer. The keyboard alone weighed 2.7 kg.

At 16 kilobytes, its memory was 50,000 times less powerful than modern PCs.

It offered VisiCalc, a breakthrough spreadsheet program, and EasyWriter, which IBM promised "will store letters, manuscripts and other text for editing or rapid reproduction on the printer".

And there was Microsoft Adventure, which "brings players into a fantasy world of caves and treasures".

second half of piece

Also see The 25 Greatest PCs of All Time.

After 10 Years, Few Believe Life on Mars: NASA Struggling

It was a science fiction fantasy come true: Ten years ago this summer, NASA announced the discovery of life on Mars.

At a Washington, D.C., news conference, scientists showed magnified pictures of a four-pound Martian meteorite riddled with wormy blobs that looked like bacterial colonies. The researchers explained how they had pried numerous clues from the rock, all strongly supporting their contention that microscopic creatures once occupied its nooks and crannies.

It was arguably the space agency's most imagination-gripping moment since Apollo. Space buffs and NASA officials said that it just might be the scientific discovery of the century.

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Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA

Researchers believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code.

Loren Williams/Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology

In a living cell, the DNA double helix wraps around a nucleosome, above center, and binds to some of its proteins, known as histones.

The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.

The discovery, if confirmed, could open new insights into the higher order control of the genes, like the critical but still mysterious process by which each type of human cell is allowed to activate the genes it needs but cannot access the genes used by other types of cell.

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China to test its 'artificial sun'

BEIJING, July 24 (UPI) -- The first plasma discharge from China's experimental advanced superconducting research center -- the so-called "artificial sun" -- is set to occur next month.

The discharge, expected about Aug. 15, will be conducted at Science Island in Hefei, in east China's Anhui Province, the Peoples Daily reported Monday.

Scientists told the newspaper a successful test will mean the world's first nuclear fusion device of its kind will be ready to go into actual operation, the newspaper said.

The plasma discharge will draw international attention since some scientists are concerned with risks involved in such a process. But Chinese researchers involved in the project say any radiation will cease once the test is completed.

The experiment will take place in a structure made of reinforced concrete, with five-foot-thick walls and a three-foot-thick roof.

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Chinese Cars Gain Foothold in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela — Chinese automobile manufacturers are seeking a share of Venezuela's car market, which has grown with the help of an oil-fueled consumption boom.

President Hugo Chavez has long been trying to foster greater economic ties with the Asian giant. On top of greater energy and mining sector cooperation, Chavez has also pursued Chinese development of a computer assembly line in the Andean nation.


Two Chinese car dealers have recently set up showrooms across Venezuela to try to compete with more established brands.

Great Wall Motors, China's largest car maker, is offering large utility vehicles.

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Linux-powered robots from France? Oui!

A French start-up created to build autonomous, easily programmable, affordable humanoid robots has emerged from stealth mode. Aldebaran Robotics, of Paris, expects to ship its first product -- a humanoid household service robot running Linux -- in early 2007.

Aldebaran says its "Nao" household robot will compete with robotic research prototypes in terms of functionality. The walking, talking, WiFi-enabled bot will stand 21.6 inches tall, and will feature 23 "degrees of freedom" of motion -- three more than the 14-inch tall "Choromet" android announced earlier this week by four Japanese companies. Nao's extra degrees of freedom appear to come in the form of gripping hands.

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Study of human brain yields intelligent robots

Robot cars drive themselves across the desert, electronic eyes perform lifeguard duty in swimming pools and virtual enemies with human-like behavior battle video game players.

These are some of the fruits of the research field known as artificial intelligence. A half-century after the term was coined, both scientists and engineers say they are making rapid progress in simulating the human brain, and their work is finding its way into a new wave of real-world products.

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Spacecraft carrying commercial space station launches

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A Russian rocket blasted off Wednesday carrying an experimental inflatable spacecraft for an American entrepreneur who dreams of some day building a commercial space station, officials said.

The Genesis I spacecraft lifted off from the southern Ural Mountains at 6:53 p.m. Moscow time aboard a converted Cold War ballistic missile, according to the Russian Strategic Missile Forces.

It reached its designated orbit about 320 miles above Earth minutes after liftoff.

The launch was a first for Bigelow Aerospace, founded by Las Vegas real estate mogul Robert Bigelow, who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain.

Bigelow envisions building a private orbiting space complex by 2015 that would be made up of several expandable Genesis-like modules linked together and could be used as a hotel, or perhaps a science lab or college. He has committed $500 million toward the project.

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U.S. minorities are becoming the majority

By Robert Pear The New York Times

WASHINGTON The United States as a whole is moving in the direction of its two most populous states, California and Texas, where members of racial and ethnic minorities account for more than half the population, according to the Census Bureau.

Non-Hispanic whites now make up two-thirds of the total U.S. population, the bureau said, but that proportion will dip to one-half by 2050, according to the agency's latest projections.

In a new report, estimating population levels as of July 1, 2004, the Census Bureau said Texas had a minority population of 11.3 million, accounting for 50.2 percent of its total population of 22.5 million. Texas is the fourth state in which minority groups, taken together, account for a majority of the population. But no one racial or ethnic group by itself accounts for a majority of the total population there.

Steven Murdock, the state demographer for Texas, said, "In some sense, Texas is a preview of what the nation will become in the long run."

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Discovery flips out before docking with space station

CAPE CANAVERAL — With smiles all around, the seven astronauts of the space shuttle Discovery entered the international space station Thursday, with one of them planning to stay behind when the shuttle returns to Earth in 10 days. Flight director Tony Ceccacci called the rendezvous perfect.

"We achieved one of our, of course, major goals of this flight," he said.

The two men aboard the space station snapped 350 photos of the approaching shuttle to document any damage to the thermal skin, Ceccacci said. There was no immediate word on whether any problems were noted in the 125 pictures beamed to Mission Control as of early afternoon.

Even though the mission was going smoothly, the control center had not returned to a sense of normalcy, Ceccacci said. "It's more of a sense of, 'Hey, the things we've done to make the ... tank better are working,'" he said.

The European Space Agency's Thomas Reiter of Germany brings the space station to a three-member crew for the first time in three years. Reiter, who will stay for six months, is the first European to live on the space station.

After hatches opened at 12:30 p.m. ET, the shuttle crew was greeted by American astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov. The astronaut reunion occurred about 100 minutes after the station and shuttle docked in a delicate dance at 17,500 miles per hour, about 220 miles above Earth.

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