Software

Microsoft releases near-final Internet Explorer 9 version

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(AP) -- Microsoft Corp. released a near-final version of Internet Explorer 9 on Thursday, saying the updates make the Web browser even better at tapping into a computer's powerful processors to help multimedia-laden websites load and run faster.

IE9 is a free download that works Windows Vista and Windows 7 computers. It's not compatible with Windows XP.

With IE9, Microsoft followed the visual lead of Google Inc.'s Chrome browser. IE9 has far fewer buttons, icons and toolbars filling the screen, leaving more room for the contents of Web pages. It mimics some features in Windows 7, the newest PC operating software from Microsoft, in that it lets people "pin" individual websites to the taskbar at the bottom of the PC screen to make permanent one-click shortcuts.

Based on feedback from the beta version, which Microsoft said was used by 25 million people, the software will let people add a new row of tabs to the bar at the top of the browser window. It will also pop up fewer notifications.

The new browser is much more than an aesthetic overhaul. IE9 can take advantage of multicore microprocessors to crunch website code faster. It also uses the PC's graphics processing unit - the same chips that make the images in elaborate video games run smoothly - to make movie clips and other visuals load and play faster.

Microsoft said Thursday that it has improved several aspects of the browser that make it run faster than the beta that was released in September. It fine-tuned the engine for rendering JavaScript, a widely used Web programming language, so pages load faster. IE9 now also decides on the fly when to tap into the graphics processor for more speed.

Competitors including Google and Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, are also working on similar technical upgrades to their software. This new crop of browsers will be competing with "apps," small programs for smart phones, tablets and other devices that deliver the some of the same content as websites but in a way that's easier to navigate on smaller screens.

Computer scientists lay out vision for a 'science of the Web'

Researchers need a clear agenda to harness the rapidly evolving potential of the World Wide Web, according to an article in the Aug. 11 issue of the journal Science. Calling for the creation of an interdisciplinary "science of the Web," a group of computer scientists suggests the need for new approaches to tap the full richness of this powerful tool, while ensuring that it develops in a way that benefits society as a whole.

"If we want to model the Web; if we want to understand the architectural principles that have provided for its growth; and if we want to be sure that it supports the basic social values of trustworthiness, privacy, and respect for social boundaries, then we must chart out a research agenda that targets the Web as a primary focus of attention," wrote the team of computer scientists, which is led by corresponding author James A. Hendler, visiting professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Hendler is currently a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, and in January 2007 he will become senior constellation professor of the Tetherless World Research Constellation at Rensselaer, where he will lead a team of faculty dedicated to advancing the research agenda described in the Science article.

"Despite the incredible importance of the World Wide Web to people all around the globe, and its increasingly important role in society and politics, the Web has not received as much interest within the traditional computer science research world as it deserves," Hendler said. "My research focuses on what might be called 'Web science' -- understanding the Web in its full richness, exploring the underlying technologies that make it work and its social and policy implications, and developing new technologies to keep the Web growing ever more useful as it reaches further into our lives."

Hendler will focus the work of the new Tetherless World Constellation on increasing access to information at any time and place without the need for a "tether" to a specific computer or device. "How often have you wished you had a phone number that was sitting on your computer at home, or that you could find interesting activities in the city you're visiting without lugging your laptop along?" Hendler asked. He envisions an increasingly Web-accessible world in which personal digital assistants (PDAs), cameras, music-listening devices, cell phones, laptops, and other technologies converge to offer the user interactive information and communication.

Widely recognized as one of the inventors of the Semantic Web, Hendler says this extension of the World Wide Web will bring new information resources to the Web by enabling computers to interpret the meaning and context of words and numbers. This technology could be used to bring informative databases -- from Internet business to basic biology research -- to the Web in more searchable and usable ways, according to Hendler.

Hendler's coauthors on the Science article are Tim Berners-Lee and Daniel J. Weitzner of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT; and Wendy Hall and Nigel Shadbolt of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

At Rensselaer, Hendler will play a lead role in structuring the new Tetherless World Constellation. Led by outstanding faculty in fields of strategic importance, Rensselaer constellations are focused on a specific research area and comprise a multidisciplinary mix of senior and junior faculty and postdoctoral and graduate students.

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Science

Web experts ask scientists to use the Web to improve understanding, sharing of their data in science

February 12, 2011

Peter Fox and James Hendler of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are calling for scientists to take a few tips from the users of the World Wide Web when presenting their data to the public and other scientists in the Feb. 11 issue of Science magazine. Fox and Hendler, both professors within the Tetherless World Research Constellation at Rensselaer, outline a new vision for the visualization of scientific data in a perspective piece titled "Changing the Equation on Scientific Data Visualization."

As the researchers explain, visualizations provide a means to enable the understanding of complex data. The problem with the current use of visualization in the scientific community, according to Fox and Hendler, is that when visualizations are actually included by scientists, they are often an end product of research used to simply illustrate the results and are inconsistently incorporated into the entire scientific process. Their visualizations are also static and cannot be easily updated or modified when new information arises.

And as scientists create more and more data with more powerful computing systems, their ability to develop useful visualizations of that data will become more time consuming and expensive with the traditional approaches.

Fox and Hendler ask the scientific community to take some important lessons from the Web.

"…visualizations on the Web are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and interactive," they write. At the same time, those Web-based visualization are also inexpensive and easy to use, according to Hendler and Fox.

Simple Web-based visualization tool kits allow users to easily create maps, charts, graphs, word clouds, and other custom visualizations at little to no cost and with a few clicks of a mouse. In addition, Web links and RSS feeds allow visualizations on the Web to be updated with little to no involvement from the original developer of the visualization, greatly reducing the time and cost of the effort, but also keeping it dynamic.

"Visualizations are absolutely critical to our ability to process complex data and to build better intuitions as to what is happening around us," the researchers write. They use the example of an online weather report. With such visualizations, Web users can click on their area for a forecast or watch videos specific to their region. Without these visualizations, no one but a trained meteorologist would be able to make sense of the mess of raw data behind those pretty maps and graphical snow clouds.

In addition to the ease of using and developing visualization on the Web, visualizations on the Web can also be easily modified, updated, customized, and recreated by other users thanks to the use of Uniform Resource Identifiers. This "linking" of data is a key feature of the new vision that Fox and Hendler outline. It is of particular importance when dealing with what they refer to as "big science" on topics such as climate change that involves data that ranges from distinct fields like biology to geology.

"The challenge is that many of the major scientific problems facing our world are becoming critically linked to the interdependence and interrelatedness of data from multiple instruments, fields, and sources," they write.

Fox and Hendler urge scientists involved in such vital scientific projects to take some tips from large Web companies like Google and Facebook, and even massive online communities such as World of Warcraft. These large companies use new data integration approach such as NoSQL, "big data," and scalable linked data to rapidly expand and maintain their capabilities. These new capabilities provide easy-to-use, low-end tools to generate visualizations and scalable tools for curating very large visualization projects that scientists can model their own visualization after, according to Fox and Hendler
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Google

Google account users get extra security

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Google just made it harder for hackers to hack into Google user accounts.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Google announced on Thursday that they are giving their Gmail users additional account security, free of charge. As of Thursday Google account users can turn on a "two-step authentication" feature that will require them to type in a special second password in addition to their normal password to access their account.

Users can acquire this short-lived code either by a phone call, text message, or use of smartphone apps for Android, iPhone and Blackberry devices. This feature has been available to paid Google Apps users for the past six months, and now Google has been testing the feature internally with users who have been having problems with hackers getting into their accounts.

The process for turning on this feature in your Google account is a little involved and requires approximately 15 minutes to set up. Users will be given the option to give out a backup phone number incase their phone is lost or stolen. Also Google account users who use IMAP access to their Gmail will require a special 16-character, randomly generated password instead of the normal password.

So what happens if you lose your phone and backup number? Google considered this may happen and gave users a way to regain access to their account with tough-to-answer security questions.

This security feature can pose a problem for anyone who travels overseas and may not be able to receive text messages while traveling. The smartphone apps for Android and the iPhone will generate password codes without a network connection.

The “two-step authentication” feature is currently only available in English however Google is working on translation and should be available for smartphone apps to all Google users in their native languages in a few months.

Archaeology and fossils

On their own 2 feet: 3.2 million-year-old fossil foot bone supports humanlike bipedalism in Lucy's species

February 10, 2011

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This image shows the position of the fourth metatarsal Australopithecus afarensis (AL 333-160) recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia, in a foot skeleton. Credit: Carol Ward/University of Missouri

A fossilized foot bone recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia, shows that by 3.2 million years ago human ancestors walked bipedally with a modern human-like foot, a report that appears Feb. 11 in the journalScience, concludes. The fossil, a fourth metatarsal, or midfoot bone, indicates that a permanently arched foot was present in the species Australopithecus afarensis, according to the report authors, Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, together with William Kimbel and Donald Johanson, of Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins.

The research helps resolve a long-standing debate between paleoanthropologists who think A. afarensis walked essentially as modern humans do and those who think this species practiced a form of locomotion intermediate between the quadrupedal tree-climbing of chimpanzees and human terrestrial bipedalism. The question of whether A. afarensis had fully developed pedal, or foot, arches has been part of this debate. The fourth metatarsal described in the Science report provides strong evidence for the arches and, the authors argue, support a modern-human style of locomotion for this species. The specimen was recovered from the Hadar locality 333, popularly known as the "First Family Site," the richest source of A. afarensis fossils in eastern Africa, with more than 250 specimens, representing at least 17 individuals, so far known.

"This fourth metatarsal is the only one known of A. afarensis and is a key piece of evidence for the early evolution of the uniquely human way of walking," says Kimbel. "The ongoing work at Hadar is producing rare parts of the skeleton that are absolutely critical for understanding how our species evolved."

Humans, uniquely among primates, have two arches in their feet, longitudinal and transverse, which are composed of the midfoot bones and supported by muscles in the sole of the foot. During bipedal locomotion, these arches perform two critical functions: leverage when the foot pushes off the ground and shock absorption when the sole of the foot meets the ground at the completion of the stride. Ape feet lack permanent arches, are more flexible than human feet and have a highly mobile large toe, important attributes for climbing and grasping in the trees. None of these apelike features are present in the foot of A. afarensis.

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Paleoanthropologists report in the Feb. 10 edition of Science on the recovery of a fossilized foot bone recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia, locality 333, popularly known as the "First Family Site," the richest source ofAustralopithecus afarensis fossils in eastern Africa. Credit: Donald Johanson/Institute of Human Origins/Arizona State University

"Understanding that the foot arches appeared very early in our evolution shows that the unique structure of our feet is fundamental to human locomotion," observes Ward. "If we can understand what we were designed to do and how natural selection shaped the human skeleton, we can gain insight into how our skeletons work today. Arches in our feet were just as important for our ancestors as they are for us." 

This species, whose best-known specimen is "Lucy," lived in eastern Africa 3.0��.8 million years ago. Prior to A. afarensis, the species A. anamensis was present in Kenya and Ethiopia from 4.2 to 4.0 million years ago, but its skeleton is not well known. At 4.4 million years ago, Ethiopia's Ardipithecus ramidus is the earliest human ancestor well represented by skeletal remains. Although Ardipithecus appears to have been a part-time terrestrial biped, its foot retains many features of tree-dwelling primates, including a divergent, mobile first toe. The foot of A. afarensis, as with other parts of its skeleton, is much more like that of living humans, implying that by the time of Lucy, our ancestors no longer depended on the trees for refuge or resources.

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This is the fossilized foot bone -- fourth metatarsal of Australopithecus afarensis (AL 333-160) -- recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia. Credit: Elizabeth Harmon/Arizona State University

The Hadar project is the longest running paleoanthropology field program in the Ethiopian rift valley, now spanning more than 38 years. Since 1973, the fieldwork at Hadar has produced more than 370 fossil specimens of Australopithecus afarensis between 3.4 and 3.0 million years ago – one of the largest collections of a single fossil hominin species in Africa – as well as one of the earliest known fossils of Homo and abundant Oldowan stone tools (ca. 2.3 million).

Through ASU's Institute of Human Origins, the Hadar project plays an important role in training Ethiopian scholars by offering graduate degree and postdoctoral opportunities in the U.S. Promotion of local awareness of the global scientific importance and Ethiopian cultural heritage value of the Hadar site is also a project priority. Additionally, the fundraising phase of a planned "Hadar Interpretive Center" at Eloaha town, 30 kilometers from the site, was successfully completed in January 2011
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Yahoo! joins tablet craze with digital newstand
February 10, 2011

Yahoo! is building a digital newsstand called "Livestand" that will turn tablet computers into personalized magazines rich with stories, images and video suited to individual tastes.
Yahoo! is building a digital newsstand called "Livestand" that will turn tablet computers into personalized magazines rich with stories, images and video suited to individual tastes.
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Livestand will launch later this year with content from Yahoo! websites along with an undisclosed array of partners, chief product officer Blake Irving said on Thursday.
"The magazine knows what type of story you are reading; it privately knows where you are and where you've been," Irving said while briefing reporters on Yahoo!'s plans.
"What we are building is really device and operating system agnostic," he said.
"Tablets allow beautiful execution, and we will bring it into smaller forms down to mobile phones and then port it to PCs (personal computers) and TV."
Livestand is intended as a platform to allow magazine or newspaper publishers big or small to deliver content matched with the interests of people who log into the Yahoo! online venue.
"It's a digital newsstand, your digital newsstand," Yahoo! vice president of mobile product management Irv Henderson said while demonstrating Livestand.
"The more you use this, the better it is at telling what you are interested in."
Livestand will focus on tablet computers at launch, with Yahoo! keen on the soon-to-be released Honeycomb operating system that Google is developing for those types of devices.
Digital magazines will be ad-supported, with Yahoo! sharing in the revenue with publishers, according to Henderson. The platform will eventually allow publishers other money-making options, including subscriptions, he said.
(c) 2011 AFP

Intel's tiny new SSD 310 drive to appear in Lenovo ThinkPad laptops

Intel has launched a new solid-state drive that is a mere one eighth the size of a typical 2.5-inch version, which could find its way into new tablet devices and laptops. Lenovo has already confirmed that it plans to include the new drive across its ThinkPad laptop lineup.

The Intel SSD 310 is a mere 5mm thick and comes in 40GB and 80GB capacities. As impressive as the drive’s micro-size is, its performance is equally compelling: Intel claims that the SSD 310 provides the same performance as drives in the company’s X25 lineup of desktop SSDs. (Though Intel doesn’t say if the performance is equivalent to the value, mainstream, or extreme series of X25 drives.)

In addition to serving as a tablet PC’s sole storage source, the SSD 310 is expected to be paired in laptops with a larger hard drive to help speed up boot times. With the drive’s introduction, Intel will compete with Toshiba, which supplies the SSD drives in Apple’s latest MacBook Air laptops, in this emerging market.