Diamond Age Solutions News for the IT Industry

Sun Jan 28 12:33:56 NZDT 2007

Today Index

Unable to fix a calendaring bug in their spreadsheet, Microsoft now want to make it a standard for everyone to follow:
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2006/10/leap-back.html

Peter Gutmann points out the inconsistencies and direct contradictions in Microsoft's defence of Vista's DRM:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#response

Sony now says it has no control over the licensing of Blu-ray, and has no problem with the adult industry using the format:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197000093

Court finds against Qualcomm, and announces that the H.264 video compression standard is not patented. It can now be widely adopted:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070126-9999-1b26qualcomm.html

Peter Harrison, the President of the NZOSS, will be stepping down next AGM after a distinguished term that started in 2002:
http://www.nzoss.org.nz/node/129

A study finds that mobile phones do make lumps grow on the "phone" side of your head after all:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37209

Solar cells using quantum dot technology show that 45% efficiency is attainable, though more than 60% is predicted by theory:
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/nalefd/2007/7/i01/abs/nl062564s.html

UCLA and California Institute of Technology chemists develop a 160Kib molecular memory chip with a 10^11 bits/sq. cm memory density:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/uoc--ucc012407.php

IBM And Intel Make a more immediate advance in microelectronics, increasing chip speed by using hafnium instead of silicon dioxide for insulation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/technology/27chip.html?hp&ex=1169960400&en=b5dab5ed9a363262&ei=5094&partner=homepage

And finally. Tom Coates at Plasticbag.org creates a space invader scene that is visible from space. Plus a Cylon raider for good measure:
http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/01/space_invaders_.html

News collated from various sources by Vik Olliver for Diamond Age Solutions Ltd. The views presented in this document are the personal opinion of the collator, and should not be taken as any more than that.