Google Goggles

Google Goggles is a visual search app for Android phones. Instead of using words, take a picture of an object with your camera phone: we attempt to recognize the object, and return relevant search results. Goggles also provides information about businesses near you by displaying their names directly in the camera preview.

German Researchers Make Metal Objects With RFID Inside

Fraunhofer's engineers demonstrate how to use selective laser sintering to integrate a standard passive tag within metal items as they are manufactured.



Dec. 4, 2009—The places where RFID tags can be placed are almost limitless. One exception has been the challenge of integrating an RFID inlay within an object composed of metal. That's because the high temperatures required to melt and shape metal can destroy the components making up an RFID tag.

However, researchers at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Manufacturing and Advanced Materials (IFAM), in Bremen, Germany, indicate they've come up with a solution enabling them to embed a standard RFID tag within a metal object as that item is being manufactured. The technique makes use of a 20-year-old process called selective laser sintering, and IFAM engineer Claus Aumund-Kopp says his team has successfully built metal parts that include an RFID tag inside. The researchers presented their work at EuroMold 2009, a trade fair focused on mold making and tooling, held this week in Frankfurt.


Fraunhofer's researchers used selective laser sintering (SLS) to produce these metallic objects, shown next to a sample of the RFID tag integrated within each item.
Working with metal powder and a laser, it is possible to produce parts straight from a 3-D model generated with a computer-aided design (CAD) application. The process is painstaking: Powder is laid down in layers 20 microns (0.0008 inch) in thickness—approximately a quarter the width of a human hair—and a laser melts it in the shape of the desired part. Layer by thin layer, the metallic object emerges from the powder. "The chip is inserted into the part when we have reached a certain height," Aumund-Kopp explains.

Traditionally, RFID tags have been unusable in parts heated above 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), though some tag manufactures have developed versions able to withstand temperatures as high as 1,093 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit) by encasing the RFID inlays in protective materials (see William Frick & Co.'s Gen 2 UHF Tags Take the Heat for Manufacturing Apps). In metal casting or laser fusion, however, temperatures can exceed 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,552 degrees Fahrenheit).

With Fraunhofer's process, Aumund-Kopp says, only a tiny bit of the material is ever heated, because of the gradual, partial nature of the process. That allows his team to use standard RFID tags that would be destroyed in traditional metal casting. "They're standard chips, with a standard glass cover," Aumund-Kopp says. "The trick is, the laser doesn't directly hit the chip, or hits it for such a minimal time that the chip isn't destroyed in the process."

Even more important, Aumund-Kopp adds, the Fraunhofer team discovered that the chips can be completely embedded within a metal part and still function. "We have found chips which are completely covered and are still readable," he states. "This is really new—usually, you need a gap where the electromagnetic fields can couple." The findings came as a pleasant surprise to the researchers, he says, and have created a puzzle for the future. "We can't explain it ourselves. We need to do some more tests."

n the meantime, the team is working to make the findings applicable industrially. Thickness apparently matters, Aumund-Kopp says—the chips are still readable beneath 100 microns (0.004 inch) of metal, but no deeper than that. So far, he notes, the chips that work best transmit at a frequency of 125 kilohertz. "It's only readable over short distances, but that's also the frequency that is most secure," he explains. "We still have some way to go for the larger reading range."

At EuroMold, Fraunhofer's researchers presented metal finger rings in which they had embedded RFID chips. Such RFID-enabled rings could be worn, for instance, in order to gain admission to secure rooms. But as long as the technology remains fairly expensive, the most likely applications will be narrow.

Whereas an RFID chip molded within a plastic object could be removed and placed into something else, the chip inside a metal part could not be extracted from that object without destroying the chip. The most immediate application might be fraud prevention, Aumund-Kopp says, noting, "Think of aviation, where the quality of spare parts is vital."

Integrated into an aircraft component, for example, an RFID tag would not only enable a manufacturer to track that item, but also allow it to later verify that a customer used the genuine article—and not a cheaper, lower-quality counterfeit—in the event of part failure. "With these chips," Aumund-Kopp says, "you can ID the part securely."

Another potential application, Fraunhofer reports, is to create parts containing an RFID tag with a temperature or expansion sensor, in order to record data on thermal or mechanical stresses on the components.

IFAM's tag-embedding technique remains costly, Aumund-Kopp indicates, primarily because the selective laser melting process used by the researchers is not ideal for mass-manufacturing. However, that may change. "We're at the very beginning," he notes. "We're definitely looking for partners who want to further develop its potential."

By Andrew Curry
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/7256/2

Intel Unveils 48-Core Single-Chip Cloud Computer

Earlier today in a San Francisco press briefing Intel Chief Technology Officer, Justin Rattner took the wraps off a proof of concept and experimental product that Intel dubbed a "Single-Chip Cloud Computer". The objective this chip was designed to address is the huge opportunity that exists to reduce power consumption and space in the data center, a very real place, rather than mythical, where "the cloud" really exists and increasing user demand for online services continues to chew up bandwidth, processing resources and storage like there is no tomorrow.

The Intel Single-chip Cloud Computer or "SCC" for short, is what Intel likes to call a "many core" CPU but actually consists of a 48-core implementation using 45nm process technology. The cores on the chip are networked together in a packet-based router mesh network, where the nodes (or individual cores) behave quite similarly to a network cloud but on a monolithic silicon chip level. There are, in fact, 24 "routers" to connect and manage all 48 cores and the chip also contains an additional 4 DDR3 memory controllers to feed the network data, with 64GB total addressable memory space per SCC chip.

Microsoft says B(lack)SODs not linked to latest patches

Microsoft is denying that the latest Patch Tuesday has resulted in some PCs locking up and displaying a Black Screen of Death (BSOD), calling the reports "inaccurate." Prevx, the security company that started all the hubbub, has apologized.

Microsoft is denying reports of the Black Screen of Death on a number of PCs. A fraction of Windows users have been complaining their computers were locking up and displaying a Black Screen of Death (BSOD, not to be confused with Blue Screen of Death, which is usually due to hardware or driver failure) after the last Microsoft Patch Tuesday on November 10, 2009.

"Microsoft has investigated reports that its November security updates made changes to permissions in the registry that that are resulting in system issues for some customers," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "The company has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports."

"While we were not contacted by the organization who originally made these reports, we have proactively contacted them with our findings. Our support organization is also not seeing this as an issue. The claims also do not match any known issues that have been documented in the security bulletins or KB articles."

Security company Prevx first claimed the latest patches were making changes to the Access Control List (ACL), a list of permissions for a logged-on user, in the registry. The result was some installed applications (especially security products) failing to run properly, causing a BSOD on Windows -2000, NT, XP, Vista, and 7, according to Prevx. The security company released their own fix that reportedly makes the appropriate changes in the registry (this can also be done manually) to match the ACL settings.

Today though, Prevx has changed its stance on the issue: "Having narrowed down a specific trigger for this condition we've done quite a bit of testing and re-testing on the recent Windows patches including KB976098 and KB915597 as referred to in our previous blog. Since more specifically narrowing down the cause we have been able to exonerate these patches from being a contributory factor."

"We apologize to Microsoft for any inconvenience our blog may have caused. This has been a challenging issue to identify. Users who have the black screen issue referred to can still safely use our free fix tool to restore their desktop icons and taskbar."

When we contacted Microsoft yesterday, the software giant wasn't yet ready to comment on the reported issue. Instead, the company said it was investigating, and apparently that stage is now complete; Microsoft has concluded its patches are not to blame. We have not encountered computers that have had this problem, so we're not sure of the scope of affected users, but since the problem still remains, we'll follow this story closely as it unfolds.

By Emil Protalinski

Hackers outwit Windows 7 activation

Software lets pirates thwart Microsoft's antipiracy technology in new OS

Hackers have figured out how to sidestep Windows 7's activation process, continuing a long-running battle with Microsoft, which has blocked such tactics in the past.

According to an article published more than a week ago on My Digital Life, hackers have devised a pair of methods that circumvent the new operating system's product activation, a key component of Microsoft's antipiracy technologies.

Microsoft said it knew about the hacks and was looking into ways to block them. "We're aware of this workaround and are already working to address it," a company spokeswoman said today.

Two utilities, called "RemoveWAT" and "Chew-WGA," remove the activation technologies or prevent them from running, said My Digital Life. Both hacking tools trick Windows 7 into reporting that it has been properly activated, preventing the nagging on-screen displays and other visual cues from appearing that Microsoft has built into its software to mark counterfeit software.

With Windows 7, Microsoft dropped the "Windows Genuine Advantage" (WGA) name for its integrated antipiracy software, and replaced it with "Windows Activation Technologies" (WAT). The end result on users' screens, however, remained similar to what Vista displayed. The most evident change to Windows 7 was the discarding of a delay during log-in on a machine with an inactivated copy of Windows. Under Vista's scheme, users had to wait 15 seconds before clicking the "Activate Later" button to proceed to the desktop. In Windows 7, users can click that button immediately.

Microsoft made dramatic changes to Vista's illegitimate software warnings nearly two years ago, then followed those with nearly identical modifications to the older Windows XP. In both operating systems, the company dumped the reduced functionality mode that essentially made the machine unusable, and instead boosted the number of on-screen messages and planted a black background on the desktop.

Microsoft has blocked anti-activation hacks in the past, using Windows Update to push changes to users. In early 2008, for example, the company stymied a pair of activation cracks with just such an update, then rolled the crack detection code into Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) a month later. It issued another update in February 2009 to block another crack that affected Vista Ultimate.

The post on My Digital Life acknowledged that Microsoft might take the same tack with the Windows 7 workarounds. "As [the] cracks based on removal of activation component involves patching, changes and modification to many system files, it's likely to be easily detected and nullified by Microsoft, especially in [the] next WGA update or Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2," My Digital Life reported.

Space Chair Project

There's something wrong when an advertisement is more memorable than the product. Nevertheless, here we have Toshiba's Space Chair ad campaign promoting its new 2010 REGZA SV LCD TV series, Toshiba's first with LED backlight and local dimming. The campaign will later expand to include a second take featuring the Satellite T Series of 11-hour CULV laptops set for introduction in 2010. The ad follows the journey of "an ordinary living room chair" to the edge of space before falling back to Earth where the ground crew relied upon a GPS beacon to locate the craft. A few facts about the shoot:

* A helium balloon lifted the chair and Toshiba's own IK-HR1S ultra-compact 1080i camera to a height of 98,268 feet above terra firma
* FAA regulations required that the weight of the rig had to be less than four pounds
* The chair is made of biodegradable balsa wood at a cost of about £2,500
* The rig was launched in Nevada's Black Rock desert
* The temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees at 52,037 feet
* The chair took 83 minutes to reach an altitude of 98,268 feet and just 24 minutes to fall back to earth.

Barack Obama tells 2.6 million Twitter followers he has never tweeted

Barack Obama left his 2.6 million fans on Twitter, the social networking website, bemused, disappointed and mildly irritated by admitting on Monday that he had never used the service himself.

Let me say that I have never used Twitter," he told students in Shanghai. "I noticed that young people are very busy with these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone."

During his election campaign, Mr Obama portrayed himself as "connected" to the people through Twitter and his ever-present blackberry phone.

Some of his more understanding fans asked if it was any real surprise that the president had little time to "tweet". "Did anyone really think he was posting on his own?"