INFO GURU

When we first spotted this new cam from Seitz, our jaws hit the floor and rebounded a few times. No, it's not the highest megapixel count we've seen, but this megalith of a camera shoots at 160 megapixels to create a native 6 x 17-cm image, is packed with an ISO range from 500 to 10,000, a read-out speed of 300MB per second, and a shutter speed of 1/20,000th second. So the next question is, how are you going to store such huge image files (nearly 1 GB per uncompressed full panorama), certainly not on your off-the-shelf 16GB SDHC card, nor the upcoming 64GB CompactFlash cards -- but rather via gigabit Ethernet to Seitz's "state-of-the-art computer system", which translates to a decked out Mac mini. So what will this much imaging power cost you? 45,500 Swiss francs ($36,266) for the "mobile version" and 42,300 Swiss francs ($33,715) for the "studio version", and we're assuming that the Mac mini is included for that price. However, given that this camera isn't quite what you'd front for a down payment on a Swiss châlet, the 6x17 Digital surely must be affordable to average working-class Zürich banker set, no? You can catch a glimpse of this bad boy at the upcoming Photokina expo in Germany, or can throw down some serious Swiss coinage now to pre-order this gargantuan cam, which won't become available until early 2007. Also, be sure to click through for two more glamour shots.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is a product that helps users communicate and collaborate on the web. A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. Google Wave is also a platform with a rich set of open APIs that allow developers to embed waves in other web services and to build extensions that work inside waves.

Some key technologies in Google Wave

What is the Google Wave API?

The Google Wave API allows developers to use and enhance Google Wave through two primary types of development:

• Extensions: Build robot extensions to automate common tasks or build gadget extensions to provide a new way for users to interact
• Embed: Make your site more collaborative by dropping in a Wave

Google Wave is currently available in a developer preview as the APIs and product continue to evolve. Accounts on the developer sandbox will be given out to people intending to build with the Google Wave APIs prior to the public release.

Five years back Google launched its Gmail services with an offer of a gigabyte of storage on April 1 '04.

Google Mail was born out of an experimental project created by a few engineers at Google five years ago. From the beginning Gmail has been a faster, cleaner and more intuitive solution for people's email.

At first, the service was available by invite only, but opened to the public in 2007. Even though it has been around for five years, Gmail is still listed as a beta, and holds less market share than its rivals.

It was no joke, and Gmail has taken the world of free webmail by storm, forcing others to boost their storage and improve their features. At first, Google’s mail service was available by invite only. To join up, someone with a Gmail account had to send you one of their limited number of invites. It was only opened up to the public in February 2007.

And, despite being part of the Google family, it holds far less market share than its rivals. As of last year, Yahoo Mail had 55 per cent of the market in the US, followed by Microsoft’s Windows Live at 26 per cent. Gmail had just six per cent, according to the Hitwise statistics. That said, comScore reported that Gmail saw growth of 43 per cent last year, so maybe one day it will eventually catch up.

“Since 2004 we've continued to focus on making Google Mail easier and more fun by introducing additions like themes, video chat and Google Mail Labs. We're thankful that so many people have picked Google Mail over the past five years, and we're looking forward to providing them with more innovative features in the future’’, says Google. <

File Behavior

OPGDE.EXE has been seen to perform the following behavior:

• The Process is packed and/or encrypted using a software packing process
• This Process Deletes Other Processes From Disk
• This process creates other processes on disk
• Creates a new Background Service on the machine
• Loads and Executes a System Driver File
• Adds a Registry Key (RUN) to auto start Programs on system start up
• Writes to another Process's Virtual Memory (Process Hijacking)
• Executes a Process
• Injects code into other processes
• Registers a Dynamic Link Library File

OPGDE.EXE has been the subject of the following behavior:

• Created as a process on disk
• Deleted as a process from disk
• Added as a Registry auto start to load Program on Boot up
• Executed as a Process
• Executed from Temporary Folders
• Copied to multiple locations on the system
• This program is often downloaded from the web
• Registered as a Dynamic Link Library File

A computer virus won’t help your laptop work — but a biological virus could. Tweaking their genes just so could engineer viruses for making the rechargeable lithium ion batteries that power devices such as laptops, iPods and cell phones, researchers report online April 2 in Science.

In previous research, the same team used viruses to construct the negative electrode, or anode, of the battery. In the new work, the researchers engineered viruses for the positive electrode, or cathode. When the two are put together, the virus batteries should perform better than traditional lithium ion batteries and also be environmentally friendly, the team reports.

“Because the viruses are living organisms, we had to use only water-based solvents, no high pressures and no high temperatures,” says Angela Belcher, a materials scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and a study coauthor.

Lithium ion batteries store up and release electrical energy when lithium ions and electrons move between the anode and cathode. The cathode is often made of iron phosphate, a stable material that, when it reacts with lithium, has a high capacity to store energy. But it’s not a very good conductor. The movement of ions and electrons through the cathode is relatively slow, making the battery less efficient at releasing energy.

Ions and electrons can move through smaller particles more quickly. But fabricating nano-sized particles of iron phosphate is a difficult and expensive process, the researchers say.

So Belcher’s team let the virus do the work. By manipulating a gene of the M13 virus to make the viruses coat themselves in iron phosphate, the researchers created very small iron phosphate particles.

“We’re using a biological template that’s already on the nanoscale,” Belcher says.

Tweaking a second gene made one end of the virus bind to carbon nanotubes, which conduct energy well. The resulting network of iron phosphate-coated viruses and carbon nanotubes formed a highly conductive cathode, one that ions and electrons could move through quickly.

“This work is an exciting breakthrough,” comments battery chemist Kang Xu of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Md. “Belcher is the first to use viruses as a nano-template to assemble materials.”

Using different cathode materials could make the future batteries even better, Belcher says. “This paper proved that the concept works.”

Brand / Type
Brand	HTC
Type	Touch Viva
Form factor	Candybar
Color	Grey
Network
Phone Network	EDGE, GPRS, GSM
Service	850, 900, 1800, 1900
Connectivity
Bluetooth	v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared	No
Wi-Fi (WLAN)	Yes
USB	Yes
Fax / Data	N/A
Display
Main display	Color TFT touchscreen
Color display	65000 colors
Dimensions	2.8 in.
Resolution	240 x 320 pixels
External display	Yes
Memory
Internal memory	256MB
External memory	Yes
Memory slots	Yes
Storage types	MicroSD
Basic
Battery	Standard battery, Li-Ion 1100 mAh
Standby time	270 hours
Talk time	8 hours
Calling
Vibrate alert	Yes
Photo ID	Yes
Ringtones	MP3, Polyfone
Camera
Camera	Yes
Megapixels	2.0 megapixels
Maximum photo resolution	1600x1200 pixels
Digital zoom	Unknown x
Optical zoom	Unknown x
Auto focus	N/A
Flash	N/A
Recording video	Yes
Second (front) camera	No
Messaging
SMS	Yes
MMS	Yes
T9 text function	Yes
E-mail	Yes
Internet browsing	Yes
Entertainment
FM radio	No
Java	Yes
Audio player	AAC, MP3
Video player	No
Features
Add ringtones	Yes
Organiser	Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF viewer), Voice memo
Video call	Yes
Other features	Built-in handsfree, Games, Video/audio album
Format
Weight	3.9 oz.
Dimensions (H x W x D)	4.1x2.3x0.6 in.