|
|
|
NEWSBITS
Gates unveils new Windows tools
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Sunday unveiled a new feature expected to be built into the next major release of the software maker’s Windows operating system, a search tool that aims to make it easier to find information stored on personal computers.
Gates, speaking at the opening keynote address at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, unveiled other products based on the software maker’s well-funded research arm that promise to cut down on spam, make computer networks more secure and improve computing on the road.
He also spoke of extending Microsoft’s software into a variety of gadgets such as watches and mobile phones, as the world’s largest software maker tries to tap into new growth to reduce its dependence on slowing PC sales.
In order to tackle the increasing proliferation of information passing through desktop computers, Gates demonstrated a new feature called “Stuff I’ve Seen,” which could be incorporated into the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn.
It will allow users to track their files, email, web pages and other information that they see on their computers.
Available in mid-2004 as an add-on to Microsoft’s email software products, “SmartScreen” technology developed by Microsoft’s research arm will filter email to prevent unwanted email advertising and malicious messages from reaching recipients’ inboxes.
Microsoft, which vowed to improve the security and reliability of its software in a “Trustworthy Computing” initiative nearly two years ago, also said it will introduce new server-based software to secure computer networks. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
Cold research probes dance of atom
Two groups of researchers have cooled a cloud of atoms until they became what was essentially one big super-atom. Although not the very first so-called Bose-Einstein condensate to be made, it was constructed using novel atoms. These atoms paired-up as they cooled, changing the properties of the gas and allowing an insight into its nature. Superconductivity — the phenomenon in which electrical resistance vanishes in a material — may be better understood because of this latest research.
In 1995 scientists made a Bose-Einstein condensate (Bec) when they cooled a cloud of rubidium and sodium atoms to within a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero, the coldest anything can theoretically get
(-273oCelsius). The feat earned the researchers a Nobel Prize. At close to absolute zero, atoms interact in such a way as to become, in effect, a single giant ensemble atom.
The first Bec had unique properties which will help scientists probe the basic behaviour of matter. Further understanding is also expected to revolutionise applications in fields that include precision measurement and nanotechnology — making tiny structures such as those used in computer chips.
Now researchers, at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Colorado, US, have made a Bec using a different mixture of atoms.
They have used potassium-40 and lithium-6 atoms which differ in fundamental ways from the previously used atoms. The most important difference in this context is that the new atoms are classified as fermions.
Atomic particles can be divided into either fermions or bosons, depending on a property called quantum mechanical spin. Bosons have integer spin, such as photons which have spin 1. Fermions, like electrons with spin of 0.5, have half-integer spin. What happens is that the fermions combine as the gas cools so that the combination has integer spin. In effect, two fermions behave as one boson. This may shed new light on superconductivity, the phenomenon which sees electrical resistance vanish in a material. Its effects are believed to arise when electrons pair-up to behave like bosons.
Some of the fundamental research behind superconductors won this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. Superconducting materials are made from metals, alloys and ceramic compounds. Their lack of resistance has led to them being used to make powerful magnets, such as those found in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners which probe the body’s tissues. Atom smashers also use these magnets to hurl particles at each other to study the fundamental properties of matter. Although the field has been plagued by hype, it does promise significant improvements in superfast computing and in the super-efficient generation, storage and transmission of electric power. The latest Bec research is published in the journal Science. — Dawn ScienceDotcom Report
|
|
|
|
