http://phys.org/technology-news/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on technology, software, computer science, internet, semiconductor, telecom and science technology. (Phys.org) -- Kaspersky Lab has discovered complex malware that has been in operation for at least five years, collecting data from countries including both Israel and Iran. Kaspersky experts think the masterminds are state-sponsored but have come short of short of naming exact origins. The malicious program is detected as Worm.Win32.Flame by Kaspersky Lab’s security products. The UN International Telecommunication Union has worked with Kaspersky Lab in the investigation, which finds that individuals, businesses, academic institutions and government systems have been hit. The total number of targets is an estimated 600. http://phys.org/news257446622.html Technology Mon, 28 May 2012 17:57:12 EST news257446622 The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse has been delayed by strong winds during a stop-off on its first planned intercontinental flight, organisers said on Monday. http://phys.org/news257426956.html Technology Mon, 28 May 2012 12:30:56 EST news257426956 (Phys.org) -- Ubi Interactive has developed a display system that will convert virtually any surface to a touchscreen display using a conventional projector, a Microsoft Kinect device, and proprietary software running on a Windows based computer. The company, which is currently just three guys, Anup Chathoth, David Hajizadeh and Chao Zhang, is one of eleven startups that have been given $20,000 by Microsoft to develop Kinect based applications. http://phys.org/news257412622.html Technology Mon, 28 May 2012 08:31:10 EST news257412622 (Phys.org) -- Swiss researchers at EPFL have developed a device intended for monitoring and saving the energy consumed by large data centers. It was developed in collaboration with Credit Suisse, which has used it to equip the power of its server racks. http://phys.org/news257407552.html Technology Mon, 28 May 2012 07:06:00 EST news257407552 The browser wars are heating up again, but this time the fight is for dominance of the mobile Internet. http://phys.org/news257315398.html Technology Sun, 27 May 2012 05:30:14 EST news257315398 (Phys.org) -- SpotterRF has announced a special radar backpack kit designed to enhance situational awareness for soldiers on the ground. The company says its special radar is designed for warfighters as part of small expeditionary groups in austere and remote locations across the world. The company provides small and easy to use surveillance radar, the Spotter M600, for use by these soldiers. The military backpack kit announced this month is called Spotter Radar Backpack Kit (RBK). http://phys.org/news257239234.html Technology Sat, 26 May 2012 08:21:01 EST news257239234 (Phys.org) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have trained computers to recognize smiles, and they have turned out to be more adept at recognizing smiles of frustration than humans. http://phys.org/news257137373.html Technology Fri, 25 May 2012 04:05:13 EST news257137373 The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse landed safely in Madrid early Friday at the end of the first leg of its attempt at an intercontinental flight without using a drop of fuel. http://phys.org/news257133278.html Technology Fri, 25 May 2012 02:58:06 EST news257133278 (Phys.org) -- The Santa Barbara, California, company, HyperSolar, is set to transparently share the ups and downs of its research experiences toward the company’s ultimate vision, successfully producing renewable hydrogen. The company is setting down experiences with their own development processes. The company this week reported an achievement, in that it was able to announce that its first proof of concept prototype is successfully producing renewable hydrogen. http://phys.org/news257093425.html Technology Thu, 24 May 2012 15:50:37 EST news257093425 Facebook released a "camera" application Thursday that lets people take Instagram-style pictures that can be shared with iPhones. http://phys.org/news257091899.html Technology Thu, 24 May 2012 15:25:07 EST news257091899 (Phys.org) -- Researchers sponsored by Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) announced that they have successfully created contact hole patterns for a wide variety of practical logic and memory devices using a next-generation directed self-assembly (DSA) process. Applying a relatively simple combination of chemical and thermal processes to create their DSA method for making circuits at 22 nanometers (nm), the research team at Stanford University projects that the nanofabrication technique will enable pattern etching for next-generation chips down to 14nm. http://phys.org/news257077565.html Technology Thu, 24 May 2012 11:27:18 EST news257077565 (Phys.org) -- When Daniel Hooper became frustrated with editing text on his iPad, he wrote an application that could revolutionize the way users select and arrange their words on tablets.  http://phys.org/news257066839.html Technology Thu, 24 May 2012 08:27:44 EST news257066839 Getting a shot at the doctor’s office may become less painful in the not-too-distant future. http://phys.org/news257059673.html Technology Thu, 24 May 2012 06:28:16 EST news257059673 (AP) -- Joining the battle to redefine Internet search, Yahoo is taking aim with a new browser enhancement it calls "Axis." http://phys.org/news257049788.html Technology Thu, 24 May 2012 03:43:21 EST news257049788 (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman has quantified the painful price that must be paid for the missteps of her predecessors as she tries to turn around the Silicon Valley pioneer. The bungling will wipe out 27,000 jobs so HP can save enough money to lift its earnings and invest in the development of more profitable products and service. http://phys.org/news257012565.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 17:22:55 EST news257012565 So you love your iPad, but you wish you could work on Microsoft Office software, watch Flash video and generally have more of a PC-like experience? OnLive Desktop is one way you can. http://phys.org/news257003408.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 14:50:52 EST news257003408 Google won a major victory Wednesday as jurors sided with the Internet giant in a high-stakes court battle over patents with business software titan Oracle. http://phys.org/news257003114.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 14:45:26 EST news257003114 (Phys.org) -- The limitations of conventional and current solar cells include high production cost, low operating efficiency and durability, and many cells rely on toxic and scarce materials. Northwestern University researchers have developed a new solar cell that, in principle, will minimize all of these solar energy technology limitations. http://phys.org/news256995859.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 13:00:09 EST news256995859 The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse will on Thursday attempt its first intercontinental flight, travelling from Switzerland to Morocco without using a drop of fuel, organisers said. http://phys.org/news256986460.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 10:07:52 EST news256986460 Two years ago, Martin Rinard's group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory proposed a surprisingly simple way to make some computer procedures more efficient: Just skip a bunch of steps. Although the researchers demonstrated several practical applications of the technique, dubbed loop perforation, they realized it would be a hard sell. "The main impediment to adoption of this technique," Imperial College London's Cristian Cadar commented at the time, "is that developers are reluctant to adopt a technique where they don't exactly understand what it does to the program." http://phys.org/news256974366.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 06:46:28 EST news256974366 (Phys.org) -- Developers and end users both have been indicating they are ready to start saying long goodbyes to mouse and keyboard. In this touchscreen generation of mobile users, the big stir among gadget reviewers this week is the announcement by Leap Motion that you can not only say goodbye to mouse and keyboard, but goodbye to touchscreen, too. "That nice LED display remains clean and untouched, as it should be,” says the company. The San Francisco based company has announced it is accepting pre-orders for its new Leap, a small USB peripheral that performs motion control with in-the-air sweeps of hand and movements of fingers. The Leap creates a 3-D interaction space of eight cubic feet to interact with and control software on a laptop or desktop. This gesture-control device for computers is running rings, and orbs, and swirls, and curlicues, around Kinect, the most well known of technologies that help users interact with computers without mouse and keyboard. http://phys.org/news256964839.html Technology Wed, 23 May 2012 04:37:21 EST news256964839 (AP) -- Business software maker SAP AG on Tuesday said it will buy Ariba Inc., which makes Web-based software that connects suppliers and buyers online, for about $4.51 billion. http://phys.org/news256928772.html Technology Tue, 22 May 2012 18:20:02 EST news256928772 A new study by civil engineers at MIT shows that using stiffer pavements on the nation’s roads could reduce vehicle fuel consumption by as much as 3 percent — a savings that could add up to 273 million barrels of crude oil per year, or $15.6 billion at today’s oil prices. This would result in an accompanying annual decrease in CO2 emissions of 46.5 million metric tons. http://phys.org/news256928550.html Technology Tue, 22 May 2012 18:02:41 EST news256928550 Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past. http://phys.org/news256911093.html Technology Tue, 22 May 2012 13:12:16 EST news256911093 Tesla Motors said Tuesday it would begin deliveries of "the world's first premium electric sedan" on June 22, slightly ahead of schedule. http://phys.org/news256905257.html Technology Tue, 22 May 2012 11:34:36 EST news256905257 Google closed Tuesday its $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility, a key manufacturer of smartphones and other devices that puts the Internet giant in head-to-head competition with Apple. http://phys.org/news256900486.html Technology Tue, 22 May 2012 10:14:54 EST news256900486 After years of mortifying missteps, Yahoo Inc. finally has something to boast about: a multibillion-dollar windfall from a savvy investment in China. http://phys.org/news256843161.html Technology Mon, 21 May 2012 18:19:27 EST news256843161 Researchers have shown how to create morphing robotic mechanisms and shape-shifting sculptures from a single sheet of paper in a method reminiscent of origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. http://phys.org/news256842511.html Technology Mon, 21 May 2012 18:09:33 EST news256842511 (Phys.org) -- Running a diesel like engine on gasoline is something Delphi is doing in notable fashion. They claim they are on to a promising way to enjoy an engine that gives the vehicle owner high efficiency and low emissions. Delphi, a major Michigan-based auto-parts supplier, is developing this technology which has shown impressive results in tests. Delphi tried out its combustion concept, which reaps the best of two worlds of low-emission gas and efficient diesel engines. Delphi claims its technology is an improvement upon the fuel economy of gas-powered cars, and can bring forth benefits of the hybrid at less the cost of a large battery and electric motor. http://phys.org/news256825253.html Technology Mon, 21 May 2012 13:21:11 EST news256825253 Popular firewall technology designed to boost security on cellular networks can backfire, unwittingly revealing data that could help a hacker break into Facebook and Twitter accounts, a new study from the University of Michigan shows. http://phys.org/news256820491.html Technology Mon, 21 May 2012 12:01:49 EST news256820491