2008年11月30日 星期日

太陽能電池 通過聲音瀏覽Web網站

這預測為誰而發

IBM發佈今後5年內有望實現、並可改變人類生活方式的5項技術
DATE 2008/12/01
　　【日經BP社報導】 美國IBM發佈了有望在今後5年內實現、可能改變人類生活方式的五項技術英文發佈資料。分別為：（1）把太陽能電池嵌入瀝青、塗裝材料和窗戶等的技術；（2）預測個人未來健康狀況的技術；（3）
的技術；（4）購物支援技術；（5）對人的記憶進行輔助的技術。

　　作為嵌入瀝青和窗戶等的太陽能電池，IBM列舉了薄膜太陽能電池。該公司表示，為了普及太陽能電池，現在的太陽能電池單元的材料和製造工藝價格過高， 不過薄膜太陽能電池將改變這種狀況。薄膜太陽能電池的厚度是採用矽晶圓製造的太陽能電池單元的1/100左右，而且能夠實現低成本生產。另外，可使用印刷 設備進行生產，還可安裝至柔軟的材料上。因此，除房頂外，還能嵌入大廈的牆面、窗戶、手機、筆記型電腦、汽車以及西裝等。

　　預測個人未來健康狀況的技術將採用遺傳圖譜（Genetic Map）。在今後5年內，醫生將能夠通過特定的DNA資訊告訴患者今後可能面臨的健康風險及避免方法。另外，製藥公司可根據遺傳基因資訊，生產出有針對性地、適合不同患者的藥物。

　　在通過聲音瀏覽Web網站方面，用戶可通過語音指令從Web網站中搜索並收聽資訊。不使用鍵盤等也可發送郵件和即時資訊。這樣，無法讀寫的人 也能利用Web網站上的資訊。在印度等國，教育和政治等方面使用口語的種類多於書面語，因此IBM預測，利用聲音的界面將超過其他界面而迅速普及。

　　在購物支援技術方面，將推出幫助顧客選購衣服時的系統。這樣，在決定是否購買時，更容易自己做決定而不被店員的意見所左右。該系統將設在試衣 間內，配備觸控螢幕，通過聲音進行操作。顧客可通過該系統選擇與已選商品相配的衣服和飾品、以及更換已經選擇的衣服等。而且，當挑選全部結束後，系統將把 所選擇的整套服飾送到顧客身邊。此外，還可把顧客穿新衣服的快照用郵件等發送給朋友和家人，以向其諮詢意見。

　　在對人的記憶進行輔助的技術方面，通過便攜設備記錄、保存並分析日常生活中發生的瑣碎事情，並在恰當的時間和場所提供給用戶。這樣，可讓用戶 隨時回憶起這些事情。例如，當用戶在特定的時間路過特定的店舖時，便攜設備在掌握了用戶位置後，即可根據所記錄的對話內容引導用戶在該店購物等。（記者： 迦納 徵子）

■日文原文
米IBM社，今後5年間で実現しそうな，人々の生活様式を変える5つの技術を発表
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“缺乏經營戰略”的日本半導體企業?

連學生都認為“缺乏經營戰略”的日本半導體企業
DATE 2008/12/01
　　【日經BP社報導】 今年，日本某知名國立大學的電子電路專業學生在畢業求職時將半導體企業從候選單位中排除，而將目標鎖定了外資諮詢公司、證券公司及銀行等。負責就職指導的 教授問學生“為什麼不去半導體企業？”學生的回答令教授啞口無言。學生回答說“在和老師的談話中我了解到，日本半導體廠商沒有經營戰略。我不想去那樣的企 業”。

　　從很早開始，出於“薪酬不錯”、“感覺很氣派”、“因為對軟體感興趣，所以希望從事系統開發”等動機，就有相當多的理工科學生到諮詢公司及金 融機構就職。然而，那位教授說“因為電子廠商缺乏經營戰略，所以不願意去就職”的學生還是第一次遇到。這是一位拿出過出色研究成果的優秀學生，正因為如 此，他才更注重企業的經營狀況。

　　截至上世紀90年代前期，日本半導體廠商擠進了全球市場銷售額十強行列。然而，眾所週知，日本廠商曾幾何時的發展勢頭如今已不復存在。可以說日本半導體廠商的許多經營方針都以失敗告終。那麼，日本半導體廠商真的是缺乏經營戰略嗎？

　　就職于日本半導體廠商及美國半導體製造裝置廠商、並擔任日本大阪大學教授的赤坂洋一指出，“在日本半導體業界，擁有遠景規劃及經營理念的企業不太多。可能是從來沒有想過‘這個公司為什麼必須存在？’，也沒有思考制定遠景規劃及經營理念的原始動機的習慣”。

　　如果沒有經營戰略，高層拿不出明確的方針，那麼員工就沒有用武之地。長年從事LSI開發及製造的菊地正典表示，“（日本LSI廠商）製造不出 功能、性能、可靠性及成本等面面俱佳的產品。如果沒有差異化的產品策劃就不可能贏得市場，日本LSI廠商做不到這一點，因此日本半導體廠商從上世紀90年 代開始走向衰退。目前，雖然已出現了擁有明確方針的企業，但拿出的多是沒有具體方向的開發方針。只會命令製作現場的員工‘好好幹’的企業還是難免衰敗”。

　　以上是針對半導體製造的前製程為中心的企業而言的，其實後製程也出現了同樣的問題。從事封裝開發及後製程生產線運營的萩本英二這樣表示，“由於 SiP（System In Package）日益受到關注，因此半導體廠商也在不斷改變。不過，體制建設不足的半導體廠商也不是沒有。首先，半導體廠商必須就前製程、中間製程及後製 程需要何種體制描繪出藍圖。必須充分考慮其設想的用戶是誰，以及在大多通過訂製（Tailor Made）方式小批量多品種生產的SiP業務中、要提高利潤應如何生產和銷售”（摘自本站報導“應建立前後製程相結合的SiP開發及量產體制——向日本半導體廠商進言”）。這種藍圖策劃，日本半導體廠商還做得不夠。

　　本文所提到的“經營戰略”，絕大多數都是理應做到的。雖然不可能每一條戰略都得到所有人的贊同。但是如果問及半導體廠商是否真正做到了，那麼回答還是 有疑問的。雖然近年來，日本半導體廠商也在改變，但還不能因此就斷言，本文開篇那位年輕人的選擇是錯誤的。（記者：安保 秀雄，編輯委員）

■日文原文
学生にも「経営戦略がない」と見限られる国内半導体メーカー
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2008年11月25日 星期二

graffiti-spraying and low-level delinquency

Criminology

Can the can

Nov 20th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The idea that graffiti-spraying and other forms of low-level delinquency promote further bad behaviour has now been tested experimentally


Getty Images

A PLACE that is covered in graffiti and festooned with rubbish makes people feel uneasy. And with good reason, according to a group of researchers in the Netherlands. Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen deliberately created such settings as a part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter and low-level lawbreaking could change the way people behave. They found that they could, by a lot: doubling the number who are prepared to litter and steal.

The idea that observing disorder can have a psychological effect on people has been around for a while. In the late 1980s George Kelling, a former probation officer who now works at Rutgers University, initiated what became a vigorous campaign to remove graffiti from New York City’s subway system, which was followed by a reduction in petty crime. This idea also underpinned the “zero tolerance” which Rudy Giuliani subsequently brought to the city’s streets when he became mayor.


Many cities and communities around the world now try to get on top of anti-social behaviour as a way of deterring crime. But the idea remains a controversial one, not least because it is often difficult to account for other factors that could influence crime reduction, such as changes in poverty levels, housing conditions and sentencing policy—even, some people have argued, the removal of lead from petrol. An experimental test of the “broken windows theory”, as Dr Kelling and his colleague James Wilson later called the idea, is therefore long overdue. And that is what Dr Keizer and his colleagues have provided.

The writing’s on the wall

Dr Kelling’s theory takes its name from the observation that a few broken windows in an empty building quickly lead to more smashed panes, more vandalism and eventually to break-ins. The tendency for people to behave in a particular way can be strengthened or weakened depending on what they observe others to be doing. This does not necessarily mean that people will copy bad behaviour exactly, reaching for a spray can when they see graffiti. Rather, says Dr Keizer, it can foster the “violation” of other norms of behaviour. It was this effect that his experiments, which have just been published in Science, set out to test.

His group’s first study was conducted in an alley that is frequently used to park bicycles. As in all of their experiments, the researchers created two conditions: one of order and the other of disorder. In the former, the walls of the alley were freshly painted; in the latter, they were tagged with graffiti (but not elaborately, to avoid the perception that it might be art). In both states a large sign prohibiting graffiti was put up, so that it would not be missed by anyone who came to collect a bicycle. All the bikes then had a flyer promoting a non-existent sports shop attached to their handlebars. This needed to be removed before a bicycle could be ridden.

When owners returned, their behaviour was secretly observed. There were no rubbish bins in the alley, so a cyclist had three choices. He could take the flyer with him, hang it on another bicycle (which the researchers counted as littering) or throw it to the floor. When the alley contained graffiti, 69% of the riders littered compared with 33% when the walls were clean.

To remove one possible bias—that litter encourages more litter—the researchers inconspicuously picked up each castaway flyer. Nor, they say, could the effect be explained by litterers assuming that because the spraying of graffiti had not been prevented, it was also unlikely that they would be caught. Littering, Dr Keizer observes, is generally tolerated by the police in Groningen.

The other experiments were carried out in a similar way. In one, a temporary fence was used to close off a short cut to a car park, except for a narrow gap. Two signs were erected, one telling people there was no throughway and the other saying that bicycles must not be left locked to the fence. In the “order” condition (with four bicycles parked nearby, but not locked to the fence) 27% of people were prepared to trespass by stepping through the gap, whereas in the disorder condition (with the four bikes locked to the fence, in violation of the sign) 82% took the short cut.

Nor were the effects limited to visual observation of petty criminal behaviour. It is against the law to let off fireworks in the Netherlands for several weeks before New Year’s Eve. So two weeks before the festival the researchers randomly let off firecrackers near a bicycle shed at a main railway station and watched what happened using their flyer technique. With no fireworks, 48% of people took the flyers with them when they collected their bikes. With fireworks, this fell to 20%.

The most dramatic result, though, was the one that showed a doubling in the number of people who were prepared to steal in a condition of disorder. In this case an envelope with a €5 ($6) note inside (and the note clearly visible through the address window) was left sticking out of a post box. In a condition of order, 13% of those passing took the envelope (instead of leaving it or pushing it into the box). But if the post box was covered in graffiti, 27% did. Even if the post box had no graffiti on it, but the area around it was littered with paper, orange peel, cigarette butts and empty cans, 25% still took the envelope.

The researchers’ conclusion is that one example of disorder, like graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage another, like stealing. Dr Kelling was right. The message for policymakers and police officers is that clearing up graffiti or littering promptly could help fight the spread of crime.

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2008年11月19日 星期三

Answers Trickle Out as Spammer Networks Remain Compromised

washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 19, 2008; Page D02

At about 4:30 p.m. Eastern time last Tuesday, the volume of junk e-mail arriving at inboxes around the world suddenly plummeted by about 65 percent. Confronted with information that one Silicon Valley computer firm was hosting organizations that controlled the distribution of much of the world's spam, Internet service providers pulled the plug and McColo Corp., the hosting firm, went dark.

This Story

By most accounts, the volume of spam has remained at far diminished levels, though experts say they expect spam to soon bounce back, or even exceed previous levels. But the question remains: How could such a massive concentration of spam activity be hosted for so long by servers at a single U.S.-based facility, in the belly of the security and tech community in Silicon Valley?


The answer exemplifies how complex the battle against spam has become.

Like other hosting firms, McColo -- which has not been charged with any crime -- assigns certain Internet addresses for its clients' computers to use. But spam often does not come directly from those computers, according to security experts who have documented the activity. Rather, firms such as McColo host a number of key Internet servers -- computers that control networks of computers. Those networks are used by their respective owners to turn hundreds of thousands of compromised PCs into spam distributors, the experts said.

According to security service providers including the Atlanta-based SecureWorks, some of the largest collections of hacked PCs, known as robot networks or "botnets," may have had their master control servers hosted at McColo. McColo officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Botnets typically are rented out to junk e-mail purveyors. The spammers then sign in remotely to control servers and use them to send billions of e-mails a day, touting everything from knock-off pharmaceuticals and designer goods to pornography and get-rich-quick scams.

But when McColo was taken offline by its Internet providers, so too were all of the botnet control servers located there, security experts said.

Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks, said some botnets might remain disconnected. The three largest spam botnets on the Internet appear to be stranded and unable to contact more than a small number of their control servers, according to Marshal, a computer security firm in the United Kingdom that tracks bot activity.

The shutting down of McColo may have also slowed one of the most aggressive e-mail-address harvesting services, anti-spam groups said. Matthew Prince, chief executive of Unspam Technologies and founder of Project Honey Pot, a collaborative effort that gathers intelligence about the world's largest spam networks, said that since June 2006, crawler bots hosted at McColo were responsible for more than 30 million spam messages sent to the project's e-mail traps.

"And our spam traps constitute a tiny fraction of the e-mail addresses in the world," Prince said. Since McColo shut down, Prince said, the project has seen a 20 percent drop in the volume of the messages received at its spam-trap e-mail addresses.

It is not clear what, if anything, federal law enforcement can do about McColo hosting spammers, or whether anyone at the company has committed any crime. A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment, as did the Secret Service.

On Saturday, McColo briefly reconnected its Web servers to a major Internet provider in Europe. Under pressure from the security community, the provider severed its relationship with McColo the next day. But that, said officials with computer security company Fireeye, may have been enough time for spammers to reclaim control of 10,000 to 15,000 of an estimated 100,000 computers infected with malicious software.

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2008年11月17日 星期一

Samsung Is Hit With Patent Suits( flash memory chips)

Samsung Is Hit With Patent Suits
By STEVE LOHR
Published: November 17, 2008

Spansion, a struggling Silicon Valley maker of flash memory chips, filed a pair of broad patent infringement suits on Monday against Samsung of South Korea, the world’s largest producer of the chips.

In a complaint to the International Trade Commission in Washington, Spansion is seeking to bar the import into the United States of more than 100 million music players, cellphones, cameras and light laptop computers that use Samsung’s flash memory chips. The chips store data in a wide range of products.

In a federal court in Delaware, Spansion is seeking an injunction and triple damages for its claim of patent violations in Samsung flash products. It estimated that Samsung sells $7 billion of infringing chips a year.

Spansion executives said they had tried to negotiate a licensing agreement with Samsung over the last few years, with no progress. “This is not something we wanted to do, but Samsung has closed the door,” the chief executive of Spansion, Bertrand Cambou, said. “And they are infringing.”

Ideally, he added, the two companies can reach a “reasonable licensing agreement.”

If not, Spansion is prepared to pursue a legal strategy. In the 43-page complaint filed with the trade commission, the company details 10 patented technologies that it claims Samsung has used without compensating Spansion.

A spokeswoman for Samsung declined to comment.

Cases move through the trade commission quickly, usually within 16 months, unlike the federal courts, where litigation can drag on for years. The trade commission has the authority to bar the offending goods from the American market. But given the pace of change in the marketplace, and the potential damage to the economy and industry of such a step, the chances of that actually happening in this case are low, according to analysts.

“If you have strong patents, a complaint before the trade commission can be a very powerful tool for a patent holder,” said Jeffrey D. Neuburger, an intellectual property lawyer at Proskauer Rose. “Litigation can always be used as a tool in negotiation.”

Spansion, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., began in 1993 as a joint venture of Advanced Micro Devices and Fujitsu. In 2005 it was spun off as an independent company.

Spansion has suffered financially as flash-memory prices have plummeted; they are down 62 percent this year and could fall another 50 percent in 2009, according to iSuppli, a market research firm. During the third quarter, Spansion lost nearly $119 million on revenue of $631 million.

When product markets turn sour, it is not unusual for high-tech companies to seek to harvest profits from their ideas with more aggressive licensing tactics and patent infringement suits, Richard Doherty, director of research at Envisioneering, a technology consultant, said.

A year ago, Spansion bought Saifun, an Israeli company that specializes in licensing intellectual property for chip makers. “These suits are a sign of the strategy that began last year with that acquisition,” said Jim Handy, director of Objective Analysis, a semiconductor market research firm.

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Core i7

英特爾推出了代碼為Nehalem的微處理器系列產品中的第一款產品。該系列產品備受期待﹐正式名稱為英特爾Core i7。在推出該產品時﹐矽谷預計正將出現自2000年互聯網泡沫破裂以來最嚴重的衰退。英特爾上週把第四季度收入預期下調超過10億美元﹐顯示出業務在 10月中旬以來大幅下滑。與此同時﹐其他科技公司紛紛宣佈裁員。

儘管有跡象顯示客戶正在推遲購買電腦﹐而硬件製造商也在努力控制零部件庫存﹐但英特爾及其客戶並沒有放緩使用新晶片的計劃。原因之一就在於﹐科技公司通過過去低迷時期的經驗瞭解到﹐放緩創新的速度可能推遲復甦的時間。

Don Clark
Wwikipedia 還有粵語版

Core i7(中文：酷睿 i7)處理器是英特爾於2008年推出的64位元四核心CPU，沿用x86-64指令集，並以Intel Nehalem微架構為基礎[1]，取代Intel Core 2系列處理器。Nehalem曾經是Pentium 4 10 GHz版本的代號[2]。Core i7的名稱並沒有特別的含義，Intel表示取i7此名的原因只是聽起來悅耳，'i'和'7'都沒有特別的意思，更不是指第7代產品。而Core就是延續上一代Core處理器的成功[3]。官方的正式推出日期是2008年11月17日。早在11月3日，官方己公佈相關產品的售價，網上評測亦陸續被解封。

Core i7處理器系列將不會再使用Duo或者Quad等字樣來辨別核心數量。最高階的Core i7處理器配合的晶片組是Intel X58。Core i7處理器的目標是提升高性能計算和虛擬化性能。所以在電腦遊戲方面，它的效能提升幅度有限[4]。另外，在64-bit模式下可以啟動宏融合模式，上一代的Core處理器只支援32-bit模式。該技術可合併某些X86指令成單一指令，加快計算周期。


特點

  • 支援Simulate Multi Threading(SMT)技術，一個類似超線程的技術，令到四核心的處理器，有總共8個線程。
  • 記憶體控制器會內建於CPU中，支援三通道DDR-III記億體[5]。
  • 支援Turbo Mode(後更名為Dymanic Speed[6])技術，倘若有程式使用較多的處理器負載，處理器的頻率可以按步驟提升，此外，可以自動往上提升倍頻。[7]該功能不需要作業系統的支援，完全由硬體監控[8]。
  • 支援Power Gates技術，核心閒置的時候可被關閉。對比上一代的Core 2 Duo，Core i7的核心電阻可以被關閉，電流可以完全不通過核心。各個處理器核心可運作於不同的頻率和電壓[9]。
  • Turbo Mode及Power Gates功能都是由一個單元提供，佔去大約一百萬個電晶體[10]。
  • 放棄了傳統的FSB，使用了新的'Quick Path Interconnect'，與AMD的HyperTransport相似。相比FSB，每一個處理器都可以有獨立的QPI通道與其他處理器連接，處理器之間不用再共享FSB頻寬，並繞路到北橋才能通訊。此外，QPI是雙向傳輸[11]。
  • 指令集方面，SSE4的版本會提升為SSE 4.2，後者新增了7條指令。[12]
  • 處理器採用模組化設計[13]。例如核心、記憶體控制器、以至輸入輸出介面控制器，都能夠以不同的數量配搭。這樣做可以使到產品更容易針對不同市場，而每一個模組都可以有獨立的電壓，令到處理器更省電。
  • L2緩存亦有所減少，每一個核心獨立256KB，但擁有較低讀取延遲值。加入L3緩存，每一個處理器共享8MB。
  • 處理器核心的電壓與系統記憶體同步。目前，官方會支持DDR3-800和DDR3-1066規格。對於DDR3-1333，由於處理器只可以接受較低的電壓水平（限制在1.65V或以下），高速的記憶體意味著需要較高的電壓，所以此規格的官方支援仍然存在疑問[14]。第二批X58晶片組主機版將可以實現電壓異步，方便用家超頻[15]。另外，原先只有XE版本處理器可以調整記憶體頻率。後Intel修改為所有上市的Core i7處理器，均可以修改記憶體和QPI的頻率。[16]

[編輯] 處理器列表

型號 代號 市場區隔 製程 核心 (線程數) 速度 價格 (美元) 快取 記憶體控制器 匯流排介面 TDP 插槽 出品日期
965 Bloomfield 桌上型（極緻） 45奈米 4 (8) 3.2 GHz $999[17] 256 KB L2/core
L3共用8MB		 三通道DDR3
800/1066 MHz[18]		 1x 6.4 GT/s QuickPath 130W LGA1366 2008年10月[19]
940 桌上型（效能） 2.93 GHz $562 1x 4.8 GT/s QuickPath
920 桌上型（主流） 2.66 GHz $284

[編輯] 晶片組

X5 系列:

  • Intel X58 - 不再整合系統記憶體控制器，所以北橋改稱為IOH。提供最多3根PCI-E 2.0 x16插槽，支援CrossFire技術。主機板廠商在取得NVIDIA授權後，可令其主板支援SLI技術。使用ICH10系列南橋晶片。

[編輯] 參考技術解析文章

史上最強Intel Nehalem架構超詳解析

[編輯] 參考資料

  1. ^ Intel Corporate (2008-08-11). Intel Details Upcoming New Processor Generations，新聞稿，
  2. ^ 新架構新性能 Core i7處理器剖析與測試
  3. ^ Intel告訴你Nehalem Core i7命名由來
  4. ^ 淺談Nehalem架構真正奧妙 系統多圖展示
  5. ^ 撼動QX9770王者地位!新Core i7全測試
  6. ^ Core i7的Turbo Boost將改名為Dymanic Speed
  7. ^ IDF秋 08：Intel公布Nehalem更多細節
  8. ^ 英特爾下個月推四核心Atom處理器
  9. ^ Intel發布首顆6核心處理器Xeon X7460
  10. ^ 更低功耗：Core i7動態超頻技術
  11. ^ 45nm最強平台！Core i7+X58深度解析
  12. ^ 革命即將開始！Core i7 965性能詳測
  13. ^ Intel談Nehalem頻寬、擴展性、頻率
  14. ^ Nehalem平台極限超頻存在電壓限制
  15. ^ X58主板可以支持處理器、內存電壓非同步
  16. ^ Intel改變策略，非XE版Core i7也能調內存頻率
  17. ^ Initial Intel 'Nehalem' CPUs as cheap as chips．Register Hardware（2008年7月14日）．
  18. ^ Deconstructing Intel's 2009 desktop platforms．HKEPC Hardware（2008-01-03）．
  19. ^ Intel brings forward Nehalem



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Microsoft's 'Vista Capable' changes outraged HP

Microsoft's 'Vista Capable' changes outraged HP, insider e-mails show

By helping Intel, Microsoft 'severely damaged' its credibility with HP, exec said

By Gregg Keizer

November 16, 2008 (Computerworld) A Hewlett-Packard Co. executive was furious at Microsoft Corp. over the company's decision to loosen the requirements for its "Vista Capable" marketing campaign, internal e-mails unsealed by a federal judge on Friday show.

"I hope this incident isn't a foretaste of the relationship I will have with Microsoft going forward, but I can tell you that it's left a very bad taste with me and my team," Richard Walker, senior vice president at HP's consumer PC unit, said in a Feb. 1, 2006, message to senior Microsoft executives.

One of those executives, Jim Allchin, who was in overall charge of Vista's development and delivery, was almost as outraged. Allchin told his boss, CEO Steve Ballmer, that he was "beyond being upset" by the move. Ballmer denied being party to the decision.

The e-mails were unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman in the class-action lawsuit that accuses Microsoft of deceiving customers in 2006 by certifying PCs as able to run Vista when it allegedly knew the machines were able only to handle the stripped-down Vista Basic, a version that lacked the new, heavily-promoted Aero interface, and other touted features. Vista was released early in 2007.

In early 2006, Microsoft relaxed the Vista Capable rules by allowing computers equipped with Intel's older 915 graphics chip set to qualify for the program. Will Poole, then responsible for the client version of Windows, tossed out the requirement that a PC's graphics use the Windows Device Driver Model (WDDM), Vista's revamped driver architecture that debuted in Vista.

The decision pleased Intel Corp., which had complained that it didn't have a sufficient supply of the more advanced graphics chip sets that would have met the original requirements. In fact, Intel CEO Paul Otellini sent a note to Microsoft's Ballmer thanking him for the change.

HP, however, was anything but happy.

"The decision you have made has taken away an investment we made consciously for competitive advantage knowing that some players would choose not to make the same level of investment as we did in supporting your program requirements," said Walker in the Feb. 1, 2006 e-mail, which he sent to Kevin Johnson, Microsoft's chief operating officer, and Allchin.

HP, unlike other computer makers preparing for Vista, had decided to ditch the low-end Intel 915 and 910 graphics chip sets to make sure that its low-priced PCs would be able to run Vista. In another e-mail cited in the same group of messages unsealed Friday, Walked said HP had designed and built two new motherboards for its upcoming Vista Capable lines.

According to the separate plaintiffs' motion filed last Thursday -- which included numerous citations of internal e-mails but did not always quote them in their entirety or attribute them to an individual -- HP spent nearly $7 million on the technology to make its machines meet the original Vista Capable requirements.


"Now we have a situation where PC manufacturers (and processor/chip set suppliers) can claim Vista Capable in a 'good' mode just because it will run," Walker continued. "What kind of consumer assurance is that? Hardly one that puts any credence behind your desire to create the 'best possible customer experience for the Windows Vista Upgrade.'"

Walker went on to tell Johnson and Allchin that Microsoft's credibility at his HP group had been "severely damaged" because Microsoft had "change[d] the rules at the last minute" without notifying HP.

Allchin fired off a blistering e-mail to his boss, Steve Ballmer, within 10 minutes of Walker sending his message. "I am beyond being upset here. This was totally mismanaged by Intel and Microsoft. What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility, as well as my own credibility shot," he wrote to Ballmer.

"I was told this all started with a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO]. I will have to get to the bottom of this and understand how we could be so insensitive to handling the situation."

In other messages, Allchin had called the decision to allow computers powered by Intel's 915 chip set to qualify for the Vista Capable program as "misleading customers." Allchin, who worked 17 years for Microsoft, retired the day Vista was released in late January 2007.

Ballmer denied having any part in the decision to loosen the rules for Vista Capable by ditching the WDDM requirement and instead put the responsibility on Poole's shoulders. "I had nothing to do with this," Ballmer said in a reply to Allchin later in the day on Feb. 1, 2006. "Will [Poole] handled everything. I received a message that Paul was goignt o [sic] call. Will said he would handle it. Paul called. I had not even had a chance to report his issues when Will told me he had solved them. (It did not sound like he had.) I am not even in the details of the issues," Ballmer said.

"You better get Will under control," Ballmer concluded.

Although the plaintiffs have asked to depose Ballmer, Microsoft has tried to block the demand. In a filing last month, Ballmer said he had no "unique knowledge of, nor did I have any unique involvement in any decisions regarding the Windows Vista Capable program."

Poole, a 12-year veteran of Microsoft, was assigned in mid-2007 to head a group devoted to emerging markets, but left the company this past September. He is now the co-chairman of NComputing Inc., a Redwood City, Calif.-based company that makes hardware and software that lets multiple users share a single PC.

According to analysts, the departure of several Microsoft executives responsible for Vista after its lackluster start came as no surprise.

HP was not finished telling off Microsoft, however. In another message -- also included in the Thursday motion -- an unidentified HP executive blasted Microsoft some more.

"It's not very often you get pulled out a meeting by a group of engineers who feel that they have had the rug pulled out from underneath them so that any competitive advantage we may have had in the marketplace is taken away, enabling any Tom, Dick or Harry with a PC containing a noncompliant processor/chip set to play at the same table," the e-mail read. "It begs the question when is a PC really Vista-capable."

It is possible that the author of the e-mail included in the Thursday motion was also written by Walker, since it references a previous message to Johnson and Allchin. "As I said in my note to Jim [Allchin] and Kevin [Johnson], it appears you have bowed to pressure from a partner who would have been embarrassed in the April time frame because their lineup was not completely compliant," the message said. Microsoft and its reseller partners launched the Vista Capable program in April 2006.

Last week was the second time that a number of insider e-mails have been made public during the case. Last February, Pechman unsealed several hundred messages that, among other things, described the problems that some top Microsoft officials had with Vista shortly after it was released and, as in the newest disclosures, revealed serious disagreements by some over the program.

The lawsuit, which began nearly a year and a half ago, was granted class-action status last February. It is currently set to go to trial in April.

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Green iron

Pollution

ㄖ

Nov 14th 2008ㄖㄖㄖㄖ
From Economist.com

Treating industrial wastewater with scrap iron can be cheap and effective


Lehigh University

“SCRAP” conjures up visions of rusting junkyards on the wrong side of the tracks. But this image may soon get a green makeover. A research project in China suggests that iron shavings from factories can be a cheap and efficient way to clean up polluted water. And because such scrap is widely available, the system could be particularly useful in developing countries.

The iron shavings are being used to treat wastewater in the Taopu Industrial District of Shanghai, which is home to many small pharmaceutical, petrochemical and textile factories that discharge water contaminated with dyes, phosphorus and nitrogen. The project, which began in August 2006, now treats about 60,000 cubic metres (about 13m gallons) a day of industrially contaminated water—which is about the volume of municipal wastewater a small town generates.

Wei-Xian Zhang of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Luming Ma of Tongji University, Shanghai, have been using the wastewater facility to test their methods of employing iron shavings to treat industrial wastewater. Iron powder (technically called zero-valent iron by chemists to show that it has not oxidised) has been used to treat groundwater for more than a decade, and to remove dangerous substances such as trichlorethene (used in paint strippers and adhesives) and arsenic. But no one had tried using iron shavings to treat water discharged from factories before.

Dr Zhang had previously invented a method to clean groundwater and contaminated soil using iron nanoparticles. While effective, such nanoparticles are expensive: about $100 a kilogram, which can prohibit their use in developing countries. Dr Zhang, who is from China and who went to college in Shanghai, thought iron shavings, which have a large surface area, may provide a cheap alternative. Scrap iron currently costs about 20 cents a kilogram in China. His idea was to treat industrial wastewater by passing it through the iron shavings, and then treat it as municipal wastewater. First, the non-biodegradable industrial chemicals are attracted to the surface of the iron shavings, where they react by sharing electrons with the iron and become degraded. (The iron gets oxidised in the process.) Then, any biodegradable contaminants that remain are neutralised by the second step.

Dr Zhang found that treating the iron shavings with a solution of copper chloride increases their effectiveness (but puts the cost up by only about five cents a kilogram). He teamed up with Dr Ma in Shanghai about five years ago. Using 40kg of scrap iron, they ran a prototype experiment which showed the method worked. Then the full-scale treatment facility came into operation. It consists of ten parallel cells containing a total of 914,000kg of iron shavings, all purchased locally. (The iron lasts about two years before it has to be replaced.) Some 80% of the water treated is industrial discharge.

Compared with biological treatment alone, big improvements have been recorded. The removal of nitrogen has gone from 13% to 85%; phosphorus from 44% to 64%; and colours and dyes from 52% to 80%. Given the success of the technique, Dr Zhang and Dr Ma have now been invited by several municipalities in China to help them build similar treatment centres. The team are also working on a much larger treatment centre in Shanghai that can handle 100,000 cubic metres of wastewater a day. Dr Zhang says he believes the scrap-iron method will open a new chapter in the treatment of industrial wastewater, not least because the vital ingredient is cheap and abundant.


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2008年11月16日 星期日

The first eco-friendly billboard is coming to Times Square

In Times Square, a Company’s Name in (Wind- and Solar-Powered) Lights
By GLENN COLLINS
Published: November 14, 2008

The first eco-friendly billboard is coming to Times Square, entirely powered by the sun and the wind — but there is one small catch.

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Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

An eco-friendly billboard will be installed above the Chase sign at 7th Avenue and 42nd Street.

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Gigante Vaz Partners NYC

The billboard, seen in a rendering, will have four 45-foot stacks of wind turbines to power it.

When there’s no sun, and no wind? The $3 million billboard goes dark: there is no backup generator.

“We think if that happens, it’s just fine,” said Ron Potesky, a senior marketing vice president for Ricoh Americas Corporation, the office equipment and document-storage supplier that owns the sign.

The billboard — traditionally called a “spectacular” on the Great White Way — weighs in at 35,000 pounds. It will be 55 feet off the ground at 3 Times Square, wrapping around the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street.

Fitted with 16 wind turbines and 64 solar panels, the sign will be “a first for Times Square,” said Barry E. Winston, a Times Square billboard consultant not involved in the Ricoh project, who has been a sign expert for more than 50 years.

Wind turbines for the vast sign, which is 126 feet wide and 47 feet high, have arrived in a warehouse in Deer Park, N.Y., where preliminary testing is being done. Construction will begin this month, for a lighting ceremony on Dec. 4.

Ricoh would not say how much it was paying for its three-year lease, but based on recent deals, the lease would most likely cost in the low six figures, as much as $200,000 a month, according to sign rental experts who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are contractually forbidden to make public statements.

Such a cost would not be unusual for a sign across the avenue from 1 Times Square, where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

By generating its own electricity — enough to light six homes for a year — the sign could save as much as $12,000 to $15,000 per month, according to Ricoh, which estimated that the sign would prevent 18 tons of carbon from being spewed into the air yearly.

The “passive” sign is not studded with light-emitting diodes like so many others in Times Square, but will be lighted by 16 300-watt floodlights. It will feature custom-printed opaque vinyl sheeting bearing the red-and-white Ricoh logo. The sign will be green, nevertheless, a message “to customers, other companies and the world that resources and energy can be used creatively,” Mr. Potesky said. “The point is that there are ways of being environmentally friendly to the planet, even on a billboard.”

Unlike the tall propellers in a typical wind farm, the cylindrical Ricoh drum turbines have no sharp blades. They will provide 90 percent of the sign’s power; the rest will come from the solar panels on the sign, feeding electricity to eight collection batteries up in the sign. The drums are so perfectly balanced, Ricoh says, that their rotors could be turned by the wind from a single household electric fan.

Mr. Potesky said the turbines would most likely generate enough power to keep the sign lighted even after four days without wind or sun. But the company is prepared for the sign to go dark. Mr. Potesky said the only other such sign in the world is one Ricoh put up in 2003 in Osaka, Japan, “using somewhat less advanced technology,” he said, referring to its 26 small propellers and 39 solar panels.

“On dark and rainy days, that sign went dark during the night,” he said.

Passers-by will be able to see the 26 blades spinning in each of the sign’s 16 turbine drums, piled in four 45-foot-high vertical stacks. When operating at their average speed of 10 miles an hour, they put out 22 kilowatts.

Stalklike propeller turbines require unidirectional, or “clean,” wind to function. But the revolving drums on the Ricoh sign can use turbulent, multidirectional winds common to Midtown, said Mary S. Watkins, chief executive of PacWind Inc. in Torrance, Calif., which makes the custom turbine arrays.

PacWind studied meteorological records and did a wind analysis, she said, determining that Times Square has 10-mile-an-hour winds, on average, ranging from no wind to gusts of 85 m.p.h. The turbines provide usable power from winds as weak as 5 m.p.h. and rotate safely in winds up to 100 m.p.h., she said, because the aluminum blades are aerodynamically designed to regulate themselves, slowing automatically in high winds.

The company has designed wind turbines for applications ranging from the sublime to the seemingly ridiculous — including a turbine created for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to capture 400-mile-an-hour winds for a lander on Mars, and a turbine that powers the 20,000-square-foot garage of Jay Leno in Los Angeles.

Ms. Watkins said the Times Square turbines were designed to keep ice from forming on the blades in winter. Birds have not proved to be a problem as the company has installed 50 of its drum turbines across the country, she said, “because they see the turbines not as spinning blades, but as a solid object.”

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The Promise and Power of RNA

The Promise and Power of RNA

Omikron/Photo Researchers; Richard Jorgensen/U. of Arizona

RNA turns out to be far more important than previously thought. Left, messenger RNA, active in protein production; right, silencing RNA turns off the gene that makes the purple pigment in this petunia.
By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: November 10, 2008

People whose bodies make an unusually active form of a certain protein tend to have dangerously high levels of cholesterol. Those with an inactive form of the protein have low cholesterol and a low risk of heart attacks.

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A Bestiary of RNAGraphic

A Bestiary of RNA

David Corcoran, a science editor, explores some of the topics addressed in this week’s Science Times.

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Needless to say, pharmaceutical companies would love to find a drug that can attach itself to the protein and block its activity. That might be difficult for this protein, which is called PCSK9.

But a powerful new approach, called RNA interference, may surmount that obstacle. Instead of mopping up a protein after it has been produced, as a conventional drug would do, RNA interference turns off the faucet, halting production of a protein by silencing the gene that contains its recipe.

In monkeys, a single injection of a drug to induce RNA interference against PCSK9 lowered levels of bad cholesterol by about 60 percent, an effect that lasted up to three weeks. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the biotechnology company that developed the drug, hopes to begin testing it in people next year.

The drug is a practical application of scientific discoveries that are showing that RNA, once considered a mere messenger boy for DNA, actually helps to run the show. The classic, protein-making genes are still there on the double helix, but RNA seems to play a powerful role in how genes function.

“This is potentially the biggest change in our understanding of biology since the discovery of the double helix,” said John S. Mattick, a professor of molecular biology at the University of Queensland in Australia.

And the practical impact may be enormous.

RNA interference, or RNAi, discovered only about 10 years ago, is attracting huge interest for its seeming ability to knock out disease-causing genes. There are already at least six RNAi drugs being tested in people, for illnesses including cancer and an eye disease.

And while there are still huge challenges to surmount, that number could easily double in the coming year.

“I’ve never found a gene that couldn’t be down-regulated by RNAi,” said Tod Woolf, president of RXi Pharmaceuticals, one of the many companies that have sprung up in the last few years to pursue RNA-based medicines.

The two scientists credited with discovering the basic mechanism of RNA interference won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006, only eight years after publishing their seminal paper. And three scientists credited with discovering the closely related micro-RNA in the 1990s won Lasker Awards for medical research this year.

RNA and DNA are strands made up of the chemical units that represent the letters of the genetic code. Each letter pairs with only one other letter, its complement. So two strands can bind to each other if their sequences are complementary.

Genes, which contain the recipes for proteins, are made of DNA. When a protein is to be made, the genetic code for that protein is transcribed from the DNA onto a single strand of RNA, called messenger RNA, which carries the recipe to the cell’s protein-making machinery. Proteins then perform most functions of a cell, including activating other genes.

But scientists are now finding that a lot of DNA is transcribed into RNA without leading to protein production. Rather, the RNA itself appears to be playing a role in determining which genes are active and which proteins are produced.

Much attention has focused on micro-RNAs, which are short stretches of RNA, about 20 to 25 letters long. They interfere with messenger RNA, reducing protein production.

More than 400 micro-RNAs have been found in the human genome, and a single micro-RNA can regulate the activity of hundreds of genes, said David P. Bartel, a biologist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As a result, Dr. Bartel said, the activity of more than half the genes in the human genome is affected by micro-RNA.

“It’s going to be very difficult to find a developmental process or a disease that isn’t influenced by micro-RNAs,” he said.

Indeed, scientists have found that some micro-RNAs contribute to the formation of cancer and others help block it.

Other studies have found micro-RNAs important for the proper formation and functioning of the heart and blood cells.

Scientists are also finding other types of RNA, some of which may work differently from micro-RNA. By now, there are so many types of RNA that one needs a scorecard to keep track.

Besides micro-RNA (miRNA), the new ones include small interfering RNA (siRNA), piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNA), chimeric RNA, and promoter-associated and termini- associated long and short RNAs. They join an existing stable that included messenger RNA (mRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), and small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA), which all play roles in protein production.

Scientists do not know what all the newly discovered RNA is doing. Some of it may be just a nonfunctional byproduct of other cellular processes.

And there is still uncertainty over how big a role RNA plays. Some scientists say proteins are like a light switch, turning genes on and off, while RNA usually does fine tuning, like a dimmer.

Still, the many new discoveries are “revealing a level of regulation and complexity that I don’t think the current organizational model of the genome ever envisioned,” said Thomas R. Gingeras, professor and head of functional genomics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Despite the remaining mysteries, researchers and companies are moving rapidly to exploit the latest findings. While micro-RNAs are getting some attention, the biggest effort is on RNA interference.

RNA interference is induced when a short snippet of double-stranded RNA — called a small interfering RNA, or siRNA — enters a cell. The cell treats it much like a micro-RNA it might make on its own. That results in the silencing of a gene that corresponds to the inserted RNA.

Scientists believe that RNA interference evolved as a way to fight viruses, since double-stranded RNA is rare outside viruses.

Given that the sequences of genes are now known, it is fairly straightforward to synthesize a small interfering RNA that can serve as a drug to silence a gene. Still, there has not yet been a truly convincing demonstration that such drugs will work in people.

One risk is that the small RNA snippets might silence genes beyond the intended target. And that could mean that a drug based on these snippets would have unwanted side effects.

But the biggest challenge is getting the RNA into the cells where it is needed. Double-stranded RNA is rare outside viruses, so the cell is not likely to welcome it.

“Double-stranded RNA basically to the body means one thing: a virus,” said Jonas Alsenas, a biotechnology analyst at the securities firm Leerink Swann who is skeptical about RNAi drugs.

Double-stranded RNA can set off an immune response. Enzymes in the blood tear RNA apart. And even if the RNA survives a trip through the bloodstream, it can have difficulty entering the target cells.

“Most of the cell membranes are negatively charged and the RNA is negatively charged, so they won’t get close to each other,” said Dr. Mohammad Azab, president of Intradigm, an RNA interference company.

Still, startups like Intradigm, Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, Calando Pharmaceuticals, MDRNA and Traversa Therapeutics are developing delivery methods.

Chemical changes can be made to RNA to make it more stable and to avoid setting off the immune system. And the RNA can be inserted into little globules of fat or attached to polymers to help it get through the bloodstream and enter cells.

RXi is developing an oral delivery method for treating certain immune diseases. In some cases, though, these packages can introduce their own toxicities.

Delivery problems tripped up an earlier gene-silencing technology called antisense, which uses single strands of RNA instead of double strands. But progress is now being made in antisense as well, so it may turn out that antisense drugs will compete with RNAi drugs.

Given the delivery challenges, the first RNAi drugs are for uses that do not require delivery through the bloodstream.

Alnylam is testing a drug that can be inhaled to treat a respiratory virus. Three other companies are testing drugs to treat age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among the elderly. The drugs are injected directly into the eye.

The most advanced of the eye drugs, developed by the Miami-based Opko Health, is in the final stage of clinical trials, which would give it a shot at being the first RNAi drug to reach the market.

But some systemic delivery is now being tried. Quark Pharmaceuticals has started early human testing of a drug to prevent kidney damage. Since the kidney removes RNA from blood for excretion, much of the drug is expected to end up there anyway.

Similarly, lipids tend to end up in the liver. Since cholesterol is also processed in the liver, lipid particles will be used to deliver Alnylam’s PCSK9 anticholesterol drug, as well as one it plans to test against liver cancer.

“If all we ever get to is the liver, we’ll be having our hands full with human disease,” said John Maraganore, chief executive of Alnylam. But he and other industry executives say they will eventually learn to deliver RNAi drugs anywhere in the body.

One shortcoming of RNA interference is that it can only turn genes off. But to treat some diseases, like those in which the body makes too little of a protein, it might be desirable to turn genes on or to increase their activity levels.

In one of the latest surprises in this field, scientists have found that RNA can do this too. They have discovered what they call RNA activation, or RNAa. The molecules that perform it are called either small activating RNAs (saRNA) or antigene RNAs (agRNA).

“We weren’t looking for it,” said David Corey, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was one of those to discover the phenomenon about two years ago.

Scientists in his lab were attempting to silence genes using RNAi directed at the promoters of genes. A promoter is a region of DNA that helps activate a gene.

Instead of being silenced, the genes became more active and protein production increased. Dr. Corey said it appeared that the RNA enhanced the activity of proteins that bind to the gene promoters.

Whether RNA activation can be used for therapy remains to be seen. It does show, however, that the limits of RNA activity have yet to be understood. There is more to come.
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‘Gene’ Has a Multitude of Meanings

Basics

Scientists and Philosophers Find That ‘Gene’ Has a Multitude of Meanings

Right, Rick Friedman for The New York Times

Evelyn Fox Keller, left, a science historian, calls the language of molecular biology “historical baggage,” while Eric S. Lander of the Broad Institute says he is not worried about any confusion that may arise in references to “genes.”
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: November 10, 2008

I owe an apology to my genes. For years I offhandedly blamed them for certain personal defects conventionally associated with one’s hereditary starter pack — my Graves’ autoimmune disease, for example, or my hair, which looks like the fibers left behind on the rim of an aspirin bottle after the cotton ball has been removed, only wispier.

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David Corcoran, a science editor, explores some of the topics addressed in this week’s Science Times.

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Now it turns out that genes, per se, are simply too feeble to accept responsibility for much of anything. By the traditional definition, genes are those lineups of DNA letters that serve as instructions for piecing together the body’s proteins, and, I’m sorry, but the closer we look, the less instructive they seem, less a “blueprint for life” than one of those disappointing two-page Basic Setup booklets that comes with your computer, tells you where to plug it in and then directs you to a Web site for more information.

Scientists have learned that the canonical “genes” account for an embarrassingly tiny part of the human genome: maybe 1 percent of the three billion paired subunits of DNA that are stuffed into nearly every cell of the body qualify as indisputable protein codes. Scientists are also learning that many of the gene-free regions of our DNA are far more loquacious than previously believed, far more willing to express themselves in ways that have nothing to do with protein manufacture.

In fact, I can’t even make the easy linguistic transition from blaming my genes to blaming my whole DNA, because it’s not just about DNA anymore. It’s also about DNA’s chemical cousin RNA, doing complicated things it wasn’t supposed to do. Not long ago, RNA was seen as a bureaucrat, the middle molecule between a gene and a protein, as exemplified by the tidy aphorism, “DNA makes RNA makes protein.” Now we find cases of short clips of RNA acting like DNA, transmitting genetic secrets to the next generation directly, without bothering to ask permission. We find cases of RNA acting like a protein, catalyzing chemical reactions, pushing other molecules around or tearing them down. RNA is like the vice presidency: it’s executive, it’s legislative, it’s furtive.

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furtive Show phonetics
adjective
(of people) behaving secretly so that other people do not notice them, or (of actions) done secretly and often quickly so that people do not notice:
I saw him cast a furtive glance at the woman at the table to his right.
He made one or two furtive phone calls.
There was something furtive about his behaviour and I immediately felt suspicious.

furtively Show phonetics
adverb
As she turned away I saw him sniff furtively under his arm.



For many scientists, the increasingly baroque portrait of the genome that their latest research has revealed, along with the muddying of molecular categories, is to be expected. “It’s the normal process of doing science,” said Jonathan R. Beckwith of Harvard Medical School. “You start off simple and you develop complexity.” Nor are researchers disturbed by any linguistic turbulence that may arise, any confusion over what they mean when they talk about genes. “Geneticists happily abuse ‘gene’ to mean many things in many settings,” said Eric S. Lander of the Broad Institute. “This can be a source of enormous consternation to onlookers who want to understand the conversation, but geneticists aren’t bothered.”

In Dr. Lander’s view, the “kluges upon kluges” are an occupational hazard. “We’re trying to parse an incredibly complex system,” he said. “It’s like the U.S. economy. What are your functional units? Employees and employers? Consumers and producers? What if you’re a freelancer with multiple employers? Where do farmers’ markets and eBay map onto your taxonomy?”

“You shouldn’t be worried about the fact that you have to layer on other things as you go along,” he said. “You can never capture something like an economy, a genome or an ecosystem with one model or one taxonomy — it all depends on the questions you want to ask.”

Dr. Lander added: “You have to be able to say, this is Tuesday’s simplification; Wednesday’s may be different, because incredible progress has been made by those simplifications.”

For other researchers, though, the parlance of molecular biology is desperately in need of an overhaul, starting with our folksy friend, gene. “The language is historical baggage,” said Evelyn Fox Keller, a science historian and professor emeritus at M.I.T. “It comes from the expectation that if we could find the fundamental units that make stuff happen, if we could find the atoms of biology, then we would understand the process.”

“But the notion of the gene as the atom of biology is very mistaken,” said Dr. Keller, author of “The Century of the Gene” and other books. “DNA does not come equipped with genes. It comes with sequences that are acted on in certain ways by cells. Before you have cells you don’t have genes. We have to get away from the underlying assumption of the particulate units of inheritance that we seem so attached to.”

Dr. Keller is a big fan of the double helix considered both in toto and in situ — in its native cellular setting. “DNA is an enormously powerful resource, the most brilliant invention in evolutionary history,” she said. “It is a far richer and more interesting molecule than we could have imagined when we first started studying it.”

Still, she said, “it doesn’t do anything by itself.” It is a profoundly relational molecule, she said, and it has meaning only in the context of the cell. To focus endlessly on genes, she said, keeps us stuck in a linear, unidirectional and two-dimensional view of life, in which instructions are read out and dutifully followed.

“What makes DNA a living molecule is the dynamics of it, and a dynamic vocabulary would be helpful,” she said. “I talk about trying to verb biology.” And to renoun it as well. Writing last year in the journal PloS One, Dr. Keller and David Harel of the Weizmann Institute of Science suggested as an alternative to gene the word dene, which they said could be used to connote any DNA sequence that plays a role in the cell. So far, Dr. Keller admits, it has yet to catch on.

Complex as our genome is, it obviously can be comprehended: our cells do it every day. Yet as the physician and essayist Lewis Thomas once noted, his liver was much smarter than he was, and he would rather be asked to pilot a 747 jet 40,000 feet over Denver than to assume control of his liver. “Nothing would save me or my liver, if I were in charge,” he wrote.

In a similar vein, we may never understand the workings of our cells and genomes as comfortably and cockily as we understand the artifacts of our own design. “We have evolved to solve problems,” Dr. Keller said. “Those do not include an understanding of the operation of our own systems — that doesn’t have much evolutionary advantage.” It’s quite possible, she said, that biology is “irreducibly complex,” and not entirely accessible to rational analysis. Which is not to say we’re anywhere near being stymied, she said: “Our biology is stretching our minds. It’s another loop in the evolutionary process.”

And if canonical genes are too thin a gruel to explain yourself to yourself, you can always reach for the stalwart of scapegoats. Blame it all on your mother, who surely loved you too much or too little or in all the wrong ways.

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2008年11月14日 星期五

美國技術產業景氣頓挫

美國科技產業景氣頓挫



Tech Industry, Long Insulated, Feels a Slump

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Sun Microsystems announced a broad restructuring that could see up to 6,000 employees lose their jobs.
By ASHLEE VANCE
Published: November 14, 2008

The technology industry, which resisted the economy’s growing weakness over the last year as customers kept buying laptops and iPhones, has finally succumbed to the slowdown.

In the span of just a few weeks, orders for both business and consumer tech products have collapsed, and technology companies have begun laying off workers. The plunge is so severe that some executives are comparing it with the dot-com bust in 2000, when hundreds of companies disappeared and Silicon Valley lost nearly a fifth of its jobs.

October “was like turning a switch,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the Investment Technology Group, a research and trading firm. “Everything pretty much shut down.”

After industry leaders like Intel and Nokia warned of slowing sales this week, investors aggressively sold technology stocks. On Friday, the Nasdaq composite index, which is full of technology names, fell 5 percent. Advanced Micro Devices and eBay both dropped more than 10 percent.

Tech companies directly account for about 4 percent of the nation’s employment. And globally, companies and governments spend about $1.75 trillion on technology a year, according to Forrester Research. But the industry’s importance to the world economy is larger than its size might suggest. Technology has fueled many of the productivity gains of the last two decades. And about half of the capital spending by corporations goes toward technology products, according to Moody’s Economy.com.

As struggling businesses cut back on spending of all kinds, a slowdown in tech proved inevitable.

During the dot-com crash, technology companies were victims of Internet hype that they helped create. Once the enthusiasm faded, so did the boom-era sales on software and infrastructure equipment.

However, consumer enthusiasm for products like video games, wireless phones and high-definition televisions helped the industry recover.

This time around, the tech sector finds itself at the mercy of a double-barreled slump in both corporate and consumer spending caused by the housing decline and the economic crisis on Wall Street. Technology companies are also feeling the effect of frozen credit markets as business and government customers struggle to finance computer and software purchases that can run to millions of dollars.

“We have never seen anything like this in history,” said William T. Coleman III, a Silicon Valley veteran who founded the software maker BEA Systems and is now chief executive at a start-up called Cassatt.

Best Buy, the leading electronics retailer, declared this week that “rapid, seismic changes in consumer behavior” had fostered the worst conditions in its 42-year history, and its main rival, Circuit City Stores, filed for bankruptcy protection. Nokia, the world’s largest maker of cellphones, predicted Friday that global sales of handsets would fall in 2009, which would be only the second decline ever.

Technology giants like Intel, which makes chips for personal computers and servers, and Cisco Systems, which makes network equipment, warned that revenue was plummeting at rates last seen in 2001.

Dozens of start-ups, like the messaging service Twitter and the electric carmaker Tesla Motors, have been cutting staff members as they prepare for a slow economy.

And on Friday, Sun Microsystems, a leading maker of computers used by financial services companies, announced that it would lay off as many as 6,000 employees, or 18 percent of its work force.

The turnaround has been as sudden as it is severe. Until late September, a number of large technology companies maintained an optimistic stance, despite the obvious distress in the global economy.

Cisco was the first large technology company to reveal its sales data from October, noting a 9 percent fall in sales compared with the same month last year. On Nov. 5, Cisco, which is based in San Jose, cautioned that because of a “completely different environment,” revenue in its current quarter could plummet as much as 10 percent — a major reversal from the 7 percent growth that Wall Street had been expecting.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, followed this week, warning that sales in the fourth quarter could fall as much as 19 percent compared with the same period last year.

Even Google, an advertising juggernaut that many analysts said they believed would weather a downturn better than other companies, is now feeling the impact.

About eight weeks ago, the company’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, told reporters, “My guess is that the drama is in New York and not here.” A month later, Google surprised Wall Street when it reported strong financial results for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, sending its shares up 10 percent.

But Google’s stock has dropped 16 percent since, as the same analysts who were upbeat about its results have since cut their revenue and profit forecasts. This week, its shares dipped below $300 for the first time in three years, well below their $742 peak. And the company, known for its torrid hiring and free-spending on employee perks, has begun the most serious belt-tightening in its 10-year history.

“We don’t know as managers how long the crisis goes,” Mr. Schmidt said last week.

For all the gloom, the tech industry is still far healthier than Wall Street. Unlike the banks, many technology companies are flush with cash. Cisco has close to $27 billion; Google, $14 billion; and Apple, $24 billion. It is likely that some of these funds will go toward acquiring struggling competitors. “The guys that aren’t as strong will be good pickings,” Mr. Coleman said.

Powered by technology, Silicon Valley has stood out as a bright spot for jobs in the United States, with employment growing at about 2 percent a year while national employment slowed. Through 2007, the region continued to add 20,000 jobs, although that positive trend has started to change.

“With this now having become a worldwide event, it’s clear that the job losses will come,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

Given the unpredictability of the current economy, the industry’s past experience will only go so far, said Chris Cornell, an economist with Economy.com. “It would be a tragic mistake for C.E.O.’s who did a great job fighting the last recession to think the same tactics will work this time,” he said.

Miguel Helft contributed reporting.
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