TurkmenPost

In the continuing quest to see if humans can outpace their electronic creations, the humans have lost another, perhaps decisive, round.

A six-game chess match between Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, the world champion, and Deep Fritz, a souped-up version of commercially available chess software made by Chessbase, ended today in victory for the computer, which won the final game and clinched the match, 4 games to 2.

Mr. Kramnik fell behind in the match when he lost Game 2 by walking into a checkmate in one move with hardly any pieces remaining on the board, a mistake that ranks as one of the biggest in championship-level chess history. Needing a win today to tie the match, Mr. Kramnik took some chances, eventually lost a pawn, and was then outmaneuvered by the computer.

The match, which began Nov. 25, was played in the National Art Gallery in Bonn, Germany, and was sponsored by the RAG Group, a German industrial conglomerate based in Essen. According to RAG, Mr. Kramnik would have been paid $1 million if he had won; reports in the chess press said that he would receive half that amount as an appearance fee if he lost.

The match was the second that a world chess champion has lost to a computer. In 1997, Garry Kasparov lost a six-game match to Deep Blue, a dedicated chess computer created by I.B.M.

Since then, Mr. Kasparov drew a match in 2003 against Deep Junior, a program developed in Israel, and Mr. Kramnik drew a match in 2002 against an earlier version of Deep Fritz.

Today’s outcome may end the interest in future chess matches between human champions and computers, according to Monty Newborn, a professor of computer science at McGill University in Montreal. Professor Newborn, who helped organize the match between Mr. Kasparov and Deep Blue, said of future matches: “I don’t know what one could get out of it at this point. The science is done.”

Mr. Newborn said that the development of chess computers had been useful.

“If you look back 50 years, that was one thing we thought they couldn’t do,” he said. “It is one little step, that’s all, in the most exciting problem of what can’t computers do that we can do.”

Speculating about where research might go next, Mr. Newborn said, “If you are interested in programming computers so that they compete in games, the two interesting ones are poker and go. That is where the action is.”

via NYTIMES.

Boeing-Spectrolab has developed a solar cell that can convert almost 41 percent of the sunlight that strikes it into electricity, the latest step in trying to drop the cost of solar power.

Potentially, the solar cell could bring the cost of solar power down to around $3 a watt, after installation costs and other expenses are factored in, over the life of the panel. The new cost information comes from Boeing, whose Spectrolab unit supplies searchlights and solar simulators, and the Department of Energy, which sponsored the project. Current silicon solar cells provide electricity at about $8 a watt, before government rebates. The goal is to bring it to $1 a watt without rebates or incentives.

The cell achieves 40.7 percent efficiency. The Department of Energy has been sponsoring research to find ways to get solar cells past the so-called 40 percent barrier.

Earlier this year, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories reported that cells made of a new type of semiconductor, zinc-manganese-tellurium, combined with a few atoms of oxygen, could convert around 45 percent of sunlight into electricity. That technology, also partly sponsored by the Department of Energy, has been licensed to RoseStreet Labs in Arizona. It remains to be seen whether this material can be made into solar cells economically.

Sharp Solar, one of the biggest solar companies in the industry, showed a solar cell offering 36 percent efficiency earlier this year. The Sharp cell includes a concentrator–a thin lens that focuses sunlight on the cell–but is not made of silicon. It instead is made out of III-V compounds, molecules made from elements in the III and V columns of the periodic table of elements. (The metallic element gallium–used in semiconductors and optoelectronic devices–is from this neighborhood.)

Currently, the best commercial silicon solar cells can convert 22 percent of the sunlight that hits them into electricity, and physics dictates that maximum efficiency for these cells will come at around 26 percent.

Boeing got around that barrier by integrating two technologies. One, the solar cell, contains a layer of concentrators. From a practical point of view, using a concentrator is like adding extra surface area to the cell.

The solar cell also contains more than one material. Silicon cells interact with only a limited part of the light spectrum. Additional layers of gallium arsenide or other materials can convert light in other portions of the spectrum into electricity. Making so-called multi-junction solar cells is more expensive than making single-junction silicon cells. Still, many companies believe the higher manufacturing expense can be offset by cost savings from the cells’ greater electrical output.

Boeing, however, did not state what materials it used in its cell.

via c|net.

Malware makers are starting to take advantage of the number of users searching for cracks for the pirated copies of Vista floating around.

A new download has started circulating around the crack boards called "Windows Vista All Versions Activation 21.11.06". It purports to be an activation crack for any version of Vista.

However, the file is actually a trojan-carrier which will install Trojan-PSW.Win32.LdPinch.aze onto your PC.

BitTorrent users who posted reviews of the crack said that a number of antivirus programs detected the malware, though Norton AntiVirus and NOD32 did not.

In an interview about the Windows Vista installation process, and the ease with which administrators can pre-install software into a Vista install DVD, Microsoft Australia’s John Pritchard warned that pirated copies of Vista could easily come with malware preinstalled.

"I would certainly recommend when people are looking at any content they make sure they have the approved and hologrammed DVDs to make sure they’re dealing with the genuine product, to get away from not knowing where the source comes from. If they have control of the unattended installation and built it themselves then hopefully they know what they are putting on it."

via apcmag.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — Twin spacecraft blasted off Wednesday night on a mission to study huge eruptions from the sun that can damage satellites, disrupt electrical and communications systems on Earth and endanger spacewalking astronauts.

The two spacecraft, known as STEREO, for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, lifted off, stacked one on top of the other, aboard a single Delta II rocket.

The lift off was delayed by several minutes after launch managers became concerned late in the countdown that winds could blow toxic material over nearby Port Canaveral should there be an accidental explosion. However, the area was cleared of people, mainly government workers, permitting the rocket to soar off the launch pad with a roar.

Flight controllers cheered, applauded and gave each other handshakes after the spacecraft separated from the rocket less than a half hour after launch.

Scientists hope the $550 million, two-year mission will help them understand why these eruptions occur, how they form and what path they take.

The eruptions — called solar flares — typically blow a billion tons of the sun’s atmosphere into space at a speed of 1 million mph. The phenomenon is responsible for the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, the luminous display of lights seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

"Of the bazillion stars that we have in our night sky, the sun is the only one that counts," said NASA scientist Madhulika Guhathakurta. "Any understanding or breakthrough we can make in understanding the sun and the sun’s environment is of direct relevance to every human being on this planet."

The two observatories will provide scientists with the first-ever three-dimensional view of the sun by working in tandem, like a set of eyes, in different orbits.

NASA hopes information about the solar flares helps the astronauts who fly to moon and eventually Mars in the coming decades. Astronauts exposed to the eruptions can receive a year’s worth of radiation.

The spacecraft’s launch was delayed several times this year because of technical problems.

Scientists plan to release to the public movies and other images created by the STEREO spacecraft, though viewers may need to use the type of 3-D glasses worn for movies like "Creature From the Black Lagoon."

© 2006 The Associated Press.

JAPANESE engineers have designed a novel solution to childcare - a 38cm robot that can send pictures of your child to your mobile phone on demand.

The new ‘humanoid’ robot, called PaPeRo - short for Partner-type Personal Robot - has a camera in each eye and uses image recognition technology to remember and identify people. It can move at 20cm per second to track children around the house or nursery.

The futuristic robot also has an inbuilt mobile phone. When a parent calls it will locate the child and start to play with them. Parents can also send text messages and talk to children using PaPeRo’s inbuilt microphones and speakers.

As part of a deal between computer giant NEC and Japanese telecommunication company NTT the new service will be trialled in a Tokyo nursery school from this week. 

But the company is also marketing the product to busy executives as a personal assistant.

"It checks your email, tunes the TV to your favorite channel, and dances with your children," NEC says on it’s website.

"This egg-shaped robot named PaPeRo knows your favorite football team and searches the Internet for the day’s lineups and scores when you get home. It will also develop a personality depending on how you treat it. Speak to it nicely and stroke its head sensors and PaPeRo will learn to love you."

NEC’s Multimedia Research Laboratories senior manager Yoshihiro Fujita said the robot has been designed to remove typical ‘computer’ features like keyboards.

"We envision a future with simpler interactions with technology," he said. "You don’t need to learn to use PaPeRo like a PC, you just need to talk to it"

via News.com.au