How you can self-destruct your messages?

Imagine if every time you sent a letter, the postman made a copy. Or whenever you printed photos, the chemist kept a set for himself. This isn’t 1950s Russia but the internet today. Every e-mail you send is stored on not only your computer but also the recipient’s machine; your internet service provider (ISP) will have one too, as will the many servers that have handled your message in its travels across cyberspace. And the government is allowed, under a European commission directive, to dip into some of that data.

It’s this Big Brother vision that has inspired researchers in Seattle to create the world’s first self-destructing e-mails. Vanish, a free program developed by Roxana Geambasu and Professor Hank Levy of Washington University, puts an expiry date on digital messages. Eight hours after being sent, Vanish e-mails become unreadable — even to the person who wrote them.

Levy says his software is a response to the fact that the digital world has forgotten how to forget. “Storage is now incredibly cheap and there’s really no need to delete data any more,” he explains. “Personal data last for a long time.” A recent survey found that a fifth of Americans had written something online that they regretted, while almost one in eight teenagers had posted nude or revealing photos of themselves. In the digital age, these acts remain a permanent, and potentially life-ruining, blot on the record.

Personal e-mails, perhaps containing bank or credit card details, can also linger online for years. “You can’t ensure an e-mail is really deleted because you don’t really control it,” Levy says. “Your e-mail company might store it on back-up tape. A judge could issue a subpoena to get old e-mails or a hacker could break in and steal them. They could be revealed with a system error or someone could simply have their laptop stolen.”

Encrypting your e-mails is no guarantee of privacy, either. In 2007, Hushmail, a company that describes itself as offering the most secure webmail service, admitted to deciphering coded messages and turning them over to Canadian police as part of a drug investigation. In the UK, suspects have been forced to turn over e-mail encryption passwords to the courts or face jail.

Vanish would make such events impossible. Like other encryption programs, the new software scrambles text into a string of nonsensical letters and numbers. Then comes the clever bit: Vanish splits the digital key to decode the message into 10 pieces. These fragments are then hidden in plain sight, on 1.5m randomly selected computers — part of a network of machines spread across more than 200 countries. Not only does this make it almost impossible for hackers to locate the key fragments; it gives Vanish messages their limited lifespan, because as users log off from this network and their computers refresh their memories, the number of key fragments online decreases. After eight hours, on average, enough fragments will have been erased for the message to be unreadable — to the writer, the recipient or a court.

At the moment, Vanish requires both parties in an e-mail or chatroom to install the program and to use the Firefox web browser to communicate. You can then use any webmail service or social network to compose a message, highlight the text you want to keep private, choose “Create Vanish message” from a pop-up menu and send the message as usual. At the other end, recipients see only a page of scrambled text until they select “Read Vanish message”.

That doesn’t mean your message is totally secure. You are still trusting the recipient not to make a copy of the e-mail during its eight-hour existence; and, Levy says, Vanish will not render you invisible to the authorities. “There are government agencies that are big enough to threaten this,” he says. “It’s mainly meant for individuals and individual privacy.”

The makers of Vanish are not standing still, however. The next version will allow users to increase the lifespan of e-mails in multiples of eight hours, allowing users to create messages lasting a day, a weekend or a month.

“We live in a world where it’s possible to remember everything that everyone ever does,” Levy says. Vanish may not make today’s digital world any less scary but at least you can finally forget about old e-mails coming back to haunt you, years — or even days — in the future.

Source and credits: Sunday Times

New Artificial Bone Made of Wood

Aug. 10, 2009 -- A new procedure to turn blocks of wood into artificial bones has been developed by Italian scientists, who plan to implant them into large animals, and eventually humans.

Wood-derived bone substitute should allow live bones to heal faster and more securely after a break than currently available metal and ceramic implants.

The researchers chose wood because it closely resemble the physical structure of natural bone, "which is impossible to reproduce with conventional processing technology."

"Our purpose is to convert native wood structures into bioactive, inorganic compounds destined to substitute portions of bone," said Anna Tampieri, a scientist at the Instituto Di Scienza E Techologia Dei Materiali Ceramici in Italy.

To create the bone substitute, the scientists start with a block of wood -- red oak, rattan and sipo work best -- and heat it until all that remains is pure carbon, which is basically charcoal.

The scientists then spray calcium over the carbon, creating calcium carbide. Additional chemical and physical steps convert the calcium carbide into carbonated hydroxyapatite, which can then be implanted and serves as the artificial bone.

The entire process takes about one week and costs about $850 for a single block. One block translates to about one bone implant.

The researchers also note that they can create virtually any size or shape.

Wood-based implants would have several advantages over traditional titanium or ceramic implants, says Tampieri. Since their physical structure is more spongy than solid, like many metal or ceramic implants, live bone should grow into wood-derived bone substitute quicker and more securely.

"One disadvantage (of titanium) is that its not bioactive," said Frank Muller, a researcher at the Institute of Materials Science and Technology in Germany. This means that titanium is unable to interact with living tissue, unlike the wood-derived substitute.

"When implanted into the body, it is encapsulated by fibrous tissue. But if you introduce pores into the titanium. the mechanical properties can be compromised." If the titanium is weakened, it may break, leading to further damage to the bone.

Paradoxically, metal or ceramic implants meant to prevent bone breaks can sometimes cause them. Current implants are significantly harder than the bone that surrounds them. Natural bone can flex slightly. In fact, stress helps build stronger bones. However, the harder implants can apply so much stress to a particular area that the bone snaps. Softer wooden implants might cause fewer bone breaks.

However, wood-derived bone substitute are still not cleared for use in humans. The scientists are currently limited to sheep. Application in humans is likely years away, says Tampieri.

For now, however, wood-derived materials may be put to other use.

"Materials able to maintain adequate properties at extremely high temperatures and mechanical stress are highly sought after for use in several different applications, " said Tampieri. "Including, for example, catalytic silencers, space vehicles, turbine equipment for power generation plants and aircraft engines, like turbine blades, vanes, shrouds, and combustor components, and metal forming and glass blowing equipment."

Muller agrees that, until wood-derived bone subtitutes are available to humans, there are many other potential applications for these materials.

Source: Discovery

Tech gives humans animal senses

By Jason Palmer

Science and technology reporter, BBC News
A virtual reality exhibit is giving visitors the extreme ranges of sight and hearing that many animals have.
The so-called "immersive" exhibit shows what it might be like to see with birds' ultraviolet vision or hear with whales' ultra-low frequency hearing.
The researchers say the project aims to demonstrate for the public all the sensing ranges animals experience that are described in scientific literature.
The exhibit is on display at the annual Siggraph conference in New Orleans, US.
The light that humans can see and sounds they can hear are just a small sliver of the total range of those experienced by animals.
Many creatures can both make and perceive sounds at higher and lower ranges than we can hear - dogs' perception of ultrasound is a well-known example.
Several animal species are known to be able to perceive light at extreme ranges; birds can see ultraviolet light and their plumage is often highly reflective in this range.
We hope this will generate greater interest in what's out there in one's own back yard
Carol LaFayette
Texas A&M University
Predators such as rattlesnakes, on the other hand, are sensitive to infrared light, seeing the "heat" given off by their prey.
Carol LaFayette of Texas A&M University's visualisation department and her team wanted to make those senses available to the public.
"If you were walking through the woods and you had the ability to see in ultraviolet, for instance, things like birds or fungi might stand out in very colourful ways," she told BBC News.
"These species aren't very exotic, they're all over the place.
"There is a wealth of information out there in scientific research that is difficult to access and present. Our project makes these fascinating stories accessible to a wider range of people."
The team consulted a number of researchers, gathering together a candidate list of species and even some infra- and ultrasound recordings of animals in the wild.
Deep immersion
The system comprises five large projection screens designed in a semicircle.
The virtual reality scene is based loosely on Cocos Island, west of Costa Rica, and visitors to the exhibit can wander through the island's forests or swim in its tropical waters, navigating with the aid of a modified Nintendo Wii game controller

They can switch between ranges of sounds or sights that they might see.
An ultraviolet setting paints a picture rich with both normal colour and reflections we can't normally see. Visualisation expert Fred Parke has designed the system such that it corrects for perspective as users navigate the space. The programme allows visitors to hear the infrasound vocalisations of whales or the ultrasound clicks of tiger moths.
The effect, with the aid of surround-system built into the exhibit, is a sense of total immersion in the environment, the researchers said.
The sounds can be simply scaled in terms of frequency to a band that humans can hear; "seeing" in ultraviolet, however is a little more difficult. Colours must be assigned arbitrarily to different wavelengths because we simply can't "translate" what it looks like to animals.
The researchers are working to integrate infrared vision into the exhibit, and are considering how to tackle sensory modes that humans don't even have - such as sharks' ability to sense electric fields.
"There are things that we can scale, that we can understand because they are things that we can see or hear - then there are things we don't even know how they can be sensed. That's a really fascinating area," Ms LaFayette said.
The team hopes the idea takes root and imagines the potential for a "live feed" of audio and video from corners of the globe both near and far. Subscriptions to a real-time experience could pay for the purchase of land for wildlife, they said.
"The immersive system ties interest in the environment to knowledge gained through scientific research," Ms LaFayette explained.
"We hope this will generate greater interest in what's out there in one's own back yard."
The Siggraph (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques) annual conference runs in New Orleans from 3 to 7 August.

Scource: BBC News

Can Google's myTouch 3G Out-Smartphone the iPhone?

I really wanted to love T-Mobile's myTouch 3G, the latest "Google phone." I truly did.
Not because I don't love my iPhone 3G, but precisely because I do love my iPhone 3G.
I love it more than I should. But it's like dating the captain of the soccer team. Everybody wants him. He's got you tied around his tanned little finger. He doesn't have to try very hard anymore.
I wanted the T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google, which hit the streets on Aug. 5, to be the smartphone equivalent of the handsome student council president — the smart, sexy guy who sneaks in and steals away the soccer player's girlfriend with his smooth apps and glossy touchscreen. I wanted to be wowed and wooed and swept off my feet.
I wanted my iPhone to have some stiff competition.
But while the myTouch 3G is a major improvement on the first generation G1 Android phone, which was feature-rich but seriously lacking in design savvy, it didn't steal my heart.
Across New York City, both iPhone owners and non-owners gave the myTouch 3G a spin and sounded off on its better attributes and its shortcomings.

At the top of the plus column is attractiveness. My test unit was in "merlot," an appealing burgundy color with a bit of sparkle. The myTouch 3G also comes in white and black, and for a few extra bucks you can trick it out with a colorful skin.
We liked the way it felt in our hands — light, sleek. It is a darn good looking phone, and it doesn't just appeal to chicks, as my editor feared after taking a look at the burgundy phone and surveying the product's Web site.
The myTouch 3G's biggest fan was a male recent college grad in video production who petted it and said, "I want one."
Yet its $200 (with two-year contract) price tag puts it a little out of reach for the starving artist. T-Mobile's monthly plans, however, are more affordable than AT&T's. Its cheapest comes in at $55, while AT&T's will cost you $70. Unlimited data and messaging plus the minimum voice plan bring T-Mobile to $65 and AT&T to $90.
The iPhone 3G S retails for about $200 as well. AT&T offers 3G service in more cities than T-Mobile.
AT&T has promised it will be bringing picture and video-messaging capabilities to the iPhone 3G S this year, but T-Mobile already has that feature.
The 3.2-megapixel camera took decent pictures, and its ability to record videos and immediately post them to YouTube or upload photos via Picasa is a definite plus.
In a sound-off with the iPhone's iPod function, the myTouch 3G gave Apple a run for its money, mostly due to its superior headphones. Apple's ear buds are notoriously uncomfortable, and their sound wasn't as clear. The music interface, however, doesn't compete with the elegance of iTunes and the iPod interface.
It does have a nifty notification bar at the top of the screen that you can drag down to receive notifications of incoming e-mails, calls, voicemails and instant messages. But it's still tiny and getting your aim right takes practice.
When it comes to functionality, however, the myTouch 3G with Google begins to lose its luster.
The myTouch 3G, made by Taiwan's HTC, has a single mini-USB port for both charging the phone and plugging in headphones, requiring an adapter that I can see getting lost easily.
The touch screen is significantly less responsive than the iPhone 3G, the unit against which it was unscientifically tested, and it doesn't have the pinch and scroll capabilities of the iPhone. It also doesn't have the iPhone's rebound capabilities which allow it to scroll quickly.
Its on-screen keyboard is lazy compared to the iPhone's and harder to type on, even for women with delicate hands. The keys are small, and while — like the iPhone — the letters enlarge when you hit them, they often disappear before you can see which you've hit.
I'd like to see significant improvement to the keyboard.
The Android Market — Google's App Store — has several thousand applications that will be available for the myTouch 3G, but it still pales in comparison to the App Store's 65,000 offerings. And its Twitter and Facebook apps were a bit clumsy compared to the iPhone offerings.
Overall, though, for those who don't want to take the iPhone plunge, it's a solid product that will hopefully become even more competitive in its next incarnation.

Scource: Foxnews.com