iTnews: Green search engine lays down Australian roots

As a journalist at iTnews:

A new, free-to-use search engine has been launched in Australia with the promise of sponsoring the growth of up to two trees for every 1000 Web searches made.

Launched today, ecocho acts as a Web portal between users and popular search engines Yahoo and Google, and claims to offset carbon emissions with no speed, quality or monetary costs to users.

The service is made available through agreements between ecocho and the search providers that allow Google and Yahoo to provide search technology and results for the new site. Ecocho’s founder Tim Macdonald expects the site’s use of the already popular search technologies to appeal to the ample pool of current users to the technologies.

“Yahoo and Google are the two dominant search engines worldwide,” he told iTnews. “We’ve really stuck with these two main ones [search engines] because they are the ones which are most used by people to get the results that they want on the Internet.”

“We are basically providing users with the same search results that they receive from either of those two sites, so people are already familiar and trust the quality and the speed of those search results,” he said.

Ecocho’s launch in Australia is part of a global initiative that involves 14 countries, including Germany, France and New Zealand. By locating international servers as close as possible to the site’s users, Macdonald expects users of ecocho to experience negligible speed differences compared to using Google and Yahoo directly.

Similar to existing search engine business models, ecocho is supported by advertising revenue, of which 30 percent goes towards the site’s operational costs and 70 percent is put towards planting trees.

Based on the sheer volume of Web searches conducted by Australian Internet users, Macdonald expects the site to make an impact on the environment – especially since the advertising-supported model enables users to make a difference without having to spend any money or alter their personal lifestyles.

“It’s an advertising-supported [tree planting] scheme,” Macdonald said. “This effectively is free for a user and it’s something that you do everyday already.”

“There’s definitely a lot of user interest in climate change issues because it’s really important,” he said. “When we knew that one percent of people actually take money out of their wallets and pay to offset their flights, we thought, well if something is free, a much bigger percentage [of people] than that would be interested.”

In Australia, ecocho will purchase carbon-offset credits through the New South Wales Government Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (GGAS). The site will employ financial audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG to check the acquisition, registration and retirement of the carbon credits.

According to ecocho’s Australian Web site, the site already has sponsored the growth of 2702 trees in Orange, Oberon, and Mona Vale, all in New South Wales.

“We’re aiming pretty big,” Macdonald said. “We don’t have a set number in mind, but we’re thinking that it’s entirely possible to be doing [sponsoring] tens of thousands of trees in a year.”

“In Australia alone you’ve got almost 800 million searches performed every month. If we could capture even 5 percent of that market, that’s an enormous number of trees that can be planted.”

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iTnews: Microsoft Australia touts start-up innovation

As a journalist at iTnews:

Software behemoth Microsoft has plans to grow the Australian software industry by extending a giant hand of support to local start-up companies.

Through partnerships with state governments, the AIIA and La Trobe University, Microsoft is offering a holistic incubation program, dubbed Empower, to provide and connect Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with the resources needed for bringing innovative software products to the Australian market.

“While we are part of an international corporation, Microsoft Australia is absolutely an Australian company,” Microsoft Australia’s industry development manager, David Sajfar, told iTnews.

“We put a lot of effort into growing the Australian industry and into making the Australian software economy succeed, because if they succeed, we succeed.”

So when Microsoft was approached by a cash-strapped biotechnology start-up named Evado just over a year ago, it was eager to welcome the budding software company into the folds of Empower.

Microsoft’s Empower program is offered on a subscription basis of $1000 per year for a maximum of two years, after which enrolled start-ups are expected to have completed their development work and be able to move on to other Microsoft partner programs.

The program provides enrolled start-ups with a software package that includes the Windows operating system, Office, Windows Server, Exchange, and SharePoint, as well as access to software development kits, driver development kits and the MSDN library.

“For a small company, it was very hard to negotiate through Microsoft’s resources and find subject experts easily,” said Evado’s CEO Jenny Anderson of the start-up’s difficulties during its first three years of development efforts before enrolling in Microsoft’s partner program.

“Microsoft helped us in various ways,” she said.

After working with Microsoft and Microsoft’s innovation centre at La Trobe University for the past year, Evado has completed its software offering and now has signed a major contract with the Australian heart device company, Ventracor.

Evado plans to take its Web-based clinical reporting software to U.S., European and Asian markets, with the eventual aim of offering the software for free to third world nations.

Besides the financial benefits of a partnership with Microsoft, Evado has also benefitted from the connections it has forged through Microsoft’s relationship with La Trobe University and the Victoria.NET program.

“Through Victoria.NET, we’ve met many other companies; some of which we’ve used in the development of our software,” Anderson said.

“The program also helped us bypass university bureaucracy by putting us in touch with a La Trobe PhD student who has done a lot of work with us.”

While she acknowledged the existence of cheaper platforms on which Evado’s software may have been developed, Anderson said the company made a conscious decision to build on Microsoft’s development platform as it is most widely used by organisations in its target market.

“Very few hospitals have open source, and support for open source software,” she said, “and nearly every hospital and research organisation has Microsoft [software installed]. Building software on Microsoft’s development platform was our decision and we haven’t regretted it.”

According to Microsoft’s Sajfar, the company’s partner programs provide networking opportunities for ISVs within and beyond the $1 billion local .NET market, as well as assistance with what he called “the issue of bridging the gap between research stages and going to market”.

“Evado came to us with a huge innovation opportunity. They had many platforms, frameworks and toolsets to consider, but they choose Microsoft,” Sajfar said, listing speed to market, technical assistance, and easy-to-use framework as some benefits of working with Microsoft.

“The local software [start-up] companies tend to be quite small and that can be a very lonely place for a company,” he said.

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iTnews: Do search engines encourage suicide?

As a journalist at iTnews:

A study of the Internet has found that Web engine results for suicide-related searches are more likely to encourage suicide rather than offer help and support.

Following U.K. media reports about the existence and possible influence of Web sites and forums that may encourage suicide in young people, the study aimed to investigate the pervasion of pro-suicide Web sites and the ease with which such sites may be found.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Oxford and Manchester set out to replicate an online search that might be undertaken by a person looking for information about suicide methods.

Using four top search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask, the researchers analysed the first ten sites from each search of 12 suicide-related search terms. Of the 480 total hits that were analysed, 240 different Web sites were found.

The top four most frequently occurring sites evaluated methods of suicide including detailed information about speed, certainty, and the likely amount of pain associated with each method. The three most frequently occurring sites were found to encourage suicide, with user-generated encyclopaedia, Wikipedia coming in fourth.

Just under half of the sites found provided information about methods of suicide. Almost a fifth of hits were for dedicated suicide sites, of which almost all provided information about methods of suicide, and half were judged to be encouraging, promoting, or facilitating suicide.

A mere 13 percent of the sites found, focussed on suicide prevention or offered support, of which a majority actively discouraged suicide. Even so, the researchers found that a fifth of support and prevention sites also provided information about suicide methods.

Google and Yahoo were found to produce the highest number of dedicated suicide sites, whereas MSN had the highest number of prevention or support sites and academic or policy sites.

According to 2005 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, suicides account for about a fifth of deaths between the ages of 20 to 35.

Authors of the study, which was published this week in the British Medical Journal, encourage the use of Web site optimisation strategies to maximise the likelihood that suicide prevention sites are preferentially sourced by people seeking information about suicide methods.

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iTnews: IT provider speaks out against National Secondary School Computer Fund criteria

As a journalist at iTnews:

With round one of applications now closed for the $1 billion National Secondary School Computer Fund, educational computing provider Computelec is raising concerns of whether some schools are equipped with sufficient support facilities or internal resources to meet the Rudd Government’s application criteria.

Following an initial audit of Australia’s secondary schools, round one of the National Secondary School Computer Fund promises up to $1 million in funding to schools selected from a pool of 937 institutions with a computer-to-student ratio of 1:8 or worse.

Eligible schools each were required to submit an application for funding by 4 April, including an Information Communication Technology (ICT) plan to purchase software, hardware, maintenance, training, and technical support, as well as developing a teaching effort to make full use of the ICT resources provided.

“There has clearly been some concern from schools about meeting the deadline, because an ICT plan has to be submitted with the application for funding,” said Darren Elsby, national sales and marketing manager of Computelec, stressing that the industry should be aware that some schools in urgent need of ICT development may be left behind.

“There are some schools that have probably struggled with that, and rightly so, because they are very small regional schools that don’t necessarily have the resources or the ICT proficiency to enable a plan like that,” he said.

While he was unable to name specific schools that may be disadvantaged by the program’s requirements, Elsby said that the group of institutions most at risk included “small schools that have traditionally had limited spend around ICT”.

Applauding the government for an initiative that he said represents an incredible effort to bridge the digital divide and close the gap between the haves and the have-nots, Elsby said the program also provides a focus around digital literacy and the importance of teaching ICT in the school curriculum.

“The government is clearly heading down this excellent path, but at the same time, schools need to realise that technology is extremely important,” he said, putting the burden of responsibility on the industry, local governments, and the Federal Government to provide ICT training and equipment to schools.

Since 1990, Computalec has worked with Australian schools such as the Methodist Ladies College to deploy 1:1 notebook programs that provide each student with a computer. The company also offers software, hardware, teacher training, and infrastructure support to suit each school’s unique requirements.

Elsby estimated the cost of Computalec’s 1:1 notebook programs to range from $2000 to $3000 per child over the course of three years, depending on the device, software bundle and payment options selected by the parents and school.

He pointed out potential cost reductions with the Rudd Government’s Family Tax Benefit, which allows parents to collect a rebate on the purchase of technology products that may be required for their children’s education.

“It’s never been cheaper for parents and schools to enter into technology programs,” Elsby said, noting that while a majority of Computelec’s notebook programs tend to exist within the independent school sector, cost reductions and government funding may allow the company to extend its reach to government schools also.

“That’s what’s exciting about this new government program,” he said. “It allows all schools of all sizes, shapes, denominations, whatever the case may be, to rake into this 1:1 or 1:2 notebook program space.”

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iTnews: Racetrack memory to change the storage landscape within a decade

As a journalist at iTnews:

Advancements in the development of spintronics-based storage technology could provide a basis for lightning-fast devices capable of holding a hundred times more data in the same amount of space than is possible today.

Developed by researchers at IBM’s Almaden Research Centre, racetrack memory combines the high performance and reliability of flash with the low cost and high capacity of hard disk drives to yield solid state electronic devices that are cheaper, more durable, more stable, and faster than storage devices of today.

Racetrack memory is named for the physical configuration in which information is stored: in tiny magnetic domains within a U-shaped, nanoscopic wire that is embedded into a silicon chip. Each successive domain wall along the racetrack has an opposite magnetic charge to its neighbours, hence altering the magnetic spin of electrons as current passes through the wire.

Since racetrack memory has no moving parts and stores data in the spin of electrons rather than as ensembles of electric charge, it has no wear-out mechanism and so can be rewritten endlessly without any wear and tear, according to Stuart Parkin, who leads the IBM research team.

Expounding the respective drawbacks of currently used solid state random access flash memory (RAM) and the magnetic hard disk drive, Parkin expects racetrack technology to have a significant impact on the IT landscape.

“We're moving into a world that is more data-centric than computing-centric,” said Parkin, IBM Research Fellow and Director of IBM-Stanford Spintronic Science and Applications Center. “It [Racetrack memory] will not only change the way we look at storage, but the way we look at processing information.”

“The devices would not only store vastly more information in the same space, but also require much less power and generate much less heat, and be practically unbreakable,” he told iTnews, forecasting future devices that provide massive amounts of personal storage that could run on a single battery for weeks at a time and last for decades.

While he expects racetrack memory to be commercially available within the next five to 10 years, Parkin said that the research team still faced developmental hurdles.

The team has previously encountered problems in experimentally producing speeds that have been predicted in theory, due to imperfections in the silicon chip. Now, the researchers are investigating the interaction of spin-polarised current with magnetic moments, the result of which may allow a reduction in current and enable lower-power devices.

“We expect that our exploration of a wide variety of materials and structures will provide new insight into domain wall dynamics driven by current, making possible domain wall based memory and even logic devices that were previously inconceivable,” Parkin said.

Ultimately, researchers are looking to expand the racetrack concept into the third dimension. By constructing a three-dimensional racetrack memory device, the IBM research team hopes to instigate a paradigm shift from traditional two-dimensional arrays of transistors and magnetic bits found in the silicon-based microelectronic devices and hard disk drives of today.

“By moving into the third dimension, racetrack memory stands to open new possibilities for developing less expensive, faster devices because it is not dependent on miniaturisation as dictated by Moore’s Law,” Parkin explained.

“The promise of racetrack memory - for example, the ability to carry massive amounts of information in your pocket - could unleash creativity leading to devices and applications that nobody has imagined yet,” he added.

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iTnews: Australia’s first Open Source Census published

As a journalist at iTnews:

Results of Australia’s first large-scale Open Source community census have been released to the public.

Produced by Open Source consulting firm Waugh Partners, the Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report gives voice to the business potentials, patterns and concerns of a previously mute sector of the IT industry.

“This is a first step towards addressing some of the misconceptions and lack of information about Open Source in the Australian market,” said Jeff Waugh, co-founder and co-director of Waugh Partners.

“We were also keen to learn more about the relationship between the industry and community, and understand the industry's need for skills and education,” he told iTnews.

Waugh raised the issue of a commonly-held misconception around what is perceived to be a lack of support and services for Open Source in Australia, despite the international recognition of the Australian Open Source community.

Far from the stereotype of students coding from darkened rooms of their parents’ homes with half-eaten slices of pizza in hand, the census found that Open Source developers tend to be well-paid professionals who service a growing market.

Boasting a “very strong”, “rapidly growing” local market for Open Source in both private and public sectors, the census listed property and business (which includes ICT), education, health, retail and government as industries that are most serviced by Open Source currently.

The report expounds what it says is an industry responsibility to tackle the $21 billion trade deficit generated by the ICT industry. Most of the deficit is derived from equipment necessary for the productive use of ICT in the country, the report says.

“We feel that the ICT industry has a responsibility to address the ICT trade deficit, by creating innovative solutions to sell to the world, but also to deliver productivity gains to Australian business and government,” Waugh told iTnews.

“It is a topic we have raised [to industry and government bodies] on numerous occasions in the past, to some interest. The key issue from our point of view is that Open Source -- the technology and methodology -- has enormous potential for Australian research, innovation and productivity.”

“It's not just a technology issue though -- open innovation, collaboration, and access will be absolutely necessary to keep our small population ahead of the game,” he added.

Open Source was suggested as an export avenue to offset a part of the trade deficit. Currently, 45 percent of the open source industry service export markets, generating revenue of $60 million, the report says.

Furthermore, export services that are based on open source generally sidestep the need for software royalty imports, which the report estimates to amount to more than 40 percent of the ICT trade balance deficit.

The report was sponsored by research organisation NICTA, as well as IBM and Fujitsu.

“The census results are important to IBM and Australian businesses as they prove that the OSS [Open Source Software] industry in Australia has matured,” IBM’s Lotus Competitive Solutions Executive, Kevin Wilson, said in the report.

“Simple facts such as 46 percent of respondents gained 70 percent or more of their revenue from Open Source activities suggest that Australian businesses are already taking advantage of what OSS has to offer.”

The Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report is available for download from Waugh Partners’s Web site.

Looking forward, the firm has planned qualitative research inspired by the industry and community report, including investigating the use and teaching of Open Source skills in Australian educational institutions, and the impact of Open Source in Australian research and development.

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iTnews: CO2-infused plastics may yield green CDs and DVDs

As a journalist at iTnews:

A new technique for the production of plastic may yield CDs and DVDs that thwart global warming.

By using waste carbon dioxide [CO2] in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics, scientists expect to remove the greenhouse gas from the environment while delivering less expensive, safer and greener products compared to current production methods.

“Carbon dioxide is so readily available, especially from the smokestack of industries that burn coal and other fossil fuels,” said Thomas Müller, a Professor at the Institute for Technical Chemistry and Macromolecular Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

“And it’s a very cheap starting material,” he added. “If we can replace more expensive starting materials with CO2, then you’ll have an economic driving force.”

Through a five-year research agreement with German manufacturing company, Bayer Material Science, Müller and his research team will investigate methods of using the chemically inert carbon dioxide molecule for chemical syntheses.

CO2 produced by power plants during the combustion of fossil fuels is generally released into the atmosphere, where it contributes to the greenhouse effect. By incorporating CO2 into polymers and other materials produced in large-scale, the chemists expect to reduce the contribution of the greenhouse gas to global warming.

Plastics that are manufactured with the proposed technique could be used as material for sunglass and eyeglass lenses, safety goggles, headlamp lenses in vehicles, drinking bottles, CDs and DVDs.

Millions of tons of polycarbonates are sold each year, researchers say, and capturing carbon dioxide in this manner could avoid the release of many million of tons of the greenhouse gas into the environment.

“Using CO2 to create polycarbonates might not solve the total carbon dioxide problem, but it could be a significant contribution,” Müller said.

Speaking at the 235th annual meeting of the American Chemical Society on Tuesday, Müller said that consumers may be drinking from a carbon dioxide product and watching movies on waste-CO2 DVDs sooner than they think.

“I would say it’s a matter of a few years [before CO2-derived polymers are available to the public],” he said.

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iTnews: AIIA backs Swimming Australia in Facebook photo removal

As a journalist at iTnews:

Swimming Australia may have copped some flack over the removal of its members' personal photos from popular social networking site Facebook, but according to the AIIA, the sporting organisation was correct in its instructions to the athletes.

The Facebook privacy crackdown is said to have been inspired by the recent media coverage of swimmer Stephanie Rice’s personal photos. Among the photos are shots of the Beijing-bound athlete posing in a figure-hugging police uniform at one costume party and pole-dancing with a teammate at another function.

Since its 2004 launch, Facebook has extended its reach beyond tech-savvy, Generation Y students to encompass businesses, advocacy groups and politicians. While corporate use of the Web site may yield business potentials, the increasingly public uptake of the Facebook may raise privacy concerns for personal users.

“There are huge upsides for business through allowing staff access to such websites,” AIIA Chief Executive Officer Sheryle Moon told iTnews. “They show they are up to date and Gen Y will certainly want this sort of access.”

“There is also the possibility of alumni tracking for a business; new talent attraction, collaborative problem solving with remote staff, clients and suppliers,” she said.

However, Moon raised issues to do with how organisations should handle confidential business information, to ensure that sensitive information is not leaked. Sometimes, a person’s location information on a social networking Web site may alert a competitor to their activities and clients, Moon pointed out.

Just as there are corporate policies that deal with the use of e-mail and telephone services, Moon encouraged businesses to inform their employees about the risks of social networking sites also.

“The [Swimming Australia’s] request was appropriate,” Moon concluded. “An organisation should be able to request staff – members – to show information in a way that is respectful of the organisation or team.”

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iTnews: Virtual world to help children cope with cancer

As a journalist at iTnews:

Researchers in Canada are developing an online virtual world in which children with cancer can talk with others about their illness, and manage symptoms caused by cancer and other chronic diseases.

By studying children’s perceptions of their cancer symptoms, researchers hope to discover methods for assessing symptoms, and better evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.

“Cancer is a very scary word for children,” said nursing researcher Dr. Roberta Woodgate of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

“We want to help them deal with the subject in a way that is most appropriate to them, and at their level.”

The interactive game will represent symptoms in a non-violent story such as travelling through a jungle or a haunted house and encountering challenges, or symptom experiences, and the opportunity and means to meet the challenges.

Interviews with seven to 17 year olds will help determine content in separate games for children and teenagers.

Woodgate believes gaming will teach children with chronic diseases how to recognise and manage real-life symptom experiences such as fatigue and pain. In addition to helping children take their minds off their illness, Woodgate said the virtual world would allow children to “act” and “react” in a safe and comfortable environment.

“I hope that gaming as an intervention will improve children’s symptom assessment and management, and their quality of life. What we learn may improve the experiences of families and professionals,” she said.

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iTnews: Computer system makes best sports bets

As a journalist at iTnews:

Researchers have created a computer ranking system that consistently predicts US basketball rankings more accurately than polls of sportswriters, coaches, currently used formulas and computer models, and even the tournament seeds themselves.

Dubbed the Logistic Regression Markov Chain, or LRMC, the new method is said to have proven itself by correctly picking all four of the 2008 finalists for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament.

By identifying the 30 of the 36 Final Four participants in the past nine years of tournaments, the method has achieved 83 percent accuracy. In comparison, the seedings and polls have correctly identified only 23 of the 36 NCAA Final Four participants in the same nine year stretch, and the currently used Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) formula identified 21.

Similar to other rankings systems, LRMC uses the quality of each NCAA team’s results and the strength of each team’s schedule to rank teams. The method has been designed to use only basic scoreboard data, including which teams played, which team had home court advantage and the margin of victory.

Designed and maintained by Joel Sokol, Paul Kyam and George Nemhauser, who are three Engineering Professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology, LRMC is set apart from other computer rankings systems in its method of determining the value of home court advantage. LRMC considers how much playing at home helps a team win rather than how many points playing on a home court is worth.

Besides picking the Final Four, LRMC also identified several over-rated and under-rated NCAA teams as potential upsets. Georgia Tech researchers have also been able to show that very close games are often “toss-ups,” meaning the better team barely wins more than half the time.

LRMC’s ranking methodology takes into account the researchers’ expectations that winning a close game shouldn’t be worth as much as winning easily, and losing a close game shouldn’t hurt a team’s ranking as much as losing badly.

Computer rankings systems are expected to have a distinct advantage over the picks of sports professionals and fans by taking the emotional aspect out of the decision-making process.

“As fans, we only get to see most tournament teams two or three times at most during the season, so our gut feelings about a team are really coloured by how well or poorly they played the few times we've been watching,” Sokol said.

“On the other hand, our system objectively measures each team’s performance in every game it plays, and mathematically balances all of those outcomes to determine an overall ranking.”

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