The IBM tools, dubbed Symphony, are available for download free of charge online and will provide access to documents, spreadsheets and presentations on machines supported by Windows and Linux desktops, according to IBM. Customers who purchase the latest version of IBM’s Lotus Notes will also receive Symphony.

Symphony will also feature optional, fee-based support for businesses, Ed Brill, a business unit executive for worldwide sales at IBM/Lotus, said at a Tuesday launch event in Manhattan.

Symphony is based on the open document format (ODF), which allows for the open standards favored by IBM but generally shunned by Microsoft. IBM last week joined OpenOffice.org, an open source project founded by Sun Microsystems in 2000, to which IBM will be making code contributions.

Source: PCMag.com

Since IBM is joining forces with OpenOffice.org my questions are:

Will IBM’s joining of the party help OpenOffice actually penetrate the Office app market? (to a serious extent)

Any predictions as to how long this venture will last?

Finally will Microsoft’s earnings be hurt because of OpenOffice’s success?

OpenOffice has definitely “stayed the course” I was using OpenOffice and Abiword for a few years before I went back the evil side.

ICalledIt mentioned this story on July 13th this year.

Not even the foiled terror plot that heightened security checks at airports nationwide threatens to delay the rollout, the agency said. Any hitches in getting the technology to work properly could add even longer waits to travelers already facing lengthy security lines at airports.

The new U.S. passports will include a chip that contains all the data contained in the paper version — name, birthdate, gender, for example — and can be read by electronic scanners at equipped airports. The State Department says they will speed up going through customs and help enhance border security.

How much more RFID gets enveloped into our lives now? (Warning: Extreme 2010 like statement) Before you know it, our every move will be watched.

Thanks to Engadget for the heads up though today.

Imagine being overseas and your identity being available for the taking - your nationality, your name, your passport number. Everything.

That’s the fear of privacy and security specialists now that the State Department plans to issue “e-Passports” to American travelers beginning in late August.

Radio Frequency Identification technology, indicated by the symbol, is to be standard in U.S. passports by August 2006.

Here are steps you can take in case you join millions of other Americans and get the bad news. (more)

Privacy experts’ wish list

If these advocates had their way, consumers would gain far more control over their information. (more)

Your ID for sale
From credit bureaus to grocers to unscrupulous brokers, there’s a healthy trade in your good name. (more)

They’ll have radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and are meant to cut down on human error of immigration officials, speed the processing of visitors and safeguard against counterfeit passports.

Yet critics are concerned that the security benefit of RFID technology, which combines silicon chips with antennas to make data accessible via radio waves, could be vastly outweighed by security threats to the passport holder.

“Basically, you’ve given everybody a little radio-frequency doodad that silently declares ‘Hey, I’m a foreigner,’” says author and futurist Bruce Sterling, who lectures on the future of RFID technology. “If nobody bothers to listen, great. If people figure out they can listen to passport IDs, there will be a lot of strange and inventive ways to exploit that for criminal purposes.”

RFID chips are used in security passes many companies issue to employees. They don’t have to be touched to a reader-machine, only waved near it. Following initial objections by security and privacy experts, the State Department added several security precautions.

But experts still fear the data could be “skimmed,” or read remotely without the bearer’s knowledge.

Kidnappers, identity thieves and terrorists could all conceivably commit “contactless” crimes against victims who wouldn’t know they’ve been violated until after the fact.

“The basic problem with RFID is surreptitious access to ID,” said Bruce Schneier security technologist, author and chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security, a technology security consultancy. “The odds are zero that RFID passport technology won’t be hackable.”

Source: CNNMoney

An electronic device that emits a magnetic field could offer relief for millions of people who suffer from migraine headaches.

The device, tested by Yousef Mohammad, an assistant professor of neurology at Ohio State University Medical Center, administers a therapy known as transcranial magnetic stimulation.

The therapy, its proponents claim, painlessly “resets” hyperactive neurons associated with the disease.

“The patients feel a little pressure, but that’s all,” said Mohammad, who presented the results of a preliminary study today at the annual American Headache Society meeting in Los Angeles.

Only since that late 1990s have doctors begun to understand that hyper-excited neurons — not vascular constriction — are at the root of migraines.

The hyper-excited neurons set off otherwise normal neurons nearby in a chain reaction of dysfunction that spreads quickly over the brain.

About 25 percent of migraine sufferers experience the spread of hyperactivity as an aura — seeing shooting stars, zigzagging lines, flashing lights, and feeling a tingling sensation, among other things — an hour before the migraine sets it.

The device is meant to interrupt that chain reaction before it leads to the pulsating headache, sensitivity to light and sound, and vomiting associated with the headache.

Source: Discovery

A successful launch of an unmanned test aircraft, dubbed
The National Experimental Supersonic Transport (NEXST1) aircraft, was launched from the Woomera Test Range in Southern Australia.

The aircraft is built and developed by Japanese National Aerospace Laboratory. Eventually the JNAL will build the supersonic jet to carry 300 passengers (twice as large as the concorde) and make flight time between New York and Tokyo in under 6 hours.

Japan has taken a step into the science-fiction world with the release of a “robot suit” that can help workers lift heavy loads or assist people with disabilities climb stairs.

“Humans may be able to mutate into supermen in the near future,” said Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University who led the project.

The 15-kilogram (33-pound) battery-powered suit, code-named HAL-5, detects muscle movements through electrical-signal flows on the skin surface and then amplifies them.

It can also move on its own accord, enabling it to help elderly or handicapped people walk, developers said.

Source