Microsoft starts pushing Windows 7 SP1 to all

Hits Windows Update; other options, including install DVD, also available

As promised, Microsoft today started offering Windows 7 Service Pack 1 on Windows Update.

Earlier this month, Microsoft set Feb. 22 as the Windows Update launch date for SP1.

"Starting today, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will be available to everyone via the Microsoft Download Center and [will] start rolling out via Windows Update," said Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc in a Tuesday post to the Windows blog.

When delivered via Windows Update, Windows 7 SP1 weighs in at approximately 750MB for the 32-bit version, just over 1GB for the 64-bit edition.

A much larger version is available on Microsoft's download site for users needing to upgrade multiple machines.

Customers in the U.S. and Canada can also order a Windows 7 SP1 installation DVD from Microsoft; the DVD is free, but shipping costs $5.99.

Microsoft announced Windows 7 SP1 almost a year ago, delivered a public beta of it in July 2010 and then followed that with a "release candidate" build last October.

Microsoft has said several times -- and repeated today -- that Windows 7 SP1 does not include new features but instead is a collection of security patches and nonsecurity fixes that have already been issued via Windows Update.

The only additions to SP1 include an updated Remote Desktop client designed to work with RemoteFX, a new technology that debuted with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, which has also shipped. RemoteFX is designed to improve the graphics performance of Windows 7 virtual machines hosted on Server 2008 R2 SP1 systems. Windows 7 SP1 also supports "Dynamic Memory," a feature in Server 2008 R2 SP1 that lets IT staffers adjust guest virtual machines' memory on the fly.

Windows 7 SP1 can be uninstalled by selecting the "Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB 976932)" item using the operating system's control panel and uninstall tool.

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Your Smartphone: The Next Big Security Headache

2011 is the year that mobile security is going mainstream. Here at 2011 RSA Conference in San Francisco many of the security software companies have either released--or are planning to release a mobile security app of some sort.

And while smartphones aren't a major malware target yet, there are reasons to be concerned about the future of mobile security.
One of Android strengths is its openness. Just about anyone can write an app and distribute it without having to go through a sometimes lengthy review process. But as is the case on the PC, this sort of openness makes it possible for malware writers to infiltrate the smartphone. Security companies seem to think Android is the next big malware target, thanks to this openness, and the fact that it runs on so many devices.
Some of the vendors I spoke to also seemed concerned that the paranoia that users often carry when it comes to downloading and installing software on a PC might not carry over to when they use smartphones, even though the threats are there.
Mobile malware is already a problem in parts of the world. This past week, mobile security software company Lookout Mobile found a Trojan circulating via re-packaged versions of Android apps and being distributed on alternative app markets in China.
Raimund Genes, the Chief Technology Officer for Trend Micro, notes that mobile malware authors are creating their own app stores to distribute malware in China. He predicts that we in the United States see more proofs-of-concept mobile malware this year, and that it'll become a serious problem in 2012.
Smartphones carry additional information that you may not keep on your PC, like your contacts' phone numbers, photos you've taken with your smartphone, and so on. And, unlike a PC, a smartphone can be easily lost: You likely will remember to take your laptop with you if you get up and leave the Starbucks you're browsing the Web at, but it's much easier to leave behind a smartphone.
In fact, Patrick Kennedy, the Senior Director of Product Marketing with Webroot, sees this as the bigger threat toward smartphones right now. And not surprisingly, many of the smartphone security apps we've seen so far put a big emphasis on securing your personal data if your smartphone gets lost or stolen.
Smartphone malware is in its infancy, and it's hard to say what will happen next, but all indications point toward some serious problems in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, keep your guard up, stay vigilant, and think before you install that next app.

The search for Earth's missing carbon

Deep beneath the surface of the Earth, a vast and unseen community of strange, microscopic lifeforms quietly subsists on the heat rising from our planet's interior.
In its total mass, this life might rival all that walks, crawls, stands, swims and soars above it, but scientists don't know for sure. Life has already been found in the deepest layer of Earth's crust, nearly one mile down, but scientists expect to find life thriving even deeper. Studying mysteries like this one is a task for the Deep Carbon Observatory, a new project that will search out not just life but everything carbon-related that lies beneath our feet.
“Twenty years ago, the idea that there was a deep underground biosphere would have been laughed at,” said Robert Hazen, a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and leader of the Deep Carbon Observatory. “But we now know there is, because anywhere you drill you find life.” He spoke about the project on February 20 during the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, D.C.
Now in the first year of its planned decade-long existence, the Deep Carbon Observatory aims to reshape our fundamental understanding of carbon's role in the biology, chemistry, and physics of Earth's interior. Unlike typical astronomical observatories, which consist of a single instrument at a fixed location, the Deep Carbon Observatory will be a distributed operation, requiring a wide variety of instruments installed at locations around the world.
“We really don't know to a factor of 20-30 how much carbon there is in our planet,” Hazen said.
Carbon is among the most important chemical elements to humans. It forms the basis of life as we know it, is the central ingredient in many energy sources and plays a key part in our climate. In a planetary-scale machine called the carbon cycle, the element circulates among the oceans and atmosphere, into and out of the Earth's crust, and through living creatures that take it up, chemically process it, and redeposit it back into the planet. But even this immense cycle is thought to contain only a small part of total amount of carbon in our planet, with the rest locked deep beneath the surface.

“When you step back and ask fundamental questions about carbon in the Earth,” said Russell Hemley, also of the Geophysical Laboratory and co-leader of the program, “you realize there is a great deal that we do not know about this important element.”
Scientists believe that the subterranean microbes, some of them isolated from Earth's surface since before the dawn of humanity, crucially influence the engines that drive our planet's interior. The microbes process carbon relatively quickly, making them an important step in the carbon cycle. But the team behind the Deep Carbon Observatory says the project could also answer questions about many other issues.
The observatory is being funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has previously supported similarly large and ambitious science projects. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, for example, has investigated the mysterious, universe-filling dark matter and dark energy, which are thought to be responsible for invisible effects of gravity and the cause of the increasing rate of expansion of the universe, respectively. The Census of Marine Life recently completed a survey of the abundance, diversity, and distribution of ocean life. Together, these programs cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Still in its infancy, the Deep Carbon Observatory has yet to make any big discoveries. Efforts so far have mostly focused on galvanizing interest and participation by governments, industry, and geoscientists across the globe.
Some of the instruments envisioned for the observatory don't even exist yet. One device the scientific team hopes to develop is a small detector that can be placed on an active volcano to measure the amount of carbon it releases. Other instruments will extract data from existing resources, like the world's deepest drillshafts and mines.
“We want to see if we can get microbiologists on site at every deep drilling site in the world so we can collect samples before they can be contaminated,” Hazen said. “We're learning fascinating things about a biosphere that lives in very different conditions than we're familiar with.”
The goal of the project is to answer basic science questions, but industry already has its eyes on the research. In the past year, two of the world's largest natural gas reserves have been discovered off the coasts of Israel and Brazil. Hazen says his team has plans to study these methane reservoirs to see if the gas has its origins in biological processes underground, or high-pressure chemical reactions occurring at great depths. Last summer, scientists from the Shell Oil Company, which is a participant in the project, hosted a Deep Carbon Observatory workshop aimed at identify research directions.
“Science is not cataloging all the things we know, it's exploring the things we don't,” said Hazen. He suggested that discoveries by the Deep Carbon Observatory could lead to Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics ten years from now. “We want to find the carbon equivalent of dark energy,” Hazen said.
Provided by Inside Science News Service (news : web)

Putting your brain in the drivers seat (w/ Video)

Picture driving your car without ever touching the wheel, driving a vehicle that is so user responsive to you that it is literally jacked into your thoughts. It sounds like the technology of the future, something out of a sci-fi movie doesn't it? Well, as it turns out, the future is now.
A team of German researchers, led by Raul Rojas, an AI professor at the Freie University Berlin, have created a car that can be driven entirely by human thoughts. The car, which has been given the name BrainDriver, was shown off to the world in a video that highlighted the thought-powered driving system on a trip to the airport.
The BrainDriver records brain activity with the help of an Emotiv neuroheadset, a non-invasive brain interface based on electroencephalography sensors, that was made by the San Francisco-based company Emotiv. The neuroheadset was originally designed for gaming. Like most new devices the human has to be trained in order to use the interface properly. After some practice runs, moving a virtual object, the user can be up and driving a modified Volkswagen Passat Variant 3c. The driver's thoughts are able to control the engine, brakes, and steering of the car. Currently, there is a small delay between the drivers thoughts and the cars response.
No word yet on how detailed controls will be for other necessary functions, for example opening the gas cap to fill up. The researchers selected the headset after rejecting several other options, including the iPad and eye-tracking devices.
The car is currently only in the prototype phase and no decision has been made as to whether or not this car will ever be made available to the public when it becomes roadworthy.
More information: http://autonomos-labs.com/

Plankton key to origin of Earth's first breathable atmosphere

Researchers studying the origin of Earth's first breathable atmosphere have zeroed in on the major role played by some very unassuming creatures: plankton.
In a paper to appear in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Ohio State University researcher Matthew Saltzman and his colleagues show how plankton provided a critical link between the atmosphere and chemical isotopes stored in rocks 500 million years ago.
This work builds on the team's earlier discovery that upheavals in the earth's crust initiated a kind of reverse-greenhouse effect 500 million years ago that cooled the world's oceans, spawned giant plankton blooms, and sent a burst of oxygen into the atmosphere.
The new study has revealed details as to how oxygen came to vanish from Earth's ancient atmosphere during the Cambrian Period, only to return at higher levels than ever before.
It also hints at how, after mass extinctions, the returning oxygen allowed enormous amounts of new life to flourish.
Saltzman and his team were able to quantify how much oxygen was released into the atmosphere at the time, and directly link the amount of sulfur in the ancient oceans with atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide.
The result is a clearer picture of life on Earth in a time of extreme turmoil.
"We know that oxygen levels in the ocean dropped dramatically [a condition called anoxia] during the Cambrian, and that coincides with the time of a global extinction," said Saltzman, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State.
In a paper in the journal Nature just last month, the same researchers presented the first geochemical evidence that the anoxia spread even to the world's shallow waters.

"We still don't know why the anoxia spread all over the world. We may never know," Saltzman said. "But there have been many other extinction events in Earth's history, and with the exception of those caused by meteor impacts, others likely share elements of this one – changes in the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans."
"By getting a handle on what was happening back then, we may improve our understanding of what's happening to the atmosphere now."
Something enabled oxygen to re-enter the oceans and the atmosphere 500 million years ago, and the study suggests that the tiny plant and animal life forms known as plankton were key.
Plankton may be at the bottom of our food chain today, but back then, they ruled the planet. There was no life on land at all. And aside from an abundance of trilobites, life in the oceans was not very diverse.
Not diverse, that is, until a geologic event that scientists call the Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion (SPICE) occurred. In previous work, Saltzman and his collaborators showed that the SPICE event was caused by the burial of huge quantities of organic matter in ocean sediments, which pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and released oxygen.
The more oxygen plankton encounter in their cells, the more selective they become for the light isotope of carbon in carbon dioxide, and absorb it into their bodies.
By studying isotopes in fossilized plankton contained in rocks found in the central United States, the Australian outback, and China, the researchers determined that the SPICE event happened around the same time as an explosion of plankton diversity known as the "plankton revolution."
"The amount of oxygen rebounded, and so did the diversity of life," Saltzman explained.
Other researchers have tried to gauge how much oxygen was in the air during the Cambrian, but their estimates have varied widely, from a few percent to as much as 15-20 percent.
If the higher estimates were correct, then the SPICE event would have boosted oxygen content to greater than 30 percent – or almost 50 percent richer than today's standard of 21 percent.
This study has provided a new perspective on the matter.
"We were able to bring together independent lines of evidence that showed that if the total oxygen content was around 5-10 percent before the SPICE, then it rose to just above modern levels for the first time after the SPICE," Saltzman said.
The study has some relevance to modern geoengineering. Scientists have begun to investigate what we can do to forestall climate change, and altering the chemistry of the oceans could help remove carbon dioxide and restore balance to the atmosphere. The ancient and humble plankton would be a necessary part of that equation, he added.
"When it comes to ancient life, they don't sound as exciting as dinosaurs, but the plankton are critical to this story."
Provided by The Ohio State University (news : web)

Mobile Heavyweights Seek to Finalize 1Gbps Mobile Standard

The world's top handset makers are meeting this week to finalize a version of an advanced mobile communication standard that would raise data transfer speeds to 1Gbps, an event organizer said on Monday.
About 800 people, from companies such as HTC, Nokia and Samsung Electronics, will agree on final terms for the Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-Advanced) standard at a meeting of the 3GPP standards body in Taipei this week.
With speeds up to 1Gbps, the technology will be ideal for people who download audio-visual files onto their handhelds, said Feng Wen-sheng, wireless communications director with a lab under the event sponsor, Taiwan's government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute.
LTE-Advanced will also give machines another way to communicate with one another, for example allowing them to connect sensors detecting changes in air temperature that could signal a fire or a burglary and then passing messages to emergency personnel such as search and rescue teams, Feng said.
This type of data transfer is expected to help especially with earthquake relief.
"Mobile voice technology is pretty advanced already, so this time it's all about data transfers," Feng said. "We've been trying to get LTE-Advanced out there for some time, and in Taipei we expect to confirm a final version."
The International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, has adopted LTE-Advanced and WiMax-derived WirelessMAN-Advanced standards for its IMT-Advanced program to define future mobile networks. It says both are substantial improvements over current wireless systems.
After Friday, the LTE Advanced standard will be ready for manufacturers to design smartphones and network equipment, Feng said, as participants at this week's conference discuss patents and cross-license deals relating to the technology.