State and local officials differ with feds on swine flu vaccine availability

Two state and city public health officials briefing Congress on Wednesday say they don't expect to have enough pandemic flu vaccine to meet the needs of their high-priority population groups until well into December, and possibly not until January.

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04.11.2009. 23:48h

Fall sports include surfing, biking, hiking, rock climbing

With vivid colors on the trees and cooling temperatures, fall is a spectacular season for being active outdoors. "No one should feel intimidated by the changing weather," says Barbara Klieforth, president of the board of directors of the Washington Area...

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04.11.2009. 23:42h

Upcoming Washington area running events

MONTGOMERY CHILD CARE ASSOCIATION 5K RACE AND WACKY FUN RUN The 5K is a challenging rolling-hills loop in Lake Needwood Park. For the Wacky Fun Run, participants are invited to wear costumes or decorate a stroller. There is also a half-mile run for children...

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04.11.2009. 23:42h

Bachman, Turner being sued by rest of Overdrive

Randy Bachman and Fred Turner fronted one of the hottest rock bands of the 1970s, selling millions of albums under the name Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

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04.11.2009. 23:40h

Risks of daily aspirin may outweigh the benefits

Taking a low-dose aspirin every day can help prevent heart attacks in people who've already had one. But if you've never had a heart attack (or stroke), the risks of taking a daily low-dose aspirin outweigh the benefits, according to a U.K. report published...

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04.11.2009. 23:38h

Review: Motorola's Droid is a serious smart phone

SAN FRANCISCO -- Since its debut in 2007, millions of people have gravitated toward Apple's iPhone, wooed by its sleek hardware, simple user interface and abundance of applications.

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04.11.2009. 23:28h

Laserpowered space lift fails to work

A laserpowered robot failed to complete its climb up a long cable dangling from a helicopter on Wednesday in a 2 million ?1.2 million attempt to test the reallife potential of the science fiction concept of lifts in space.

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04.11.2009. 23:12h

SnapNames: Former exec. bid up domain prices

SnapNames , the largest reseller of Web site names, Wednesday alleged that a former top executive secretly bid on tens of thousands of domain name auctions over the past four years, driving up costs for other bidders and enriching himself in the process....

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04.11.2009. 23:11h

Diabetes drug Byetta tied to kidney problems, says FDA

People with type 2 diabetes who are taking the blood-sugar-lowering drug Byetta may be at increased risk for kidney problems, including kidney failure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported this week.

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04.11.2009. 23:08h

Pay extra or sit near the toilet

AIRLINE passengers could be forced to sit near the toilet if they don't pay for a premium seat when they book their ticket.

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04.11.2009. 23:06h

Pay extra or sit near the toilet

AIRLINE passengers could be forced to sit near the toilet if they don't pay for a premium seat when they book their ticket.

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04.11.2009. 23:06h

Liquid Granite and the hunt for a carbon-neutral cement

The cement industry is responsible for 5% of the world's carbon emissions – more than the entire aviation industry. Standard, or Portland, cement is made by heating limestone or clay to around 1,500C. This use of energy and the decomposition of the limestone as it cooks releases copious amounts of CO2. As the carbon reduction targets from global climate agreements begin to bite, sorting out cement will become a priority. Engineers have been working hard on the problem in recent years, with a range of approaches to cutting the environmental impact of the construction industry: some have tried synthetic polymers that would remove the need for limestone; others have fiddled with how cement is used in buildings. The latest on the block is Liquid Granite, a binding material that, according to its inventor, could almost entirely replace cement with a powder made from recycled waste materials. Liquid Granite replaces the need for more than two-thirds of this Portland cement when making concrete, thereby saving the associated carbon emissions. "One of the biggest culprits of carbon footprint is cement, which we use in making concrete – Liquid Granite does away with most of the use of cement. The amount used is pretty small," says Prof Pal Mangat of Sheffield Hallam University, who came up with the product. "Potentially, by the time we're finished with this developmental technology, it'll be close to zero." Mangat is cagey about the exact formulation of Liquid Granite, and with good reason: by 2020, the French bank Credit Agricole estimates, demand for cement will be 50% greater than today, and a new carbon-free building material could reap huge rewards. All that Mangat will say is that Liquid Granite is made from an inorganic powder, 30-70% of which is recycled industrial waste materials. Using the same aggregates as normal concrete, it could be used anywhere cement is but with a fraction of the carbon footprint. "In some applications it's more suitable than concrete. For example, one of the main areas we are currently exploiting it is fire-resistant building materials," he says. "It has good fire-resistant properties, unlike concrete, which explodes upon exposure to high temperatures." There has already been interest from the building industry, with Liquid Granite has already been used in fire-rated lintels at the Olympic Village and Stratford Shopping Centre in east London. Others are hot on Mangat's heels. Novacem, based in London, last year created a cement that has a negative carbon footprint over its lifetime. His invention uses magnesium silicates, which emit no CO2 when heated, and the processing is carried out at a much lower temperature than that required for Portland cement. In addition, the cement absorbs CO2 as it hardens – each tonne could remove around 0.6 tonnes of the greenhouse gas over its lifetime. Transforming a global industry as established as construction was never going to be simple. But tackling the problem of cement seems a good place to start. Energy Carbon emissions Carbon footprints Alok Jha guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Cement is responsible for 5% of the world's carbon emissions, and the race is on to find an alternative What do you do with a problem like cement? Around 2bn tonnes are used every year, each tonne a source of 0.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide as it is made....

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04.11.2009. 23:00h

WTO 'could challenge internet censorship'

INTERNET censorship is open to challenge at the World Trade Organization if it restricts online trade, study says.

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04.11.2009. 22:55h

Cisco’s Results Offer More Hope to Tech Industry

The computer networking giant supplied more evidence that tech sales are picking up as the global economy begins to recover.

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04.11.2009. 22:50h

State of the Art: Call It an ‘App Phone’ (A What?)

Motorola offers the Droid, a mobile device that defies categories. It’s not exactly a smartphone, not exactly an iPhone. It’s...

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04.11.2009. 22:48h

Business e-banking and the 6-figure password

On Monday, Security Fix featured the story of Ronnie Cutshall , a Tennessee man who was caught up in an international money laundering scam after being recruited through a work-at-home job offer. That story mentioned that Cutshall received a $9,600 transfer...

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04.11.2009. 22:41h

X-ray named top scientific achievement

THE X-ray has beat computers and DNA to be named the most important modern scientific achievement in a museum poll.

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04.11.2009. 22:30h

Advice: Tips for holidaying in the US

HANDY hints about how to make the most of your next trip to the United States.

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04.11.2009. 22:30h

Tips for holidaying in the US

HANDY hints about how to make the most of your next trip to the United States.

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04.11.2009. 22:30h

Tips for holidaying in the US

HANDY hints about how to make the most of your next trip to the United States.

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04.11.2009. 22:30h

Advice: Tips for holidaying in the US

HANDY hints about how to make the most of your next trip to the United States.

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04.11.2009. 22:30h

Who will win the mobile wars?

revolution is still in its infancy. One was a touchscreen on which you can use a real brush to paint (with digitised colours). On larger devices – such as Apple's rumoured iTablet – it could change art in the way iTunes changed music. Another using "augmented reality" enables you to look at your screen to see who is sending messages through Twitter nearby or the whereabouts of friends, restaurants or goodness knows what. Apple is a runaway success, with more than 100,000 apps (though it only accounts for 1% of the total apps and games market). But the world is changing and Apple could be caught in a pincer movement. Coming from one side are mobile operators who, as Strand Consult has noted, aren't making money from iPhone sales because of Apple's stringent bargaining – and on the other side are disillusioned developers. Half of studios don't come back with a second app. Others complain about what Lee Williams, executive director of Symbian, calls the 30% tax on developers that Apple levies on sales. This is rough justice, as it was Apple that released backroom programmers from the far more restrictive walled gardens of the operators. That's life. Apple will now face competition from apps based on open source software from Google's Android platform and Symbian. In theory, Nokia, with 35% of the global market, and with strength in areas such as India and China that Apple hasn't yet cracked, should be dominant. But it has been slow to unify its empire and developers have to make different versions for varying screen sizes and models. Symbian says that in future developers will just make one app and Symbian will make adjustments automatically. That sounds good but developers say it hasn't happened yet and complain that for two months the search engine of Nokia's flagship Ovi store wasn't working. Enter Google, with a boulder to throw into the mobile pool. Its open source Android operating system is now appearing on new touchscreen phones. It is attractive to operators, who won't get taken to the cleaners as they have been by Apple, and to developers for whom open source offers great creative opportunities. But its killer app may be location. If you see a strange car in your street it may be part of Google's fleet touring the world "turn-by-turn" – a mapping service that can actually be charged for. But for how much longer? In 2007, Nokia paid what now seems like an astronomical $8.1bn for NavTeq, one of the duopoly that controlled turn-by-turn navigation (the other, Tele Atlas, went to TomTom for $2.7bn). But now Google could offer this service, not only for free, but as Bill Gurley points out, by including Google's contextual advertising service, possibly on a "Don't pay us, we'll pay you, basis". It is to Google's credit that it is setting up its own service rather than buying an existing one as this will increase competition and bring prices down with a vengeance (though it will also raise fresh worries about Google's extending tentacles). Who will win? The smart money is on Google in the long term, but this depends on whether location-based services turn up trumps. One difficulty rarely mentioned is not just the flakiness of GPS in towns but the difficulty of reading a mobile screen on the move, especially in strong daylight. Nokia is like a rabbit caught in headlights at the moment but it still has the most advanced phones and has proved it can make a comeback. And Apple? No one has yet reproduced the simple beauty and the beautiful simplicity of the iPhone. It may become less popular with early adopters but is a stunning piece of design for which people are still prepared to pay a premium. It will be difficult – but not impossible – to dislodge. twitter.com/vickeegan Mobile phones Apple Nokia Google Internet Victor Keegan guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Apple's iPhone is still stunning; Nokia is most advanced. Google may yet make its mark with locational-based services At a recent event run by the Symbian Foundation, which makes most operating systems for mobiles, I saw some demos that reminded me the...

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04.11.2009. 22:00h

Drug Lord Pablo Escobar's Home Now a Theme Park

50,000 tourists a year come to see where "El Patron" lived

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04.11.2009. 21:54h

Next Stop: Alto Alentejo, Unsung but Not for Long

Carpeted with cork oaks, whitwashed villages and olive trees, this region in southeastern Portugal is emerging as a stylish backwater for the international set.

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04.11.2009. 21:52h

Men's messiness irks female travellers

MEN are 10 per cent more likely to book a romantic holiday than their partners, but women struggle to deal with their messiness.

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04.11.2009. 21:48h

Men's messiness irks female travellers

MEN are 10 per cent more likely to book a romantic holiday than their partners, but women can't stand their messiness.

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04.11.2009. 21:48h

Australia to outpace world in air traffic growth

AIRCRAFT manufacturer Airbus says Australia and New Zealand are expected to outpace the rest of the developed world in terms of passenger growth.

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04.11.2009. 21:40h

Australia to outpace world in air traffic growth

AIRCRAFT manufacturer Airbus says Australia and New Zealand are expected to outpace the rest of the developed world in terms of passenger growth.

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04.11.2009. 21:40h

Technology Squeezes Jobs at Indian Outsourcers, Too

The chief executive of Infosys, a leading Indian outsourcing firm, says that technology is making his employees more efficient -- which ends up costing some of them their jobs.

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04.11.2009. 21:35h

Microsoft cuts 800 more jobs

Microsoft has been battered by weak worldwide demand for personal computers and is hoping to get a boost from the release of Windows 7.

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04.11.2009. 21:34h

Newlyweds win compensation for wedding cake made of polystyrene

A newlywed couple have won ?310 compensation from a company which provided them with a wedding cake made of polystyrene.

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04.11.2009. 21:19h

Best travel trick shots

FROM a levitating street performer to a shy monkey ? can you beat these travel pics?

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04.11.2009. 21:06h

Cat catches swine flu

Does the swine flu pandemic pose a threat to your pet? Yes, according to a report out today from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

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04.11.2009. 21:04h

Petition claims Paris nightlife is dying

from the Moulin Rouge dancers to the Champs Elysées clubbers, Paris has never been one for an early night. That is, until now. According to an array of singers, DJs, musicians and venue owners, the French capital is fast becoming a nocturnal dead-zone in which the after-hours cultural scene is being extinguished by overzealous legislation. A petition launched last month by a collective representing the electro music industry said "urgent" steps needed to be taken to prevent Paris's music scene from "being relegated from the City of Light to the … European capital of sleep". The appeal, which organisers hope to submit to the ministry of culture and the city hall by the end of this month, has been signed by more than 9,500 people. Comments on a complementary Facebook page denounced Paris as "the city of the dead". "[Parisian nightlife] is on the decline in a very obvious way," said Eric Labbé, one of the petition's authors. "There seem to be more and more nights being cancelled, more sound limits being set at a very low level, and more closures." Owners of nightclubs, concert halls and bars claim that boboisation – gentrification – of traditional party neighbourhoods has led to a gradual asphyxiation of nightlife. Residents moving into areas such as the Marais, the city's gay quarter, Bastille, a student hub, and Belleville, a working-class district in the east, are unwilling to put up with the noise, they say. "Over the last 10 years Parisian music venues ... have taken a heavy blow due to Parisians' growing desire for ever more tranquillity," claims the petition, blaming the city's "extreme centralisation" for bringing together recreational and residential areas. A row about noise pollution led to the six-month closure this year of one of the capital's favourite indie music venues, La Fl?che d'Or. And, while it is preparing to reopen this month, the fate of another flagship of Parisian nightlife, La Locomotive, is uncertain. The Pigalle venue, which played host to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and later became a trendy discotheque with DJs such as Laurent Garnier, is bankrupt and seeking a buyer. Labbé said this trend of closures, lost licences and heavy fines had "accelerated" since the implementation of the smoking ban in January 2008. Since then, he said, owners had been penalised for the noise made by customers puffing outside. While he insisted he was not against the ban, he called for legislation to be altered to ease owners' predicament. As well as changes to the law, the petition by Technopol, an electro music association, Plaqué Or, a club night organiser, and My Electro Kitchen, a record store, demands that public funding be given for high-impact soundproofing. Policymakers, it says, must wake up to "the importance of nightlife – both culturally and economically – to the very being of a capital like Paris". If they don't, it warns, the capital will face a brain drain of creative talent. Many French musicians and DJs have already fled to more artistically friendly cities such as London, where costs are lower and legislation less restrictive. "I haven't worked in Paris for years. And the artists from my label are leaving to go and live in Berlin or other European cultural capitals," Dan Ghenacia, a Berlin-based French DJ, told cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles. In the meantime, Paris city hall said it was planning to launch a website aimed at introducing tourists to some of the city's best nightspots. Paris France Cultural trips Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Musicians and venues say regulation is strangling the French capital's cultural scene It is the city whose hedonistic nights were once the stuff of legend, where the drinks flowed freely and the music never stopped. From Jane Birkin to Josephine Baker,...

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04.11.2009. 21:02h

How to avoid hidden travel traps

WE reveal some of the most common and costly hidden travel fees, and show you how to avoid them.

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04.11.2009. 21:00h

How to avoid hidden travel traps

WE reveal some of the most common and costly hidden travel fees, and show you how to avoid them.

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04.11.2009. 21:00h

How to avoid hidden travel traps

WE reveal some of the most common and costly hidden travel fees, and show you how to avoid them.

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04.11.2009. 21:00h

PlayPower: 1980s computing for the 21st century | Bobbie Johnson

across a unexpected find while browsing a Bangalore market stall. Perusing the vast spread of goods, he was drawn to an array of strangely familiar computers. The boxes were emblazoned with slogans such as "EDUCATION COMPUTER" and "LEARN COMPUTERS THE FUN WAY", and generally contained a mouse, a couple of joysticks and a combined computer-keyboard that featured a built-in slot for game cartridges. On closer inspection he discovered that the machines were, in fact, modelled on the early generations of 8-bit computers – pioneering home PCs such as the Apple II, BBC Micro and Nintendo Entertainment System. For somebody brought up on these early machines, the find was a revelation … but the biggest surprise was the price: the entire set came in for $12 (around ?7.50). Excited by the possibility of an extremely low-cost computer that was being bought across countries including India, China and Brazil, Lomas returned to the US and joined up with his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, to start playpower.org – an effort to jump on the bandwagon and provide software that can turn one of these machines from a simple entertainment device into something more useful. Get with the programme In the same way that millions of programmers were forged through early experiments with the BBC Micro or Commodore 64, PlayPower wants to see the same thing take place elsewhere. "Even some basic computer skills such as touch-typing can be economically transformative – making the difference between making a dollar a day as an urban labourer, or a dollar an hour as a back-office worker," says Lomas, who is now a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. "So what we're trying to do is to obtain some of this 'abandonware' – 8-bit software that was produced in the 80s for education in England and America – and import it to this existing $12 dollar computer." It may seem crazy or even illegal that such machines can be sold so cheaply, but the situation has come about because the underlying patents have expired. With the chip designs in effect in the public domain, and western companies finding little use for them, manufacturers in China are able to copy, produce and sell these proto-PCs at very low cost. The result is that thousands (or even millions) of children worldwide are using these computers – and although it is 25-year-old technology that pales in comparison to today's powerful PCs, that is a substantial new market for anybody. Lomas says that the manufacturers cannot afford to make their own games – but they are eager to include any software that helps them sell more units. "They recognise that having an educational impact is important for selling their product, but that's about as far as their engagement goes," he says. "They don't have the margins to invest in research and development of effective learning games, but they are interested in them." "When we contacted some of these manufacturers, one question we had was whether we had any content in Arabic because they're getting a lot of Middle Eastern buyers. So we might be able to provide them with some learning games for the different regions they sell to." PlayPower has formed a substantial open source community of hackers, coders and enthusiasts who want to help, and is looking to resurrect some of the popular 80s software left behind by its developers. It's also looking to build new software platforms that will help build in their own language, for local users. But bringing educational computing to the developing world is not a new idea – and it has not always been entirely successful in the past. Most notably, the One Laptop per Child scheme – the so-called "$100 laptop" – has found it tough to deliver its pioneering machines to its target audience. Recently, the project made a group to provide computers for every student in Uruguay, but after years of deal-making and political machinations, it is still only making relatively slow progress. In fact, despite opposing viewpoints on the best way to achieve similar goals, he doesn't think that OLPC and PlayPower are competing. Instead of reinventing the wheel, says Lomas, he is simply trying to use the self-interest of existing manufacturers to achieve wider benefits. "I don't think that there's much tension," he suggests. "The heart of what we're doing is content. We're not trying to develop new hardware, new systems, new distribution channels; we're trying to make use of existing manufacturing and existing distribution networks and we're just trying to acquire and develop good content." Play goes Pop! PlayPower's proposals have been put to a number of conferences and organisations – including last week at the annual Pop!Tech conference in the US, where several hundred luminaries across science, technology and the arts gathered to hear new ideas. The result has been a blossoming of the community, and excitement about the possibilities. Still, isn't there something problematic (or even patronising) about giving children hand-me-downs that are a quarter of a century old – especially as technology has moved so fast? Many countries want to use technology to leapfrog the development process – and it's arguable that teaching computer skills on 8-bit machines simply builds a new generation of employees for voracious multinationals, rather than a wave of home-grown entrepreneurs. "It's a very legitimate argument," says Lomas, with a little sigh. "We're not forcing people to buy these machines – they're already buying them." A little market intervention on the side of education never did anyone any harm, he suggests – and as well as potentially providing the difference between a good job and subsistence, PlayPower also realises the difference between learning to use computers in general and learning to use very specific technologies. That is why the project is not limiting itself to this current generation of 8-bit computers, but also looking to the future generations of very low-cost PCs and mobiles that will become available as those systems also fall into the public domain. "Tools become obsolete in a way that content doesn't," he says. "Mario Bros is not obsolete because there's a new version – you play the first one and it's still really fun. "That's the incredible thing about this cultural exchange that's taking place: the kids in the slums of Dharavi in Bombay all know about Mario because it's one of the few pieces of digital culture that they're able to afford. And we can look at that and say: 'It's piracy'. We can look at that and say: 'Oh, they're so far behind'. Or we can look at that and smile, and be happy that these pieces of our culture that we've discarded – by and large – still have so much value. "Even for our children, I'd imagine, we'd be pretty happy if our kids were playing some of the 8-bit games we grew up with." Computing Programming One Laptop Per Child Children Bobbie Johnson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

8-bit computers shaped the west – now one firm is taking the same spirit of exploration to children in India and China It is nearly two years since Derek Lomas, then a graduate student on an internship with the communications giant Qualcomm, stumbled...

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04.11.2009. 21:00h

Why can't we close the digital divide?

Britons online by 2012. However, it seems that heads still need to be banged together: last Friday, five UK Online centres set up by a member of Lane Fox's own digital inclusion task force went into liquidation, because funds are not available on the ground to meet the government's high-level aspirations. Catherine Marshall, then a single mother, set up The Lighthouse Project(not to be confused with the similarly named substance abuse help scheme) in the West Midlands in 1997. The idea was to provide a "safe and welcoming place where people could meet and find the support they needed". The project set up five centres, offering people from socially excluded communities free IT-based courses ranging from "First time Online" to a 10-week family history course. They also helped attendees gain literacy and numeracy qualifications online. Research published last year showed that such schemes can help people rebuild their lives. "Participants were more likely to feel confident, and 40% had progressed into further training, employment, information, advice and guidance," it noted. In the words of one Lighthouse graduate: "I was in a right state – some days I was waking up in the afternoon and I'd get straight on the booze. At my lowest, I got into the habit of cutting myself too – I'm not proud of that. I was in a hole, and I needed shaking out of it." Lane Fox visited Lighthouse in August and says it did "a fantastic job". This year, Marshall became the grassroots organisations representative on Lane Fox's Digital Inclusion Task Force, which aims to get the hardest-to-reach Britons online by 2012. Nearly everyone thinks efforts such as The Lighthouse Project are the way to do it. The trouble is, they rely on funding from local authorities and other agencies. Marshall says the crunch came in July when ?78,000 of expected local authority funding was diverted to the government's "worklessness" programme. "It set off a slow domino effect, which we weren't able to avoid." Despite repeated efforts to raise funds through other sources, Lighthouse's 45 staff were made redundant last Friday. Marshall says that closing down the centres will cost the public purse more in redundancy payments and benefits than the money saved: "It makes no sense at all." With the help of volunteers, she plans to refer Lighthouse's 2,000 clients to other support schemes and use her role on the task force to raise awareness charities' work in promoting digital inclusion. Lane Fox calls the closure "a disaster". Internet Martha Lane Fox Digital Britain Michael Cross guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Because it is failing to match high-level policy with funding where it's needed. Martha Lane Fox's appointment as the government's digital inclusion champion was supposed to usher in a new era of coordinated effort to get 6 million "digitally excluded"...

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04.11.2009. 21:00h

Mobile helps find right price for farmers produce

About 3,000 farmers and 200 scientists are already using this facility now

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Tackling squirrel menace

Is there any simple method which can control squirrel menace in my guava orchard? P. Meenakshi Tamil Nadu Squirrel and bird menace is a big problem in fruit trees. You can try tying empty metal ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Measles: two-dose regimen a must

15 per cent of children will be susceptible even when they are immunised with a single dose

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Can geoengineering schemes fix climate change?

Whatever remedial measure that we undertake now will not affect the climate for the next 20-30 years but will influence the climate only after 2040. The most promising solutions that Prof J Srinivasan, Chairperson of the Divecha Centre for ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Remotely driving a car by iPhone with wifi link

An iPhone showing the interface to remotely drive the “Spirit of Berlin,” an autonomous car through a wifi link, at Templehof airport. The car is a project of Berlin’s Freie Universitaet. ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Snows of Kilimanjaro may vanish in 20 years

One of a growing number of isolated remnants of ice spires in the crater of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. The snows of Africa’s tallest peak are shrinking rapidly and could vanish altogether in 20 years, due to global warming. ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

New technology to improve street lighting

Researchers demonstrated in multiple field tests that, by using a unified system of photometry, a street lighting system can be designed to reduce energy use while maintaining or improving visibility and safety and security. ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Humans, monkeys have similar brain networks

Using “resting state” functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) it was found that human and monkey brains have highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution. Patterns of connectivity were ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Link between land use changes, surface heat

Most land-use changes occurring in the U.S. reduce vegetative cover and raise regional surface temperatures. But conversion of any land to agricultural use results in cooling, even land that was previously forested. ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

How corals synchronise release of eggs, sperm

A study into how corals synchronize their release of eggs and sperm shows that corals spawn when regional wind fields are light. When it is calm the eggs and sperm have the chance to unite before they are dispersed. ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

High fissile fuel in nuclear submarine lasts long

The protoype is serving as a training centre for the nuclear submarine crew

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Drug with dual benefits for heart

A study led by an Indian-origin researcher has found that a drug that raises levels of ‘good’ cholesterol can also help clear clogged arteries in heart patients who are already on standard statin therapy, Oxford University ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Africa may split

Volcanic activity may split the African continent in two owing to a recent geological crack in northeastern Ethiopia, researchers said.. The 60-kilometre split in the Afar region, which was the result of two volcanic eruptions in ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Control of mealy bugs in tamarind

Horticultural Research Station, Thadiyankudisai Perumparai, Dindigul District. Tamil Nadu

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Rocket propulsion

Rocket propulsion takes place due to a fundamental principle of physics which states that to every action of force there exists an equal and opposite reaction force. The reaction forces are helpful in almost all modes of movement. When a fish ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

This week’s questions

Why do we feel sticky when we press a finger on frozen ice in the freezer of a refrigerator? M. Thenmozhi, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu Why is it that most of the batteries show they can be recharged only a 1,000 times? K. ...

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04.11.2009. 20:57h

Major quakes could be aftershocks

Many earthquakes may be aftershocks of large quakes that occurred hundreds of years ago, say scientists.

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04.11.2009. 20:45h

Major quakes could be aftershocks

Many earthquakes may be aftershocks of large quakes that occurred hundreds of years ago, say scientists.

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04.11.2009. 20:45h

Security Fix Live

Security Fix blogger Brian Krebs answers your technology questions and offers ways to protect yourself from online security threats.

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04.11.2009. 20:41h

Apple's booming App Store tops 100,000 programs

More than two billion programs have been downloaded from the App Store since it was launched by California-based Apple.

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04.11.2009. 20:40h

Randy Bachman in court battle with brother over BTO

Canadian rocker Randy Bachman is involved in a court fight with his brother over the rights to their iconic 1970s rock group's name Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

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04.11.2009. 20:33h

Researchers link asthma risk to folic acid during pregnancy

have found. Mothers-to-be who take folic acid when they are between 30 and 34 weeks pregnant as a health measure may inadvertently prompt the breathing condition in their offspring, a new study says. The research, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, claims that its findings may help explain the huge global rise over the last 50 years in asthma, especially among children, which has puzzled experts and led to speculation over the causes of the increase. "We believe that this is the first published study in humans to demonstrate that increasing consumption of folic acid, and specifically supplemental folate during late pregnancy, significantly increases the risk of physician-diagnosed asthma in the child at 3.5 years, persistent asthma (at 3.5 and 5.5 years), and possibly asthma at 5.5 years," write the authors, led by associate professor Michael Davies of the Research Centre for the Early Origins of Health and Disease at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Davies and his team studied the effect of 557 Australian expectant mothers' folate consumption on their child's later development of asthma by examining their diet during pregnancy and how many of their children had asthma at 3.5 years and 5.5 years. However, while intake of folic acid supplements in later pregnancy was potentially problematic, intake of folate – the natural form of folic acid – through consumption of green leafy vegetables, certain nuts and fruits involved no risk, said Davies. Nor did folic acid intake in early pregnancy, he added. His research showed how changing diet patterns, and especially over-use of a supplement, could play a role in explaining childhood asthma, he added. The Department of Health recommends that women should take folic acid for a month before they conceive and during the first trimester of pregnancy, but not beyond, as a way of reducing the number of babies born with neural tube defects, notably spina bifida. While a third of mothers take it pre-pregnancy, some continue to take it throughout, either as a single supplement or as part of a range of vitamins. But Prof Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said he doubted the research was very important. "The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health strongly supports the use of folic acid in pregnancy. It will significantly reduce the number of children born with serious abnormalities of the brain or spine and the associated disabilities. These conditions have profound implications for the child and parents or carers," he said. "The study published this week suggesting a link between folic acid in pregnancy and subsequent increased risk of childhood asthma is not a randomised trial. It relied on a postal questionnaire with a 76% response rate. The increased risk, if there is any, is only just statistically significant. Asthma is treatable whereas spina bifida is a serious and lifelong condition." Leanne Metcalf, of Asthma UK, said: "The benefits of taking folic acid supplements in pregnancy, particularly with regards to prevention of birth defects like spina bifida, far outweigh the risk of developing asthma." That view was also supported by Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of Netmums, a social networking site for mothers which claims to have 2.4 million users. "It's better to have the folic acid and take my chances of asthma against the really serious risk of spina bifida that low folate intake in your diet can cause. The best thing is to take folic acid before you conceive, if you can, and for the first three months, and then get folate naturally from then on through eating things such as spinach," she said. The government is coming under pressure to introduce the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid as a way of reducing neural tube defects. The move is backed by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), its official advisers, and the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Medical research Asthma in adults Asthma in children Pregnancy Health Denis Campbell guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

• Study showed no hazard from leafy vegetables • UK experts emphasise benefits of supplements Babies born to women who have taken folic acid supplements during their pregnancy are up to 30% more likely than other children to develop asthma, researchers...

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04.11.2009. 20:24h

New show has chef Gordon Ramsay teaching rookies

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has signed a deal with Fox in which he'll train people with no experience in the food industry.

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04.11.2009. 20:19h

Flu death toll rises to 86 in Ukraine

KIEV, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's deadly flu outbreak widened,86 people have died from flu and respiratory infections, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

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04.11.2009. 20:19h

Second A/H1N1 flu fatality confirmed in Finland

HELSINKI, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- An eight-year-old girl died from A/H1N1 virus on Monday in Tornio, in northern Finland, Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health confirmed on Wednesday.

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04.11.2009. 20:19h

Frank Blakesley obituary

My father, Frank Blakesley, who has died aged 94, started submitting crosswords to the Guardian in 1968, and they were still appearing in the paper in 2006. Being "Janus" (named after the two-faced Roman god because he was always looking two ways at words)...

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04.11.2009. 20:08h

Asus UL30 notebook

Carphone Warehouse is now offering a version of the UL30 free with a USB dongle and 3GB of mobile broadband for ?40 a month on a two-year contract. Asus says the UL30A's 8-cell battery lasts "up to 12 hours" with Windows 7, depending on how you use it. Set its Power4Gear software to the Battery Saving plan, lower the brightness of the glossy 13.3in LED screen, turn off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios and you get more than 12 hours. Even using Wi-Fi, the power drains slowly, so I reckon you should get 10 hours. Frankly, I stopped looking. For someone who is used to carrying a laptop with spare battery and charging both after each day's use, it's liberating. The UL30 (from UnLimited) is one of this year's "thin and light" notebooks based on Intel's CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) chips. The first models included the Acer Timeline series and MSI's X340, and I tried an early UL30A that originally had Vista installed. Asus says there will be versions running 64-bit Windows 7 to exploit the 4GB of memory, and a UL50 with a 15.6in screen. The long battery life comes from the ultra-low-voltage 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo (SU7300) processor, which is much faster than an Atom chip, or a Core Solo (SU3500). On the Windows Experience Index, the baseline score is 3.9 for the Intel 4500MHD integrated graphics, but the processor (4.0), memory (4.8), gaming graphics (4.9) and hard drive (5.6) all rate higher. It easily runs HD videos on the 1366 x 768 widescreen. Other features include a multi-touch touchpad, webcam, card slot, Ethernet, HDMI and three USB ports. There are downward-facing twin Altec Lansing stereo speakers on the bottom. A brushed aluminium top helps protect the screen. The main drawback is the keyboard layout. The "isolated keyboard" (well-separated flat keys) feels good but has a column of extra keys to the right of the large backspace and Enter keys. I still keep hitting them by mistake. Also, at 1.7kg, the UL30A is on the heavy side for a thin PC with no built-in DVD. The big battery makes it heavier than an MSI X Slim X340 (1.33kg) or Acer Timeline 3810 (1.6kg), but you can get models with a 4-cell battery. The UL30 is nicely finished, feels robust, and performs well by ultraportable standards. If you can adapt to the keyboard layout, it's well worth considering. Pros: Above-average build quality and finish; very quiet; 4GB memory; far better performance than a netbook. Cons: Keyboard layout; downward-facing speakers can be muffled; no built-in SIM slot for mobile broadband. Computing Jack Schofield guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The Asus UL30 notebook is liberating and well worth considering if you can get over the keyboard layout The Asus UL30 notebook lasts longer than some of today's smartphones, and at a penny under ?600, there may not be much difference in the price. Indeed,...

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04.11.2009. 20:00h

Forests in the desert: the answer to climate change?

of tonnes of shiny sulphur dust. Now, scientists could have dreamed up the most ambitious geoengineering plan to deal with climate change yet: converting the parched Sahara desert to a lush forest. The scale of the ambition is matched only by the promised rewards – the scientists behind the plan say it could "end global warming". The scheme has been thought up by Leonard Ornstein, a cell biologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, together with Igor Aleinov and David Rind, climate modellers at Nasa. The trio have outlined their plan in a new paper published in the Journal of Climatic Change, and they modestly conclude it "probably provides the best, near-term route to complete control of greenhouse gas induced global warming". Under the scheme, planted fields of fast growing trees such as eucalyptus would cover the deserts of the Sahara and Australian outback, watered by seawater treated by a string of coastal desalination plants and channelled through a vast irrigation network. The new blanket of tree cover would bring its own weather system and rainfall, while soaking up carbon dioxide from the world's atmosphere. The team's calculations suggest the forested deserts could draw down around 8bn tonnes of carbon a year, about the same as emitted from fossil fuels and deforestation today. Sounds expensive? The researchers say it could be more economic than planned global investment in carbon capture and storage technology (CCS). "The costs are enormous but the scale of the problem is enormous," says Ornstein, who is best known for pioneering a cell biology technique called polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the 1950s. "It's a serious suggestion in that I believe it is the most promising and practical option in terms of current technology to solve the biggest parts of the problem." The scheme could cost $1.9tn a year, he says. "When that's compared to figures like estimates of $800bn per year for CCS, our plan looks like a loser. But CCS can address only about 20% of the problem at the $800bn price. Mine addresses the whole thing. And CCS would involve a network of dangerous high-pressure pipelines coursing through the most developed neighbourhoods of our civilisations, compared to relatively benign water aqueducts in what are presently virtually uninhabited deserts." Planting trees to combat rising carbon dioxide levels is controversial on a large scale, because most places where it has been suggested, such as Canada and Siberia, are in the northern hemisphere where the resulting change in surface colour, from predominantly light snow and rock to predominantly dark trees, could soak up more sunlight and cancel out the cooling benefit. Ornstein says subtropical regions, such as the Sahara and the Australian outback, do not have this problem. The areas have only minimal "human occupation, agricultural food and fibre resources and competing natural biomes" the team says. "We must bite the bullet, global warming will not go away by itself ... solar, geothermal and wind power can make modest contributions. All of these are other parts of a fix. But the quicker a forest can be grown, the more time will be available to choose among and to implement such adjustments, and perhaps to develop more attractive substitutes." Ornstein says several desert-heavy countries are suitable, including large chunks of Saudi Arabia and a string of African nations west of Egypt. The scheme would provide jobs and investment, he says, as well as a long-term source of sustainable wood that could be used as a biofuel to replace fossil fuels. Other plans for the desert region, such as the installation of giant arrays of mirrors and solar panels to generate electricity would not be affected, he says. Tree-planters, and the resulting clouds, would stick to the flatter regions further south. Since the paper was published a few weeks ago, Ornstein has attempted to seed serious discussions on specialist websites, with little success. Critics have pointed out that the deserts are not total wildernesses, but rich and diverse ecosystems in their own right, which would be destroyed. Ornstein says: "If sacrifices are required to stem global warming, the almost non-existent ecosystems of the central Sahara and the outback seem like reasonable candidates compared to the alternatives." The scheme does have some support. "It is incredibly important and definitely worth taking seriously," says Rick Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "While there are many practical and political difficulties of afforestation of regions this large, the benefits could be enormous and go well beyond carbon sequestration." Energy Carbon capture and storage (CCS) Climate change Climate change Deserts David Adam guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Climate change could be cancelled out in a staggeringly ambitious plan to plant the Sahara desert and Australian outback with trees Some talk of hoisting mirrors into space to reflect sunlight, while others want to cloud the high atmosphere with millions...

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04.11.2009. 19:35h

Malware: enemy of the state

public from malware, which is arguably more important to us – and perhaps to the nation. After all, what happens to e-commerce if people don't feel secure enough to buy things, do their banking or interact with government online? One problem is trying to determine the size of the problem because antivirus software suppliers and journalists may sometimes exaggerate the threat. The antivirus companies benefit from shock-horror stories, and we are often happy to write them, especially if the threats have catchy names – Melissa, Blaster, Slammer, Conficker. Scare stories prompt people to spend money on new or upgraded antivirus protection, so they become more secure, and everybody's happy. Or, more likely, scared. The risk of exposure David Emm, a UK-based antivirus expert with Russian supplier Kaspersky Lab, says: "We're adding 5,000-6,000 [malware] records to our database every day, but it doesn't mean people are exposed to them. Online crime is like offline crime: we all know people get knifed, and potentially we're all vulnerable to attack, but there are things we can do to minimise the risk." Examples for PC users include running up-to-date antivirus software and firewalls, keeping your operating system and applications patched, not repeating or recycling passwords, and watching for the padlock when using secure sites. "It's dangerous for us as an industry to talk up the overall level of threats," adds Emm. "The threat's genuine, but it's not a juggernaut that's going to run you down." The growth in Mac and Linux use and the increased security of more recent Microsoft software – including Windows 7, Vista and IE8 – has helped encourage "social engineering" and indirect attacks such as phishing, fake antivirus programs, and malware bundled with video codecs or pirate software. Indeed, there's now a fuzzy line between malware and legitimate software. David Harley, ESET's director of malware intelligence says the UK's biggest malware in October "was actually a 'possibly unwanted program' – an adware toolbar – with 4.02% of detections." There are toolbars with "serious Trojan functionality," he says, but he won't name names "because of the risk of legal difficulties". In many cases, then, computer security firms are trying to protect us from ourselves. How many PCs are actually infected, and to what level, seems impossible to find out. Microsoft has just published its seventh Security Intelligence Report (SIR) using data from running its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) on 450m PCs and OneCare or Defender on more than 100m. Microsoft UK's head of security Cliff Evans describes it as "the most comprehensive view of the internet threat landscape". The bad news is that worm infections doubled in the first half of 2009, that "Conficker has had a big impact" with about 6m-7m infections at any one time, and "Taterf is specifically targeting people on online role-playing games. Criminals have decided that worms are a form of attack that should be revisited," he says. But the number of "cleans" in the UK is 4.9 per 1,000 runs, says Evans. That's only half of one per cent. Are you more likely to be mugged in the street? Microsoft's numbers won't show the full threat, because MSRT is only run when it delivers patches. People who have auto-updates turned on probably run antivirus software and firewalls as well, so perhaps their PCs should really be safer. In places such as China, Russia and Latin America where piracy is rife, and pirate versions of Windows may be heavily pre-infected with Trojans and backdoors, the infection rate is much higher. Still, what researchers call the "threat landscape" has changed dramatically in the past few years, as vandalism has been replaced by organised crime. Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro, says around 92% of threats now come from the web, and the growth of malware is being "rocket-fuelled by the firmly established and very lucrative underground economy dealing in stolen information and machines (bots)". He says: "We have identified over 100m bot-compromised IPs globally, of which 23m are active." Botnets (networks of compromised PCs) concern all of us because they are rented out to scammers who want to send out billions of spam emails, or to attack web servers and hold companies to ransom. The botnet infection may not have much impact on the person who owns a PC, but it affects the rest of us. Battling the bot Conficker has been of great interest as it's the best botnet we've seen, though it was also lucky: Microsoft had patched the hole before it got going, so companies and government organisations that don't use its auto-update service were most affected. Rodney Joffe, chief technologist at Neustar and a member of the Conficker Working Group, says that, in the UK, it infected one of the largest high-street retail chains, a hotel chain, one of the larger universities, a couple of city councils and a London borough, among others. Clean-up costs have been enormous. Joffe has watched the code improve and now says: "Conficker is rock solid. The level of sophistication is mind-boggling: it does everything right. It's going to become the platform of choice for the distribution of malware." As it's the leading example of anti-antivirus technology, it's easy to see Conficker as a frightening indicator for the future. However, Eric Sites, chief technology office of Sunbelt Software and also a member of the Conficker Working Group, believes "it could be the last of the megabots". He says: "The most successful cybercrime is designed to be parasitic in nature, striving to survive for long periods of time undetected. Conficker's notoriety has shown that the bigger the bot, the less effective it may end up becoming. Too much attention means little activity and little gain." What Conficker did achieve was to get people working together to fight it, with F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hyppönen saying: "Over my 20-year career in information security, Conficker Working Group has been the single best example of cross-industry co-operation." It's one of the few global threats to get a real global response. Still, one of the points that emerges from Microsoft's SIR is thatsome countries, such as Austria, Finland and Japan, are doing better than others. Acting on impulse In Finland, for example, they follow up on widely available information about infected computers and actually do something about them. Finland's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) runs an Autoreporter service that tells local IT administrators about breaches and prompts them to act. SIR quotes Erka Koivunen, head of Finland's CERT, saying: "As a result, the infected computers get treated fast or risk losing connectivity." Botnets don't last long on Finland's networks. What Finland can do, the UK can do. If the government thinks it's appropriate to cut people off for filesharing, why isn't it appropriate to cut them off if their PCs are part of a botnet? Trend Micro's Ferguson adds: "More ISPs should follow the lead of ComCast in the US, which has begun using pop-ups to notify customers it believes to be infected. While the headline-grabbing initiatives focus on international espionage and teenage hacker recruitment, the reality is that if we can deprive criminals of their stockpile of compromised machines, we would severely impact their ability to operate." In the future, it seems the most successful criminal malware will be super-stealthy infections that users don't even know they've got. If that happens, a co-operative community of antivirus companies, researchers, ISPs, police forces and other government agencies may be our only hope. Next week: the threat to the web Computing Software Microsoft Windows Windows 7 Internet Jack Schofield guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

As the government begins its crackdown on illegal filesharers, it may be that an even bigger threat comes from malware The British government wants to stop filesharing to protect copyright owners, but shows no similar enthusiasm for protecting the general...

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04.11.2009. 19:25h

Were Martin and Baldwin second choice for Oscars duties?

Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller turned down an offer to host the Academy Awards, according to one report.

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04.11.2009. 19:22h

Were Martin and Baldwin second choice for Oscars?

Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller turned down an offer to host the Academy Awards, according to one report.

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04.11.2009. 19:22h

Health Ministry orders investigation into alleged illegal medical practice

BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's Health Ministry said Wednesday it has ordered its Beijing bureau to investigate the Peking University's First Hospital for alleged illegal medical practice that caused the death of a professor.

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04.11.2009. 19:19h

Council climate change resolutions are just a lot of hot air | Charles Arthur

make sure we aren't building a fire trap in the extension to our house. They're also very keen to check we're not building something that won't conform to new environmental regulations: the ceiling and walls have to have particular thicknesses of insulating material, which doesn't come cheap, but will – we're assured – save energy. Though when the inspector called a few days ago, he regretfully had to point out that we needed to add another 4cm of insulation to the sloping ceiling that we'd hoped would house a bedroom and perhaps even a toilet. With the extra insulation, it's starting to look as though we're only going to be inviting very small children to the bedroom. And for our builder, the extra 4cm was a layer too far. "But you've got us putting that in while you've also insisted that we have single-glazed windows all through!" he blurted, his indignation finally getting the better of him. It's true. Our local council, which recently passed a solemn resolution that it was against climate change and would take it "seriously", has insisted that we may not have double-glazed windows in the new building. Why? Because the main building is, by virtue of its age, listed – that strange process by which slightly obsessive-compulsive types hope to hang on to the past by pretending that the present isn't happening and that the future won't mind. Ah, but it gets better. The main building – the one in which we actually, you know, live – isn't a paragon of "listedness" (unless you mean actually physically listing, which the floors do towards one end). In fact, it has a number of double-glazed windows. And who put them in? Why, the council itself, which used to own the property a few decades ago. Shall we recap? We're building a modern extension in which we're obliged to put energy-leaking windows in order to conform to an historic ideal about our main home that hasn't actually been followed by the organisation now forcing us to put in the inefficient windows. The whole process is indicative of how utterly our establishment has failed to get to grips with the twin realities of climate change and energy demand, which aren't linked but have similar outcomes: we need to use less fossil fuel energy. (Yes, we could use secondary glazing on the windows, but it's far less effective than real double glazing.) For years, the Labour government has shied away from making rational – if politically brave – decisions about energy use: we've needed more investment in nuclear power and renewables. Instead, six years ago nuclear was left out of the energy white paper. That's six years of not building the replacement for fossil fuels we've used (and will in future have to import from countries such as Russia, not known for its helpfulness towards Britain). I wish someone had noticed what Norway was doing – investing its windfall from oil exports in new energy sources. Too late now for North Sea oil. We spent it on … well, possibly the banks. Meanwhile, our local councils run masterclasses in cognitive dissonance: frowning on climate change, "urging" action, insisting its aim is to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the council and the district", while forcing people to do things that will be costly in precisely those terms in the future. My guess is that a sensible government in the future would drop the whole idea of "listing" buildings. The trouble is that when the energy crunch comes, it will be too late. We'll have been driven down a road wearing the blinkers imposed by the past. Stupidity comes in many forms; and on this occasion, it comes in the form of insulation standing by a single-glazed window. Energy Energy efficiency Renewable energy Home improvements Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Our local council has banned us from having double glazing, while insisting on more insulation. What can possibly be the point? We've got the builders in. Yes, we're doing building. And doing building means building inspectors, sent by the council to...

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04.11.2009. 19:15h

Microsoft cuts 800 more jobs

of its plan to cut 5,000 jobs worldwide in an attempt to reduce costs. "Today, we are eliminating around 800 positions spread across multiple businesses and locations and have completed our reduction plan sooner than we had anticipated 11 months ago," the company said in a statement. "At the same time, we continue to hire in priority areas, but also understand that continuing to manage our businesses closely, as we always do, can mean additional headcount adjustments." Earlier this year Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said the company would be cutting "up to" 5,000 positions, although the latest round of layoffs take the company beyond that initial figure. Although it did not say which areas of the business would be affected by the latest cuts, the company confirmed that 2% of its 2,700 jobs in the UK would be lost as a result of the decision. "We are working closely with affected employees to help them through this difficult transition," said the statement. "While job eliminations are always difficult, we need to ensure that our investments are aligned to current and future revenue opportunities." The move comes shortly after the company reported falling profits and revenues in its most recent financial filings. Although those results were actually ahead of Wall Street's expectations, they still marked a significant decline on the previous year - leaving the company still searching for ways to boost its bottom line and reduce unnecessary spending. While the extent of the job cuts is relatively small compared to previous layoffs - Microsoft still employs more than 90,000 people worldwide - they mark another blow to the company's ambitions, and are a reflection of its current struggle to keep its huge software business growing in the face of stiffening competition and the economic crisis. Until this year the world's biggest software company, which is based outside of Seattle, had never made any large-scale redundancies. Difficulties in the PC market - which has been hit hard by the recession - left the company with negative growth for the first time in its 34-year history, even though observers were largely pleased by the launch last month of Windows 7, the company's latest operating system. Although its core business of operating systems and office software is still highly profitable, the numbers are waning - and increasing competition from the likes of Google has forced Microsoft to invest heavily in its loss-making internet unit. Even when the company has managed to make progress, things have not run smoothly. After the failed $44bn bid to buy Yahoo last year, chief executive Steve Ballmer did manage to forge an agreement with his Silicon Valley rival that would see Microsoft take over the advertising on Yahoo's search engine. However, that deal has been delayed and will not be completed until next year. "This is the first time Microsoft has ever reduced headcount, so they're probably taking it slowly," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. Rosoff said it was still not clear whether there would be more cuts in the future, with the figures surrounding Windows 7 still to be determined and the company continuing to make bullish predictions on the level of costs it can save. "There are some groups affected more than others - they've just had a new release of Windows, which traditionally results in a reorganisation and some folk might not find a spot when the music stops," he said. "The cuts are mostly in sales and marketing, and less in research and development, but they have cut some products." Microsoft Windows Job losses Bobbie Johnson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Microsoft is cutting another 800 jobs worldwide as it attempts to cope with falling demand for its products, the company announced today. The software maker said the cuts - which come on top of two earlier rounds of redundancies - were the latest part...

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04.11.2009. 19:02h

WestJet offering more seat sales in "intensely competitive" environment

WestJet Airlines Inc. (TSX: WJA ) is offering a lot more seat sales to travellers than it has in the past as recession-weary consumers scrutinize every dollar they spend, says the chief executive of the Calgary-based carrier.

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04.11.2009. 18:55h

Doctor admits baby 'may interact'

A doctor admits a baby in a "right-to-life" row may be able to interact - but says his future remains tragic.

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04.11.2009. 18:52h

Doctor admits baby 'may interact'

A doctor admits a baby in a "right-to-life" row may be able to interact - but says his future remains tragic.

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04.11.2009. 18:52h

Romania: beauty and the beast

Adrian Bridge looks at the best and worst of Romania from the Western Carpathians to the communistera eyesores.

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04.11.2009. 18:50h

Nokia N900: A computer in every pocket

The Nokia N900 which runs the Linuxbased Maemo operating system offers a powerhouse performance that could leave Apple's iPhone in the shade

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04.11.2009. 18:44h

OLED TV Waits in the Wings

LG discusses its roadmap for the introduction of OLED HDTVs.

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04.11.2009. 18:36h

Technology: is it different for girls?

I am frustrated. I am bored. I feel patronised. PC World is telling me my world is pink (it has not been pink since I was 7) and I need a new laptop to match my outfit (it would never even occur to me to match my outfit with my technology). Samsung is...

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04.11.2009. 18:35h

PayPal Seeks New Ways to Use Its Payment System

PayPal officially opened its platform to developers on Tuesday and start-ups are quickly coming up with new ways to let people pay online.

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04.11.2009. 18:32h

Noise therapy will keep dogs quiet on Bonfire Night

If your dog trembles with fear at the first fizz of a firework then book a noise therapy session.

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04.11.2009. 18:30h

EBay Comes Out of the Attic and Starts a Fashion Magazine

The Inside Source, a new online magazine from eBay, publishes stories about fashion and decorating trends while pitching products on eBay.

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04.11.2009. 18:23h

Where in the world?

Identify the location of this photo for the chance to win a Briggs & Riley suitcase worth ?299.

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04.11.2009. 18:00h

Is the property market recovering?

A year ago we asked five people in the property business how the crunch was affecting them. Since then the market has plummeted stabilised and now appear to be rising. But how are the removal men furniture store managers and interior designers faring?...

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04.11.2009. 17:56h

Missing a bus voted most annoying thing

Arriving at a bus stop to see the vehicle pulling away has topped a list of the most annoying events.

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04.11.2009. 17:48h

Japan's inventions for the elderly: four of the best

With more than 40000 centenarians in the Japanese population it comes as no surprise that the country's crazy sense of invention has turned to preserving its older generations.

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04.11.2009. 17:42h

Twitter lists and real-time journalism

The Twitter community is abuzz this week about the site's new "Lists" feature, which allows users to create collections of interesting people to follow on the micro-messaging service.

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04.11.2009. 17:33h

PHOTO: Hotel made of salt attracts 60,000 people

This unusual hotel is built almost entirely out of bricks made out of salt. Still, this hotel contains everything you need for your stay.

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04.11.2009. 17:33h

Sign Language: week 73

Another selection of strange signs sent in by readers on their travels.

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04.11.2009. 17:25h

Swash vows to sort out bankruptcy

Former EastEnders star Joe Swash is declared bankrupt, but has vowed to settle his tax bill "imminently", his agent has said.

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04.11.2009. 17:21h

Cuomo Files Federal Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel

Following the lead of foreign regulators, New York’s attorney general charged the company with abusing its dominant position in the computer chip market.

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