Researchers harness viruses

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists have harnessed the construction talents of tiny viruses to build ultra-small "nanowire" structures for use in very thin lithium-ion batteries, reports Linux Electrons.

By manipulating a few genes inside these viruses, the team was able to coax the organisms to grow and self-assemble into a functional electronic device.

The goal of the work is to create batteries that cram as much electrical energy into as small or lightweight a package as possible. The batteries they hope to build could range from the size of a grain of rice up to the size of existing hearing aid batteries.

A search-engine tool being developed in Sydney and picked up by Internet giant Google will revolutionise the way people retrieve information from the Internet, its developers say.

Advanced text-search algorithm Orion has sparked interest from the likes of Google and Yahoo, with Google acquiring the rights to the algorithm, reports Nine MSN. Developed by a university student and his supervisor, Orion is alleged to make searches much less time-consuming, by working with existing search engines and expanding on their function.

Instead of finding pages on the Internet that contain keywords, then providing links, the new search engine will provide expanded text extracts which will eradicate the need to open every link.

Google will serve up ads to WiFi users in San Francisco depending on their location and the Internet searches they conduct, reports Information Week. San Francisco has awarded Google and EarthLink preliminary approval to provide all 50 square miles of the city with free or cheap WiFi services.

But EarthLink`s and Google`s reasons for subsidising San Francisco`s WiFi for between $10 million and $15 million over 10 years aren`t entirely altruistic. Those who want free service must settle for a 300Kbps connection and exposure to Google ads.

For about $20 a month, EarthLink will provide a 1Mbps connection, and it will offer businesses a 3Mbps pipe with guaranteed quality of service.

The Norwegian government is increasing its use of freely shared, open source software to reduce its dependency on large computer companies like Microsoft, reports Business Week.

The Norwegian Ministry of Government Administration and Reform said measures to increase use of open source programs include a specialist panel to set standards for public information.

The government statement said the project will also set standards to allow various operating systems to communicate with one another. Several countries, including Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea, have been actively moving toward open source alternatives.