Space crystals 'to grow on ISS'

Scientists are planning to use the space station to grow a new kind of crystal for use in solar cells by 2013, reveals The BBC.

They say the vacuum conditions in space improve the quality of thin film crystals, giving them properties that are unachievable on Earth.

The technique, called Molecular Beam Epitaxy, could improve electronics, in particular raising the efficiency of solar cells as much as 60%.

Hewlett-Packard has been given the go-ahead by its board to buy back up to $10 billion of its own stock, writes CNet.

HP said it plans to pick up shares "opportunistically" and is targeting the repurchase as a way to manage the dilution created by stock issued to its employees.

"HP has a strong balance sheet," Cathie Lesjak, HP chief financial officer and interim CEO, said in a statement. "We plan to be active in repurchasing our shares, and we expect to repurchase at least $3 billion worth of our shares in our fiscal fourth quarter at current price levels. This increased authorisation will ensure that we have sufficient capacity to continue to be active in repurchasing our shares prior to our fiscal fourth-quarter earnings announcement in November."

According to researcher Analysys Mason, broadband pricing in Europe and the US fell EUR5 a month, on average, as broadband speeds went up by an average of 20% during the last year, reports The Register.

This is after a relatively flat period during the past recession, when prices held up. Now the average price paid for a fixed broadband service bundle, which includes any single service or double and triple play bundles, has come down to EUR40.70 a month.

Analysts Mason says it tracks over 1 000 fixed broadband-based bundles in Europe and the US to track this pricing. Our guess is that this tracking is done on Web sites and that these are published prices. In the US, cablecos are well known for using call centres to match rival pricing, going below published prices, so the real number may be far lower.

Research in Motion, the maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, has averted yet another ban of its e-mail and messaging service, says CNet.

The Indian government said it will not shut down the service for at least another 60 days as it evaluates proposals RIM has offered that would allow the government to monitor wireless subscribers' communications.

Indian officials said earlier this month that the company had until the end of August to come up with a solution that would allow them to monitor e-mails and other electronic messages from BlackBerry users in the country.