sci/tech sensation news magazine

SEATTLE - Digital cameras have liberated awe-struck travelers and proud parents from worrying about the price of film processing. But showing off those megapixels of memories is still reminiscent of tedious living room slideshows — and perhaps now worse, because instead of one blurry photo of the Eiffel Tower or the high school musical, there might be 50.

Most digital photo-sharing sites require viewers to click from an album to a bite-sized thumbnail of a picture, and then again to a large image, then sit through a slideshow of snapshots one by one. Microsoft Corp.'s newest Web tool, Photosynth, is designed to give viewers a much zippier way to take in the sights of Paris or an act of "HMS Pinafore."

Here's how it works: After a quick software download, the photographer selects a collection of related images from her hard drive. The software crunches the files using the local computer's processing power, looking for pixels that are the same in each photo. Then, Photosynth stitches together the images into a panoramic scene.

There is an old-school analog to this: taped-together photo prints. But online the result is part photo gallery, part movie. One photo is shown clearly at a time; adjacent images appear faded, and others less closely related to the photo in focus are indicated with a ghostly scatter of pixels. Viewers can zoom in and out, and pan left and right, through the scene created by overlapping many different views of the same place or object.

The software, which works only on Windows PCs, latches on to similarities and ignores differences, so photos taken in the same room but at different times of day with different inhabitants can still match up.

Microsoft first opened Photosynth to employees and partners including the National Geographic Society, so the site already has many "synths" on file. (Those "synths" are all given numeric "synthy" scores, indicating how many of the photos overlapped in a way the program could detect.)

One synth, from a National Geographic photographer, combines hundreds of images of Stonehenge; another, submitted by a Microsoft employee, lets the viewer follow a climber on a harrowing ascent of a rock face.

Synths can be embedded like videos into other sites, including blogs and eBay auction listings.

Photosynth, which was due to launch late Wednesday, doesn't yet allow more than one person to add photos to a "synth," which means strangers can't easily pool photos of a certain place or event, as is commonly done using tags on sites like Yahoo Inc.'s Flickr.

But Microsoft's David Gedye, manager for the Live Labs group that cooked up Photosynth, said eventually the program should allow not only small-scale collaborations but also global photo contributions. Those could be fed into Microsoft's mapping technology to fill in gaps where satellite images aren't available.

Source: Yahoo News

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The imaging system could find uses on the battlefield

Hardware used to spot gamma ray bursts could soon be helping direct troops on a battlefield.

Defence firm Qinetiq has brought the technology down to Earth to make a monitoring system that may be able to track thousands of targets.

The futuristic system manages the feat without using lenses to gather light from the scene it is watching.

Instead it employs a sensor array, a special "mask" and image processing software to picture a scene.

High guard

Astronomers had been attracted to such devices because they coped much better with harsh conditions when a spacecraft is launched and in space, said Dr Chris Slinger, Qinetiq's principal investigator on the system.

"It's hard using lenses and mirrors up there," he said.

Instead of lenses the imaging system uses an array of microscopic sensors in front of which is a specially made "mask" randomly punctured with holes in a particular pattern.

Light from the scene over which the detector is passing hits the mask and casts a distinctive shadow on the array behind it.

"If you design your coding pattern well it's possible to take this mishmash pattern and use digital signal processing to decode the pattern to pull out an image of the scene," said Dr Slinger.

This coded aperture helps Swift spot gamma ray bursts

Nasa used such an approach, called coded aperture imaging, for the Swift satellite that was sent aloft to spot gamma ray sources.

By doing away with lenses and mirrors to focus light it is possible to produce an imaging system that is very sensitive but also light and durable.

Because the image the device is picking up is spread across many thousands of sensors, damage to one in the array does not significantly degrade the entire image.

Shifting the systems focus of interest was much easier than with bulky lens-based equipment because it was so light, said Dr Slinger.

The system should also have a "super resolution" mode that can dial into a scene to produce very detailed pictures of one location in its field of view.

Qinetiq is developing the imaging system for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) as part of a project known as Lacoste - Large Area Coverage Optical Search While Track and Engage.

The Lacoste project aims to produce an imaging system that will fly on a drone or airship to keep an eye on a battlefield or a huge swathe of a city.

Dr Slinger said Darpa wanted the system to be able to keep track of thousands of vehicles for months at a time.

Hardware with these abilities would be helpful for peace-keeping forces who want to wind images back from an incident, such as a car bomb exploding, to gather useful intelligence about where the vehicle began its journey.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

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CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt is to carry out DNA tests on the mummified remains of two foetuses found in the tomb of Tutankhamun to determine if they were the children of the boy king, antiquities authorities said on Thursday.

The bodies of the two still-born children were found in 1922 in the tomb of Tutankhamun in the ancient Nile city of Luxor by British explorer Howard Carter and have since been stored at the University of Cairo.

Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said the tests will determine whether the foetuses were the offspring of Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenpamon, daughter of Nefertiti, who was renowned as one of history's great beauties.

"It is thought that the tiny bodies may be those of the young king's stillborn children," said a statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

"The study aims at identifying the lineage and the family of king Tutankhamun, particularly his parents. The DNA test and the CT scan may also help to identify the foetuses' mother," Hawass said.

He said the results of the studies would also help in identifying the mummy of queen Nefertiti.

Mystery still surrounds the identities of Tutankhamun's own parents -- while his father is known to be the Pharoah Akhenaton, his mother remains unknown.

Some believe her to have been Nefertiti, the first wife of Akhenaton who is remembered for having converted his kingdom to monotheism with the worship of one sun god, Aton.

His mother could also have been Akhenaton's second wife, the foreign princess Kiya, or Maya, Tutankhamun's childhood nurse.

The antiquities council statement said all royal mummies will be CT scanned for identification and that samples from several unknown female mummies found at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo have been taken for DNA testing.

"All of the results will be compared with each other, along with those of the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamun, which was CT scanned in 2005," it said.

The boy king's death more than 3,00 years ago remains the subject of dispute among historians, with some believing he died when an injury to a leg turned to gangrene, others that he was murdered with a blow to the head.

Last year, the true face of Tutankhamun, who was proclaimed pharaoh at the age of nine, was revealed to the public for the first time since he died at just 19 as the 12th and last pharaoh of the 18th dynasty.

The pharaoh's mummy was moved in November from its ornate sarcophagus in the tomb, where its 1922 discovery in Luxor's Valley of the Kings caused an international sensation, to a climate-controlled case where experts say it will be better preserved.

Source: YN

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NEW YORK - AOL splashes images of Bollywood celebrities on its new home page for India. MySpace accepts sign-ups from mobile phones in Japan. Google departs from its customarily spartan home page and peppers its Korean site with colorful, animated icons.

As major U.S. Internet companies stake their ground abroad in anticipation of the next billion people coming online — and the advertising revenue they might generate — the flags they are planting aren't the Stars and Stripes.

Companies are trying to expand globally without seeming to, designing market-specific services with customized features that reflect differences in connection speeds, payment options and attitudes toward sex or violence.

The stakes are high as the United States faces a weakening economy and a slowing of online ad growth.

And the opportunities are large. People in two populous countries, India and China, are just getting online. The research firm IDC projects worldwide Internet ad spending at nearly $107 billion in 2011, compared with $65 billion this year.

But getting it right will be tough. American companies that merely translate their U.S.-focused sites into other languages risk losing to homegrown businesses that can better respond to cultural nuances.

Google Inc. discovered that in South Korea and China, where it initially held its minimalist approach, only to see local rivals thrive by acknowledging their users' preference for sites rich with entertainment and visual complexity.

"A lot of times, the U.S. companies, because they were successful in the U.S., they tend to repeat their current business models," said Tian X. Hou, a Pali Research analyst who follows China. "Most of the time, that doesn't work."

Cho Ko-un, 29, a graduate student sitting in a cybercafe in Seoul, South Korea, finds Google good for English and academic research, but local portals like Naver and Daum better for Korean-language information. Naver, for instance, has forums for users to answer one another's questions, which proved helpful when Koreans couldn't find a site in their native tongue.

"I feel amazed and surprised when the exact question I am trying to ask ... the proper answer on that is already uploaded," said Kim Seung-ho, a 32-year-old government employee.

Tom Anderson, co-founder of MySpace, said dominance in one market means nothing as the company expands to nearly 30 other countries and regions. He said local incumbents have a key advantage because "it's difficult to get people to change their behavior."

MySpace is nonetheless trying.

In South Korea, MySpace offers an exclusive "minilog" feature for youths to jot down everyday thoughts and feelings. In mobile-heavy Japan, people can sign up for an account directly from a phone; elsewhere, you need a desktop computer. MySpace tweaked its Chinese site to generate new windows with every click, in deference to local user preferences.

The News Corp.-owned company also is exploring low-bandwidth versions — perhaps with fewer graphics or less audio — for India and Latin America, where connection speeds tend to be slower.

AOL, meanwhile, has launched about two dozen international sites over the past 18 months. As the one-time Internet access powerhouse transforms itself into an advertising business, executives decided to push into several emerging markets that they knew wouldn't pay off for another few years.

"Our goal is to plant the flag, to be present, said Maneesh Dhir, AOL's India-based international chief. "Then you work to grow that business."

In each market, AOL partners with local content providers.

The Indian portal, for instance, is heavy on Bollywood films, covering their stars as fiercely as American sites follow Lindsay Lohan. Instead of baseball, the Indian portal covers cricket, with schedules, team profiles and an online fantasy game.

AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., also customized its popular AIM instant-messaging service for India and other markets with heavy usage of text messaging on cell phones. Messages sent over AIM are automatically converted into phone texts, and vice versa.

And AOL's channel for men is far edgier in Australia than in Asia or the United States, at one point featuring a photo gallery of a New Zealand rugby game with full frontal nudity.

Microsoft Corp. has more than 80 people worldwide tasked with making sure its products and services do not stereotype, offend local sensibilities or prove irrelevant in a particular culture. Microsoft's instant-messaging product, for example, varies icons and emoticons to reflect flowers, animals and characters popular in each market.

Google has had a different challenge.

With a dearth of Arabic Web sites, Google had to find a way to persuade Arabic speakers that the Web is worth exploring. So it developed a system for automatically translating an Arabic user's search terms into English, checking its English index for matches and translating relevant Web sites back into Arabic for Mideast markets.

To take on China and Korea, where it trails rivals, the normally sparse Google site for those countries now displays icons that jump as users move the mouse. In China, Google also took the much-criticized step of filtering its results to avoid revealing search results blocked by the government.

But Baidu is still the Chinese search leader, thanks to its willingness to add music video and other entertainment features.

"I do think local companies have an edge over international companies because local companies start with Chinese services, whereas international companies have to follow their overarching goal and can't easily adapt to Chinese needs," said Zhu Shuang, 27, who works at a Shanghai wireless technology company, mInfo Ltd.

Like other U.S. companies, Google is finding it cannot afford to ignore emerging markets. This year, Google started getting more than half its revenue abroad.

Analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence said many companies have stepped up international ambitions "to insulate themselves as much as possible" from the weakening U.S. economy.

E-retailer Amazon.com Inc. and auctioneer eBay Inc. were among the pioneers in expanding abroad, gaining dominance elsewhere over the past decade by buying local companies that knew the markets already, said Anette Schaefer, a Europe-based director at the Yankee Group.

Pali's Hou said Microsoft's MSN also has made inroads in China, thanks to its highly local staff in touch with Chinese affinity for entertainment news.

But expansion hasn't always been smooth. Though strong elsewhere, eBay failed to gain traction in Japan and pulled out in 2002. Among its missteps: It insisted on credit cards in a largely cash-based society. EBay is now re-entering Japan by teaming up with auction leader Yahoo Japan Corp., which itself is Yahoo Inc.'s joint venture with a leading Japanese company, Softbank Corp.

Other companies simply translated their sites, and one site that no longer exists displayed products available only in the United States, making the site feel foreign to locals, said Matthias Caesar, German-based board member for the Globalization and Localization Association, whose members provide language and other consulting services.

U.S. companies do have key advantages. They have technical know-how, financial muscle and global reach. MySpace and Facebook, for example, let friends communicate worldwide, even if each logs on from a locally customized home page.

And oddly, a few U.S. companies have found their social networks more popular abroad, including Google's Orkut in Brazil, AOL's Bebo in Britain and Friendster in the Philippines.

But U.S. companies are often hampered by global codes of conduct.

Take nudity. Many Mideast cultures are averse to displaying women's skin, while Europeans are far more tolerant of public nudity than Americans. A U.S. company trying to impose its standards for user-submitted content elsewhere risks complaints of banning too much or too little, yet it wants uniform policies because the Internet crosses borders.

"Creating a national company is like rocket science," said John Strand of Strand Consulting in Denmark. "But creating an international company is like proton physics."

___

Associated Press Writers Joe McDonald in Beijing and Jae-hyun Jeong in Seoul contributed to this report. Didi Tang in Beijing also contributed.

SAN FRANCISCO - Anna Patterson's last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.

She believes her latest invention is even more valuable — only this time it's not for sale.

Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet.

The end result is Cuil, pronounced "cool." Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time Monday.

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers — Russell Power and Louis Monier — searched for better ways to search.

Now, it's boasting time.

For starters, Cuil's search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that's at least three times the size of Google's index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index's breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

Cuil won't divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the Web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn't ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

After getting inquiries about Cuil, Google asserted on its blog Friday that it regularly scans through 1 trillion unique Web links. But Google said it doesn't index them all because they either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way. The posting didn't quantify the size of Google's index.

A search index's scope is important because information, pictures and content can't be found unless they're stored in a database. But Cuil believes it will outshine Google in several other ways, including its method for identifying and displaying pertinent results.

Rather than trying to mimic Google's method of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites, Patterson says Cuil's technology drills into the actual content of a page. And Cuil's results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Cuil's results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request.

Finally, Cuil is hoping to attract traffic by promising not to retain information about its users' search histories or surfing patterns — something that Google does, much to the consternation of privacy watchdogs.

Cuil is just the latest in a long line of Google challengers.

The list includes swaggering startups like Teoma (whose technology became the backbone of Ask.com), Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and, most recently, Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft Corp. this month.

Even after investing hundreds of millions of dollars on search, both Microsoft and Yahoo Inc. have been losing ground to Google. Through May, Google held a 62 percent share of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 21 percent and Microsoft at 8.5 percent, according to comScore Inc.

Google has become so synonymous with Internet search that it may no longer matter how good Cuil or any other challenger is, said Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner.

"Search has become as much about branding as anything else," Weiner said. "I doubt (Cuil) will be keeping anyone at Google awake at night."

Google welcomed Cuil to the fray with its usual mantra about its rivals. "Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space," Watson said. "It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day our users benefit from that."

But this will be the first time that Google has battled a general-purpose search engine created by its own alumni. It probably won't be the last time, given that Google now has nearly 20,000 employees.

Patterson joined Google in 2004 after she built and sold Recall, a search index that probed old Web sites for the Internet Archive. She and Power worked on the same team at Google.

Although he also worked for Google for a short time, Monier is best known as the former chief technology officer of AltaVista, which was considered the best search engine before Google came along in 1998. Monier also helped build the search engine on eBay's online auction site.

The trio of former Googlers are teaming up with Patterson's husband, Costello, who built a once-promising search engine called Xift in the late 1990s. He later joined IBM Corp., where he worked on an "analytic engine" called WebFountain.

Costello's Irish heritage inspired Cuil's odd name. It was derived from a character named Finn McCuill in Celtic folklore.

Patterson enjoyed her time at Google, but became disenchanted with the company's approach to search. "Google has looked pretty much the same for 10 years now," she said, "and I can guarantee it will look the same a year from now."

Source: YN

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PARIS (AFP) - An extraordinary fish that inhabits muddy pools in West Africa and whose lineage can be traced back 96 million years could be the model for light, bomb-proof body armour for the soldiers of the future.

So say Pentagon-backed scientists who have pored over the scales of Polypterus senegalus, also called the Senegal bichir or the dinosaur eel.

Long and skinny and of ancient heritage, the 40-centimetre (16-inch) predator has multiple layers of scales that first dissipate the energy of a strike, then protect against any penetration to the soft tissues below and finally limit any damage to the shield to the immediate area surrounding the assault.

Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used nano-scale measurements to look at several scales that were harmlessly removed from a living fish.

They found the scales -- about 500 millionths of a metre thick -- have four layers. The tiny shield was then put to the test, in a simulation of a biting attack.

The team believe the scales' protection is remarkably effective because of the different composite materials, the geometry and thickness of each of these layers.

The overlapping junctions between the layers themselves also play an important role.

The design is "fascinating, complex and multiscale," say the scientists.

"Such fundamental knowledge holds great potential for the development of improved biologically-inspired structural materials," said Christine Ortiz, an MIT associate professor in materials science and engineering.

"Many of the design principles we describe -- durable interfaces and energy-dissipating mechanisms, for instance -- may be translatable to human armour systems."

The study appears on Sunday in a specialist journal, Nature Materials.

Source: YN

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scales that protect a quarrelsome fish from the bites of its own fellows as well as from predators may hold the key to the armor of the future, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.

The light, multilayered design of its scales has helped Polypterus senegalus survive for 96 million years, the team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports.

Writing in the journal Nature Materials, the MIT team said they had figured out how it works. Each scale is layered so it deflects the pressure of a crunching bite, they said.

Cracks do not travel far -- the design forces cracks to run in a circle around the penetration site, rather than spreading through the entire scale and leading to catastrophic failure, they said.

"Many of the design principles we describe -- durable interfaces and energy-dissipating mechanisms, for instance -- may be translatable to human armor systems," MIT's Christine Ortiz, who led the study, said in a statement.

With funding from the U.S. Army, Ortiz and colleagues carefully studied scales from P. senegalus, which lives at the bottom of freshwater, muddy shallows and estuaries in Africa.

It is noted for its heavy armor.

"The primary predators of P. senegalus are known to be its own species or its carnivorous vertebrate relatives, and biting takes place during territorial fighting and feeding," Ortiz and colleagues wrote in their report.

It evolved the armor millions of years ago, when fearsome predators lurked. "In ancient times, many large invertebrate predators existed. For example, the carnivorous eurypterid was a giant arthropod that possessed biting mouth parts, grasping jaws, claws, spines and a spiked tail," they wrote.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Todd Eastham)

Source: YN

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Australia unveils online code of conduct

BERLIN (Reuters) - More than 1,600 years after it was written in Greek, one of the oldest copies of the Bible will become globally accessible online for the first time this week.

From Thursday, sections of the Codex Sinaiticus, which contains the oldest complete New Testament, will be available on the Internet, said the University of Leipzig, one of the four curators of the ancient text worldwide.

High resolution images of the Gospel of Mark, several Old Testament books, and notes on the work made over centuries will appear on www.codex-sinaiticus.net as a first step towards publishing the entire manuscript online by next July.

Ulrich Johannes Schneider, director of Leipzig University Library, which holds part of the manuscript, said the publication of the Codex online would allow anyone to study a work of "fundamental" importance to Christians.

"A manuscript is going onto the net which is like nothing else online to date," Schneider said. "It's also an enrichment of the virtual world -- and a bit of a change from YouTube."

Selected translations will be available in English and German for those not conversant in ancient Greek, he added.

Dating from around 350, the document is believed by experts to be the oldest known copy of the Bible, along with the Codex Vaticanus, another ancient version of the Bible, Schneider said.

The vellum manuscript came to Europe piece by piece from Saint Catherine's Monastery by Mount Sinai after German biblical scholar Konstantin von Tischendorf found a number of folios there in 1844. He was allowed to take some to Leipzig.

Tischendorf returned to the monastery in 1859 with Russian backing and acquired the biggest section of the Bible for his imperial sponsors. It remained in St. Petersburg until the Soviet Union sold it to the British Museum in 1933.

"The first section was clearly a gift to Tischendorf, but that's not so clear in the case of the second portion. The monks all signed a contract at the time, but the rumor persists that they were given a raw deal," said Schneider.

"And there is probably some truth to this."

Subsequent discoveries meant that the original Codex, missing roughly half the Old Testament, is now housed at four locations in Europe and the Middle East.

The project, launched in cooperation with the Russian National Library, the British Library and Saint Catherine's Monastery, also details the condition of the Bible, believed to have been written by early Christians in Egypt.

"I think it's just fantastic that thanks to technology we can now make the oldest cultural artifacts -- ones that were once so precious you couldn't show them to anyone -- accessible to everyone, in really high quality," said Schneider.

(editing by Ron Popeski)

Source: YN

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SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia on Wednesday unveiled a new code of conduct to regulate online and mobile phone content which will call for classifications similar to those for films, a government spokesman said.

All content likely to be rated as for viewers aged over 15 will need to be assessed and classified under the code, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said.

"This code assists both children and their parents to make informed choices about what is, or is not, suitable for viewing online or on mobile phones," it said.

The code of practice has been developed by the Internet Industry Association, a body representing most of the leading Internet content providers in Australia.

It only affects online content originating in Australia.

A spokesman for the authority said it would be binding on members of the association.

Via Yahoo News

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A total solar eclipse Aug. 1 will be seen only by a handful of observers lucky enough to be in the path, which starts in Canada and runs across the Arctic, through Russia and into China.

For those select few, day will turn to night, the stars will come out (weather permitting), and the moon's blackout of the sun will provide a dazzling visual spectacle that skywatchers will never forget.

The celestial alignment will create a partial eclipse visible across a broader area, including the far northeastern corner of North America and most of Europe and Asia.

Many people go a lifetime never witnessing a total solar eclipse. And in fact we happen to live in a rare moment in the 4.5-billion-year history of our planet when total solar eclipses are just barely possible due to some remarkable solar system alignments.

How it works

Solar eclipses occur when the moon moves in front of the sun. This can happen only at the time of a new moon, when the moon is between Earth and the sun, therefore making the latter no longer visible in our daytime sky.

Because the moon's orbit is tilted about five degrees off from the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun, usually the new moon passes above or below the sun in our sky.

But when all three objects line up perfectly, the moon casts its dark conical shadow, called the umbra (from Latin for "shade") onto Earth's surface. The umbra's shadow is as dark as night, and the sun appears completely blotted out.

Although the sun is about 400 times larger than the moon, the moon in turn is about 400 times closer to the Earth than is the sun. The result: They both appear virtually the same size in our sky.

Rare moment in history

Because the moon is constantly moving away from Earth, at about 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) per year, eventually total eclipses will not be possible.

Meantime, eclipses are not really rare. As a celestial rule, at least two partial solar eclipses occur each year and in some years there can be up to five. A total eclipse of the sun occurs somewhere in the world about every 18 months, on average.

But it is indeed rare to see one. While an eclipse of the moon (when Earth blocks sunlight from lighting up the moon) is visible from half the planet, solar eclipses are visible only from a narrow path.

In this case, the swath of Earth in total darkness, called the path of totality, will be only about 157 miles (252 km) wide.

Any given spot on the Earth's surface will play host to a total solar eclipse on an average of once every 375 years.

Surrounding the umbra is the penumbra (Latin, paene-umbra, "almost shadow"). It is much wider, touching the surface of Earth on a swath about 5,000 miles (8,000 km) wide. Anyone inside that shadow can see a partial eclipse, weather permitting. From Earth, it will appear as if a bite has been taken out of the sun, but the sky does not typically grow noticeably darker unless 70 percent or more of the sun is blocked out.

Safe viewing

The most important thing to keep in mind when viewing the sun, including during a partial eclipse, is to never look at even a portion of the sun directly without proper viewing glasses. Such special eyewear has special filters expressly designed for viewing the sun and can be found at some science and astronomy stores and online. An alternative is to purchase a piece of number 14 welder's glass from a welding supply store.

Sunglasses are not acceptable and your eyes can be permanently damaged by looking even for a fraction of a second at any eclipse. Telescopes and binoculars must be outfitted with special filters before they can be safely used.

Several tricks can be employed to watch an eclipse indirectly:

Use a small mirror, like a makeup mirror, explains veteran eclipse watcher and NASA researcher Fred Espenak. With masking tape, cover all but about a 1/2" square in the center of the mirror. Then hold the mirror at an angle and project the Sun onto a shaded wall or into a garage.

Create a simple version of what's called a pinhole camera. Start with two pieces of white paper, suggests University of Chicago astronomer Douglas Duncan. Poke a small hole in one with a pencil or pen. Let sunlight go through that hole and fall onto the second piece of paper, held a foot or two below the first, in its shadow.

Via Space.com

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LONDON - The experts at London's Natural History Museum pride themselves on being able to identify species from around the globe, from birds and mammals to insects and snakes. Yet they can't figure out a tiny red-and-black bug that has appeared in the museum's own gardens.

The almond-shaped insect, about the size of a grain of rice, and was first seen in March 2007 on some of the plane trees that grow on the grounds of the 19th century museum, collections manager Max Barclay said Tuesday.

Within three months, it had become the most common insect in the garden, and it was also spotted in other central London parks, he said.

The museum has more than 28 million insect species in its collection, but none is an exact match for this one. Still, Barclay is cautious about calling it a new discovery.

"I don't expect to find a new species in the gardens of a museum," he said. "Deep inside a tropical rainforest, yes, but not in central London."

The bug resembles the Arocatus roeselii, which is usually found in central Europe but is a brighter red and lives on alder trees. Entomologists suspect the new bug could be a version of the roeselii that has adapted to live on plane trees, but acknowledge it could be a new species.

Either way, it appears the museum's tiny visitor, which appears harmless, is here to stay.

"We waited to see if the insect would survive the British winter," Barclay said. "It did and it's thriving, so now we had better figure out what it is."

By MEERA SELVA, Associated Press Writer

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WASHINGTON - The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday he will recommend that the nation's largest cable company be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet.

The potentially precedent-setting move stems from a complaint against Comcast Corp. that the company had blocked Internet traffic among users of a certain type of "file sharing" software that allows them to exchange large amounts of data.

"The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers access to the Internet," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."

Martin said Comcast has "arbitrarily" blocked Internet access, regardless of the level of traffic, and failed to disclose to consumers that it was doing so.

Company spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice on Thursday denied that Comcast blocks Internet content or services and that the "carefully limited measures that Comcast takes to manage traffic on its broadband network are a reasonable part" of the company's strategy to ensure all customers receive quality service.

Martin will circulate an order recommending enforcement action against the company on Friday among his fellow commissioners, who will vote on the measure at an open meeting on Aug. 1.

The action was in response to a complaint filed by Free Press and Public Knowledge, nonprofit groups that advocate for "network neutrality," the idea that all Internet content should be treated equally.

Martin's order would require Comcast to stop its practice of blocking; provide details to the commission on the extent and manner in which the practice has been used; and to disclose to consumers details on future plans for managing its network going forward.

The FCC approved a policy statement in September 2005 that outlined a set of principles meant to ensure that broadband networks are "widely deployed, open, affordable and accessible to all consumers."

The principles, however, are "subject to reasonable network management."

Comcast argues that the agency's policy statement is not enforceable and that the commission has "never before provided any guidance on what it means by 'reasonable network management.'"

If a majority of commissioners side with Martin, it will be the first test of the agency's network neutrality principles. Members of both the House and Senate have sponsored network neutrality bills, but they have never come close to becoming law.

Large Internet service providers have fought against such regulation, arguing that it is a solution in search of a problem and that companies that spend billions on their networks must be free to manage traffic.

Ben Scott, federal policy chief for Free Press said Thursday night the FCC's action may have consequences for other Internet providers going forward.

"This is going to be a bellwether," he said.

Martin, a Republican, will likely get support from the two Democrats on the commission, who are both proponents of the network neutrality concept. Those three votes would be enough for a majority on the five-member commission.

Via Yahoo News

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The simple rule of sunscreen — the higher the SPF and the thicker the slather, the better — has come under doubt.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington-based research group and habitual gadfly to the business world, has found that 4 out of 5 of the nearly 1,000 sunscreen lotions analyzed offer inadequate protection from the sun or contain harmful chemicals. The biggest offenders, the EWG said, are the industry leaders: Coppertone, Banana Boat and Neutrogena.

While 3 out of 3 industry leaders are rather upset with the EWG report, and while some dermatologists criticize it for hyperbole, the report does underscore several long-standing health concerns:

Sunscreens do not offer blanket protection from the sun and do little to prevent the most deadly form of skin cancer; reliance on them instead of, say, a hat and protective clothing, might be contributing to skin cancer; and the Food and Drug Administration has yet to issue any safety standards, mysteriously sitting on a set of recommendations drafted 30 years ago.

Subcutaneous homesick blues

Sunlight contains ultraviolet radiation, largely in two forms: UVA and UVB. Aside from sunburn, UVB exposure causes the most common forms of skin cancer — basal cell carcinoma, which is rarely deadly and mostly only disfiguring, and squamous cell carcinoma, which can turn deadly about 1 percent of the time.

UVA penetrates the skin more deeply and causes wrinkling. Recent research, however, has found that UVA exacerbates the carcinogenic effects of UVB and might cause skin cancer itself.

Most sunscreens block only UVB. And the SPF system, short for Sun Protection Factor, refers only to UVB. SPF provides an estimate of a lotion's level of sunburn protection. If you start burning in about 30 minutes, then SPF 15 will allow you to stay in the sun 15 times longer before getting burned, in theory.

SPF of 1 zillion

Total UV protection is within reach and has been used for millennia. It's called clothing. Unfortunately this isn't so convenient when summertime fun calls for minimal clothing.

The EWG report takes an ax to the loose SPF claims. Almost all sunscreen lotions contain chemicals that, perhaps counter-intuitively, breakdown in the presence of sunlight. But in fact this is how they block UVB from penetrating the skin, like a castle wall protecting against cannonballs until the wall crumbles.

Notions of all-day protection, as some sunscreen products claim, or even several hours of protection are ludicrous, the EWG said, because most sunscreens start deteriorating in as quickly as 15 minutes. This doesn't even account for sweat and casual rubbing, further reducing protection.

Also, few sun-worshipers use the recommended shot-glass-amount of lotion with each application. We merely think we are protected; few really are.

Controversy, not just skin deep

The EWG also trashed any lotion containing harmful chemicals that can easily penetrate the skin. Oxybenzone, which blocks UVA, is a main offender. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found oxybenzone in the urine of just about everyone tested.

This chemical can promote DNA damage in the presence of sunlight. Oxybenzone and similar cancer-causing chemicals in sunscreens contribute to the minority view that sunscreens actually cause more and deadlier cancers than they prevent. Several small studies have found an increased risk of malignant melanoma, by far the deadliest form of skin cancer, among regular users of sunscreens.

Many zinc-based protects appear to be safe, according to the EWG. Until the FDA breaks its silence and offers some guidance, there's the EWG list of recommendations at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/special/sunscreens2008. Or you can move to Seattle.

Source: Live Science

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BAGHDAD - Syria has returned a marble artifact to Iraq that was stolen from one of the country's archaeological sites.

The marble block roughly 4 feet tall and 1 1/2 feet wide contains an engraving of a bearded man kneeling in prayer and several lines of cuneiform writing.

Iraq's minister of tourism and archaeology, Mohammed Abbas al-Auraibi, told a news conference Thursday that the piece was stolen from an archaeological site in Nimrud near the northern city of Mosul.

Nimrud, some 15 miles south of Mosul, became the capital of the Assyrian empire in 883 B.C., a role it retained for more than 150 years.

A group of archeologists will study the artifact to confirm its origin, said Abdullah Hamed Muhsin, a senior official at Iraq's Archaeology Ministry.

In the chaos following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, looters snatched some 15,000 priceless artifacts and smuggled them out of the country.

Jordan recently returned 2,466 artifacts to Iraq, and the country has also received more than 700 back from Syria, al-Auraibi said. Iraq expects to receive another important artifact back from Syria next week, the minister said, without providing details.

Iraq is working with Interpol to track down some 12,000 archaeological pieces that are still missing, added al-Uraibi.

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LOS ANGELES - Millions of California motorists have had to put down their cell phones or risk a ticket as a new law takes effect requiring hands-free devices for those behind the wheel.

Police in San Diego and in Oceanside were giving motorists a one-month grace period before beginning to issue citations, but the California Highway Patrol and other agencies were ready to write tickets Tuesday.

"No grace period. The law was passed a year-and-a-half ago," said CHP Officer Heather Hoglund, a spokeswoman in suburban Glendale. "There should be no reason why somebody didn't know that today was the day that they needed to be hands-free."

Electronic information signs along freeways had been warning drivers for weeks.

Officers of the CHP's Sacramento Valley Division patrolling in Auburn witnessed 47 cell phone violations between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. They issued 20 citations and let the others go with warnings so as not to further clog traffic.

CHP Officer Tammy DuTemple said some violators had hands-free devices but had not yet charged or figured our how to use them. "People know about the law, but just like everything else, they wait until the last minute," she said.

Hoglund said she noticed a difference in motorists' behavior Tuesday. "I did not see one person holding the phone," she said.

Lt. Rick Handfield, a spokesman for Irvine police, said even he had to adjust to the new law. His phone rang as he was driving Tuesday and his Bluetooth headset was in his office charging.

"I had to think, 'What am I going to do with this call?'" he said. "I think I did the right thing by sending it to voicemail, but I think there will be a learning curve. I do think it'll be a paradigm shift."

Motorists also were rushing to purchase hands-free devices.

Dewey Oates, who owns two Los Angeles roadside stands that sell phone accessories, said for the past week he has sold 50 to 75 Bluetooth wireless headsets a day — as many of the $40 devices as he usually sells in a year — not to mention hundreds of cheaper, plug-in devices.

"From a business point of view, yes, and from a safety point of view, we enjoy it," Oates said.

The law requires use of a hands-free device by drivers over 18 except in a medical or traffic emergency. Text-messaging is not specifically banned for adults, but the California Highway Patrol said they can be cited for negligence under existing laws.

A second law that took effect Tuesday bars drivers under age 18 from using a wireless telephone, pager, laptop or any other electronic communication or mobile service device while driving. The ban extends to hands-free usage and text-messaging.

The laws carry a minimum fine of $20 for the first ticket and $50 for subsequent ones but with court fees tacked on, the real cost in Los Angeles County will run about $93 for the first ticket and $201 for the next, according to Superior Court calculations.

While five other states and Washington, D.C., have adopted hands-free laws, the law in California could put a dent in the state's image as the capital of car-crazy narcissism. California has nearly 22.9 million licensed drivers, far more than any other state, according to 2005 statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.

Authorities hope it also will reduce traffic accidents. Several studies have shown that using cell phones distract drivers and may increase accidents, although there is scant evidence that using a hands-free device mitigates the problem.

New York, the first state to enact a hands-free law in 2001, reported 1,170 crashes from 2001 through 2006 where handheld cell phones were considered a factor, versus 214 involving hands-free devices, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Forcing motorists to use hands-free devices won't eliminate the distraction of an engrossing conversation or heated argument but it might reduce fender-benders by forcing drivers to keep at least one hand on the wheel, Hoglund said.

At least with a hands-free cell phone, "when you're drinking your coffee and on the phone and smoking a cigarette, you're not driving with your knee any more," she said.


Source: yahoo news

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WASHINGTON - The dwindling march of the penguins is signaling that the world's oceans are in trouble, scientists now say. Penguins may be the tuxedo-clad version of a canary in the coal mine, with generally ailing populations from a combination of global warming, ocean oil pollution, depleted fisheries, and tourism and development, according to a new scientific review paper.

A University of Washington biologist detailed specific problems around the world with remote penguin populations, linking their decline to the overall health of southern oceans.

"Now we're seeing effects (of human caused warming and pollution) in the most faraway places in the world," said conservation biologist P. Dee Boersma, author of the paper published in the July edition of the journal Bioscience. "Many penguins we thought would be safe because they are not that close to people. And that's not true."

Scientists figure there are between 16 to 19 species of penguins. About a dozen are in some form of trouble, Boersma wrote. A few, such as the king penguin found in islands north of Antarctica, are improving in numbers, she said.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists three penguin species as endangered, seven as vulnerable, which means they are "facing a high risk of extinction in the wild," and two more as "near threatened." About 15 years ago only five to seven penguin species were considered vulnerable, experts said.

And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has already listed one penguin species on its endangered list, is studying whether it needs to add 10 more.

The largest Patagonian penguin colony in the world is at Punta Tumbo, Argentina, but the number of breeding pairs there dropped in half from about 400,000 in the late 1960s to about 200,000 in October 2006, Boersma reported. Over a century, African penguins have decreased from 1.5 million breeding pairs to 63,000.

The decline overall isn't caused by one factor, but several.

For the ice-loving Adelie penguins, global warming in the western Antarctica peninsula is a problem, making it harder for them to find food, said Phil Trathan, head of conservation biology at the British Antarctic Survey, a top penguin scientist who had no role in the new report.

For penguins that live on the Galapagos island, El Nino weather patterns are a problem because the warmer water makes penguins travel farther for food, at times abandoning their chicks, Boersma said. At the end of the 1998 record El Nino, female penguins were only 80 percent of their normal body weight. Scientists have tied climate change to stronger El Ninos.

Oil spills regularly taint the water where penguins live off Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil and have contributed to the Punta Tumbo declines, Boersma said.

The problems may be different from place to place, but looking at the numbers for the species overall, "they do give you a clear message," Trathan said.

And this isn't just about the fate of penguins.

"What happens to penguins, a few years down the road can happen to a lot of other species and possibly humans," said longtime penguin expert Susie Ellis, now executive director of the International Rhino Foundation.

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The two main environmental news stories of the past year or so have been the twin impending disasters of global warming and water shortages. There is a scientific consensus that global warming is occurring, and many governments (including, belatedly, the Bush Administration) have taken steps to address the problem.

But the more pressing issue is water; people can live with global warming (and have been for some time), but people cannot live without water.

While drinking water is the most obvious need, everything around us takes water to produce, from food to telephones to tires. Not only is agriculture dependent on water [the U.S. Geological Survey estimates it takes about 1,300 gallons of water to grow a hamburger] but so is virtually every industry. Even energy production needs water, in hydroelectric dams and nuclear reactor cooling towers.

Demand soars

The barrage of news reports warn of a dire water shortage, and provide sobering statistics:

* The global demand for water has tripled over the last 50 years, while water tables are falling in many of the world's most populated countries, including the United States, China, and India.
* Many of the world's great rivers are a fraction of the size they once were, and some have dried up completely.
* Earth's lakes are vanishing at an alarming rate; the Aral Sea, for example, is less than a quarter its original size. Nevada's Lake Mead is half its original capacity; a recent study concluded that there is a 50/50 chance that the lake will be gone in less than fifteen years.

It's true that there is cause for alarm, but to understand the problem people need to read behind the headlines to understand one little fact: There is no water shortage.

Our planet is not running out of water, nor is it losing water. There's about 360 quintillion gallons of water on the planet, and it's not going anywhere except in a circle. Earth's hydrologic cycle is a closed system, and the process is as old as time: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, and so on. In fact, there is probably more liquid water on Earth than there was just a few decades ago, due in part to global warming and melting polar ice caps.

The problems

No, there is plenty of water. The problem is that the vast majority of Earth's water is contained in the oceans as saltwater, and must be desalinated before it can be used for drinking or farming.

Large-scale desalination can be done, but it is expensive.

But nor is the world running out of freshwater, either. There's plenty of freshwater on our blue globe; it is not raining any less these days than it did millennia ago. As with any other resource, there are of course regional shortages, and they are getting worse. But the real problems are availability and transport; moving the freshwater from where it is plentiful (such as Canada, South America, and Russia) to where it is scarce (such as the Middle East, India, and Africa). Water is heavy and costly to transport, and those who can afford it will always have water.

Water, not global warming, is likely to be the greatest environmental challenge facing the world in the coming decades and centuries.

To find solutions, it's important to understand the problem. Water is never really "wasted." It simply moves from one place to another. If you let your faucet drip all day, that's clean water going back into the system, the water isn't "lost." What is lost is usefulness, money, and energy, because it takes energy to purify and distribute the water.

Water conservation is very important, but not because there is a shortage of water; it is the ultimate renewable resource. As with any resource, the issue is getting it to those who need it.

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France unveils an ultra-speedy train that's roomier and more efficient than its predecessors

AGV: Photo by Alstom

Here it is: the high-speed train your kids will take when they backpack around Europe. It’s called the AGV (Automotrice a Grand Vitesse, which translates to High-Speed Self-Propelled Unit). This 224 mph machine is the successor to the TGV, which started the European high-speed train boom in the early 1980s.

The French rail giant Alstom (also the manufacturer of the London-to-Paris Eurostar train) unveiled AGV in a press conference today outside Paris featuring French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Alstom says the AGV is both faster and more energy-efficient than its predecessor and its rivals. By comparison, the TGV tops out at 200 mph (though last year a supercharged TGV set a world rail speed record at 357.2 mph), and Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train tops out at 185 mph.

The AGV’s gets a boost in speed and efficiency from a design that places engines underneath each car. This does away with the locomotives in front and back that drive the TGV, and results in 30 percent better fuel efficiency and 20 percent more passenger space than the TGV. (It can hold up to 700 people.)

Interestingly, it looks as if the first AGVs to carry passengers will appear in Italy. The Italian transport company Nuovo Transporto Aiaggiatori has ordered 25 AGVs, which should start running in Italy by 2011-2012.

When he was diagnosed with kidney cancer last year, Dave deBronkart needed an easy way to keep his far-flung friends and family updated. So did the president of the American Medical Association when he fell ill months ago. And so did the mother of a soldier wounded in Iraq who later suffered brain damage.

They all turned to the Internet, setting up individual Web sites to give progress reports. In return, they get posted notes of encouragement and support — all without having to repeat the details in emotional and exhausting phone calls.

"I had already been burning myself out with phone calls" telling people, said deBronkart, of Nashua, N.H.

DeBronkart, like others, used free online services like CaringBridge and CarePages and their user-friendly formats to quickly set up a Web site to share the news — good and bad. Patients themselves or family members write about treatment and recovery from illnesses, accidents or other medical crises, such as a premature births.

Sarah Doyle first used CarePages to prepare her for the arrival of her now year-old son Aidan. She learned during her pregnancy that Aidan would be born with his liver and intestines exposed. She read about the experiences of other families who had dealt with similar birth defects.

"I got a good idea what to expect. It wasn't such a shock," said Doyle, of Bellingham, Mass.

She has used her own page to chronicle Aidan's 11 months in a Boston hospital, his multiple surgeries and his arrival home in March. She recently reported that Aidan said his first word: mama.

"We really use it as a tool to say: We've been through some of the worst and now we're doing fine," said Doyle, who's expecting a second child in September.

Both online services were born out of medical emergencies, and have been used by tens of thousands since.

Sharon and Eric Langshur used a Web site created by a relative when their first child, Matthew, was born with a heart defect in 1998 and needed surgery. From their experience, they created the Chicago-based CarePages.

"The emotional support really took us by surprise," said Sharon Langshur, who was in training to become a pediatrician when her son was born.

Sona Mehring was involved in Web site design in 1997 when friends were faced with a difficult pregnancy. When she offered help, they asked her to just "let everyone know what's going on." She set up a Web site that was the beginning of CaringBridge, based in Minneapolis.

Both services are similar, with different features. To set up a Web site, all that is needed is an e-mail address and access to the Internet. There are different levels of privacy — ranging from those open to anyone who knows the page name, to those that are restricted to approved visitors. Individual pages can't be found through search engines.

Once an update is posted, visitors can be notified through an e-mail alert system.

"These stories are very personal, very unique and very powerful," said Mehring.

For visitors, CarePages provides a list of do's and don'ts when dealing with someone with a serious illness.

"Illness and hospitalization are incredibly isolating, and then to have people back away, can be very hurtful," said Langshur.

CaringBridge is supported primarily by donations from users, as well as sponsor fees from hospitals. CarePages also has arrangements with hospitals and sells advertisements.

Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has been using CaringBridge since its beginning and helps families do updates by providing computers and digital cameras. President and CEO Alan Goldbloom said the hospital draws patients from around the Midwest, so some families are hundreds of miles from home when their child is in the hospital.

"We just think it's made a huge difference for families," said Goldbloom.

People learn about the Web services from hospital workers, or just through word of mouth, according to the founders.

Dr. Ron Davis knew of two people who used them during illnesses. So when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, the preventive medicine specialist decided to share his story.

As AMA president, Davis, 51, figured others would want to know what was going on. And he's using it as an educational tool, providing the details of his treatment, with lab results, and to spread the word about the value of the Internet services.

"We need as physicians to focus more on the patient's emotional needs," said Davis, of East Lansing, Mich.

DeBronkart had heard about CaringBridge from a colleague when he was working in Minnesota.

"When my time came, I said, 'I know what I'm doing," deBronkart said.

A self-described e-mail maniac who works in computer software marketing, the 58-year-old deBronkart was soon doing frequent, chatty entries, sometimes from the hospital in the middle of the night.

"It lets you stay in touch with people even if you literally can't get out of your bed and they're thousands of miles away," he said.

He's racked up more than 16,000 visits to his Web page, some from old friends and classmates that he'd lost touch with over the years. "It really went viral," he said.

Anne deBronkart used it to keep tabs on her son between visits from her Maryland home. She said it was better than group e-mails because she drew support from all the posted messages, particularly the humorous tales some contributed.

"We all need that when we're going through something like this," she said.

The mother of Marine Lance Cpl. John Doody uses CaringBridge to keep in touch with his Marine buddies, friends and relatives in the Denver area, where he grew up, and her new husband and friends in Idaho.

Chris Ott has been at her son's side since January when he collapsed while recovering from gunshot wounds from Iraq and suffered brain damage. For a time, she stopped answering her phone because "it was too painful to talk about it."

Her sister set up the Web page and soon Ott was posting updates, writing about each step in her son's recovery, the move from San Diego to a Veterans Affairs rehabilitation center in Tampa, Fla., and outings to the mall and beach. News that her 25-year-old son had begun to talk again brought a flurry of excited replies.

"It helps lift your spirits when you know people are thinking about you and praying for you," said Ott, who was married at her son's bedside in February.

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With a simple swipe of a farecard through a subway turnstile, the police could potentially know all of your travel habits. Recently, the Chicago police nabbed a suspect of attempting to kidnap a 12-year-old passenger by tracking his movement through the the city's L system.

After the police received a call from the victim whom the suspect touched and tried to restrain before other people intervened, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) worked with police, tracing his movement with security cameras and his card swipes on the L system.

Critics around the world have expressed concerns over the privacy issues that revolve around tracking people through their farecards.

In London, using a registered Oyster Card will allow Transport for London to know your exact route patterns (as long as you actually tag your card). Counter-terrorism programs in the capital city want access to the millions of Oyster touch-in/touch-out records, seeking patterns of behavior that match terrorist suspects. Currently, security programs can only ask for the records of specific individuals. The introduction of a Parisian transport smartcard (known as the Navigo), which requires personal information of the user and a passport size photo, has also posed concerns for civil liberty groups.

All metros have some sort of transit ticket that does not require giving personal information. But are they really anonymous? Chicago Transit Authority had tracked down the attempted kidnapping suspect through his 7-day pass (and security cameras), which does not require any sort of rider registration what-so-ever.

Debate still continues on whether one should be concerned about the police's access to transit card information.

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