Computers, Viruses, etc.
Future extremely powerful Silicon, Optical, Quantum, DNA Computers, which may have self-replicating, mutating, robotics, and nanotechnology.
The year 2011 through 2022

The year 2011.


• 2/1/2011 - Iran nuclear disaster feared - worm's effect on plant debated by George Jahn, AP.
      Vienna - The control systems of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant have been penetrated by a computer worm unleashed last year, according to a foreign intelligence report that warns of a possible Chernobyl-like disaster once the site becomes fully operational.    But the AP said the conclusions were premature.    With control systems disabled by the virus, the reactor would have the force of a small nuclear bomb or minimally be a meltdown.
      The virus, known as Stuxnet, has the ability to send centrifuges spinning out of control and temporarily crippled Iran's uranium enrichment program.    It is believed to have been the work of Israel or the United States, two nations who want Iran to cease their program.
      Iran has acknowledged that the malware designed to infiltrate computer systems hit the laptops of technicians working at Bushehr but denied that the plant was affected or that Stuxnet was responsible for delays in the startup of the Russian-built reactor.
      "The virus which is very toxic, very dangerous, could have had serious implications," said Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, but other German cybersecurity researchers said the virus could not trigger a thermonuclear explosion.
      On the 27th in Tehran, Iran they had a major setback to their nuclear program.    Technicians will have to unload fuel from the country's first atomic power plant because of an unspecified safety concern, a senior government official said.    The vague explantion raised questions about whether the mysterious computer worm known as Stuxnet might have caused more damage at the plant than previous aknowledged, although it could be a routine technical difficulty.
  
• 3/31/2011 - Google taps Kansas City for speedy new network - Web service to be 100 times faster by The Kansas City Star.
      Google said it will make Kansas City, Kan., the first site for its ultra-fast broadband network.    The service, which doesn't have a price yet, is intended to offer Internet speeds as high as 1 gigabit per second, which is 100 times faster than most Americans have now.    Google plans to offer service beginning in the first quarter of 2012, and it will be similar to the conversion from dial-up to broadband.
  
• 4/23/2011 - Apple devices log sensitive data - Privacy backers cite location tracking by AP.
      Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple about why iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting location data on users - records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to release.    It isn't clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information.    The computers are logging user's physical coordinates without their knowledge - and that the information is then stored in an unencrypted form that would be easy for a hacker to find or law enforcement to discover without a warrant.    Tracking is a normal part of owning a cellphone.    What's done with that data, though, is where the controversy lies.
  
• 5/5/2011 - Apple puts limits on iPhone location data by Dow Jones Newswires.
      Apple released a promised update to the iPhone operating system to prevent the device from storing months of location data.    The update will reduce the amount of information stored on the device, around a week to aid various location-based services.    Apple's iOS update also deletes the location data cache when a user turns off location-based services and no longer backs up the cache to a computer via iTunes.
  
• 5/5/2011 - Intel 3-D redesign marks a milestone - New transistors allow for faster computers by AP.
      Intel Corp. said that it has redesigned the electronic switches on its chips so computers can keep getting cheaper and more powerful.    The switches, known as transistors, are typically flat.    By adding a third dimension - "fins" that jut up from the base - Intel can make the transistors and chips smaller.    This will let the chips run on less power and allow for chips used in smart phones and tablet computers to grow those markets, which the company had been weak at.    Intel has been talking about 3-D, or "tri-gate," transistors for nearly a decade and will now go into production this year.
  
  

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      As of May 6, 2011, I have stopped typing from news articles and began using the Electronic Edition of the Courier-Journal newspaper so from this point on the articles are from those pages and may be shortened in some cases for highlights and space considerations.
  

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• 5/19/2011
  
  PC sales impacted by iPad - Tablet ‘buzz saw’ altering demand by Bloomberg News
      The iPad is wreaking havoc on the personal-computer market.
      Hewlett-Packard’s consumer PC sales plunged 23 percent last quarter, and the company lopped $1 billion off its annual sales forecast.
      While rival Dell beat analysts’ estimates because of corporate demand, its sales to consumers slumped 7.5 percent.    More than 70 million tablets such as the Apple iPad will be sold in 2011, a total that will balloon to 246 million in three years, Jefferies & Co. said.
      “You’re walking into a buzz saw,” Jane Snorek, a senior research analyst at Nuveen Asset Management in Milwaukee, said of the iPad.    “The tablet is going to replace at least the home computer.”
      At 7.3 inches across with a color screen and an array of popular downloadable games such as “Angry Birds,” applications for watching movies and reading magazines, and software for word processing and spreadsheets, the iPad has siphoned off more PC sales than analysts and executives predicted.
      Apple sold 4.69 million iPads last quarter, for a total of about 20 million since the device’s April 2010 debut.
      The PC market, by contrast, declined last quarter.    Global shipments fell 3.2 percent, hurt in part because some consumers bought tablets instead, research firm IDC reported last month.
      Although rivals including Research In Motion, Motorola Mobility Holdings and Samsung Electronics have begun selling tablets, the devices have yet to gain wide traction.
      The lack of viable competitors was felt across the PC industry in the first quarter.    Microsoft Windows sales fell 4.4 percent to $4.45 billion.    Its net income of $5.23 billion was eclipsed by the $5.99 billion reported by Apple, which topped its rival in that measure for the first time in 20 years.
      At Intel, whose processors run more than 80 percent of the world’s personal computers, growth in the PC-chip division came mainly from emerging markets and corporate sales.    Hewlett-Packard, the top PC maker, Tuesday cleaved 20 cents a share from its annual earnings-per-share forecast, to $5, excluding items.
      Microsoft plans to release a version of Windows optimized for touch-screen tablets next year.
      Companies that aren’t selling tablets risk getting left behind, said Tony Ursillo, an analyst at Loomis Sayles & Co.    “Most of the growth is going to come on the tablet side,” he said.
  
  
• 6/7/2011
  
  Apple CEO Jobs unveils iCloud as a ‘digital hub’ - Music, data head toward big servers by John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News
      Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Monday ushered his company — and, by extension, the global computing industry — into the “cloud” era.    “We are going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud,” Jobs said.    The new iCloud service replaces Apple’s MobileMe document-sharing offering, which costs $99 a year.    The new iCloud service is free, Jobs said.
      With iCloud, content such as music and documents is stored on large servers instead of on personal hard drives — and is accessible from anywhere through the Internet.    The new iCloud service is Apple’s seal of approval of what many experts believe is the next major iteration of the digital world.
      All of Apple’s devices now “have communications systems built into them,” Jobs said.    “They can all talk to the cloud.     Everything syncs without us having to think about it.    We don’t even have to take it out of my pocket.”    Perhaps the biggest star of the iCloud service is the new iTunes function that lets people download songs to as many as 10 devices, instead of five, at no extra cost.
      “This is the first time we have seen this in the music industry — no charge for multiple downloads for different devices,” Jobs said.    “Any song I buy on any device will automatically be downloaded to all my devices.”
      And, in a “one more thing” moment, Jobs said Apple also is offering iTunes Match — software that will scan all the noniTunes music in a library and allow users to access it through iCloud for $24.99 a year.
      The iTunes part of iCloud is available with an iOS 4.3 update, with other iCloud features coming in the fall.    The service also includes automatic backup functions for all devices.    It also allows iPhone owners to update the device with all of the data and the ability to start reading a book on an iPad and picking it up later on the same page on an iPhone.    The service works with documents created on various devices.     Documents can be updated on all devices when changed on any of them.
      Apple will provide 5 gigabytes of free storage on iCloud for mail, documents and backup.    The new PhotoStream service will allow a person to take a photograph on an iPhone, upload it to iCloud, then download it to all devices, from the iPad to a Mac to Apple TV, Jobs said.    Photos will be stored for 30 days on the service, and devices will store the last 1,000 photos taken.    If a PhotoStream user wants to store a photo permanently, it needs to be moved into an album on a Mac or PC.
  
  
• 6/11/2011
  
  Wireless network could jam GPS
      Government test results show that a proposed high-speed wireless broadband network being launched by LightSquared could jam GPS systems used for aviation, public safety, military operations and other uses.    The results released this week by a federal working group come amid mounting concern that LightSquared’s planned network could cripple GPS systems.    They also raise questions about whether the government will allow LightSquared to turn its network on as scheduled next year.
  
  
• 7/30/2011
  
  Google buys patents from IBM - Seeks to defend against lawsuits by Bloomberg News
      Google, facing a growing threat of intellectual-property lawsuits, acquired a batch of patents this month from IBM to bolster its portfolio.    “Like many tech companies, at times we’ll acquire patents that are relevant to our business,” Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., said Thursday in an emailed statement.
      Google’s Android mobile operating system has been targeted in at least six legal complaints, increasing its need for intellectual property to defend the company against litigation.    Google, the world’s largest Internet search company, also aims to curb what it sees as abuses of the patent system.    It’s calling on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to rein in lawsuits and asking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to take closer looks at patents being used in litigation.    “The tech industry has a significant problem,” Google general counsel Kent Walker said in an interview earlier this week.    “Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation.”
      Google’s rivals have said the company is critical of the patent system because it has few patents of its own and entered a smartphone market where companies had been researching and selling products for years before Android phones went on sale in 2008.    The Android system is a free, open-source program that relies on some nonproprietary features Google didn’t create and allows outside developers to modify the code.    That has left the company vulnerable to claims that it built Android on the backs of research done by other companies.
      Google, which had $39.1 billion in cash and short-term investments as of June, put in an initial $900 million offer in April to buy the patents of bankrupt phone equipment maker Nortel Networks.    It was outbid by a group that includes Apple, Microsoft and Research In Motion, which all make devices that compete with Android phones.
  
  AT&T to throttle data speeds on smart phones for ‘unlimited’ hogs
      AT&T Inc. said Friday that it’s going to start limiting speeds for the 5 percent of its customers with “unlimited” data smart phone plans who clog the airwaves the most.    The measure will take effect Oct.1, AT&T said, and is intended to alleviate congestion on the network.    T-Mobile USA already throttles users who go over certain limits for data consumption.    AT&T stopped signing up new customers for “unlimited” plans last year.    Instead, it now let’s heavy users pay extra when they go over a certain data allotment.    Verizon Wireless also recently stopped signing up new customers for unlimited service.
  
  
• 8/16/11
  
  Google’s patent move - Deal for Motorola Mobility could stir more industry buyouts by Associated Press
      SAN FRANCISCO — It may be the boldest move yet by a company known for being audacious: Google is spending $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility.    But the big prize isn’t Motorola’s lineup of cellphones, computer tablets and cable set-top boxes.
      It’s more than 17,000 patents — a crucial weapon in an intellectual arms race with Apple, Microsoft and Oracle to gain more control over the increasingly lucrative market for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.    If approved by federal regulators, the deal could also trigger more multibillion-dollar buyouts.    Nokia, another cellphone manufacturer, and Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, loom as prime targets.
      The patents would help Google defend Android, its operating system for mobile devices, against a litany of lawsuits alleging that Google pilfered the innovations of other companies.
      In addition to the existing trove of patents that attracted Google’s interest, Motorola, which introduced its first cellphone nearly 30 years ago, has 7,500 awaiting approval.    Phone makers and software companies are engaged in all-out combat over patents for mobile devices.    The tussle has been egged on by the U.S. patent system, which makes it possible to patent any number of phone features.    Patents can cover the smallest detail, such as the way icons are positioned on a smartphone’s screen.    Companies can own intellectual- property rights to the finger swipes that allow you to switch between applications or scroll through displayed text.
      Apple, for example, has patented the way an application expands to fill the screen when its icon is tapped.    The maker of the iPhone sued Taiwan’s HTC Corp. because it makes Android phones that employ a similar visual gimmick.
      The iPhone’s success triggered the patent showdown.    Apple’s handset revolutionized the way people interact with phones and led to copycat attempts, most of which relied on the free Android software that Google introduced in 2008.
      Android revolves around open-source coding that can be tweaked to suit the needs of different vendors.    That flexibility and Android’s growing popularity have fueled the legal attacks.    About 550,000 devices running the software are activated each day.
      Many upstart manufacturers, like HTC, had only small patent portfolios of their own, leaving them vulnerable to Apple and Microsoft.    Getting Motorola’s patents would allow Google to offer legal cover for HTC and dozens of other device makers, including Samsung Electronics Co., that depend on Android.
  
  
• 8/19/2011
  
  HP might sell PC division - Aims to focus on business market by Associated Press
      In a dramatic reshuffling, Hewlett-Packard Co. said Thursday that it will discontinue its tablet computer and smart phone products and might sell or spin off its PC division, bowing out of the consumer businesses.
      It’s one of the most extreme makeovers in the company’s 72year history and signals new CEO Leo Apotheker’s most transparent move to date to make HP look more like longtime rival IBM Corp., which now makes most of its money from software and services.
      The most apparent result for consumers will be the end of HP’s TouchPad tablet, a sales dud, and HP-branded smartphones, also-rans in a booming market crowded with the iPhone and devices based on Google’s Android system.
      By the end of next year, HP computers could be sold under another company’s name.    HP will continue to sell servers and other equipment to business customers, just as IBM now does.    It was not immediately known whether any jobs will be cut.    HP employs more than 300,000 worldwide.
      A decade ago, HP emerged from a bitter fight to spend more than $24 billion on Compaq Computer, setting the stage for HP to become the world’s No. 1 maker of personal computers.    Now, three CEOs later, HP is changing course — hard.    The PC division is HP’s biggest revenue generator but least profitable division..     The move has long been rumored, but just six months ago HP dismissed such reports as “irresponsible reporting” and asserted that PCs are “core to HP’s strategy for the connected world.”
      The PC industry is under pressure from hot-selling smartphones and tablet computers, which have contributed to already weak consumer demand for PCs in the U.S. and Europe.    More striking is that HP plans to shutter its fledgling smart phone and tablet business just two years after spending $1.8 billion on the Palm smart phone, which gave HP the webOS software that is praised by critics but largely ignored by the marketplace.     It is here that HP was the victim of the Apple and Google juggernauts, as iPads and iPhones and smart phones running Google’s Android software have been hot sellers, while HP devices have languished.    HP also announced that it is in talks to buy Autonomy Corp., which makes business software.    Earlier, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News had reported that HP planned to buy Autonomy for $10 billion, which would rank the deal among HP’s biggest.
  
  IBM pursuing chips that behave like brains by Associated Press
      Computers, like humans, can learn.    But when Google tries to fill in your search box based only on a few keystrokes, or your iPhone predicts words as you type a text message, it’s only a narrow mimicry of what the human brain is capable.    The challenge in training a computer to behave like a human brain is technological and physiological, testing the limits of computer and brain science.    But IBM researchers say they’ve made a key step toward combining the two worlds.
      The company said Thursday that it has built two prototype chips that it says process data more like how humans digest information than the chips that power PCs and supercomputers.    The chips represent a significant milestone in a six-year-long project that has involved 100 researchers and about $41 million in funding from the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.    That’s the Pentagon arm that focuses on long-term research and previously brought the world the Internet.    IBM has also committed an undisclosed amount of money.
      The prototypes offer further evidence of the growing importance of “parallel processing,” or computers doing multiple tasks simultaneously.    That is important for rendering graphics and crunching large amounts of data.
      The uses of the IBM chips so far are prosaic, such as steering a simulated car through a maze, or playing Pong.    It may be a decade or longer before the chips make their way out of the lab and into products.    But what’s important is not what the chips are doing, but how they’re doing it, said Giulio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who worked with IBM on the project.    The chips’ ability to adapt to types of information that it wasn’t specifically programmed to expect is a key feature.    “There’s a lot of work to do still, but the most important thing is usually the first step,” Tononi said.    “And this is not one step, it’s a few steps.”
      Technologists have long imagined computers that learn like humans.    Your iPhone or Google’s servers can be programmed to predict certain behavior based on past events.    But the techniques being explored by IBM and other companies and university research labs around “cognitive computing” could lead to chips that are better able to adapt to unexpected information.
      IBM’s interest in the chips lies in their ability to potentially help process real-world signals such as temperature or sound or motion and make sense of them for computers.    IBM, which is based in Armonk, N.Y., is a leader in a movement to link physical infrastructure, such as power plants or traffic lights, and information technology, such as servers and software that help regulate their functions.    Such projects can be made more efficient with tools to monitor the myriad analog signals present in those environments.
  
  
• 8/25/2011
  
  THE BOOK OF JOBS
      Some key dates of co-founder Steve Jobs at Apple:
  
  • 1976: Apple is formed on April Fools’ Day, shortly after high school friends Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs create a new computer circuit board in a garage.    The Apple I goes on sale for $666.66.
  • 1984: Iconic “1984” Macintosh commercial directed by Ridley Scott shows during the Super Bowl.    The Macintosh computer goes on sale.
  • 1985: Jobs and CEO John Sculley clash, leading to Jobs’ resignation.    Wozniak also resigns from Apple.
  • 1997: Jobs returns as an adviser, then replaces Gil Amelio.
  • 2000: Jobs is named CEO.
  • 2001: The iPod goes on sale.
  • 2004: Jobs undergoes surgery for pancreatic cancer.
  • 2007: Apple releases its first smartphone, the iPhone.
  
  Jobs steps down at Apple - Co-founder plans to maintain role from Wire Dispatches
      SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Jobs, the mind behind the iPhone, iPad and other devices that turned Apple Inc. into one of the world’s most powerful companies, resigned as CEO on Wednesday, saying he can no longer handle the job but will continue to play a role in leading the company.    The move appears to be the result of an unspecified medical condition for which he took an indefinite leave from his post in January.    Apple’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook, has been named CEO.
      Jobs, who has suffered from pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant in 2009, has looked increasingly frail in his cultlike appearances in front of Apple fans to introduce new products, but he did not explicitly indicate in a letter to the company’s board and its customers whether his health was failing.    Jobs said he “always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.    Unfortunately, that day has come.”
      The company said Jobs gave the board his resignation Wednesday and suggested Cook be named the new leader.    Apple said Jobs was elected board chairman and Cook will become a board member.
      A visionary, a detail-obsessed taskmaster, a lover of simple, understated design in hardware and in software, Jobs over the past three decades has had an outsize, iconoclastic influence on personal computing — first with the Apple II and then the Macintosh computers, then iPods, and now with postPC devices such as the iPhone and iPad.    No other electronics company in the world introduces products that spur long lines of fans that snake around malls, sometimes for days.
      “He’s had a massive impact on personal computing - more important than Bill Gates or anybody else, I think,” said Leander Kahney, editor of the blog Cult of Mac and a longtime computer industry observer.    “He has made this company in his image.    It functions almost as an extension of his unique personality.    There’s really nothing else like it.”    In recent years, as Apple stores have popped up in malls around the country and in iconic locations on several continents — it has a mammoth store in London’s Covent Garden, and a showcase is being planned for New York’s Grand Central Station — the company’s reach has stretched beyond its fanboy customers, who made fun of Microsoft’s more geeky offerings, and into the lives of everyday consumers.    They use the company’s products in their offices, their cars, on their couches and in bed.    Jobs’ health has long been a concern for Apple investors who see him as an industry oracle who seems to know what consumers want long before they do.    After his announcement, Apple stock quickly fell 5.4 percent in after-hours trading.
  
  
• 9/19/2011
  
  Critics question Watson’s new role in health care - Some worry IBM’s supercomputer will be used to curtail necessary care in a bid to increase profits by John Russell and Shari Rudavsky, The Indianapolis Star
      Skeptics worry that the new job of Watson — the IBM supercomputer made famous on “Jeopardy!” — is more about profits than patient care.    IBM and the nation’s largest health insurer reached an agreement Sept. 12 to fill Watson’s huge data crunching memory with a vast amount of medical information and make the supercomputer available to physicians to diagnose such intricate conditions as cancer, diabetes and kidney disease.    Watson can assess 200 million pages of data in less than 3 seconds, and Well-Point, the Indianapolis company that is its latest employer, says medical information is doubling every five years.    “Watson has incredible computing power,” said Lori Beer, executive vice president of enterprise business services for WellPoint.    “This really will become a game-changer for us.”    What Watson will do is draw together information from a patient’s electronic medical record, the medical literature and the insurer’s vast claims data to provide physicians with insight into diagnosis and treatment, she said.    Doctors will be able to access the Watson application on computers or hand-held devices before, during or after visits.    The goal is to cut down on wasteful or ineffective medical treatments.
      Studies show that doctors deliver the appropriate care only about half the time, Beer said.    Watson will suggest the most likely diagnosis and treatment options for a patient.    “I don’t need a computer to tell me you have a cut, pneumonia or a heart attack,” Dr. William Tierney said.    He is president and chief executive officer of the Regenstrief Institute, a health-care informatics research organization here.
      Since the early 1970s, computer experts in medicine have been trying to develop a computer that can make diagnoses.    With their ability to process reams of information quickly, computers could prove more useful in diagnosing rare cases, he said.    The only hitch: Reams of data don’t exist for the rarer conditions because they are so rare, Tierney said.
      Watson’s first test will come in cancer care, WellPoint said, an area that has challenged researchers and doctors for decades.    WellPoint plans to begin using Watson technology in 2012, working with physician groups in clinical pilots.    It then will expand its expertise to other complex personalized diseases like diabetes
  .     “Technology can be good or bad.    It can either make something better or worse,” said Dr. Timothy Hobbs, chief physician executive with the Community Health Network here.    “Like everything else, you have to take it with a grain of salt.”    “My fear is that tools like this will be used to ultimately figure out ways to deny treatments that doctors recommend for their patients,” said Wendell Potter, the former head of corporate communications for health insurer CIGNA who is now a leading industry critic.
      Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, said she wondered whether WellPoint was more interested in helping patients or increasing its bottom line.    “They would like to reduce services to keep costs down, and now they want to tell doctors what their patients have and how to treat it,” she said.    “This is not about denying care,” Beer said.    If Watson spits out a denial of care, the WellPoint clinical staff will review the case.    “This is really a tool to make sure a physician has access to the breadth of information they can’t possibly keep up with today.”
  
  
• 9/22/2011
  
  Google head disputes that company thwarts its rivals by Associated Press
      Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told a Senate panel Wednesday that the company faces tough competition and is not using its dominance in Internet search to stifle its competitors.    Schmidt testified at a hearing examining whether Google is abusing its power to thwart competition by placing links to its own content and services at the top of search results to the disadvantage of its rivals’ links.    Schmidt told lawmakers that the Internet search giant won’t make the same mistakes as Microsoft, which was curbed by the government several years ago when it was deemed to be exercising monopoly power.    Consumers will correct mistakes the company makes, he said.    Schmidt insisted that Google could easily be unseated by better technology because competition is only a “click away” on the Internet.
      Google’s dominance of Internet search and advertising has put it under regulatory scrutiny that is making it more difficult to expand its empire.    A broad inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission into Google’s business practices could turn into a lengthy legal ordeal that becomes a major distraction for the company.
      Schmidt asked the members of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust for their help to ensure the FTC’s investigation is “focused and fair.”
      Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., processes about two of every three online search requests in the U.S. and an even larger percentage in some parts of Europe.    Its search results already highlight some of its own specialized services, including online mapping, video and finance.    “It’s also possible to not use Google search,” Schmidt told the panel.
      The company also has faced complaints that it sometimes tries to rig its results in a way that forces advertisers to pay higher prices to ensure their links are displayed.    Schmidt faced some skepticism from senators.    Panel Chairman Sen. Herb Kohl said he approaches the issue with an open mind.    But, Kohl stressed, “We also need to recognize that, as the dominant firm in Internet search, Google has special obligations under antitrust law to not deploy its market power to squelch competition.”     Hundreds of thousands of businesses depend on Google “to grow and prosper,” Kohl said.    Sen. Al Franken said he was concerned that Google’s unrivaled growth and success could mean the next Internet entrepreneurs could be squeezed out of competing with the giant.    Schmidt also was challenged on Google’s formula for ranking searches, which he said is changed every 12 hours or so.
  
  
• 10/9/2011
  
  Virus has infected drone aircraft system
      WASHINGTON - A computer virus that captures keyboard strokes has infected networks used by pilots who control Air Force drone aircraft flown on the warfront, according to a published report.
      Wired magazine reported Friday that the spyware has resisted efforts to remove it from the computers in the cockpits at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where pilots remotely fly Predator and Reaper drones in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
      The story said there are no confirmed reports that classified data had been stolen or that the virus had stopped pilots from flying missions.     Network security specialists aren’t certain if the virus was part of a directed attack or accidentally infected the networks, the story said.
      The Air Force said it doesn’t discuss threats to its computer networks.
  
  
• 10/26/2011
  
  Father of artificial intelligence dead at 84 - John McCarthy wrote programs by Associated Press
      PALO ALTO, Calif. — John McCarthy, a pioneer in artificial intelligence technology and creator of the computer programming language often used in that field, has died.    He was 84.
      Stanford University, where McCarthy was a professor for four decades, announced McCarthy’s death Monday.    The school said he died at his Palo Alto home, but it didn’t provide a cause.    Tributes to McCarthy flooded into Twitter, where people mourned the loss of another Silicon Valley technology innovator.
      Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs and C programming creator and UNIX codeveloper Dennis Ritchie died earlier this month.
      McCarthy was a leader in the artificial intelligence field, coining the term in a 1955 research proposal.    He said “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”
      He went on to create the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, serving as its director from 1965 to 1980.
      In 1958, McCarthy invented the programming language Lisp, which paved the way for voice recognition technology, including Siri, the personal assistant application on the newest iPhone.
      McCarthy also developed the concept of computer time-sharing, which allowed multiple users to interact with a single computer.    That lay the foundation for cloud computing today.
      Born in Boston on Sept. 4, 1927, McCarthy moved west to pursue a degree in math at the California In-stitute of Technology.    He received a doctorate in math from Princeton in 1951, and then became a professor at Princeton until1953.    He did turns at MIT and Dartmouth before settling at Stanford in 1962 until his retirement at the end of 2000.    “He could be blunt, but John was always kind and generous with his time, especially with students, and he was sharp until the end,” said Ed Feigenbaum, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford and a colleague recruited by Mc-Carthy in the 1960s.    “He was always focused on the future.    Always inventing, inventing, inventing.”    McCarthy won several awards including the A.M.    Turing Award in 1971, the highest recognition in computer science, for his contributions to the artificial intelligence field.    He was also honored with the Kyoto Prize in 1988 and the National Medal of Science in 1990.    He is survived by his third wife, Carolyn Talcott of Palo Alto; two daughters, Susan McCarthy of San Francisco and Sarah Mc-Carthy of Nevada City, Calif.; a son, Timothy Mc-Carthy of Palo Alto; a brother, Patrick, of Los Angeles; two grandchildren; and his first wife, Martha Coyote.    McCarthy’s second wife, Vera Watson, died in 1978 in a mountain-climbing accident attempting to scale Annapurna in Nepal.
  
  
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This file created on October 9, 2011, and updated on December 23, 2011.