How to Use Windows

Korean researchers have demonstrated how a human arm is capable of transmitting a broadband data signal. Researchers at Korea University in Seoul managed to transmit data at a rate of 10 megabits per second through a subject’s arm via low-frequency electromagnetic waves, between two electrodes on the skin spaced at 30 centimetres apart. There could be major health benefits if the technology is able to be developed for widespread use, in terms of monitoring a patients vital signs – such as blood sugar levels or heart activity – while they go about their daily lives.

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Up to this point, Microsoft’s bread and butter has been on desktop applications, like Windows and Office. But going forward, the software giant has its head in the cloud, according to Steve Ballmer, who said Microsoft is ” betting our company ” on cloud computing. To prove it, some 70 percent of Microsoft employees are hammering away on cloud-related projects as you read this. That’s already well over half, but within a year, Ballmer says that number will climb to 90 percent.

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While the debate about the future of ebooks rages on, with authors and book publishers alike concerned about how a well-worn business model is rapidly changing, a new academic study claims that giving away free electronic versions of your books can boost sales of the printed version. The study has been conducted by John Hilton , a doctoral candidate in Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University who is researching issues around open education and open access. Free ebooks for all Hilton coauthored a study published in The Journal of Electronic Publishing titled ” The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales ,” where he and his colleagues examined Bookscan sales for dozens of print titles before and after they were released online for free.

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Researchers have discovered that voice recognition computers find it easier to understand women’s voices rather than men’s. Edinburgh University boffins made this fundamentally dull discovery, claiming that men say things like “umm” and “err” more often than women. Step away from the pub, Dave That is perhaps because they keep asking us all those tricksy questions, such as: “Have you been to the pub? Do you think my bum looks big in this?” And so on

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Forget about traditional touchscreen displays, laser keyboards, and gesture-based controls. None of those have the same wacky sci-fi appeal as “Skinput,” the new self-touch input method Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft are tag teaming . Skinput is essentially a touchscreen interface for your flesh, but don’t worry, it doesn’t require any surgery or limb replacements.

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A senior Chinese military official has called for a new national web control agency to enforce internet monitoring methods in the country. People’s Liberation Army Major General Huang Yongyin said China needed to up its fight on online infiltration and attacks, claiming in the February issue of Chinese Cadres Tribune, a magazine published by the Communist Party’s Central Party School: “For national security, the Internet has already become a new battlefield without gunpowder.” China is back in the tech headlines again this month, following reports of a vocational school where military recruits were said to be the source of the spyware hacker attack on Google earlier this year. A Financial Times report quoted unidentified sources claiming that analysts had traced the online attacks to Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang vocational school. Both establishments have denied the reports

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Lovely Kirstie Allsopp, the property expert and shoe fetishist’s favourite TV celebrity, caused a minor ripple of resentment on Twitter this week – thanks to complaining about her lunch budget. Moaning that her Channel 4 daily food expenses allowance has “gone from £15 to £10 to £6!” leaving her “Away from home, freezing & now starving”, Kirstie was quickly lambasted by her loyal fans. Loyal fans not fortunate enough to (a) be a rich telly star or (b) have a lunch allowance at all.

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Celebrities have been known to sign just about anything, including body parts, so should it really come as any surprise that one of the faces of Microsoft would scribble his name on a Mac? It shouldn’t, and that’s exactly what Steve Ballmer did. A student from Trevecca Nazarene University asked Ballmer to autograph his laptop, which elicited a hearty laugh from Ballmer after he noticed it was a Mac. “It’s got Windows on it, I promise,” the student quipped. Like a good sport, Ballmer scrawled his name across the silver casing much to the delight of the onlookers, adding “Need a new one?” How long until you think it shows up on Ebay

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The Nintendo Wii Balance Board offers a very viable – and cheap – alternative to the lab-grade force platform usually used by doctors to assess the standing balance of patients, according to a new scientific paper. Published in ScienceDirect , the paper was co-authored by the Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine, at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and the Department of Physiotherapy in Singapore General Hospital. Doctors pitted the Wii Balance Board , which retails for around £70, against a laboratory-grade force platform, which they called the “gold standard,” as a way to discover whether patients have impaired standing balance. The purpose was to see if the Balance Board could qualify as a validated system to precisely quantify centre of pressure (COP).

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Students at Oxford University will have to put up with a Spotify free existence from now on, after its IT department decided to ban the online music service. Spotify has been accused of eating up too much bandwidth at Britain’s oldest university, which has led the OUCS (Oxford University Computer Services) department to issue a ban. Naxos, schmaxos Speaking to Cherwell , the online site for Oxford University student news, a number of students have spoke of their anger over the ban with words like “shocked” and “discrimination” being bandied around. One student, who is decidedly up in arms over the denial of Spotify access, said to Cherwell: “I use it loads

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