Google develops prototype mirror for solar energy

Google has developed a prototype for a new mirror technology that could cut by half the cost of building a solar thermal plant, the company's green energy czar said on Friday.

Bill Weihl said that if development and testing go well, he could see the product being ready in one to three years.

"Things have progressed," Weihl said in an interview. "We have an internal prototype."

Bill Weihl, Google's green-energy czar.

(Credit: Google)

Google has been looking at unusual materials for the mirror's reflective surface and the substrate on which the mirror is mounted.

In solar thermal technology, the sun's energy is used to heat a substance that produces steam to run a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance.

The Internet search engine company, which has been investing in companies and doing research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy, wants to cut the cost of making heliostats, the fields of mirrors that track the sun.

"There is a decent chance that in a small number of years, we could have a 2-X reduction in cost," he said.

Global companies are increasingly investing in green technology as the world grapples with global warming and governments strive to implement regulations that could limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Google has invested in two solar thermal companies, eSolar and BrightSource, with which it has discussed the new mirror technology, Weihl said.

He said the technology was not at a stage where it could be tested externally, but he added that both eSolar and BrightSource were interested in it.

"If it works, it would absolutely be something they would use," he said

Intel to introduce faster Atom chip Monday

Intel plans to release a faster version of its "Pine Trail" Atom processor for Netbooks on Monday, bringing a little extra performance to this popular segment of the laptop market.

Major PC makers are expected to announce--over the coming weeks and months--new products or product refreshes with the new processor, the N470, which will be identical to the current 1.66GHz N450 but get bumped to a speed of 1.83GHz, according to a source familiar with the announcement.

Every little speed increase helps, as Atom processors, compared to their mainstream chip cousins, have always been performance-constrained. Intel uses a different chip architecture for its Atom processors that delivers better power consumption efficiency but lower performance, compared to mainstream Core 2 and Core i series mobile processors. And Atom processors used in Netbooks--small laptops typically priced lower than $350--are almost always single-core, compared to the faster dual-core processors used in mainstream laptops.

Intel's latest Pine Trail Atom processor, introduced late last year, squeezes the graphics function--previously on a separate chip--into the central processing unit.

In related news, Intel is on track to deliver a new "Moorestown" Atom chip targeted at high-end smartphones and mobile Internet devices probably by midyear. Intel, however, has put its Atom-based manufacturing relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) on hold, as first reported by The New York Times.

One source familiar with the tie-up between the two chip-manufacturing giants said there has not been a lot of customer demand for chips--which were expected to go into handheld devices--jointly produced by TSMC and Intel. And finding the right mix of product, engineering, and intellectual property has been a challenge for the pair.

Microsoft takes off gloves against Google

Microsoft left little doubt Friday that it was one of the companies leading the charge against Google worldwide.

In a blog post entitled "Competition Authorities and Search," Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner said part of the motivation for Microsoft and Yahoo's search deal was "we are concerned about Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume." The post comes at the end of a week in which European authorities asked Google to explain its search algorithms after complaints from competitors--one of which is owned by Microsoft.

"Microsoft would obviously be among the first to say that leading firms should not be punished for their success," Heiner wrote in one of Microsoft's strongest public statements regarding Google to date. "Our concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content (like Google Books) and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly."

A Google representative declined to comment on Microsoft's post.

For all the obsession about Google's supposedly deteriorating relationship with Apple, make no mistake: the two most diametrically opposed companies in the tech industry are Microsoft and Google. The two titans are increasingly locked in a struggle to define the next generation of computing.

Microsoft, of course, has two franchises to defend against Google's moves into operating system and office productivity software, as well as the broader philosophy that the Web--rather than the desktop--is the platform of the future. And for all Google's financial might, it remains mostly a one-trick pony with the vast majority of its resources financed by its search dominance: exactly where Microsoft is aiming with Bing and the Yahoo partnership.

It's personal, too. "Novell, when current Google CEO Eric Schmidt was at the helm, was never hesitant about complaining to regulators about Microsoft," Heiner wrote. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Schmidt are said to despise one another; according to court documents, Ballmer pledged to "f***ing kill Google" after learning of Google's plan to hire a key Microsoft engineer in 2005.

Google has definitely been in the sights of governments around the world over the last several years, although the European Commission's decision to look into its search practices represents a new step. The U.S. Department of Justice was prepared to block a Google-Yahoo search partnership designed to fend off Microsoft in 2008, and has objected to Google's settlement with publishers and authors that is also opposed by the Open Book Alliance: a Microsoft-backed organization.

Competitors have fueled much of this scrutiny, which is how antitrust regulation has begun for decades. As Heiner noted above, Microsoft faced a litany of complaints from competitors that ultimately led to government prosecution, and similar complaints have prompted government action against AT&T and IBM in the past.

"Of course, as we have always said, it is vitally important that competition law authorities also listen to and assess the views of customers, business partners and everyone else affected by a dominant player's business practices. Ultimately what's important is not who is complaining, but whether or not the challenged practices are anticompetitive," Heiner wrote.

As part of Microsoft's meetings with the DOJ over its recently approved search deal with Yahoo, it acknowledged that the conversation turned to Google on several occasions. It's no secret that Microsoft has advanced arguments against Google in the past through a variety of consulting firms and lobbyists, but has very rarely fired such direct and public shots against the company.

"Both search and online advertising are increasingly controlled by a single firm, Google," Heiner wrote. "That can be a problem because Google's business is helped along by significant network effects (just like the PC operating system business). Search engine algorithms 'learn' by observing how users interact with search results. Google's algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google."

Google has in the past rejected this argument--the company's chief economist Hal Varian went so far as to call it "bogus" last August--in saying that smaller competitors who want to improve their search algorithms can conduct wider testing on the samples they already have. Still, it seems this is a key part of Microsoft's push against Google, arguing that its sheer scale discourages competitors from believing they can match Google's mass of data.

Both Google and Microsoft are at turning points in their history as this debate grows louder. Microsoft's shot will not be the last.

Tombraider Underworld

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New Windows software turns one PC into many

Microsoft announced Wednesday that it is ready with Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, a product that lets schools run a classroom full of systems using just a single computer.

Based on Windows Server 2008 R2, Multipoint allows up to 10 different set-ups, each with their own keyboard, mouse, and monitor to run from a single server.

Windows Multipoint Server allows a multiple students to work off a single PC, each running their own applications and using their own keyboard, mouse and display.

(Credit: Microsoft)

"We heard clearly from our customers in education that to help fulfill the amazing promise of technology in the classroom, they needed access to affordable computing that was easy to manage and use," Microsoft vice president Anthony Salcito said in a statement.

Microsoft had said in November that it was working on the product.

NComputing, which already offers a similar approach using both Linux and standard versions of Windows, said it will incorporate MultiPoint Server across its product lineup.

Hewlett-Packard, ThinGlobal, Tritton and Wyse also plan to build products based on the software.

Malware crashed systems during Windows security updates

Windows systems that crashed during the latest Microsoft security update Last week did so because they were infected with a rootkit program that made changes to the operating system kernel, Microsoft said late on Wednesday.

"The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state," Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote in a Blog post. "In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015."

The patch addresses a vulnerability in the 32-bit Windows kernel that could allow elevation of privilege that was disclosed last month.

The Win32/Alureon family of malware can modify DNS settings, hijack searches, and fraudulently click on ads, Microsoft said in a post on its Malware Protection Center Blog. Last year, versions appeared that infect the miniport driver associated with the hard disk of the operating system, the post says.

Microsoft will not offer the patch through Automatic Update for 32-bit Windows systems until a solution is available, but 64-bit versions will be offered.

Anyone believed to have been affected by the Alureon rootkit can visit https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com. Those in the United States can contact Customer Service and Support at no charge using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-727-2338 (PCSAFETY). Those outside the United States can find local contact numbers at http://support.microsoft.com/international.

Customers who choose not to install the update can implement the workaround or install the update manually as outlined in the MS10-015 bulletin.

"A malware compromise of this type is serious, and if customers cannot confirm removal of the Alureon rootkit using their chosen anti-virus/anti-malware software, the most secure recommendation is for the owner of the system to back up important files and completely restore the system from a cleanly formatted disk," Microsoft said.

For instructions on how to back up your files in Windows, visit this page. For instructions on how to reinstall Windows, visit this page. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/install-reinstall-uninstall

Chinese Hacker Behind Google Attack Found

U.S. authorities have tracked down the hacker who wrote the code behind the attacks on Google last month.The man is a freelance security consultant with ties to the Chinese government and military. The Chinese government had access to his work, although the man stated he "would rather not have uniformed guys looking over his shoulder, but there is no way anyone of his skill level can get away…

The unidentified programmer had posted pieces of the exploit to a hacking forum, and Chinese officials had "special access" to his work, the financial times reported on Sunday. The programmer did not launch the attack, the report said, citing an anonymous researcher working for the U.S. government.

Last week, The New York Times reported that researchers had traced the attacks to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School, which has ties to the Chinese military. However, officials at the schools have denied those claims.

Google announced on January 12 that its network had been compromised and e-mail accounts belonging to human rights activists in China had been targeted. As a result, Google said it would stop censoring search results in China and possibly leave the Chinese market altogether. The Chinese government subsequently denied any involvement in the attacks.

Microsoft issued a patch for the IE hole a week after acknowledging the vulnerability, and after exploit code for the hole had been released in the wild.