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2009
Year of the Ox
Islamic calendar 1429-30


World population reaches 7,500 million
Internet accounts for 10% of time-use - 2 hours 32mins daily
First optical computers released
HIV-positive cases still in excess of 65 million

EU Consumer Council recommends ultrasound washing instructions
Virtual Beauty 2009 - virtual jewellery goes on display in Osaka

Video tattoos eat into virtual jewellery market - police investigate links with Cyberpunk radicals
China and India on full military alert as guerilla group infiltrates Indian media stations with forged "Chinese Cabinet Session" advocating Chinese takeover - UN demands inquiry

WebNet News 14.4.2009

EU Consumer Council recommends ultrasound washing instructions

The European Union's principal consumer advisory body, the Vienna-based Consumer Council, has issued recommendations that garment manufacturers henceforth be obliged to include ultrasound washing instructions alongside conventional symbols on fabrics and articles of clothing.

The recommendation is based on the washing instruction standard planned by the EU's Standards Committee. Until now, codes and symbols for ultrasound washing have been somewhat random, and in many cases they have been completely absent from garment labels.

In particular the manufacturers of ultrasound washing machines have been lobbying for standards and obligatory labels, according to which they can draw up the optimum washing programmes for their appliances. Incorrect power and frequency settings have often resulted in damage to fabrics, and have created a mindset among consumers that the new technology is unreliable and potentially dangerous. Naturally these fears have been reflected in disappointing sales for ultrasound washers and dryers.

Ultrasound washing is based on the discovery - made some twenty years ago - that each individual type of dirt and grime can be broken up and loosened from fabrics using specific ultrasound frequencies and a range of power settings. In fact the method has been employed for many years, for example in laboratories requiring absolutely sterile vessels. In the initial stages, ultrasound washing was extended only to the cleaning of hard objects, but in late 2006 a breakthrough in ultrasound frequency sampling allowed the effective removal of dirt particles from soft fabrics, paving the way for a new generation of domestic appliances using the technology and reducing the strain on limited water resources.

One problem has been that many textiles used in clothing are combinations of natural and/or synthetic fibres, and some grime-removing frequencies may also damage the article itself. The work of the EU Standards Committee has been to draw up a table of suitable ultrasound frequencies for all materials used in clothing or home furnishings. In this way it is possible for the washing machines to install suitable programmes for each individual fabric or blend of materials. The operation of such machines will then become appreciably easier, as it will be possible for the user simply to press the symbol on the remote control keypad that matches the corresponding one on the washing label.

Terry Lean, Vice-Chairman of the EU Consumer Council, said that in the wake of the decision she expects the use of ultrasound washing machines to spread rapidly. This would be a favourable development on environmental grounds, since ultrasound washing does not require the use of non-biodegradable detergents, and only uses water in minimal quantities to rinse away the dissolved grime. In line with the Jakarta Agreement of June 2007, the EU has pledged to reduce detergent use by 60% over the next three years.

SatWeb 16.4.2009

Virtual Beauty 2009 - virtual jewellery goes on display in Osaka

The 1st World's Fair in virtual jewellery - Virtual Beauty 2009 - was opened today in Osaka, Japan. The two-week trade fair is a forum for some 200 manufacturers attending in person with their own stands, and for a further 1100 present via the datanets. In addition, the organizers have gathered some of the world's most priceless jewels from museums and private collections, in order that buyers can compare virtual jewels and "the real thing".

The stand-out attraction of the show, drawing long queues, is the virtual necklace developed by Holonokia, a division of the multinational telecoms consortium. The jewel in this instance is actually a collection of miniature hologram projectors, driven by Nokia's new videomobile. Users can choose from among 49 jewel holograms, allowing a total of around 120 different arrangements. The jewel holograms can also be programmed to change according to the user's mood and dress requirements.

Thirty-one of the holograms are based on actual gems and precious stones, and the remaining 18 on imaginary jewels. The designer Rosetta Stone has clearly been inspired by the first manned mission to Mars scheduled for touchdown on the red planet in four years. Among the imaginary jewels in the collection are a tiny Martian polar ice-cap and a rendition of a Martian dustwhorl. Many have expressed astonishment that a company such as Nokia should have branched out into the jewellery business. According to Stone, the decision was to some extent a matter of chance.

"The entire project came into being when Nokia developed the animated hologram and its experimental hologram video mobile phone. It was necessary to design some extremely small holograms for the screen display. The daughter of one of the designers was visiting her mother at work, and saw one of the prototypes by accident. She said it would make a great brooch, and the idea was born."

Several manufacturers were showing off virtual jewels based on VDU technology, but there was a definite sense in the air that this is running out of steam, as people are tiring of wearing clothing, necklaces, or tiaras equipped with miniature display screens. Thin film technology is making inroads, but for example the otherwise very promising EMFI-6 Gossamer is a plastic film, and therefore still uncomfortably thick and sticky for the wearer.

It was symptomatic of the slightly tired mood that the only VDU jewel to cause any real stir on the opening day was a largish nose-ring which featured an unmistakable sexual come-on running across the screen, accompanied by the same message delivered in a choice of alluring voices of either sex.

Virtual Beauty 2009 also left this visitor in no doubt whatsoever that new technology alone is no guarantee of art. Many of the technical gimmicks have a very short-term appeal. The virtual world seems to be waiting for the next phase, when the bona fide jewellery houses - including Cartier (widely rumoured to be the subject of takeover moves by Siemens-Nixdorf) and Tiffany - start to create real jewels in the virtual environment.

SatWeb 30.4.2009

Video tattoos eat into virtual jewellery market - police investigate links with Cyberpunk radicals

The virtual jewellery fair which closed in Osaka today did not enjoy the success that manufacturers must surely have been expecting. One reason is the rapid spread of video tattoos. The video tattoo boom has already reached fever proportions.

Tattoo parlours can hardly have been more fashionable than they are today. Since the launching on the market in 2004 of tattooing materials as a spin-off from new developments in nanotechnology, the popularity of video tattoos has spread to all sections of society. Most wearers carry a tattooed watch or pulsometer on their skin, but the latest applications have included such things as tele- and multivision screens, blood pressure gauges, and a host of different animations.

Tattoo technology and many of its now-fashionable applications have been developed by the virtual organization Super Bonk, which police believe has links to the Cyberpunks. The organization operates on two levels. The public front is the Super Bonk network cooperative, which owns the patents and manufacturing rights. In the shadows, however, is a second, less official organization that apparently operates on the basis of very vague undocumented agreements. The management model of this backroom organization is still a mystery. Financial analysts have estimated that Super Bonk is the world's first virtual organization to make the FORTUNE 500 list. Studies have indicated that the aggregate turnover in the tattooing branch as a whole is already in excess of USD 10,000 million. This is an astonishing growth from next to nothing in the space of only five years, and represents a kind of world record, according to market experts.

Super Bonk has granted manufacturing and product development licenses to several materials suppliers, manufacturers of tattooing equipment, and video tattoo studios. Tattooscripters can be used for routine pieces applied to relatively easy parts of the body. For example a pulsometer, blood pressure gauge, or simple wristwatch design can be programmed into the scripter in advance. On the other hand, more extensive designs requiring great detail and accuracy still need the hand of a skilled professional, particularly for finishing. A good tattoo artist is capable of taking account of the character and flexibility of the skin and of constructing a logical matrix for the design in accordance with the individual dermatological make-up.

Within the European Union, tattoo density has already reached around 600 per 1,000 inhabitants, but many have opened up their skin to several video designs, in some cases as many as ten. Walking down the street during the summer months it is not uncommon to meet an individual who is a live digiwatch, mobile phone and sphygmomanometer, and whose body surface - containing perhaps half a dozen competing animations - gives a whole new meaning to the late 20th century term "skinflicks".

SatWeb 19.12.2009

Video tattoos eat into virtual jewellery market - police investigate links with Cyberpunk radicals

China and India on full military alert as guerilla group infiltrates Indian media stations with forged "Chinese Cabinet Session" advocating Chinese takeover - UN demands inquiry

Sources in Delhi have revealed that for some 36 hours last week India and China were on the verge of all-out war. The reason for the flare-up was a bogus report screened on Indian TV channels. Members of the outlawed SAIT Freedom Front broke through media security walls and fed stations with a recording of what purported to be "a high-level meeting of the Chinese leadership", which had actually been fabricated using virtual reality technology. Before the hoax was discovered both sides went to full alert, with thousands of troops mobilized in the remote border regions of Jammu and Ladakh.

In the recording, which was described as "filmed secretly", carefully modelled computer avatars of "senior Chinese politicians and military officers" were shown in a meeting where they discussed ways of crippling the Indian economy and bringing it under their control. The virtual video was so cleverly forged that even the Indian cabinet and counter-intelligence services regarded the tape as genuine.

India placed all troops and missile personnel on full alert, moving to DefCon 3, the equivalent of a Red Alert. The Indian government was also prepared to cut cables and links for all Chinese Internet connections, and to destroy Chinese datanet satellites using ground-to-air laser weaponry. On the northern frontier, orders were given to ready India's controversial miniature destructor robots, based on nanotechnology, which the country has kept in defiance of repeated UN calls for a worldwide ban on these highly effective anti-personnel devices. The threat of war only receded when the embarrassed Chinese were able to show that one of the ministers attending the so-called "meeting" had in fact been chairing a UN Economic Affairs Committee session in New York at the time - in person.

UN Secretary General Thea Otan immediately called an emergency meeting of the Security Council when the news of the crisis came through. After the troops on both sides had been stood down, the Security Council demanded a full inquiry into the matter and issued a note to the General Assembly demanding that all virtualization programmes and virtual cameras be henceforth fitted with some form of ID tag, in order that virtual figures could not be confused with real personages. The tag could be in the form of an identifying amulet on the virtual character, or a badge to be worn on the chest. The Senegalese representative even suggested that "virtuals" should always be given green hair as a means of instant identification. In any event, the recognition device on cameras and programmes should be of such a type that it is impossible to remove.

Dr. O.S. Warp, Chairman of the United States Information Technology Forum, nevertheless declared after the UN demands that it would be quite impossible to develop any add-ons to software or cameras that were completely resistant to determined efforts to remove them or by-pass them using another programme.

Despite these warnings, Secretary-General Otan set up a working group to devise an ID programme to be put before the next plenary session of the General Assembly in just three weeks.