News : Olympic pandas return home

Eight young pandas who became China's Olympic mascots prepare to return to Sichuan province.

Their homecoming is taking place almost a year after they were evacuated from the earthquake-ravaged region.

The eight creatures have spent almost a year in Beijing after being forced to leave their home following the quake.

Scores of tourists took advantage of the weekend departure to see the pandas off.

Andrew Potter reports.

News : Jade Goody dies in her sleep

Reality TV star Jade Goody dies in her sleep after losing her battle with cancer.

The 27 year-old mother of two, who married her boyfriend Jack Tweedy last month, died in her sleep at her home in Essex, southeast England.

Initially ridiculed for her apparent lack of education - she thought Saddam Hussein was a boxer and a ferret was a bird- Goody gradually won the public over with her straight-talking style.

It was during an appearance on an Indian version of Big Brother in August last year that she learned she had cervical cancer.

She dropped out of the show to return to Britain for treatment and later learned the cancer was terminal.

Hayley Platt reports.

News : Archives shed light on Darwin's student days

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - With someone to polish his shoes, make his bed and stoke the fire in his spacious rooms, Charles Darwin enjoyed the sort of pampered university life that today's debt-laden British students can only dream about.

Two hundred years after his birth, academics have uncovered new details of his comfortable existence at the University of Cambridge before he embarked on the grueling five-year voyage that would transform science's view of the world.

Six leather-bound ledgers unearthed in the university archives reveal how he lived in the most expensive rooms available to a student of his rank from 1828 to 1831.

He hired a battery of staff to help him with the daily chores, including a scullion (dishwasher), a laundress and a shoeblack (someone who cleans shoes).

A tailor, hatter and barber made sure he was well presented, while a chimney sweep and a coalman kept his fire going. He even paid five and a half pence extra each day to have vegetables with the basic ration of meat and beer at Christ's College.

Darwin scholar Dr John van Wyhe, of the University of Cambridge, said little was known about the scientist's student life before his outgoings were found in the mainly hand-written ledgers detailing students' finances.

"It is just wonderful to have a previously unknown insight into what Darwin was up to in this part of his life," he told Reuters. "These are really intimate details."

The archives were published on the Internet on Monday at darwin-online.org.uk.

Darwin's bill topped 636 pounds during his three years of study for a general bachelor of arts degree at Cambridge, a time he would later describe as "the most joyful of my happy life."

That substantial sum would have been fairly typical for a student at Cambridge in the 19th century. The bills were paid by his wealthy father, Robert Darwin, a doctor.

"Cambridge was full of well-to-do gentlemen living a pretty good life," van Wyhe said. "When you look at the books, you see he is just one of a hundred students or whatever. He is well off, but they are all well off."

As well as the paid help, Darwin could also rely on the college "gyp," the Cambridge nickname for a valet or servant.

With so much help and just two hours of mathematics and classics lectures each morning, there was plenty of time for socializing or private study, van Wyhe said.

"He would be out shooting, collecting beetles, doing his scientific hobbies or visiting friends," he said. "They played cards and drank wine at night, just like students always have."

After leaving Cambridge, Darwin set sail on the Beagle bound for South America and Australasia where he developed his theories on evolution that would later be published in his seminal book "On the Origin of Species."

News : The Nano, world's cheapest car, to hit Indian roads

By Janaki Krishnan

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Nano, the world's cheapest car, will hit Indian roads in July, four months after its formal launch on Monday, and demand is expected to far outstrip supply as the price tag of around $2,000 draws legions of new buyers.

Hundreds of thousands are set to queue up to book, including motorbike owners and people who have been using public transport.

But launching six months behind schedule in a subdued market, with production in the first year severely constrained and the threat of further ratings downgrades hanging over the company, it will take over a year to deliver the first 100,000 cars.

"We are at the gates offering a new form of transportation to the people of India, and later I hope other markets as well," Chairman Ratan Tata told a news conference.

"From the drawing board to its commercial launch, the car has overcome several challenges. I hope it will provide safe, affordable four-wheel transportation to families who till now have not been able to own a car," he said.

Since the Nano was first shown, the main production plant had to be moved following land protests, Tata Motors posted a first loss in seven years as sales slumped, its shares have dropped 70 percent and Tata Motors' credit rating was downgraded.

The first 100,000 Nano owners will be randomly picked from bookings made from April 9 and 25, and their prices will be protected, said Tata, who had promised a 100,000 rupee ($1,980) dealer price at a glitzy unveiling more than a year ago.

A European variant will be launched by 2011, and the company is also looking at the United States, as the current economic situation has made low-cost cars even more attractive, Tata said.

"This was never conceived as the cheapest car, but as providing transport to those people who never owned a car."

"Driven mainly by the change in demand that we see elsewhere in the world, we suddenly felt we had a product that could be of considerable interest as a low-cost product in western Europe, eastern Europe, the UK and even the U.S.," Tata said.

STUPENDOUS RESPONSE

The Nano can be booked at more than 30,000 locations in 1,000 cities across India, including Tata-owned department and electronics stores, with booking forms costing 300 rupees each. It can also be booked online (www.tatanano.com).

Dealers expect bookings will need a down payment that Managing Director Ravi Kant said would be very close to the price.

"We have had a stupendous response so far, breaking all class and other barriers," Kant said of the enquiries so far.

Heavy bookings could help the firm battling falling sales of commercial vehicles, its mainstay, and help repay $2 billion of bridge loans due in June. The bridge loan was taken for the acquisition of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands last year.

While costs of raw materials such as steel had changed a lot since the Nano was first proposed and even since its unveiling, the company decided to hold the price for the first 100,000 cars and expects the car to be profitable, Tata said.

"It's often asked whether this project is going to be an act of philanthropy which I assure you it will not," Tata said.

Analysts say Tata will most likely raise prices soon, but the slim margins, initial capacity constraints and depressed market sentiment mean that breakeven on the project will take 5-6 years.

"Scaling up challenges are expected to be humungous," CRISIL Research said in a note, adding volumes of 200,000-500,000 units were needed in the medium-term for the project to be viable.

Tata can currently produce about 60,000 Nanos a year until a 250,000-unit plant in Gujarat state comes onstream by year-end.

PRICE CORRECTION

Competition is not far off: Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda and Fiat are eyeing the segment and the venture of Renault/Nissan Motor with Bajaj is on track to launch their $2,500 car in 2011.

Meanwhile, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor, the No. 1 and No. 2 carmakers in India, are unlikely to cede ground to the Nano without a fight.

"I would imagine there'd be some reaction from the market. I expect price correction from small car makers," Tata said.

The Nano is also keeping environmentalists awake, with worries about the impact on India's already-polluted cities and congested streets. Tata has said the Nano is less polluting than the millions of motorbikes on the road.

"Every additional car or scooter on the road is going to add to congestion. But congestion in rural India is not an issue. Connectivity is still in its nascent form there," Tata said.

"I just hope the dream that we've all had and we've worked so hard for proves itself to be the kind of product that we would like it to be."

(Additional reporting by John Mair; Writing by Rina Chandran; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)

News : iPhone Apps mean money for game publisher ngmoco

Posted by: Gabriel Madway

Given the popularity of downloadable apps for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, many folks — namely some prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists — are confident there’s plenty of money to be made from app developers as well.

Ngmoco, which makes games exclusively for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, said Monday it has closed $10 million in Series B financing led by Norwest Venture Partners. The company’s previous investors –- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Maples Investments — also participated in the funding. Ngmoco received $5.6 million in its first round of financing.

Ngmoco — which stands for “next generation mobile company” — was born last year along with Apple’s App Store, and the company’s profile has risen in tandem with the store’s popularity. Users have downloaded more than 800 million apps in total and the store now features more than 25,000 offerings.

Ngmoco’s games have been installed more than 7 million times. The company currently has seven titles –- its most popular is the $9.95 “Orlando” -– and 12 in development.

Neil Young, ngmoco’s chief executive and one of its co-founders, said in an interview that he was surprised by the “voracious” appetite for games on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Although he wouldn’t rule out making games for other platforms, he said the devices provide a unique opportunity for game makers.

It’s just a blend of amazing capability with this awesome usability. And its clearly those two things that are enabling this new type of usage patterns both in terms of how people are consuming games and how much they’re consuming. And also the ease at which they’re able to get them. Until there are any other platforms that come close to that I think we’ll certainly remain focused on these devices.

Young, who left game publishing giant Electronics Arts to launch ngmoco, declined to disclose a revenue figure for the company, which has 26 employees.

The App Store is estimated to offer some 6,000 games. Many see the iPhone and iPod Touch as legitimate competitors to Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP handheld gaming consoles, and that battle should play out over the coming months and years. IPhone games are expected to be much on display at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

News : Japan robot model no challenge yet to human rivals

By Chika Osaka

TOKYO (Reuters) - It may have been a fashion first, but supermodel Naomi Campbell has nothing to fear.

The HRP-4C humanoid robot showed off her stormtrooper-like silver and black frame and bowed to a fashion-savvy audience at the start of the annual Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo -- but even her creators admit the mechanical model needs more work.

The HRP-4C has battery-powered motors in her body and face, allowing her to imitate the expressions, gait and poses of a supermodel --- up to a point.

"Our robot can't move elegantly like the real models that are here today," Shuji Kajita, director of humanoid robot engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), told Reuters. "It'll take another 20 to 30 years of research to make that happen."

The 158 cm (5 ft 2 inch) high-tech model weighed in at 43 kg (95 lb), slimmed down from earlier versions just in time for her catwalk debut at one of Japan's biggest fashion events.

AIST designers say the eyes, face and hair of the robot, which cost about $2 million to develop, are based on Japanese "anime" cartoon characters.

Japan, home to almost half of the world's 800,000 industrial robots, expects the industry to expand to $10 billion in the future including models that can care for its fast-growing elderly population.

(Writing by Michael Caronna and Linda Sieg; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

News : Africa aid flights axed to save cash

A humanitarian air service run by the World Food Programme, serving Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone is to stop because of a lack of money.

The WFP service to four of Africa's poorest countries costs the UN half a million US dollars a month. It uses chartered helicopters and aircraft to ferry aid workers and supplies to remote parts areas in the region.

The decision has been called a death blow for thousands who depend on the service.

Sonia Legg reports.

News : Space station's wings get a lift from robot arms

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts used a pair of robotic cranes to unpack the International Space Station's last set of solar wing panels from shuttle Discovery's cargo bay on Wednesday, part of three-day effort to bring the orbital outpost up to full power.

Installing the power system is the primary purpose of NASA's 125th shuttle mission, which began Sunday with Discovery's blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle arrived at the station, orbiting 220 miles above Earth, on Tuesday for an eight-day stay.

The shuttle and station crews used robot arms on both spacecraft to delicately maneuver the 31,000-pound (13,950 kg) girder, which contains the solar power panels, out of the shuttle and over to the space station. It is scheduled to be installed on Thursday during the mission's first spacewalk.

Once in position, the station's 11-part spine will be complete after more than a decade of construction. NASA has up to nine shuttle missions remaining to finishing installing science laboratories and equipment to support an expanded, six-member space station crew.

The power system, built by Boeing, is designed to supply 124 kilowatts of electricity to the station -- enough to power 42 average-sized U.S. homes.

During their first in-flight interview, rookie astronauts said the rocket ride into space was smoother than they had expected.

"The time kind of sneaks up on you. You're sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting and all of sudden you're inside the nine-minute hold (in the launch countdown) and you know you're going to go," said Richard Arnold, one of Discovery's two teacher-astronauts.

"I was surprised at how relatively quiet it was -- a bit of shaking, a very smooth ride. I was expecting a bit more noise," he added.

After reaching orbit, the crew surveyed their ship's heat shield for damage. NASA on Wednesday told the crew the shuttle was in good shape and no additional inspections were needed.

The shuttle is due back at the Kennedy Space Center on March 28.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Todd Eastham)

News : Sony Reader taps Google's public domain books

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sony Corp is making available public domain books from Google Inc to users of its electronic book reader, Sony said on Wednesday, vastly increasing the amount of available content on the device.

In the latest round of a budding digital book battle with Amazon.com Inc, Sony said that more than a half a million classic titles will be free to users of the Reader, which allows consumers to read books and newspapers on a hand-held device.

That will boost the available titles in Sony's eBook Store to more than 600,000, Sony said.

Sony sells two versions of its Reader, which competes directly with Amazon's Kindle. Kindle users can access over 245,000 titles plus newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Whereas Amazon touts its relationship with publishers and access to a wide range of best-selling titles -- which generally cost $9.99 -- as a selling-point for the Kindle, Google has sought to make its collection of public domain books widely available.

Public domain books, whether Jane Austin's "Persuasion" or Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace", are no longer protected by copyright.

Last month, Google announced it was making the collection easily accessible to mobile devices such as the iPhone, and Amazon has said a similar move was afoot at the company.

Sony Reader users will be able to read the Google books on their devices, or download a PDF file to read on a computer. The books are already accessible over the Internet at www.books.google.com.

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage; editing by Carol Bishopric)

News : Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is set to publicly launch Internet Explorer 8 early on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating Web browser.

The application, an integral part of Microsoft's eagerly awaited Windows 7 operating system, can be downloaded from Microsoft's website from 9 a.m. Pacific time, free for people using licensed Microsoft operating systems.

IE8, as it is commonly referred to, has been in public beta testing for about a year, but Thursday's launch marks its full public rollout.

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, said IE8 will run with Windows Vista, its latest operating system, and also Windows XP, the previous version which some users still prefer over Vista.

The application replaces IE7, which has a lock on the browser market. According to a recent survey by IT consultants Janco Associates Inc, Internet explorer has a 72.2 percent market share, ahead of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser with 17.2 percent. Google Inc's new Chrome browser has only 2.8 percent of the market, while Apple Inc's Safari has less than 1 percent.

Microsoft has run afoul of U.S. and European antitrust regulators for bundling its browser with its operating system, which competitors say is an attempt to drive them out of the market.

Last month, Google joined Mozilla and Norway's Opera in protesting Microsoft's dominance in the browser market. In January, European regulators brought formal charges against Microsoft for abusing its dominant market position by bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser with its Windows operating system, which is used in 95 percent of the world's personal computers.

Microsoft has already announced that users of Windows 7 -- expected later this year or early next year -- will be able to turn key programs like Internet Explorer off, making it easier to use other browsers.

New features in IE8 include right-clicking on addresses or other Web features to go straight to a map or put into a blog or other website, which Microsoft calls an "accelerator". Users will also be able to put in keywords in the address bar to recall sites visited related to that word.

The new browser also has enhanced security protection, for example warning users if they are about to download something from a site known to be a source of malicious software, or "malware".

News : Advertising looks to become useful

As consumers yield more power to sidestep commercial messages they find irritating, 'creatives' look to new ways of attracting attention for brand messages.

Mobile audio messages that are inaudible to the adult ear, downloadable applications that offer free information and translation services are among the services being built at Ogilvy UK's Digital Lab.

Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan has a look behind the scenes.

News : Deadly Peru mudslide

Two people die and at least 10 more are missing after torrential rainfall across Peru caused a mudslide.

Rescue workers pulled the bodies from the mud while residents moved to higher ground and authorities declared a state of emergency after smaller mudslides washed out bridges and highways in the hamlet of Batanchaca, some 315 kilometres east of Peru's capital.

Matthew Stock reports.

News : Consumers want unrestricted Internet access

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Nine in 10 people expect their Internet service providers to offer open and unrestricted access to the Web, a survey showed on Wednesday. The survey, commissioned by Google, Yahoo and Web telephone company Skype, came as the European Parliament and EU states hold talks on a joint deal to reform the bloc's telecoms rules to boost competition.

"EU lawmakers should make sure that national authorities have the powers they need to act in cases where traffic management by telecommunication companies constitute unnecessary, discriminatory and/or anti-competitive behavior," the companies said in a joint statement.

The survey by market researcher Synovate was conducted among 944 consumers in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

"Consumers clearly think that they should have access to all legitimate sites and services online. They do not want their access blocked or limited," said Synovate head Nigel Jackson.

He said most Internet users were not aware that their Internet service providers might be restricting access to these services in any way.

One in 10 of those polled in the survey in the UK said they were willing to fork out more for another Internet service provider if their company blocked or limited their service. The percentage was higher, at 15 percent for German consumers in the poll.

The European Parliament and EU governments have joint say over the telecoms measures which were authored by EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding and include the setting up of a new EU telecoms regulatory body.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

News : Apple unveils App options in iPhone software peek

By Gabriel Madway

CUPERTINO, California (Reuters) - Apple unveiled new software for the iPhone that will support some long-anticipated features, such as copy-and-paste of text and picture messaging, as the company pushes to stay competitive in the phone market.

Apple also gave its vast network of software developers a slew of new options for upcoming applications, such as support for subscription models and automatic alerts, a move applauded by analysts.

"They've taken a few more steps ahead of the pack in the race," said CCS Insight analyst John Jackson, adding that, in spite of the omission of certain features until now, the iPhone was still the most high-profile cell phone.

"Two years on they still have the cool phone and business model that everybody's talking about and trying to emulate."

While Apple's touchscreen inspired many imitators, some users complained it lacked functions common in other smartphones such as multimedia messaging and the ability to copy and paste text.

Such features already exist on rival devices such as the BlackBerry from Research In Motion Ltd and Treo from Palm Inc and phones based on Windows Mobile from Microsoft Corp. iPhone is central to Apple's plans, as growth in its Mac computer and iPod music player businesses slows.

On Tuesday, Apple -- represented by iPhone software senior vice president Scott Forstall, as Chief Executive Steve Jobs is out on medical leave -- lifted the veil on iPhone 3.0 software with 100 new features, including some long-wished for updates.

An early version of the software is available to application developers today and will be available to consumers this summer. IPhone users will be able to download the software upgrade for free, while iPod touch customers will be charged $9.95.

The updated software kit for developers will have more than 1,000 new programing functions, including peer-to-peer capability, an interface allowing applications to communicate with iPhone accessories such as docking stations, as well as access to the phone's music library.

Analysts said that while most the of software updates were long expected, improvements to the developers kit could help increase revenue made from applications.

Gartner analyst Van Baker said the message of the event was clearly targeted at the developer community. He expects the new development kit to enable third-party vendors to create better and more expensive applications.

"This is a pretty significant release ... it will certainly help to drive commerce," Baker said.

NEW APP FEATURES

The next-generation iPhone operating system will enable so- called push notification, allowing developers to build applications that can provide automatic alerts of items such as sports results or the arrival of an instant message. The alerts would show up automatically even if the user is in another application.

It will also allow developers to offer subscriptions and sell content within their applications.

In addition, a peer-to-peer capability will enable iPhone users near each other to interact for features such as gaming.

Apple also promised multimedia messaging capability with the new 3.0 software, allowing users to send each other photographs from the phone.

On top of that, the company unveiled a widely anticipated universal search feature called "spotlight," which can scour key applications on the phone such as e-mail and iPod.

Apple, which sells iPhones in 80 countries, said Tuesday consumers had already downloaded 800 million iPhone applications from its store, which offers 25,000 applications so far.

Apple said it will expand its App Store to 77 countries from 62.

Apple declined to comment when asked about plans to release a netbook computer or a new iPhone model. Many analysts expect to see a new iPhone this summer, while some speculate Apple will also introduce a stripped-down version for as little as $99.

Apple's second-generation, 3G iPhone was an immediate hit when it was released last July. The company sold a total of 13.7 million iPhones in 2008, topping its 10 million target.

The iPhone App Store has become something of a consumer phenomenon, helping boost interest in the device. The store features a wide array of applications, some for free and some for a fee. Under Apple's model, 70 percent of the revenue goes to the developer.

"What they did with this blew us away," Forstall told the audience, referring to the applications developers.

Apple shares closed up $4.24, or 4.4 percent, at $99.66 on the Nasdaq.

(Writing and additional reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Edwin Chan and Tim Dobbyn)

News : IBM in talks to buy Sun Microsystems

By Ritsuko Ando and Anupreeta Das

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems Inc, sources with knowledge of the matter said, a move that could bolster the technology giant against rivals in the high-end computer server market.

International Business Machines Corp is offering to pay at least $6.5 billion, or double Sun's Tuesday closing price of $4.97, The Wall Street Journal reported online earlier. Shares of Sun jumped 64 percent in pre-market trading to $8.16, while IBM shares fell 2 percent to $90.89.

If they reach a deal, it would be IBM's largest-ever acquisition, and represent a departure from its recent strategy of focusing on deals to strengthen its software and services businesses, rather than hardware.

Analysts saw the talks as part of a consolidation trend, as Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM and Cisco Systems Inc jostle for control of corporate data centers and compete to supply the high-end computers that power complex corporate transactions and networks.

"It makes sense in an industry consolidation view, but looking at Sun's performance over the last couple of years, it's not one of my top picks for IBM to buy," said Jyske Bank analyst Robert Jakobsen, speaking from Denmark.

"Having said that, there's clearly a huge synergy combining these two companies," he said. "The market hasn't been kind to Sun Microsystems in the last 12 months. So it's not an expensive acquisition in my view."

Sun, which was not available for comment, has long been cited as a takeover target for IBM, HP, Dell Inc or Cisco, which introduced a comprehensive set of data center products earlier this week. Bankers have said Sun has been searching for a buyer in recent months.

But the challenge of valuing Sun's intertwined software, hardware and services businesses could put off potential buyers, analysts say. Sun has never fully recovered from the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000s, when demand for its servers cratered.

IBM, which had nearly $13 billion in cash at the end of $2008, declined comment. Its largest acquisition to date is the $5 billion purchase of Canadian software maker Cognos in 2008.

The Wall Street Journal said HP had declined to buy Sun, citing a person briefed on the matter.

TECH SPENDING CUTS

IBM was the top supplier of servers in the fourth quarter, with a market share of 36.3 percent, according to market researcher IDC. HP has 29.0 percent, followed by Dell with 10.6 percent, Sun with 9.3 percent, and Fujitsu with 4.2 percent.

These five server vendors all posted declines in their fourth-quarter server revenue, hurt by pullbacks in corporate spending on technology due to the weak global economy.

IBM's move, as well as Cisco's announcement on Monday, may signal a new wave of partnerships and acquisitions in the data center market as companies strive to provide more comprehensive products and services to their customers.

Cisco's move could put into play data equipment maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc, infrastructure software maker Citrix Systems Inc and niche network optimization companies, such as Blue Coat Systems Inc and Riverbed Technology Inc, analysts said.

"IBM wants to become a one-stop shop for all IT related offerings, whether it is hardware, software services or solutions," Avinash Vashistha, chief executive at IT consulting firm Tholons Inc. "They have been executing this strategy for the last few years and with the Sun deal, they will only accelerate that move."

Sun, whose name stands for Stanford University Network, rose to prominence in the 1990s when start-ups flocked to its high-end computers, which run on its Solaris operating system and have been widely used in the financial services industry.

When the Internet bubble burst in 2000-01, funding for start-ups dried up along with much of the demand for Sun's computers.

Sun has tried to reinvent itself by offering more services and software, and expanding production of Linux-based computers, which tend to be cheaper. But that failed to revive its stock price. The company is shedding up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its workforce.

Sun shares are down 71 percent in the last year, a far cry from an all-time high of $258.75 during the dotcom boom.

(Additional reporting by S. John Tilak, Ajay Kamalakaran and Sumeet Chatterjee in Bangalore; Writing by Tiffany Wu; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Derek Caney)

News : Shuttle blasts off for space station

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasted off on Sunday carrying a pair of solar wing panels and the first Japanese resident astronaut for the International Space Station.

Discovery will spend 13 days in orbit, speeding around the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour (28,160 kph). For eight of those days it will be lodged at the space station, which is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction 225 miles (360 km) above Earth.Discovery's seven-man crew includes Koichi Wakata, 45, who will be left behind on the space station as Japan's first resident crew member. NASA last year delivered and installed the main components of Japan's Kibo laboratory at the orbital complex.

NOTE: Natural sound only, no reporter narration.

News : Nano-vehicles to target cancer

Scientists say a modified plant virus has the potential to radically improve the delivery of today's anti-cancer therapeutics and significantly reduce the harsh side effects of chemotherapy.

The researchers from North Carolina State University have developed what they call nano-sized cargo vehicles that can be loaded with anti-cancer drugs and target tumor cells inside the human body.

The delivery system, a virus known as the Red Clover Necrotic Mosiac Virus, has a built-in "cargo space" of 17 nanometers, which can be loaded with anti-cancer drugs.

The researchers say the virus is better than human-made nano particles because doesn't "leak" it's cargo.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) STEVEN LOMMEL, PROFESSOR OF PLANT PATHOLOGY AND GENETICS AT NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

(SOUNDBITE) (English) STEPHAN FRAZEN, PROFESSOR OF BIOPHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY AT NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

News : The future of the World Wide Web

As the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN marks the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web, Reuters TV looks ahead to the next 20 years.

Matt Cowan, Reuters.

SOUNDBITE:

Eric Auchard, Reuters Technology Columnist

Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine Editor In Chief

William Gibson, Science Fiction Author MORE INFO: Suffice to say that 'microblogging', social networking and interest based advertising were not part of physicist Tim Berners-Lee's initial vision for the World Wide Web when he wrote his 1989 proposal to connect hypertext with the internet and personal computers So where will the next 20 years take us? Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan explores the possibilities and likely scenarios. 

News : Vatican starts Chinese website but some fear block

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican is launching a Chinese version of its website in an effort to bring more of Pope Benedict's message to China, whose communist government does not allow Catholics to recognize his authority.

Some Church sources and diplomats said they feared the site could be blocked by Chinese authorities, as has been the fate of other websites.

The Vatican said on Monday the Chinese version of the website www.vatican.va will be launched on Thursday. It already has versions in seven other languages.

The pope's speeches and other content will be available in both traditional and simplified Chinese characters.

China's communist government does not allow its Catholics to recognize the Pope's authority and forces them to be members of a state-backed Catholic organization.

China's 8 million to 12 million Catholics are split between the officially approved church and an "underground" one loyal to the Pope.

While the Vatican statement said it hoped the site would be used by "Internet users from throughout the world," Church sources and diplomats said they feared the site would be blocked.

"As long as the website does not post anything the government objects to, it will be OK," said Father Bernardo Cervellera, head of Asia News, a web-based religious news agency that specializes on China.

"But once they start talking about the nomination of bishops or Tibet or the Dalai Lama, it will be blocked just as ours has been quite often," Cervellera told Reuters.

China regularly blocks sites it finds unsavory, particularly those critical of the Communist Party.

Access to the New York Times website and Chinese versions of the BBC, Voice of America and Hong Kong media Ming Pao News and Asiaweek have been blocked in the past.

China, which eased its rein on the Internet before and during the Beijing Olympics in August, has said that it is within its rights to block websites with content illegal under Chinese law.

Beijing's relations with the Vatican have alternated in recent years between ice and signs of thaws.

Last year a bishop from Hong Kong represented Pope Benedict at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in August and in May China's national orchestra played for the Pope at a concert in the Vatican.

But in October, China denied permission for Catholic bishops to travel to Rome for a Church meeting.

Benedict has made improving relations with China a main goal of his pontificate and hopes diplomatic ties can be restored.

China says before restoring ties, broken off two years after the 1949 Communist takeover, the Vatican must sever relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.

News : Cybersquatting cases hit record in 2008

GENEVA (Reuters) - Companies and celebrities ranging from Arsenal football club to actress Scarlett Johansson filed a record number of "cybersquatting" cases in 2008 to stop others from profiting from their famous names, brands and events, a United Nations agency said on Sunday.

Web sites in dispute in 2008 included references to Madrid's 2016 Olympics bid, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Yale University, Research in Motion's Blackberry as well as Arsenal and Johansson, and company names such as eBay, Google and Nestle.

The most common business sector in which complaints arose was pharmaceuticals, due to websites offering sales of medicines with protected names. Other top sectors for complaints were banking and finance, Internet and telecommunications, retail, and food, beverages and restaurants.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) handled 2,329 cases under its dispute procedure for Internet page names.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the system of Web addresses with endings like .com and .gov, is preparing to launch many new series of suffixes.

These new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) will allow a vast increase in the number of Web addresses, providing new scope for trademarked names to be abused -- or at least making it harder for the trademark owners to monitor them.

"The creation of an unknowable and potentially vast number of new gTLDs raises significant issues for rights holders, as well as Internet users generally," WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry said in a statement.

The founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday the names system had become mired in politics and commercial games.

"It would have been interesting to look at systems that didn't involve domains," Tim Berners-Lee, who drafted a proposal 20 years ago that led to the Web, told an anniversary celebration.

Gurry said his U.N. agency was working with ICANN, a not-for-profit corporation based in California, on "pre- and post-delegation procedures" to check the proposed new suffixes and help avoid future litigation.

For instance a new suffix ".apple" could well upset the computer, phone and entertainment company Apple.

How such suffixes are used and by whom would be important -- a fruit-growing company using the .apple suffix would not have the same effect as a company registering a Website "ipod.apple."

Gurry told a news conference that trademarks that had no other meaning, such as Sony and Kodak, were stronger and easier to defend than those based on general words or names, which could be ambiguous.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn; Editing by Laura MacInnis)

News : Close call in space

A small piece of passing debris forces three astronauts to briefly evacuate the International Space Station.

The astronauts briefly evacuated to a Russian escape ship when a tiny piece of space debris came too close for comfort, NASA said.

The astronauts, Russian Yury Lonchakov and Americans Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus, were in the Soyuz spacecraft for about nine minutes before the debris passed and the space station was deemed safe to re-enter.

News : Debris briefly forces astronauts from space station

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A tiny piece of space junk smaller than a fingertip forced three astronauts to briefly evacuate the International Space Station on Thursday when the debris came too close for comfort.

The astronauts, Russian Yury Lonchakov and Americans Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus, spent about nine minutes in the Soyuz escape ship before the potentially destructive space litter passed by.

NASA called the threat to the $100 billion space station "minimal" and said the astronauts were moved into the Soyuz capsule as a precaution.

The debris was a "very tiny piece" -- about 1/3 of an inch long -- of an old "payload assist motor" that was previously on either a Delta rocket or the space shuttle, NASA spokeswoman Laura Rochon said.

Being in the escape craft would have allowed the astronauts to "quickly depart the station in the unlikely event the debris collided with the station causing a depressurization," the U.S. space agency said in a statement.

Warnings of the close encounter came too late for flight controllers to maneuver the station out of the way, the statement said.

It was not immediately clear how close the debris came to the space station. But NASA officials recalled at least five other times station crews had taken refuge in the Soyuz as a precaution, NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said.

Space junk is considered a threat to the estimated 800 or so commercial and military satellites operating in space and the space station, which has been continuously manned since November 2000. There are more than 18,000 pieces of space debris cataloged.

DESTRUCTIVE FORCE

Small pieces of junk can pose a danger to the space station and the shuttle because of the speed at which they move. Pieces as small as a fleck of paint, hurtling along at about 17,000 miles an hour, have damaged the shuttle's windows.

A BB-sized chunk of aluminum traveling at orbital velocity would have the same destructive potential as a bowling ball moving at 60 mph, according to American University in Washington, D.C. In a research report, it said a marble-sized aluminum sphere could be as destructive as a 400-pound (180 kg) safe falling from the roof of a 10-story building.

The crash between a U.S. satellite and a defunct Russian military satellite over northern Siberia in February created more than 500 pieces of new space debris to be tracked by the U.S. Strategic Command, the arm of the Pentagon that monitors space junk.

The first of those pieces was expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere on Thursday.

As a result of that accident, NASA calculated the chance of a catastrophic impact with orbital debris had been increased by 6 percent, to 1 in 318, for the next shuttle mission.

Thursday's incident occurred a day after NASA postponed until Sunday the scheduled launch of shuttle Discovery on a mission to the space station, because of a hydrogen leak during fueling.

The first of five shuttle flights planned this year is to deliver a final set of solar power panels to the space station and transport Japan's first astronaut to serve as a member of the station crew.

Sunday's liftoff is scheduled for 7:43 p.m. EDT/2343 GMT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The space station, a project of 16 nations, has been under construction 220 miles above Earth for more than a decade. NASA plans up to nine shuttle flights to complete assembly, as well as a final servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope, before it retires the shuttle fleet next year.

(Writing by Jim Loney; Additional reporting by Tom Brown and Jane Sutton in Miami, Maggie Fox in Washington, Ed Stoddard in Dallas and Ludmilla Danilova in Moscow; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

News : Kremlin loyalist says launched Estonia cyber-attack

By Christian Lowe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - An activist with a pro-Kremlin youth group said Thursday he and his friends were behind an electronic attack on Estonia two years ago that paralyzed the NATO state's Internet network.

Ex-Soviet Estonia blamed the Russian government for the attack at the time, though Moscow denied involvement. The incident prompted the NATO military alliance to review its readiness to defend against "cyber-warfare."

Konstantin Goloskokov, an activist with Russia's Nashi youth group and aide to a pro-Kremlin member of parliament, said he had organized a network of sympathizers who bombarded Estonian Internet sites with electronic requests, causing them to crash.

He said the action was a protest against the dismantling in 2007 of a Soviet-era monument to the Red Army from a square in the center of Estonia's capital Tallinn. The removal prompted two nights of rioting by mainly Russian-speaking protesters.

"I was not involved in any cyber-attack. What I did and what my friends did was no kind of attack, it was an act of civil disobedience, absolutely legal," 22-year-old Goloskokov told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Its aim was to express our protest against the policy of soft apartheid which has been conducted by the leadership of Estonia for many years and the climax of which was the dismantling of the ... soldiers' (monument) in Tallinn."

OVERLOADED WEBSITES

"We made multiple requests to these sites," he said. "The fact that they could not withstand this is, strictly speaking, the fault of those people who from a technical point of view did not equip them properly."

He said his action -- known as a distributed denial-of-service attack -- was his own initiative and he received no help either from Nashi or from Russian officials.

The creation of the youth group was masterminded by Kremlin officials and its activists have had audiences with former President Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister. Nashi's former leader is now the head of a government agency.

Nashi stages regular protests outside the embassies of Western states with which the Kremlin has disagreements, and its activists picket meetings of opposition parties.

Kristina Potupchik, a spokeswoman for the organization, said it had nothing to do with jamming Estonian Internet sites. "If anything did happen, it was the personal initiative of Konstantin Goloskokov," she said.

Russian officials allege that Estonia routinely discriminates against its Russian-speaking minority and accuse European institutions of turning a blind eye.

The decision to move the Red Army monument in Tallinn was seen in Moscow as a deliberate snub to the sacrifices the Soviet Union made to liberate eastern Europe from German occupation during World War Two.

But Estonians, like many eastern Europeans, say Nazi rule was replaced by decades of brutal Soviet repression which only ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Estonia's government denies discriminating against Russian-speakers. It said the presence of the Red Army monument in the center of the capital was causing public order problems, and moved it instead to a military cemetery.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

News : Coating makes scratches on cars disappear

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists have developed a polyurethane coating that heals its own scratches when exposed to sunlight, offering the promise of scratch-free cars and other products, researchers said on Thursday.

"We developed a polymeric material that is able to repair itself by exposure to the sun," said Marek Urban of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, whose study appears in the journal Science.

"In essence, you create a scratch and that scratch will disappear upon exposure to the sun," Urban said in an interview on the Science website.

The self-healing coating uses chitosan, a substance found in the shells of crabs and shrimp. This is incorporated into traditional polymer materials, such as those used in coatings on cars to protect paint.

When a scratch damages the chemical structure, the chitosan responds to ultraviolet light by forming chemical chains that begin bonding with other materials in the substance, eventually smoothing the scratch. The process can take less than an hour.

Urban said the new coating uses readily available materials, offering an advantage over other self-repairing coatings, which he said were "fairly elaborate and economically unfeasible."

The team tested the compound's properties using a razor-blade-thin scratch. "We haven't done any of the tests to show how wide it can be," Urban said in a telephone interview.

He said the polymer can only repair itself in the same spot once, and would not work after repeated scratches.

"Obviously, this is one of the drawbacks," he said, adding that the chances are low of having two scratches in exactly the same spot.

Howell Edwards, who leads the chemical and forensic sciences division of the University of Bradford in Britain, said the findings were novel.

"Clearly, there are future applications of this work in the repair of automotive components, which extensively use polyurethane polymers, that have suffered minor damage," Edwards said in a statement.

Urban said the coating could be used in packaging or furniture or anything that requires a high-performance type of coating.

"You can dream up anything you desire," he said.

Urban said his team has patents pending on the material and is considering commercialization.

(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)

News : Apple to preview new iPhone software next week

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple will hold an event next Tuesday to preview new software for the iPhone, the company said.

Apple said in an email invitation on Thursday that it will provide a "sneak peek" at the iPhone 3.0 software, along with information about the new software kit that third-party vendors use to create applications for the device.

The company will host the event at its corporate campus in Cupertino, California, on March 17.

Apple released its 3G iPhone last summer and the device proved to be an immediate hit with consumers. Apple sold 6.9 million devices in the September quarter and 4.3 million in the December quarter.

The iPhone is one of Apple's main engines for growth. Over the course of 2008, the company sold over 13.7 million iPhones, ahead of its 10 million target.

Key to the iPhone's success has been the applications offered through the company's App store, which launched last July. The store features a wide array of programs, some for free and some for a fee.

In January, Apple said more than 500 million applications had been downloaded and that more than 15,000 apps were available.

Shares of Apple rose $3.07, or 3.3 percent, to $95.75 in early afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway; editing by Gunna Dickson)

News : Miracle surgery in India

A team of Indian doctors successfully remove a six-foot long iron rod from a child's abdomen.

The incident took place when the boy fell from a terrace while playing. The rod went through his chest before coming out of the abdomen.

Doctors in India's eastern city of Ranchi conducted the miraculous surgery, removing the rod during a four-hour-long operation.

(SOUNDBITE)(Hindi) ARUN KUMAR, THE BOY'S FATHER: "He fell from the terrace of the house while playing and there was a rod which went through his abdomen."

(SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) SANDEEP AGGARWAL, SURGEON, RAJENDRA INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES (RIMS): "When the child was brought to us he had lost a lot of blood. Within 15 minutes we did an x-ray and other tests and when we slit open his abdomen, we discovered, the rod had passed through his chest. But because the abdominal cavity of a child is very small there were more chances of injury occurring there. Opening the abdomen, we discovered his liver was injured, the stomach was injured, but thankfully, the spleen and pancreas were safe. Child was lucky that he did not suffer any major injury but yes he had substantial injuries, it was life threatening injury I would say."

NOTE: This video contains graphic images.

News : Engineers find way to build a better battery

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. engineers have found a way to make lithium batteries that are smaller, lighter, longer lasting and capable of recharging in seconds.

The researchers believe the quick-charging batteries could open up new applications, including better batteries for electric cars.

And because they use older materials in a new way, the batteries could be available for sale in two to three years, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Current rechargeable lithium batteries can store large amounts of energy, making them long-running. But they are stingy about releasing their power, making them discharge energy slowly and require hours to recharge.

Scientists traditionally have blamed slow-moving lithium ions -- which carry charge across the battery -- for this sluggishness.

However, about five years ago, Gerbrand Ceder and a team at MIT discovered that lithium ions in traditional lithium iron phosphate battery material actually move quite quickly.

"It turned out there were other limitations," Ceder said in a telephone interview.

Ceder and colleagues discovered that lithium ions travel through tunnels accessed from the surface of the material. If a lithium ion at the surface is directly in front of a tunnel entrance, it can quickly deliver a charge. But if the ion is not at the entrance, it cannot easily move there, making it less efficient at delivering a charge.

Ceder and colleagues remedied this by revamping the battery recipe. "We changed the composition of the base material and we changed the way it is made -- the heat treatment," Ceder said.

This created many smooth tunnels in the material that allow the ions to slip in and out easily. "The trick was knowing what to change," he said.

Using their new processing technique, the team made a small battery that could be fully charged in 10 to 20 seconds.

Ceder thinks the material could lead to smaller, lighter batteries because less material is needed for the same result.

And because they simply tinkered with a material already commonly used for batteries, it could be easily adapted for commercial use.

"If manufacturers decide they want to go down this road, they could do this in a few years," Ceder said.

One glitch, Ceder said, would be handling the extra surge of power. "All of the wiring has to get beefed up," he said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman)

News : Online networking more popular than email

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Are you spending hours and hours on Facebook? If so, you are not alone.

Networking and blogging sites account for almost ten percent of time spent on the internet -- more than on email.

Time on the sites ranked fourth, after online searching, general interest sites, and software sites, according to a study released by Nielsen Online..

"While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing," said John Burbank, the CEO of Nielsen Online.

One in every 11 minutes spent online globally is on networking sites. Between December 2007 and December 2008, the time spent on the sites climbed 63 percent to 45 billion minutes.

The figure was even higher for the world's most popular networking site, Facebook, where members spent 20.5 billion minutes, up 566 percent from 3.1 percent the previous year, according to the study.

More people are also visiting networking sites. In the past year, the reach of online networking sites grew more than 5 percent.

Brazilians are the most avid fans of networking sites, according to the report. Eighty percent of online Brazilians visit networking sites. They also spend the largest portion of their time online -- 23 percent-- on networking sites.

Although Facebook is the most popular networking site globally, with 108.3 million unique visitors, preferences differ by nationality.

Facebook is the top site in Australia, Spain, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom and Italy. But Americans favor MySpace, in Japan, local site Mixi reigns, and in Brazil, Google's networking site, Orkut, is number one.

Many social networking sites were originally geared toward younger audiences, but the sites are no longer just for kids, the report showed.

The biggest growth in Facebook membership comes from the 35-49 year old set. Facebook has added twice as many 50-64 year old visitors as it has visitors under 18.

In the United Kingdom, if current trends continue there will be as many 35-49 year olds on Facebook as 18-34 year olds by mid-June 2009.

(Reporting by Rebekah Kebede; editing by Patricia Reaney)