Technology
THE “greenest” way to recycle
the valuable plastic in TV sets is
to mechanically recover it.
Two methods can be used to
recycle the 2.5 kilograms of plastic
in an average 64-centimetre
cathode ray tube TV. It can either
be incinerated to generate energy,
or the salvageable plastic can be
mechanically recovered and
reused. Until now, which of these
methods was the greenest was
unclear, as incineration produces
emissions, while mechanical
recovery consumes energy.
Now, after an analysis of each
method, mechanical recovery has
won out. “Incineration emits the
larger quantity of greenhouse
gases,” says Gjergj Dodbiba of
Tokyo University, Japan, in a
paper to be published in the
Journal of Cleaner Production. The
team hope their findings will feed
into government recycling plans.
GOOGLE has revolutionised
web advertising with its AdSense
system, which displays adverts
for products related to the page
being viewed. Now it wants to do
the same for billboard ads.
In a patent the company has
filed, it argues that however glitzy
the ads that run on electronic
billboards in shopping malls and
out on the street, they are all but
16thousand people watched a police video of two “people of interest” to a Canadian murder inquiry on YouTube. A man then gave himself up
Internet companies are poised to
launch a code of conduct governing
their operations in China.
Web firms have faced sustained
criticism for their activities in China,
which include censoring websites.
So Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and
Amazon have been working with
researchers at the University of
California, Berkeley, and Oxford and
Harvard universities, alongside Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch,
to develop an ethical code of conduct.
A spokesman for Yahoo says it will be
launched in the next few months.
The code will include an
undertaking not to censor a website or
search term unless ordered to do so in
writing. This is in response to criticism
from Human Rights Watch and others
that companies have been “more royal
than the queen” in censoring words
before being ordered to. The firms will
also pledge to keep information on users
for the shortest time possible, and to
inform people if data is passed on to the
government. Error messages displayed
when someone attempts to access an
illegal site could be replaced with a
more honest web page detailing which
department and ministry are responsible
for filtering the content. There will
also be an appeals process and publicly
available documentation on what terms
and web addresses are censored.
Codes of conduct do not have a great
track record, so the key to its success will
be how it is enforced, says Brad Adams
of Human Rights Watch. The code
should be backed up by international
legislation to force companies to comply
with its terms, he says.
WEB FIRMS TACKLE CHINA EFFECT
useless if local stores have not got
the advertised products in stock.
Google has come up with a system
that only advertises products
available nearby.
Stores buying advertising time
on local electronic billboards are
able to connect their stock-control
computers to the network.
The ads are displayed in rotation,
but only until the stock-control
computer reports the product
as sold out. At that point, the ad
is omitted from the cycle until
the product is restocked.
A vibrating vest for soldiers could put an end to cryptic battlefield hand signals.
The spandex vest, developed by the US army, has 16 vibrating motors on its back to
indicate commands such as “turn left”, “speed up” or “slow down”. In tests,
volunteers distinguished between 15 different signals used to direct them around
an obstacle course. Commands are sent to the vest via Bluetooth.
Xerox is helping people who want to browse paper documents but don’t want to
risk sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. The company has developed a
system that prints most of a document’s text but replaces selected words and figures
with a bar code. To read the full text the paper is scanned; a password or fingerprint
plus special software reveals the encrypted content (US patent 2006/0259983).
GIZMO
0 20 40 60 80
13 July 1836
1836 - 1911
1911 - 1935
1935 - 1961
1961 - 1976
1976 - 1991
1991 - 1999
1999 - 2006
1 million
2 million
3 million
4 million
5 million
6 million
7 million
Years
1st patent
THE AGE OF INVENTION
The time taken for 1 million US patents to be
granted has declined dramatically since 1836
A report by In-Stat, which claims that 2007 will see a backlash against network neutrality, the principle that all data packets on the internet should be
treated equally. The report predicts the rising amount of video and other bandwidth-hungry files on the web will slow down other traffic.
“Proponents of net neutrality will plead for a tiered service”
–Less censorship?–
PETE
R PA
RKS/
AFP/
GETT
Y IM
AGES
www.newscientist.com 6 January 2007 | NewScientist | 21
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