Technology News and Gadgets Updates: 01/23/11

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Internet exhausting addresses, but no IPocalypse

The Internet is running out of addresses.

With everything from smartphones to Internet-linked appliances and cars getting online, the group entrusted with organising the Web is running out of the "IP" numbers that identify destinations for digital traffic.

The touted solution to the problem is a switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meager four billion or so.

"The big pool in the sky that gives addresses is going to run out in the next several weeks," said Google engineer Lorenzo Colitti, who is leading the Internet giant's transition to the new standard.

"In some sense, we are driving toward a wall. We have to do something, and IPv6 is the only real long-term solution."

The pool in the sky is a fast-draining reservoir of IP addresses maintained by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN has been calling for a change to IPv6 for years but websites and Internet service providers have been clinging to the old standard since the birth of the Internet.

"One of the reasons it has taken so long to change is that there is no obvious advantage or killer application for IPv6," Colitti said.

The number of addresses that IPv6 allows for amounts to 340 "undecillion" (followed by 36 zeroes); enough for a trillion people to each be assigned trillions of IP numbers, according to ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom.

Now, a breath test that tells when fat starts to burn off

British scientists have developed a breathalyser that tells how much fat you are burning off at the gym.

The device is being built to pinpoint the moment when a sweaty session on the treadmill finally starts to pay off by detecting when the body has used up its supply of food energy and switches to breaking down fat instead.

Exercise machines currently estimate when people have entered the "fat burning zone".

The breathalyser works by picking up minute changes in the levels of a molecule called acetone in people’s breath, which is given off when the body starts to burn fat.

Gus Hancock, whose company Oxford Medical Diagnostics has developed the machine, said, "Acetone is a molecule that is produced by people who are burning fat rather than food."

"This is of great interest in sport studies and dietary studies to find out how people have worked out in the gym. That is an area we are trying to explore and we are trying to produce a monitor of how well you have burned off some body fat," the Telegraph quoted Hancock, as saying.

It works by using a detection method known as spectroscopy which measures the wavelengths of light that are absorbed by different molecules in a gas.

By shining an infrared laser through a complex series of mirrors they can detect even tiny changes in the levels of acetone when a person breathes into the breathalyser.

The scientists are also aiming to develop a breath test would allow diabetes diagnosis without having to give blood.

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T-Mobile offers app that blocks texts, calls while driving

Don''t have the willpower to decline calls or texts when you''re driving? Well, a German telecom company has come up with an application that does it for you.

T-Mobile has developed a new service, DriveSmart Plus, which automatically disables most texting and calling features when a phone senses that it is in motion.

"We heard loud and clear from our customers that distracted driving is an issue they care deeply about. They want to help themselves drive responsibly, and they want to make sure their kids are doing the same," ABC News quoted Torrie Dorrell, T-Mobile USA''s vice president of applications, content and games, as saying.

The 4.99 dollars per month application, developed by Emeryville, Calif.-company Location Labs, will be available to T-Mobile customers with Android smartphones.

When activated, the DriveSmart application determines how quickly a phone is switching between cell phone towers. When it senses that the phone is moving faster than 10 mph, within a few minutes, it automatically sends phone calls to voicemail or a hands-free Bluetooth headset (depending on which version the customer selects). It sends text messages to a user''s inbox.

Depending on the phone, the application can also disable audible alerts so that the driver isn''t even aware of incoming messages.

If drivers want to override the service for an emergency call or if users want to override the feature while they''re in the passenger seat (or even on a moving bus), DriveSmart allows that.

Location Labs'' CEO Tasso Roumeliotis said the application would initially only be available on newer T-Mobile Android phones. But considering that the response to the service has been "exceptional," they hope to reach other platforms.

Apple's App Store hits 10 bn downloads

Apple's App Store reached landmark 10 billion downloads on Saturday, further undelining the lead of the iPhone-maker in mobile online software battle, a counter on front page of the store showed.

Apple launched the iPhone store in mid-2008 and it proved to be an instant hit, driving sales of the smartphone and helping reshape the way mobile content is delivered.

The iPhone app store offers more than 300,000 programmes, and there are also more than 40,000 apps available for the iPad.

Its closest rival is privately-held GetJar, which sells software for all platforms, and reached 1 billion downloads in June 2010.

Google's Android Market and Nokia's Ovi Store are among other larger mobile online stores.

Google looks to its next decade

Google, which prides itself on helping people navigate the Internet, is facing a tangled Web as it weaves its own future. While more profitable than ever -- with nearly $30 billion in revenue last year -- Google is under pressure from new rivals such as Facebook and Twitter for the attention of Web surfers , advertising dollars and engineering talent.

In naming co-founder Larry Page, 37, to be chief executive, analysts said Google is seeking to return to its startup roots and ensure its place amid a constantly evolving Internet landscape. Outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt, 55, was brought in to run Google in 2001, when it was battling other, now defunct search engines, and Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin were just a few years removed from Stanford University.

Schmidt, who has jokingly referred to himself as the "adult supervision" at Google, is widely credited with helping build the company into the technology titan it is today alongside the likes of Apple and Microsoft.`````````And while Schmidt is expected to remain an influential voice at Google as executive chairman, the Mountain View, California-based company is turning to Page to stay ahead of its competitors over the next decade.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said Google experienced tremendous growth under Schmidt, becoming a search and advertising powerhouse, but the company has also arguably had a number of missteps and missed opportunities. "A case can also be made that the company has not built any new material revenue streams, was late to building for the mobile market, has no effective social solutions, overbuilt its headcount and placed itself in the crosshairs of government regulators," Gillis said.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.com (), said Google's biggest challenges now are to "prove that they've got their Mojo back and that nobody needs to fear them." "You have investors and others saying 'Gosh, Facebook seems to be doing so well. Why aren't you the hot new thing?'" Sullivan said.

"And nobody's made a movie about Google yet," he added in a reference to "The Social Network," the Oscar-nominated film about the birth of Facebook. Sullivan said "social networking in particular is seen as hot and Google is seen as a company that ought to be doing something there."

At the same time, he said, Google's critics "neglect the fact that they actually have successful products and quite a range of them." The other major issue for Google is "they are engendering a lot of fear in various places: people wondering about privacy, whether they're favoring themselves... governments investigating them for anti-trust claims," Sullivan added.

Google developing Groupon competitor called Offers

Google Inc ., which has expanded beyond its core search operations into mobile phones and other products, is developing a local coupon service similar to Groupon. Like Groupon Inc., the service, Google Offers, will offer time-limited deals from local vendors, such as restaurants. Ten dollars, for example, might buy $20 worth of food at a local cafe.

"Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program," said Google Inc. spokesman Nate Tyler. Google would not say when Offers would be available or provide any more details about its plans.

While Groupon is Google's most obvious competitor when it comes to offering local deals, the field of coupon sites has rapidly grown to include sites such as LivingSocial and Tippr. Flash sales site Gilt Groupe and the newsletter DailyCandy also offer local deals.

Google has signaled it wants to expand in local advertising. Last year, it promoted Marissa Mayer, who oversaw the company's core search products to grow the company's geographic and local services business, and gave her a seat on the company's operating committee of top decision-makers.

The company also has reportedly tried to enter the local deals business by buying prominent companies in the field. Last year, Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., reportedly considered acquiring Yelp for more than $500 million. And last month, it reportedly tried to buy Groupon for somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion, but was rejected.

Groupon has since raised an additional $950 million in venture capital funding.

Currently, Google's Places service lets local businesses set up pages where the owners can post photos and other promotional information, and customers can write reviews. Then, these places can appear as pinpoints on Google's popular map network, Google Maps.