BioArts International CEO Lou Hawthorne snuggles with Mira, Chingu, and Sarang, the three clones of his deceased dog Missy.
(Credit: BioArts International)When Lou Hawthorne met Mira, the clone of his dog Missy, he couldn't have been happier. The puppy was just like Missy--and in some ways better because she mirrored Missy in her younger, more playful days.
So BioArts International, Hawthorne's biotech start-up that focuses on animal and human genomics, decided to spread the love.
Starting July 5, the highest bidders in five separate online auctions will win the opportunity to clone their own dogs.
Hawthorne, the company's CEO, said the event is the first step in making his Mill Valley, Calif.-based company's technology available to consumers.
That is, if buyers can afford the hefty price.
Each auction will run for 12 hours a day, starting at 11 a.m. PDT. The auctions will last through July 9 on live bidding Web site ProxiBid.com. The first auction has a starting bid of $100,000, and that bid will increase by $20,000 each day. Although the prices are high, Hawthorne said they would have to be considerably higher for the company to break even. Despite that fact, the company will also offer one lucky pet owner a free dog cloning.
The winners will submit DNA samples, and the company says it can guarantee a healthy cloned puppy within 3 to 12 months.
Animal cloning has come under fire since its inception. Whether based on ethical concerns or a fear of consuming products from cloned farm animals, some people adamantly oppose the practice of genetically altering animals.
But Hawthorne brushes off the naysayers, saying he's never seen a person get upset when they learned his puppies were clones. Responding to the argument that cloning pets is frivolous because so many animals wait to be adopted, he said five cloned dogs won't take a home away from the thousands upon thousdands of dogs in shelters.
"If anything this is the celebration of the mutt," he said. "This is a way to get the same mix you have in your spayed or neutered pet that you got at a shelter."
For Hawthorne, cloning Missy cost about $20 million and took 10 years of hard work. Missy died at age 15, while the cloning process was still under way.
His quest to clone his beloved family pet ended in 2007, when Hawthorne met Dr. Woo Suk Hwang.
Two years earlier, Hwang and his team of research scientists at Seoul National University claimed they had succeeded in cloning a dog. There were doubts about the authenticity, after it was reported that Hwang fabricated information in a report on stem cells.
However, it was later confirmed that "Snuppy" was a bona fide clone. Hawthorne asked if the team could help him clone Missy, who died in 2002, several years after he set out to clone her. Now, Hawthorne has three mini Missys running around: Mira, the oldest, and the younger pups, Chingu and Sarang.
That successful cloning has resulted in the partnering of BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation outside of Seoul, South Korea, to start the "Best Friends Again" project.
Hawthorne said that the company holds the only license in the world that allows it to clone dogs and have access to the "Dolly patents." Dolly the sheep was the first mammal cloned from an adult and the Sooam facility uses that cloning process, with specific tweaks, for the canine species.
"We are the only company that can do this legally," Hawthorne said. "Once we successfully cloned Missy, we realized with our partners at the lab we had a...safe project. We have finite capacity and potentially unlimited demand."
SRI International has announced the development of a wall-climbing robot that uses a new electrical adhesive technology called "compliant electroadhesion" that can stick to anything from brick to glass--even damp, dirty glass.
(Credit:
SRI International)
Electroadhesion, or electrically controlled electrostatic attraction, is an electrically controlled adhesion technology that induces an electrostatic charge using a power supply connected to pads placed on the robot allowing it to scale walls, even those covered with dust or moisture, SRI says.
"Recent events such as natural disasters, military actions, and public safety threats have led to an increased need for robust robots--especially ones that can move in three dimensions," said SRI mechanical engineer Harsha Prahlad. "The ability to climb walls and other structures offers unique capabilities in military applications, such as urban reconnaissance, sensor deployment, and installation of network nodes in an urban environment."
Electroadhesion lends itself to a variety of wall-climbing robots, including tracked "tank"-style robots, as well as the more biomimetic-inspired, legged and inchworm-type robots, according to the company. The robots are simple, low-cost, easy to clean, and readily conform to different surfaces like bumps, corners, or cracks. And they're quiet, unlike other wall-climbers that use suction technology.
(Credit:
SRI International)
Qwest Communications International is ending its relationship with Sprint Nextel and has struck a new deal to resell wireless service through Verizon Wireless.
The company said Monday that it plans to resell wireless service from Verizon Wireless starting this summer. The companies have signed a five-year contract. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
Qwest has been reselling Sprint's wireless service since 2004 under its own brand. A spokesman for the phone company said it will continue to service customers on the Sprint network until its contract expires with Sprint in February 2009. Current customers will be given the option to move over to Verizon's service. Subscribers will also likely be given free replacement phones if they choose to keep their service and switch to Verizon.
Under the terms of the new deal, Qwest will not market the new Verizon offering under its own brand, but it will sell the service as part of a packaged bundle with customers still getting a single bill for all their Qwest services.
Qwest's CEO said earlier this year that the company was looking at other partners in wireless. There had been speculation at the time that Verizon Wireless would be the new partner.
The news surely comes as a blow to Sprint Nextel, which has been losing customers the past several quarters. Qwest has about 824,000 wireless subscribers that use Sprint's network. Sprint ended 2007 with about 53.8 million subscribers in total.
Discount online retailer Overstock.com announced on Thursday that it will be selling its products outside the United States for the first time.
"We're actually right smack dab in the middle of integrating," Jake Bailey, Overstock's director of international sales, said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday. No final date has been given for the launch of international sales, but Bailey said it will be before the end of 2008.
The Salt Lake City, Utah-based company has inked a deal with E4X, which runs a service called FiftyOne Global Ecommerce. The partnership has enabled Overstock to start billing and shipping to a total of 34 new countries--Canada, as well as 33 European nations. FiftyOne lets a participating retailer ship to a U.S. address and receive U.S. currency, while the buyer pays in his or her home currency.
Not all of Overstock's products will be able to be shipped overseas. Some bulky products, like massive HDTVs and large pieces of furniture, will continue to be available only in the States. But, Bailey said, "for the most part, it's going to be the bulk of our product offering."
Upcoming design from Dell (top), existing Hush Technologies ultrasmall desktop (bottom)
(Credit: Dell, Hush Technologies)Update: Ultrasmall desktops aren't new, but an Intel design unearthed in Asia means there may be a lot more on the way.
Ultracompact desktop PC design is tapping into two powerful forces: Low cost and eco friendliness. Tiny Dell desktops (photo) and Atom-powered Nettops are hints of things to come. And Intel motherboards disclosed in Asia may fuel this trend. Hardware site HKEPC has posted photos of two new Intel Mini-ITX-based motherboards, "Eklo" and "Fly Creek."
(Correction: the motherboard is called Eklo not "Elko" as previously reported.)
The original Mini-ITX board design was introduced in 2001 by Via Technologies and has been used in millions of computers sporting Via processors, according to Dean McCarron, founder and principal of Mercury Research. Mini-ITX designs are synonymous with low power and low cost. Intel is adopting the design because of its relative popularity in low-cost markets.
Both Eklo and Fly Creek are targeted at the sub-$200 entry-level PC market.
"The easiest way to think about (Mini-ITX) is that it's not quite a laptop," said McCarron. "But it has much more in common with a laptop than a desktop."
Intel's Fly Creek board is designed for compact consumer desktops that can use more powerful Intel GMA X3500 graphics technology and faster processors than those found in typical Mini-ITX designs to date.
But Via will punch up graphics and processor performance, too. The x86 processor supplier is joining forces with graphics chip giant Nvidia for small, low-cost designs. Nvidia offered a glimpse of a low-cost board design the two companies are working on earlier this month. And Via is coming out with a faster CPU design this summer called Isaiah.
Moreover, Via, on its own, already has a longstanding presence in the Mini-ITX market, shipping hundreds of thousands of boards per quarter, according to McCarron. And Via's C7 has been the processor of choice for low-cost, space-saving designs.
The series of Mini-ITX boards coming from Intel may cover a wider range of performance options, however--a breadth of offerings Via will have trouble matching. Intel's Mini-ITX will accommodate very-low-cost, low-performance Atom systems as well as higher-performance systems based on Celeron or even Core 2 Duo processors.
Updated April 21, 5:36 AM PDT to reflect the actual announcement by Skype.
Skype on Monday said it is now offering unlimited calls from the U.S. to phones in a wide range of international locations.
For $9.95 per month, callers will be able to ring folks abroad in 34 countries, including many in Europe, along with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. (The details of the new flat-rate subscriptions were first published in an Associated Press story Sunday evening.) There is one limit--in most of those countries, the calls must be to a landline.
Calls to cell phones abroad are allowed under the $9.95 price only to Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The plan also allows unlimited domestic calls in the U.S., via Skype's Internet-based phone service, to both landline phones and mobile phones.
In December 2006, Skype began offering unlimited calls to cell phones and landlines in the U.S. and Canada at $29.95 per year.
Skype, a unit of e-commerce giant eBay, expects to hit $500 million in revenue this year, and profits have been strong. Still, eBay is giving the service a hard look and may consider selling it, if the "synergies" don't work out favorably.
More details on the calling plans
The company's Monday morning announcement laid out three new subscription plans for consumers in the U.S. and Canada, as follows:
•Unlimited U.S. and Canada: Unlimited calls to landline and cell phones in the U.S. and Canada. ($2.95 per month)
•Unlimited Mexico: Unlimited calls to landline and cell phones in the U.S. and Canada, and to landlines in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey; up to 80 percent off normal SkypeOut rates to landlines in the rest of Mexico and up to 40 percent off normal SkypeOut rates to all Mexico cell phones. ($5.95 per month)
•Unlimited World: Unlimited calls to landline and cell phones in 34 countries (see the cell-phone exception noted earlier in the story), including the U.S. and Canada, as well as to Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey; up to 80 percent off normal SkypeOut rates to the rest of Mexico landlines and up to 40 percent off normal SkypeOut rates to all Mexico cell phones. ($9.95 per month)
Skype notes that calls to premium, nongeographic, and other special numbers are excluded. The company continues to offer Skype-to-Skype calls free of charge.
Pandigital's upcoming 15-inch kitchen set isn't just a TV.
(Credit: Pandigital)Pandigital, which is making a name for itself in the digital photo frame market, is branching out into kitchen televisions. As part of the upcoming International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago, the company will be showing off a new 15-inch LCD HDTV that can display digital photos and act as a digital cookbook.
Here are the highlights and specs from the news release:
- TV's resolution is 1280x720.
- Preloaded recipes are included. Plus, additional recipes can be copied onto the frame's internal memory.
- Copy digital photos onto the frame's memory via the memory card reader or by a connection to Google's Picasa photo sharing Web site.
- Messproof design that's sealed with glass, so it's protected from water, oil, flour, and other common ingredients, as well as from spills and splatters.
- Comes with a countertop stand and an under-cabinet mount, and is also wall-mountable.
- Interchangeable faceplates in brushed stainless, black and white to match various kitchen styles.
- 512MB of internal memory stores up to 3,200 pages of recipes or digital photos.
- Calendar and clock functions keep customers informed and allow photos, video and music to be programmed for play at specific dates and times.
- The alarm function can be set to to noteworthy dates and times, including when it's time for a favorite cooking show.
- Integrated 6-in-1 media reader that supports SD, XD, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro/Memory Stick Duo, Compact Flash, and MultiMediaCard.
- Programmable on and off times.
- Support for JPEG, Motion JPEG, MPEG 1, MPEG 4, and AVI.
Pandigital's multifaceted kitchen TV is scheduled to be available in June and carry an MSRP of $399.99.
Yahoo China lost another round in a legal battle as a court in Beijing upheld a ruling that the company is infringing on copyright laws by allowing pirated music to be downloaded, according to the industry group suing Yahoo China.
"The ruling against Yahoo China is extremely significant in clarifying copyright rules for Internet music services in China," John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, or IFPI, said in a statement Thursday. "By confirming that Yahoo China's service violates copyright under new Chinese laws, the Beijing court has effectively set the standard for Internet companies throughout the country."
Yahoo owns a 44 percent stake in Yahoo China, and the controlling stake is owned by Chinese Internet company Alibaba.com, which essentially runs the site. Representatives from Alibaba could not be reached Friday for comment on this story.
The International Federation of Phonographic Industries, which represents the music industry, filed the lawsuit in January 2007 on behalf of several recording studios, including Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, and Universal Vivendi.
In the suit, IFPI accused China Yahoo of violating copyrights because it allows links between its search engine and Web sites that have illegally copied songs from artists such as U2 and Destiny's Child.
In April, a lower court in Beijing had ruled that Yahoo China facilitated infringement of copyrights. Yahoo China appealed the decision, arguing that it should not be liable for content found outside its Web site. Now that appeal has been rejected by a higher court in Beijing, according to the IFPI.
Separately, the court also upheld a ruling on a similar case against Internet company Baidu. A lower court in November 2006 had found that Baidu had facilitated copyright infringement. But because this case was filed under older Chinese copyright laws in 2005, the company was not liable for copyright infringement, the IFPI said.
"We are disappointed that the court did not find Baidu liable," Kennedy said in a statement. "But that judgment was about Baidu's actions in the past, under an old law that is no longer in force. Baidu should now prepare to have its actions judged under the new law. We are confident a court would hold Baidu liable as it has Yahoo China."
China is viewed as one of the biggest sources of pirated music and movies, as well as counterfeit goods. And the IFPI, along with other companies and trade organizations, has been taking legal action to stem the flow of this content out of China. Recent reforms in Chinese law have helped, but experts say piracy still runs rampant.
The IFPI said search services from sites such as Yahoo China and Baidu, which connect users to hundreds of thousands of pirated music tracks, are "a huge drain on efforts to develop a legitimate music market in China." The group claims that more than 99 percent of all music downloading in China violates copyright. Despite the large population and potential of the Chinese market, the IFPI said that in 2006, music sales in China only amounted to $76 million, or less than 1 percent of the entire global recorded-music market.
Still, music labels see huge potential in China, and they have been willing to work with Chinese companies to ensure that music can be distributed legally and without violating copyrights.
In April, Sony BMG Music Entertainment struck a deal with content aggregator Global Music International to distribute its music videos, full-track songs and ringtones to mobile subscribers in China. The deal calls for Global Music to distribute Sony content through wireless-phone operator China Unicom.
More and more, the question is, "Where can't you buy a Dell?"
On Thursday, the PC maker announced that its desktops and notebooks would be available through DSG International, one of Europe's largest electronics retailers. Though specific models have yet to be decided, the agreement will include selling mainly Dell XPS and Inspiron desktops and notebooks.
(Credit:
Dell)
DSGi operates stores such as PC World, Currys, and Dixons.co.uk online in the United Kingdom, and Electro World, PC City, and Elkjop in 11 other European nations. Approximately 1,300 brick-and-mortar retail outlets in the U.K. and Europe will now carry Dell products. All customer support will be handled by DSGi stores.
The announcement comes hot on the heels of Dell's historic agreement just a week ago to sell products through Best Buy stores in the United States. Formerly a strict direct-sales company, Dell has over the past six months cemented a retail strategy to get its products in front of consumers. The strategy is part of a turnaround plan as Dell has struggled this year to compete with the retail success of rival Hewlett-Packard.
(Credit:
Vision Systems International)
The new combat helmet now being tested may become an integral part of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, replacing the traditional jet fighter head-up display with computerized "symbology" projected directly onto the pilot's visor.
In addition to keeping pilots on top of navigation, weapons and other aircraft, the Helmet Mounted Display System will superimpose a binocular-wide field-of-view, infrared image of the world below, allowing the pilot to "look through" the cockpit floor at night. This will let a pilot turn in any direction and still be able to see a virtual heads-up display, replacing the information that is currently seen only at the front of the cockpit.
If it works, the F-35 will be the first tactical fighter jet in 50 years to fly without an HUD. The British Royal Air Force's Centre for Aviation Medicine is evaluating the helmet, which is manufactured by Silicon Valley-based Vision Systems International and Helmet Integrated Systems.
They may want to add the following label. "Warning: In case of crash, remove helmet before approaching natives for assistance."
