US spying is killing the internet claims Google

Splinters everywhere

US internet spying is going to lead to the creation of splinter networks which will eventually kill off the net, the search engine Google has warned.

According to Reuters, Google warned that the development of splinter nets could hurt US business. Richard Salgado, Google's law enforcement and information security director, told Congress the search engine outfit should be allowed to provide the public more information about government demands for user data.

He said that the lack of transparency about the nature of government surveillance in democratic countries undermines the freedom and the trust most citizens cherish, it also has a negative impact on our economic growth and security and on the promise of an Internet as a platform for openness and free expression.

Google was furious after a Washington Post report late last month said that the NSA had tapped directly into communications links used by Google and Yahoo to move huge amounts of email and other user information among overseas data centres.

Salgado warned that the NSA operations led to "a real concern" inside and outside the United States about the role of government and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which decides in secret on legal problems about electronic surveillance efforts.

He thinks that some countries will attempt to create a "splinter net" by putting up internet barriers, he said. For example, a government plan in Brazil would force global internet companies to store data on Brazilian users inside that country.

All this will lead to a closing of the markets through data location requirements and similar restrictions, Salgado told Reuters after the hearing.

This is bad for all of the American companies and the internet. Salgado added that this was a real business issue, particularly those who wanted to set up cloud services. 

Read more: http://news.techeye.net/business/us-spying-is-killing-the-internet-claims-google#ixzz2kdp6Pq26

MIT puts genetically modified virus in battery

What could possibly go wrong?

Researchers from MIT researchers, who apparently have not watched any sci-fi horror movies, have been adding genetically modified viruses to the production of nanowires.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, co-authored by graduate student Dahyun Oh, professors Angela Belcher and Yang Shao-Horn, and three others the idea was to develop   stronger materials for the batteries’ 

electrodes and improving the number of charging-discharging cycles the batteries can cope with.

The target of their work was to increase the surface area of the wire, thus increasing the area where electrochemical activity takes place during charging or discharging of the battery.

They made an array of nanowires, each about 80 nanometres across, using a genetically modified virus called M13. This can capture molecules of metals from water and bind them into structural shapes. Wires of manganese oxide were built by the viruses and have a rough, spiky surface, which increases their surface area.

The increase in surface area produced by this method can provide “a big advantage” in lithium-air batteries’ rate of charging and discharging.

Another process involves adding a small amount of a metal, such as palladium, which greatly increases the electrical conductivity of the nanowires and allows them to catalyze reactions.

These modifications produce a battery that could provide two to three times greater energy density than today’s best lithium-ion batteries, the paper said.

Read more: http://news.techeye.net/science/mit-puts-genetically-modified-virus-in-battery#ixzz2kdoUm1yv