Smartphones Get More Accurate Battery Gauge Tom Jowitt

Smartphones Get More Accurate Battery Gauge
Tom Jowitt, Techworld.com Tue Sep 25, 12:00 PM ET
Texas Instruments has adapted its fuel gauge laptop battery technology to work in smart phone or PDAs. The technology will allow users to accurately gauge how much runtime is left in their mobile devices.

TI says that its battery fuel gauge technology is currently used in millions of notebook computers, but had faced requests from its portable device customers to incorporate the technology into their mobile designs. So TI integrated its system-side fuel gauge integrated circuit (IC), with its impedance track technology, to extend this functionality into smart phones and other handhelds.
The result, TI claims, is that a single cell, Li-ion powered application can run longer on a smart phone or PDA, thanks to the battery fuel gauge.
"As mobile devices add more functionality, such as high-definition video and data transmission, consumers want to operate their devices just like notebook computers and expect to know remaining battery capacity," said Dave Heacock, senior vice president of TI's high-volume analogue and logic business.
TI says that bq27500 system-side battery fuel gauge with the impedance track technology measures (with 99 percent accuracy) data from a device's single-cell Li-Ion battery to predict remaining battery capacity under all conditions, even as a battery ages.
The IC analyses precise state-of-charge by correlating between a battery's voltage and cell impedance (or resistance), and its current integration to adjust remaining state-of-charge up or down the predicted discharge curve.
The bq27500 directly measures the effect of a battery's discharge rate, temperature, age and other factors to predict remaining life within one percent error. By measuring and storing real-time battery impedance values, the IC automatically adjusts to changes in full capacity as a battery ages. State-of-charge and full capacity are calculated from the voltage and impedance measurements, eliminating the need to re-learn from a charge and discharge cycle.
The bq27500 resides on the system's main board, and can support an embedded or removable battery. It is available today in a 12-pin, 2.5 mm x 4 mm SON package, and the device's suggested retail pricing is US$1.35 in 1,000-piece quantities.

'Fraudster' posts confidential eBay member data on forum

'Fraudster' posts confidential eBay member data on forum
Juan Carlos Perez Tue Sep 25, 6:17 PM ET
San Francisco (IDGNS) - Someone used an eBay discussion forum on Tuesday to post confidential information about eBay users along with what may be their credit card numbers.

The incident, first reported by AuctionBytes.com, a technology news site that focuses on e-commerce, led the e-commerce giant to shut down the forum, which ironically is devoted to the discussion of security issues.
Nichola Sharpe, an eBay spokeswoman, confirmed that on Tuesday morning someone the vendor describes as "a malicious fraudster" posted the names and contact information of 1,200 eBay members on the company's Trust & Safety discussion forum.
"This information could have been obtained as part of an account takeover. Since this time, our Trust and Safety team has been proactively addressing this situation," she said.
Along with members' information, the "fraudster" also posted what appear to be credit card numbers. However, if that's what they are, they don't match the ones eBay has on file for the members whose contact information was disclosed, Sharpe said.
"We are in the process of proactively contacting members by phone, so that if the information is valid somehow -- regardless how this fraudster acquired the information -- these members can take the steps they need to take to protect themselves," Sharpe said.
The "fraudster" didn't obtain the information by breaching eBay's security systems, so eBay thinks the culprit stole the information via methods like phishing, she said.
The company has posted more information in an official blog post.
The incident, which eBay continues to monitor, has been broadly reported and commented on by eBay users on this long thread.
In its article, AuctionBytes reported being able to access the forum and view several posts before they were removed.
The posts included fields labeled "Id verified" and "Store" along with a time-date stamp of the user registration, AuctionBytes reported, adding that it hasn't been able to verify the accuracy of the information viewed.

Pirate Bay strikes back at media content companies

Pirate Bay strikes back at media content companies
Jeremy Kirk Tue Sep 25, 8:07 PM ET
San Francisco (IDGNS) - Swedish police are expected to decide later this week whether a criminal case is warranted against 10 major music and movie companies over their alleged efforts to disrupt the Pirate Bay, one of the largest file-sharing search engines.

If Swedish police decide to pursue a criminal complaint, the Pirate Bay will be spared the time and expense of pursuing its own civil suit against the companies, Peter Sunde, one of a small circle of volunteers in Sweden that runs the Web site, said on Tuesday.
The Pirate Bay, with an estimated 2 million daily users, is a search engine for torrents, or small files used to trade content between computers via a peer-to-peer (P-to-P) network. Media companies say the site is used mainly to enable the illegal trading of copyright files and have sought its closure.
But the Pirate Bay struck back last Friday, filing a criminal complaint in Sweden against content companies that hired MediaDefender, a company that specializes in disrupting P-to-P networks. The Pirate Bay alleges that MediaDefender attacked its operations by distributing fake torrent files and other methods.
It is charging the media companies, which include the Swedish subsidiaries of Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, with infrastructural sabotage, DoS attacks, and other hacking and spamming offenses, according to its blog.
The complaint followed the damaging release of thousands of internal MediaDefender e-mails, which described in part how the company tries to foil file-sharing services. MediaDefender uses a software program that sets up fake user accounts and then distributes fake torrent files, which are designed to reduce the volume of copyright files being traded, Sunde said. The source code for that software, as well as the internal e-mails, are now being widely circulating on file-sharing networks.
The software can read "captchas," the strings of distorted numbers and letters designed to ensure that real people are using a Web site rather than an automated program.
The Pirate Bay says it matched IP addresses for some of the fake torrents to some of the internal e-mails, providing compelling evidence that MediaDefender was sending out fake torrents, according to Sunde.
The Pirate Bay blacklists IP addresses associated with fake torrents and also shares those lists with other torrent search engines, Sunde said. "We are very proactive when it comes to spam handling, but it's still a problem when they [MediaDefender] do it," he said.
Despite complaints from media and content companies, the Pirate Bay has continued to operate in Sweden. In May 2006, Swedish police seized at least 25 servers after a raid on five locations, but have yet to file charges. Swedish prosecutors have until Oct. 1 to file a criminal case, but Sunde said he expects the government attorneys to file for an extension.
Sunde maintains that the Pirate Bay is just a search engine and doesn't actually store any files, merely directing users to where files are located. "We are quite sure the Pirate Bay is legal in Sweden," said Sunde, who is based in Malmo, in the south of Sweden, and also runs a Web site consulting business.
As a precaution against future police action, Sunde said he knows the location of only one of the 40 or so servers currently powering the Pirate Bay. Some of those servers are now in countries outside of Sweden, he said.

New Smithsonian museum appears online

By BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 30 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Smithsonian Institution's museum dedicated to black history and culture launches this week with an interactive Web site — long before its building opens for visitors on the National Mall.

Social-networking technology donated by IBM Corp. will allow visitors to help produce content for future exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Almost anything is fair game — long essays, short vignettes of memories or recorded oral histories. The museum plans to add video capabilities in the future.
The museum planned to announce the site's debut Wednesday.
"The culture of the African American experience ... is too important to wait five or 10 years until the building is open," said Lonnie Bunch, the museum's founding director. "I wanted people to know that from the day I was hired, this museum exists."
Museum staff will monitor the site for historical accuracy, and technical filters will block racist or inappropriate comments, said Bunch, adding that the site is really a "virtual museum" and a new source of research for curators and scholars.
Museum officials began thinking about launching the Web site during an explosion in the popularity of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. That's when Bunch and IBM Chairman Samuel Palmisano, who sits on the museum's advisory board, got to talking. IBM eventually agreed to donate $1 million worth of hardware, software and services to build the site.
"The museum thought, 'Let's harness this. Let's build a social network that brings together people interested in the African American experience ... all those people that are your visitors but who have great stories to tell," said John Tolva, IBM's senior manager for cultural programs.
One of the first contributions came from Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund and a member of the museum's board. Lomax recalls when, at age 13, his mother moved him and his five brothers and sisters from Los Angeles to Tuskegee, Ala., to cover the civil rights movement for Nation magazine. He submitted a story his mother wrote for the magazine called "Journey to the Beginning," which recounted his family's encounter with the South in 1961.
"We traveled at first by automobile, and then our car broke down and we had to ... travel by Greyhound bus from Arizona to Alabama. We thought of it as our family freedom ride," Lomax told The Associated Press. "My mother was a writer accustomed to the privileges of the journalist. We found ourselves in a position where we no longer had privilege. We were being segregated, and we tried to stand up to it and were almost arrested."
Lomax said everyone thought his mother was crazy to take her children to Alabama as a single mother during segregation. He said it was "horrifying and exhilarating at the same time" and an experience that changed his life.
Organizers said they hope people of all ages and backgrounds will post messages on the site.
"You've got the sort of historical materials on major people and major moments linked directly to the kind of bottom-up recollections of common folk," Tolva said. "You can link, visually depict, how your memory relates to the other kind of grand narratives of African American history — the narratives of civil rights, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois."
The museum announced a similar partnership in February with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with hopes of recording about 2,000 oral histories from black families over the next year to be placed in the museum's archives. The StoryCorps Griot project has been traveling across the country to collect recordings.
By opening the museum online, potential donors see that the museum is alive long before its estimated 2015 opening on the National Mall, said Bunch, who is working to raise half the museum's $500 million cost, with Congress providing the other half.
The museum is opening its first physical exhibit in Washington, "Let Your Motto Be Resistance," on Oct. 19 at the National Portrait Gallery. It traces 150 years of history through 100 photographs of well-known abolitionists, scholars, artists and athletes who challenged negative attitudes about race and class.

'Halo 3' packaging scratches disks

By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Technology Writer Tue Sep 25, 7:52 PM ET
SEATTLE - Just hours after die-hard fans finally got their hands on a copy of "Halo 3," blogs brimmed with reports that special limited-edition packaging is scratching the video game disks.

While the scratches don't appear to be keeping gamers from playing the last installment of the popular trilogy, it's a rough patch that Microsoft Corp., which has faced several Xbox 360 glitches in recent months, could have lived without.
Microsoft, which owns the studio that makes the Xbox-only "Halo 3," responded quickly on its Xbox Web site with details for a replacement program. Customers can fill out a form and send in their scratched limited-edition disks for a free exchange through the end of December.
"We have identified that there are some instances of blemishes on discs as a result of the packaging," said Microsoft spokesman David Dennis in an e-mailed statement. "This is a small fraction of the total number of Halo 3 games shipped and sold, and is a limited production version of the game."
Microsoft is selling the limited-edition version, which comes in a tin with bonus behind-the-scenes features and a making-of-the-game documentary, for $70. A regular copy of the game costs $60, and a "legendary" version, which comes with a replica of the helmet worn by game protagonist Master Chief, costs $130. The game officially went on sale early Tuesday.
Richard Mitchell, the lead writer of the Xbox 360 Fanboy blog, said one of the disks that came in his limited-edition set is scratched but the damage didn't seem to interfere with its playing.
The AP received several review copies of "Halo 3" in limited-edition tins. Both the game disk and an "essentials" disk had come loose from plastic housing designed to keep them in place. The game disk had been scratched but seemed to work fine.
"It sounds like it's just an aesthetic thing, though who wants to pay full price for something scratched?" said Brian Crescente, managing editor of Gawker Media's Kotaku.com video game blog.
Microsoft has been plagued by Xbox 360 problems in recent months. In July, the software maker said it would spend more than $1 billion to repair broken Xbox 360 consoles, and in August it disclosed that some Wireless Racing Wheel game controllers were overheating and smoking.
Since its launch, the Xbox 360 has outsold Sony Corp.'s next-generation PlayStation 3 console, but it hasn't been as popular as Nintendo Corp.'s Wii. Investors and analysts are watching whether Microsoft can turn a profit in the division that makes the Xbox 360. Microsoft, which expects to hit that milestone in the current fiscal year, has said "Halo 3" is one part of its strategy for reaching that goal.

Amazon launches digital music store

SEATTLE - Amazon.com Inc. launched its much-anticipated digital music store Tuesday, a move analysts say represents the first hint of real competition for Apple Inc.'s market-leading iTunes.

Amazon MP3, as the new section of the Web retailer's site is called, currently stocks nearly 2.3 million songs, all without copy-protection technology. Shoppers can buy and download individual songs or entire albums. The tracks can be copied to multiple computers, burned onto CDs and played on most types of PCs and portable devices, including the iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.
Songs cost 89 cents to 99 cents each and albums sell for $5.99 to $9.99.
Major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music have signed on to sell their tracks on Amazon, as have thousands of independent labels. The company said several labels are selling their artists' music without copy protection for the first time on the Amazon store, including Alison Krauss on Rounder Records and Ani Difranco on Righteous Babe Records.
Amazon's store competes with Apple's market-leading iTunes, which is also offering some songs without so-called digital rights management technology, which prevents unauthorized copies from playing.
Although DRM helps stem illegal copying, it can frustrate consumers by limiting the type of device or number of computers on which they can listen to music. Copy-protected songs sold through iTunes generally won't play on devices other than the iPod, and iPods won't play DRM-enabled songs bought at rival music stores.
EMusic.com Inc., another popular download site, also sells tracks in the DRM-free MP3 format but, like Amazon's store, doesn't offer music from some major labels that still require anti-piracy locks.
Bill Carr, Amazon's vice president for digital music, said it will be up to customers to use the music they buy legally.
To help stop music piracy, Carr said some record labels add a digital watermark to MP3 files that indicate what company sold the song, and Amazon adds its own name and the item number of the song, for customer service purposes. He added that no details about the buyer or the transaction are added to the downloaded music file.
"By and large, most customers just want a great, legitimate way to buy the music they want," Carr said in an interview Tuesday morning. "What the vast majority of labels believe is that they will sell more music by giving customers what they want ... by enabling DRM-free MP3, than by continuing to confuse customers or force them to choose methods that are not legal, because the legitimate alternatives are not good."
Carr characterized the number of record labels that still insist on copy-protection technology as "a handful." But David Card, an analyst at Jupiter Research, said in an interview that "having two out of four labels doesn't cut it."
Warner Music Group Corp. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which is owned by Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG, have not agreed to sell music on Amazon MP3, and Card pointed out that Universal and EMI have made only parts of their catalogs available without copy protection.
"Their catalog is going to suffer for a while," he said, referring to Amazon.
Card said Amazon's entrance into the market represents serious competition for Apple, which can no longer rely solely on the bond between the iPod and iTunes.
But, Card said: "In and of itself, (Amazon MP3) isn't enough to change any market share. They have to do a good job at building their store."
Colin Sebastian, a Lazard Capital Markets analyst, wrote in a note to investors Tuesday that he doesn't expect digital music sales to boost Amazon's profit, "given the significant contribution the company currently receives from traditional (physical) media sales, and the low margins typical with music download services, compounded by a highly competitive environment."
Shares of Amazon rose 89 cents to close at $93.48 Tuesday.

Software takes aim at altered photos

SAN DIEGO - Tracing its roots to a founder's anger at a no-show home remodeling crew, the makers of Shoot & Proof software aim to erase any doubts that digital photos are faked or manipulated.

The software maker, CodaSystem France SA in Paris, unveiled the fruits of its founder's frustrations Tuesday at the DEMOfall 2007 technology show, a two-day rapid-fire procession of new gadgets and gizmos.
DEMO, now in its in its 17th year, has served as a launch pad for such industry standouts as TiVo Inc., Palm Inc.'s Pilot and the Danger HipTop handheld. Each of the 69 presenters gets six minutes to impress a crowd of journalists and venture capitalists as well as technology companies looking for startups to buy.
Shoot & Proof is intended for use on cell phones, said Frederic Vanholder, managing director, and it is running on about 600 handsets, thanks partly to $5 million in venture capital raised last year.
The angry CodaSystem founder, who has since left the company, figured that if he photographed the part of his home that needed the work that wasn't done — and he convinced authorities the image was authentic — then he would be able to get back what he paid for the work.
Shoot & Proof shows where a photo was shot (if the phone is equipped with global positioning software), as well as when and on whose device.
A retailer client of CodaSystem uses Shoot & Proof to ensure manufacturers that their wares are being displayed as promised. A security company uses it to record break-ins and reassure insurance companies they aren't being bilked.
Near the opposite end of the spectrum, another participant in DEMOfall, MotionDSP Inc., introduced a Web site, http://www.fixmymovie.com, where consumers can sharpen pictures and videos taken on cell phones, images that are typically jumpy and heavily pixelated.
MotionDSP, based in San Mateo, Calif., got its start by licensing software from the University of California at Santa Cruz and targeting military and intelligence agencies. In-Q-Tel, an investment firm launched by the CIA in 1990 to support U.S. intelligence work, announced in July that it was an investor.
The company won't discuss its government work in detail but says its software also can be used to sharpen images taken with security cameras, which, like cell phones, are known for delivering poor quality. Though vastly improved, the images still fall short of footage shot with a digital camcorder, however.