Economy growing despite energy, housing

WASHINGTON - The economy registered modest growth in the early summer, considering how consumers and some businesses were buffeted by both high gasoline prices and the sour housing market.
That’s the gist of a Federal Reserve region-by-region survey, released Wednesday, which also showed the economy clearly has emerged from a rut at the beginning of the year and is now growing, albeit slowly.
On the inflation front, consumer prices continued to increase “at a moderate rate,” the Fed report said. “Almost every region said that oil and gasoline prices were either rising, high or an issue,” it noted. Gas prices have climbed past $3 a gallon nationwide.
The biggest threat to the economy is if inflation doesn’t recede as Fed policymakers anticipate, Bernanke explained, when he delivered the Fed’s midyear economic assessment to Capitol Hill.
Information from the Fed survey will figure into discussions at the central bank’s next meeting, Aug. 7. Economists predict that the Fed at that time will again vote to hold a key interest rate at 5.25 percent, where it has stood for more than a year.
Consumer spending — a major shaper of overall economic activity — continued to grow in the early summer. However, a number of Fed regions reported that high gas prices restrained purchases. And, five of the Fed’s 12 regions said that retail sales of housing-related items — such as furniture and home repair materials — were weak or declining. Tourism reports, meanwhile, were mostly positive.
The economy has rebounded and is expected to clock in at a pace of 3 percent or better for the April-to-June period. The government will release the second quarter’s results on Friday. Growth in the second quarter is expected to be powered by a revival in business investment, while consumer spending is expected to be somewhat subdued.
The housing slump, which started last year, continued to be felt in most areas.
Most regions said home building declined and residential real-estate activity was weak. New York, however said housing markets were “mixed but stable.” The Cleveland and Richmond regions said sales increased slightly. Reports on home prices around the country were mixed, the Fed said.

Toyota to Test Plug-In Hybrid, Rivaling G.M.

Toyota Motor Company said Tuesday that it was testing hybrid vehicles with rechargeable batteries in the United States and Japan, setting up a direct challenge with General Motors to develop the industry’s first plug-in hybrids.
Toyota’s announcement is its first formal confirmation that it is ready to test plug-in hybrid vehicles, which environmentalists say may prove to be cleaner and more fuel-efficient than current hybrids.
In recent months, Toyota executives have said the company had plug-in hybrids under development, but would not give more details.
Toyota already is the world’s biggest producer of conventional hybrid-electric vehicles, which run off a gasoline motor and a battery. Indeed, for years, executives had played down the prospects for plug-in hybrids, saying consumers preferred the convenience of vehicles that did not need to be recharged.
It has sold more than 1 million hybrid vehicles worldwide, including 750,000 Prius cars, since the Prius went on sale in Japan in 1998. Prius became available in the United States, its largest market, in the year 2000.
Industry experts say plug-in hybrid vehicles, known as PHEVs, may provide a longer battery life and prove more environmentally friendly than current hybrids.
Toyota said it would provide prototype versions of plug-in hybrid vehicles to researchers at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Berkeley. It also said that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in Japan had approved the testing of plug-in hybrid vehicles on public roads in Japan.
Toyota is the only Japanese auto company thus far that has requested permission to test plug-in hybrids in Japan.
The prototype plug-in hybrids will be powered by two oversize packs of nickel-metal hydride batteries that are meant to simulate the kind of power Toyota expects future versions of the batteries to yield. The packs are capable of storing significantly more energy than the kind of battery found on the Prius, Toyota said.

Robot to carry out heart surgery

A robotic arm able to carry out an intricate life-saving heart operation is being pioneered by UK surgeons.The robot is used to guide thin wires through blood vessels in the heart to treat a fast or irregular heartbeat.Doctors at St Mary's Hospital in London say it will reduce risk for patients and increase the number of procedures they can carry out.More than 20 patients have been operated on with the robot, which is only one of four in use in the world.During the procedure, known as catheter ablation, several thin wires and tubes are inserted through a vein in the groin and guided into the heart where they deliver an electric current to specific areas of heart muscle.The electric current destroys tiny portions of heart tissue which are causing the abnormal heartbeat.With the Sensei robot, surgeons use a joystick on a computer console to more accurately position and control the wires, which often need to be placed in locations that are difficult to reach.In the future the system could be automated so the robot guides the wires to a point in the heart selected by the doctor from images on a computer screen.
Poor access
When done by hand the operation is highly skilled and a shortage of clinicians able to carry out the surgery means only 10% of people with the condition, called atrial fibrillation, are treated this way.
Tony Blair underwent the operation by hand in 2004.
Around 50,000 people develop atrial fibrillation, which is a major cause of strokes and heart failure, every year and it has been calculated to cost the NHS almost 1% of its entire annual budget.
Numbers are expected to increase even more due to an ageing population, a rising number of people with chronic heart disease and better diagnosis.

Global Positioning by Cellphone

THE man in the Verizon Wireless commercials wearing thick-rimmed glasses may be constantly asking, “Can you hear me now?” But the most commonly asked question over mobile phones might actually be, “Where are you now?”.
The combination of global positioning systems and cellphones may make that question moot. Cellphone carriers are now mandated by the Federal Communications Commission to provide location information for 911 emergency use. Many now have G.P.S. chips that can pinpoint the phone’s location to within a few feet, though others rely on triangulation, a technology that approximates location based on proximity to cellphone towers.
Even some phones without G.P.S. can help you navigate. The iPhone from Apple, for example, cannot precisely locate you or track you as you drive. But its Google Maps feature can be used to plan a route by entering a start address and a destination. It displays directions or a map.
But as more phones come equipped with a small and relatively inexpensive G.P.S. microchip, the technology is being used for all sorts of location services that the carriers and other companies offer for additional fees. The Disney Family Locator service on a Disney-branded mobile phone uses G.P.S. to track a child’s whereabouts. Parents buy special child and parent phones. The child’s phone is programmed to beam locations to the parent’s phone, which has the ability to display and map the approximate street address where the child is at any given time.
Verizon’s child locater, called Chaperone, adds a “geofencing” service that allows a parents to define an area — such as a school or baby sitter’s house — where the child is permitted. The parents receive an alert on their handset when the child’s cellphone enters or leaves the zone.
The G.P.S. phones have adult applications, too. Wherify Wireless offers a line of G.P.S.-enabled phones to track elderly relatives or employees. People doing the tracking can locate the trackees through a Web or cellphone interface or by calling the company’s toll-free number and providing the operator with a password.
The drawback to turning a cellphone into a G.P.S. device is that cellphone screens are generally smaller than stand-alone G.P.S. units and a regular cellphone keypad is not ideal for typing in a destination address. On some phones, you can get knocked out of G.P.S. mode if a call comes in. That can be annoying, especially if you need to take the call to confirm where you’re going or when you’ll get there.
A G.P.S. phone enables many other services. Certain phones using the Sprint/Nextel and Verizon networks can use Bones in Motion’s BiM Active application to track your speed, location, elevation and calories burned while walking, running or cycling. You can view your statistics and a map of your route on the phone or a Web page.
Most G.P.S. navigation systems for cars only receive location information, but Dash Navigation, a Silicon Valley start-up, is now testing its Dash Express, which instead of adding G.P.S. to a cellphone adds a cellphone signal to a G.P.S. unit. The cellular radio transmits information both ways between the car and Dash’s servers. Every Dash unit continuously transmits its location and speed so, once there are a sufficient number of systems deployed to create a network effect, the company can determine the traffic flow on any road where Dash users are driving, including surface streets.
Navigation systems will not only route you around traffic, but take you to restaurants it thinks you will like. The technology for this already exists, but, says, Mr. Williams, “most people won’t use it until they’re confident that it will work properly almost all the time.”

Vibrating rings guide city tourists

Two vibrating rings which can guide the wearer around a city via global positioning satellite (GPS) have been unveiled by a British designer at the Royal College of Art.
The rings are the invention of Gail Knight, who developed them as a way of helping women feel safe in areas they are unfamiliar with.
"I admit that, as it is rings, they're obviously more attractive to women - and I'd been looking at women and their position in the public sphere, and how safe they feel in a public environment," she told BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme.
Buzz for direction
Not all of the necessary electronics could be put into the rings, so the device controller is worn either around the neck or clipped on to clothing. The controller has a display of eight digits, which allows for a postcode to be entered. It also houses an electronic compass and GPS system, which is what powers the device's navigation.
The signal is then transmitted to the two rings, inside of which are a small vibrating motor and antenna.
The rings buzz for left and right, and have different vibrations for forwards and backwards. Both buzz when going in the wrong direction.
Philip Dodd, chairman of Creative Cities Networks, said he thought the rings had a good chance of becoming widespread in the future.
"So the notion I could have a GPS that would direct me and make me a kind of 'literate tourist' in Tokyo would be a wonderful thing - so I think tourism, which is the world's biggest industry, is going to be one of the really important things for this new hand-held satellite device."
The controller has a display of eight digits, which allows for a postcode to be entered. It also houses an electronic compass and GPS system, which is what powers the device's navigation.
The signal is then transmitted to the two rings, inside of which are a small vibrating motor and antenna.
The rings buzz for left and right, and have different vibrations for forwards and backwards. Both buzz when going in the wrong direction.

The car of the future

This car can drive itself from A to B. It's taking part in the Darpa Grand Challenge, a Pentagon contest for inventors to come up with self-driving vehicles - and the ideas are already starting to be used in today's cars.
On a quiet university campus across the water from San Francisco, an enthusiastic bunch of young computer boffins are working on what could be the car of the future.
"Sometimes we talk to it as if it's an unruly child," says co-team leader Ben Upcroft.
Another member of the team jumps out of the front seat, crosses the road and presses a red button on a box in his hand. "The RAV4 is going autonomous," he says into a radio.
The car moves, slowly forward, like a learner terrified of touching the accelerator. The steering wheel is turning. It is driving itself. The speed is frustratingly slow, and from time to time the car veers towards the verge.
But what's impressive is that no-one is sitting inside.
The Sydney-Berkeley driving team are entrants in the 2007 Darpa Challenge, to be held in October. Sponsored by the United States Government, which wants to develop driverless military supply vehicles for war zones, the challenge will end with a 60-mile race through a mocked-up "urban area". The most important rule? No humans allowed.
The location of the challenge hasn't yet been announced. But it's likely to be a US military base, with roads and intersections. More than 50 teams are in the running, with 30 expected to start the race.
Cars will have to navigate by themselves, avoid other cars, circumvent traffic jams, stop at junctions, follow road markings and give way when they're supposed to. A serious test for artificial intelligence. A future where your car is an obedient pet sounds fantastic. Unless you're the law firm of a motor manufacturer. Imagine if the auto-driver fails, and there's injury or death. Instead of the driver getting sued, the car company is in the dock. So much of this technology will be introduced gradually.
But there are other less obvious benefits. Children could be driven to school. The elderly and visually impaired could gain new mobility.

Microsatellites 'pose global threat'

A satellite, no bigger that a domestic fridge, blasts into orbit from a secret military launch site.

Controlled from the ground, it stealthily moves towards the satellite of a rogue enemy country. Suddenly it explodes, destroying the second satellite and shutting down the communication capability of the country instantly.

It may sound like the beginning of a James Bond film, but scientists in the US have warned about the potential misuse of satellite technology.

Commercial companies, universities, space research institutions, such as NASA and ESA, are all in the development of this new spacecraft generation, called microsatellites.

Weighing less than 100kg, they provide GPS navigation, weather predictions, and Earth observation just like traditional satellites, but they are faster to build and much cheaper.

A typical microsatellite can cost as little as 10 million euros as opposed to hundreds of millions for traditional satellites.

About 400 microsatellites have been launched in orbit over the last 20 years for scientific, commercial and military purposes.

"Microsats save costs because the heavier a satellite is, the more it costs to send it into orbit," explains Dr Johan Köhler, a micro technology engineer at the European Space Agency.

"The launch is a major cost to any space mission."

'Indispensable part'

Satellite technology has become an indispensable part of modern society - being used for everything from mapping and weather forecasts to communications.

Physicist Laura Grego, from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said: "It's amazing how much satellites are involved in the conduct of civil and economic life in a way that people don't appreciate, but they are also very important to the way... the US conducts military affairs."

Dr Köhler explains that miniaturisation of satellites has been possible thanks to the results reached by nanotechnology research, especially over the last two decades. 'Satellite attack'

"If someone interferes with another satellite, or even if the interference is caused accidentally by a piece of debris, this kind of event is likely to start a war, because this can be confused for a satellite attack."

There are about 800 satellites orbiting over our heads at the moment: 66% are for communications, while 6% are in use by the military. The US owns more than half of the total in our skies.

D. Craig Underwood, researcher at the Space Centre of University of Surrey, UK, says the warnings of danger may be overstates.

"The growth of space technology is not something that cannot hold back. It is part of the world we live in," he says.

Surrey Space Centre works in partnership with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), the first professional organisation to commercialise low-cost small satellites for telecommunication and monitoring of natural disasters.