MacBook Air Problem Reportedly Confirmed by Memo

Apple is aware of MacBook Air display problems, according to a memo reportedly     leaked from inside Apple. The memo notes fading 

colors after a MacBook Air wakes from sleep, and mentions a software update. The display problem reportedly affects both the new 13-inch and 11-inch MacBook Airs, and the purported Apple memo offers a workaround.

An Air leak is causing problems for Apple. A memo circulating on tech web sites, purporting to be a leaked internal document from the Cupertino, Calif.-based company, confirms reports  of display problems for the new MacBook Air.

The matter was even dubbed Antennagate by some in the press. Finally, Consumer Reports issued several negative reviews in which the nonprofit organization said it "can't recommend the iPhone 4" because its tests showed an antenna problem that could be fixed by a "bumper" case.

At last, Apple held a hastily arranged press conference . At the event, Apple acknowledged the problem, offered a free bumper case for every iPhone 4 customer, a refund for any case already purchased, or a full refund for an undamaged iPhone 4.

Molecular "robot" built from DNA

Scientists from Columbia University, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, and Caltech have programmed an autonomous molecular "robot" made out of DNA to start, move, turn, and stop while following a DNA track.

"The development could ultimately lead to molecular systems that might one day be used for medical therapeutic devices and molecular-scale reconfigurable robots—robots made of many simple units that can reposition or even rebuild themselves to accomplish different tasks. A paper describing the work in Naturesuggests the research could lead to molecular-scale reconfigurable robots made of many simple units that can rebuild themselves to accomplish different tasks."

Caltech's Erik Winfree explained that shrinking robots down to the molecular scale would provide, for molecular processes, the same kinds of benefits that classical robotics and automation provide at the macroscopic scale. Molecular robots, in theory, could be programmed to sense their environment (say, the presence of disease markers on a cell), make a decision (that the cell is cancerous and needs to be neutralized), and act on that decision (deliver a cargo of cancer-killing drugs).

But with that promise comes a practical problem: how do you program a molecule to perform complex behaviors? In normal robotics, the robot itself contains the knowledge about the commands. But with individual molecules, information storage in the "robot" is impossible. Columbia's Milan Stojanovic says the solution is to imbue the molecule's environment with informational cues.

"We were able to create such a programmed or 'prescribed' environment using DNA origami," explains Hao Yan, from Arizona State. DNA origami is a type of self-assembled structure made from DNA that can be programmed to form nearly limitless shapes and patterns. Exploiting the sequence-recognition properties of DNA base pairing, DNA origami are created from a long single strand of DNA and a mixture of different short synthetic DNA strands that bind to and "staple" the long DNA into the desired shape. The origami used in this case was a rectangle that was 2 nanometers thick and roughly 100 nanometers on each side.

The researchers then constructed a trail of molecular "bread crumbs" on the DNA origami track by stringing additional single-stranded DNA molecules, or oligonucleotides, off the ends of the staples. These represent the cues that tell the molecular robots what to do - start, walk, turn left, turn right, or stop, for example - akin to the commands given to traditional robots.

To build the 4 nanometer diameter molecular robot, the researchers started with a common protein called streptavidin, which has four symmetrically placed binding pockets for a chemical moiety called biotin. Each robot leg is a short biotin-labeled strand of DNA. "It's a four-legged spider," quips Stojanovic. Three of the legs are made of enzymatic DNA, which is DNA that binds to and cuts a particular sequence of DNA. The spider also is outfitted with a "start strand" - the fourth leg - that tethers the spider to the start site (one particular oligonucleotide on the DNA origami track). "After the robot is released from its start site by a trigger strand, it follows the track by binding to and then cutting the DNA strands extending off of the staple strands on the molecular track," Stojanovic explained.

"Once it cleaves," adds Yan, "the product will dissociate, and the leg will start searching for the next substrate." In this way, the spider is guided down the path laid out by the researchers. Finally, explains Yan, "the robot stops when it encounters a patch of DNA that it can bind to but that it cannot cut," which acts as a sort of flypaper.

Although other DNA walkers have been developed before, they've never ventured farther than about three steps. "This one," says Yan, "can walk up to about 100 nanometers. That's roughly 50 steps."

Stojanovic is aware of the current system's limitations. "Interactions are restricted to the walker and the environment. Our next step is to add a second walker, so the walkers can communicate with each other directly and via the environment. The spiders will work together to accomplish a goal," he explained.

Such collaboration ultimately could be the basis for developing molecular-scale reconfigurable robots - complicated machines that are made of many simple units that can reorganize themselves into any shape - to accomplish different tasks, or fix themselves if they break. "The idea is to have molecular robots build a structure or repair damaged tissues," says Stojanovic. "You could imagine the spider carrying a drug and bonding to a two-dimensional surface like a cell membrane, finding the receptors and, depending on the local environment," adds Yan, "triggering the activation of this drug."

New Research Explores 'False Memories': you have to know

Did you really lock your door, or is it all in your head? Researchers exploring the 

fascinating phenomenon of false memories have observed subjects who had false 

memories created by watching someone else. Researchers found the subjects were 

much more likely to falsely remember doing an action if they had watched someone else 

do it.

 eaPsychological resrch has shown various ways "false memories" are created, such as through the power of suggestion or through vivid imagination. Now scientists studying imagination have found that people who watched a video of someone else doing a simple action often didn't remember and thought they had done it themselves when asked about it two weeks later.

"This is a completely new type of false memory," says Gerald Echterhoff, a psychology professor at the University of Muenster in Germany and co-author of the paper published in the September issue of the journal Psychological Science.

"This is a false memory from just observing someone," he says.

Psychologist Daniel Schacter of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., who has edited a book on false memories, says he hasn't read the new paper, but it "sounds like an extension of earlier work that has shown imagining you'd done something can result in false memories."

"I think it's partly new and partly related to earlier work," Schacter says. "You saw something on TV that you think actually happened. It's another kind of example of what people have talked about as a source memory failure."

Echterhoff says more than 25 percent of participants in the study, as well as in several follow-up experiments, had false memories created by watching someone else. Since the first research on 170 participants was done, findings have been replicated with almost 500 participants, he says.

The paper details three different experiments in which participants read about or actually performed a series of simple actions, such as shaking a bottle or shuffling a deck of cards. Then they watched videos of someone else doing simple actions -- some of which they had done and some they had only seen being done. Two weeks later, they were asked which of as many as 30 actions they had done themselves.
Researchers found the subjects were much more likely to falsely remember doing an action if they had watched someone else do it. Echterhoff says the research controlled for the common situation of thinking you had done something because you do it yourself every day.

RIM reports user base at more than 50 million

Research in Motion today reported higher than expected revenue for the second quarter of the fiscal year.

The company's second-quarter outlook from June pegged revenue somewhere between $4.4 billion and $4.6 billion, but the final reported amount came in a little higher, tallying $4.62 billion. The company says that's up 9 percent from the previous quarter.

Based on the GAAP accounting standards, net income for the quarter was $796.7 million compared with $768.9 million in the first quarter.

The handset maker also said that it had shipped more than 12 million BlackBerry devices in the quarter, the most it had ever shipped in that time frame. Additionally, the company reported a net of approximately 4.5 million new BlackBerry subscriber accounts added, bringing the total reported BlackBerry user base to more than 50 million--up 56 percent year over year.

During its second fiscal quarter earnings call, RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie, highlighted the launch of the Torch as being the company's most successful product launch to date. The company also estimated that it would continue to do well in Q3 and Q4 with upcoming launches in Mexico, Canada, and Europe, as well as the holiday shopping season.

Balsillie also touched lightly on RIM's efforts in the Middle East, where the company had been asked by the United Arab Emirates to make concessions on its data security earlier this year.

"On the topic of lawful access, RIM is continuing discussions with governments and carriers in India and the UAE, and they believe we have made good progress in those discussions," Balsillie said. "We are willing to comply, but we cannot compromise the security." Balsillie went on to explain that the company now has 250,000 BlackBerry servers worldwide, all of which are using the company's encryption processes and were a "fundamental part of [RIM's] business."

Answering an analyst question from Scotia Capital about RIM's efforts in China, Balsillie said the company was "uniquely positioned to be a very good citizen" there, and that it had "a lot of products" in the pipeline for release in China later this year. "We have to slowly and systematically do what we do. But I think we're rather unique in that way," he said.

One of those products in the pipeline, Balsillie said, would be announced at this month's BlackBerry Developer Conference. "I can't really give you too much there, but I think you'll be really interested there. More design philosophy aspects are going to come out there." Balsillie was responding to a question from an IBC Capital analyst who had asked about RIM's design philosophy. "It's dangerous to frame all this in a high-end arms race," Balsillie said. "If you saw the road maps, and saw the engagement strategies you'd see we're being prudent on these fronts."

Other items of note were that pre-paid phones have become an increasingly important part of RIM's business both internationally as well as in North America. In the U.S. alone, Balsillie reported that Sprint's Boost, Cricket Mobile, and Virgin Mobile had been "gaining traction" during Q2, and that the pre-paid phone business "represents a substantial opportunity because it makes up a large segment of wireless users around the world."

Lastly were phone applications, which Balsillie said now top 200,000 in RIM's App World store. Of those, the company reported 1.5 million apps being downloaded every day. That's up 40 percent from the same time last quarter.