Joe John

By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains.

Researchers expect that consumers will want the freedom they will gain by using the implant. "I think human beings are remarkable adaptive," said Andrew Chien, vice president of research and director of future technologies research at Intel Labs. "If you told people 20 years ago that they would be carrying computers all the time, they would have said, 'I don't want that. The scientists say the plan is not a scene from a sci-fi movie - Big Brother won't be planting chips in your brain against your will. I don't need that.' Now you can't get them to stop [carrying devices]. There are a lot of things that have to be done first but I think [implanting chips into human brains] is well within the scope of possibility." Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau told Computerworld that users will soon tire of depending on a computer interface, and having to fish a device out of their pocket or bag to access it. Instead, they'll simply manipulate their various devices with their brains. "We're trying to prove you can do interesting things with brain waves," said Pomerleau. "Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. He also predicted that users will tire of having to manipulate an interface with their fingers.

Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts." To get to that point Pomerleau and his research teammates from Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, are currently working on decoding human brain activity. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts, he added. Pomerleau said the team has used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. For instance, if two people think of the image of a bear or hear the word bear or even hear a bear growl, a neuroimage would show similar brain activity. Pomerleau said researchers are close to gaining the ability to build brain sensing technology into a head set that culd be used to manipulate a computer. Basically, there are standard patterns that show up in the brain for different words or images.

The next step is development of a tiny, far less cumbersome sensor that could be implanted inside the brain. Almost two years ago, scientists in the U.S. and Japan announced that a monkey's brain was used to to control a humanoid robot. Such brain research isn't limited to Intel and its university partners. Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University and lead researcher on the project, said that researchers were hoping its work would help paralyzed people walk again. Charles Higgins, an associate professor at the university, predicted that in 10 to 15 years people will be using "hybrid" computers running a combination of technology and living organic tissue.

And a month before that, a scientist at the University of Arizona reported that he had successfully built a robot that is guided by the brain and eyes of a moth. Today, Intel's Pomerleau said various research facilities are developing technologies to sense activity from inside the skull. "If we can get to the point where we can accurately detect specific words, you could mentally type," he added. "You could compose characters or words by thinking about letters flashing on the screen or typing whole words rather than their individual characters." Pomerleau also noted that the more scientists figure out about the brain, it will help them design better microprocessors. He said, "If we can see how the brain does it, then we could build smarter computers."

There were 111, now there are 43. That's the number of qualified teams looking to build mass-production-capable cars that can get at least 100 MPG and qualify for the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize. Performance testing will begin in spring 2010 and winners will be announced in September 2010. NetworkWorld Extra: Seven future car technologies your tax dollars are paying for There are now a total of 43 teams with 53 vehicles representing 18 states, 10 countries and 6 fuel types moving forward in the competition with 28 represented in the Mainstream Class and 25 represented in what's known as the Alternative Class, X Prize stated. According to the X Prize folks, teams that have passed this most recent phase of judging have proven to the competition's automotive and technical experts that their vehicles will be available in time for formal vehicle challenges next spring, will be production capable, and can plausibly meet or exceed the competition requirements. An example of an alternative class entry comes from the West Philly Hybrid X Team whose two-seater, biodiesel hybrid sports car will run on a Volkswagen TDI 1.9 liter engine and an Azure Dynamics electric motor driving the rear-wheels of the vehicle.

From the competition's Web site some of the chief goals of the program are:• Safety, Emissions: Vehicles must be designed so that a production vehicle would likely be able to meet U.S. safety standards and U.S. emissions standards• Manufacturability, Cost: Vehicles must be capable of being manufactured in quantities of 10,000 per year, with vehicle production costs within levels consistent with historical examples of comparable vehicles• Features: Vehicles must be desirable, addressing the most important features and factors consumers consider when purchasing an automobile• Business Plan: There must be a credible plan to manufacture, sell, and service 10,000 vehicles (or conversions) per year by 2014. The plan must show that the national fuel infrastructure will support the vehicles, especially if any non-standard fuels or fueling-methods are to be used. The electric motor will be the primary drive motor for cruising around town under 50 mph. The automotive challenge is but one of the wild X Prize challenges going on. The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is a two-level, two million dollar competition requiring a vehicle to simulate trips between the moon's surface and lunar orbit. The Google Lunar X Prize is a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth.

In 2004 the Ansari X Prize was won by Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites. In that competition a $10 million prize was awarded to build a privately funded craft that reaches a sub-orbit of 100 km twice in two weeks.

An explosion of HD movies rocked the iTunes Store this morning without much apparent fanfare from Apple. Headlining iTunes Store's newly-stocked HD shelves are Wall-E, a pre-order for Star Trek (which was only available in SD until now), Hero, The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Knowing, Bolt, and many more. There are now hundreds of new and classic films available to rent or purchase in HD from iTunes Store. Plenty of classics have arrived in HD as well, including both Kill Bill movies, Short Circuit, Zoolander, No Country for Old Men, and what is probably my favorite B-budget sci-fi film: Cube.

Unfortunately, most HD films-old and new-are listed at the premium $20 price point. Most of the new HD films are available for purchase, though some are bizarrely limited to rental only. Terminator 2 is one of the few exceptions, as it's been available in HD  for $13, at least since iTunes Extras arrived. It first arrived as a handful of rentals for Apple TV in January 2008, then expanded a couple months later to a few HD movies for sale in March 2008. Now I count over 280 HD movies for purchase or rent in the iTunes Store's Featured HD Movies section (which I think is all of them). This may get panned by some as an underwhelming release, but considering that movie studios have struggled to get on board with the digital-distribution age, this is a major step forward for completing the iTunes Store's trifecta of mainstream content. Top Gun is $18, but almost all the other new HD arrivals, no matter how old they actually are or whether they have iTunes Extras (most do not), are $20. It's been almost two years since HD video came to the iTunes Store.

Employers could be filling IT positions in the coming months, research suggests, as the number of positions expected to be created could begin to outpace anticipated job cuts in some industries. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports that employers in September began to detail plans to hire more workers than they did in 2008. Through September 2009, employers have announced plans to hire 169,385 workers this year, marking an 88% increase over the nearly 90,000 planned hires announced in the first three quarters of 2008. The sectors planning the most hires include the retail, government and nonprofit, and enterprise and leisure industries. Where the IT jobs are: 10 American cities Hiring budgets could be coming out of the deep freeze initiated at the start of the economic recession, according to industry watchers. Employers in the telecommunications industry announced 6,339 planned hires for 2009, compared to 2,689 last year.

Electronics companies are expecting to add 1,765 new jobs, another decline from 2008's 3,013 planned positions. Aerospace and defense employers intend to add 2,618 new position, less than the 4,709 in the previous year. E-commerce vendors reported they would augment staff with 1,572 new openings, an increase over the 500 added in 2008. And while the computer industry reportedly announced 7,717 new hires, the data Challenger, Gray & Christmas tracked so far this year shows the industry isn't planning any new hires so far in 2009. "These figures represent just a tiny fraction of the hiring and available jobs out there. There simply are more job seekers than there are jobs. We track hiring announcements," said John Challenger, CEO at the outplacement firm, in a statement. 20 most useful career sites for IT professionals Challenger, Gray & Christmas also cited recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data that showed 2.4 million job openings as of August, down from 3.9 million in 2008. And the same government agency reported that 4 million workers were hired in August, despite the unemployment rate nearing 10%.  "There is no doubt that this is a tight job market. However, it would be a mistake to assume that no one is hiring," Challenger said.

David Foote, CEO and chief research officer, said in a statement that while high-tech industry segments have been posting job losses, they are losing fewer jobs and in some cases adding positions. Separately, IT research firm Foote Partners also found cause for optimism in recent government statistics. For instance, "five IT bellwether job segments" have posted collective job losses of between 4,000 and 11,000 jobs each month (including 4,300 lost in August), but also showed gains such as 7,400 positions in July.  "Consider that according to the Department of Labor's labor market segmentation there has been a net loss of 32,600 IT related jobs since January 2009, but a net gain of 1,400 since July, it's clear that we're heading in the right direction," Foote said. "We continue to maintain optimism for the rest of the year, for IT services sector in particular." Do you Tweet? Follow Denise Dubie on Twitter

IBM has expanded its server lineup with a new mainframe system designed just for Linux that may be aimed, in particular, at higher-end x86 systems. It does not use the mainframe operating system z/OS but includes mainframe management software as well as IBM's z/Virtual Machine system. The new system uses IBM's specialty Linux processor and runs either Novell SUSE or Red Hat systems.

Together, they constitute the company's latest "solutions edition," or what IBM says are lower-cost, integrated stacks for the mainframe. This system is intended to be competitive with large multicore systems used for virtualization consolidation. There are two servers in the Enterprise Linux Server line, and the starting price on the lower-end model, with two processors, is $212,000; it scales up from there. The Linux-specific line is IBM's latest effort to reduce the cost of its mainframe. But several years ago, IBM started producing a smaller model, the z10 Business Class , which was initially offered at about $100,000, to compete with a broader range of enterprise servers. It's high-end z10 Enterprise Class system can cost millions.

Reed Mullen, the System z virtualization lead product planner, said that potential customers include companies that want to virtualize a lot of systems but aren't necessarily mainframe customers. IBM expects to upgrade its z10 next year , in keeping with its three-year upgrade cycle. Among the arguments that IBM will make for this system is its ability to dynamically add capacity in a running environment, Mullen said. IBM's mainframe sales have been off 26% in the most recent quarter compared with the same quarter last year, and server sales have been flat across the board. With this new hardware, IBM likely wants to compete with x86 systems with 16 processor cores and above, he said.

Brad Day, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said IBM has been working to reduce the cost of its mainframe software, which can account for half the cost of a mainframe, including personnel, energy and maintenance. Anything that lowers the life-cycle cost of the system is critical, and by focusing on Linux, IBM is "putting meat to where most of the workloads are going," Day said. "About half of the new growth of applications on mainframe is led by Linux."