Sponsored By:

ChangeQuakes Of The Week

July 17, 2006

TOP CHANGEQUAKES OF THE WEEK
** HP Develops Tiny Wireless Memory Chip
** Mumbai Bombings Shake Outsourcing Community
** Has Skype's Tech Been Cracked?
** Stem Cells Take Center Stage In Congress

MORE CHANGEQUAKES TO WATCH

---

TOP CHANGEQUAKES OF THE WEEK

HP Develops Tiny Wireless Memory Chip

(TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGEQUAKE) -- Hewlett-Packard has developed a chip the size of a grain of rice that can store 256 kilobits to 4 megabits of memory and can transfer data wirelessly at speeds up to 10 Mbps. The tiny chip is small enough to embed in almost any object, says HP.

news.bbc.co.uk

Mumbai Bombings Shake Outsourcing Community

(ECONOMIC CHANGEQUAKE) -- The big fear of offshore outsourcing customers has become a reality: a major bombing attack in an outsourcing hub. In the wake of recent attacks, outsourcing providers in Mumbai scrambled to ensure employees and customer data was secure, while customers sought reassurances that their Indian partners could handle future events.

www.eweek.com

Has Skype's Tech Been Cracked?

(TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGEQUAKE) -- Sources say that Chinese researchers have been able to reverse engineer the protocol used for Skype's VOIP technology. If true, this could be damaging to plans for Skype and parent company eBay, which denies the claims.

www.eweek.com

Stem Cells Take Center Stage In Congress

(REGULATORY CHANGEQUAKE) -- Congress is poised to give final approval this week to legislation that would broadly expand embryonic stem-cell research, which would mark a turning point in the struggle between science and religious concerns.

www.cbsnews.com

---

MORE CHANGEQUAKES TO WATCH

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGEQUAKES

New DVD Could Make Hard Disks Obsolete

A Boston professor is working on developing DVDs that can be coated with a light-sensitive protein and can store up to 50 terabytes (about 50,000 gigabytes) of data, which he hopes could eventually eliminate the need for hard drive memory.

in.tech.yahoo.com

Energy Department Turned On By LED Lighting

The government is pushing scientists and engineers to get rid of one of the world's worst energy-wasters: the ordinary light bulb. With the aid of academic and private-industry researchers, the Department of Energy is seeking to replace those profligate bulbs with "solid-state lighting" devices that attain 50% efficiency -- 10 times better than ordinary bulbs, twice as good as fluorescents.

www.orlandosentinel.com


CORPORATE CHANGEQUAKES

Citgo To Stop Selling Gas To Some U.S. Stations

Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum has decided to stop distributing gasoline to some 1,800 U.S. stations, shedding a lackluster segment of its business while forcing the owners of those stations to find other suppliers.

biz.yahoo.com

YouTube Serving 100 Million Videos Daily

YouTube, the leader in Internet video search, announced that viewers are now watching more than 100 million videos per day on its site, marking the surge in demand for its "snack-sized" video fare.

today.reuters.com

Related Story: How Will YouTube Make Money?
http://networks.silicon

Downloadable And Burnable Movies A Step Away

Sonic Solutions said it has signed its first DVD-on-demand deal with online film provider Movielink, bringing consumers closer to being able to burn movie downloads legally, but one big step remains.

www.redherring.com


REGULATORY CHANGEQUAKES

Microsoft Hit With $357 Million Fine

The EU Commission has fined Microsoft $357 million for failing to obey an antitrust order in 2004 to share its program code with rivals. The fine was lower than the maximum possible fine of $2.5 million a day, or around half a billion dollars when backdated to Dec. 15, 2004.

www.forbes.com

Related Story: Gates Says '80% Chance' Microsoft's Windows Vista Will Be On Time
www.foxnews.com


ECONOMIC CHANGEQUAKES

June U.S. Industrial Production Higher Than Expected

Output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities rose by a bigger-than-expected 0.8% in June and capacity use also topped expectations at 82.4% amid signs of a hot economy that could weigh on an inflation-wary Federal Reserve. Analysts were expecting a 0.4% gain in industrial production and a capacity use rate of 81.9%.

today.reuters.com


FDA APPROVAL CHANGEQUAKES

FDA Wants More Flexible Clinical Trials

The FDA is preparing guidelines telling drug makers how they can streamline the testing of experimental medicines by conducting more flexible clinical trials, and the agency wants to encourage "adaptive" clinical trials that can change mid-way through the process.

today.reuters.co.uk

FDA Approves AIDS Combo Drug

The FDA has approved the first anti-HIV drug that requires patients to take only one pill per day. The triple-combination drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead, called Atripla, combines the three most widely prescribed HIV drugs into one pill, providing patients with a simpler medication regimen.

www.sun-sentinel.com


DISCOVERY CHANGEQUAKES

Swiss Invent Zeppelin To Provide 100% Mobile Coverage

A zeppelin will replace all of the terrestrial mobile phone antennas in Switzerland - if a Swiss inventor has his way.

www.swissinfo.org

Indonesia Reports 42nd Human Bird Flu Death

A 44-year-old man died of bird flu in Indonesia, a senior health official said Sunday, putting the country on the cusp of being the world's hardest hit by the disease.

abcnews.go.com