Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.

Seriously.

Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype  but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.

Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5’s founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.

It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop. ÿþ

Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone.

Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the Internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies.

That’s not just pie in-the-sky dreaming.

Ask longtime VOIP watcher and consultant Andy Abramson, who introduced the idea of integrating Gizmo5 and Grand Central (now Google Voice), long before Google bought either.

“Google is now the the uncommon carrier,” Abramson said, punning on the iconic 7-UP commercials and the phrase “common carrier.” That refers to phone companies that operate on the traditional publicly switched network — a status that gives them benefits and obligations.

“If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP,” Abramson added.

“All of a sudden you have something that offers more than Skype,” Abramson said, saying the combo could now put Google in competition with phone and cable companies, IP “telephony” (VOIP) companies and Vonage. “But now you can do everything with Google and pay nothing and have a platform where engineers can build new things.”

In fact, Gizmo5 offered a rogue version of that service for $6 a month until last week.

On November 2, Gizmo5 abruptly canceled the two-month old “residential service,” which paired the free phone number available through Google Voice with Gizmo’s Internet calling service to provide the equivalent of a home-phone replacement like Vonage.

Now, that service has been wiped off the Internet and, more intriguingly, Google’s cache of the page disappeared the day after the acquisition was reported.

For $6 a month, Gizmo5 residential users got 300 minutes a month of outbound calling anywhere in the United States, unlimited incoming calls on their home computers or even home phones (using a broadband-to-phone network conversion box) and E911 service (which means 911 calls work like landlines calls do, once you register your home address).

It’s not too surprising that offer got taken down.

For one Google is already trying to steer clear of U.S. regulators by making it clear that Google Voice isn’t a replacement for a home phone since you have to have phone service from some other company to use it. You can forward calls from a Google Voice number to your Gizmo5 number, but you must have a mobile or landline number as well.

Google doesn’t say it, but clearly it hopes that restriction will keep the service from incurring the common carrier obligations attached to the regular phone system (PSTN), and the 911 and wiretapping requirements that apply to Internet telephony and to traditional copper wire phones.

AT&T has already tried to sic federal regulators on Google Voice because Google is blocking outgoing calls to a handful of shady calling services  mostly free conference-calling services that exploit federal rules that let rural phone companies charge high fees to connect calls to rural areas.

AT&T itself has sued similar services that play this arbitrage game, and complaining to the feds may have only brought more attention to an issue the FCC has procrastinating fixing for too long.

Gizmo5 will also help save Google money on phone-call termination fees as users start to use computer-based clients to connect to Google Voice. That would allow Google to recoup the purchase price of $30 million in little time, if only it saves even a few dollars per user per year.

Google also gets Michael Robertson, a troublemaker with technical chops. Robertson made millions from MP3.com in the dot-com boom, despite drawing lawsuits from major record labels for creating innovative services. He was later sued by Microsoft for his startup Lindows, which made Linux installations for cheap PCs. And his current music venture, MP3tunes.com, is being sued by EMI.

Though still in invite-only mode, Google Voice has about 580,000 active users and nearly 1.5 million registered users, according to a Google filing with the FCC.

If you are interested in the combination, you might want to sign up for Gizmo5 before the acquisition is formally announced, since Google often freezes new registrations at companies it acquires until it figures out how to integrate the technology.

When it comes to sun energy, the focus is often on solar power plants or rooftop panels. But there’s an increasing number of snazzy portable products that also draw juice from our nearest star — things we can carry, wear or set on our desks.

Examples include eco-hip cell phones, stylish computer bags with charging adaptors, and even elegant parasols and hand-held lace fans.

Of course calculators and alarm clocks have been solarized for decades, although they’ve often lacked design cred. And some observers think that green marketing is behind many of the new solar products as much as anything else.

“Honestly a lot of it is marketing gimmick,” says Ted Sullivan, a consultant with Lux Research.

“There’s certainly some value in these products, but most of them are not self-sustaining like you would find from the calculator, which has incredibly low power consumption.”

Still, the trend is hard to miss. Solar gadget-chargers in particular have proliferated, driven by increasingly mobile lifestyles and growing green awareness. They’re sold as stand-alone devices or come integrated into cases, bags or clothing.

One of the earlier stand-alone chargers, the Solio Classic, was introduced about five years ago by a small California company called Better Energy Systems.

An amusing gallery of user photos on the Solio Web site shows the charger in use out in the wild, such as strapped to the outside of a skier’s backpack, along with the iPod it’s charging, up in the Himalayas.

A twist on the portable solar charger is the addition of a miniature wind turbine, as seen with the Kinesis K3 device from Kinesis Industries in Arizona.

Attached to a bike, it can capture wind energy on your way to the beach, and then solar energy once you’re there. The company suggests charging up the device through a wall socket first, and then using the wind and solar energy to keep it topped up. That advice would apply to many such chargers.

Charging up consumer trends

Another approach is to put a gadget in a solar casing. A California firm called Novothink has introduced Apple-certified protective cases for iPhones and iPod Touches that have solar panels on the back.

One challenge with consumer electronics, notes Sullivan, is that they’re usually carried inside dark pockets, bags and cases. A solution to that is to put the solar panels on the exteriors of the clothing and bags, and then link them to a battery within that can charge devices.

Companies offering solar bags and cases include Voltaic Systems in the U.S. and Neubers in Germany. Such products are among the more practical consumer solar offerings.

“If you’re sitting in a park all day under a good amount of sun and need to charge your cell phone, that’s a viable option,” says Sullivan, noting that the Voltaic bags for instance have relatively efficient cells and a flat form factor for capturing more sunlight.

Some bags are suitable for carrying laptops, but not necessarily efficient enough for powering them in a practical timeframe. Voltaic claims its $499 Generator case can do the job.

Generally, though, the bags are meant to charge small devices like cameras, cell phones, and MP3 players.

Some gadgets can grab their own sunshine, such as a solar e-book produced by LG Display in South Korea. And last month Samsung launched Blue Earth, a fully loaded eco-hip smart phone made from post-consumer materials. It has an energy-saving mode and an integrated solar panel on the back.

While expecting the solar panel to instantly recharge the phone from a dead stop might be unrealistic, Sullivan says Blue Earth is “a step in the right direction.”

Fashion moves

Solar chargers have worked their way not only into sportswear, but also into more fashionable items as well. For instance Zegna Sport’s Ecotech solar jacket sacrifices no sleekness to attain its eco-worthiness. Solar panels on the sleeves connect to a detachable lithium battery on an inside pocket that can either charge devices or heat the collar.

Meanwhile a London design studio called Lost Values is incorporating solar technology into fashion accessories like lace hand-fans and parasols.

Founder and fashion designer Elena Corchero took note of the solar backpacks and jackets, but she wanted to “explore the aesthetics” in a way that would respect textile traditions and “camouflage the solar cells into designs that could be part of our everyday, without having to shout technology wherever you go.”

She also paints interesting similarities between the evolution of the clock and the solar panel. Just as the former went from our walls to our wrists, the latter will go from our rooftops to our wardrobes and everyday lives.

A San Francisco company called Regen sells LED desk lamps and iPod speaker docks that tap solar energy. Inside the home a nearby power outlet would also work, but the products give customers both flexibility and a cleaner green conscience.

Not everything needs to be so practical, of course. There’s room for whimsy as well. “Solar night flowers,” sold at online stores like Cozydays.com for about $30, draw energy in the day so they can shine tackily at night.

And one of Sullivan’s favorites, he says, can be found in markets in Seoul: solar-powered bobble-head toys.

Bobbing the head of a toy might seem like a waste of energy, but at least it’s free energy. Anyone focused on larger issues, like how solar farms can challenge the traditional power establishment, might scoff at consumer toys, accessories, and gadgets.

But these products might also boost solar power in the minds of consumers.

When the Solio charger came out, says Better Energy Systems spokesperson Christa Kaufmann, “people responded with great enthusiasm and became much more open to the concept, and use, of solar. That was very much built into our thinking.”

Scientists who crashed two spacecraft into a crater on the moon said on Friday they found water in the dust they kicked up, just as they had hoped.

The barely visible plume knocked into the air by NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite or LCROSS mission last month contained at least some water. Scientists are now working to find out more about it.

“We’re unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and, by extension, the solar system,” Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA, said in a statement.

Water had already been found on the moon but the NASA scientists had hoped they could find significant deposits in the permanently shadowed regions of craters, in this case, a crater called Cabeus.

If this water is billions of years old, it could contain information about the formation of the solar system. And if it is widespread, it could be used to sustain space travellers or broken down into fuel for space missions.

The researchers used a spectrograph to analyze the light coming from the plume of dust. These instruments can tell what elements are found in any material by their effects on light wavelength.

“We are ecstatic,” said Anthony Colaprete of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

“The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water.”

And there is other material in the dark crater.

“Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years,” Colaprete said.

Three-dimensional images are expected jump out of movie theaters and into living rooms by next year.
Sony and Panasonic say they will release home 3-D television systems in 2010; Mitsubishi and JVC are reported to be working on similar products.

“TV finally becomes real” in three dimensions, said Robert Perry, an executive vice president at Panasonic. “You’re in it. It’s the next frontier.”

Perry compared the 3-D transition to the switch from black-and-white to color television and the shift from standard- to high-definition images.

ESPN is test-recording some sporting events in 3-D, using cameras with two sets of lenses, which would make football players appear to jump out of home television screens during live 3-D broadcasts.

And, although television makers haven’t released specifics, the price of 3-D TV — which requires a new television, broadcasting content and 3-D glasses — is not expected to be substantially higher than some high-definition televisions on the market now.

Still, there are skeptics who say that 3-D is not ready for prime-time home viewing.

There are concerns that 3-D broadcasts, which require twice the data, will gobble up an unworkable amount of television bandwidth. And some worry that 3-D glasses and graphics won’t make a smooth transition to American living rooms.

Shane Sturgeon, publisher of HDTV Magazine, said some of the glasses give him a headache and will block some people from buying the new technology.

“From what I’ve seen from most of the manufacturers, it’s just not there yet,” he said of 3-D TV technology. “I think right now, the technology — whether you’re talking about the refresh rate or the strobing or the glasses — there are too many things right now that get in the way of enjoyment of the film for it to kick off.”

All 3-D technology relies on the idea that if separate images are presented to the left and right eyes, the human brain will combine them and create the illusion of a third dimension.

TV makers go about this in different ways, though.

Panasonic and Sony, which demonstrated their products for CNN at a recent tech expo in Atlanta, Georgia, use “active glasses” and TVs with high refresh rates to achieve the effect.

Two images, one for the right eye and one for the left eye, alternate quickly on the TV. Shutters on the 3-D glasses swap the viewer’s vision from right eye to left eye at the same rate: 120 hertz, or 240 hertz for the images together. The TV connects with the glasses through a sensor that’s placed between the lenses on the glasses.

“It’s like a little Venetian blind: open, close, open, close, open, close,” John Wyckoff, a Sony content manager, said of the glasses.

The effect moves so quickly that it tricks the brain into merging the images and creates the perspective needed to see images in 3-D, he said.

Glance away from the TV, though, and you can see the lenses opening and closing, which irritates some people.

Those who saw the technology at the recent Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association Expo seemed wowed by Panasonic’s 3-D footage of Olympic events and skiers who appeared to send snow flying into the laps of the audience.

David Lesch fidgeted with his 3-D glasses during Panasonic’s demo but said the 3-D picture on the company’s 103-inch plasma screen was excellent.

However, it may not be effective for all TV programming, he said.

“I cannot imagine that I will watch CNN in 3-D,” said Lesch, sales director at AV Media, which sells electronics. “But for sports, yes. To watch soccer and ice hockey — anything — that would be great.”

These next-generation televisions would be able to play shows in 2-D or 3-D. They also would be able to show video games in 3-D, which Sony demonstrated at the expo in Atlanta.

Sturgeon, of HDTV Magazine, said JVC is working on a type of 3-D technology that’s different form the strobing glasses used by Panasonic and Sony.

JVC’s version uses polarized glasses to separate the right-eye image from the left-eye image and is more pleasing to the eye, he said.

Aside from the kooky glasses, people who want to watch television that jumps off the screen will need something to watch. The process of making live television work in 3-D probably would involve a major conversion of broadcast equipment.

Also, Blu-ray is said to be working on a product that would play three-dimensional movies at home.

Panasonic and Sony said they’re still working out some kinks in their 3-D entertainment systems. The TV makers hope to ride the wave of popularity of improved stereoscopic 3-D movies, such as recent hit “Up,” that are being shown in theaters.

Perry, of Panasonic, said he expects 3-D TV to be common in homes within five to 10 years. Technology that will make 3-D TV possible without glasses should be ready in 10 to 15 years, he said.

Michael Bridwell, spokesman for Digital Projection, a company that makes high-end 3-D home theaters, said 3-D is the biggest technology coming to television and home movies in the foreseeable future.

Researchers have discovered a new sub-species of monkey in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest, a U.S.-based wildlife conservation group said on Tuesday.
The newly found monkey was first spotted by scientists in 2007 in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and is related to the saddleback tamarin monkeys, known for their distinctively marked backs, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said.

The small monkey, which is mostly gray and brown and weighs 213 grams (0.47 pound), has been named the Mura’s saddleback tamarin after the Mura Indian tribe of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the new sub-species was found.

It is 240 millimeters (9.4 inches) tall with a 320 millimeter (12.6 inch) tail.

“This newly described monkey shows that even today there are major wildlife discoveries to be made,” Fabio Rohe, the lead author of a study confirming the new discovery, said in a statement released by the WCS.

The study found that the monkey is threatened by development projects in the region, including a major highway through the forest that is being paved and which could fuel deforestation.

“This discovery should serve as a wake-up call that there is still so much to learn from the world’s wild places, yet humans continue to threaten these areas with destruction,” Rohe said.

Sleepless people sometimes use the Internet to get through the night. Now a small study shows promising results for insomniacs with nine weeks of Internet-based therapy.

No human therapist is involved. The Internet software gives advice, even specific bedtimes, based on users’ sleep diaries. Patients learn better sleep habits — like avoiding daytime naps — through stories, quizzes and games.

“This is a very interactive, tailored, personalized program,” said study co-author Frances Thorndike of the University of Virginia Health System, who helped design the software, called Sleep Healthy Using the Internet, or SHUTi.

Such software could one day be a low-cost alternative for some patients, Thorndike said. And it could be the only non-drug option for people who live in areas without trained specialists, she said.

Prior research has shown face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy can have long-lasting results for insomniacs without the side effects of medication. The SHUTi program is based on that style of therapy, which helps patients change thinking patterns that contribute to poor sleep.

In the new study, released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers recruited 45 adults with moderate insomnia and randomly assigned 22 of them to try the Internet program.

The group who got the treatment woke up fewer times and spent fewer minutes awake during the night. The control group’s scores didn’t change. Even after six months, the Internet group’s scores remained improved.

The response was “fairly impressive and comparable to what you see with more intensive sorts of interventions,” said Jack Edinger, a sleep disorder specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who wasn’t involved in the study.

Participants were highly educated and had no sleep apnea or psychiatric problems. Testing the approach on a larger, more diverse group could determine which patients benefit most, Edinger said.

Shelby Harris, a sleep specialist at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center, said something valuable is lost in an Internet-based approach. A trained therapist can help patients stay motivated and identify anxieties keeping patients awake at night.

“There will certainly be people who prefer the face-to-face contact or do better with that type of therapy,” Thorndike said. “This will free up those limited resources for face-to-face therapy for the people who need it, benefit from it or would prefer it.”
The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Astronomers love their sky maps, and this latest is a doozie. It reveals thousands of previously undiscovered knots of cold cosmic dust, each a potential star waiting to be born.

The new atlas of dust covers the inner regions of our Milky Way Galaxy, where stars, gas and dust are all packed tightly together, where chaos reigns, where massive stars are born.

It’s so dusty in there that optical telescopes can’t see anything.But cosmic material emits and reflects various forms of radiation besides the visible. The new observations were made in submillimeter-wavelength light, which is between infrared light and radio waves on the electromagnetic spectrum.

The data was collected by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL). It is the largest map of cold dust made so far, astronomers said.

“ATLASGAL gives us a new look at the Milky Way,” said Frederic Schuller from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, leader of the ATLASGAL team. “Not only will it help us investigate how massive stars form, but it will also give us an overview of the larger-scale structure of our galaxy.”

The area of the map covers a narrow strip of the galactic plane about two degrees wide (or four times the width of the full moon in our sky).
The interstellar medium — the material between the stars — is composed of gas and grains of cosmic dust, rather like fine sand or soot. However, the gas is mostly hydrogen and relatively difficult to detect, so astronomers often search for these dense regions by looking for the faint heat glow of the cosmic dust grains.

Submillimeter light allows astronomers to see these dust clouds shining, even though they obscure our view of the universe at visible light wavelengths. Accordingly, the ATLASGAL map includes the denser central regions of our galaxy, in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius — home to a supermassive black hole — that are otherwise hidden behind a dark shroud of dust clouds.

The newly spotted dust clumps are typically a couple of light-years in size, and have masses of between ten and a few thousand times the mass of our sun, according to a statement released by the astronomers. In addition, ATLASGAL has captured images of beautiful filamentary structures and bubbles in the interstellar medium, blown by exploded stars and the winds of bright stars.

The ATLASGAL project is a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, ESO, and the University of Chile.