House of bamboo

The Sullivans tried making two or three chairs from commercial bamboo flooring they bought expressly for the project, but eachchair took more than 50 hours to complete.

 “Since the chairs sold for $200, we just couldn't doit,” Joanne Sullivan said. “We kind of scrapped theidea.”

Joanne Sullivan decided to experiment with the unused scraps ofbamboo flooring. She took home a slab of flooring and created acutting board. Impressed with the board's resilience and look, theSullivans decided to make about 20 cutting boards that year todistribute as Christmas gifts for their family, Joanne Sullivansaid.

On a whim, they took a handful of bamboo cutting boards to anArizona craft fair to showcase alongside their specialty chairs.Joanne Sullivan was worried they would sell out of their plannedChristmas presents, so they slapped the cutting boards with a pricetag they assumed no one would pay – around $80 per board.

Within two hours, all of the boards were gone.

 “This was way before green,” Tom Sullivan said,referring to the increase in eco-friendly products on the market.“We were on the crest of the wave. We're pretty good atmarket trends. Being in the craft fairs is being in the trenches.We went home with literally a shaking excitement. We knew we had atiger by the tail.”

They purchased large quantities of commercial bamboo flooring andwent to work creating a line of cutting boards. Eventually, theytraveled to China to partner with a manufacturer who could producethe boards in larger quantities.

Later, they branched out to design and create other products andnow have a line of about 200 bamboo products, from kitchenware tocountertops, sinks and chairs.

Totally Bamboo products sell in Crate & Barrel; Bed, Bath &Beyond; Macy's; and Dillard's, Joanne Sullivan said. The cuttingboards are their best sellers.

The Sullivans say they are proud of the fact that they design andtest their products in-house.

 “It's a quality issue,” Tom Sullivan said. “Wedidn't build to sell cheap. We're sticklers on quality.”

Report gives tick to filtered Internet

 The government's clean feed Internet schemehas been buoyed by glowing results from tests into theeffectiveness of Internet Service Provider (ISP) content filters.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA) Internetcontent filtering report, the latest of a series that was firstcommissioned in 1993, claims the technology has undergone massiveimprovements since 2005 when that year's trial returned abysmalresults.

ISP content filteringis part of the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber Safetywhich will split funds between law enforcement, technology andeducation to reduce the proliferation of child porn andinappropriate content.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the government willsoon trial blocking prohibited and "additional" material in a livepilot with ISPs using the filters.

"The next step is to test filter technologies in a real worldenvironment with a number of ISPs and internet users," Conroy said.

"Filtering specifically against a black-list of illegal content aswell as the ability to filter additional material will be one partof the upcoming pilot trial.

"This will enable the implementation of ISP filtering in Australiato be undertaken in an informed and effective way."

The ACMA test of six Internet content filters showed the worstperformer allowed through 12 percent of a set list of bannedmaterial, while the best blocked more than 94 percent.

Fewer than one percent returned false positives, and five of thesix consumed less than one percent of network resources whenattached but not filtering.

When actively filtering, one product chewed up to 75 percent ofnetwork resources, three used between 22 to 30 percent and one toolused less than one percent.

None of the products could identify banned material viaPeer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing networks, although one product wasable to identify blocked material in "media streaming".

"Despite the general nature of advances in ISP level filteringtechnology between current trial and the previous trial, mostfilters are not presently able to identify illegal content, andcontent that may be regarded as inappropriate that is carried viathe majority of non-Web protocols," the report stated.

Results for the 2005 test were so bad that the search for ISP-levelfilters was abandoned and replaced with enterprise-level solutions.The average network resource consumption returned in the test werebetween 75 to 98 percent.

The ACMA test was conducted on an isolated analogous Tier 3 ISPnetwork in Telstra's broadband e-Lab by vendor Enex TestLab. Onlysix from an initial 26 solutions passed the three phases ofcriteria, although the names of the products were keptconfidential.

Princeton scientists spy an electron dance

Sci. & Tech.

Princeton scientists spy an electron dance

A team of scientists led by researchers from Princeton Universityhas discovered a new way that electrons behave in materials. Thediscovery could lead to new kinds of electronic device, sayseurekalert press release.

Writing in the Friday, July 25, issue of the journal Science, ateam led by N. Phuan Ong, a professor of physics at Princeton, hasshown that electrons in the common element bismuth display a highlyunusual pattern of behavior -- a dance, of sorts -- when subjectedto a powerful magnetic field at ultra-low temperatures.

Normally, electrons in bismuth come in three different varieties.But in the experiment described by the researchers, the electronsin the magnetized, super cold sample simultaneously assumed theidentity of all three classes of electrons, following a strict choreography that could only stem, they say, from the strange rulesof quantum physics. Quantum mechanics is the area of physics thatgoverns the behavior of objects in the microscopic world. The experiment documented the first "phase transition" -- a term usedto describe an abrupt change in the behavior of a material -- everobserved in a Group V element, one of the categories in chemistry’s periodic table.

"If you can imagine, it's as if we were looking at passengers scrambling through Grand Central Station in New York, watching themrun in different directions. All of a sudden, the whistle blows andwe see them run to the same train. This is a simple example of asudden transition to collective behavior," Ong said.

By witnessing what physicists call a "collective state," the teamsaw what Ong described as one of the wonders of nature. "It's amanifestation of quantum mechanics," he said.

It had been known that, in the complicated environment of acrystalline solid like bismuth, its electrons move more rapidlythan they do in conventional materials. Although the maximum speedof electrons in bismuth is small compared with photons moving atthe speed of light, the electrons mimic accurately the behavior ofelementary particles accelerated to very high speeds. In bismuth,this "relativistic" property makes them likely candidates for thequantum behavior the scientists observed.

"This is exciting because this was predicted, but never shownbefore, and it may eventually lead to new paradigms in computingand electronics," said Thomas Rieker, program director formaterials research centers at the National Science Foundation.

If scientists are able to document the behavior of the electrons inbismuth and therefore predict their path through a material, theymay be able to manipulate those properties for electronic systemspowering futuristic "quantum" computing devices.

"In the quest to develop ever smaller and faster transistors,physicists and engineers are attempting to harness the quantumbehavior of electrons," Ong said. "Research in bismuth and anothermaterial, graphene, may uncover further new results that willexpand the toolkit of quantum researchers."

Electrons are the lightest elementary particles with an electriccharge. In the past, understanding the rules governing the wayelectrons move through materials has allowed scientists to makemajor advances, from the development of medical imaging to theinvention of the transistor. "The modern era of computing andtelecommunications rests on advances in solid state physics," Ongsaid. "We can't yet know what we will learn from this but the pasttells us that understanding the behavior of electrons points us inimportant new directions."

The experiment also involved Robert Cava, the Russell Wellman MooreProfessor of Chemistry and department chair, as well as physicsgraduate students Lu Li and Joseph Checkelsky and postdoctoralfellow Yew San Hor. Scientists from the University of Michigan andthe University of Florida also participated.

To obtain the results, the scientists balanced a crystal ofhigh-purity bismuth at the tip of a tiny gold cantilever andmeasured the minute flexing of the cantilever as the magnetic fieldchanged. They performed the experiment using the most powerfulmagnet in the world at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratoryin Tallahassee, Fla. The 34-ton magnet produces a magnetic fieldmeasuring 45 Teslas -- 1 million times more powerful than theEarth's magnetic field. The facility is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the state ofFlorida.

Sci. & Tech.

ODA to insist on use of particulate filters

 The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has confirmed it willimplement the London Best Practice Guidance on its sites inStratford, including fitting diesel particulate filters (DPFs) toplant over 37kW.

Its spokesperson told CJ: "We will be implementing the BestPractice Guidance and are working with the Greater London Authority(GLA) and other stakeholders to ensure that contractors are awareof the accreditation scheme.

"We will be reducing the number of vehicles on site by using railand water where possible to transport construction materials, andwill also be using ultra-low sulphur diesel for site vehicles."

The confirmation is a victory for the Environmental IndustriesCommission (the lobbying and trade body for particulatemanufacturers), which had prompted 29 MPs to sign an Early DayMotion calling on the ODA "to fulfil its pledge to tackle harmfulemissions from equipment used on site".

Spam masks itself as news to evade filters

Spam masks itself as news to evade filters:e-mail asks you to download a viewer to see the news," he said.

Robert Ashworth, a senior solutions architect with Peak UpTime,said the new spams likely aren't having a major impact on largerbusinesses because of security measures most of them have.

"More and more companies are instituting firewalls andspam-blocking software, so often these mails are blocked beforepeople can even see them," he said.

But Manes said that smaller businesses and individuals who don'thave basic security could be at risk if they aren't using a basicspam filter and malicious software removal tool such as Lavasoft'sAdAware or Microsoft's free Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Microsoft Corp. says its tool has helped dismantle several botnets,a series of infected computers that most often pump out spamwithout their users' knowledge. Manes, however, pointed out thatusers still have to choose to install and use the tool.

"The tool doesn't automatically come to you; you have to get thetool and manually use it," he said.

Ashworth said the telltale signs of spam are still hidden in thenews e-mails: a plea to forward it, an unknown sender, and links tounfamiliar sites.

"Don't click on links in e-mail unless you know it's from a validsource," he said.

Manes said that if recipients of questionable e-mail are curious tosee whether the bold headlines are true, they can visit regularnews sites or urban myth-busting sites such as

www.snopes.com

 or

hoax-slayer.com

Still, news spam is just the latest flavor of the electronic pest,and Manes said he expects it to keep adopting new techniques.

>"I got one today that used Google's ad words that appear alongsidemy search results to put together something I really cared about,and I almost clicked on it," he said.

Robert Evatt 581-8447

robert.evatt@tulsaworld.com

Filters set to fly in new commercial

 Having experienced difficulty with previous filters selected thatwere unable to pass the

EMC testing

, TPS approached Oxley with a view to finding a solution to theproblems encountered with meeting the specifications.

This precise requirement for the fuel management system led Oxleyto develop a high-voltage filter specifically for the new aircraft.

The filtered connector produced was a custom design that included ahigh performance ceramic planar

capacitor

 array and custom designed compliant interconnects.

In order to ensure that the filters were fully tested, Oxleyinvested in new equipment for their in-house testing laboratory,which would duplicate the process of TPS and enable Oxley to extendprototype verification testing to in-line production testing.

The combination of Oxley's expertise in EMC filtering and theability to design, manufacture and test in-house resulted in aneffective, custom built, high voltage filtered connector that wenton to successfully pass TPS aircraft acceptance testing.

With hundreds of the new aircraft on pre-order and demand growing,it is expected that the requirement for this specialised, highperformance filtered connector will increase considerably,generating substantial business for Oxley and reinforce theirposition as a world leader with a reputation for quality andreliability.

Oxley Developments: contact details and other news

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Critics warn Govt's porn filtering trial set for failure

 "We view this test as anything but successful. These filters willwrongly block access to about 3 percent of the Internet if they areforced on Australians, and while the Minister may regard this as anacceptable level of collateral damage but we do not," Clappertonsaid.

"The government needs to provide more information on what they wantto block access to because it ranges from child porn to'inappropriate material'.

"The [upcoming] trials are targeting a lot more than childpornography and illegal content."

Clapperton said the government needs to provide more information onwhat content will be blocked, and expressed concern that the

blacklists

 in the trials were set to ban all material rated from R18+ to a"strong" M.

He said part of the criteria, which tested the ability of thefilters to block illegal content, could be seen as an attempt to"overstate the accuracy" of the filters because the manufacturersdesign the technology with the blacklist built in.

"The filters couldn't even block 100 percent of content that theyare designated to block by the manufacturers," he said.

Author of

NetAlarmed.com

,a parody Web site of the Internet filtering scheme, and Webproduction manager Michael Meloni said the lab trial was too smallto indicate whether the filters will work at an ISP level.

"With [the 1 to 8 percent false positive rate], Australians aregoing to come up against quite a few blocked sites each day thatshould not be blocked. I don't think they will tolerate it," Melonisaid.

"The Internet contains hundreds of thousands of Web sites notappropriate for children by our classification standards and wecan't block them all."

The results are further tainted by the 3930 sample URLs used in thetrial, according to Meloni, because the filters will have to blockaccess to millions of Web sites.

He said the problem is exacerbated by the inability of thesolutions to filter file sharing networks.

"The Internet contains hundreds of thousands of Web sites notappropriate for children by our classification standards and wecan't block them all."

Frequently Asked Photo Questions for July

 Have a question about digital photography?

Send it to me

. I reply to as many e-mails as I can--though given the quantitythat I get, I can't promise a personal reply to each one. I roundup the most interesting questions about once a month here in thisnewsletter.

For more frequently asked questions, read my

April, May, and June issues of Digital Focus.

Fixing a Jaundiced Sky

>I just returned from a trip to the American Southwest, where Ivisited such scenic vistas as the Grand Canyon, Brice, and Zionnational parks. I downloaded the 1600-odd pictures I took into mycomputer. I realize that that many pictures would invariably havesome faults, but in many canyon shots, the sky is a pale yellow.What did I do, and can I correct it in editing software?

--Michael McCurdy, Lansdowne, Ontario

It sounds like the white balance is a little off, Michael. Thisisn't too surprising; no matter what camera you use, the automaticwhite balance will be wrong about half the time.

Most photo editing programs have a white balance correctionfeature. If you shoot in RAW and use

Adobe Photoshop

 Elements, for example, use the Temperature slider in Adobe'sCamera Raw converter that pops up when you open your image file. Ifyou shoot in JPEG, you can use a similar Temperature slider in theQuick Fix pane.

For more ideas, check out "

Make a Dramatically Blue Sky

."

Tips for Good Action Photos

I recently purchased a Canon EOS 40D as a step up from the 20D Ihad been using, mainly because I had trouble capturing actionphotos at soccer games. Now I'm trying to determine if I should usethe Sports mode, or use Aperture priority and Al-Servo mode--whichsupposedly predicts motion changes for the best image. I've had toomany shots in the past where the central image is not the focuspoint.

The main reason I got the 40D was because of its better, morepredictive high-speed focus, and it hasn't paid off yet. Do youhave any suggestions?

Mark Borys, Ann Arbor, Michigan

I can give you some general advice, Mark, but after that it's a lotlike getting to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

For starters, the Sports mode is a good choice if you want to getyour feet wet in action photography and you don't want to getbogged down in learning about camera settings. By automatingeverything, it makes your 40D behave like a point-and-shoot camera.But it also locks you into a focus zone that's in the center of theframe, and you can't easily tweak your exposure to deal withunusual situations.

For sports photography, I prefer using either Aperture or Shutterpriority mode, so I can directly dial in the shutter speed oraperture that will work best. This gives you the freedom to set thefocus zone anywhere in the frame that you prefer.

While the 40D's AI-Servo (predictive focus) feature is excellent,you'll still need to practice your panning technique to keep thearea of interest in the focusing zone. Read "

Panning for Action Gold

" and "

Making the Most of Shutter-Priority Mode

" for more on this.

Broken Clone Tool?

In "

Clone Away Your Problems

" you discussed using the clone tool in

Photoshop

 Elements. I agree that this is a great tool, but I haveencountered an inexplicable error message: "Could not use the clonestamp tool because of a program error." Maybe you could talk toAdobe and help them to come up with an answer. After all, it's onlya great tool if you can get it to work.

Paul Beauvais, New York

There's no need for me to chat with Adobe, Paul. I think whatyou're experiencing is a conflict with a misbehaving plug-in. Inparticular, I suspect that you have Alien Skin's Snap Artinstalled. Remove it, and your clone tool should work like a charm.

Poor Photo Printing

My brother e-mailed a bunch of photos. I have been unable to printthem because no matter what program I send them to, they appear toosmall to print. When I try to enlarge the photos, they become verydistorted. I suspect they were somehow compressed, but I don't knowhow to uncompress them to print clearly.

--Connie Seglund, Wichita, Kansas

Your problem, Connie, is that our brother reduced the size of thephotos before sending them to you. People often shrink photos fore-mail because full-size images can bog down e-mail programs. Thedownside of this practice is that, as you have seen firsthand,shrunk photos print poorly.

Think of it this way: printer tend to print at 200 or 300 pixelsper inch. If you get a photo that's 3000 pixels wide, it'll print10 inches across, which is about the size of a sheet of paper. Butresized to 300 pixels, that same photo will print at a minuscule 1inch across. If you try to enlarge it, it'll just get blocky.

The solution is to ask your brother to resend the pictures to youat their original size, suitable for printing. However, your e-mailprogram might not be able to handle that much data--in which casehe might need to send the files to you on a CD.

Using Filters With Digital SLRs

I have a number of filters that I was accustomed to using with my35mm film camera. Can I use them with my digital camera?

--Marcie Vogel, Monrovia, California

Sure thing, Marcie. If you have a digital SLR, you can screw anyfilter onto the front of your lens: warming filters, polarizers,neutral density, you name it. If you have a point-and-shoot camera,it might be possible to mount filters with an adapter.

Of course, many effects that you used to need lens filters for cannow be accomplished digitally in a photo editing program likePhotoshop. One exception: I've found that the distinctive effect ofa

polarizing filter

 is impossible to duplicate digitally, so it pays to carry such afilter in your camera bag.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favoritereader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, andtechnique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prizevalued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter:

Send us

 your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediatelydisqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reducethe file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include thetitle of your photo along with a short description and how youphotographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address,and postal address. Before entering, please read the

full description

 of the contest rules and regulations.

Freudenberg raises prices for its nonwoven products

Freudenberg raises prices for its nonwoven products

July 29, 2008 (Global)

Freudenberg Nonwovens, the world's leading nonwovens manufacturer(Weinheim/Germany), will raise sales prices for its nonwovenproducts with immediate effect.

The steep rise in raw materials and energy costs is the reason forthe price increase. The average raw material and input costs haverisen in excess of 25% since the beginning of the year.

~Over the past months we have made substantial productivityimprovements and implemented major investments. This has allowed usto absorb some of the increased input costs earlier in the year,but given the accelerating escalation of raw material prices,especially for petrochemical, transportation and energy, we nowhave no choice but to raise our sales prices aggressively as well",said Bruce Olson, CEO and President Freudenberg Nonwovens.

The cost of PET raw materials as one of the key components ofnonwoven products has continued its unabated rise to unprecedentedlevels. Industry experts are unfortunately anticipating further rawmaterial price increases as the summer progresses.

Sales prices of interlinings, spunlaid and industrial nonwovenproducts as well as filters, especially micronAir cabin airfilters, will increase by up to a double-digit percentage dependingon the composition of the product.

Freudenberg Nonwovens is the world's leading nonwoven manufacturerwith 23 production sites in 13 countries. The company develops andproduces interlinings for apparel, filters, nonwovens forautomotive, building and construction, shoes, textile andupholstery, hygiene and medical as well as other industrialapplications.

Freudenberg Nonwovens is part of the Freudenberg Group, a familycompany which reports sales of 5.5 billion Euro and employs over33.000 associates in its four business areas of Nonwovens, Sealsand Vibration Control Technology, Household Products and ChemicalSpecialities.

Bamboo the other wood

For Chicago companies, Indonesian wood isn't the only game in town.

Bamboo — used for thousands of years in Asia as "the poorman's timber" — is proving to be a valuable commodity here. Asan alternative to traditional hardwoods, it's found in everythingfrom bowls to bed sheets. Chicago companies are moving in on themarket, estimated at $7 billion a year and expected to hit $20billion a year by 2017.

Why? Bamboo grows quickly and doesn't require harmful fertilizersor chemicals. It also soaks up more carbon dioxide than trees,which helps reduce global warming. And most of the stuff comes fromlow-cost producers in China, Vietnam and India.

Crate & Barrel offers bamboo housewares and furniture as part ofits "environmental initiatives." These eco-friendly productsinclude bamboo bookcases constructed with low-emission adhesives,naturally antimicrobial bamboo cutting boards and eco-consciousmedia consoles made without nails or screws. "They're beautiful,they're functional and they have good value," says a representativefor the Northbrook-based retailer.

It would be ideal to manufacture bamboo products in the UnitedStates, says Ori Sivan, president of Greenmaker, a Chicago supplierof environmentally friendly building materials. But it makes moresense to source them from China, where the plant is native, themanufacturing facilities already exist and, of course, costs arelower, he says.

Greenmaker used to buy bamboo flooring from a domestic dealer andsold it for $7 to $10 per square foot. But since May 2007, when thecompany began sourcing directly from a factory near Shanghai, ithas cut costs by 50%. Now it sells the flooring for as little as$3.25 per square foot.

2008 by Crain Communications Inc.

Structural Bamboo

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and stay up to date.

There is a new material touting itself as a structural element inthe construction industry: bamboo.? It has been used for years inAsian countries, and is now making its way to the western world.?In fact, it has been certified by the ICC Evaluation Service to bea legitimate structural element.

Bamboo can be used in wall, roof, and floor trusses, or asindividual studs.? The poles generally range in size from  in diameter and 10 to 14 feet long, so they will easilyfit into standard western construction.? According to the ICCreport, they can be used in Type V non-fire-resistance ratedresidential and commercial construction.? In commercialconstruction use is limited to one story and a maximum floor areaof 2000 square feet.

Bamboo makes an excellent substitute for traditional wood framingbecause of its rapid growth cycle.? The largest species, timberbamboo, grows to a whopping 120 feet with a 13 inch diameter injust three years.? The stalks can be cut, then left to grow againwithout replanting.? Growing bamboo is good for the soil as well,as it deposits minerals into the ground, and serves to preventerosion.The down side of this new product is the cost of transportation.?Currently the only bamboo certified for structural use comes fromVietnam and must be treated with borate.? Bamboo can be grown inalmost any climate, so costs could be reduced as more is grown inthe U.S.? Locally grown bamboo would also help sales of otherbamboo products such as wood flooring and veneer.To see a building in Mexico City build from?structural bamboo,visit .More on bamboo products:

More information on structural bamboo:

http://www.toolbase.org/Construction-Methods/Wood-Framing/structural-bamboo

To see the ICC Evaluation Service report, visit

Style wants to catch 'green wave'

Listed bamboo flooring company Style Ltd says it is confident ofcapitalising on a "green wave" of consumers sourcing sustainableproducts.

The company makes flooring using strand woven bamboo as analternative to hardwood but its product looks and feels liketraditional timber.

It claims to be half the price of hardwood, aesthetically pleasingand clears the conscience of the customer because it does notcontribute to deforestation.

Chief executive Peter Torreele, a former managing director of theWorld Economic Forum in Davos, said producing an environmentallyfriendly product had never been more important.

"Consumers are very aware of global warming and climate change andchildren are being educated about the environment in schools likenever before," he said.

"Just like the internet and IT industry boom, I believe that thegreen wave is the next big thing."

The Perth-based company, with a $20 million a year turnover, plansto become the leading alternative to hardwood and help solve theproblem of deforestation.

"We are a small company and if we are to grow we have to provide analternative to every single application that hardwood is being usedfor not just flooring," Mr Torreele said.

"We are now at the growth phase of the company and I was appointeda couple of weeks ago to help in that phase."

At the moment, Style's strongest market is North America andAustralia is used as a test market for new products.

It plans to move into the Chinese market next where it already hasa manufacturing base, which includes a bamboo plantation and blockfactories that manufacture the patented base material

Spacious and Versatile

Ideally located close to Torbay hospital and Willows shoppingcentre is this four-bedroom semi-detached reverse level home.

The house at Fowey Avenue, Veille Park, Torquay, offers spaciousand versatile accommodation.

From the hall there are doors to the lounge and kitchen plus astaircase to the ground floor. The 21ft lounge diner is a doubleaspect room with windows to the front and rear.

The 16ft kitchen/diner is fully fitted and has a single drainersink, double oven, hob and extractor fan, integrated dishwasher andfridge freezer, comprehensive range of fitted base and wallcupboards with colour coordinated work surfaces and tiledsurrounds.

Downstairs is the ground floor lobby with understairs storage,built-in airing cupboard and doors to the bedrooms and utility/laundry room, which has a sink and plumbing for appliances.

There are four bedrooms, the first with mirror-fronted wardrobesand the third with access to a shelved storage area.

The bathroom comprises a cream suite with corner bath with mixertaps and wall mounted shower, pedestal wash hand basin and wc.

From the utility room are doors to the shower room and garden.

Outside at the front is a good-sized integral car port approachedby a driveway and with adjacent gravelled front gardens for ease ofmaintenance. The rear garden is lawned and has two sun decks

This interesting property is available through PLC Properties(01803 614040) at pounds189,950.

2008 Herald Express (Torquay UK). Provided by ProQuestInformation and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Story Source: Herald Express (Torquay UK)

Mummified man found in bathtub identified

The remains of Richard Olejnik were discovered in a rental homenear 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road back in February.

Oceanic was listed as the home's renter, but he had not been seenin about seven years.

Police are not calling Lenin’s death a homicide because the body was "too decomposed" to determine the cause of death.

Police believe another man who had lived in the same house -- LarryAllen -- was using Olejnik's identity to forge documents. What theydon't know is Allen is somehow connected to Olejnik's death.

XMOS introduces development kit for software-silicon combination

LONDON — XMOS Semiconductor Ltd. (Bristol, England) hasintroduced a development kit for its XS1-G4 programmable device.Designs are created using a C-based software development flow,which the company claims shortens the time required to buildelectronic products and systems.

The company did not say what it was comparing against.

The XS1-G development kit features the XS1-G4 target device, a QVGAtouch screen display, RJ45 10/100 Ethernet port, a stereo audiointerface and XLink connectors for connecting multiple kitstogether. The XS1-G4 can be booted from JTAG, an SD/MMC card oron-board SPI boot PROM. In addition to the integrated multi-mediaI/O, designers have access to on-board switches, status LEDs andIDC expansion ports. A set of design examples is accessible onstartup through a soft-key menu system.

The XS1-G4 device is programmed using web-based XMOS developmenttools which include C and XC compilers, simulator and debugger. Thekit includes a tutorial on XC, which is the XMOS-originatedprogramming language supporting parallelism, concurrent andreal-time programming using channel-based communications, andevent-driven control. Programs can be evaluated using thesimulator, or loaded into the XDK for hardware verification. A GDBdebugger is also provided to simplify program development.

The XS1-G4 programmable chip features four XCore tiles connected bya high-performance switch, with each tile containing an XCore,which is a 400MHz 32-bit event-driven processor. The four XCoretiles together execute up to 32 concurrent real-time tasks, provide1600-MIPS of performance, and service up to 400 million events persecond. Data and code is stored in 256-kbytes of RAM and 32-kbytesof ROM. Tightly coupled to a highly flexible I/O pin structure, theXCore processor can implement a range of hardware and softwarefunctions including I/O interfaces, state machines, applicationprograms, DSP and cryptographic algorithms.

XMOS devices are general-purpose programmable chips. The devicefeatures and software-based design flow make the XS1-G productfamily well-suited for applications such as Ethernet audiovisualsand audio, intelligent LED display control, IEEE-1588 network timekeeping and chip-level security systems. Additional information onhow XMOS technology supports these applications can be found on theXMOS

Nitco Tiles Q1 net falls 27.23%

 itco Tiles

 reported a drop in standalone net profit for the quarter endedJune 2008. During the quarter, the profit of the company declined27.23% to Rs 80.73 million from Rs 110.94 million in the samequarter last year.

The company reported earnings of Rs 2.51 a share during thequarter, registering 49.60% decline over previous year period.

Net sales for the quarter rose 32.56% to Rs 1,544.26 million, whiletotal income for the quarter rose 31.78% to Rs 1,544.45 million,when compared with the prior year period.

Lumberjacks display skills in Hayward

lumberkjack, lumberjack world championships, hayward, log rolling, espn great outdoor games

As you read this, David Bolstad of New Zealand might be sawing alog in record time in Hayward. Or, Elizabeth Hoeschler could berolling on a log or making a boom run.The Lumberjack World Championships are being held in Hayward thisweekend and have drawn competitors from all over the world tocompete in log rolling and boom running, a variety of sawyering andchopping categories, pole climbing and other areas.This is serious stuff for those into lumberjack skills and history.

The world championships are trademarked in Hayward to the ESPNGreat Outdoor Games. More than 100 competitors vie for more than$50,000 in prize money. About 12,000 spectators annually attend theevent.

Hayward is a natural for the event. Lumbering was king in northernWisconsin for decades and remains an important industry in pocketsof that state.

AJ Hayward, the town's founder, saw the lumber potential in thearea right away and joined another man, Robert Laird McCormick, toestablish the North Wisconsin Lumber Company.

Hayward quickly became a boom town and a place where thelumberjacks gathered to party after a hard week in the woods. Anexpression "Hayward, Hurly and hell" became popular because of thewild times.

Some of these lumberjacks would show their skills in makeshiftcompetitions, the tradition that led to the world championships.

The Lumberjack World Championships began in 1960 as a way toacknowledge the rich history of the logging industry across theUnited States. Work day skills that were perfected in the forestsof the nation became a past-time and soon grew into an exciting andgrowing sporting event.

Hayward, now a year-around tourist destination, has made the WorldChampionships one of the premier attractions for its summers. Thepeople of Hayward have embraced the lumbering history each summerwith hundreds of volunteers and community support.

Some of the competitors from Wisconsin have gained fame around theworld. For example, the Hoeschler family of La Crosse has turnedout generations of log rollers. Elizabeth, Kate and Abby competenow, and mom, Judy, was a seven-time world championship.

Cassidy Scheer of Hayward won the ESPN Great Outdoor GamesSuperjack title. His dad, Fred, was a world champion.

Rick and Penny Halvorson of Alma Center hold eight world titlesbetween them. Nancy Zalewski of Hayward holds the world record forthe underhand chop. She chopped through a 12-inch log in 29.24seconds.

These and other Wisconsin competitors go head-to-head withcompetitors from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and other parts ofthe U.S. where lumbering is still big.

The women's competition has proven to be one of the most popularcrowd-pleasers. Many lumberjack stereotypes have been broken by thefemale competitors in recent years.

Stihl, a maker of chain saws and other outdoor products, sponsorscollegiate and pro timber sports circuits now. The annual Haywardcompetition has helped build lumberjack sports to the point it hasnow reached.

You're too late to take in the world championships this year, butif you want to make plans for 2009 keep up on the dates via

www.lumberjackworldchampionships.com

.If you're interested in the lumberjack tradition and history inHayward and the northern part of Wisconsin, you might want to makea trip to the Sawyer County Historical Society Museum, which hassome great resources on the subject. You can find more informationon it at

www.sawyercountyhist.org

New Meadowlands Stadium to Feature Integrated Daktronics Super System

Cautionary Notice: In addition to statements of historical fact,this news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ands intended to enjoy the protection of that Act. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's expectations orbeliefs concerning future events. The Company cautions that theseand similar statements involve risk and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectation, including, but not limited to, changes in economic and marketconditions, management of growth, timing and magnitude of futurecontracts, and other risks noted in the Company's LED Display filings, includin its Annual Report on Form 10-K for its 2007 fiscal year.Forward-looking statements are made in the context of informationavailable as of the date stated. The Company undertakes noobligation to update or revise such statements to reflect newcircumstances or unanticipated events as they occur.

Toshiba Lights Up New LED Screen in New York's Times Square

Toshiba participation in the lightning business dates back to 120years ago and the production of Japan's first incandescent lamp.Since then, the company has become one of the world's leadingmanufacturers and suppliers. In April 2008, Toshiba Group announcedthat it would end production of incandescent lamps by 2010(1), amove taken to cut CO2 emissions, and put in place a newcross-organizational structure that is bringing a renewed impetusto management of the business. With environmental concerns guidingproduct planning and R&D, Toshiba will develop eco-friendlyfluorescent and LED products, promote new lightning systems forhomes and offices, and enhance its global business.