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An expert panel convened by President Barack Obama advised vigilance and self-regulation as scientists seek ways to create new organisms that could spark useful innovations in clean energy, pollution control and medicine.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues “concluded that synthetic biology is capable of significant but limited achievements posing limited risks,” it said in its first report.

“Future developments may raise further objections, but the Commission found no reason to endorse additional federal regulations or a moratorium on work in this field at this time.”

The 13-member panel of scientists, ethicists and public policy experts was created by Obama last year.

Its first order of business was to consider the issue of synthetic biology after the J. Craig Venter Institute announced in May it had developed the first self-replicating bacteria cell controlled by a synthetic genome.

Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue. They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.

Some observers fear that the widespread use of contractors for U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa could deepen the secrecy surrounding the American presence in those regions, making it harder for Congress to provide proper oversight.

the Internet and Cybersecurity Safety Standards Act would require top government officials to determine the cost-effectiveness of requiring Internet service providers and others to develop and enforce cybersecurity safety standards, according to a press statement from Cardin’s office. Cardin is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee.

The bill also requires officials — including Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano, attorney general Eric Holder, and Commerce secretary Gary Locke — to consider the effect the standards would have on homeland security, the global economy, innovation, individual liberty, and privacy.

Here’s Cardin’s full Press Release. Keep a vomit bucket nearby.

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“Every computer connected to the Internet, whether a part of our nation’s critical transportation or energy infrastructure or sitting in a family living room, is a prime target for cyberterrorists, cyberspies and cybercriminals who want to steal our identities, corrupt our financial networks, and compromise or disrupt key resources. Users of computers and other devices that connect to the Internet are generally unaware that their computers and other devices may be used, exploited, and compromised by others with spam, viruses, and other malicious software and agents.

When you flag a video as inappropriate, “promotes terrorism” now appears as an option under the “violent or repulsive content” category on the Google-owned website (see screenshot below).

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) called the new terrorism flag a “good first step toward scrubbing mainstream Internet sites of terrorist propaganda.”

Lieberman first voiced concerns about radical Islamic videos on YouTube in May 2008, according to a YouTube blog post.

And to top it off, the Army wants to pay your monthly phone bill.

To most soldiers, it sounds almost too good to be true, but it’s real, said Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC). He said the Army would issue these smartphones just like any other piece of equipment a soldier receives.

“One of the options potentially is to make it a piece of equipment in a soldier’s clothing bag,” Vane said.

Efforts are underway around the Army to harness smart phones to revolutionize the way the service trains and fights.

Army-issued smartphones are already in the schoolhouse and garrison, or on post, in the hands of some students at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; Fort Lee, Va.; and at Fort Sill, Okla., under an Army program called Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications. CSDA’s next step, already underway at Fort Bliss, Texas, is testing for the war zone.

In February, the Army plans to begin fielding phones, network equipment and applications to the first Army brigade to be modernized under the brigade combat team modernization program. That test will not be limited to smart phones but will include any electronic devices that may be useful to troops.

“We’re looking at everything from iPads to Kindles to Nook readers to mini-projectors,” said Mike McCarthy, director of the mission command complex of Future Force Integration Directorate at Fort Bliss.

The Army plans to roll out wireless Common Access Card readers for the iPhone in January and for Android phones in April. This would give soldiers secure access to their e-mail, contacts and calendars.

At war, smartphones would let soldiers view real-time intelligence and video from unmanned systems overhead, and track friends and enemies on a dynamic map, officials said. But the Army must first work through the complex task of securing the data and the network before it sanctions smart phones on the battlefield.

Police fired tear gas and flash grenades as the violence escalated outside parliament and spread to other parts of the capital.

The survival of his rightwing government was greeted by widespread disturbances in Rome where hooded and helmeted protesters set up flaming barricades, attacked police with sticks and bars, smashed the windows of shops and banks, and set alight cars, police vans and local authority vehicles. Police responded with baton charges, teargas and, in some cases reported by witnesses, indiscriminate beatings.

The new chips will come in dual-core and quad-core variants, and will be based on the company’s upcoming Sandy Bridge architecture, which integrates a graphics processing unit inside the CPU, company executives said.

Laptops and desktops with the vPro platform combine hardware and software technology to manage and secure PCs through wired or wireless networks. The new platform provides a better visual experience and enhanced security and remote support capabilities for easier maintenance and support of a fleet of PCs, said Rick Echevarria, vice president of the Intel Architecture Group.

The new processors also will improve PC performance significantly, Echevarria said, though he declined to provide benchmark details.

Another new feature is host-based activation, which enables PCs to be configured remotely in a matter of minutes, Echevarria said. The new VPro platform builds on improvements from its predecessors and will reduce the support time of PCs, he said. For example, an IT administrator would be able to install Windows 7 on 10,000 laptops overnight, Echevarria said.

But Gamesa has learned the hard way, as other foreign manufacturers have, that competing for China’s lucrative business means playing by strict house rules that are often stacked in Beijing’s favor.

Nearly all the components that Gamesa assembles into million-dollar turbines here, for example, are made by local suppliers — companies Gamesa trained to meet onerous local content requirements. And these same suppliers undermine Gamesa by selling parts to its Chinese competitors — wind turbine makers that barely existed in 2005, when Gamesa controlled more than a third of the Chinese market.

But in the five years since, the upstarts have grabbed more than 85 percent of the wind turbine market, aided by low-interest loans and cheap land from the government, as well as preferential contracts from the state-owned power companies that are the main buyers of the equipment. Gamesa’s market share now is only 3 percent.