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Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

Ultra Motor is counting on word of mouth and viral interest in the A2B, and it seems to work: as CEO Chris Deyo was showing how the bike worked, a crowd gathered and peppered him with questions.

Doing so is very strange. As a longtime bike rider from San Francisco, I’m very familiar with what it’s like to pedal up hills: painful, slow, and grueling. Yet when I took the A2B up a hill near CNET’s offices Monday, I had the odd sensation of pedaling normally and smoothly, as if I were on the flats, yet zipping up the hill way faster than I should have been.

I also told CEO Chris Deyo that I thought the bike might cost too much to appeal to a large number of buyers, but he said that if you compare the one-time price of the A2B to the ongoing costs of commuting by car, moped or motorcycle–given the cost of gas, insurance, maintenance, parking, and parking tickets–it’s not so steep. “We found, in talking to folks, that (at) $2,500, it’s a considered purchase, but it’s of value to them,” Deyo said.

On the other hand, because it does have pedals, it is possible to ride it like a regular bicycle, and Robinson said that, based on feedback the company had gotten, some A2B buyers might well choose to do that on their way home from work when arriving sweaty isn’t a problem.

The A2B is expected to be available, most likely from bicycle, scooter, and motorcycle dealerships, in September. At $2,500, it seems somewhat expensive, but Amy Robinson, Ultra Motor USA’s vice president of marketing, points out that the company is positioning the A2B against high-end bicycles–which can easily run two grand–as well as against gas-powered commuter vehicles like
cars, motorcycles, and mopeds.

The A2B looks very much like a regular bicycle, except that it has some very heavy-duty looking components, and a wide center stem in which its lithium-ion battery is enclosed.

This feels very strange.

“One of the main attractions,” said Robinson of the A2B, “is the reaction when people see it and experience it when they ride it.”

But then, with the flick of a switch on the bike’s handlebars, it shoots forward with a strong, smooth, motorized thrust. Quickly, I’ve hit 20 miles an hour.

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Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

Robinson said that the A2B stands out because, “there’s no other electric bike today built from the ground up as a commuting solution.”

This isn’t normal anymore.

And, while I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical of the bike before I got to my meeting with the Ultra Motor folks, seeing the crowd clustered around Deyo and the A2B, and then riding it myself made me think that maybe this whole electric bike thing is a good idea after all. I even started to feel like I might really want one.

The A2B, from Ultra Motor, is an electric bicycle designed for the urban commuter. It has a range of about 20 miles on a charge, which can be done in three or four hours from any electric outlet.

I do know, however, that the A2B is a show stopper.

But in fact, the Ultra Motor folks surely don’t want the A2B called a scooter because one of their chief marketing points is that it doesn’t require any kind of license or special permit, as does a motorcycle or scooter. And that means that a new buyer could jump on it and get going without any kind of bureaucratic runaround.

Perhaps. It’s hard for me to say how the A2B’s competition stacks up to it because I haven’t ridden them.

Ultra Motor is ramping up to the September launch of the A2B. So far, Deyo told me, the company has taken paid orders for the entire pre-production run of the bikes–a number in the hundreds, he said. But he wouldn’t tell me how many A2Bs the company plans to have ready at launch.

Plus, she added, the company hopes to attract commuters who like the idea of riding a bike to work, but who hate the idea of being sweaty on arrival. And the A2B’s smooth, lively motor lets them do just that.

Of course, like another passion of mine that I can’t afford, the Segway, the A2B is a substitute for driving a gas-powered vehicle that offers little more in the way of exercise.

Pedaling the A2B has a secondary benefit: it reduced load on the battery, allowing for a longer range. And with an auxiliary battery that’s available, the bike’s range can be stretched to 40 miles, Robinson said.

Of course, there are other electric bikes on the market. Among them are some that cost less than the A2B and which offer similar specifications. Some, like the iZip Express, from Currie Technologies, can go up to 25 miles an hour.

Even on hills, which require a bit of pedaling to ascend, it’s not really anything like the kind of sweat-inducing power pumping required on a regular bike. Rather, it’s more like pedaling that regular bike on flat surfaces. And that, combined with the power of the motor, gets the A2B up a hill rather nicely.

As for me, the A2B did indeed generate a new round of techno-lust. But at that price, I’m just going to have to sublimate it and keep on taking my morning bus to work.

“We call it the Mini Cooper of electric bikes,” Robinson said. “It’s sturdy and solid, but nimble like a bicycle. And it’s a great alternative to getting in (a) car.”

This is Ultra Motor’s A2B, a $2,500, zero-emissions scooter that just happens to also be an electric bike.

I’m riding down an alley in San Francisco, pedaling as you would on any bicycle. Each time I put my foot down, the bike presses on a little further. It’s all very normal.

Indeed, as Ultra Motor USA CEO Chris Deyo was straddling an A2B outside CNET’s headquarters, a crowd gathered around him and began peppering him with questions about the bike. He hadn’t even started riding it.

Ultra Motor is expecting the bike to appeal to urban commuters in their 30s and 40s who want an alternative to their car or any other form of transportation that requires them to find parking or buy gas.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

The A2B’s battery is stored inside the main stem of the bike. It is a lithium-ion battery capable of running for more than 700 charges. The A2B is expected to retail for around $2,500.

Internet wars do make for plausible deniability; we may never know who’s ultimately responsible (governments or agitated nationals) for these attacks.In each of these cases, Nazario said, “I can’t go and talk to these people, so I have to infer what their intent was.”

In a presentation at July’s Usenix conference in San Jose, Calif., Nazario said Internet wars make for a “great, level playing field” because they’re inexpensive to mount.

(Credit:
Arbor Networks)

Researchers studying botnets have reported an increase in attacks on Georgian Web sites, including that of the country’s president, within the last two weeks. While the attacks–Web site defacement and denial-of-service packet floods–are reminiscent of the Internet attacks waged against Estonia in May 2007, Jose Nazario, security researcher for Arbor Networks, told CNET News
that he’s seeing evidence that Georgia is apparently fighting back, attacking at least one Moscow-based newspaper site.

He also pointed out that Internet-based wars did not start last year with Estonia. He cited previous attacks on Kosovo, during its civil war in the late 1990s; Israel-Pakistan hacking peaked in the fall of 2000; and the 2002 winter Olympics, when a South Korean speed skater was ejected from a competition.

More recently, he said, there were attacks on the Ukraine in the fall of 2007; Chinese national attacks on CNN.com in April 2008; and attacks upon the Democratic voice of Burma in July. In July hundreds of Web sites were attacked in Lithuania.

This graphic shows the flow of botnet commands targeting Georgian Web sites.

As to the source, Nazario said that “almost all of the attacks are broadly and globally sourced. One attack appears to be very narrowly focused, possibly someone with some basic ping flood scripts.” He said the exact tools being used had not been determined.

Certainly at that size, the device would be more of a tablet than an iPod, and tablet rumors have been floating around Apple for years.

However, tablet PCs in the Windows world haven’t sold very well, and the concept has almost completely fallen off the radar screen of the PC industry.

Earlier this year, CEO Steve Jobs implied Apple was watching small-device categories like tablets and Netbooks to see if they actually take off as a mega-trend. But Jobs has also quickly shot down talk of an Apple-produced competitor to Amazon’s Kindle, which has been interpreted as a sign Apple was doing just that.

Could we soon be seeing a beefed-up iPod with a bigger screen?

Apple is expected to release an
iPod Touch device with a 7- to 9-inch screen in the fall of 2009, according to a report on TechCrunch that cites three independent sources.

There was a fury of speculation in August after a number of Mac sites pointed to a U.S. patent application granted for what appeared to be the mythical
Mac tablet. AppleInsider published a description of the device discussed in the application, which appears to bring a lot of the
iPhone’s multitouch functionality to a slate-like tablet computer.

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Apple)

One of TechCrunch’s sources claims to have actually handled one of the prototypes, and Apple is talking with manufacturers in Asia about mass production of the device, according to the report.

With investor Carl Icahn and Yahoo coming to terms, there no longer is an opposing slate running against Yahoo’s board of directors. But there’s still going to be a vote, and Proxy Governance thinks it’s a good time to take a stand.

“Given the exorbitant pay levels awarded to the company’s executives in the face of its weaker performance relative to peers, we believe that a stronger emphasis on conditioning certain compensation awards on performance relative to the company’s peers is warranted,” the firm added.

The third of the big three proxy advisory services has issued its recommendation on how investors should vote during Yahoo’s upcoming election. The advice: send a message about Yahoo’s overpaid top brass.

The firms issue recommendations to their clients on how to vote on proxy matters. These clients include mutual funds, pension funds, and asset management companies, which often hold large blocks of companies’ stock.

“The average three-year compensation paid to the named executives is 480 percent above the median paid to executives at peer companies,” Proxy Governance said in a statement about its advice on Friday. “In light of Yahoo’s relatively weak financial performance, we therefore recommend that shareholders withhold votes from the members of the compensation committee.”

The two other firms, Glass Lewis and RiskMetrics, issued opinions already. Glass Lewis also recommended voting against the compensation committee members: Chairman Roy Bostock, and directors Ron Burkle and Arthur Kern. However, for practical purposes, it’s unlikely the directors actually will be ousted.

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Mirroring the way savants are both brilliant and mentally not quite there (remind you of any techies you know?), the thinking cap’s scientific milliners use tiny magnetic pulses to either deaden a part of your brain or excite it beyond its normal level of stimulus, thereby allowing the excited part to reveal the full glory of its capabilities.

Professor Allan Snyder’s optimism for your ability to, say, rumba like a Cuban while being an analyst for Mark Cuban, is boundless: “I believe that each of us has within us nonconscious machinery which can do extraordinary art, extraordinary memory, and extraordinary mathematical calculations.”

There is, however, a little bad news. The effects of the thinking-cap zap wear off after an hour. This might lead to some very unfortunate occurrences.

This is not a thinking cap. But wouldn't it be great if it came in pink?

You’ve impressed someone over dinner with your ability to simultaneously sing hits from the ’70s and balance a spoon on your nose. You go back to your place. The clock strikes midnight, the spoon falls off and, in the middle of some particularly apposite Barry Manilow rendition, you hit more bum notes than Britney Spears hits live.

But even this bad news might bring with it some good. The technique in the thinking-cap experiments, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, also seems to be helpful in treating depression.

Scientists from the University of Sydney have studied brilliant people like Dustin Hoffman. Or, rather, brilliant people like the Qantas Airways-knowledgeable savant Dustin Hoffman plays in Rain Man.

Yes, soon you may be able to buy your own thinking cap, put it on, and be the person you always thought you could be.

If you’ve always thought you were a wonderful singer, but somehow failed to produce your best in karaoke bars, scientists may have found a solution.

Once the thinking cap buzzes experimentees up for 10 or 15 minutes, some are able to draw in a far more lifelike manner. Others, and this will please many at this site greatly, become far better editors, able to spot mistakes in a text that they could not see before the “OUT OF ORDER” sign has been hung on certain areas of their brains.

At last, some of the world’s finest brains have gotten together to release the finest parts of everyone’s brain.

The cap looks a little like a hairnet, but please don’t let that put you off. The theory behind the incredible thinking cap is that it will be able to switch different parts of your brain on and off, thereby allowing specific parts of your gray matter to blossom to their full potential.

To become infected, a vulnerable user would have to open a specially crafted .doc document. An attacker using this vulnerability would then have the same user rights as the victim. If a victim were running as administrator, the attacker would gain full access to the compromised PC.

In a press release, Microsoft’s security response communications manager Bill Sisk said Microsoft could issue an update as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday program, or, if the situation warrants, it could issue an out-of-cycle update. At the moment, Microsoft is still investigating the matter. “Security advisories address security changes that may not require a security bulletin but may still affect customer’s overall security.”

Only users of
Microsoft Office Word 2002 SP3 are affected. Not affected are users of Microsoft Office Word 2000 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office Word 2003 Service Pack 2 and Microsoft Office Word 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office Word 2007 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 and Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats and Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats Service Pack 1, Microsoft Office for
Mac 2004, and Microsoft Office for Mac 2008.

Users of an older version of Microsoft Word could have their computers compromised after downloading and opening a specially crafted .doc file, according to an advisory issued late Tuesday.

Microsoft said only limited and targeted attacks have so far attempted to use this vulnerability against systems running Microsoft Word 2002 SP3.

Attacks such as this are often used against corporations and government sites as a means of gaining access to desktop computers inside the security perimeter and, eventually, to its networks shares.

Online advertising firm Linkstorm announced recently that it has raised $2.8 million from a variety of angel investors. According to the company, it plans to use the funding to expand its sales and improve its platform.

Online casual game provider Three Melons has raised $600,000 in funding from Santander Bank, the company announced Tuesday. According to the firm, it will use the capital to pay for its expenses and invest in growth. No further details of the funding round were disclosed.

Zemanta, a tool that allows users to add relevant content to blog posts and e-mails, announced Tuesday that it has added Last.fm content to its platform. According to the company, bloggers who use the Zemanta tool will be able to add contextual links relevant to Last.fm’s tracks, videos, and artist pages. Bloggers using the Zemanta application will start writing about a song, album, or artist, and the tool will instantly pull in the relevant information from Last.fm. (Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News.) The new feature is available now.

Perhaps most compelling, users will also be able to filter their results based on the reviewer, so they can find similar people to get the most relevant review. Reviewers can be searched for by age, gender, budget, purpose of stay, and which sites they reviewed a hotel on. The site is live now.

Beyond that, TravelPost features Google Maps integration to allow users to search for geographic details about possible vacation spots and its filtering and sorting tools let users narrow their preferences by star rating, property type, brand, and location.

Travel search site Kayak.com announced Tuesday that it has launched what it calls the “most comprehensive hotel information site on the Web”: TravelPost.com. The site provides reviews, content, and rates on more than 140,000 hotels from 200 travel sites. Its content includes descriptions, photos, maps, and reviews from travelers and professionals, as well as integration with Kayak.com’s rate search.

“HuffPost Green will focus on eco news and trends–from style and eco-conscious celebrities to green lifestyle tips and the latest scientific findings and expert analysis,” a release from the company explained, hinting that we will likely see photos of Leonardo DiCaprio with his shirt off in addition to the latest grim findings on climate change. “The section will also feature advice on sustainable investing and highlight eco-friendly businesses and sustainable business sectors such as renewable energy, green building, recycling and organics.”

If you’re like me, your reaction to this news might’ve been, “What? You mean there isn’t a ‘green’ section already?” The New York-based Huffington Post got its start as a liberal answer to the wildly popular Drudge Report news site, and while it’s since branched beyond its political roots, it remains targeted toward a well-educated, left-leaning audience.

The new section of the site is set to launch June 4. Huffington Post representatives said the effort was spearheaded by current Editor-at-large Willow Bay, a TV journalist who currently hosts programs on the Lifetime women’s cable network.

The Huffington Post, the news aggregation and commentary site founded by political pundit Arianna Huffington and former AOL exec Ken Lerer, is finally jumping on the post-Al-Gore bandwagon.

But although it runs sections pertaining to politics, media, entertainment, business, and “living,” as well as a comedy site called 23/6 in conjunction with IAC, there still hadn’t been a section devoted to the unavoidably trendy niche of environmental media. Until now.

The company announced Wednesday that it will be launching HuffPost Green, a site division specific to “green” content through a content partnership with Discovery Communications’ Planet Green channel as well as TreeHugger, the popular eco-news blog that Discovery acquired last year.

Brooks’ new robotics venture is a Cambridge, Mass.-based company called Heartland Robotics, which will focus on industrial worker robots. The two companies will not compete directly, iRobot said Tuesday in a statement.

Brooks at his MIT office in 2007.

“Rod has been an integral part of iRobot over the years, playing a large role in the company’s success. We are fortunate that he will continue to be a part of the company, lending his expertise and knowledge to our roadmap forward,” Angle said in a statement.

(Credit:
Candace Lombardi/CNET Networks)

iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks is leaving his post as chief technology officer to concentrate on a new robotics company.

iRobot will begin looking for Brooks’ replacement in 2009. Brooks will remain on iRobot’s board of directors. He will also be chairman of a newly formed technical advisory board for the company, according to iRobot.

Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot

Brooks, a leading authority in the field of robotics, was the director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1997 to 2007. He is still a professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at MIT.

Brooks co-founded iRobot in 1990 with two of his students, Helen Greiner, now chairman of iRobot, and Colin Angle, now iRobot’s chief executive officer.

“I want to effect a powerful evolution in the world’s labor markets, and my current focus is to develop low-cost robots that will empower American workers,” Brooks said in a statement on his Web site.

The company’s first product was the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, of which Brooks was a principle architect. Since then, then company has sold more than 3 million robots for the home and has supplied about 1,700 robots to the U.S. military, according to company statistics. On Monday, iRobot announced had it signed a contract to supply the U.S. Army with robots, parts, and services worth up to $200 million.

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iRobot)

“This is truly exciting: now we can order robots from the same U.K. companies that regularly make circuit boards for our projects–for them it is just a circuit board they can mass-produce like any other, but actually it is a complete functional robot,” Klaus-Peter Zauner, professor of bio-robotics at Southampton, said in a statement.

Using those motors, the group designed a new type of robot platform that brought their material cost down to about $48 (24 pounds) per robot, according to a university announcement Wednesday.

The new, inexpensive platform might also force robotics researchers to focus more on swarm robotics software development. Some students have already been addressing how software might effectively control thousands of robots at once by looking at the way “bacteria exchange code for drug resistance,” Zauner said.

Research into swarm robotics focuses on coordinating large numbers of identical robots, often small and compact, to collectively work together.

A team of students led by Alexis Johnson at the University of Southampton’s electronics and computer science school realized the tiny motors intended for cell phone vibration are already designed and manufactured to be attached to circuit boards making them ideally suited for use in swarm robots.

The tiny motors normally used to vibrate cell phones can provide researchers with a significantly more affordable option for building robots.

The cell phone motor robots are scheduled to be demonstrated Wednesday at the annual International Conference on Artificial Life, which is being held in Europe for the first time.

The Southampton team’s 25 swarm robots are capable of performing autonomously for up to two hours at a time before needing to be recharged or running out of code capacity. The robots also have enough processing power to run complex algorithms.

Swarm robots have become popular among researchers, government agencies, and companies addressing needs for data gathering in hard-to-reach places like hazmat areas, post-earthquake rubble, and buildings held by hostiles in a war scenario. Even toy companies have been embracing the idea of low-tech, affordable robot bugs.