Sound monitors protect premature babies

INDIANAPOLIS - Warning lights hover over the snoozing patients in Riley Hospital for Children's neonatal intensive care unit, ready to flash whenever sound levels creep beyond normal conversation.

As decibels rise, the colors on the new monitoring system change from green to yellow to red, hushing chatty parents or doctors so the babies get the rest they need to develop.

Noise louder than roughly the level of conversation can cause premature or sick babies' hearts to beat too fast or too slowly, said Dr. William Engle, a neonatologist at Riley. And interfering with babies' vital signs or sleep can slow development and healing because their bodies do most of that work while they sleep.

"The function of babies is to grow and develop, and in between they eat," he said.

Preemies also need quiet so they can learn their mother's voice and their brains can figure out how to process sound, things that normally happen in the last trimester before birth.

"It's definitely a great idea," Dr. Bob White, a neonatologist at South Bend's Memorial Hospital, said of the monitoring system in Riley's neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU.

White, who is not involved in creating or distributing the system, helped write national noise standards for NICUs that have been adopted by the American Institute of Architects and are used in most hospital design.

Inventor Chris Smith hopes doctors around the country agree with White. He has sold his Sonicu system to several Indiana hospitals and wants to expand nationally.

Smith, 43, had no training as a sound engineer and no plans to become an entrepreneur when his son Sean was born five weeks premature in 2000. But he noticed Sean flinch in response to bright light in the NICU of St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, and he wound up designing a system to soften the unit's lighting.

Then the nurses asked him what he could do about sound.

"That's really when I realized that there was no good way out there to measure sound, other than your standard, hand-held meter," he said.

Babies born too soon lose the muffling effect of the womb before their ears can filter sound, White said.

"The sounds ... come from all different directions and all different sources, and they're often associated with unpleasant sensations for the baby," White said.

NICUs are rife with noise pollution created by employees, equipment and excited family members.

"There's no good way for the nurses or doctors to walk up to a parent, tap them on the shoulder and say, 'You're being too loud,'" Smith said. "That's confrontational."

The former car mechanic filled hours of spare time in the evenings and on weekends researching sound standards and building a system.

Smith, who tinkered in radio and TV electronics in high school, hired an acoustical engineer to help. They created a ceiling-mounted system of microphones that picked up sound and funneled data back to a large control panel.

"There was a lot of wiring, a lot of labor, a lot of programming," he said.

St. Vincent paid around $100,000 for the system, which it installed about five years ago. Smith had no interest in shopping his invention to other hospitals because the work took so much time.

Then Riley Hospital, also in Indianapolis, called a few months later.

"They basically said, 'I want that,'" he said.

The latest version of Sonicu can feed a stream of both sound and light data digitally to a computer. It offers the cone-shaped warning lights and can quickly dim the lighting in a room that gets too noisy. It also can make lighting mimic the sun by brightening toward noon and then fading, which also helps babies sleep well.

White, the neonatologist who helped write the national standards, said he knows of no other NICU monitoring system that sophisticated.

Smith has sold systems to a handful of Indiana hospitals, so far to good reviews. He said the systems can cost anywhere from $40,000 to $400,000, depending on each hospital's needs.

The monitors have taught hospital staff to limit the number of groups making rounds at the same time because having more than one group in a room raises noise levels dramatically.

Most NICUs are filled with noise that can't be helped, White said. Fans in the heating and ventilation system have to operate almost constantly, and the monitors need to beep.

The Sonicu system reins in the main noise maker that can be controlled.

"People think, 'Oh gosh, I didn't realize, I'll go over here so I won't have to talk so loud,'" White said. "It really is something that addresses the human factors that we do have some control over."

Judge OKs class action lawsuit vs. Microsoft

A federal judge in Seattle said on Friday consumers may continue a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. because of how it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system.

The lawsuit claimed Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the "Aero" user interface.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but scaled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's "Vista Capable" labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at the end of January 2007.

Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated in a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers before Vista's launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but they argued nonetheless that people who bought "Vista Capable" computers were harmed because they could only run a basic version of Vista.

The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" program, they could pursue that claim as well.

Microsoft said it was reviewing the ruling.

Program uses Google to find website flaws

A program named "Goolag Scanner" enbales people to use Google to scan websites for security flaws, media reported Monday.

Infamous computer hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) said the software tool based on work done by a hacker using the name "Johnny I Hack Stuff" is available for free download at its website.

The tool lets people with fundamental programming skills check websites or Internet domains for weaknesses that could be exploited by hackers, according to CDC.

The group said it uncovered "some pretty scary holes" through random tests of the tool in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

CDC advised website operators to use the tool to find and patch vulnerabilities before hackers use it for crime or mischief.

"If I were a government, a large corporation, or anyone with a large web site, I'd be downloading this beast and aiming it at my site yesterday," CDC spokesman Oxblood Ruffin said.

Judge OKs class action lawsuit vs. Microsoft

A federal judge in Seattle said on Friday consumers may continue a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. because of how it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system.

The lawsuit claimed Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the "Aero" user interface.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but scaled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's "Vista Capable" labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at the end of January 2007.

Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated in a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers before Vista's launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but they argued nonetheless that people who bought "Vista Capable" computers were harmed because they could only run a basic version of Vista.

The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" program, they could pursue that claim as well.

Microsoft said it was reviewing the ruling.

Microsoft to stop making HD DVD players

Microsoft said it will stop making HD DVD players for its Xbox 360 video game system and said the move won't have a material impact on its video game business, media reported Monday.

Toshiba Corp. ceded the high-definition video format battle to Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray. Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida last week estimated about 300,000 people own the Microsoft video player, sold as a separate 130 U.S. dollars add-on for the Xbox 360.

Microsoft said it would continue to provide standard warranty support for its HD DVD players and is looking at how the HD DVD technology it has developed, such as HDi, which adds interactive features to HD DVDs, and its VC-1 video encoding technology, can be applied to other platforms.

"HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own," Blair Westlake, a corporate vice president of Microsoft's media and entertainment group, said in a written statement.

Microsoft was one of HD DVD's main backers, along with Intel Corp. and Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp., and its support for the format was seen as a big win for Toshiba's format.

But support for the HD DVD waned as major movie studios — Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co., News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. Entertainment — picked blue-ray to distribute high-def DVDs.

Battery of Samsung laptop P10 model melts

A battery in a Samsung notebook computer P10 model melted in South Korea's capital Seoul, but no people were injured or killed, media repored Monday

"After being used for about three and a half hours on a pillow on Sunday, the laptop battery emitted smoke," a fire department official in Seoul said. "The battery burned a bed and a floor a bit, but did not cause a big fire."

A Samsung's spokesman James Chung said the notebook was the P10 model, which was produced in 2002 but did not give further details such as a producer of the battery.

"We are checking details of the incident," said James Chung.

Last month, a battery pack in a LG Electronics Inc's notebook computer exploded while in the sleeping mode.

China's major websites pledge to boycott 4 categories of Internet unpleasantness

China's eight leading online media officially sanctioned to publish news signed the "Chinese Pact on the Self-discipline on Visual-Audio Programs and Services of the Internet" Friday, urging all domestic websites to spread positive, healthy programs and boycott corrupt, outdated ones.

It urges all the signers to abide by the country's laws, regulations and policies on the development and management of the Internet culture and boycott programs, including films, teleplays and cartoons that advocate elements in the catch-all categories of violence, pornography, gambling and terror.

It also calls for respecting and protecting the legal rights and interests of the copyright holders and service providers of visual-audio programs. An information-sharing and mutual assistance mechanism should be set up for visual-audio programs online, it says.

The pact is open to all domestic service providers of on-line visual-audio programs as all of them can apply for its entry, if they accept the conditions set by the pact.

The eight signers are the official websites of Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, the State Council Press Office, China Radio International, China Central Television, China Youth Daily, China Economic Daily, and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

In recent years, the Authorities have taken a series of measure to deal with pornographic and illegal activities on line, and many domestic websites have been closed down for involvement in illegal publications or services.