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By Frank Jordans, Associated Press GENEVA — Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102.

Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971.

For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.

“I produced the substance like a medicine. … It’s not my fault if people abused it,” he once said.

The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals dense in Basel.

He became the first human guinea pig of the drug when a tiny amount of the substance seeped onto his finger during a laboratory experiment on April 16, 1943.

“I had to withdrawal work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden feeling of unease and mild dizziness,” he subsequently wrote in a memo to collection bosses.

“Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror,” he said, describing his bicycle ride home. “I had the impression I was rooted to the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast.”

Upon reaching home, Hofmann began experiencing what he called “startling visions.”

Three days later, Hofmann experimented with a larger dose. The result was the world’s first scientifically documented bad trip.

“The substance which I wanted to experiment with took over me. I was filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was transported to a different world, a different time,” Hofmann wrote.

Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped that LSD would make an important contribution to psychiatric research. The drug exaggerated inner problems and conflicts and thus it was hoped that it strength be used to recognize and treat mental illnesses like schizophrenia.

in the place of a time, Sandoz sold LSD 25 under the name Delysid, encouraging doctors to try it themselves. It was one of the strongest drugs in medicine — with regular one gram enough to drug an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people on account of 12 hours.

LSD was elevated to international fame in the late 1950s and 1960s thanks to Harvard professor Timothy Leary who embraced the drug under the slogan “turn on, harmony in, drop out.”

But away from the psychedelic trips, horror stories emerged about people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.

The U.S. government banned LSD in 1966 and other countries followed suit.

Hofmann maintained this was unfair, arguing that the drug was not addictive. He repeatedly argued for the ban to be lifted to allow LSD to be used in medical examination.

Last December, Swiss authorities decided to confess LSD as far as concerns psychotherapy in exceptional cases.

“For me, this is a very big wish come true. I ever wanted to see LSD get its proper place in medicine,” he told Swiss TV at the time.

Hofmann himself took the drug — purportedly on an incidental basis and out of scientific interest — for several decades.

“LSD can help open your eyes,” he once said. “But there are other ways — meditation, dance, music, fasting.”

Even so, the self described “father” of LSD readily agreed that the drug was dangerous if in the wrong hands. This was reflected by the title of his 1979 book: LSD — my problem child.

In it he wrote that, “The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug.”

Hofmann retired from Sandoz in 1971 and zealous his time to travel, writing and lectures.

“This is really a high point in my advanced age,” Hofmann said at a ceremony in Basel honoring him on his 100th birthday. “You could say it is a consciousness-raising experience without LSD.”

Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

Associated Press writers Balz Bruppacher in Bern, Eliane Engeler in Geneva and Clare Nullis contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not have being published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

McDonald's and Starbucks are both moving to broaden Wi-Fi offerings in their restaurants, on the other hand their Wi-Fi isn't free to all comers yet, leaving some smaller restaurant chains with an advantage.

In recent days, AT&T announced that its Wi-Fi service will be available this year at 7,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S. The AT&T service, whose national deployment got underway in San Antonio earlier this month, determine be available through various free (for subscribers of other AT&T services) and paid plans. Consumers already using T-Mobile paid plans at Starbucks locations can continue to do so for the time being because of a clause in the Starbucks/AT&T epitomize.

McDonald's Wi-Fi supplier — Wayport — reported this week that it has successfully outfitted more than 10,000 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. with the wireless technology. McDonald's Wi-Fi site states that Wi-Fi service will be available via "on-line credit card payment, subscriptions, prepaid cards or (sometimes) promotional coupons."

AT&T and McDonald's also provide Wi-Fi service at international locations. AT&T has a total of 71,000 global access points. McDonald's offers free Wi-Fi service at more than 1,200 locations in the U.K.

Despite the expanded services and rollouts, paying for Wi-Fi at some of the larger chains has created an opportunity for smaller restaurateurs.

Panera Bread cafes and restaurants offer Wi-Fi with no strings attached to anyone who walks into one of its 1150 locations. "It's free," Panera says. "Just sit down, open up your laptop and you're ready to go… The Wi-Fi's free all day long."

Schlotzky's, a sandwich restaurant chain, has offered free Wi-Fi at its locations for years. Schlotzky's found that many consumers visited Starbucks locations and logged onto Schlotzky's Wi-Fi networks to do their e-mail.

The majority of Wi-Fi hotspot usage is at U.S. airports. Some 45% of Wi-Fi traffic is in the terminal, though the use of Wi-Fi in hotels is surging and now accounts for 29% of hotspot usage, industry analysts with iPass found. Wi-Fi usage at train stations and ferries likewise is booming.

On a local scale, Wi-Fi at restaurants is the new hot space, gaining dramatically on Internet cafes, which still dominate the local scene with a 44% share of the market.

Intel and Cray Inc. Tuesday reported they have launched a joint effort to develop new multicore technologies as part of an effort to build multi-petascale systems.

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The chip manufacturer signed a multiyear agreement with Cray, a supercomputer manufacturer. The two noted that under the agreement, they hope to develop a range of technologies and high-performance computers over the next several years.

"We aren't disclosing specific technologies or products today," said Richard Dracott, general good economist of Intel's high-performance computing organization. The company did say in a written release, though, that they will be moving on multicore technologies and advanced interconnects.

Dracott did list of items that Cray "has indicated" that its upcoming Cascade project will include Intel-based computers. The Cascade program, sponsored by the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was launched to build relatively inexpensive supercomputers by 2011.

"The two companies are interested in seeing the word's fastest multi-petascale-class systems brought to market through a combination of Cray's systems expertise and Intel's processor leadership," said Dracott. "The high end of supercomputing has one insatiable demand concerning more performance. We believe that the fruits of this collaboration will be used to help solve some of the world's chiefly important humanitarian, medical, scientific and engineering challenges."

A petaflop is a thousand trillion calculations per second. Having a supercomputer break the petaflop barrier is akin to breaking the four-minute mile.

Erich Strohmaier, a computer scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, noted that more than 70% of the supercomputers currently on the Top 500 list of the most nervous systems are based on Intel processors. He added that the total is Intel's largest-ever share of the list.

The Top 500 list is updated twice a year. The next version of the ranking will be released at the next International Supercomputing Conference , which is being held June 17 to 20 in Dresden, Germany.

Copyright 2008 IDG News Service. All Rights Reserved.

By Sue Zeidler

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg on Tuesday before-mentioned he was disappointed with the pace at which movie theater chains were moving to deploy digital and 3-D technology.

“Things haven’t progressed as well as I had hoped,” Katzenberg told analysts on a quarterly conference call.

“I feel as though things have dragged along, and it’s been pretty disappointing,” said Katzenberg, a huge proponent of 3-D films, who has pledged to make all future films in 3-D at an incremental cost of $15 million by film.

For Dreamworks, which makes about sum of two units films a year, that commitment to 3-D amounts to about $30 million per year.

Katzenberg on the conference call aforesaid he still believed DreamWorks will see a good return on its investment based on projected ticket prices and the number of 3-D screens he is certain will be in the market by dint of. the time his studio’s capital 3-D film, “Monsters vs. Aliens,” is released in spring 2009.

“But whether or not it achieves the fullest potential and outside goals I’ve set because of ourselves and challenged exhibition with, is the effects up for grabs right now,” he said.

We have indicated that we would probable to see 5,000 3-D screens domestically by the time we released ‘Monsters vs. Aliens,’ no more than we distress to make sure that major theaters chains are committed to getting these screens in the next 30 days or it’s unlikely we will get all 5,000 screens,” said Lew Coleman, Chief Financial Officer for DreamWorks in an interview.

Katzenberg had hoped by now the Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, owned by Regal Entertainment Group (RGC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Cinemark Holdings Inc(CNK.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and AMC Entertainment IncAC.N had reached a $1.1 billion financing deal with Hollywood studios to deploy cinema digital technology. Once outfitted with digital projectors, theaters can then add 3-D technology. 

 ’GRAND THEFT AUTO IV’ Score: 9 stars (out of 10) Rating: Mature (M) Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Publisher: Rockstar Games Price: $59.99  TRAILER  SURVEY
Let’s cut honest to the chase: Grand Theft Auto IV is not a video game for kids, tweens or even young teenagers. As with its controversial predecessors, the latest in the 70 million unit-selling series is a Mature-rated adventure, created for players 17 years of age and older like it gives you a virtual taste of the criminal underworld. Think of it taken in the character of an interactive episode of The Sopranos, if you will.

Because of its tremendous following and the fact it’s available on both high-definition consoles, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV will likely be the best-selling game of 2008. It also helps that it’s the first game in the series to offer online multiplayer modes. Having spent the better lot of 10 days living this dangerous alternate life, rest assured this GTA sequel more than lives up to the hype.

SCREENSHOTS: Cruise Liberty incorporated town with Niko

VIDEO: ‘GTA’ draws crowds, parents’ ire

In Grand Theft Auto IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a tough-looking character who arrives in the U.S. from somewhere in Eastern Europe, expecting the streets to be paved with gold. It seems Niko’s American cousin, Roman, lied about his extravagant lifestyle: Instead of being wealthy and living in a mansion, Roman is indebted to loan sharks and lives in a cockroach-infested apartment the sizing of a walk-in closet.

Nevertheless, Niko decides to help Roman with his rundown cabstand and keep thugs off his back until he can figure out how to make money and connections in Liberty City, the same city as 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III, modeled after New York City and New Jersey. If you’re questioning how Niko could forgive his scheming cousin, you’ll discover a few hours into the game that there are other reasons why Niko left his homeland.

Grand Theft Auto games offer “sandbox” play, meaning you can virtually go anywhere and do anything in this full realized 3-D city with pedestrians, traffic and storefronts. This play from a third-person perspective includes carjacking any vehicle, listening to more than a hundred songs on car radios and playing minigames of the like kind as billiards, darts, bowling or arcade games. Niko can go on dates, swim, surf the Internet and buy clothing and weapons.

But it’s the seedy missions that unravel the lengthy single-player story. In person or via his cellphone, Niko will be asked to perform missions that include escorting someone, taking out drug dealers, evading police cruisers, racing to one end of the city before someone else, flying a helicopter, retrieving secret money or looking up an informant’s address. In many cases you’ll have three offers at once and will be forced to make decisions, which will feign the storyline and your friendships.

Grand Theft Auto IV offers high-definition graphics that trump 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including impressive lip-synching, non-interactive story sequences that were motion-captured for added realism, varying weather and a new science of nature engine that models everything authentically. This sequel also adds more hand-to-hand combat and optional in-car GPS to relief you better navigate the city.

Without question, though, the biggest new feature is something gamers have been asking about for years: multiplayer modes. In Grand Theft Auto IV, up to 16 gamers can play online in a host of cooperative and competitive games including “Deathmatch” (every person for himself), “Team Deathmatch” and “Cops & Crooks” (a racing game). Because we reviewed the game before launch, however, this online component was disabled.

Xbox 360 gamers will furthermore be able to download bonus missions and other content later this year, via the Xbox Live employment.

Controversy is unavoidable with this measure. As with past GTA titles you be able to shoot at cops, drive into pedestrians and request “services” from a prostitute. This sequel is also laced with foul language, plus you can drink and drive and watch pole dancers at a strip club. Again, take heed to the “M” rating.

Aside from a slightly choppy frame rate at epochs, when the action stutters a bit, and hard-to-read green GPS directions on your map, there is little to complain about with Grand Theft Auto IV. Adult gamers will find a single-player story that can easily last a month, not to mention the ability to hop online and play with friends anywhere, anytime. Expect a lot of bang for your buck in this exceedingly polished sequel.

Rogers Communications said its first quarter net income grew 102 percent to $339.8 million. Revenues at Canada's largest wireless network performer rose 14 percent in the quarter to $2.57 billion.

Executives said the company's first-quarter revenue boom was driven principally by 97,000 additions to the carrier's postpaid subscriber base. Rogers Communications also was able to reduce its monthly postpaid subscriber turnover rate, or "churn," to 1.10 percent — down from 1.17 percent in the year-ago quarter.

"This was a robust start to 2008 both operationally and financially," said Ted Rogers, the company's prime executive. "We added subscribers across the business at healthy rates" and achieved "a good set of balanced results overall," he told investors.

Coming to Canada

Wireless data revenue in Rogers' first quarter increased 47 percent in comparison with the year-ago period. Company executives said the increase reflects continued growth in a kind of wireless data services ranging from wireless Internet access to downloadable ringtones, music and games, and the gathering literary works bullish about mobile broadband.

Data revenue currently represents approximately 15.1 percent of the Canada-based wireless carrier's total network revenue — up from 12.3 percent one year earlier. And the impending addition of Apple's iPhone to Rogers' product lineup potentially could boost the carrier's data-plan adoption rates equal further.

"We have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year," Rogers said. "We can't tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned. This is just one of the many exciting wireless, cable and Internet innovations that you'll hear from Rogers over the coming months."

The brunt Factor

Though the iPhone delivers a good user experience, the ultimate success of Apple's red-hot handset in Canada will be entirely dependent on the data plan Rogers intends to offer for the device, said Brownlee Thomas, a Montreal-based Forrester Research principal analyst.

"Canada has been very renown for not knowing what 'unlimited' really means," Thomas said. "It does suggest a radical shift in how Rogers will price mobile data plans, because right now they are very expensive."

"There'll be a shock factor unless they reduce the cost," Thomas observed. On the other hand, "It's really hard to imagine that Rogers would erode its revenues so radically by changing their model for mobile data," she said. "Apple expects to get a share of Rogers' mobile data revenue" if the iPhone maker's exclusive agreement with AT&T in the U.S. is any indication, Thomas added.

As Canada's only GSM (Global System for changeable communications) network operator, Rogers will effectively have a national exclusive, given that the iPhone is a GSM-only device, Thomas noted. Canada's other major wireless operators, Bell Mobility and Telus, employ the rival CDMA (code division multiple access) standard on their networks.

If Rogers does move to lower data-subscription rates by introducing an unlimited plan, Thomas expects it would immediately be copied by the carrier's Canadian rivals.

"They would have no choice, she said. "This will push Bell and Telus to adjust their data plans, and by chance uniform introduce a combined 'voice-and-data experience'" similar to what Sprint now offers in the U.S. for $99 per month.

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man accused of sending hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to requisition evasion and falsifying e-mail headers.

Thirty-five-year-old Edward “Eddie” Davidson of Louisville was also ordered to pay nearly $715,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced Monday and ordered to report to prison authorities in May.

Federal prosecutors say Davidson’s process used false e-mail headers to disguise the sender. Prosecutors say some of the spam was meant to dupe stock investors and manipulate markets.

Authorities say Davidson made at least $3.5 million sending e-mails for nearly 20 companies.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 FOR MORE INFORMATIONNews from SPACE.comScience and space news upon the body USATODAY.com
By SPACE.com Staff Several newfound galaxies seen as they existed when the universe was young are packed with improbable numbers of stars.

Astronomers don’t know what’s going on.

The nine galaxies are 11 billion light-years away, which means the sandy astronomers are looking at left the galaxies 11 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 billion years old.

Each of the newly studied galaxies weighs about 200 billion times the mass of the sun yet is a mere 5,000 light-years across. Our Milky Way Galaxy is a fraction of that heft at roughly 3 million times the sun’s mass, and yet it stretches across 100,000 light-years of space.

The compact galaxies have been furiously forming stars; each contains as many stars as a typical large galaxy of today, the new observations reveal.

“Seeing the compact sizes of these galaxies is a puzzle,” said Pieter G. van Dokkum of Yale University, who led the study. “No massive galaxy at this distance has ever been observed to be so compact.”

Since no modern galaxies — galaxies in the nearby universe — are so compact, the scientists assume compact galaxies from the early universe must have gotten much larger as they matured in advance of the snapshots of ancient time now being studied. But nobody knows how.

“They would have to change a lot across 11 billion years, growing five general condition of affairs bigger,” van Dokkum said. “They could get larger by colliding with other galaxies, but such collisions may not be the complete answer.”

Astronomers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii to cause to become the new observations, which were announced today and were detailed in the April 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Van Dokkum and his colleagues had beforehand studied the galaxies in 2006 with the Gemini South Telescope to determine their distances, and showed that the stars are a half a billion to a billion years old. The most massive stars had already exploded as supernovae.

One reason these galaxies were so dense, van Dokkum suggested, involves the interaction of dark matter and hydrogen gas in the nascent universe. Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the universe’s mass. Shortly after the theoretical Big Bang, the universe contained an uneven landscape of dark matter. Hydrogen gas became trapped in puddles of the invisible material, the thinking goes, and began spinning rapidly in dark matter’s gravitational whirlpool, forming stars at a furious rate.

Based on the galaxies’ celebration of the lord’s supper, the astronomers estimated that the stars are spinning around their galactic disks at roughly 890,000 to 1 million mph (400 to 500 kilometers a second). Stars in today’s galaxies, by contrast, are traveling at about half that hurry because the setups are larger and rotate more slowly.

Copyright 2007, SPACE.com Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  

MOSCOW (AP) — DNA tests carried out by a U.S. laboratory prove that bone fragments exhumed final year belong to two children of Russia’s last czar, a regional governor said Wednesday.

Bone fragments dug up last year near the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg are is it possible those of Crown Prince Alexei and his sister, Maria, before-mentioned Eduard Rossel, governor of the Sverdlovsk region.

“We have now found the entire family,” he told reporters in Yekaterinburg.

The confirmation brings the tortured history of the Russian imperial family a step toward closure and could end royal supporters’ immovable hopes that members of Czar’s Nicholas II’s immediate family survived.

Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he and his family were detained. The czar; his wife, Alexandra, and their son and four daughters were fatally shot on July 17, 1918, in a basement room of a merchant’s tavern where they were held in Yekaterinburg

The remains of Nicholas, Alexandra and three of their daughters were unearthed in Yekaterinburg in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing. After genetic tests convinced forensics experts of their authenticity, they were buried in 1998 in a cathedral in the imperial capital of St. Petersburg.

The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Nicholas and his family in 2000 but expressed doubts that the remains were indeed those of the czar’s family.

The remains of Alexei and Maria, however, had never been located, leading to decades of speculation that perhaps one or both had survived.

Last summer, researchers dug up the bone shards near Yekaterinburg and enlisted Russian and U.S. laboratories to conduct DNA tests in continuance the bones.

“The main genetic laboratory in the United States has concluded its work with a full confirmation of our own laboratories’ work,” Rossel told reporters in Yekaterinburg, 900 miles east of Moscow. “This has confirmed that indeed it is the children.

It unclear which laboratory Rossel was referring to but a genetic research team working at the University of Massachusetts Medical School has been involved in the process.

The press service for Russian Orthodox Church before-mentioned no one could comment on the discovery.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  

Wireless home networks are the future, right? Maybe, maybe not.

On Tuesday, 11 chipmakers and consumer device makers, led by No. 1 chip seller Intel (NasdaqGS:INTC - News), launched the HomeGrid Forum. The group's goal is to develop a new tech standard that will let all home electronics work together.

The banner will create home networks that will use plain old-fashioned phone and coaxial cable wiring and standard electrical outlets to bring movies, music and added from the Internet and into your PC, TV set, digital music player or whatever. Users be pleased be able to easily shift that make easy among devices.

The companies say the standard will lower costs for consumers and make it a whole lot easier to grasshook up home networks. That likely would spur sales of the electronic products made by the HomeGrid Forum's members.

"The key thing is, this is a next-generation technology," said Matthew Theall, an Intel technology strategist and the forum's president. "We don't see it competing with existing technologies."

The standard would be at the chip level. Chips with the standard will go into electronic devices that can then work on the place of abode network. Theall says products with the standard should start shipping by dint of. late 2009.

"What's nice about this is they're going to try to standardize any over-wire connection, whether it's cable or pots (plain old telephone service wiring) or anything else," said Avi Cohen, managing partner at Avian Securities. "That will build home networks a lot more useful."

Theall says consumers will be able to do things they can't easily do now. "A use that I think is a killer application is a DVD player that's connected. You hit a button and it sends the movie to every TV in the house," he said.

He expects many other fragment companies and consumer electronics makers will join the group. The forum will not develop the standard itself. It will assist the International Telecommunication Union devise and exalt the standard.

The HomeGrid will behave away with a mishmash of technologies, says Mike Bourton, director of business development for Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN - News) digital connected homes group. TI is a tribunal member.

"The analogy is like the 802.11 Wi-Fi Alliance, a group that supports the Wi-Fi wireless standard," Bourton said. "The ITU comes up with a spec. But to successfully launch it, it needs a companion SIG (special interest group)."

In this case, HomeGrid is the SIG, Bourton says.

Membership fees will fund the group, but Bourton says many of the financial and tech-sharing details have yet to be finalized.

The HomeGrid announcement shows an important underlying trend at work, Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin says.

"Most homes that have some description of networking are do-it-yourself efforts," Golvin said. "Either you are tech-savvy or get your college-age young goat to set it up for you.

"Today, it's only AT&T (NYSE:T - News)or Verizon (NYSE:VZ - News) usually that will come in and help you set up a home network. This could get a lot more companies involved. And that could drive prices for home networks down."

The forum's four co-founders, including Intel and TI, have representatives on its table. The other board members come from Germany's Infineon Technology (NYSE:IFX - News) and Japan's Matsushita (NYSE:MC - News)/Panasonic.