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It specifically raised the alarm over the idea of regularly sending sulfate particles into the stratosphere to reduce the Earth’s temperature. It’s one of the most discussed geoengineering proposals put forth by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and others.

Other geoengineering proposals include putting a shield above Greenland to deflect the sun’s rays and stimulating large-scale plankton blooms in the ocean to sequester underwater carbon dioxide.

A proposal to cool the climate with sulfate particles in the atmosphere would further damage the ozone layer, a study concludes.

But a study performed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) cautioned that more research is needed before so-called geoengineering efforts are pursued.

(Credit:
NASA)

The NCAR study concluded that injecting sulfates would destroy between about a fourth and three-fourths of the ozone layer above the Arctic Ocean.

“Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects,” Simone Tilmes, the leader of the NCAR study, said in a statement. “While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geoengineering solutions.”

That would delay recovery of the ozone layer hole above the Arctic and thus mark a major setback for international efforts to protect the ozone layer by banning ozone-depleting chemicals. The ozone blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from coming to Earth.

Proposals to cool Earth by injecting the atmosphere with sulfate particles would deplete the ozone layer and have “perilous effects” on the planet, according to a paper to be published Friday.

As concerns grow over climate change and global warming, large-scale efforts to alter the planet’s climate through geoengineering are being taken seriously by academics.

Academics point out the obvious challenges of these geoengineering ideas, given the complexity of the climate and the prospect of managing such global ventures among different countries.

The cooling effects of suflate particles has been observed from past volcanic eruptions. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, for example, had a measurable downward effect on temperatures.

The Mobile Devices business will handle the designs, manufacturing, and sales of mobile handsets and accessories, and will license a portfolio of intellectual property. The Broadband & Mobility Solutions business will handle voice and data communication solutions and wireless broadband networks for enterprises and governments. It will also handle IP video, cellular, and high-speed broadband network infrastructure, and cable set-top receivers.

Icahn’s other nominees to the Motorola board are former Viacom chief Frank Biondi, securities-firm founder William Hambrecht, and MIT engineering professor Lionel Kimerling.

Icahn announced earlier this week that he had declined an offer of two seats on Motorola’s board and was suing the company to obtain documents related to its mobile devices business and use of corporate aircraft by senior managers, board members, and their families. Aiming for four seats on the Motorola board, Icahn said the documents would help him, and other shareholders, determine what Motorola’s board should have done to help the company right its struggling handset business.

Although the Mobile Devices division generated sales in 2007 virtually equal to those of the company’s other two divisions, it also lost $1.2 billion while the other divisions earned $1.9 billion. And Motorola lost its standing as the world’s No. 2 handset supplier to Samsung Electronics.

Updated 7:35 AM PDT. News.com’s Richard Defendorf contributed to this story.

Investor Carl Icahn has been pressuring the company to separate out its mobile phone business, and has been engaged in a protracted legal struggle with the company regarding its future.

Under pressure from investors, Motorola has decided to split into two publicly traded companies, one handling handsets and accessories and the other taking on wireless broadband networks and enterprise-level communications services.

It’s not yet clear what revisions to his strategy Icahn might make now that Motorola has agreed to the split he requested. His intention to seat four allies on the board, according to a story published Wednesday by the Financial Times, was unofficially approved by the board’s current lineup in all cases except one: Keith Meister, chief executive of Icahn Enterprises, who, the board claims, is “unqualified.”

“Our decision to separate our Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions businesses follows a review process undertaken by our management team and Board of Directors, together with independent advisers,” CEO Greg Brown said in a release. “Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus–as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.”

“It might be easier to negotiate with a standalone unit. It’s positive news because it shows the company is moving toward a serious restructuring,” said Kuittinen, who sees Chinese and Japanese companies as the top candidates for a venture.

Brown said a search for a chief executive for Mobile Devices is under way.

“I suspect it’s a prelude for a joint venture for the mobile devices business,” Avian Securities analyst Tero Kuittinen told Reuters.

One consequence of the separation: the newly separated unit may now find it easier to partner with another mobile-devices company to help it regain market share and operate more efficiently.

MIAMI–In two separate speeches on Friday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made the case that businesses need to see serving the poor as part of their mission and that governments need to see private businesses as potential partners.

Already, he said, there are examples of companies in each industry doing this.

Click here to read all of the stories in The Borders of Computing series.

In every industry, Gates said, businesses need to start thinking about how they can use some of their energy and resources, say 6 percent, to expand their reach to poorer segments either in their own country, or globally. Food companies need to focus on micronutrients, while drug companies should devote some energy to diseases that affect largely the poor, such as malaria and tuberculosis.

“I can help her out on anything where she’s confused,” he said. Assignments are turned in electronically and returned by e-mail. “It’s just so natural for her.”

(Credit:
Ina Fried/CNET News.com)

He noted that many countries have already set up pilot programs, with one region in Spain providing laptops to 10,000 students. At the same time, he said such projects require years of planning

“Cell phone companies, banks, energy companies, technology companies, food companies, we have a lot of good examples in each of those industries,” he said at the Inter-American Development Bank meeting.

Education was another key topic, with one questioner at the Government Leaders Forum asking Gates about whether computer labs or one-to-one computing projects are the way to go.

“The idea of how they create loans for the poorest is part of it,” he said at the Government Leaders Forum. But although today microfinance has focused on loans, there is more to it. “We need to get savings and even some insurance products.”

But while there are a few leaders who are onboard, Gates acknowledged that his notion of creative capitalism has not been uniformly embraced. “Many of the companies are skeptical,” he noted. “As we have examples of success we can overcome that.”

Gates talked about how technology can play a role, noting that when payment is tied to the cell phone, it offers the potential for lower interest rates.

He noted that his daughter uses one instead of textbooks at her school, and can forward her homework to her dad.

“The costs of moving to a one computer per child are fairly high and yet in the long term that’s what we recommend,” Gates said. With computer labs, Gates said, the most enthusiastic students tend to gravitate to the machines, monopolizing their use, while students who need the practice the most fall behind and never catch up.

Bill Gates shakes hands with Hernan Rincon, Microsoft's vice president for Latin America, before speaking at the Government Leaders Forum in Miami.

He also talked up the potential of one of his favorite technologies–the Tablet PC.

One of the big topics for both audiences was the notion of microfinance–improving the access to credit and banking to the poor.

“Today that machine is something like a $1,000 machine,” he said. “Over the next three or four years that will become a $400 machine.”

Richard T. Stuebi is the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc.

Over the weekend, Virgin Atlantic Airways flew a passenger-less Boeing 747-400 partially fueled by a biofuel mixture of coconut oil and babassu oil from London’s Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. (Read CNET blog.)

The test flight, performed to evaluate comparative engine performance and emissions rates with standard jet fuel and biofuel mixtures, was conducted by Virgin along with partners Boeing, the engine-maker General Electric, and the biofuel companyImperium Renewables.

No matter how the results of the experiment pan out, and no matter your personal view on the fundmental utility of biofuels, this is yet another example of how a passionate entrepreneur — albeit one with billions of dollars on his personal balance sheet like Richard Branson — is exploring the cleantech frontiers of what is possible, what is economical, what is environmentally-beneficial.

In Beijing, blue skies prove hard to achieve

‘Scrabulous’ disappears from Facebook

IBM mobile software helps ’senior moments’ (video below)

BT guns for Android and Skype with Ribbit buy

Adobe hopes Lightroom captures photo trends

Microsoft goes live with Mojave videos

Listen now:

Intel outside Apple’s pending MacBook launch?

Microsoft recently pulled an operating system switcharoo–a la the Folgers taste test or the Pepsi Challenge–on a focus group with the hopes of changing public perception of
Windows Vista. Now the company has posted some of the videos of people’s reactions online. But will the marketing scheme work? And separately, while in Redmond, reporter Ina Fried got an up-close look at an experimental research project, called Sphere. News intern Holly Jackson checks in with Ina on both those stories.

Also in this podcast: after a 17-month antitrust saga, satellite radio companies Sirius and XM are now one; a new line of MacBooks expected to arrive soon might not include Intel’s Montevina chipset; IBM’s trying to reduce the number of “senior moments” people have (demo video embedded below); and Beijing considers emergency measures to improve its polluted air in time for the Olympics.

Download today’s podcast

Today’s stories:

Sirius and XM close merger

Taking Microsoft’s Sphere for a spin

Greening parking lots with solar trees–EcoGeek

A company is building solar roofing for parking lots.
Wrightspeed to challenge Bugatti Veyron–Greentech Media
Whoa, that’s fast! The all-electric Wrightspeed SR-71 will go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. Talk about torque.
Water monitoring technology gets $8M boost in San Francisco, with more funds to come–VentureBeat
The area of water typically doesn’t attract a lot of investment. This project aims to establish a water monitoring system
Biofuels and food prices: Running the numbers–CNET News.com
New Energy Finance finds that biofuels production is one, but not the primary factor pushing up food prices.

Shares of Evergreen Solar shine after $1 billion contract news–Xconomy

Evergreen Solar gets good news from big orders from Germany.
AltaRock breaks new ground with geothermal power–Greentech Media
Geothermal power is an under-funded renewable energy source, according to MIT. Tyler Hamilton profiles Kleiner Perkins-backed AltaRock and discusses enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).

(Credit:
Envision Solar)

Velocity says it will begin shipping systems with SP1 on February 18. Celebrate Presidents’ Day with a service pack!

Ah, Vista. It has forced many to return to the waiting arms of Windows XP, while sending others fleeing to the other camp. There are those who still remain in a holding pattern, waiting for Vista SP1 to be rolled out before plunking down for a new PC. If you’re among this last group, Velocity Micro has a computer to sell you. It says it is the first system builder to begin selling systems preloaded with Vista SP1. A quick scan of its competitors’ sites today–including those of Dell and HP–revealed nothing to contradict Velocity’s claim. It’s only a matter of time until every vendor has updated its lines with the latest version of Vista–Microsoft has previously stated that volume license customers would have the code by tomorrow–but we have to give Velocity credit for its hustle. At the very least, it could save you from a very looooooong download.

(Credit: Fring)
Never one to shy away from bleeding edge technology, my co-worker Dan Diephouse (of open source web services frameworks Xfire and CXF fame) is running Fring on his
iPhone and we both agree that it’s pretty fringing cool.

I have to admit I am bit jealous and I really wish Blackberry would realize that their devices while fantastically functional are just not very fun.

Fring on the iPhone

ZDnet has video demos and Fring themselves have a demo video on YouTube.

I was able to dial Dan on Skype and he was able to call me via Skype all on our corporate wifi. He was also able to use his VZW laptop card to connect to the iPhone. Very cool and extremely useful when traveling abroad or generally on the road.

Steve Ballmer is ready to brawl with Yahoo

Despite the endless possibilities of Barbarians at the Gate metaphors, boxing seems more appropriate for now. It hasn’t quite come to mounting the heads of Yahoo execs on pikes alongside Silicon Valley’s Rte. 101. But the dueling letters are starting to reveal a level of snippiness not seen since Ballmer and Bill Gates were trading snarks with Sun CEO Scott McNealy over who did what to Java and when.

Jerry Yang isn’t Scott McNealy. Not even close. He doesn’t have the track record in the corner office (remember that before Terry Semel, Tim Koogle was actually running Yahoo) and he doesn’t command the respect McNealy did in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street. Yang, many believe, is a fine technologist who was supposed to be a placeholder until Yahoo president Sue Decker was ready to take over the company. But a corporate titan? No way.

We all figured it would come to this: While you were enjoying the spring weather over the weekend, Ballmer sent a letter to Yahoo’s board of directors threatening to go hostile in three weeks if the search company doesn’t sit down for substantive takeover talks. Yang, not so surprisingly, responded in a letter Monday morning that implied Ballmer was guilty of obfuscation at best and lying at worst about whether meetings had already occurred between the two companies.

(Credit:
Dan Farber)

McNealy is a giant personality, one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet in the tech industry. He’s also a tough nut, an amateur ice hockey player with a reputation, friends tell me, of being that guy who drives you nuts on the ice. But in a room with Ballmer, he looked…small. Despite McNealy’s considerable success and deserved confidence, there was no question who was the big personality in the room.

Jerry Yang will be tested in a fight with Microsoft

Is this about to get nasty? You bet, which brings me back to that meeting I had with Ballmer. It was 2004, in a windowless conference room at the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco. The other guy at the table was then-Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy. The bitter and very public rivals had just announced they were settling their longtime feud over antitrust issues and Java for $1.95 billion and an agreement to work on technical issues.

I’m trying to imagine Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang — a not so big, not so garrulous man with neither a booming voice nor meaty, waving hands — in a room with Ballmer and asking myself: Just how far over his head is Yang? Will he come out this bloody and dazed, a sad imitation of boxer Michael Spinks’ 91-second loss to Mike Tyson in 1988? Or will he be Rocky, the moral victor but ultimate loser in a (let’s be clear here folks, it was just a movie) fictional match with Apollo Creed?

The first time I met Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, I was running on two hours sleep from a nasty bout of food poisoning. Now if you’ve ever met Ballmer, a big, garrulous man with a booming voice and meaty hands that always seem to be waving in the air, you’d know he’s not the kind of guy you want to be interviewing in a weakened state.

(Credit:
Dan Farber)

Now Yang is getting close to stepping into a hostile takeover fight with Ballmer. The squeamish part of me wants to look away, but the voyeur is really wondering what Yang look like when this is all over.

If Jerry Yang and Yahoo really get into a hostile takeover fight with Steve Ballmer and Microsoft, my money’s on the big guy from Redmond.

Does Jerry Yang have a prayer in a takeover bout with Steve Ballmer?

(Credit: CC Sister 72)

Please forgive me, but American Idol is to live Olympics what America’s Top Model is to live NASCAR.

Actually, it was animation, wasn’t it? It was literally an artist’s impression, except this one wasn’t trying to sell you a timeshare.

The reason why so much of sport still gets more than tolerable ratings is precisely because it is live. You get involved in it because it is happening right now. And love ‘em or love ‘em less, the folks at Fox try to make live baseball as live as it could possibly be, even identifying fans, managers and reluctant spouses engaged in the most spontaneous behaviors.

If you followed NBC’s impeccable commercial logic, then surely Costas’ favorite event, the World Series, should be on tape delay on the West Coast. Same goes for the Superbowl.

Many critics have been kvetching about technological fakery during the opening ceremony, when fireworked footprints were CGI’d for home consumption.

To me this is as odd as the fact that love seats are always so incredibly uncomfortable.

I know of no other country that would delay a sporting event that is happening live in the hope of expected commercial gain.

I’m not sure how the CGI increased our excitement.

However, the description from NBC’s Matt Lauer was definitely breathtaking: “You’re looking at a cinematic device employed by Zhang Yimou here. This is actually almost animation.”

Still, NBCOlympics.com continues to be a source of utter Future World uplift. And that is why I must go. Argentina’s finest field hockeyists are playing Great Britain online.

NBC has also suffered some slings and arrows by keeping the word “live” on the screen even on the feeds to the West Coast. Twice an hour, they remind you briefly that the pictures you’re watching are, well, not literally live. In fact, they’re not live at all.

Who would choose to be in NBC’s PR Department this week?

When I say online, I mean it’s almost as if they were literally right there on my laptop. You know, cinematically speaking.

NBC’s Bob Costas, who is very clever, must have spent many moments composing his CGI voiceover: “We said earlier that aspects of this opening ceremony are almost like cinema in real time. Well this is quite literally cinematic.”

Please don’t tell anyone else, but he missed. The Spaniards had allowed for this possibility by rigging the flame’s dish with so much gas that the arrow had to only pass somewhere near it for the flame to light up.

And if you think there’s some jolly jingoism going on here, well, if I remember correctly, ABC and ESPN televised America’s most popular international event, the World Cup, live. As in, you know, the thing you’re seeing on screen is happening right now in some other country.

I couldn’t possibly accuse any of them of taking steroids, but could you blame them if they slipped something a little special into their noon smoothie just to deal with another sleepless night?

Their defense is that this is no different from American Idol, which Westies also see on tape delay, with the occasional reminder that this is the case.

Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.

Just to be clear, this is not CGI.

Would you have preferred: “Here’s some animation to give you a more vivid sense of what they’re seeing out there”? I think I might have.

All this reminded me of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics when the wondrous opening ceremony had, as one of its moments of high drama, an archer shooting a flaming arrow to light the Olympic flame.