Virgin Mobile USA is launching a service June 14 letting customers of the company's prepaid plans earn airtime minutes for watching or reading ads.

Customers will be able to sign up for the service, "SugarMama," at Virgin Mobile's Web site, where they can watch 30-second video ads. Afterward, they'll be asked some questions about the ads. Correct answers yield one minute of airtime for every ad.

Virgin Mobile charges 25 cents per minute under its Minute2Minute plan, meaning a customer who watches the maximum of 75 ads per month could be earning $18.75 in airtime for less than an hour's work.

Virgin Mobile has signed up three advertisers so far: Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox gaming console division, PepsiCo Inc. (which will be advertising Diet Mountain Dew) and Truth, an anti-smoking campaign funded by tobacco settlement money.

Although the Internet's key oversight agency rejected a proposal to create a ".xxx" domain for porn sites, the domain's chief sponsor, ICM Registry Inc., is appealing the decision and began taking reservations from adult sites this past week.

Stuart Lawley, ICM's chairman, said the company already has hired the staff and built the system, and taking reservations now would mean a quicker rollout should the appeal succeed.

ICM isn't charging sites to lay claims to a ".xxx" name based on what they already have under ".com" or another suffix. The company plans to eventually charge $60 to register each name if its bid is approved.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, faced with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography Web sites, rejected on May 10 ICM's proposal to create ".xxx" for voluntary use by the adult entertainment industry.

In reversing ICANN's preliminary approval of ".xxx" last summer, some board members expressed concerns that the domain might put ICANN in a difficult position of having to enforce all of the world's laws governing pornography.

Nine days later, ICM appealed to an ICANN review panel, saying the enforcement concerns were unfounded and accusing the U.S. government of pressuring ICANN to reject ".xxx." ICM filed a separate, Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking the release of information about the government's role.

The U.S. government, which funded the Internet's early development and delegated authority over domain names to ICANN, retains veto power over ICANN decisions. ICANN had postponed making a final decision on ".xxx" in August after the Commerce Department stepped in to underscore objections it had received.

Ubuntu, launched two years ago, has a reputation for being easy to use. Although Linux is used mostly for servers, Ubuntu is traditionally a desktop product. Canonical Ltd., the British company that puts out Ubuntu, said it has shipped millions of free CDs so far.

Dapper Drake is the first Ubuntu release with a server version. It's also the first release for which Canonical will sell long-term support: up to five years for the server version and three years for the desktop version.

Ubuntu 6.06 will be available for PCs with Intel and AMD processors, Macintosh computers with PowerPC chips, and Sun servers with Sparc processors.

Canonical is run and funded by Mark Shuttleworth, a South African Internet millionaire who paid $20 million for a trip to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket in 2002.

Researchers are trying to develop cryogenically cooled electronics that will greatly reduce the size of the electric generators the Navy's warships need to power radar, propulsion, weapons systems and other electronics.

"In going to the all-electric ship, it is absolutely essential to have high-power density motors to drive the ship," said Donald Gubser, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. "They need six times more than what is needed in a commercial liner. These are power-hungry machines."

The lab is working with researchers at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and at MTECH Laboratories LLC of Ballston Spa, N.Y.

Since the project began in 2004, the researchers have already proven the concept works with the help of more than $5 million in Navy funding. They are now working to develop a prototype by 2007.

Ultimately, the researchers want to reduce the size of a Navy ship's motors, typically the size of a truck trailer, by about half and cut the weight by a third. Conventional motors weigh up to 220 tons.

Scientists have created 200 millimeter wafers carrying 1,000 microchips on a disk smaller than a dinner plate. The disks are stacked to create a power inverter module that works with no mechanical parts. The inverters would be part of a power system that can conduct electricity without any resistance when cooled to minus 322 degrees Fahrenheit.

Michael Hennessy, president of MTECH, said commercial applications are years away, but the technology could one day be used in aircraft, industrial plants and commercial buildings.

NEW YORK - The U.S. online advertising industry saw yet another quarter of growth as revenues reached a record $3.9 billion in the January-March period.

"The steady growth of online advertising is a clear indication that marketers continue to believe in the opportunities and effectiveness that this medium delivers in reaching and engaging their consumers," Greg Stuart, the bureau's chief executive, said in a statement.

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