6836018
submission
necro81 writes:
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP, has announced that she will run as a Republican to unseat California senator Barbara Boxer in next year's mid-term elections. A political newcomer, she plans to run on a platform of lowering taxes, reigning-in government spending, and touting her business experience. As HP's boss, she had a mix of successes (such as a merger with Compaq and spinoff of Agilent) and failures (such as a stock price that fell by half) before being ousted unanimously in 2005. Although her $21 million golden parachute provides her with an early edge in fundraising, she will face a strong primary challenge from assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a staunch social conservative.
5737353
submission
necro81 writes:
India has lost radio contact with its lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1. After nearly a year in space and thousands of orbits of the moon, the orbiter abruptly lost contact early Saturday morning. Ground controllers haven't been able to re-establish contact or control the craft. Chandrayaan's launch and successful orbiting of the Moon vaulted India into an elite club of space-faring nations. The orbiter had already accomplished most scientific objectives of its two-year mission to map the surface and survey for minerals in preparation for future lunar missions.
5514883
submission
necro81 writes:
General Motors, emerging from bankruptcy, today announced that its upcoming plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Volt, will have an EPA-rated 230 mpg for city driving (approx 1L / 100km). The unprecedented rating is the result of a new (draft) methodology for calculating the "gas" mileage for vehicles that operate primarily or extensively on electricity. The Volt, due out late this year, can drive approximately 40 miles on its Li-Ion battery pack, after which a gasoline engine kicks in to provide additional electricity to turn the wheels. Running off the gasoline engine yields approximately 50 mpg. Of course, the devil's in the details, because the conversion of grid-based electricity to gasoline-mileage is imprecise.
5118131
submission
necro81 writes:
It has almost become an internet joke how Google leaves many of its projects in the beta stage indefinitely, never officially releasing them. No longer: Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Talk have finally left beta. Gmail has hung around in beta since April 2004 and is currently used by over 100 million people. Google Apps has 1.75 million users. Removing the beta label should allow Google to push for greater adoption in enterprise settings, where greater surety of support and a predictable product life cycle are necessary. The move brings with it a push towards making Apps a paid-only service.
4874335
submission
necro81 writes:
Recently named CIO for the US Government, Vivek Kundra, intends to launch a website that will allow government and the public to view a dashboard for each of the 800 major (>$50 million) federal technology projects. The dashboard will reveal information such as what the project is for, who in government is overseeing it, how large its budget is, what contractors are working on it, and how many change orders it has received. At present, there is no simple way to track any of this information. Hopefully, it will help avoid debacles like the scrapped $600 million program to develop PDAs for the 2010 census.
3310789
submission
necro81 writes:
The Delay DTV Act was passed first by the Senate, now in the House, and will be signed by the President. The hard cutoff for turning off analog TV broadcasts in the U.S. has been pushed out to June 12th. The act had earlier failed to gain a 2/3rds majority in the House, but passed this afternoon with a simple majority. The bill allows stations to cease analog transmissions at any point between Feb 17th (the old cutoff) and June 12th, and many have signaled they will do so.
3255333
submission
necro81 writes:
The IBM Model M keyboard is considered by some to be the best ever made. With a buckling-spring under each key, it felt like a real typewriter, with a satisfying click with every stroke; its heavy construction would last forever. Although IBM discontinued the Model M decades ago, NPR reports how a former employee bought the design and molds and founded a company in 1996, Unicomp, to produce modern versions. However, Unicomp is falling on hard times as banks and large corportations — the biggest customers — are pulling back purchasing, while parts and labor costs in the Kentucky factory keep climbing. Can an expensive, durable, niche product survive tough times?
3108149
submission
necro81 writes:
The Inauguration of Barack Obama tomorrow is expected to put considerable stress on the cellphone network around Washington, DC. The expected crowd could top two million people, and many of them are expected to call, text, tweet, photo, and blog their way through the event. In response, the major wireless carriers in the area have spend millions of dollars upgrading their local networks and will bring in extra "cells on wheels" (COWs) and "cells on light trucks" (COLTs). They are also requesting that attendees limit their usage during the event, and avoid bandwidth-heavy activities — like uploading photos — until afterward.
1491951
submission
necro81 writes:
National Public Radio aired a story this morning about using social networking technology to monitor and report voting irregularities for the U.S. election. Using their cellphones, citizens can report irregularities, voter suppression, long lines, and malfunctioning equipment to Twitter's Vote Report. There are even location-aware applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android-based G1 (search "votereport" in the Android Marketplace) for submitting more detailed information. An interactive map will show reports as they come in. YouTube also has the Video Your Vote service, which posts geographically-tagged submissions of polling stations and your voting experience.
818955
submission
necro81 writes:
The NY Times has an in-depth article describing a new sewage treatment plant in Orange County (southern California). Through a series of processes and filters, it transforms raw sewage into water that's cleaner than rain. The water is pumped to a lake outside San Diego, where it enters the aquifer, and is also injected deep underground to arrest an infiltration of sea water. It is the largest in an increasing number of installations that close the loop from toilet to tap in an increasingly water-constrained world.
753599
submission
necro81 writes:
Barely a month ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a freeze on applications for solar power plants on federally managed land, pending a two-year comprehensive environmental review. After much hew and cry from the public, industry, and other parts of government, BLM has today announced that it will lift the freeze, but continue to study the possible environmental effects. To date, no solar project has yet been approved on BLM land.
612412
submission
necro81 writes:
If $10 billion seems like too much to spend on a science experiment, how about a next generation global data network 10,000 times faster than broadband? The massive amounts of data expected from the Large Hadron Collider (15 petabytes annually) need to be delivered to researchers the world over, and CERN has built a dedicated next generation network to do so. Built on fiber optics from the ground up, "The Grid" streams data to 11 distribution centers around the world, and from there to academic centers using existing networks. The tens of thousands of connected computers work as the world's largest grid computer.
602558
submission
necro81 writes:
The owners of the T-Mobile brand, Deutsche Telekom, whose logo is a magenta T, has sent a letter to Engadget Mobile, ordering them to discontinue the use of magneta in their page layout and logo. This is not, apparently, an April Fool's joke. Deutsche Telekom contends that, since both organizations deal with mobile technology, the overlapping use of the magenta color could create brand confusion — a threat to T-Mobile's trademark. Engadget isn't taking it lying down, though.
579126
submission
necro81 writes:
A new survey released by M:Metrics research firm indicates that iPhone owners utilize the mobile web substantially more, even compared to other smartphone users. Of importance to the business and advertising types is this: about 59% of iPhone users had used it to access a search engine, compared to 37% of smartphone users and 6% of cellphone users. For social networking sites and blogs, the percentages are 50% for iPhone, 19% for all smartphones, and 4% for all cellphones. Aside from the difference in design and user interface, M:Metrics hypothesizes that part of the disparity is due to the unlimited iPhone data plan.
526680
submission
necro81 writes:
If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam made in a University of Michigan laboratory. The record-setting HERCULES laser produces 30-femtosecond pulses with a peak power of 300 terawatts — or about 300 times the power capacity of the U.S. electrical grid, and 100 times more powerful than any previous laser. It concentrates that power into a 1.3-micron spot size, for a power density of 20 billion-trillion watts per square centimeter. Potential uses for such a laser includes creating proton and electron beams for cancer radiation therapy. Original publication here.
