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Submission + - China to Tap Combustible Ice as New Energy Source (inhabitat.com) 1

Submitted by lilbridge on Thursday March 11, 2010 @03:43PM

lilbridge writes: Huge reserves of "combustible ice" — frozen methane and water, have been discovered in the tundra undra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Estimates show that there is enough combustible ice to provide 90 years worth of energy for China. Burning the combustible ice may be a far better alternative than letting it just melt, releasing tons of methane into the air.

Submission + - Scientists Use LEDs to Broadcast Wireless Internet (inhabitat.com) 2

Submitted by MikeChino on Thursday March 11, 2010 @03:22PM

MikeChino writes: A group of scientists from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute have devised a way to encode a visible-frequency wireless signal in light emitted by plain old desklamps and other light fixtures. The team was able to achieve a record-setting data download rate of 230 megabits per second, and they expect to be able to double that speed in the near future. While the regular radio-frequency wi-fi most of us use currently is perfectly fine, it does have its flaws — it has a limited bandwidth that confines it to a certain spectrum and if you’ve ever had someone leech off of your connection, you know that it also leaks through walls. LED wireless signals would theoretically have none of these downsides.

Submission + - UK Government To Force Child Safety On Facebook? (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp on Thursday March 11, 2010 @02:53PM

judgecorp writes: Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party has said that UK government ministers are "taking action" to get Facebook to add a British child protection button (called CEOP) to its site. The move comes after the UK's Daily Mail withdrew allegations that teenagers on Facebook are continually pestered — though Facebook is still considering suing the paper. The campaign apparently ignores Facebook's assertion that it already has better child protection in place and the CEOP button would be limited to the UK.

Kodak Unveils 50MP CCD Image Sensor 228

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @07:22PM from the 8176-by-6132-babee dept.

i4u writes in to let us know that Kodak has announced the world's first 50 million pixel CCD image sensor for professional photography (i.e., for medium-format cameras). Engineering-grade devices of the CCD, the KAF-50100, are currently available. Kodak plans to enter volume production in Q4 2008. "At 50 megapixels, the sensor captures digital images with unprecedented resolution and detail. For instance, with a 50 megapixel camera, in an aerial photo of a field 1.5 miles [about 2.5 km] across, you could detect an object about the size of a small notebook computer (1 foot by 1 foot)." Here's CNet's Crave blog with a few more technical details.

How To Check Yourself For Abnormal Genes 133

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @07:40AM from the first-grab-some-family-photos dept.

AnneWoahHickey writes "While the State of California was harassing personalized genomics companies, and hindering the development of personalized medicine, Wired was preparing a guide to genetic testing. It explains how to make sense of the massive sets of raw data offered by 23andMe or deCODEme, and a way to check yourself for genetic abnormalities that are not covered by microarray tests. Facing a medical community that is fiercely resistant to change, the fate of personalized medicine is truly in the hands of consumers."

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