16783226
submission
tugfoigel writes:
The One Laptop per Child Foundation and Santa Clara, CA-based semiconductor maker Marvell have cemented a partnership announced last spring, with Marvell agreeing to provide OLPC with $5.6 million to fund development of its next generation tablet computer, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte tells me. Negroponte says the deal, signed in the past week or so but not previously announced, runs through 2011.
"Their money is a grant to the OLPC Foundation to develop a tablet or tablets based on their chip," he says. "They're going to put the whole system on a chip."
The OLPC tablet, which Negroponte hinted at last November in an interview with my colleague Wade Roush and formally announced last December, is known as the XO 3 because it represents the third-generation of the XO laptop currently sold by OLPC (the foundation scrapped plans for its e-book-like XO 2 computer and is moving straight to the tablet). Marvell is a longtime corporate sponsor of the foundation, but with this grant has formally stepped up to take the lead on engineering development. "They've been sponsors all along," Negroponte says. "But they were one of ten. Now they are the technology partner." The deal, he says, means the tablet's development is "fully funded."
10259958
submission
tugfoigel writes:
Anyone who currently owns an iPhone and was hoping they would be able to use it as a mobile web access point for a WiFi iPad got some bad news today, as Apple's turtleneck-in-charge Steve Jobs has reportedly said this will not happen.
Swedish blog Slashat.se claims they e-mailed Job directly to ask him whether or not you'd be able to tether your iPad and iPhone and received a terse "No" in reply.
9885110
submission
tugfoigel writes:
Wave of recent bank-card skimming incidents demonstrate how sophisticated the scam has become.
Criminals hid bank card-skimming devices inside gas pumps — in at least one case, even completely replacing the front panel of a pump — in a recent wave of attacks that demonstrate a more sophisticated, insidious method of stealing money from unsuspecting victims filling up their gas tanks.
Some 180 gas stations in Utah, from Salt Lake City to Provo, were reportedly found with these skimming devices sitting inside the gas pumps. The scam was first discovered when a California bank's fraud department discovered that multiple bank card victims reporting problems had all used the same gas pump at a 7-Eleven store in Utah.
8432170
submission
tugfoigel writes:
A Swiss millionaire has been handed down a record speeding fine of $290,000 (£180,000) by a court.
The man was reportedly caught driving a red Ferrari Testarossa at 137km/h (85mph) through a village.
The penalty was calculated based on the unnamed motorist's wealth — assessed by the court as $22.7m (£14.1m) — and because he was a repeat offender.
6991526
submission
tugfoigel writes:
Astrophysicists at the University of Warwick and Kiel University have discovered two earth sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres — however there is a bit of a disappointing snag for anyone looking for a potential home for alien life, or even a future home for ourselves, as they are not planets but are actually two unusual white dwarf stars.
6449517
submission
tugfoigel writes:
From the Boston Globe: For more than a century, carbon monoxide has been known as a deadly toxin. In an 1839 story, Edgar Allan Poe wrote of "miraculous lustre of the eye" and "nervous agitation" in what some believe are descriptions of carbon monoxide poisoning, and today, cigarette cartons warn of its health dangers.
But a growing body of research, much of it by local scientists, is revealing a paradox: the gas often called a silent killer could also be a medical treatment.
It seems like a radical contradiction, but animal studies show that in small, extremely controlled doses the gas has benefits in everything from infections to organ transplantation.
5131523
submission
tugfoigel writes:
Built by reader "Kevin" for a contest, this computer-controlled alarm clock is touted as the world's largest. To be more specific, he "mounted a large air cylinder to the head of [his] bed and a valve, controlled by a computer, which [he programmed] to wake [him] up in the morning."
3175495
submission
tugfoigel writes:
Jizhou Song, a professor in the University of Miami College of Engineering and his collaborators Professor John Rogers, at the University of Illinois and Professor Yonggang Huang, at Northwestern University have developed a new design for stretchable electronics that can be wrapped around complex shapes, without a reduction in electronic function.
The new mechanical design strategy is based on semiconductor nanomaterials that can offer high stretchability (e.g., 140%) and large twistability such as corkscrew twists with tight pitch (e.g., 90 degrees in 1 cm). Potential uses for the new design include electronic devices for eye cameras, smart surgical gloves, body parts, airplane wings, back planes for liquid crystal displays and biomedical devises.
