Showing posts with label Todays News. Show all posts
Japan Nuclear Plant's Power Lines Reconnected
TOKYO — The operator of Japan's leaking nuclear plant says power lines have been hooked up to all six reactor units, though more work is needed before electricity can run through them.
The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, announced the hookup Tuesday but cautioned that workers must check pumps, motors and other equipment before the electricity is turned on.
Reconnecting the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex to the electrical grid is a significant step in getting control of the overheated reactors and storage pools for spent fuels. But it is likely to be days if not longer before the cooling systems can be powered up, since damaged equipment needs to be replaced and any volatile gas must be vented to avoid an explosion.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AP) – Weariness and anxiety percolated Tuesday among people who left their homes near Japan's radiation-shedding nuclear complex as workers tried urgently to cool an overheated storage pool and methodically to reconnect critical cooling systems.
In another day of progress and setbacks, a pool holding spent nuclear fuel heated up to around the boiling point, a nuclear safety official said. With water bubbling away, there is a risk that more radioactive steam could spew out. "We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible," said the official, Hidehiko Nishiyama.
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It wasn't clear if crews had to retreat to stop work hooking up electrical systems and checking machinery to power up cooling systems.
People at Fukushima city's main evacuation center waited in long lines for bowls of hot noodle soup. A truck delivered toilet paper and blankets. Many among the 1,400 people living in the crowded gymnasium came from communities near the nuclear plant and worry about radiation and weary of the daily routine of the displaced.
"It was an act of God," said Yoshihiro Amano, a grocery store owner whose house is 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the reactors. "It won't help anything to get angry. But we are worried. We don't know if it will takes days, months or decades to go home. Maybe never. We are just starting to be able to think ahead to that."
Public sentiment is such that Fukushima's governor rejected a meeting offered by the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the utility that runs the nuclear plant.
"What is most important is for TEPCO to end the crisis with maximum effort. So I rejected the offer," Gov. Yuhei Sato said on national broadcaster NHK. "Considering the anxiety, anger and exasperation being felt by people in Fukushima, there is just no way for me to accept their apology."
The nuclear crisis has added a broader dimension to the disaster unleashed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that pulverized the northeast coast, leaving more than 9,000 dead by official count and twice that in police estimates.
Three of Japan's marquee companies – Sony Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. – announced halts to production at plants in Japan. The reason is a shortage of parts – a result of so many ruined factories in the disaster area.
Fears about radiation are reaching well beyond those living near Fukushima and the 430,000 displaced by the earthquake and tsunami to encompass large segments of Japan. Traces of radiation are being found in vegetables and raw milk from a swath of farmland, forcing a government ban on sales from those areas.
Seawater near the Fukushima plant is showing elevated levels of radioactive iodine and cesium, prompting the government to test seafood.
China, Japan's largest trading partner, has ordered testing of imports of Japanese food. The World Health Organization has urged Japan to adopt stricter measures and reassure the public.
Government officials and health experts say the doses are low and not a threat to human health unless the tainted products are consumed in abnormally excessive quantities. But the government measures to release data on radiation amounts, halt sales of some foods and test others are feeding public worries that the situation may grow more dire.
"We acknowledge this situation has caused anxiety among the general public but even if the accident hadn't happened we would be monitoring and taking action if the government's very conservative standards are exceeded," the government's spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said at a briefing.
In the first five days after the disasters struck, the Fukushima complex saw explosions and fires in four of the plant's six reactors, and the leaking of radioactive steam into the air. Since then, progress has been made cooling the active reactors and replenishing spent fuel pool, though setbacks have occurred.
The bubbling in Unit 2's storage pool is worrisome. If unabated, the water could boil away, exposing fuel rods that would throw up more radiation. At extremely high temperatures, the zirconium cladding around the rods could melt and explode.
Nishiyama, the agency official, said the rods had been partly exposed; an agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo believed the rods remained covered.
An official of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in Washington that Units 1, 2 and 3 have all seen damage to their reactor cores, but that containment is intact. The commission's executive director, Bill Borchardt, said that "things appear to be on the verge of stabilizing."
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said that radiation seeping into the environment is a concern and needs to be monitored. "We are still in an accident that is still in a very serious situation," said Graham Andrew, senior adviser to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.
IAEA monitoring stations have detected radiation 1,600 times higher than normal levels – but in an area about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the power station, the limit of the evacuation area declared by the government last week.
Radiation at that level, while not high for a single burst, could harm health if sustained. If projected to last three days, radiation at those levels would U.S. authorities would order an evacuation as a precaution.
The levels drop dramatically the further you go from the nuclear complex. In Tokyo, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) south of the plant, levels in recent days have been higher than normal for the city but still only a third of the global average for naturally occurring background radiation.
WikiLeaks Cables Cause Uproar in India Over Nuke Deal With US
Indian politicians are in a stew over cables released by WikiLeaks suggesting that Indian lawmakers were paid millions of dollars to vote in favor of a civil nuclear deal with the U.S.
The deal was regarded as a milestone in Indo-American relations. But it was opposed by several groups in India, especially the Communist Party, which withdrew support from the governing coalition as the deal was being finalized in 2008.
Brinda Karat, a senior leader of the Communist Party, told AOL News that the cables exposed how Congress Party leaders tried to "whitewash the political crimes that have been committed."
The 2008 civil nuclear agreement was a first step in repairing India-U.S. relations, which had worsened after the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on India for conducting underground nuclear tests in 1998.
The deal was signed under the Bush administration and is still being finessed by the Obama administration, which hosted its first state dinner in 2009 for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The leaked cable, published in The Hindu, said that an Indian political aide showed an American diplomat two chests of cash, allegedly part of a $25 million fund to pay for votes.
Before the vote of confidence on the nuclear deal in 2008, leaders of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, produced cash on the floor of the House and claimed that votes had been bought. A subsequent investigation, however, did not lead to any concrete findings.
The cables have brought the issue to the forefront again, according to Karat, who has called on Congress Party leaders to confess and asked the government to conduct criminal prosecutions immediately.
Several analysts in India have expressed concern that the government is bending over backward to accommodate the U.S., which they say is running the show.
The immediate question, however, is whether the Congress-led government will survive. Many observers have suggested that this scandal -- like many others -- will blow over, especially because the allegations are old and the deal has moved forward since then. And WikiLeaks has said that it will reveal more India-related cables, which could distract the public and media with another scandal.
"In normal circumstances, the government would not survive, but we don't live in normal times. ... The corruption has become so deep-rooted," said Prashant Bhushan, a prominent Indian lawyer and activist, who convinced the Supreme Court to investigate the loss of $40 billion from the Indian Treasury in the "2G Spectrum" scam last year.
Still, Bhushan observed that the fragile polity, if hit with another blow, could crumble in the coming months.
Following the recent uproar, Prime Minister Singh told the Indian Parliament that the cables were "speculative, unverified and unverifiable."
"It is unfortunate that the opposition continues to raise old charges that have been debated, discussed and rejected by the people of India," he said last week.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, however, insists that the cables are authentic and that Singh is misleading the public.
"The comments that I've been hearing from Prime Minister Singh, these to me seem like a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by suggesting that governments around the world do not accept this material and that it's not verified," Assange told Indian news channel NDTV.
"That does not mean every fact in them is correct. You have to look at their sources and how they gave this information," he said Monday.
Shoma Chaudhury, the managing editor of Tehelka, an Indian news magazine known for its undercover exposes, argues that the cables have too many "ifs and buts" and are only of "speculative value."
"They are not conclusive by a long shot," she said, adding that the Indian political aide who showed the money to the American official was a junior operative and could have been exaggerating.
While the Congress Party has been mired in a series of billion-dollar corruption scams, its soft-spoken leader is generally regarded as being clean. But in the wake of the new scandal, the BJP has called for his resignation.
It is unlikely that the current scandal will lead to Singh's resignation, according to Vinod Mudgal, who runs a project to improve rural livelihood in India that includes more transparency in governance.
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"In South Asia, corruption is endemic ... The poor have to pay more bribes than the rich in their everyday life," he said. "But there will be a limited impact."
Today, the opposition staged a walkout of a parliamentary session, saying Singh had misled the House in 2008 by claiming that lawmakers had not been bribed.
But the BJP hasn't escaped the scandal unscathed. Shortly after the first revelation, WikiLeaks released cables that suggested the opposition party publicly slammed the nuclear deal but privately reassured the Americans they were OK with it.
"The result of all this is that even the opposition party has no moral authority," Bhushan said.
The BJP has denied engaging in any hypocrisy.
Source: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/wikileaks-cables-cause-uproar-in-india-over-nuke-deal-with-us/
Verizon fastest among 4G networks
Verizon's 4G network proved the fastest and most consistent among those of the four major U.S. carriers, according to a study (PDF) out today by mobile testing company RootMetrics.
With the four (but soon to be three, what with yesterday's surprise announcement that AT&T plans to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion) major carriers all trumpeting the respective performance of their own high-speed mobile networks, RootMetrics set out to determine which was truly the speediest by testing 4G-capable phones from each one.
Included in the study were the HTC Thunderbolt running on Verizon's LTE network, the HTC Inspire on AT&T's HSPA+ network, the HTC Evo on Sprint's WiMax network, and the Samsung Galaxy S on T-Mobile's HSPA+21 network. The testing was done solely in Seattle near RootMetrics' offices in Bellevue, Washington.
Though the term 4G is bandied about rather loosely in the industry, for the purposes of the study Metrics referred to each carrier's network as 4G.
Measuring upload and download performance as one part of the test, RootMetrics found that Verizon's LTE delivered the best speeds, averaging between 4 and 14.5 times faster than the competition in downloads and between 4.7 and 49.3 times faster in uploads. Beyond mere speed, though, the test looked at the ability to both achieve and maintain those high speeds. And here, Verizon also scored on top.
RootMetrics discovered that Verizon managed to deliver download speeds above 10 megabits per second almost 90 percent of the time and average upload speeds between 5Mbps and 10Mbps fully 100 percent of the time. Further, Verizon's LTE network was available 100 percent of the time, both in the car and in a fixed location.
In comparison, T-Mobile and Sprint tied statistically for second place overall, though T-Mobile's HSPA+21 network offered a slightly higher average download speed of 4.42Mbps over Sprint's WiMax at 4.4Mbps. T-Mobile's upload speed fared better as well, averaging 1.29Mbps versus Sprint's 605 kilobits per second. Taking up the rear in speed was AT&T's HSPA+ network, which delivered average download speeds of 1.18Mbps and upload speeds of just 123Kbps.
Looking at reliability, RootMetrics was able to access Sprint's network 90 percent of the time and the networks from AT&T and T-Mobile 80 percent of the time. Further, the tests found that WiMax offered the most consistent download and upload speeds after Verizon, followed by T-Mobile and then AT&T.
How do the speeds that RootMetrics found compare with those touted by the carriers themselves?
For its LTE network, Verizon promises average speeds of 5Mbps to 12Mbps for downloads and 2Mbps to 5Mbps for uploads. AT&T points to download speeds up to around 6Mbps. Sprint promises average download speeds of 3Mbps to 6Mbps on its WiMax network. And T-Mobile's testing showed download speeds of close to 5Mbps.
To conduct its tests, RootMetrics drove around Seattle on March 18 with unaltered, off-the-shelf versions of the four smartphones tested, each outfitted with the Android 2.2 operating system. The testers also stopped at certain locations to gauge performance in a fixed location.
Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20045376-251.html#ixzz1HB4qQgzZ
NRC plans review as focus turns to nuclear fuel storage
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans to do a "systematic and methodical" review of U.S. nuclear facilities following the onset of the crisis earlier this month in Japan.
The NRC said today that it will study information from the situation in Japan--where a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunamis provoked a dangerous situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility--and conduct an assessment of nuclear power plants in the U.S. There will be a rapid, 90-day review and a longer review which could include regulatory action, according to reports.
"We have a high degree of confidence that at our 104 nuclear reactors there is an adequate basis to ensure adequate protection," Bill Borchardt, executive director for operations at the NRC, said at a Commission meeting, according to a report at E2 Wire.
Dry cask storage puts spent fuel assemblies are entombed in steel and concrete.
Dry cask storage puts spent fuel assemblies are entombed in steel and concrete.
(Credit: NRC)
The review comes at a time of growing concern over nuclear disasters in the U.S. and renewed calls to improve the safety of spent fuel from nuclear facilities. At the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, the spent fuel pools have emerged as one of the gravest dangers because they are not stored in metal and thick concrete structures as the reactors are.
In the U.S., there are under 100 tons of spent fuel stored at power plants, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. After they have been used to generate heat in the reactor, fuel is kept in pools of water that contain the radiation. Water is also circulated to remove the residual heat from the assemblies, which hold the nuclear fuel rods, for several years.
Because there isn't a central repository in the U.S. for storing spent nuclear fuel, many nuclear plants have a lot of spent nuclear fuel on site. The Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in New Hampshire, for example, had space for 20 years worth of spent fuel storage in pools but then needed to build a dry cask storage facility on site. The nuclear waste is covered in steel and concrete.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which released a report citing safety lapses at U.S. nuclear plants last week, noted that storing fuel in dry casks, rather than in pools, is safer from errors, natural disasters, and attacks.
"UCS has long recommended that spent fuel be transferred from the pool to dry cask storage once the fuel has cooled enough, after about five years. This is a major issue in the U.S. because U.S. pools are becoming increasingly packed with spent fuel," said Lisbeth Gronlund, the co-director of the global security program, in a blog post yesterday.
In particular, plant designs where nuclear fuel is stored above ground have come under fire. Massachusetts state attorney general Martha Coakley yesterday put out a statement pressing the NRC to review the spent fuel at two New England nuclear power plants--Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim. The Seabrook Power Plant was not subject of the complaint because it has below-grade storage.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20045486-54.html#ixzz1HB31P300
Googling Google On Google: Why Do People Do It? (POLL)
Have you ever Googled Google on Google? It's more common than you might think.
This strange search trend is becoming more and more popular over time, as evidenced from the graph below. Google users Googling Google on Google seems to most happen when Google is in the news, which makes sense.
Most recently, the release of Google executive Wael Ghonim in Egypt led to a spike in Google searches for "Google."
GRAPH: Google search volume for the term "Google" via Google Insights
The interesting thing about Googling Google is it requires some effort. When you type the letter "g" in Google, Google suggests "gmail" first, followed by "google maps," "google.com," and "google translate." Even when you type "Google," those top three suggests stay the same, followed by "google earth," and finally "google."
So why do people do it besides the news? Well, for one, maybe they're trying to have some fun. Maybe they just want to see what results would come up. Or, maybe, they've heard the rumor that Googling Google breaks the Internet.
Seriously. If you check forums, such as Yahoo Answers, questions are asked based on the rumor like this one: "Is it true you can break the Internet by googling google?" The top answer encourages the questioner to try Googling Google, and then adds, "However, I heard that if you yahoo yahoo, you'll die in 7 days."
But the best answer to the question is on WikiAnswers. In response to "Will Googling Google really break the Internet," someone says the following:
No. In fact, I google google using google a googol amount of times every day and I get results about other people googling google while using google and when im done googling with google I google on google maps to find googols of maps about google and then I google google videos of google which demonstrate google and how to google it and when Im finally done I google with google while I blog about having googled using google and if you google a googol amount of times you will find this blog about me googling about google using google to illustrate how my daily life of googling works.Another possibility for the trend: in some Web browsers, like Firefox and Safari, some accidentally Google Google in a search bar at the top simply because they are trying to access the Google website. The same may be true for some mobile browsers.
These are some reasons people might Google Google. Let us know in the comments if you have your own theories and we'll add some of the best ones to this post. And make sure you take our poll below!
Nintendo 3DS official details revealed: March 27, $249
* US release date: March 27, 2011
* MSRP: $249.99
* Confirmed third-party launch window games: The Sims (EA); Ridge Racer 3D (Namco Bandai); Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition (Capcom); Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D (Capcom); Dead of Alive: Dimensions (Tecmo); Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (Konami); Madden Football (EA); Asphalt 3D (Ubisoft); Combat of Giants (Ubisoft): Dinosaurs; Lego Star Wars (Lucasarts)
* Confirmed Nintendo launch window games: Pilotwings Resort; Nintendogs + Cats; SteelDiver; Kid Icarus Uprising; Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time;
* DS and DSi backwards compatible, including downloadable games
* 2GB SD card included
* Comes in blue and black
* The d-pad is augmented by a new analog mini-stick
* Includes a gyroscope and accelerometer
* Includes a charging dock instead of a traditional A/C cable
* Two camera lenses for 3D photography, plus one inward-facing camera
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20028802-1.html#ixzz1BQfud3GQ
Tablets That Could Take Down the iPad 2
A year ago, Apple started the whole tablet revolution with the iPad. From that point onwards till now, there have been many competitive tablets released in the market, but none seem to match up to the iPad. These 'iPad-killers' came with a feature or two that excelled; stuff like dual-cameras, a pocketable design or even the ability to make phone-calls. But the iPad's optimized Interface worked in its favor, while the rest ran Android 2.x, which was designed with smaller smartphone screens in mind. Thus these assassins failed to make a killing, and the iPad - despite its flaws - still thrives.
But things may take a dramatic change this year, especially after CES 2011 last week. Many of those awe-inspiring tablets that were only seen through the eyes of a blurry camera lens', came out of their closet and flaunted themselves. Many of these have some serious hardware and software that will not only easily challenge the ability of the current iPad, but should also serve a tough fight to the iPad 2, which is speculated to be officially unveiled in February. If you're planning to purchase a tablet this year, please consider the following points.
Motorola XOOM
The first Tablet running Android's codename Honeycomb OS was shown off in its prototype stages not too long ago. Today, we know it as the Motorola XOOM, the first tablet to run Google's "Made for Tablets" version of Android. From what we've seen of the new User Interface, the changes are major and nicely done.
But it is not just the software that Motorola can boast about with the XOOM. Although it shares the same 10-inch screen size of the iPad, the XOOM follows a wide-screen aspect ratio, which is better suited for watching videos. Its resolution is also higher than the current iPad (at a healthy 1280 x 800 pixels). It runs NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chip that has two 1GHz cores under the die. This coupled with 1GB of RAM should help the Interface fly. Not only that, it also helps the XOOM in accomplishing number-crunching tasks like playing 1080p HD videos directly.
The browser will support Adobe Flash 10.1. The XOOM has a 5 megapixel camera at the back that can shoot 720p HD video. At the front, there's a 2 megapixel cam that should theoretically support HD video-calling, whenever that makes its way in the future. There's 32GB internal memory and a microSD card slot that supports 32GB worth cards. Connectivity is served by 3G, Wi-fi and Bluetooth. The XOOM is also said to be 'upgradeable' with the mind-blazingly fast LTE 4G support. Battery life is also rated like the iPad's - 10 hours of video playback.
So, as you can see, Motorola has pretty much pulled off everything that one could possibly ask for in a tablet with the XOOM. Now only if they can pull this off at a competitive price tag and we've got ourselves a winner. Now the only question remains is of the apps -- but we don't have any doubts over tablet-optimized apps coming soon to Android 3.0 that will take advantage of the bigger screen. We're talking of Android after all, an OS that went from zero to 2,00,000 apps (and counting) apps in a little over two years.
But things may take a dramatic change this year, especially after CES 2011 last week. Many of those awe-inspiring tablets that were only seen through the eyes of a blurry camera lens', came out of their closet and flaunted themselves. Many of these have some serious hardware and software that will not only easily challenge the ability of the current iPad, but should also serve a tough fight to the iPad 2, which is speculated to be officially unveiled in February. If you're planning to purchase a tablet this year, please consider the following points.
Motorola XOOM
The first Tablet running Android's codename Honeycomb OS was shown off in its prototype stages not too long ago. Today, we know it as the Motorola XOOM, the first tablet to run Google's "Made for Tablets" version of Android. From what we've seen of the new User Interface, the changes are major and nicely done.
But it is not just the software that Motorola can boast about with the XOOM. Although it shares the same 10-inch screen size of the iPad, the XOOM follows a wide-screen aspect ratio, which is better suited for watching videos. Its resolution is also higher than the current iPad (at a healthy 1280 x 800 pixels). It runs NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chip that has two 1GHz cores under the die. This coupled with 1GB of RAM should help the Interface fly. Not only that, it also helps the XOOM in accomplishing number-crunching tasks like playing 1080p HD videos directly.
The browser will support Adobe Flash 10.1. The XOOM has a 5 megapixel camera at the back that can shoot 720p HD video. At the front, there's a 2 megapixel cam that should theoretically support HD video-calling, whenever that makes its way in the future. There's 32GB internal memory and a microSD card slot that supports 32GB worth cards. Connectivity is served by 3G, Wi-fi and Bluetooth. The XOOM is also said to be 'upgradeable' with the mind-blazingly fast LTE 4G support. Battery life is also rated like the iPad's - 10 hours of video playback.
So, as you can see, Motorola has pretty much pulled off everything that one could possibly ask for in a tablet with the XOOM. Now only if they can pull this off at a competitive price tag and we've got ourselves a winner. Now the only question remains is of the apps -- but we don't have any doubts over tablet-optimized apps coming soon to Android 3.0 that will take advantage of the bigger screen. We're talking of Android after all, an OS that went from zero to 2,00,000 apps (and counting) apps in a little over two years.
CDMA iPhone 4 Will Come to India: Morgan Stanley
It was one of the longest running rumors in the tech space to finally break into reality yesterday - Apple unveiling a CDMA iPhone 4 for US carrier Verizon. For those not aware, the CDMA iPhone 4 is almost similar to its GSM counterpart in features or form, except for the Android 2.2-like Mobile Hotspot feature that lets you turn your phone into a wi-fi router.
Today, Apple Insider has reported that an analyst from the global financial services firm Morgan Stanley is hopeful on the CDMA iPhone 4 reaching Indian waters. The report states that as Apple has signed a non-exclusive agreement with Verizon (unlike the five-year exclusive tie-up they had with AT&T for the GSM models), there's a possibility of it floating elsewhere.
The analyst suggested that Reliance from India could bag the CDMA iPhone 4, while China Telecom would bring it to that region. The GSM iPhone 4 was officially out in China, with the first batch being sold out within a week. While India has been waiting for a long time now to receive any kind of iPhone 4 - GSM or CDMA, Black or White.
India is in no way a small market for mobile phones - it's one of the two fastest growing mobile markets in the world right now. Also, 20 percent of India's 670 million mobile users are on CDMA networks. So, if the CDMA iPhone 4 does come, there ought to be a decent number of hopeful customers.
But then if you're the kind of person who really wants to get the latest in whatever available, then the iPhone 4 is going to arrive in just a few months after the iPhone 4G/5 launch in June 2011.
10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011
(Newser) – The economic crisis can be blamed for the death of quite a few large companies already—think Circuit City, Northwest Airlines, and Countrywide—so which ones can we expect to go bye-bye this year? Here are 10 American companies that seem unlikely to survive, from 24/7 Wall St. via Daily Finance:
- Office Depot: It can’t compete with Office Max or Staples, and is trying to manage 1,150 costly locations on very thin margins. A takeover by a rival or another chain like Target appears likely.
- Frontier Airlines: It was bankrupt when Republic Airways Holdings bought it in 2009, and is too small to compete with the larger airlines that are increasingly dominating the domestic carrier market.
- Sara Lee: With corporations and private equity firms circling, it looks likely that pieces of this company, specifically its coffee and meat businesses, will be broken off and sold off in the near future.
- Borders: Seems like only yesterday the bookseller was making a bid for Barnes & Noble, but the truth is the bookstore chain is facing bankruptcy. The big unknown: Will it be dissolved or snatched up by Barnes & Noble?
- Dollar Thrifty: Fellow rental car company Avis Budget may buy Dollar Thrifty, if the FTC approves the deal.
Click for the complete list, which includes a company that once mocked Lindsay Lohan…
Google Takes Spain's Privacy Laws to Court
source[http://www.newser.com/story/109898/google-takes-spains-privacy-laws-to-court.html]:
CES 2011: Synaptics Adds More Fingers To TouchPad Gestures[Video]
At CES, TechWeb's David Berlind learns about the newest technologies to come from touchpad maker Synaptics. These include the support of more complex gestures (involving up to 10 fingers) as well as better accuracy to prevent accidental gestures.
CES 2011: SugarSync Synchs Documents Across PCs, Smartphones, and Cloud
TechWeb's Fritz Nelson gets a demonstration of how SugarSync uses the cloud to automatically keep files perfectly in sync across multiple devices including most smartphones, PCs, Macs, and the cloud.
CES 2011: 64GB On Your Fingertip[Video]
CES 2011: ActionTec Wirelessly Distributes HD Video[Video]
Gina Smith hears about ActionTec's Wireless HDMI transmitter that lets you transmit your HD video content throughout your house. $199 for the pair (receiver and transmitter). Available in May/June 2011.
Will Tablets Make Us Less Creative?
Tablets like the iPad are great for consuming information but what about creating? (Photo Credit: Apple, Inc.)
If there was one thing obvious at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it's that just about every company in the consumer electronics industry envies the success of Apple's iPad.
Tablet PCs have been around for more than a decade. But until Apple came out with its little iPad, they simply never gained any traction. Microsoft certainly tried with various versions of its Windows tablet editions, starting with a version based on Windows XP. And at last year's CES, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a prototype of a Windows "slate" PC from Hewlett-Packard that was supposed to be aimed at consumers, but when it finally emerged in October 2010, it was an enterprise device released with little fanfare. In the meantime, HP acquired Palm and is expected to announce its own line of consumer-oriented tablets later this year based on Palm's webOS.
Besides Apple, the biggest player in tablets is likely to be Google, whose Android operating system is being adopted to work on scores of new tablet devices. Even before the tablet-friendly "Honeycomb" version of Android was announced, several companies, including Samsung, began shipping tablets based on phone-centric versions of Android.
End of PC Era?
With all the hype about tablets, it's no wonder that many observers, including my San Jose Mercury News colleague Troy Wolverton, have observed that the reign of the PC may be ending. Even Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who owes much of his fortune to the Apple II and Mac PCs, declared the PC to no longer be a consumer device, saying last June that "PCs are going to be like trucks," and that most people won't need them.
Jobs might be right but I'm not sure that's something to celebrate. His analogy to trucks refers back to a time when most people made their living growing food or working in trades and had to haul around goods or tools. Most of today's workers can get by with cars.
Great for Consuming but not Producing
After using an iPad for several months, I'm convinced its a great device for consuming media but not great for producing it. Just as we have fewer farmers and craft people using trucks to haul their goods to market, we'll have fewer people producing documents, spreadsheets, reports, software, professional quality videos and other "goods" that require a PC with a keyboard, a powerful processor, lots of storage and plenty of input ports for accessories.
Is that a good thing? I don't think so, especially if tablets wind up replacing PCs in schools.
Teaching Kids to Program
Unlike the iPad, Apple's ultra-lite MacBook Air has a full-sized keyboard to create and program (Photo: Apple, Inc)
There was a time when kids were encouraged not just to use PCs but to program them using tools like Logo, Apple's own HyperCard or even HTML to build their programs and websites from scratch. I admit that blogging or even posting status updates to Facebook can be creative work, and there certainly are many examples of kids being extremely creative with their video cameras and cell phone camcorders. But there's more to creativity than posting a clever phrase on a social networking site or pointing a camera toward a funny or interesting scene.
When your only keyboard is a virtual one on glass, you're less inclined to write serious essays, stories or books. And though we are seeing an explosion in video creation, there is also the art of video editing. That can be done on a tablet with the right software but -- for now at least -- can be done more effectively on a more powerful PC.
Smartphones and laptops have created an enormous demand for applications or "apps," and that represents an opportunity to keep the art of programming alive. But in the vast majority of cases, the preferred hardware for creating these apps are PCs and Macs, not tablets and phones.
Of course we're not going to see a complete end to productivity. Just as there are still a significant number of people who buy trucks to haul produce, products and tools, there will continue to be professional programmers, writers, accountants, videographers and others with access to whatever tools they need to do their job. But I worry that this group, just like farmers and skilled craft people, will become a smaller and smaller segment of our population. And I'm especially worried that an increasing number of them will be working from outside the United States at lower wages.
I fear we are becoming a nation of technology consumers rather than creators. Whatever form factor we wind up having in the technology in our homes and schools, I want it to be useful for helping young people understand how to build, program and enhance the technology itself.
I give Steve Jobs a lot of credit for creating products that make it easy for the rest of us to consume technology. But I also want to make sure that our kids have the same opportunity as Job's one-time partner Steve Wozniak had to help create the technologies that they and their children will use.
This post is adapted from a column that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News
CES 2011: Motorola's Atrix 4G is Powerful Enough to Run its own Laptop [Video]
Motorola's Atrix 4G is a dual-core 1GHz platform smartphone that powers it's own laptop docking station to bring WebTop to life.
CES 2011: Cyberlink Speeds Up Video Editing Suite With 64-Bit Support
TechWeb's Dan Resciniti (who edits a lot of TechWebTV's videos) gets up close and personal with Cyberlink's latest video editing suite: PowerDirector 9. Cyberlink says its reliance on 64-bit computing and the GPU are what make PD9 a lot faster.
CES 2011: Hybrid Notebook Lenovo U1 and tablet LePad presented officially
Lenovo has officially unveiled the tablet LePad operating system Android 2.2. Remember, this model was in a separate product from the hybrid notebook IdeaPad U1 and repeatedly recycled and, finally, appeared in the final version.
CES 2011: Hybrid Notebook Lenovo U1 and tablet LePad presented officially
CES 2011: Hybrid Notebook Lenovo U1 and tablet LePad presented officially
Thus, for LePad proposed dock IdeaPad U1, which will turn it into a full-fledged mini-laptop based on the operating system, Windows 7 Home Premium and energy efficient CPU Intel Core i5-540UM clocked at 1.2 GHz. Also among the characteristics IdeaPad U1 - Integrated Graphics Intel HD, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive on and the USB ports and HDMI. Issue IdeaPad U1 and LePad held in the first quarter of this year, first in China. The cost of both products starts at $ 1300, but the tablet can be bought separately, at least for $ 520.
CES 2011: RIM's PlayBook Tablet Gets First Public Preview [Video]
CES 2011: RIM's PlayBook Tablet Gets First Public Preview
Microsoft invites iPad users to participate in a study
If you happen to be an iPad user living in the area, you can hit up the Facebook page for the event and let Microsoft know if you’re available for two hours sometime between July 16th and July 21st.
It’s interesting that the study isn’t asking for tablet PC users… but rather for iPad users. While Microsoft isn’t spilling any details about the study, it sounds like the company is interested in finding out how people use the Apple tablet, what they like about it, and what they don’t like about it.
Or maybe Microsoft just wants to hand these people shiny new Windows 7 slates and see how they compare. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if they handed them Windows 7 Slates and told them they were new versions of the iPad with special software to see what they think… it wouldn’t be all that different from the Mojave Experiment Microsoft pulled a few years back when researchers told people they were using the “next Microsoft OS” without mentioning the fact that it was really the much-maligned Windows Vista.
Then again, perhaps this is an indication that Microsoft really is developing software for the iPad… or plans to launch a Windows Phone 7-based tablet to compete with it. Only time will tell.
via Electronista
