Eco Factor: Zero-emission vehicle powered by an electric engine.
Chevrolet and Reva have been working together on an all-electric small car for the Indian market, and their first effort is being displayed at the New Delhi Auto Expo in the form of an all-electric variant of Chevrolet Spark. Dubbed the e-Spark, the vehicle will be India’s first four-door electric vehicle.
Dr. Sanjay Jha introduces the Motorola Backflip
The newest Motorola phone might initially look like a Cliq, but the Backflip has a new trick behind it. Literally. You can actually navigate the phone with a finger on the backside of the Motorola Backflip. Taps and double-taps are supported as is mouse-pad style navigation. In fact, the entire phone has a backwards look and feel to it because the QWERTY keypad flips in the opposite way you’d expect — the keyboard is always exposed as a result.
The display looked vivid, and the keys appear generous in size. But aside from the new navigation method, this largely looks like a modest refresh of the Cliq to me: Android 1.5, 5-megapixel camera, 528 MHz CPU, 3G, Wi-Fi and MOTOBLUR.
On a different note, Motorola’s Sanjay Jha stated that the Cliq would be updated to Android 2.1, but no time frame was provided. If that’s the case, I expect the same upgrade to apply to the Backflip. No carrier partners were announced yet, but the price-to-be-determined phone will be sold in the U.S. as well as other countries around the world before April.
The movie, which is set for release on Friday, was made by musician Avdhoot Gupte, who is a close associate of Sena chief Bal Thackeray.
Avdhoot had kept a special screening show of the movie for Thackeray and got approval from him, last week.
However, MNS activists, who watched the film today conveyed their anger to the filmmaker.
“We condemned the movie and also conveyed our feelings to filmmaker Avdhoot Gupte.
“This is a film of today’s Marathi (from Maharashtra state) youth, Marathi ‘yuva’ (youth). It is a fact that that when you watchthe film , you can relate a few characters with respected Uddhav-sahib Thackeray and Raj-sahib Thackeray, and a few more. But you will realize that this plot, this concept or this story could have happened in any other plot, like you are asking me about ShivSena or MNS; this could have happened in some other political party, also,” said Avdhoot Gupte, who is also the producer of themovie . “It is about today’s youth of Maharashtra, his dreams, his attitude towards his life, his ideologies, and you know, his overall attitude of looking at his own country – Maharashtra – and his own progress,” he claims.
Gupte added that the non-Maharashtrians would be more curious to watch the film, and it may be released in some multiplexes with subtitles. He said that if the movie gets a good response, then it would be dubbed in other languages, as well.
The film is slated for release on January 08, 2010, in theatres across Maharashtra state.
Earlier also many Indian films like Ram Gopal Verma’s Sarkaar and ‘Sarkaar Raj’ have been made inspired by dynastic politics and political leaders, in particular the Shiv Sena.
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The Council of Parties 15 (COP15) UN Climate Change Conference was reminiscent of many alphabet soup economic summits: World Heads of State came together in a mid-sized city to discuss pressing issues of the day, a clamoring from marginalized civil society organizations for a stronger voice (or from being barred entry), met with mass demonstrations from diverse perspectives. And similar to recent WTO meetings, the COP15 exposed the same tension between interests and demands from countries of the Global North and South. A major difference was the intent to address the climate crisis and our endangered planet; the tens of thousands of people outside the meetings were there to challenge our world leaders to go further in their commitments and asking for more from the deliberations (while also demanding a “seat at the table”), rather than attempting to break up the talks a la WTO, World Bank, or IMF.
People’s cautious hope for a global, binding agreement and commitment to cooling the warming planet was justified, but unfulfilled. Negotiations early in the talks stalled, and a scramble later from presidents and prime ministers came up empty. No binding agreement was reached, delaying any enforcable or standardized way to address climate change until later talks (though President Obama and other US lawmakers lauded a “good first step” towards an agreement). Some of the biggest polluters such as China and India were looked at as culprits by some First World countries, especially as China refused to open up to any external oversight.
Yet as these countries continue to develop and increase their footprint through growth of both population and industrial technology, the debt owed to the developing countries for the past decades of carbon emissions, and the worst per capita polluters resistance to regulations, contributed to a WTO-reminiscent rift between First and Third worlds. The main notable commitment negotiators could agree upon was that the science requires us to (somehow) prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees – which representatives from island nations said could almost completely destroy them. World leaders jockeyed for an economic advantage by trying to be sure that the agreement wouldn’t hurt the bottom line – putting us and the earth at an extreme disadvantage. Though some funding was committed to help developing countries install clean energy and cut emissions, those countries also say it’s nowhere near enough.
Some reactions from environmental NGOs and activists such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, World Development Movement, Bill McKibben, and climate scientest Jim Hansen saw the talks as a failure, while World Wildlife Fund, National Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club were glad to see one step in the right direction. Out in the streets, some of the largest demonstrations of the decade took place, along with an alternate Klimaforum09 featuring 50,000 activists and speakers such as Vandana Shiva and Naomi Klein. The Yes Men were in action as well, exposing the truth about Canada’s dangerous environmental policies. “Climate Justice” was certainly the rallying cry outside the talks, perhaps emboldening negotiators and activists from developing nations on the inside, and marking the “emergence” of the Climate Justice Movement. North-South coalitions engaged in non-violent direct action in a Reclaim Power! demonstration, and many different actions took place during the weeks of the talks. On some days, issues such as agriculture, borders, farmers’ rights, and reparations for climate debt became the focus. Police reaction also became a problem, with raids on activist houses before demonstrations, violent suppression of marches and rallies, and 968 people detained at one December 12th action. For continued coverage and support of the demonstrations, check out http://www.climate-justice-action.org/.
Eco Factor: Energy-efficient floating home concept.
The Tafoni Floating Home by American designer Joanna Borek Clement has been designed to change people’s attitude about living on a houseboat. The minimal concept features several sustainable additions that reduce the amount of energy required.
Why don’t I see the "Manage Attachments" in this forum like other forums using vBulletin. If this is already asked, please point me to the post.
I am trying to embed(swf) flash file.
Thanks.
Vijaya Karnataka ePaper Daily Newspaper- Login to www.vijaykarnatakaepaper.com:
www.vijaykarnatakaepaper.com allows you to direct access. At there, you can login on its home page. To read the news, click on direct access. You will get the news page, click on that news, which you want to read. You can enter the keywords for advance search. You can see at there four options like,
* My News,
* My Clips,
* My Preferences
* My Photos
VRL group founded this newspaper, which distributed free of cost for one month during its initial days. Afterward it was sold for Rs. 1; it had all the pages printed in color, which was the specialty of this newspaper. The Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. are publishers of India’s leading news paper, The Times of India, recently bought the news paper along with other sister publications.
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Over at the ongoing CES 2010 press conference, Sony brought Super Stardust HD. Oh, by the way, did we mention it was in 3D?
The movie, which is set for release on Friday, was made by musician Avdhoot Gupte, who is a close associate of Sena chief Bal Thackeray.
Avdhoot had kept a special screening show of the movie for Thackeray and got approval from him, last week.
However, MNS activists, who watched the film today conveyed their anger to the filmmaker.
“We condemned the movie and also conveyed our feelings to filmmaker Avdhoot Gupte.
“This is a film of today’s Marathi (from Maharashtra state) youth, Marathi ‘yuva’ (youth). It is a fact that that when you watchthe film , you can relate a few characters with respected Uddhav-sahib Thackeray and Raj-sahib Thackeray, and a few more. But you will realize that this plot, this concept or this story could have happened in any other plot, like you are asking me about ShivSena or MNS; this could have happened in some other political party, also,” said Avdhoot Gupte, who is also the producer of themovie . “It is about today’s youth of Maharashtra, his dreams, his attitude towards his life, his ideologies, and you know, his overall attitude of looking at his own country – Maharashtra – and his own progress,” he claims.
Gupte added that the non-Maharashtrians would be more curious to watch the film, and it may be released in some multiplexes with subtitles. He said that if the movie gets a good response, then it would be dubbed in other languages, as well.
The film is slated for release on January 08, 2010, in theatres across Maharashtra state.
Earlier also many Indian films like Ram Gopal Verma’s Sarkaar and ‘Sarkaar Raj’ have been made inspired by dynastic politics and political leaders, in particular the Shiv Sena.
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The airline industry is often targeted for its excessive greenhouse gas emissions, Vermont is trying to make one of its airports more eco-friendly. Heritage Aviation at Burlington International has installed its first wind turbine and 120 solar panels. UPI reports:
“We’re proud to be on the leading edge of energy efficiency, corporate responsibility and environmental stewardship, in our region and in the aviation industry,” said Christopher Hill, president of Heritage Aviation.
Heritage Aviation is the sole fixed base operator at Burlington International Airport. Hangars and other facilities at the airport include rainwater collection systems and one of the largest so-called green roofs in New England.
The movie, which is set for release on Friday, was made by musician Avdhoot Gupte, who is a close associate of Sena chief Bal Thackeray.
Avdhoot had kept a special screening show of the movie for Thackeray and got approval from him, last week.
However, MNS activists, who watched the film today conveyed their anger to the filmmaker.
“We condemned the movie and also conveyed our feelings to filmmaker Avdhoot Gupte.
“This is a film of today’s Marathi (from Maharashtra state) youth, Marathi ‘yuva’ (youth). It is a fact that that when you watchthe film , you can relate a few characters with respected Uddhav-sahib Thackeray and Raj-sahib Thackeray, and a few more. But you will realize that this plot, this concept or this story could have happened in any other plot, like you are asking me about ShivSena or MNS; this could have happened in some other political party, also,” said Avdhoot Gupte, who is also the producer of themovie . “It is about today’s youth of Maharashtra, his dreams, his attitude towards his life, his ideologies, and you know, his overall attitude of looking at his own country – Maharashtra – and his own progress,” he claims.
Gupte added that the non-Maharashtrians would be more curious to watch the film, and it may be released in some multiplexes with subtitles. He said that if the movie gets a good response, then it would be dubbed in other languages, as well.
The film is slated for release on January 08, 2010, in theatres across Maharashtra state.
Earlier also many Indian films like Ram Gopal Verma’s Sarkaar and ‘Sarkaar Raj’ have been made inspired by dynastic politics and political leaders, in particular the Shiv Sena.
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Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Last month I wrote an essay about the future of evolution for Science. I paid particularly close attention to what will happen to our own species, describing some recent research and ideas from scientists. Natural selection will not stop, nor will the emergence of new, neutral mutations.
But this week, the evolutionary biologist Michael Lynch has published a provocative paper (to mark his inauguration into the National Academy of Sciences) in which he makes another kind of forecast. Our future evolution, he warns, is going to lead to a devastating decline in our health.
The idea is not new. Hermann Muller, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on mutations, first raised the specter of evolutionary decline in 1950. He pointed out that many mutations that arise in a population are harmful. They can cause various diseases, cutting lives short or making it harder for organisms to reproduce. Left to themselves, these mutations can drive down the reproductive rate of a population. But their harmful effects can be balanced by natural selection. If individuals with harmful mutations have fewer offspring than other individuals, the mutations become less common. Overall, the population can continue to reproduce at a healthy rate.
As Lynch points out, Muller’s argument depended on the actual rate of mutations and other vital statistics that no one in the 1950s could know with much precision. But in his new paper, Lynch surveys recent studies that make it possible to know the mutation rate quite well. Lynch concludes that every gamete (a sperm or egg) acquires the following:
–38 base-substitution mutations (a single “letter” of DNA changes to another one).
–3 small insertions or deletions of a stretch of DNA
–1 splicing mutation (which changes the combination of segments of a gene that cells use to build proteins)
–Plus some assorted other mutations (gene duplications, insertions of DNA copied by transposable elements, and so on).
All told, Lynch estimates a total of 50 to 100 mutations.
Compared to other species, Lynch points out, we mutate a lot. Any base in our DNA is twice as likely to mutate as a base in a fruit fly’s DNA, for example. Part of our special burden is our long life. As sperm divide rapidly during a man’s life, they pick up lots of new mutations. We are also left prone to cancer, as our skin, intestines, and other tissues continue to divide and sometimes pick up new mutations.
A lot of the new mutations in every new baby are harmless. But each baby may acquire a few harmful ones. These mutations rarely cause a swift death. Instead, in their totality, they slice off a tiny fraction of the total offspring an entire population can produce. Lynch estimates that mutations to protein-coding DNA cause the fitness of a population to decline by 1%. That’s assuming natural selection does not favor other mutations over these harmful ones.
Lynch acknowledges that natural selection is still in effect in humans, particularly in places where people never see doctors, let alone get clean drinking water. But as the world’s standard of living goes up, he argues, more and more people are being shielded from natural selection’s most intense effects–and harmful mutations are piling up.
In a matter of a few centuries, Lynch predicts, industrialized societies may experience a huge increase in harmful genes–”with significant incapacitation at the morphological, physiological, and neurobiological levels,” he writes.
Battling this decline won’t be easy, says Lynch. Rather than a few big mutations causing the trouble, the decline will be brought about by a vast number of mutations, each with a very small effect. The fantasies of selective breeding dreamed of by eugenicists aren’t just loathesome–they’re also useless. Instead, Lynch argues for something that would make the eugenicists crazy. “Ironically, the genetic future of mankind may reside predominantly in the gene pools of the least industrialized segments of society,” he writes.
The movie, which is set for release on Friday, was made by musician Avdhoot Gupte, who is a close associate of Sena chief Bal Thackeray.
Avdhoot had kept a special screening show of the movie for Thackeray and got approval from him, last week.
However, MNS activists, who watched the film today conveyed their anger to the filmmaker.
“We condemned the movie and also conveyed our feelings to filmmaker Avdhoot Gupte.
“This is a film of today’s Marathi (from Maharashtra state) youth, Marathi ‘yuva’ (youth). It is a fact that that when you watch the film, you can relate a few characters with respected Uddhav-sahib Thackeray and Raj-sahib Thackeray, and a few more. But you will realize that this plot, this concept or this story could have happened in any other plot, like you are asking me about ShivSena or MNS; this could have happened in some other political party, also,” said Avdhoot Gupte, who is also the producer of the movie. “It is about today’s youth of Maharashtra, his dreams, his attitude towards his life, his ideologies, and you know, his overall attitude of looking at his own country – Maharashtra – and his own progress,” he claims.
Gupte added that the non-Maharashtrians would be more curious to watch the film, and it may be released in some multiplexes with subtitles. He said that if the movie gets a good response, then it would be dubbed in other languages, as well.
The film is slated for release on January 08, 2010, in theatres across Maharashtra state.
Earlier also many Indian films like Ram Gopal Verma’s Sarkaar and ‘Sarkaar Raj’ have been made inspired by dynastic politics and political leaders, in particular the Shiv Sena.
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Clive Thompson has a blog post about how he took a photo at a Canadian art gallery of his son staring at a painting, after noticing how similar some paintings from a hundred years ago were to some modern paintings done by a friend — and recognizing that both were actually inspired by a third school of art. He notes that he was able to appreciate the old paintings much more (despite having seen them years ago) because of his understanding of his friend’s more recent paintings. And immediately after snapping the photo, he got in trouble for it, as the museum said it had to block photographs for copyright reasons. As Thompson explains:
It reminded me of a point often made by folks who fight overly-aggressive copyright laws: All new art is based on art that came before, so copyright law ought not to be too rigid. If you can’t remix and resample and re-use art — after a reasonable term of exclusivity for the original creators, who in this case are long dead — then culture dies. More subtly yet, our appreciation for earlier art dies if our contemporary artists cannot easily plunder the styles and content of their forebears.The irony here is that the instant after I snapped this picture, the security guards of the Art Gallery of Ontario raced over to (politely) warn me that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. Why? Well, some art galleries disallow photos because flashes can damage paintings, a prohibition that makes total sense. But my iPhone doesn’t have a flash. No, the Art Gallery of Ontario prohibits photographs of artwork because of copyright restrictions…. It’s even more daft when you consider that I’m basically doing free promotion here.You want people to visit galleries? Well, surely one good way is to let visitors take and post photos of their little kids spellbound by major works of art.
Many copyright defenders continue to insist that nothing is “lost” by stricter copyright rules, but you can’t always quantify what never happens — and Thompson does a good job showing how overly restrictive rules can, in fact, limit how we learn or appreciate art, by flat out limiting new ways that people can get exposed to works.
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Eco Factor: Human-powered recumbent bicycle.
Bicycles are often criticized as vehicles that are slow and can’t shade you from bad climate, but velomobiles are different, they’re three-wheeled and do protect you in a streamlined shell for more speed and protection. Byess, the developers of Go-One3, are back again with an even better vehicle dubbed the Go-One Evolution.
Microsoft just wrapped its CES keynote speech and it was predictably uninspiring. Despite its blandness, Ballmer and Bach did reveal some information that qualifies as borderline newsworthy. First up, Microsoft debuted a prototype tablet powered by Windows 7 and manufactured by HP. Sadly, the rumored Courier was no where to be found. Mr. Ballmer also unveiled the T-Mobile HD2 but thanks to T-Mobile’s twitter account, we had advance warning. Last but not least and probably the best news of all is Project Natal, Microsoft’s motion controlled gaming peripheral, is slated to arrive in time for the holiday 2010 shopping season. For those that want a closer look at the prototype HP Slate, a few press photos are after the jump.
Read [Microsoft CES Press Release] Read [HP Slate]
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How frustrating to be the mayor of a small town without good broadband access today. Imagine trying to entice businesses or entrepreneurs to a region where the best Internet option is the slow DSL most of us discarded nearly a decade ago for faster speeds.
The “broadband market” in much of the US happily provides snail-speed connections at inflated prices when compared to many of our peer nations. Cable and telephone companies see little reason to upgrade these networks—the low population density does not lend itself to quickly recovering investments.
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1/7/2010 12:15 AM ET
(RTTNews) – Symetra Financial Corp., a life insurance company, revealed in an amended filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it estimates pricing its initial public offering of 27 million shares of its common stock in the range of $12 to $14 per share.
Bellevue, Washington-based Symetra is selling 17.25 million shares and selling stockholders are offering 9.74 million shares in this offering. Symetra said it has applied to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SYA”
Symetra currently expects the proposed maximum aggregate offering price to be $434.7 million, including 4.05 million shares issuable upon exercise of underwriters’ over-allotment option. The company had earlier estimated maximum proceeds of $575 million from the offering.
The company also clarified that it will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by selling stockholders. The net primary proceeds from the offering is expected to be approximately $208.3 million, with the company planning to use it for general corporate purposes.
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Barclays Capital Inc. are acting as joint book-running managers and as representatives of underwriters.
According to the filing, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKa: News ), White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd., Franklin Mutual Advisers, LLC, Caxton Associates LP, Vestar Capital Partners and Highfields Capital Management LP hold notable stakes in the company.
Assuming full exercise of over-allotment option, Berkshire and White Mountains each will beneficially own 21.8% stake after the offering. The two largest stockholders each owns 26.88 million shares of the company.
For the nine months ended September 30, 2009, Symetra posted net income of $96.2 million and generated total revenues of $1.27 billion, compared to $27 million and $1.1 billion, respectively, in the same period in 2008.
With Symetra expected to be the first company to come public in 2010, the IPO market started its count of expected rollouts. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based DynaVox Inc., a provider of speech generating technology, and Beijing-based IFM Investments Ltd., a provider of real estate services, are waiting in the wings following their IPO filings.
DynaVox, which plans to sell up to $125 million worth of Class A common stock, intends to list its stock on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “DVOX”, and IFM Investments, which estimates to sell up to US$184 million worth of ADSs, plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “CTC”.
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From Amazon – Apple iPod touch 32 GB (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL
Samsung’s pico projecting W9600 gets a brief hands on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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