Good Morning America weather anchor Sam Champion and Philippe Cousteau Jr. , renowned environmentalist and oceanographer, dove into the Gulf for the first underwater look at what the dispersant Corexit has done. BP has used this dispersant widely, despite safety concerns from the Environmental Protection Agency:
New Rock Band to feature the keytar – because as we all know, everyone loves keytars
Black Kindle spotted and (barely) pictured
Why haven’t our clichés been updated to better reflect today’s technology?
Video game addiction: The same as getting high on cocaine?
Exploded Andy: A t-shirt for Android fans
Here’s the fourth episode of the Audi A1 Next Big Thing movie featuring Justin Timberlake and this is more of what we like to see – some serious A1 driving action. The guy in the rabbit jacket is gone, thank heavens and we can enjoy a car park drive off in our favourite A1 colour – red. Enjoy.
Eco Factor: Zero-emission electric car harnesses renewable solar energy.
The Opel Flow is a concept vehicle designed by Miika Heikkinen to represent Opel in the year 2049. The Flow is a single-seat zero-emission vehicle that allows people to navigate the city in a relaxed and clean way. When not in use the vehicle integrates to the infrastructure to provide resting places and to recharge onboard batteries.
The vehicle is intended to be made using lightweight materials and includes clear solar panels as the main power source. The Flow comes with an adjusting seat for more comfort. The weight of the battery packs keeps the vehicle stable.
The vehicle includes electric motors in the wheels. In addition to generating solar power for recharging the batteries, the vehicle’s chassis also collects energy from the body’s movement.
Via: Miika Heikkinen
When Verizon launched Skype Mobile for their Android phones earlier this year, we were under the impression they had locked up a long-term exclusive deal. Skype removed the Skype Lite client from the Android Market and only Verizon customers were allowed to download the full version of their app.
Now we learn that Skype Mobile for Android will be coming to all carriers around the globe and it will happen later this year. Skatter Tech questioned Skype when they would release Skype Mobile for the Sprint EVO and they responded with the good news. Android users can currently connect to Skype through apps like Fring and Nimbuzz, but many have longed for the official client.
Skype will also be taking on Fring and Qik with their own video calling service. Over one third of Skype’s calls happen via video so it makes sense for them to implement this feature now that we have Android phones with front-facing cameras.
“We will be bringing a direct to consumer app to the Android marketplace later this year. This application will be available for all consumers globally to download regardless of carriers. We’re betting big on video, and we intend to set the bar on mobile video calling, and it’s something we’re going to do this year.”Brianna ReynaudSkype PR
Nuestras esperanzas de ver el nuevo deportivo japonés en las salas de exposición durante el 2011 se han esfumado completamente, pues los recientes informes de la red indican que la compañía nipona ha retrasado su lanzamiento hasta el 2013.
Se menciona que el Toyota FT-86 será rediseñado completamente, sin embargo debemos recordar que hace un par de meses las especulaciones sobre un cambio de imagen fueron señaladas.
Y según las declaraciones realizadas en Febrero por el jefe de diseño del proyecto, Jaromir Cech, los cambios que recibiría el coche se reflejarían sólo en aspectos menores que permitirían cumplir con las normas de seguridad de los peatones y otros; por lo tanto la esencia del diseño se mantendría intacto.
No existe mucha información al respecto y la mayoría de las opiniones en los foros especializados expresan que el deportivo se mantendría lejos de las calles hasta que la situación económica sea favorable en el viejo continente.
En fin, desde que se anunció el desarrollo del coche varios rumores han circulado alrededor de él y hasta ahora el fabricante japonés no brinda detalles oficiales; por lo tanto ¿deberíamos mantener nuestras ilusiones?
Vía | Motor Authority
Eco Factor: Sustainable development to achieve LEED Silver certification.
Griffin Enright Architects have designed a sustainable mixed-use project for Venice California that will feature living units, office and retail space and a new church. The development will also include a landscaped pedestrian walkway along the back of the units that connect the residential parking areas and allow the work spaces to open on to and interact with the walkway.
Designed with the intent of achieving a LEED certified silver rating the development will include solar energy generators, roof garden and the use of recycled and renewable building materials. Energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems will also be incorporated to reduce the building’s energy demands. Moreover natural ventilation and natural day-lighting are also included into the project.
This chart argues that a rebound in U.S. stocks is well in order. Bearish sentiment has spiked, as measured by ta survey of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). Historically, spikes in sentiment have correlated with short-term market troughs, as shown below courtesy of Bespoke.
(Tip via Abnormal Returns)
Join the conversation about this story »
We knew for awhile that Android was going to receive a nice performance boost with the new JIT compiler found in Android 2.2. Google proclaimed a 2x-5x performance increase when they unveiled Android 2.2 at Google I/O and now a select few with Nexus One phones are reaping the benefits.
Google accidently sent out a pre-release version of Android 2.2 that many manually installed on their phone. I’ve been running that firmware on my Nexus One for nearly a week and I can honestly say I have noticed a big difference in all areas of my phone. Apps launch quicker, games perform faster, and my phone never slows down.
We have been in search of a comprehensive Android benchmark for quite awhile, but none have stood out so far. I recently came across Quadrant from Aurora Softworks and I think it’s what I have been looking for. Quadrant performs a series of tests which benchmark the CPU, memory, I/O, and 2D/3D graphics.
All the scores are grouped together in the free version (available now in the Android Market), but a professional edition is coming next month that will allow the user to run individual tests and monitor the results.
I wanted to see how the current high-end Android phones stacked up, so I benchmarked the Nexus One, HTC EVO, Droid Incredible, and Droid. As expected, the Nexus One running Android 2.2 came out on top by a wide margin. The EVO and Incredible ran neck and neck, but that is no surprise since they both use the same Snapdragon platform running Android 2.1. Pulling up the rear was the Motorola Droid, which features a slower 550 MHz TI OMAP3430 processor.
Based on this single benchmark suite, it looks like the Android 2.2 firmware boosted the scores by almost 300%. Android users who owns a high-end device should be pleased by these results because most will eventually receive Android 2.2. The Droid is expected to be updated first and then be followed by the EVO and Incredible later this year.
The benchmark only takes a couple minutes to download and run through all the tests, so share your scores in the comments. I’m curious what all the overclockers out there can achieve.
Combines a standard spinning platter drive (HDD) in 250, 350 or 500 gigabyte versions with four gigs of single-level cell (read: robust) Flash memory. Right now these are just about doubling the cost of standard drives with similar capacity.
The result is a combined drive that approaches the performance of solid state drives, but at a fraction of the price. According to Seagate’s own tests, the Momentus XT is 80% faster than a traditional notebook hard drive, and 20% faster than an ultra high-performance 10,000 RPM HDD.
The speed boost is due almost entirely to the drive’s Adaptive Memory algorithm, which learns which applications and files a user accesses most, and dumps those in the 4 GB of flash memory. Flash has 150 times the access speed of a traditional hard drive, but only 2 times the read/write bandwidth.
The technique of balancing a cache of expensive flash memory, which is great at randomly accessing many small files, with a large hard drive, which is many times cheaper per gigabyte and is good at reading and writing large files, mirrors a similar approach currently being explored in the data center.
Seagate’s hybrid drive. Credit: Seagate.
Here are Amazon links to the 250 GB version
Eco Factor: Zero-emission vehicle powered by an electric engine.
Bugatti has built an all-electric car that gets 800bhp of power from onboard batteries. The working prototype is believed to be packed on the chassis of a Bentley Continental GT and includes an advanced battery pack and two powerful electric motors delivering 2200Nm of torque.
Sadly, the car might never be displayed to the public as insiders believe it’s been prepared to demonstrate the technology and allow engineers to explore the ultimate performance available from electric cars.
Via: AutoExpress
Japan has been rocked by accelerated deflation and a spike in unemployment.
Consumer prices fell 1.5% in April, which was faster than the 1.2% experienced in March.
Moreover, the unemployment rate hit 5.1%, the highest level since January according to the Associated Press.
Here’s the most telling fact of them all — exports surged 40% in April.
Japan’s economy is still dead, only kept on life support by surging international demand.
Its GDP is comprised of a rotting domestic core kept hidden by a shiny export shell, yet one which is rapidly being eroded thin by other Asian manufacturers moving up the value chain and towards Japan’s vaunted position for capital equipment and electronics.
Join the conversation about this story »
There’s a new beta application entitled bitbop. It’s available for your BlackBerry and it’s similar to hulu. There’s a variety of shows available and many are free right now. I’m sure it will become a subscription, but I’ve had a chance to try it out and this is what I’ve come to find so far.
What is BitBop?
Bitbop brings premium TV and movies to your smartphone in a unique, graceful application that creates a mobile viewing experience like never before. Subscribe to the Bitbop TV Plan for only $9.99 per month and watch unlimited, full-length, network TV shows with no commercial interruptions. Rent movies to watch in high quality video on demand. Watch free clips, trailers and a variety of videos, all on our free Bitbop Application. Create a free account and start adding videos to your Queue.
It currently only works with the following BlackBerry Devices: Curve 8900, Bold 9000, Tour 9630, and the Bold 9700.
What is a free account and a free beta account?
Anyone can sign up for a free account with Bitbop – either through the website or the Bitbop App. A free account allows you to browse the site, start to build a queue and watch free clips. Only people with phones that are supported can sign up for a free beta account. In this instance you will be able to view the full range of content available on Bitbop via your phone.
There is a TV subscription and these are the details:
You will automatically be billed $9.99 every month using the payment method you provided, unless you cancel your subscription. You are billed every 30 days from the day you subscribed to the Bitbop…
Currently some of the shows are free, you can see TV shows and Movies, and move them into the queue to watch from your BlackBerry.
I signed up for the beta and the free account. I downloaded the BitBop app to my BlackBerry Tour 9630, 5.0. At first I had trouble getting it to work on my BlackBerry. I went into chat on the pc with BitBop support and they were extremely helpful, so I have to give their customer service a five star rating. I deleted and reinstalled the app, with flawless issues. I did find however that streaming clips worked, but free tv shows did not work as well to stream. I had to download the show to watch. The 22 minute show was separated into six chapters to watch but it is commercial free. Downloading the show took about 8 minutes or so.
When you download the app, you have New shows, Queue, Browse, Search, and Account. In the Account you can choose how you Download and Stream, Account Information, Communications, Payment Methods, Subscriptions, Follow Preferences, FAQ, Sign out, and retrieve your Forgotten Password, and the Version.
I wanted to save some screenshots, but while I had the application open, it wouldn’t allow me to take screenshots.
All in all, it’s nice to be able to download your shows and watch them. For $10 a month, you could actually have the ability to watch tv and movies. There’s several different shows and I’m sure there’ll be more. I usually just put my movies on my microsd card, but it would be nice to have the ability to stream shows to my BlackBerry.
Some of the shows available are: Bones, NCIS, CIS, National Geographic Explorer, Futurama, The Office, 24, Family Guy, and 30ROCK, and Glee amongst others.
I would recommend this to you if you were looking for a way to watch your shows wherever you are. Don’t miss those fun ones you’d love to keep. I’m not sure how long the Beta will last, but try it out and let us know what you think.
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This story is sponsored by the new BlackBerry Sync Mobile App Store. Grab your free copy today at www.GetAppStore.com from your BlackBerry.
Bitbop By Fox Mobile: Streaming TV Shows And Movies To Your 3G BlackBerry
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by Umbra Fisk.
Dearest readers,
Ah, Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kickoff of summer—even
though we’re still rocking scarves and raincoats here at Grist HQ. To prep you for this glorious three-day weekend,
I’ve sifted through the archives and found these handy holiday-appropriate tidbits,
from flying the flag to drinking beer (both arguably patriotic acts). What’s
going on your grill this weekend? Can I come over?
Oh say, can you see?
So you want to fly the American flag 24 hours a day but are a stickler for
following the Flag Code, which requires the flag to be lit up when it’s dark out?
Easy peasy: Save the electricity and take it down at sunset. Too much effort?
Try a solar-powered, LED flag light! These are readily available on the interwebs; they make models that clamp directly onto the flagpole, as
well as ground-nesting lights. Get the
full Ask Umbra answer.
Boy meets grill.
Grilled veggie kabobs on the brain? Go with a gas grill to cook ‘em up (that
is, unless you feel adventurous and want to make
your own solar oven!). It’s far easier to control the temperature of a gas
grill (no more burgers burnt to a crisp), and gas grills produce about half as
much CO2 as charcoal grills. And you’ll save yourself the pain (literally) from
all those headache-inducing volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) that charcoal gives off. Get
the full Ask Umbra answer.
Take the sting out.
Wasps are actually quite beneficial to the
ecosystem as predators to other insects like caterpillars, which can wreak
havoc on a garden. But wasps can be a nasty addition to your holiday barbecue.
I found this handy video
on making your own wasp trap from a used plastic bottle and a coat hanger,
as well as some readymade
glass wasp catchers. Both lure wasps into a vessel with fruit juice as
bait. Once the wasps have succumbed to the fruit juice’s siren call, they are
unable to scramble out of the bottle. You just empty the container out when you
feel like you’ve got a full house in there. Get
the full Ask Umbra answer.
Give yourself a wedgie.
So you’re worried that the lime wedge in your beer bottle’s going to make the
thing unrecycable? Never fear! When you recycle your beer, the bottle is picked
up curbside by a hauling company, which brings it to a glass-cleaning plant,
which then ships it to a glass-manufacturing plant, where it begins a new life.
A “contaminant,” as your lime would be called, is either picked out
at pickup or removed during the cleaning. Get the full Ask Umbra
answer.
Get baked—or not.
Conventional chemical sunscreen can be
toxic to your body and the planet—from hormone disruption to coral bleaching.
Look for mineral sunscreens that contain titanium oxide and/or zinc oxide. And
if you’re going to be taking a dip in the ocean, choose a screen with
plant-based ingredients—we ooze 4,000–6,000 tons of sunscreen into our oceans
every year; scientists say we’re probably putting 10 percent of reefs at risk,
so choose wisely. Get
the full Ask Umbra answer.
Day-offly,
Umbra
Related Links:
Let’s Move needs to get real with the food industry
Ask Umbra on eco-fiction and hair donations for the oil spill
Homebrew coder Popolon has recently released a new version of MsxDS, a MSX/MSX2/MSX2+ emulator for the Nintendo DS. Check out the what’s new in version 0.83 after the jump.
Download: msxDS v0.83 (http://dl.qj.net/nintendo-ds/emulators/msxds-v083.html)
A great idea and ought to really help out robotics hobbyists.
From the link:
Robotics company Willow Garage has started a two-year project to work with institutions from around the world on new applications for its robot: the PR2. Each of 11 teams will work on their own projects, but will share their code with each other and the rest of the world. Everything created will be open-source, meaning others can use the code for their own endeavors. (The PR2 runs on a software platform called Robot Open Source, also developed by Willow Garage.)
Our friends over at AndroidGuys have dug up some pictures of what appears to be a version of the Samsung Galaxy S headed to AT&T. The leaked phone has the model number SGH-i897 (which we have seen before), but the outer casing looks a little different than the Galaxy S we know and love. Gone is the iPhone-inspired design which has been replaced by more rounded edges.
We previously reported that the Samsung Galaxy S was coming to all four major U.S. carriers, but this is the first evidence we have received. These images reportedly came from a developer handset, so it sounds like AT&T is already seeding these devices out and a launch could be around the corner.
The source also claims this device has Google Search implemented instead of the Yahoo Search we saw on the Motorola Backflip. That could always change by launch, but hopefully they leave Google Search in this Google-powered phone.
The Samsung SGH-i897.
Hayley Williams naked picture Twitter mistake
Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore, is in hot water tonight after posting nude photos to her Twitter account. Williams quickly took down the naked pics, but not before they were already widely circulating online (of course).
Williams is just the latest in a long line of young stars to not seem to realize just how permanent these kinds of goofs are, and while we expect her lawyers to quickly clamp down as much as possible I’m guessing the photos will be available with a simple Google Images search … well, forever.
Hayley Williams formed Paramore back in 2004, and they have steadily gained in popularity since, albeit without rising to the level of mega successful as of yet. It wouldn’t shock me if these naked pics weren’t a coordinated leak designed to attract attention to the group, which is steadily touring this year.
I think my favorite part of Twitter might be the mistakes celebrities continually seem to make with the service, never quite realizing just how public the service is and just how many people are watching. It’s a lesson I’m sure Hayley Williams has learned after this nude photo leak, but a little too late to do her any good.
Want to see the Hayley Williams nude photos? Check them out here, obviously very NSFW!
