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When shopping around for a new cellphone plan, or simply a cheaper one, consumers have more choices besides the standard 2-year contract wireless companies try to cram down your throat. But do you go prepaid or with a contract? Which company delivers the best value? It all depends on your usage and what you’re looking for. To help you decide, Lifehacker has put together a bangin’ guide on picking a new wireless plan. Check it.

How to Decide Between a Prepaid or Contract Wireless Plan [Lifehacker]

Surelite EX is designed to be the ultimate pump source for OPOs and Ti:Sapphire systems. With an optimized laser cavity, Surelite EX provides a uniform distribution of energy across the beam profile while minimizing hot spots and modulation.
This optimal beam quality allows for maximum energy conversion in OPOs and Ti:Sapphire systems making Surelite EX the ideal choice for these applications. To satisfy the most stringent requirements,
Continuum offers a seeded version of the Surelite EX that produces a smoother repeatable temporal pulse shape and much
narrower linewidth for better conversion efficiency in OPOs.
• Unmatched Value for High Energy Research
• Cavity design optimized for OPO pumping
• Minimal hot spots and uniform energy distribution
• Delivers excellent conversion efficiency
• Seeded and unseeded versions available
• Same great Surelite reliability and reputation—
thousands installed worldwide
Tailored for OPO Pumping
© 2010 Continuum
Surelite™ EX
For more information, please contact your local Continuum representative,
www.continuumlasers.com, or call 1(866)532-1064

Dayton, Ohio — Motoman has added two new models, the SIA5D and the SIA50D, to its SIA-series (slim, individual arm) robot line. Lean and powerful, these robots feature a revolutionary actuator-based 7-axis design with best-in-class wrist performance characteristics that enable amazing freedom of movement, coupled with the ability to maneuver in very tight areas. These agile, versatile robots open up a wide range of industrial applications to robots and are ideal for assembly, injection molding, machine tending and a host of other applications.

Short axis lengths and extreme motion flexibility allow these slim manipulators to be positioned out of the normal working area (i.e. floor-, ceiling-, wall-, incline- or machine-mounted) without limiting the motion range of any axis. Mounting the SIA-series robots between two machine tools provides open access to the machines for fixture maintenance, adjustment or testing. Additionally, the operator has clear access to the machine operator station for entering offsets, maintenance or other operations.

SIA-series robots are controlled by the next-generation Motoman DX100 robot and system-level controller that uses patented multiple robot control technology to easily handle multiple tasks including control of up to eight robots (72 axes), as well as I/O devices, and communication protocols. Featuring a robust PC hardware architecture, the DX100 controller uses a Windows® CE programming pendant with color touch screen.

www.motoman.com

Booth No. 1313
Charlotte Convention Center
501 South College St, Charlotte,
NC 28202, USA

Wednesday April 28 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Thursday April 29 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Visiting Quality Expo provides hands-on access to the newest tools and technologies to ensure quality, reduce costs, and streamline manufacturing processes.

See the Latest Quality Products: gages, quality software, calibration, CMMs, data collection, electronics test, non-contact inspection…and much more.

Meet Top Suppliers who know and serve your industry: automotive/aerospace, electronics, fabricated metals, industrial machinery, medical/surgical instruments, plastics/rubber…and more.
Spend Time Face-To-Face With Technical Experts who are ready to discuss your specifications and requirements and help solve your quality challenges.
Stay Current in Your Field with the latest technical training for manufacturing professionals. The Quality Expo Conference features key sessions covering quality management, principles, tools and practices.

The Talyrond 385 Range
The Talyrond 385 is a fully automated roundness/cylindricity instrument that is unsurpassed in accuracy and reliability, with 6 versions to choose from offering the rightbalance of automation and capacity for virtually every application. State of the art electronics have allowed full control of all axes with fast and accurate modes allowing the right combination of measurement and movement speed for the most challenging of components.

Taylor Hobson’s patented arm orientation provides full automation in almost any attitude making it the most versatile of instruments and an industry benchmark in roundness instrumentation.

Fully Automated arm attitude/orientation mechanism
Automated Gauge calibration
Automatic Centre and level with arm follow mode
High precision air bearing spindle +/- 0.02um
Gauge resolution 1.2nm
300mm,500mm or 900mm Vertical straightness unit

Supports Row, Center Pivot and Drip Applications

Irrigators will find the new RemoteCONNECT™ Telemetry System from McCrometer enhances irrigation by delivering up-to-date flow data via the Internet for centralized monitoring and control, which takes the guesswork out of water management and frees irrigators to focus on other critical tasks.

The RemoteCONNECT System is a turn-key wireless remote monitoring system with 24/7 capability, which reduces costly manual data collection. McCrometer, the irrigation industry’s most trusted flow meter supplier for 55 years, now provides a single go-to source for automated flow measurement system hardware, software, installation, training, support and field service.

RemoteCONNECT comprises all the components necessary for web-based data collection from McCrometer’s Mc® Propeller Meter, or meters from other manufacturers as well as other ag water management sensors. McCrometer has developed two different RemoteCONNECT systems to meet the needs of irrigators with unique needs. Both systems are expandable over time and can be configured to provide soil moisture, water level, water salinity and rainfall data, helping prevent over-watering to reduce costs.

RemoteCOM Telemetry System
The RemoteCOM Telemetry System supports up to 25 flow meter radio transmission units, which feed data to a satellite base station that sends data to a secure web server. With the RemoteCOM Telemetry System, one satellite base station supports 25 propeller meters and makes the system a highly economical solution for multiple meter sites and large distributed irrigation systems.

SatCOM Telemetry System
McCrometer also has developed a SatCOM Telemetry System that is designed for remote locations. The SatCOM Telemetry System supports one flow meter radio transmission unit that sends data directly to a secure web server. This system can acquire data on demand and control equipment in the field.

RemoteCONNECT Online Interface
McCrometer’s RemoteCONNECT online interface is a secure-access, web-based irrigation management tool. It features an easy-to use graphical-user interface that provides flow rate and totalizer data for each propeller meter with a wide range of sophisticated monitoring, alarming and control tools.

Web access to flow data also eliminates the need for local office data servers and modems. Remote data can be collected at customer specified intervals from 30 minutes to 24 hours. A Google Earth view of the site is available too.

With McCrometer’s online RemoteCONNECT, irrigators can monitor water-use quotas, set alarms to indicate high/low usage rates, look at well site images and track data by individual Farm number. Individual flow meters can be accuracy checked for hours flowed, volume and size of meter. Low battery alerts are provided as well. Graph and trend line analysis tools are built-into the system.

Comprehensive availability of flow data tells irrigators how water is applied to ensure accurate billing and water allocation records. This information alerts irrigators when they are close to exceeding allocation limits. Notifications can even be provided to multiple specific users via email and text messaging or paging.

Goldman’s Gerald Moser outlines a long oil, short retail pair trade in his latest portfolio strategy piece. The argument is that oil stocks have underperformed both many other industries as well as the rally in oil prices. Thus they should be buoyed by oil’s strength in the upcoming quarters while stocks hurt by rising oil prices will start to feel the impact of them, particularly retail.

Goldman:

We have long been overweight the oil sector in our portfolio. With the recent breakthrough in oil prices, we reiterate our positive view. But increasing oil prices should start to have negative effects on other sectors as oil-related costs, such as transport and packaging, rise. Retail is among the sectors that could be affected the most. This comes at a time when other potential headwinds could weigh on the retail sector, especially general retailers. We recommend positioning for long oil vs. short retail.

Higher oil prices can of course negatively affect some sectors. Retail is one of them. There is the direct effect of higher transport, energy and packaging costs and the indirect effect, as consumers have to pay more for gasoline and hence have less to spend on other items.

There might be a valuation argument behind the trade as well. We believe the charts below encompass the firm’s global oil and retail coverage.

(Via Goldman Sachs, Strategy Expresso: Oil vs. retail, Gerald Moser, 23 April 2010)

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Just last week, we asked the question if the world needs yet another mobile operating system (Samsung’s Bada). Now it turns out Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, apparently thinks the answer is yes. The telecom behemoth (55 million customers in Japan) today announced [press release in English] the development of a brand new “application platform for mobile phones”, which is planned to go global, too.

DoCoMo is teaming up with four leading mobile phone makers, namely Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu, and NEC (who are joined by chip maker Renesas). The new platform is optimized for audio and video applications and will be compatible with both Symbian and Linux.

In Japan, the first handsets with the OS on board are expected to ship sometime between October 2011 and March 2012. DoCoMo will be the first company in Japan to introduce LTE services in December this year.

DoCoMo says the new OS will be incorporated into all of their next-generation handsets. One of the main goals of the project is to cut development time and costs for cell phone makers by about 50%.

The six partners also plan to market the software overseas (good luck with that). The reason is simple: while Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu, and NEC together command 67% of the Japanese mobile market, their combined international market share stands at a mere 2%.

Found under: Archos, Android, Tablet, Home, Google,,

Been awhile since we mentioned anything about Archos and their plans for that Home Tablet they call the Archos 7. This Tablet is both powerful and cheap but most consumers might not find the Archos 7 Home Tablet that appealing to warrant a purchase. For me it has to do with the resistive touchscreen and the likely ugly custom UI that would end up spoiling everything.Price for the Archos 7 is the main thing that could kill or make this device luckily Archos got the price right and anyon

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There are a select few players in the market with production vehicles that hit a top speed higher than 250 mph; however, Lamborghini and Ferrari aren’t one of them. As consumer behavior takes an expected twist towards fuel-efficiency (and as governments set higher fuel-economy regulations), supercar manufacturers have vowed to offer more economical sports cars.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo.

Well, thank god for people like Underground Racing, which recently exceeded 250 mph in their highly modified Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera with their 1500-WHP twin-turbo package.

The event took place at The Texas Mile, where Richard Holt piloted the twin-turbo Gallardo Superleggera to a top speed of 250.1 mph.

Hit the jump for the video.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: autoblog.nl (via WCF)

Creo que el año pasado, eramos muchos los que creíamos que el Opel Ampera pasaría a mejor vida en la cúspide de problemas que comenzó a tener Opel en Europa, cortesía de la inestabilidad de GM. Sin embargo, el Opel Ampera se mantuvo entre las aspiraciones de Opel, como el primo europeo del Chevy Volt, un coche casi obligado para GM a ambos lados del charco. y ya llegamos a la etapa de pre-producción, con el primer prototipo del Ampera viendo la luz en EEUU.

Desde la planta de Warren, en Michigan, nos llega la noticia de que el primer Ampera, prototipo de producción, ya fue fabricado. En los meses que siguen se producirán más modelos Ampera semejantes, que tendrán como objetivo ser usados (conducidos) en pruebas bajo condiciones reales de conducción.

En estas fases de pruebas, también se darán los últimos toques al software del vehículo, así como los ajustes finales de los controles de los coches, como lo anunció GM. Inicialmente, los primeros Ampera serán construídos en EEUU para ser exportados a Europa, a partir de fines del próximo año. Posteriormente, la producción se trasladará a una de las plantas de Opel, probablemente en Inglaterra.

Vía | Autoevolution

Ezra Klein had a post last week about the accuracy of projections about health care, in which he called reports like the recent one from HHS a sort of Rorschach test–conservatives and liberals each see in them what they want to.  I think this is true, to a point.  The history of health care spending projections is considerably more checkered than either liberals or conservatives acknowledge.  Over time, it is true that far more health care programs have busted their budgets than have come in considerably under budget; on the other hand, some cost cutting programs have ended up netting more than expected.  But virtually all of the reports written on this question consists of simply cherry picking your examples very carefully in order to generate the answer you want.  This would be a perfect job for the CBO, except that members of congress request those reports, and I doubt either party is willing to risk getting the wrong answer.

But there is one example of “cost underruns” that I keep hearing, which I think should be used cautiously if at all.  That’s Medicare Part D, which came in substantially beneath projections. 

As it happens, I just turned in the first draft of a piece on the status of prescription drug pipelines.  You’ll have to wait to read my opinions on that question, but investigating the question has given me a better appreciation of just how unique an environment surrounded the enactment of Medicare Part D.  There was a broad shift in the market for pharmaceuticals on several fronts:  fewer blockbuster drugs were being approved, and more blockbuster drugs were going off patent.  Meanwhile, pharmaceutical benefit managers were really cracking down on what drugs went into their formularies. 

A drug like Eli Lilly’s Effient platelet inhibitor would have been a
blockbuster ten years ago–it causes slightly more bleeding, but it’s
also more effective than Plavix, its main rival.  But Plavix goes
off-patent in 2011, and is less expensive even now, so Medco, a major
pharma benefit manager, is funding its own research to find ways to identify the small subset of patients who will do better on Effient.  In other words, private firms have started to do the sort of comparative effectiveness research that the architects of health care reform promised.

There are several good reasons to think that this won’t generalize well:

• Secular changes in the health care environment are random  That is, in this case, Medicaid undershot projections.  But that’s not because the CBO was “too conservative”; the savings came from broader shifts in the healthcare market, not something that the legislation did.  Broader shifts in the healthcare market can move either way; there’s no special reason to think that they are more likely to be downside surprises.
• Medicare Part D worked through the private sector  Medicare Part D used private insurers at a time when they were severely cracking down on the drugs they were willing to pay for.  Medicare Part D benefited from this because it worked through private insurance firms.  However, the bulk of the coverage expansion in the new law comes from Medicaid expansion.  Medicaid benefits from that famous ability to centrally negotiate–but not so much from what private firms are doing.
• Falling prescription drug costs do not mean falling health care costs  To the extent that these secular trends in the prescription drug market continue–and unfortunately, I think they will–that’s bad news for health care reform cost control.  There’s some pretty decent evidence that new drugs hold down health care costs overall because they substitute for labor-intensive options like surgery and other sorts of therapy.  Labor is the one component of health care costs that is probably hardest to control.  So if we’re getting few new prescription drugs, that may mean that estimates of cost growth in other sectors are too low.
• Services expansions historically seem to overshoot their cost estimates  A lot of effort has been expended on the pro-reform side singing the praises of unexpected cost savings from things like delivery payment reform.  Leaving aside arguments about the methodology of the underlying studies, I’d say a survey of the history of health care reforms indicates that changing the payment formulas seems to be a lot more successful on the cost front than broad coverage expansions, which–except for the one case of Medicare Part D–always seem to cost much more than expected.  So even if you think it’s possible that various delivery forms will deliver higher-than-expected savings, you have to allow for the possibility that higher-than-expected utilization will eat your savings, and then some. And that’s exactly what’s happened from most of the coverage expansions in our nation’s history.  It’s ridiculous to talk about some changes to Medicare payments while ignoring the fact that reform in Massachusetts is already costing about 20% more than projected.  Not to mention, umm, every other state-level coverage expansion I’m aware of. 

Many of these arguments run the other way as well, of course; these things are by their nature unpredictable.  There could be all sorts of changes in the healthcare market which will make the price of hospitals fall along with the price of prescription drugs.  But I wouldn’t suggest that you bet a lot of money on that possibility.  I mean, aside from the small fortune you already have.

Sprint has lowered the price on the Palm Pixi from $50 a pop to free. New Sprint customers and those willing to re-up on their contracts can now grab the strikingly thin handset from Sprint’s online store for free with a new 2-year contract.

This marks the second major price drop on the Sprint Palm Pixi since its debut last November. The current offer is only found on Sprint’s website at this time, however other channels and perhaps retail stores (& happy meals) may be soon to follow.

While the world focuses on the debt crisis in Greece and the looming problems throughout the euro zone, serious debt concerns exist in Asia as well.

Asia has real problems looming in Japan and potentially India and Pakistan, if growth levels do not return to pre-recession levels. And while China may seem to have low levels of debt, it is difficult to know considering the country’s less than public finances.

Representation of public debt as a percentage of GDP, from IndexMundi.com:

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You may recall the controversy over Google reacting too aggressively in pulling down music blog posts (or entire blogs) based on DMCA takedown notices. Eventually, Google revamped its DMCA policy to better handle the situation, though there have still been some complaints. Tim Dickinson alerts us to a similar situation with Twitter — except the details suggest it’s much worse, and involves a clear abuse of the DMCA (which Twitter should be standing up to).

The story involves a music blogger named JP, who runs the appropriately named JP’s blog. Not surprisingly, JP also has a Twitter account, where he mostly seems to post links to his blog posts. One such post was about the leak of the new album by The National. That post includes a link to Amazon where people can purchase the new album… and also a link to a download of one song (in MP3 format) from the album.

Someone — and it’s not at all clear who — apparently filed a DMCA claim over the Twitter message about the leak, and Twitter responded by taking down the tweet and sending JP a note:

jp917, Apr 22 03:10 pm (PDT):
Hello,
The following material has been removed from your account in response to a DMCA take-down notice:
Tweet: http://twitter.com/jp917/statuses/12499491144 — New Post: Leaked: The National — High Violet http://jpsblog.net/2010/04/20/leaked-the-national-high-violet/

There are all sorts of problems with this that suggest a pretty big abuse of the DMCA, but first we should address a couple problems with JP’s blog post about this situation. First, he puts the blame fully on Twitter, claiming that it’s “Twitter” sending the DMCA takedown notices. That’s not really true. Twitter is receiving a takedown notice (in theory) from the copyright holder, and Twitter is merely responding to that takedown and notifying the user. Second, JP claims that he only linked to Amazon and not to a download, but looking at his blog post, there are two clear links to a single song from the album — one at Mediafire and the other via Box.net. He makes no claim that these are authorized, so perhaps they are potentially infringing, which makes things a bit messier. It is true that his main link is to Amazon, encouraging people to purchase, but there are those MP3 links as well (though, again, only to a single song, not the whole album).

Even so, this whole thing is troubling and a clear abuse of the DMCA — which you would hope Twitter would stand up against. Specifically, nothing in the tweet itself is infringing — which means that the DMCA takedown for the tweet is bogus, and a violation of the DMCA itself. Even if there was a link in the post that’s infringing, we’re talking about a takedown on a tweet that links to a blog that links to a potentially infringing file. That tweet itself is not a violation of copyright law in any way, and the takedown notice is clearly fraudulent. Pretending that anything that links to a page that links to a potentially infringing file is, by itself, copyright infringement, is clearly ridiculous.

On top of that, there have already been questions asked about the copyrightability of Twitter messages, and it’s rare that such tweets would be covered by copyright. In this case, it’s unlikely that there’s any copyright (the tweet was just a headline, and for the most part, you can’t copyright headlines). Even if it was covered by copyright, it would be JP’s copyright for having written the headline. In other words, there’s nothing in the tweet that is held as a copyright by someone else, and thus the takedown message itself was a clear abuse of the DMCA — and a violation of basic First Amendment principles, as the takedown sought not to takedown copyrighted material (as allowed by the DMCA), but to silence conversation about a leak of an album through misuse of copyright law.

It’s unfortunate that Twitter decided to take the easy way out and automatically pull down the clearly non-infringing message with no review whatsoever. It’s actions like that which encourage more abuse of the DMCA. Doubly unfortunate is that nowhere does Twitter tell JP who sent the bogus takedown. It could be the band itself, or perhaps its label — which appears to be Beggars Group (who is generally not so bad on these sorts of things). Either way, this is unfortunate on multiple levels. The takedown notice was clearly bogus (whoever sent it) and Twitter’s response is unfortunate. I would have expected better from a company like Twitter.

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Financial reform advocates are touting a new poll they believe shows Americans overwhelming support their cause. A Washington Post-ABC News poll (.pdf) conducted over the weekend found that between 63% and 65% of respondents support stricter federal regulation on banks and Wall Street. That clashes with earlier polls that indicated much weaker support for reform. This new poll also shows something else: tepid support for some of reform’s most controversial provisions.

First, the poll determined that somewhere between 63% and 65% of respondents somewhat or strong support broader federal regulation of Wall Street and the banks. But then the pollster asked about three contentious options currently under consideration. Here are those results:

• 43% (16% strongly, 26% somewhat) support “having the federal government regulate the complex financial instruments known as derivatives.”
• 53% (27% strongly, 26% somewhat) support “requiring large banks and other financial companies to put money into a fund that would cover the cost of taking over and breaking up any large financial company that fails and threatens the broader economy.”
• 59% (36% strongly, 23% somewhat) support “increasing federal oversight of the way banks and other financial companies make consumer loans, such as mortgages and auto loans, and issue credit cards.”

All of these provisions scored lower than the 63% to 65% who said they wanted reform. They also account for the most controversial portions of the financial reform bill — those Republicans are most concerned with. This appears to indicate that Americans strongly support the idea of financial reform, but show weaker support for some of the more contentous provisions floating around Congress.

Why did financial reform score so much better in this poll than in prior ones? In early April, one poll found just 44% supported broader financial regulation. Pro-reform groups began heavy advertising campaigns around that time. But as of a week ago, the number ticked up to only 46%, according to a separate Gallup poll. What has changed in the past week? The media carried broad news coverage of the SEC’s complaint against Goldman Sachs. The timing of the case appears to have been a nice coincidence for the financial reform effort.

Gear6, a Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of Memcached-based appliances for the cloud, seems to have hit hard times, as it’s filed for assignment for the benefit of creditors. The 4-year-old company has a pretty heavyweight line-up of executives, including Tom Shea, formerly CEO of Roxio and Mirra, and Martin Patterson, formerly head of Sun’s N1 Grid System and co-founder of Terraspring, as its VP of engineering.

According to industry sources, Gear6 filed to liquidate its assets on Friday; I’ve reached out to the company but am still waiting to hear back. Rival Schooner Infotech, meanwhile, is wasting no time feasting off Gear6 — it’s offering to help Gear6 customers looking to transition to its hardware.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

What Cloud Computing Can Learn From NoSQL

Found under: BlackBerry, Pearl, RIM, 3G, 802.11n, Wi-Fi, Mobile, Smartphone,

The first BlackBerry 8100 Pearl was one of the best handset RIM has ever came up with heck it was one of the best when compared to many smartphones at the time. Since then there has been quite a few knock-offs from RIM the BlackBerry 8120 Pearl is one of them and now theres a new kid on the block and its looking hot.This new BlackBerry addition to the Pearl family is nothing short of awesome it is the first BlackBerry handset to support 802.11n Wi-Fi along with 3G this BlackBerry

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University of Michigan researchers are studying a way to use pressure cooking to convert microalgae into carbon-neutral biofuels. Microalgae are a potential plant source of biofuel because they are easier to breakdown chemically.  Conventional methods require using  oilier algaes and drying them before conversion. But the Michigan researchers are investigating a process using a microalgae soup which is heated to 300 degrees and then cooked for 30-60 minutes to produce crude biofuel. 

(more…)

The crisis in Greece is expected to weigh on equity markets for some time yet, but with earnings season kicking off impressively last week and set to continue, it may not be enough to derail equity markets, Ed Solbach, a strategist at Desjardins Securities said. 

"Earnings growth that is even better than our optimistic outlook projections gives us increased confidence that we will achieve our 2010 equity target of 13,200 for the S&P 500 and 14,200 for the TSX," Mr. Solbach said in a note to clients.

Of the 174 companies listed on the S&P 500 that have reported first quarter earnings, 84% have beaten earnings expectations. That's up from 80% in the third quarter of 2009 and fourth quarter of 2009 and far exceeds the average historical earnings beat of 61%.  Earnings have also increased 50% from the first quarter of 2009, representing record growth.  

"The increase is the highest in at least 40 years, and even stronger than the incredible 39% growth that was forecast. 

"Revenues are also up 11% from last year, so the previous argument that earnings growth was all due to cost-cutting is no longer valid," he said. 

So far, the impressive earnings growth has easily offset negative news of Greece's debt troubles and also the SEC's fraud allegations against Goldman Sachs. Last week, the S&P 500 climbed 2.1% and the TSX added 1.4%.

With both benchmarks up 84% and 67% respectively from their March 9 lows, but still well off their pre-Lehman highs, Mr. Solbach said stocks on both sides of the border are undervalued.

If earnings estimates continue to come in better-than-expected, they could hit US$80 per share, he said, which is even higher than recently revised consensus estimates of US$78.

"Over the longer term, stock prices are ultimately valued based on a multiple of earnings, so prices must move up to reflect this higher level of earnings," the analyst wrote.

David Pett