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Some of you may remember a short time prior to the release of the initial T-Mobile Nexus One, Google had briefly listed in the device specifications that it would support 802.11n.  HTC, on the other hand, never listed the Nexus as having support for the protocol.  Shortly after the slip was discovered, Google’s Nexus One specifications list was edited to solely show support for 802.11b/g.  Rumor now has it that Google and Broadcom (the manufacturer of wireless chipset in the Nexus One) are working together and have entered drivers into the Android repository that will enable the support for Wireless N after all.  There is no solid evidence other than a blurry-cam video posted on YouTube, but just the thought is enough to entice us all.

I guess this is Google’s way of making amends with Nexus One users having the dreaded 3G issues.  If you can’t change your location, just connect to the nearest 802.11n signal.  What say you?  Check out the video below, and sound off in the comments!

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Via Engadget

To those you who missed it, below is the link to a web panel on the state of climate change policies and developments that I participated in for Brightalk today.

The panelists:

– Emilie Mazzacurati, Manager, Carbon Market Research North America, Point Carbon
– Chris Busch, Policy Director, Center for Resource Solutions
– Nicholas Bianco, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute
– Neal Dikeman, Jane Capital Partners

Enjoy and post any thoughts in the comments section back on this blog for the rest of us to read.

http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/20657

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

The Grumpy Hacker writes in to let us know of a story about a couple in the midst of a divorce who went to court over who gets to own the family’s photographs (found PopPhoto.com). Over the 21-year marriage, apparently, the family amassed 7,000 photos, and part of the dispute was over who got to keep them. The judge made the following decision:

The husband gets 75% of the photos or three out of every four on each page of 75 photo albums, DeStefano wrote. His wife gets what’s left.

“The court finds that the husband was intricately involved with taking, compiling and cataloging the thousands of photos at issue,” DeStefano wrote in a case in which the spouses were identified only by initials.

“He equated his collecting of photographs of family with the hobby of collecting rare books.”

If you’re wondering why not just make copies, apparently the couple had already paid over $2,000 to scan all the images and have them put onto a CD, but both sides were “unhappy with the quality and demanded originals.” It seems like they could have just gone back to whoever scanned the images and demanded higher quality scans, but that’s neither here nor there.

What struck me about this is you sort of wonder why no one brought up copyright. Technically, whoever took the photos most likely owned the copyright on those photos, and could claim that the photos were his or her right to own. This is one of the more annoying parts of copyright law, but whoever takes the photo often has a strong claim on the copyright, even if the camera is someone else’s (remember that the next time you ask your friend — or, I guess, spouse — to take a photo for you). So, I would imagine that if the guy took most of the photos, he could just claim copyright on them and keep them from his ex-wife. In the meantime, though, perhaps we should be thankful that copyright was not used in this particular case — even if the result seems a little silly. There are services that can duplicate photos (not just scan them), and it seems like this whole situation could have been solved without involving a court at all.

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Barnes & Noble has finally releases nook update 1.3, which brings a couple of welcome upgrades and features to the ereader. One notable change is the presence of a web browser, which in turn, makes Wi-Fi a bit more useful. How so? Well, if a Wi-Fi hotspot requires a login, you can now use the browser to do that and hop onto the network, whereas before, you were just out of luck with the nook. Pages will now turn faster, which is always nice, and they’ve also got some apps and games available for your enjoyment as well. If you want to take advantage of the in-store nook perks, you can now read any ebook for free for an hour when connected to a Barnes & Noble hotspot, and later, you’ll be able to read newspapers and magazines for 20 minutes per day. If you wanna get your nook updates immediately, you can download the update and manually install it over USB, or if you’re in no rush, it should auto-update over Wi-Fi sometime over the next few days.

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The school district outside Philly that has come under fire for installing and using remote webcam software to secretly take 56,000 photos and screenshots of students and others is now in trouble with their insurance company, says the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In papers filed in federal court, Graphic Arts Mutual Insurance Co. contends that none of the allegations in the suit filed by Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins and his parents fits the definitions in the school district’s $1 million liability policy.

The Robbins suit says the district invaded his privacy, violated his civil rights, and broke wiretapping and other laws when it secretly activated the Web camera on his school-issued laptop in the fall.

“Those allegations do not state any claims for ‘bodily injury’ or ‘property damage’ as those terms are defined in the policy,” Graphic Arts Mutual said in its complaint, filed last week.

If the courts agree with the insurer, the impact could be costly for the Lower Merion district, which has hired lawyers from an elite Philadelphia law firm, Ballard Spahr L.L.P., and specialists from L3 Communications Corp., a computer forensics firm, to defend itself in the suit and to investigate the now-disabled laptop-tracking system.

According to the Inquirer the majority of the photos were taken by the district in an effort to recover stolen or lost laptops, but that the cameras may not have been turned off in a timely fashion after the laptops were recovered.

“The taking of these pictures without student consent in their homes was obviously wrong,” a lawyer for the school district said.

The lawyer for the student who is suing the school district told the Inquirer that the “now-disabled system had surreptitiously collected more than 400 photos of his client – including shots of him when he was shirtless and while he slept in his bed last fall – as well as thousands of images from other students’ computers.”

Lower Merion report: Web cams snapped 56,000 images [Philly]
N.Y. insurer balks at coverage for laptop suit [Philly]

Japan immediately challenged a compromise on the whaling ban offered today by the International Whaling Commission.

Although the plan would legalize commercial whaling for the first time in 25 years, it would impose a 200 whales-per-year limit on the Land of the Rising Sun.

Japan would rather continue killing 900 yearly, using the scientific research loophole.

Said Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu: “Regarding the total catch allowed, it is different from Japan’s position. We want to continue negotiating with patience.”

Don’t miss: A Short Primer on the Deflationary Crisis In Japan

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Six months ago, everyone said this was a “sucker’s rally”–and cackled at anyone stupid enough to buy into it.

But it’s not a sucker’s rally anymore!

Now, CNBC is calling the current market rally the “Rodney Dangerfield Rally,” because no one is respecting its legitimacy and everyone is looking for a way out.

Like Rodney, this rally ain’t getting “no respect.”

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Paulson Says He’ll Pay If He’s Charged With Anything Related To ABACUS
• Hey, Maria Bartiromo, Do You Think Financial Journalists Are Doing A Good Job?
• The 15 Worst Mutual Fund Managers Of Q1

Conservative actor and born-again Christian Stephen Baldwin

In 2009, Baldwin filed for bankruptcy after he racked up more than $2.3 million worth of debt with several mortgages, bills to the IRS, and defaulted credit card accounts. Now a new website, set up Lyn Fletcher — a member of Stephen’s Baldwin Ministries, aims to ease the star’s financial hardships by encouraging public donations which will be deposited directly into his bank account.

Don’t believe us? Just check out RestoreStephenBaldwin.org…..

A statement posted on the site reads: “Stephen Baldwin of the famous Baldwin Brothers Hollywood clan… is no stranger to the Hollywood life of glitz, glamour and the public eye. However, because of (his religious) convictions it has caused him the loss of many jobs and most recently, a highly publicized bankruptcy… A simple search through the Internet will reveal that people not only mock Stephen, but mock God.
“Our vision is to see Stephen Baldwin publicly restored in front of millions. Stephen’s platform will increase allowing him to reach even more people with the Gospel and God will get all of the glory. Publicly.”

“The impact of transgenes is basically limited to their immediate function”

Reproduced from GMO Safety, Germany

It is often maintained that genetic interventions may have unintended consequences for the metabolism of modified plants and by implication for human health and the environment as well. A recently completed research project compared gene expression and plant substances in different conventional and transgenic barley lines. GMO Safety discussed the findings with Uwe Sonnewald, one of the project leaders.

Prof. Uwe Sonnewald from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Most significant research results

Research material: transgenic barley plants of the “Golden Promise” and “Baronesse” varieties and the conventional parent lines

– Comparison of conventional and transgenic “Golden Promise”: no significant differences

– Comparison of conventional and transgenic “Baronesse”: Differences in the expression of 22 genes and 4 metabolites. The researchers were able to demonstrate that these differences were due to a previous crossing with a different variety.

– Comparison of the two conventional parent lines: Differences in the expression of around 1,600 genes

GMO Safety: What were the aims of your research project?

Uwe Sonnewald: In our joint project with the University of Giessen and the State University Washington we aimed to test the extent to which different varieties of barley differ from one another, the extent to which transgenic and non-transgenic barley plants differ from one another and the impact of environmental factors. To this end we studied gene expression in the plants and the composition of the metabolites, i.e. the metabolic products. We originally intended to study the leaves and the grains but as it turned out we were unable to complete the grain studies due to repeated crop vandalism in Giessen.

GMO Safety: What are your most important findings?

Uwe Sonnewald: Firstly, we found virtually no differences between the genetically modified barley plants under investigation and their non-transgenic parent lines, either in terms of metabolites or gene expression. We then found that colonisation of the barley plants by mycorrhizal fungi produced virtually no changes in gene expression, but did change the metabolites. This demonstrates the value of combining both approaches. We also discovered that differences between conventional varieties can be considerable. Approximately 1,600 genes in the two conventional varieties that we compared are differentially regulated. We don’t even know the function of many of these genes.

Extract from a microarray used to analyse gene expression. Each dot corresponds to a single gene. In total, the activity of around 32,000 genes was investigated.

GMO Safety: The following statement was deduced from your findings: Conventional breeding causes more changes in plants than the introduction of a single transgene. Can you make such a generalisation? After all, you only looked at barley. Have comparable studies been carried out on other genetically modified crops?

Uwe Sonnewald: As far as I know, this was the first time that both methods had been used in a simultaneous investigation. Researchers have studied either gene expression or plant substances in wheat, potatoes and maize and have come to very similar conclusions. The impact of transgenes is basically limited to their immediate function. For example, if I insert a gene for fructan biosynthesis in potatoes, it is hardly surprising that these potatoes then produce fructan and so differ in this way from their parent lines. But only negligible additional differences were found. I know of no instance where a more significant change in gene expression has been caused by a single transgene. However, great variability exists between individual varieties of all the crops mentioned and the obvious explanation for this is that often the breeding objective is to create resistance to external stress factors, and this involves a large number of genes.

GMO Safety: Do you consider that it would be useful to use the profiling methods that you have just applied to assess the safety of genetically modified crops in the future?

Uwe Sonnewald: First you would have to perform a kind of cataloguing, in other words you would have to determine the gene expression and plant substances of different existing varieties of each crop type. Only on this basis can you then decide whether a change in a new plant gives any cause for concern. This type of cataloguing is currently available only for metabolites, and then only for the main substances, which is too crude.

Metabolic profiling could be useful in principle if a genetic modification had been carried out with the aim of modifying specific metabolic processes. Since different metabolic pathways are interconnected, it is certainly useful to establish whether anything other than the intended modification has changed in other metabolic pathways – for example, whether a plant produces too few vitamins because it produces increased amounts of a specific substance.

Studying gene expression is even more problematic. Important differences emerge even from a comparison of conventional varieties and in most cases I am unable to say what these changes signify because I don’t even know the function of the genes. Therefore it would not be useful to make this type of investigation a prerequisite for approving a plant.

GMO Safety: Thank you for talking to us.

More from GMO Safety

Safety research on genetically modified barley: Eliminating undesired side effects

Transgenic fungus-resistant barley – effects on pathogenic and beneficial fungi, University Giessen

Transgenic fungus-resistant barley – effects on gene expression and plant substances, University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Research Paper:

Transcriptome and metabolome profiling of fieldgrown transgenic barley lack induced differences but show cultivar-specific variances

Karl-Heinz Kogel, Lars M. Voll, Patrick Schäfera, Carin Jansen, Yongchun Wuc, Gregor Langen,

Jafargholi Imani, Jörg Hofmann, Alfred Schmiedl, Sophia Sonnewald, Diter von Wettstein, R. James Cook,

and Uwe Sonnewald

PNAS | April 6, 2010 | vol. 107 | no. 14 | 6198–6203

(Free access)

But wait, this just in:


Activists have “occupied” a field designated as a location for a trial of MON810. The plan is to remain until it’s too late to plant.
http://www.br-online.de/studio-franken/aktuelles-aus-franken/schrwarzach-genmaisgegner-besetzen-feld-2010-kw16-ID1272006550902.xml
http://www.mainpost.de/lokales/kitzingen/Gentechnik-Gegner-besetzen-Genmaisfeld;art773,5548634

Mayor Daley has no problems with Rahm Emanuel’s ambition to one day be Chicago mayor, my Chicago Sun-Times colleague Fran Spielman is reporting after Daley spoke to reporters on Friday.

“No, he’s not stepping on my toes,” Daley says. “He’s a good friend of mine. I think it was something that he should be proud of, that someday he would like to be mayor. I didn’t give him any advice. I don’t give people advice. I don’t advise people. I’m not their advisor. But there’s nothing wrong with people having a commitment to public service.”

Video courtesy NBCChicago’s Ward Room