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  • Dear Event Organizer [Voices]

    By Gregory Galant, Founder, Venture Voice

    It was a pleasure speaking with you just now on the phone. I’m following up with a written request for a press pass as you’d suggested.

    I’m requesting this press pass to cover your event for Twitter.com, a popular Internet website with a monthly readership of over 60 million.

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  • M. Basketball: Going Green

    Jeremy Green came into Saturday’s contest against UCLA with a sore ankle, a bruised finger bone and a pulled back muscle. The sophomore guard then proceeded to play one of the best games of his career.

    Green scored 30 points in 37 minutes for the Cardinal (8-7, 2-1 Pacific-10 Conference), who earned a solid 70-59 win over the Bruins (7-9, 2-2 Pac-10) at Maples Pavilion Saturday afternoon.

    Sophomore guard Jeremy Green went 11-18 from the field, including 5-8 from long range to earn his career-high 30 points. But the Card’s bench didn’t score a single point to help in the win. (JIN ZHU/The Stanford Daily)

    Sophomore guard Jeremy Green went 11-18 from the field, including 5-8 from long range to earn his career-high 30 points. But the Card’s bench didn’t score a single point to help in the win. (JIN ZHU/The Stanford Daily)

    “It’s all good,” Green said in regard to his injuries. “I’m all good.”

    Green was definitely “good” — the sophomore guard went 11-of-18 from the floor and seemed to make big shot after big shot when the Bruins were trying to get back into the game. He banked in a running three-pointer as time expired at the end of the first half to give the Cardinal a 34-33 lead going into the locker room.

    “That was just a huge performance by a great player,” said sophomore center Jack Trotter. “He’s really come into his own.”

    Senior forward Landry Fields overcame a slow start to finish with 16 points and seven rebounds. He didn’t have the best shooting night of his career, but he found a way to get his points, both inside and out.

    “I was as proud of any kid as I’ve ever been,” said Coach Johnny Dawkins of Fields. “He takes everyone’s best shot every night. He’s never once backed off a challenge. He got off to a slow start tonight, and the toughest thing for any good player to do is to be able to turn it around in that same game. For him to turn it around in the second half says a lot about who he is.”

    Overall, it was a solid performance by the Cardinal, who led nearly the whole game and pulled away from the Bruins in the final minutes.

    “I thought we played well,” Dawkins said after the game. “I thought our guys worked hard, followed the game plan and were prepared.”
    Dawkins also had plenty of praise for Green.

    “I give the young man a lot of credit,” he said. “He’s played through a lot of injuries. He contributes, he’s competitive and I’m starting to think he [plays well] so he doesn’t have to practice for me,” Dawkins joked.

    “He’s got a big heart — he’s a big competitor,” he added.

    The unheralded Cardinal big men — Trotter and fellow sophomore Andrew Zimmerman — also played well, finishing around the basket and making a number of hustle plays. Trotter, a walk-on, finished with 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting.

    “I thought our big men were terrific,” Dawkins said. “They grew even more tonight.”

    Trotter emphasized the businesslike role he and Zimmerman have assumed for the Cardinal this season. “We’re going to defend, rebound and set screens,” he said. “We’re just setting screens and making good, strong fundamental plays.”

    Sophomore point guard Jarrett Mann did what he needed to do as point guard, only scoring six points but dishing out an impressive eight assists. Though the Cardinal did not receive a single point from its bench, the contributions from the starters were more than enough to top the Bruins on Saturday.

    UCLA shot 54.6 percent from the field while Stanford only shot 47.2 percent, but the game was won on turnovers and free throws — the Cardinal shot 13 more free throws and turned the ball over 10 fewer times. The Bruins may have shot the ball better, but the Cardinal’s execution on offense — namely, its ability to take care of the ball — was the difference in the game, whether UCLA threw a zone or man-to-man defense at it.

    “This just happened to be a good game against a good team, and [we got] a great win,” Green said.

    Stanford earned a much-welcome sweep of the Southern California schools with the victory, and it stands, for the moment, in the upper half of the conference before traveling to face the Washington schools this week.

  • W. Basketball: Southern Comfort

    With the Pacific-10 Conference season just one game old, the Cardinal hit the road last weekend to battle USC and UCLA in Southern California.

    Returning with two wins, an 82-62 defeat of USC (9-6, 3-1 Pac-10) and a narrow 65-61 victory over UCLA (10-5, 3-1 Pac-10), No. 2/2 Stanford (13-1, 3-0 Pac-10) marked a successful trip early in the year. The wins also move the team to the top of the Pac-10 table, and will give Stanford good memories of Trojan hardwood when it returns to the Galen Center for the Pac-10 Tournament in March.

    Friday’s game against USC started perfectly for Stanford, which raced ahead to a 22-4 lead in the first 6 minutes, 42 seconds, and extended this to 30-7 as the competition only made three of its first 17 shots.

    With the situation looking perhaps a little desperate, the Trojans rallied together and brought the deficit down to just nine points with 15 minutes left in the game. But that was the closest they got, as the Cardinal responded with four three-pointers and a 14-2 run that effectively sealed the contest.

    Having beaten three top-25 teams this year under new head coach Michael Cooper, given the Cardinal a close run for the Pac-10 title last season, and taken their first two matches in the conference, the Trojans looked like tricky opponents for the Friday game. The final result, though, was perhaps a bit of a reality check for Cooper’s young program.

    “For us to come back against the No. 2 team in the country and get within nine points was admirable on our part, but it doesn’t do anything for us,” Cooper said. “We’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us.”

    After expressing disappointment in the performance that recently defeated California, albeit by 21 points, Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer was happier with this victory. Both forwards junior Kayla Pedersen and sophomore Nnemkadi Ogwumike made double-doubles in points and rebounds, with senior center Jayne Appel just one rebound shy of joining them. Meanwhile, credit goes to guards senior Rosalyn Gold-Onwude and junior Jeanette Pohlen for keeping the USC backcourt at bay.

    Redshirt junior guard Melanie Murphy and the Stanford backcourt combined for 26 points in the Cardinal’s 65-61 win over UCLA to keep the Bruins at a distance until time expired on Sunday in Pauley Pavilion. (WENDY KALKUS/The Stanford Daily)

    Redshirt junior guard Melanie Murphy and the Stanford backcourt combined for 26 points in the Cardinal’s 65-61 win over UCLA to keep the Bruins at a distance until time expired on Sunday in Pauley Pavilion. (WENDY KALKUS/The Stanford Daily)

    “We played much improved since our last game,” VanDerveer said. “We rebounded well, ran well, and I’m really happy with our improvement.”

    At the end of the first half of the game on Sunday, many expected another strong victory by the Card against the Bruins. With only 24 seconds until the half-time buzzer, it had opened a 20-point lead, and it looked like the hard work might be done.

    But UCLA had other ideas, and started an 11-point unanswered run that continued into the second half. When the clock had ticked down to 1:40, the commanding margin was gone, barely two points separated the two sides and it seemed as if the Bruins just might hand Stanford its second loss of the year.

    While the Cardinal had posted almost the same number of points in the first and second halves (31 compared to 34), UCLA had more than doubled its haul (43 to 18). Though it was not enough for a Bruin victory, it is still hard to tell which team will be feeling better after this.

    UCLA showed that it can push and perhaps beat one of the highest-ranked programs in the country, but Stanford ultimately took the statistic that mattered: the win.

    There were no double-doubles on the Cardinal bench, and the numbers don’t look great in general. The team made 16 turnovers to UCLA’s nine, and the Bruins managed seven steals. Appel fouled out and Ogwumike came close to following her, and though she played for the entire game, Pedersen could only register six points.

    Stanford revealed its skill on Friday, but Sunday’s game illustrated that depth remains in this conference — the title is not guaranteed to return to the Farm.

    “All I can say is they are not a team to be taken lightly,” Pohlen said. “They are a great physical team and have great individual players.

    “We learned today that we have a lot of competition in the Pac-10.”

    Two players stand out, though: Ogwumike again notched up over 20 points — 10 of her 21 were scored once she was already resting on four fouls — and Gold-Onwude broke her career record with an 18-point total, including the two free throws that finally put the game out of reach in the last few seconds.

    The Cardinal returns to campus this week to face Washington State at Maples on Thursday and Washington on Saturday.

  • Congratulations to Facebook, Bing, and the other Crunchies winners

    zuckerberg crunchiesWe held the Crunchies, the awards that honor the year’s achievements in technology, on Friday in San Francisco. The awards were co-hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm, and VentureBeat, who also selected the nominees, but the ultimate winners were chosen by the readers who voted at the Crunchies website.

    Here’s a list of the nominees, with the winners highlighted. You can see Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Best Overall Startup winner Facebook, receiving his award and a bottle of Vitamin water (don’t ask me, I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show) from VentureBeat editor Matt Marshall in the photo above, as well as Zynga’s Mark Pincus, triumphantly brandishing his CEO of the Year award in the photo below.

    Best Technology Achievement:
    Backblaze
    Bing (Microsoft)
    Chrome OS (Google) (Winner)
    Google Wave (Runner Up)
    PuSH
    Silverlight (Microsoft)

    Best Internet Application:
    Animoto
    Dropbox (Winner)
    Groupon
    MOG All Access
    Posterous
    Yelp (Runner Up)

    Best Social App:
    Aardvark
    Brizzly
    DailyBooth (Runner Up)
    Farmville(Winner)
    SocialVibe
    StockTwits

    Best Bootstrapped Startup:
    atebits (Tweetie)
    Shoes of Prey
    Tinychat (Winner)
    Wildfire Interactive (Runner Up)
    wizehive
    Wufoo

    Best Mobile Application:
    foursquare (Winner)
    Google Voice
    Gowalla (Runner Up)
    Kindle for iPhone
    Skies of Glory
    Tonchidot

    Best International:
    Amiando
    Jolicloud
    Playfish (Runner Up)
    Spotify (Winner)
    TweetDeck
    vente-privee.com

    Best Time Sink Application:
    Canabalt
    Civilization Revolution (iPhone)
    DailyBooth (Winner)
    I Am T-Pain
    Pandora (Runner Up)
    Zoosk

    Best Design:
    Animoto (Winner)
    Brizzly
    Chrome (Google)
    Clicker
    Facebook Mobile (Runner Up)
    Threadsy

    Best Enterprise:
    Amazon Web Services
    Atlassian (Runner Up)
    Azure (Microsoft)
    Chatter (Salesforce)
    Google Docs/Office (Winner)
    Yext

    Best CleanTech:
    CalStar Products
    Locust Storage
    Picarro
    Sappphire Energy (Runner Up)
    Sun Run (Winner)
    Tendril

    Best New Gadget:
    Apple Magic Mouse (Runner Up)
    Barnes & Noble nook (Winner)
    litl webbookMotorola Droid
    Sonos S5
    Zune HD

    Best Tech PR:
    Brew Media Relations
    LaunchSquad
    OutCast Communications (Runner Up)
    PerkettPR
    Spark (Winner)
    SutherlandGold Group

    Best Angel:
    Betaworks
    Chris Sacca (Lowercase Capital)
    Jeff Clavier (SoftTechVC)
    Ron Conway (SV Angel) (Winner)
    Y-Combinator (Runner Up)
    Yossi Vardi

    Best VC Firm:
    Accel Partners (Winner)
    Charles River Ventures
    Benchmark Capital
    Greylock Partners (Runner Up)
    Sequoia Capital
    True Ventures
    Union Square Ventures

    Founder Of The Year:
    Aaron Patzer (Mint) (Winner)
    Elon Musk (Tesla)
    Jack Dorsey (Square)
    Jeremy Stoppelman & Russ Simmons (Yelp) (Runner Up)
    John Borthwick (Betaworks)
    Omar Hamoui (AdMob)

    pincus crunchiesCEO Of The Year:
    Josh Silverman (Skype) (Runner Up)
    Marc Benioff (Salesforce)
    Mark Pincus (Zynga) (Winner)
    Neil Young (ngmoco)
    Richard Rosenblatt (Demand Media)
    Tony Hsieh (Zappos)

    Best New Startup Or Product Of 2009:
    Aardvark (Runner Up)
    Bing (Microsoft) (Winner)
    Foursquare
    Hunch
    Milo
    Spotify

    Best Overall Startup Or Product Of 2009:
    Android (Google)
    Facebook (Winner)
    LinkedIn
    ngmoco
    Twitter (Runner Up)
    Zynga


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  • W. Swimming: Taming the Tigers

    The Stanford women’s swimming and diving team started its winter season off with a big home win against Pacific on Saturday, beating the Tigers by a final score of 154-97. The team’s dual meet record now stands at 4-0 as it looks to go undefeated in dual meets for the second consecutive season. Stanford has lost only one dual meet since 2006, going 31-1 in that span.

    Stanford women’s swimming and diving’s 154-97 defeat of Pacific left no doubt as to the team’s readiness for the upcoming Pac-10 season, which begins Jan. 22  against Arizona State. (AUDRIE LIN/The Stanford Daily)

    Stanford women’s swimming and diving’s 154-97 defeat of Pacific left no doubt as to the team’s readiness for the upcoming Pac-10 season, which begins Jan. 22 against Arizona State. (AUDRIE LIN/The Stanford Daily)

    As expected, the Cardinal was able to dominate Pacific despite lingering fatigue from holiday training, sweeping all 16 events. The Tigers put up little resistance, placing no higher than fourth in 10 events.

    Strong performances from senior co-captain Elaine Breeden, junior Liz Smith and sophomore Betsy Webb headlined the Cardinal’s win. Each swimmer notched three wins in the meet, including relay events.

    The trio and junior co-captain Kate Dwelley started the day by winning the 200-yard medley relay, posting a time of 1 minute, 43.61 seconds. Other Cardinal relay teams came in second, third, fourth and sixth.

    Breeden went on to win the 200 butterfly and the 200 individual medley, posting times of 2:01.24 and 2:05.89, respectively. She won both events by four-second margins.

    Webb won the 50 freestyle in 23.23, and Smith took the 500 free in 4:44.29. These two, Dwelley and sophomore Sam Woodward won the day’s final event, the 200 free relay, with a B-standard time of 1:33.29.

    Senior co-captain Julia Smit, who broke two world records in England over winter break, also turned in a strong performance. She posted B-standard times in the 100 backstroke and the 100 free, going 55.07 and 48.97, respectively.

    The Stanford freshmen were also impressive — freshmen Andi Murez and Natalie Durant each won events. Murez took the 200 free in 1:51.41, and Durant won the 200 backstroke in 2:02.84. Other freshmen swimmers placed well in numerous events and were key parts of Cardinal relay teams.

    Despite this strong showing, there is still a need for improvement for these swimmers.

    “The freshmen can step it up and contribute to the team more, including myself,” said freshman Megan Fischer-Colbrie, who placed second in the 100 backstroke and third in the 200 back. “We can do a better job helping the team score points.”

    Other winners for the Card were juniors Angela Duckworth (1,000 free) and Kerry Kraemer (100 breast), sophomore Jamie Bruce (200 breast) and senior Stefanie Sutton (100 fly).

    Stanford’s diving team also won its two events, the one-meter and three-meter platform.

    In the end, the meet was little more than a warm-up for the Cardinal as it heads into Pacific-10 Conference competition. Next weekend, the diving team will head south to the Bruin Diving Invitational in Westwood, Calif., and the Card will duel Arizona State and No. 2 Arizona in two dual meets on Jan. 22 and Jan. 23.

    “[The meet] was like a dress rehearsal for the bigger meets to come,” Fischer-Colbrie said. “Right now, it’s not about the team’s end result, but more about making sure we’re doing the right things to race well.”

  • Crapgadget Crapdown, CES 2010: the best of the worst

    It’s that time of the year again, where we round up all the gadgets we found on the CES show floor that help us to reset our gauge for bad ideas and hardware. Following in 2009’s footsteps, there seemed to be much less crap this year than before. Still, we’re here to recognize those souls who strive harder than most to hit that point of mediocrity — pick your favorite below, then rest easy knowing that you live in a world that accepts the existence of all kinds of products, no matter how miserable.

    The nominees

    Crapgadget Crapdown, CES 2010: the best of the worst originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Tune In or Tune Out? How Music Affects Running Performance

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    When asking if you should listen to music while running, the answer is, “it depends.”

    And what it most depends on is how serious you are. If you’re the competitive type who is training for a race, and perhaps chasing a personal best, then listening to music can be a bad idea. If you’re like the majority of the population and need some righteous tunes to distract you from the fact that it’s cold/hot/dark/humid/raining, or you are tired/sweaty/bored/sore/hungover, then jam those headphones in your ears and crank it loud.

    On second thought, don’t crank it too loud. You’ll go deaf.

    Blasting the tunes creates what is called a dissociative state; it distracts you from all the aforementioned unpleasantness to make the entire running experience more enjoyable. I’ll admit that I’m bummed if I’m out for a run and the battery in my iPod dies.

    Continue reading Tune In or Tune Out? How Music Affects Running Performance

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  • The Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bicycle Generator

    The Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bicycle Generator

    Today’s twin goals of keeping fit while doing something good for the planet by creating electricity without any pollution come together in a product that has been around for over ten years – The Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bicycle Generator. Use your bicycle along with the Pedal-A-Watt Stand (it takes 15 seconds to drop your […]
    Posted in: Human Power, Pedal Power



  • Brief: Men’s volleyball tunes up in alumni match

    Last night, the Stanford men’s volleyball team had its final tune-up before the regular season begins, hosting a team of past men’s volleyball players in an alumni match at Maples Pavilion. The alumni team showed up to play and gave the varsity starters three close sets, although the current team came out on top. In the fourth set, the alumni, including 2009 graduate Jarod Keller at libero, 1985 All-American Craig Lauchner and three-time All-American Dan Hanan (1988-1990), added current player Gus Ellis and beat the Stanford second team.

    Senior Evan Romero returns to lead the pre-seson-No. 3 Stanford men’s volleball team as the regular season kicks off against No. 12 Hawaii on Jan. 15. Romero has a career-leading 1,295 kills in his first three seasons on the Farm. (Stanford Daily File Photo)

    Senior Evan Romero returns to lead the pre-seson-No. 3 Stanford men’s volleball team as the regular season kicks off against No. 12 Hawaii on Jan. 15. Romero has a career-leading 1,295 kills in his first three seasons on the Farm. (Stanford Daily File Photo)

    The Cardinal, which is ranked No. 3 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason poll, starts the season Friday, Jan. 15 against No. 12 Hawaii. Stanford, which had an excellent fall season, looks to kick its season off the right way, while Hawaii is looking for another upset to add to its victory last week over No. 1 USC in the championship of the Outrigger Hotels Invitational. Stanford is led by senior Evan Romero, Stanford’s career leader in kills with 1,295, along with returning All-American brothers Kawika and Erik Shoji. Senior setter Kawika recorded 1,394 assists last season to facilitate the offense, while sophomore libero Erik helped anchor the team’s defense with 447 digs.

    The match against Hawaii begins 7 p.m. on Friday in Maples Pavilion.

  • Bohm: Crossing lines in coaching

    First it was Mark Mangino. Then Mike Leach. And finally Jim Leavitt.

    What do they all have in common? They are — were — all college football coaches who have been fired in the past month for using various forms of discipline deemed too severe by their respective universities.

    That isn’t all they have in common, however. Mangino, Leach and Leavitt were three of the most lauded coaches in the nation the past few seasons having all resurrected previously decrepit football programs at Kansas, Texas Tech and South Florida, respectively.

    I have been a sports fan my entire life and can say unequivocally that, after racking my brain, I cannot come up with a similar firing in any sport from the past.

    Sure, there was Bob Knight getting fired from Indiana for hitting players — among other transgressions — but those actions were on video tape, and sometimes on national television. As was Ohio State’s coach, Woody Hayes, punching Clemson’s Charlie Bauman in the jaw.

    What happened with Mangino, Leach and Leavitt happened behind closed doors (pun intended, Mr. Leach).

    What I’m getting at here is that the world has changed. Actions that were formerly O.K. are no longer acceptable today. I know that not everything that is longstanding is necessarily a good thing, but in this case the change signals something deeper permeating through American society. Simply put, people are getting soft.

    There are an abundance of factors that likely contribute to banning of good-ol’ fashioned discipline.

    Media technology is obviously one factor. Things that previously did not garner national attention can be heard by anyone and everyone on Twitter five minutes after they happen, or communicated via Facebook for the entire world to see. Or, in the Leach case, a cell phone camera was all that was needed to make Mike Leach’s treatment of a concussed Adam James a national story.

    Another factor is the growing fear of liability. Universities are strapped for cash, and while football brings in millions of dollars, the fear of getting sued hangs over the head of every university president and athletic director.

    That said, Mark Mangino, the 2007 National Coach of the Year, a coach who doubled his school’s bowl wins during his tenure and led them to their first BCS bowl win, was fired for his alleged verbal abuse of players.

    He wasn’t accused of hitting anyone (although grabbing was mentioned), so basically he was fired for being a jerk. Somewhere, Bear Bryant is rolling over in his grave.

    I think what administrators must be forgetting is that this is football. It is a violent game that teaches players to literally hit their opponent, and it requires massive amounts of adrenaline to be successful.

    Coaches spend hundreds of hours molding these young men’s bodies, teaching them to be aggressive, to want to inflict pain on opponents. Somewhere in that tangled web of testosterone and shoulder pads, there is going to be some yelling, and every once in a while, someone is going to get grabbed — or even hit. So be it.

    The nature of the game teaches players to be obedient, but in a world where young people are allowed more and more freedom at increasingly younger ages, obedience can be hard to come by.

    So, when a player with a concussion shows up to practice with sunglasses on and complains about the light, a coach locking him in a dark place does not seem too illogical. Maybe the illogical part was doing it to the son of an ESPN broadcaster, as ESPN is right at the center of the media boom.

    In no way is this column intended to promote or condone coaches’ abusing players — there have to be limits as to what is allowed and what isn’t — but I do believe that when a coach is charged with controlling and molding the lives of 100-plus college athletes, there has to be some leeway provided.

    I don’t know where Mangino, Leach and Leavitt will land, but all three are brilliant football minds that deserve to be employed somewhere. Unfortunately, I think it will be a while until any of them has a job again.

    Daniel Bohm thinks the abuse he allegedly “doesn’t condone” is part of football. Tell him you’d like to lock him in a small, dark closet at bohmd “at” stanford.edu.

  • Nicole Scherzinger Splits From Formula One Driver Lewis Hamilton

    Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger has called it quits with Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton after two years of dating.

    In a joint statement issued Sunday, the 25-year-old racing driver and the pop singer, 31, said they are ending their romance to focus on their careers.

    “They have decided to go their separate ways. They want to focus fully on their careers and will remain close friends,” a statement from the couple’s spokesperson confirmed.


  • The Laxman Helps You Relax As It Studies your Brainwaves

    PRD neurotronics laxman mind machine 300x194 The Laxman Helps You Relax As It Studies your BrainwavesThe Laxman is probably the ugliest pair of eyewear we have ever seen, but they do much more than make a terrible fashion statement. It is a mind relaxation product that attempts to soothe your stress, give you increased energy, allow for deeper sleep, and increase concentration. Depending on your brainwave output the Laxman will work to get you into a different and healthier state of mind. The Laxman has MP3 compatibility so you can listen to your tunes as you relax, a mini-SD card slot, and 22 pre-set sessions to shift you into another state of consciousness. The Laxman Light & Sound Mind Machine retails for a whopping $649, so you’ll certainly need some soothing after you’ve purchased it.

     The Laxman Helps You Relax As It Studies your Brainwaves


  • Wild Discovery Becomes the First Lebanese Network of Travel Agencies to Offset … – PR Newswire (press release)

    Wild Discovery Becomes the First Lebanese Network of Travel Agencies to Offset
    PR Newswire (press release)
    affiliated to Johnny R. Saade Holdings, is the first Lebanese travel agency to offset its greenhouse gas emissions and thus, becomes carbon Neutral.

    and more »


  • BMW DesignworksUSA Earphones Unveiled at CES 2010

    The BMW DesignworksUSA Singapore, Los Angeles and Munich studios worked together on developing the new three ranges of earphones that were revealed at the CES exhibition held in Las Vegas last week. Moreover, the CX 680 even received an International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Honoree title.

    Earphones are expected to provide top-quality sound on the move and at the same time have an excellent finish quality, explained Maurice Quarré, Head of Product Management C… (read more)

  • The Next Hot Smart Grid Market? China

    When a giant nation with giant energy needs like China says it’s going to smarten up its electric grid, U.S. technology companies — not surprisingly — take note. Witness General Electric’s announcement that it’s partnering with the City of Yangzhou, China, to build a smart grid “demonstration center” in the city of 4 million, with the […]


  • event:Research and Development Society of San Diego

    Join us for an excellent networking opportunity and to learn about the newest releases and capabilities of Pro/Engineer and CFD simulation tools.

  • How To Change The Wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter Edition

    When I first decided to try out Windows 7 on my Dell Mini, I made the big mistake of putting Windows 7 ultimate on it. Boy did that run like molasses! It was so painful, I promptly went right back to running Bauer-Puntu (Which runs like a well oiled machine on netbooks by the way).

    A little while later my friend asked me why I didn’t put Windows 7 Starter on my netbook, after all, that is the version that is designed for netbooks. If you haven’t heard of Windows 7 Starter Edition, here is the description from Wikipedia:

    [Windows 7 Starter is] the least-featured edition of Windows 7; the Windows Aero theme is not included, and it isn’t available in a 64-bit variant. The desktop wallpaper, and Visual Style (Windows 7 Basic) is also not user-changeable, although third party software such as Stardock MyColors can allow these changes to be made. This edition is available pre-installed on computers through system integrators or computer manufacturers.

    Stardock MyColors? Yes, you can change your wallpaper with it, as well as the entire theme. What if you want to keep your netbook running light? Then you probably don’t want to change the theme, you just want to change the wallpaper. I found a free utility that does simply that! It is called Starter Wallpaper Changer. To use it, find a jpg wallpaper you like, then run Starter Wallpaper Changer as administrator. Select your jpg file, and change. Then log off, and log back in. Simple!

    wallpaper_windows_7_starter

    I first tried changing the registry, but it kept reverting back. I also tried replacing the wallpaper image Microsoft uses, but that just made my wallpaper black. That is what led me to Starter Wallpaper Changer.

    Do you have Windows 7 Starter edition? Did you figure out a different way to change the wallpaper? Know of any other tricks on Windows 7? Let us know in the comments!

  • George Costanza, Weight Loss Icon? Benefits of Heavy Make-Up and More

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    jason alexanderEach morning, we dish out a few links we love.

    Who’s going follow in Kirstie and Valerie’s footsteps to become the new face of Jenny Craig? Why, it’s none other than pleasantly plump Jason Alexander, better known as neurotic George Costanza.

    Forget the au naturel look — studies show that wearing lots of heavy eye make-up actually has health benefits.

    Suspect you might be texting too much? You’re probably right — texting-related injuries are up in a big way all across the world.

    Looking to lose a few? Experts have banded together to give you this pretty obvious piece of advice: Just eat less.

    Got a case of the January blues? Get thee to a gym — exercise will help!

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  • Liquid Handling Company Launches New Corporate Brand

    Following its recent merger with the Viaflo Corporation – INTEGRA Biosciences AG has announced that from 1st January 2010 the companies will adopt the new corporate brand – INTEGRA.

    Elmar Morscher, CEO of Integra Biosciences recently stated, “The recent merger between Integra Biosciences AG of Switzerland and Viaflo Corporation of the US has created a strong corporate entity that develops, manufactures, sells and services a wide variety of innovative laboratory products to over ninety countries. The focal point of the combined worldwide business is liquid handling solutions; both represented as instrumentation and consumables designed primarily for the life sciences marketplace. The wide range of complimentary products produced by the two companies, along with numerous exciting new product additions planned for 2010, will be repositioned under the new corporate brand INTEGRA. The INTEGRA brand will replace existing brands within the combined businesses and will represent a clear direction of a company that has merged the best of the old with a singular and simple goal of producing new innovative and high value liquid handling products for the future.”

    To introduce the new INTEGRA brand – a new website incorporating the complete range of INTEGRA Biosciences AG and Viaflo products has been launched. Located at www.integra-biosciences.com the site uses a design format that is rapidly downloaded by web search engines and provides visitors with direct access to a major source of valuable information and news. Intuitively structured, the site provides easy and rapid access to an expanding applications database, scientific reports bibliography and the latest news on technological and product developments. Further information on the company, its products, representatives around the world and hints and tips is also given.

  • Special Offer from Medit Inc

    January 2010. Medit Inc offers industrial fiberscope sets with free 24W Metal Halide Light source and light guide. Now if you purchase any of Medit industrial fiberscopes FI series you will have free powerful Metal Halide light source with more than 50 000 Lux of light power. The whole set includes a fiberscope with diameter of probe from 4 mm to 8 mm and length 1350 or 1850 mm with 2- or 4-way articulation, Metal Halide light source, light guide and packed into a carrying case.
    The offer is limited!

    Please contact for more information [email protected]