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Sony just announced that they’re going to focus on live music performances in 3D. They started out with a clip of Hendrix at Woodstock (awesome) and now they’re bringing out the adorable glitter explosion that is Taylor Swift.

They’re going to film them live and convert to 3D, to be broadcast on TV. Right now, Taylor Swift is performing live (just for us! Sparkly guitar and all!) and behind her, they’re showing the performance coded in 3D. It’s pretty f-in’ cool.

Have you ever thought of having a “take anywhere” computer that can project your content to your table? well this is for you. The new company just today released some information on their new system that is to be called Light Touch™, and it is something cool in a small case. The new system turns any flat surface into a 10” touch screen, which then you can use to connect with your device with the included connectivity. The unit has WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity enabling device to device communication and applications that connect directly to the internet such as social networking, multimedia sharing and electronic point of sale .

Light Touch™ adds LBO’s proprietary holographic laser projection technology (HLP™), creating bright, high-quality WVGA resolution video images that are always in focus. HLP can also correct for distortion and optical aberrations in software, enabling novel table-top projection. Light Touch™ includes an infra-red touch sensing system that transforms the projected image into a touch surface.

The device ships with 2GB of onboard Flash memory and has a Micro SD card slot that supports up to 32GB extra for all the things you want to use and use. The video shows the system at work and it really is amazing how much power this small thing has. This technology could one day be part of our mobile phones, but for now we just have to watch and enjoy.

For the last few months, we’ve been seeing more and more stories about Google’s communication problems with users. This has always been something of an issue with Google — which seems to prefer algorithms to humans whenever possible — but we’re seeing it so often, that I’m really beginning to wonder if this is a serious problem (or potential Achilles heel) for the company. It seems like Google could take some serious lessons from a company like Zappos that treats everyone like a human and goes to amazing lengths to resolve any problems. Instead, too often dealing with Google feels like tossing a request into a giant shiny white box where you may or may not ever hear back — and, if you do hear back, it’s unlikely to be particularly helpful.

For example, we’ve already talked about the problems many suddenly banned advertisers have had in getting any kind of explanation from Google (let alone any recourse). On top of that, there was the situation with users being locked out of their Google docs, with little communication from Google available. This is really potentially quite damaging. It gives the impression of a giant white wall between users and the company in an age where having some sort of human connection to a company is increasingly important. I recognize that Google has it in their DNA to be afraid of people gaming the system, but in shutting itself off from the world, it may be creating more problems for itself.

The latest example is instructive. Jack Yan alerts us to his own writeup of the struggle he’s gone through to try to get Google to reinstate a blog it incorrectly deleted back in July. You can read the forum exchange that began in November (after many months of going through the regular official channels and being told to “wait 2 days” over and over again with nothing coming of it). Jack summarizes the forum exchange this way, with Google’s explanation first, and his response in parentheses:

1. You probably didn’t follow the suggestions. (Yes, I did.)
2. You didn’t do it at the right time. (Yes, I did.)
3. Wait two days. (Waited, nothing happened.)
4. Wait till this afternoon. (Waited, nothing happened.)
5. There’s no cache of it. (Yes, there is.)
6. You’re not the owner of the site. (Owner steps in and says I am allowed to follow this up for him.)
7. There’s no cache of it. (Yes, there is.)
8. I’ll ignore the main link you give and focus on a second one that is less useful. (Look at the first one then.)
9. There’s no cache of it. (Yes, there is.)
10. There’s no cache of it. (Yes, there is.)
11. Your search term is not relevant to this. (But it shows you a cache of it.)

The exchange is incredibly frustrating to read, and I’m amazed that Jack remained as calm as he did through it all. In fact, he notes that Google itself had a cache of the site for a long time — including when he kept submitting for reinstatement and getting told to wait two days. But now Google’s own cache is gone, so he’s pointing the Google folks to Yahoo’s cache to prove the blog is not a spam blog. And Google’s response appears to be nitpicking over the search term, rather than the cache itself, or looking for ways to get the blog back. I know plenty of folks who work at Google and care deeply about their products and how they’re perceived, but I’m amazed at how badly the company seems to handle basic customer service issues like this one.

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Nesse meio de semana a Volkswagen indiana resolveu apresentar seu mais novo modelo, o Novo Polo 2010.

O modelo lançado no mercado indiano é muito parecido com o modelo europeu, modelo que também foi apresentado no Salão de Genebra.

Segundo a marca, o modelo estará disponível para comercialização a partir de março e contará com duas opções de motores, de 1,2 litros a gasolina que rende 75 cavalos de potencia e a segunda opção a diesel, que vai ter a mesma potencia.

A Volkswagen Índia ainda não anunciou os preços do novo modelo e nem os pacotes que vão ser aplicados de fábrica no modelo.

Fonte: Quatro Rodas

Salt Lake County, Utah | Outsider Architecture

The Spiral Jetty is built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, and dirt. It was built in 1970 by Robert Smithson and is 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide jutting out into the Great Salt Lake. However no one saw his work for over 30 years. Built during a drought, once the water levels returned to normal the spiral was submerged for three decades only emerging during a drought in 2004.

The black basalt rock are now mostly covered with white salt encrustation and the water has a pink hue to it. The jetty disappears if the lake level is higher than 4,197 feet and currently the jetty is again in danger of disappearing altogether. There is a plan to restore the jetty, but not everyone agrees. The sculptor, who died in a plane crash only three years after completing the jetty, expressed a love of entropy and the eroding powers of nature. It is likely Smithson would have been very happy with the jetty’s constant disappearing act and changing appearance.

October and November are typically the lowest levels of the lake annually, but if there is a heavy snow pack the previous year, the jetty may stay submerged all year. As the drought comes to an end the jetty may once again disappear, this time never to re-emerge.

More on the general Salt Lake area: http://atlasobscura.com/places/antelope-island-great-salt-lake

Embarrass, Wisconsin | Extraordinary Flora

John Krubsack was a self-starter. A banker from Embarrass, Wisconsin, he was the first in the area to boast running water, he landscaped his property before it was the fashion, he farmed and made cheese, and he loved collecting nice branches with which to make furniture.

One day in 1903, a friend admired a beechwood chair Krubsack had crafted, complimenting him on his handicraft. A man who perhaps didn’t know how to take a compliment, Krubsack announced, “Dammit, one of these days I am going to grow a piece of furniture that will be better and stronger than any human hands can build.”

That someday came in 1907 with Krusback planting 32 box elder trees in his back yard. Fascinated by what would come of the experiment, Krusback began grafting and bending the tree stems and branches into the shape of a chair. After 11 years, with periodic help from Krubsack, every joint in the chair was strong, or as Krubsack said, “cemented by nature.” The chair was ready to be harvested.

Dubbed “The Chair That Grew,” this curious piece of furniture was exhibited at the 1915 World’s Fair, appeared in Ripley’s Believe It or Not column, and was featured in a film with Krubsack explaining how it was made, which ran in the weekly newsreels in movie theaters across the country.

Though many handsome offers were made for the famous chair, Krubsack refused to sell, eventually leaving it to his nephew to be displayed in his furniture store.

The “Chair that Grew” was last seen at the entrance of Noritage Furniture, owned by Krubsack’s descendants, Steve and Dennis Krubsack. The store recently closed, and the fate of the chair is unknown, but it likely still resides somewhere in the tiny town of Embarrass, WI, not far from where it grew nearly 100 years ago.

Leonovo’s press conference at CES ’10 was an odd mashup of Far East engineering and Near West infomercial-style presentation. A fellow blogger who shall remain nameless just referred to Lenovo’s presenter as, “The Shamwow Guy.” Yup – it’s that cheesy.

The products Lenovo launched today look better than the event itself did, though I’m scratching by head a little over the name of the company’s new smartphone: “LePhone.” Yeah, it’s pronounced just like you’d think, “Le Phone.” Yikes. 

LePhone is being targeted at the budding Chinese market, but it also represents a step towards Lenovo entering the global market as well. It also, frankly, looks like an odd mash-up/ripoff of both Android and iPhone OS. Check out this slide from the presentation – if this doesn’t scream “iTunes App Store,” I don’t know what does.

The phone itself is a touchscreen candybar device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Lephone runs a proprietary build of Google’s Android OS that seems possibly derived from the Android-based oPhone. Lenovo also indicated that they seem willing to tweak and tailor the OS and user experience to the needs of various carriers as they pick the device up. What I saw of the UI is based around social networking, threaded conversations, people-centric views of data, widgets, and cloud services. 

Despite a name that’s either bad or maybe just translates poorly to English, Lephone itself is slick. I got to play with one for a few moments, and the UI is colorful, fun, and very responsive. The hardware is kind of like a rounded off iPhone with a larger display and colored plastic accents to go with all of that black and chrome. 

Lenovo also launched the Skylight “Smartbook” and the IdeaPad U1 “Hybrid Netbook.” Both are 3G-capable mobile computers, the former notable for it’s ultra small, curvy design and the latter for its dual-purpose form factor. The U1 functions both as a Windows 7-powered netbook and, after you snap the display out of the clamshell body, a Linux-based tablet with a multitouch display.

Genome.gov

Scientists say deciphering the DNA in cells will be a key frontier for the next decade.

A decade from now, doctors could well be giving checkups to the bacteria in your digestive tract, super-smart computers could be responding to your unspoken thoughts, and a new green revolution could be well under way. At least that’s the way more than a dozen experts on science and technology see it in a series of essays offered up today by the journal Nature.

As great as all that sounds, the experts make it clear that not everything about the world in 2020 will be bright and shiny. In some cases, you might not think the future is worth the price you’d have to pay.

The Independent Weekly Line on Durango and BeyondDurango TelegraphThe Durango region is growing onto the cutting edge of biofuels production. An alternative energy firm is now shipping algae-based biofuel grown at its new …and more »

Well, well, well, what we’ve got here! Just look at this beauty! This is all new Sony Bravia NX. Quiet a stunning design, won’t you agree? Let’s see what we got here.

The NX sets come in 2 flavors: NX800 and NX700 models. The heart of the new line is the NX800 model, featuring Edge LED Backlit technology and integrated Wi-Fi capability. Available screen sizes include: 60, 52 and 46 inch models.

BRAVIA® KDL-60NX800
This model will be available in spring for about $4,600, this is what you can look for:
•       60-inch Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlight LCD
•       Monolithic Design
•       Motionflow™ 240Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
•       Integrated Wi-Fi wireless network capabilities (802.11)
•       BRAVIA® Internet Video and Widgets
•       BRAVIA Engine™ 3
•       USB and DLNA® photo/music/video playback
•       Screen sizes include 52 (KDL-52NX800: $3,400) and 46-inch (KDL-46NX800: $2,800)

NX700 model packs the following  goodies for  you:

BRAVIA® KDL-46NX700
Available in spring for about $2,600
•       46-inch Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlight LCD
•       Monolithic Design
•       Motionflow™ 120Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
•       Integrated Wi-Fi wireless network capabilities (802.11N)
•       BRAVIA® Internet Video and Widgets
•       BRAVIA Engine™ 3
•       USB and DLNA® photo/music/video playback
•       Also includes a 40-inch  screen size (KDL-40NX700: $2,100)

If you’re are going to sacrifice your billion dollar empire for a woman, shouldn’t said woman at least have an ass? If husband-humpin’ stick figures who lack morals send your hormones racing, you’re in for a treat…..

Jaimee Grubbs, one of at least 12 alleged mistresses romantically-linked to shamed golf pro Tiger Woods — strips down for lacy lingerie shots in the February issue of Maxim! On the sex-charged pages of this month’s issue — on stands Jan. 19 — the popular men’s mag quizzes the former VH1 reality personality on her three year affair with the married athlete, her future plans to become a teacher, and how she feels about Tiger today.

“I met him on a girls’ trip to Vegas. A VIP host sat us down at a table with three guys. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, “You don’t look like you’re having fun.” And I realized we were at Tiger Woods’ table,”says the 24-year-old cocktail waitress and aspiring model. “If I were to say anything to Tiger now it would probably just be he hurt me and makes me question the character he is with everything that has happened and all these women that are coming out.”

Deloitte won its lawsuit against former Chicago partner Thomas Flanagan, who was accused of violating the firm’s rules against stock ownership in companies the accounting firm audits.

Here’s my story about the case.

There’s also an interesting sidebar about the judge’s opinion, which was released on Dec. 29. Flanagan’s lawyers tried to keep the opinion confidential.

When I tried to look up the case on the Delaware court’s Web site Tuesday, the case was not available for some reason. I called the court and learned that the judge presiding over the case had sealed his opinion but wasn’t given any explanation.

I talked to another source who told me that the decision was originally public but the judge later sealed it because it contained references to affidavits and other discovery materials that had been filed under seal.

But the cat was already out of the bag. A Delaware blogger had a link to the opinion on his blog and the Reuters news service had written a story about the decision.

Yet Flanagan’s lawyers filed a request with the court on Monday to keep the court’s opinion confidential. It also proposed a heavily redacted version of the decision be made public. Deloitte opposed the continued sealing of the court’s opinion.

Judge John Noble lifted the seal Tuesday, saying that the opinion did not impair any privacy interests that Flanagan may have. The judge also said the redacted version left out materials that were essential for an understanding of the court’s decision and analysis.

Thank you, judge. The redacted version deleted huge chunks of the decision, including some of the unauthorized trades that Flanagan made.

Take a look for yourself. Here’s the redacted version and the full opinion.

Bill hurts small construction businesses

Editor, The Times:

In their zeal to deliver a health-care bill by Christmas, Senate Democrats have inserted an 11th-hour jobs-killing provision that unfairly singles out the construction industry and threatens the viability of area small-home building firms and other businesses across the nation [“Final health-care bill may skip usual path, News, Jan. 5].

The provision stipulates that small construction-industry companies with five or more workers must offer health-care coverage to their workers — the same mandate required for big businesses with multimillion-dollar payrolls — or face stiff fines. Meanwhile, the mandatory health-care threshold for companies in all other industries is 50 or more workers.

To say that this provision is patently unfair is greatly understating the matter — it is also economically dangerous. With the construction industry currently charting an unemployment rate exceeding 18 percent and more than $200 billion in economic activity already lost in the past year, the additional impact of such a requirement would be extremely detrimental to communities like ours. Keep in mind that a majority of home-building firms in our local area and across America are small “mom-and-pop” operations that employ fewer than a dozen workers and are struggling to stay solvent amid the worst housing downturn in decades.

“Do no harm” is the guiding principle that all doctors abide by. In crafting health-care legislation, Congress must understand this concept also applies to America’s small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy.

If this provision targeting the construction industry is enacted into law, many small construction firms in our community and across the nation could be forced to shutter their doors, placing the housing industry on life-support. The consequences for housing and the economy are incalculable.

— Samuel L. Anderson, Bellevue

Why is America’s health so poor?

In the wake of recent national health-care debates, and as a current medical-student at UW, I find myself asking: “What factors contribute most to a healthy society?”

Though the U.S. spends more money on health care than any other nation, we consistently rank near-last among rich countries for most health indicators. We have higher rates of infant mortality, obesity and mental-health problems. Why is America’s health so poor compared with other industrialized countries?

The largest threat to our nation’s health may be income inequality. In the new book “The Spirit Level,” Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett document the correlation between income inequality and social problems like violence, teenage births, higher imprisonment rates and longer working hours. Sound familiar?

Those who enjoy social privilege also suffer from the diseases of inequality. For example, 25 percent of Americans from all class backgrounds suffer from mental illnesses. Wilkinson and Pickett suggest that almost every social problem in developed societies has inequality as its root cause. Let’s start talking about the consequences of living in an unhealthy, unequal society and push for reforms that move us toward greater equality.

— Libby Loft, Seattle

Competition across state lines would lower costs

To reform health care, one must make the system better, not just bigger. If you want to call it health-care reform, give us the right to buy insurance across state lines.

Since the days of “Hillarycare,” every Democrat and Republican alike told us that the ability to buy insurance across state lines would add competition and cut the cost of insurance. And they said they were going to get it for us! It was the one thing they all agreed on; a bipartisan solution to a real problem. Think of it! Real reform that wouldn’t cost the taxpayer one red cent and it would lower the cost of health insurance for every American. It’s a no-brainier! So, where is it?

Isn’t it a bit odd, that not one Republican nor Democrat, not one newspaper nor cable-news outlet is demanding the one real reform we all know will lower the cost of health insurance?

This so-called health-care bill is nothing more than an insurance company stimulus bill. Seriously, what else would you call a bill that will make another 30 million Americans buy health-care insurance, but only in the state they live in?

— Thomas Gassett, Everett

Handling of health care akin to that of the Christmas bomber

Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano says the “system worked,” referring to the TSA’s failure to prevent the suicide bomber from boarding the flight to Detroit. She is right. Everyone in the federal system performed exactly according to the rigidly detailed rules specified for their job — no more, no less.

They followed the rules, which is exactly how government systems work, with no room for judgment or imagination. This is exactly how the federal system of health-care commissions, agencies and bureaus will specify and rigidly apply defined rules in the federally regulated health-care system that Congress and the president are about to impose on America.

Will these bureaucrats make us as confident of the quality of our federally managed medical care as we now are of our TSA-managed safety on an airplane?

— Phil Scott, Maple Valley

Ahead of their expected announcement at Palm’s CES event tomorrow, the specs for the Verizon-bound Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus have been leaked to Phone Arena, via a Verizon-branded spec sheet. No great surprises here: the Pre Plus ups the storage to 16GB, while the Pixi Plus gets the Wi-Fi that was so glaringly absent from its Sprint sibling. (No mention of voice dialing for either, contrary to earlier speculation.)

The leaked shot is after the break.

Judges need ability to consider circumstances in police-slaying cases

As police officer Kent Mundell Jr. was honored at a memorial service held for him after being murdered in the line of duty, [“We all feel it,” page one, Jan. 6] Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire stated she will establish a commission because of the recent deaths of six police officers and seek opinions regarding either enhancements to existing laws or creation of new laws.

Laws designed to punish those who murder police officers while on duty must not have unconstitutional automatic clauses written into them that can be overruled after being improperly crafted. Sentencing guidelines need to have alternatives for judges to consider the circumstances.

The death penalty may be appropriate in some cases but an equally harsh sentence of life without parole, or a sentence of 50 years without any possible reduction, needs to be considered as an alternative if the life of an officer is taken in the line of duty by a perpetrator.

New laws must be crafted to prohibit this from happening to insure that those persons who murder officers in the line of duty receive equal treatment under the law — a constitutional requirement.

— Norm Colbert, Seattle

Police procession a waste

My heart goes out to any person who loses a loved one. However, I do not understand the expense associated with the procession of police cars that slow down traffic and fill the air with exhaust. Maybe police officers should all walk to the cemetery.

The officer was killed in the line of duty and police officers know that they are in harm’s way when they take on the job. When we honor men or women who die in the line of duty they are not around to appreciate the event. So, who really does benefit from the extreme cost the taxpayers fork out? Maybe hold a small, quiet family gathering and the money saved could go to benefit those in need.

I was born in Ukraine during World War II. I saw more humans die than I ever would want to. I am not without honoring our fallen, but I feel this is too extreme.

— Jennie Choban, B.C.

The British Sense About Science charity trust just released its annual report Celebrities and Science 2009 debunking the absurd health claims of celebrities who think their pop culture status gives them the right to play doctor. Sense About Science reviews celebs’ bogus advice, from special diets to miracle cures, and asks real scientists what the “stars” should have said.

Among this year’s gems, actor Roger Moore told the Daily Mail that “eating foie gras can lead to Alzheimer’s, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.” A real shocker — except that it’s false. Dietician Lucy Jones corrects the record, noting that food is broken down into component nutrients during digestion and “it is the balance of these components that is important to our health, not the specific food that they come from.”

The PETA-endorsing model Heather Mills asserted that meat “sits in your colon for 40 years and putrefies, and gives you the illness you die of.” University of Liverpool gastroenterologist Dr. Melita Gordon, however, called Mills’ assertion flat-out clueless. Meat proteins are absorbed by the small bowel before they get to the colon, says Gordon, and any remaining indigestible material is expelled within days.

Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty — another PETA endorser, incidentally — said she avoids carbonated drinks because “they sap all the oxygen from your body and make your skin wrinkly and dehydrated.” Wrong again. Physiologist Ron Maughan replies that even “[at] rest, the body is constantly producing carbon dioxide.” Maughan adds that “the amount from a fizzy drink is trivial and there is no obvious mechanism by which the skin would be affected.”

Scientifically-ignorant celebrities can be counted on to regurgitate more and more radical propaganda from activist groups. The Humane Society of the United States is waging a campaign against the consumption of meat while “Twinkie Tax” creator Kelly Brownell and Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest have called for “soda taxes” in a wrongheaded attempt to counter obesity.

Spreading misinformation and prescribing medically spurious advice are par for the course in some activist groups, despite evidence that (for instance) there is no link between obesity and soda drinks. Megan Fox even believes she has a “miracle cure” for obesity: drinking vinegar shots, which allegedly speeds up digestion and “flushes” toxins from the body. (Turns out that it really doesn’t.) Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie still swears, however, organic apple cider vinegar makes “a difference on my stomach.”

Real experts beg to differ. “As attractive as it sounds, there’s no magic pill for a quick fix to weight loss,” counters Jones. “The body, including the liver, is a well-oiled detoxing machine, which will not be improved by vinegar.”

Our celebrity-obsessed Twenty-First Century culture will probably continue to place too much trust in people whose only credentials are their 15 minutes of fame. Before you trust someone who doesn’t even “play a doctor on TV,” check with a real physician. (And no, we don’t mean these guys.)

BinMaster® Level Controls of Lincoln, Nebraska, USA announces the SmartBob-SH and SmartBob-SHT sensors, which are specially designed for measuring the level of solid materials in storage and processing bins experiencing very high temperatures. The High Temp or SmartBob-HT model is for applications where the process temperature is over 240°F and under 500°F. The Super High Temp or SmartBob-SHT model can handle temperatures up to 900°F and has been used in coke-oven batteries that experience brief temperature bursts of up to 1685°F.

The SmartBob-HT and SHT sensors are configured with additional components that when installed properly, will safely operate in extreme temperatures. A 36-inch stainless steel standpipe is used to extend the remote away from the heat source and a stainless steel pipe extension fitted with a Teflon cable guide keeps the sensor probe out of the standpipe and level with the top of the bin. A standard air purge nipple allows a small amount of air to circulate through the mechanical cavity of the remote, helping it maintain an acceptable operating temperature. SmartBob-HT and SHT sensors are extremely rugged, featuring a durable, bare stainless steel cable and long-lasting motor design which is completely sealed in a strong, lightweight molded polycarbonate enclosure that is explosion proof and rated for Class II, Groups E, F & G certifications.

“SmartBob-HT and SHT are just two of various sensor options that can be used in conjunction with the SmartBob weight and cable inventory measurement system,” said Todd Peterson, BinMaster’s vice president of sales. “Like the standard SmartBob2 sensor, the HT and SHT high temperature models can be combined with the Windows-based eBob software program and remote push-button control consoles to provide a complete inventory management system for a variety of high temperature applications including the manufacture of steel or foundries processing ferrous and non-ferrous alloys.”