Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Japan's Prime Minister to give up salary

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/10/japan.nuclear/index.html


Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday that he will give up his salary until the nuclear crisis in the country is over.
He also said he would review the country's energy policy and consider other energy sources like wind and solar power.
Kan said he would give up his prime minister salary which is 1,636,000 yen a month ($20,200 a month), but he would still receive his lawmaker's salary.
The prime minister's announcement comes the same day that about 100 residents, who had been evacuated from an area close to Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, were allowed to return home Tuesday for a short visit to gather belongings. After donning protective suits to guard against radiation,the residents where allowed to go to their homes in the village of Kawauchi, officials said.

They were only allowed one small bag and could stay in their homes for two hours. For some, this was the first time they had been home since April 22 when the Japanese government issued the mandatory evacuation from a 20-kilometer area around the nuclear plant.
"I left my medicine even though I have a chronic illness. I need to get it," a man told Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
Also left behind were pets.
Residents may be able to go back and get their pets in the near future, officials said. After two hours at their homes, residents were taken to a base to undergo examinations for radioactive substances. Cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, were knocked out by the devastating tsunami that struck Japan's Pacific coast after a massive earthquake March 11.
The disaster triggered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl as the cores of reactors 1-3 overheated and spewed huge amounts of radioactive contamination across the surrounding area.
The disaster has led to mandatory evacuations of about 78,000 people living within 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) of the plant. People living another 10 kilometers away -- or at least another 60,000 people -- have been ordered to remain sheltered.
CNN's Junko Ogura and Yoko Wakatsuki contributed to this report.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011

Very funny dog! Really determined too...

Press Release: Revolutionary new paper computer shows flexible future for smartphones and tablets

http://www.humanmedialab.org/paperphone

Queen’s University’s Roel Vertegaal says thinfilm phone will make current smartphone obsolete in 5 to 10 years.

 
KINGSTON, ONTARIO – The world’s first interactive paper computer is set to revolutionize the world of interactive computing.
“This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,” says creator Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen’s University Human Media Lab,. “This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.”
The smartphone prototype, called PaperPhone is best described as a flexible iPhone – it does everything a smartphone does, like store books, play music or make phone calls. But its display consists of a 9.5 cm diagonal thin film flexible E Ink display. The flexible form of the display makes it much more portable that any current mobile computer: it will shape with your pocket.
Being able to store and interact with documents on larger versions of these light, flexible computers means offices will no longer require paper or printers.
“The paperless office is here. Everything can be stored digitally and you can place these computers on top of each other just like a stack of paper, or throw them around the desk” says Dr. Vertegaal.
The invention heralds a new generation of computers that are super lightweight, thin-film and flexible. They use no power when nobody is interacting with them. When users are reading, they don’t feel like they’re holding a sheet of glass or metal.
Dr. Vertegaal will unveil his paper computer on May 10 at 2 pm at the Association of Computing Machinery’s CHI 2011 (Computer Human Interaction) conference in Vancouver — the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction. An article on a study of interactive use of bending with flexible thinfilm computers is to be published at this conference, where the group is also demonstrating a thinfilm wristband computer called Snaplet.

The development team included researchers Byron Lahey and Win Burleson of the Motivational Environments Research Group at Arizona State University (ASU), Audrey Girouard and Aneesh Tarun from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University, Jann Kaminski and Nick Colaneri, director of ASU’s Flexible Display Center, and Seth Bishop and Michael McCreary, the VP R&D of E Ink Corporation.

Video
– PaperPhone demonstration
Video – Snaplet wristband computer
Articles and High Resolution Photos – See attachments.
To arrange an interview or for a copy of the papers, please contact Michael Onesi at (613)533-6000 ext 77513 michael.onesi@queensu.ca, News and Media Services, Queen’s University.

Real Ninja Turtle

http://www.booyapictures.com/2011/05/real-ninja-turtle/

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Facebook Buying Out Skype? $4 Billion Deal Being Talked About

http://www.devicemag.com/2011/05/05/facebook-buying-out-skype-4-billion-deal-being-talked-about/

See who Mark Zuckerberg is after these days. We hear the Facebook CEO is eyeing the takeover of the much popular Skype. If the grapevine is true to what it manages to churn out, Facebook might end up buying out Skype for a price close to $4 billion.
Facebook Buying Out Skype? $4 Billion Deal Being Talked About
Some observers out there firmly believe some sort of action is actually happening, but then that doesn’t mean there is a take over bid. They feel that the deal may not be a buy out, but a joint venture between Facebook and Skype.
We need not tell you that Skype and Facebook have been associated with each other for some time now.  If you would remember, Facebook had been in the scheme of things at Skype and this was demonstrated by Skype when they rolled out their version 5.0 software for Windows.
The software had a dedicated Facebook tab so as to enable users to chat or call Facebook friends via Skype. This was in fact made possible right from “the Facebook newsfeed which can be viewed from within the Skype application”.
By the way, if you are looking at going into what the $4 billion ‘possible’ takeover would bring to Skype, let us also take you to a situation where Skype had been mulling over an IPO. If you would remember, the Skype IPO was recently delayed by its new CEO until the second half of 2011. And that public offer would have brought to the Skype coffers only around $1 billion. Considering such a scene, the Facebook move, if at all that bears fruit, could mean a lot to Skype. We also hear Google too is looking at a venture with Skype. More details are awaited.
What do you think about the Facebook plan for acquiring Skype?  Send in your views.

Ba Ba Ba Ba Bald Bird Dance


There is something about this that is disturbing. Thank you Trevor.