President Barack Obama's Top 12 Accomplishments for 2010
In 2010, President Obama did have some major achievements that were unparalleled and very significant in nature. Although not an all-inclusive list, the following do represent twelve of the best legislative successes that President Obama, Congress and other key stakeholders were able to accomplish and to promulgate to the public:
1. New START. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) that is purposed to reduce the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers by half and to establish a new inspection and verification regime. The treaty was recently ratified by Congress after being signed earlier this year by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
2. DADT Appeal. President Obama recently signed the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (DADT) Repeal Bill into law, which will allow gays to serve openly in America’s military. For the first time in history, gays no longer have to hide their sexual orientation or face dismissal. According to objective statistics, more than 13,000 military personnel were released under the DADT since 1993.
3. Tax Cuts. President Obama recently signed an enormous tax cut bill that will extend the Bush era tax cuts for families at all income levels through 2012. The bill also consisted of a new payroll tax cut for wage earners, numerous tax breaks for businesses and extended jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed.
4. Fair Sentencing Act. Earlier this year, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 to reduce racial inequity that has historically existed relative to the sentencing of people caught with crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. To be charged with a felony, crack users needed to possess only 5 grams of the drug to be sentenced with the same charge that powder cocaine users needed to be caught with (500 grams). Now, to be charged, crack users need to possess 28 grams of crack cocaine to 500 grams of powder cocaine.
5. Childhood Obesity Act. President Obama recently signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was primarily spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama. This bill is purposed to subsidize free meals in low-income areas, to ensure that children receive well-balanced and nutritious school meals, to provide free or reduced-price meals to nearly 31 million low-income children and to ultimately reduce childhood obesity.
6. Health Care Reform. Although controversial in nature, President Obama’s historic signing of the health care reform bill (i.e., The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) will result in health care coverage for over 30 million additional Americans, as well as lowered costs for most Americans. Additionally, the health care reform bill will preclude insurance companies from placing lifetime limits on benefits and from denying coverage to individuals and family members with pre-existing health conditions.
7. Improper Payments. President Obama signed the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act, which is purposed to prevent such payments sent by the government to the wrong person or for the wrong reasons or in the wrong amounts. President Obama also established a goal for his administration to reduce improper payments by $50 billion by 2012.
8. Iraq. One of the primary messages of his presidential campaign was the withdrawal of combat troops out of Iraq. President Obama and his National Defense personnel were able to implement this promise, as more than 90,000 combat troops were withdrawn out of Iraq by August 31, 2010.
9. Wall Street Reform. President Obama signed the historic Wall Street Reform Bill, which was established to put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts, create a new watchdog agency within the Federal Reserve to protect consumers in financial transactions, give the government more power to break up failing companies and create greater congressional oversight over the central bank.
10. HIRE Act. President Obama signed the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, which included $17.5 billion in tax cuts, business credits and subsidies for state and local construction bonds, and moved $20 billion into the highway trust fund for spending on highway and transit programs. The bill also exempts businesses that hire unemployed workers from paying the payroll security tax through December of 2010.
11. HBCU Funding. President Obama signed the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), which will include a $98 million funding increase for HBCUs. This Executive Order will also provide funding for the repair, renovation, and construction or acquisition of educational facilities, instructional equipment, research instrumentation, and physical infrastructure.
12. Appointment of Justice Elena Kagen. In addition to appointing Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court in 2009, President Obama similarly appointed former Solicitor General Elena Kagen in 2010.
Nicki Minaj Covers King Magazine
Nicki Minaj grace the cover of the upcoming March/April 2011issue of King Magazine and shows off her beautiful body. Check out some of the interview below....... What would be your dream role?
I’d like to play someone in a Tim Burton movie, where I get dressed up and painted and crazy.
You kind of do that now.
Then I want to be able to do some action stuff, like Angelina Jolie.
Like in Salt?
Yes! And then I’d like to just play a regular girl who, you know, is facing the world. Something really sentimental and organic, that girls all around the world can identify with. You know, how Jada Pinkett Smith did in Jason’s Lyric.
Classic film. You did mention earlier how everything has been time consuming. But when that time frees up, what kind of guy do you look for to be sentimental and organic with?
Um, I look for someone who is calm, someone who is strong enough to not have to win every argument, someone who allows a woman to be her crazy self and someone with a conscience not to feel less of a man. You know, someone who is able to honor his woman but also bring out the freak in his woman.
How should your Ken bring out the freak in you, Barbie?
Just being super aggressive when the time is right.
Are we talking about Mortal Kombat–style “Come here” aggression?
Just something that makes me feel like they’re in control, when we are behind closed doors.
Awesome iPhone-Controlled Beer Robot with Air-Cannon, Web-Cam
For my beer lover out here. This is the greatest invention made for you guys..... Can you imagine having one of those in your man cave on game day
Google buys a building for 1.9 billion
Google is down with New York City.
So down, in fact, that the web search titan just dropped $1.9 billion to acquire one of the largest and most historic buildings in all of the Big Apple. At nearly 3 million square feet, 111 Eighth Avenue, the former Port Authority building, sits like a beached, red-brick cruise ship overlooking New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. The building is so big, in fact, that it has elevators large enough to accommodate 18-wheel semi-trucks.
And yes, that’s a helicopter landing pad on the roof.
It’s tough to describe how massive 111 Eighth Avenue is — you really have to stand in front of it. But suffice it to say that it takes about 20 minutes to walk once around the building, which encompasses one of those very long city blocks found on the West Side. The size is all the more striking because in a densely-packed city like New York, which is full of very tall buildings, it’s rare to find one that is so horizontally gigantic.
Then again, if you think about the commerce and trade that built New York into the most important city in the world, you can understand why the Port Authority needed such a massive structure.
111 Eighth Avenue was designed by Lusby Simpson and completed in 1932, just one year after the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. In fact, one way to think about 111 Eighth Avenue is like the Empire State Building on its side. It’s worth noting that the Empire State Building has just over 2 million square feet of office space — about 1 million less than 111 Eighth Avenue.
Needless to say, it’s quite an upgrade from Google’s first New York City office — a Starbucks on 86th Street.
But 111 Eighth Avenue is no ordinary humongous building. As it happens, the structure sits almost directly on top of where the Hudson Street/Ninth Avenue fiber highway makes a dog-leg to the right before heading north-east toward the Upper West Side.
In New York City, fiber-optic cables travel in large bundles underneath the asphalt.
The building’s previous owners, a consortium led by Taconic Investment Partners, knew that proximity to the fiber-line would be attractive to companies, so they tricked out the building with something called a network-neutral “Meet-Me” room, which is literally a room filled with networking equipment that allows the tenants to connect with each other — and the fiber-line.
Thus, 111 Eighth Avenue has become known as one of the most important so-called telecom carrier hotels on the Eastern seaboard, if not the entire United States.
But of course, Google already knew that, which is why it moved into the building in the first place in 2006. It’s also the reason that companies like Verizon, Sprint, Level 3, WebMD, Nike, BarnesandNoble.com and ad agency Deutsch are tenants.
In a blog post Wednesday, Google announced that it has closed the deal and said it has re-upped with Taconic Management Company to continue running the leasing and management operations of the building
Google said that it now has 2000 employees in New York City, and — no surprise — it’s hiring like crazy, which will just heighten an already red-hot tech labor market in the city.
“We believe that this is a great real estate investment in a thriving neighborhood and a fantastic city,” wrote David Radcliffe, a Google VP for Real Estate and Workplace Services.
Google did not confirm the purchase price, but it has been widely reported, including by the New York Post, which has been all over this story. The city of New York netted $46 million in transaction taxes on the deal.
It’s by far the largest U.S. real estate transaction of 2010. And it’s Google’s biggest purchase of the year.
“Like the city, our New York office is a melting pot of cultures and ideas—it’s home to Googlers from more than 35 countries who speak more than 40 languages,” Radcliffe wrote.
Google is identified closely with Silicon Valley, where it was founded by two Ph.D students in a Stanford dorm room. But judging by today’s purchase, Google clearly loves New York, as well.
Top 10 Gadgets of 2010
10. Panasonic TX-P65VT20B 3D TV
There were a slew of 3D TV’s to hit the market in 2010 and while some were better than others we found the best to be the Panasonic TX-P65VT20B. At 65-inches the TV gives the full effect of 3D without feeling limited by at-home use. Panasonic even throws in two pairs of 3D glasses. While the glasses do let considerable light in, the huge black level response cuts way down on crosstalk issues compared to other less friendly 3D LCD 3D TVs. Users may not appreciated the lack of 2D-to-3D conversion circuitry, but with such an immense display this TV offers the best 3D TV pictures in 2010.
9. Panasonic 3D Camcorder
With full 3D filming capabilities the first ever Panasonic 3D Camcorder for mass production is a very cool looking binocular based design that will definitely have you standing out in the crowd, there’s just one problem, the list price of $21,000 is less than consumer friendly. Having played with this camcorder, I have to admit, the outcome is very nice when held steady or with smooth transitions, but it still leaves something to be desired with fast motion movement. Either way, consumer 3D video footage is still uber-cool.
8. Nook Color
When Barnes & Noble announced they were releasing an eReader with Google Android capabilities and a secondary color display, I was immediately sold. When they announced discounts on books published by B&N I was in and when I actually held the lightweight B&N Nook unit in my hands with it’s six-inch E Ink display and WiFi + 3G capabilities I was hooked. I’m still a fan of Amazon Kindle devices for what they did to the market, but the extra Android based features and cool design of the Nook showed that even the late comer to the market could bring a new sense of cool to a rather boring gadget.
7. 11″ MacBook Air
Just when it looked like netbook sized devices were about to be devoured by the Apple iPad, Apple themselves released a tiny version of their popular Macbook Air series. With it’s 11.6 inch high-resolution LED display with widescreen capabilities, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM, up to 30 hours of standby time, multi-touch trackpad and plenty of other tricks up it’s sleeve, the MacBook Air revitalized the series and gave Apple’s own iPad a run for their money.
6. Microsoft Kinect For XBox 360
Motion gaming was laughed at by Microsoft, Sony and other gaming outfits when the Nintendo Wii was first announced, but in 2010 Microsoft took the concept one step further, completely eliminating the need for controllers. While the Kinect is a fun addition to the Xbox 360, it does require plenty of room and a quite atmosphere to work as advertised, which pushed this top selling gaming peripheral down our list. With many more Kinect supported games due out in 2011, it should only become more popular with time and availability.
5. Samsung Galaxy S Series – Google Android Smartphones
Samsung managed to surprise everyone in 2010, releasing the most popular Google Android phone series to date. The Galaxy S Smartphone lineup features one of the best displays on the market, offers super fast processing speeds and comes equipped with a very manageable 5MP camera. Having used one of the devices in Vegas during BlogWorld I have to admit, it’s my personal favorite toy of 2010 and well worth a closer look if you’re jumping ship from the AT&T based iPhone series.
4. iPhone 4
I’m actually a bigger fan of Google Android than the Apple iOS, however the iPhone 4 has their amazing LCD based retina display with 960-by-640 pixels of resolution which boasts a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch and unlike the Galaxy S series, the battery on the iPhone 4 can last an entire day, even with constant data use and talk time. Throw in the Apple A4 processor, a 5MP camera and a cool design and it’s easy to see why the iPhone 4 is now the best selling in the company’s series.
3. Google TV via Logitech Revue
How could you not want Google TV? Using Google technology TV surfers can simultaneously search television stations, the web and apps to find the content they want. In a short one year period Google has transformed the TV into an extension of the web and the web into an extension of the TV. While some providers such as Hulu have had issues and banned Google TV, the technology is top notch. Heck you can even use your phone as a TV remote and use dual TV output to watch shows as you overlay show information, an option perfect for watching sporting events while tracking down scores from around the league. Whether your a sports enthusiast, web geek or avid TV watcher, Google TV offers something for everyone. What really makes Google TV worth the buy however is the Logitech Revue which provides a companion box with keyboard controller that allows users to connect any TV, cable box or satellite to the system via HDMI and high speed internet to receive Google TV capabilities. Google TV is one of the best tech inventions for 2010, but Logitech turns that software into a hardware package worth the buy.
2. Parrot A.R. Drone
Everyone loves an underdog, so when Parrot, a company mostly known for creating Bluetooth devices decided to show off a flying drone system that can connect and be controlled by an iPhone at CES 2010 it was a huge surprise and an immediate smash hit. Throw in augmented reality and new features being released on a regular basis and the A.R. Drone is one of the coolest things to be released for iPhone use since Apps.
1. Apple iPad
Starting with the tablets 9.7-inch (diagonal) multi-touch display it’s easy to see that the iPad is an oversized iPhone, it also features a 1GHz Apple A4 processor and support for Wi-Fi and 3G (select models). The ability to choose between 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB hard drives is also a nice touch, while the huge (and growing) iPad App store makes finding the perfect apps and games easy and fun. I don’t think I have to say much about the Apple iPad, it’s been everywhere and over 11 million people own one. For it’s ability to disrupt the netbook industry and scare the crap out of computer manufacturers it takes our number one spot as the best tech gadget of 2010.
So there you have it, from Mobility to 3D Products, 2010 will be remembered as the year when electronics manufacturers watched their industries take on entirely new directions as they attempted to grab new consumers with new innovations that had never been released for mass consumption.
http://www.inquisitr.com
Yasmin Bawa
Yasmin Bawa is currently a Menswear student at Middlesex University who has sent through her pre-collection, entitled Lattice, for our viewing pleasure. This honours student has taken this opportunity to gather press, media and most importantly feedback on her design work. Bawa has found time to complete a seven look capsule collection and accompanying film. Along with the obvious creative talent it demonstrates she has the business nous to promote her debut offering through the blogosphere. We were surprised and excited when we opened the speculative email from the young talent and had to share it with you. In addition to the film and a selection of stills, the student has sent through a few scans of her research book. Peep the video below:Collection by Yasmin Bawa from Liam Simpson on Vimeo.
Card Sharp
I’m predisposed to love the CardSharp, just because of its name. I’m no big stickler for the use of “correct” English, but when the meanings of words drift we often lose very useful expressions. “Infer” is often used to mean “imply”, for example, and “random” is currently mangled to mean “unexpected”. And “card shark” is, of course, an ignorant deviation from “card sharp”.
The CardSharp is a knife that is created by unfolding a credit card-sized kit. The blade flips out, and the rest of the card folds over to make the handle. Here it is in action:
Neat, huh? And scarily easy to carry. The whole package is just 2mm thick, weighs only 13-grams, and the 65mm blade is made from stainless steel. I have no idea what it will look like on a baggage Xray screen, but my suspicion is that it will look a lot like the Swiss Army Card I have successfully (and usually unknowingly) taken onto most flights I have made over the last nine years.
Want one? The CardSharp will be on sale in January, for a very reasonable £15 ($23).
The Stash Bag For Gadget
The Fluent Stash bag from Nau is all kinds of useful. It’s a purpose-made travel organizer rather than a take-everywhere bag, but this specialization means that, like an overbred dog, it’s very good for its single purpose.
It’s a felt-flapped three way carrier, folding out to reveal three “stash” pockets plus a zippered mesh compartment for cables. Between these pockets are stitched a pair of long, thin channels, perfect for stowing a pencil.
The pockets snap shut thanks to press-stud closures, and the clasp that holds the lid down doubles as a hook for hanging in a hotel-room, or from the back of an airplane seat, and the design means you can also hook a strip of the fabric itself around a shower-curtain rail.
The bag can also be used for toiletries but let’s face it: If you’re reading Gadget Lab, then it’s likely that you’ll be carrying far more cables and electronics than jars of face cream.
Finally, the felt is stiff enough to keep the bag freestanding should you fold it correctly. It looks very handy, and much better than my current, and not dissimilar solution. I use a rubbery plastic bag that has a hook on top and a ziplock closure. The problem? My underwear came in it, and I still didn’t remove the label.
Street Legal Tron Light Cycle
Can you imagine having one of those bikes. For a cool 55,000 it could be yours.
Something you wished you could do
Rhys Millen drifting his 750-horsepower Hyundai Genesis coupe up Serra Do Rio Do Rastro in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Everything you need to know, by the numbers: 9.4 kilometers, 156 turns, 7 minutes and 17.898 seconds. Top speed? More than 136 mph.
You will never, ever drive like this.
New with a classic look
Brough Superior has been called “the Rolls Royce of motorcycles,” renowned as much for power as beauty. Founder George Brough personally tested every motorcycle before it left the factory in Nottingham, England, so everyone who owns a Brough can say it was ridden by Brough.Now someone with deep pockets will own George Brough’s personal machine, the prototype Brough Superior SS100 Alpine Grand Sport he rode to victory in the eight-day 1925 Austrian Speed trials. The stunningly beautiful motorcycle will be auctioned Dec. 15 by Phillips de Pury & Co. It is expected to command at least $600,000.
The motorcycle — it seems uncouth to call something expected to fetch six figures a “bike” — was prepared by chief engineer Harold “Oily” Karslake specifically for the high-speed race through the Alps. It featured Rexine panniers for gear, two tool bags and a Bonnkksen time and trip speedometer. Karslake tuned the 1,000 cc V-twin for high-altitude, and like all Brough Superiors it was guaranteed to do 100 mph.
After winning the Austrian Speed trials, Brough won the London-to-Edinburgh Trial in May, 1925, and then loaned his motorcycle to J.P “Neon” Castley. Castley won the London-to-Exeter Trial in December, then returned the machine to Brough, who raced it in the Victory Cup Trial in March, 1926. He won, of course.
Brough Superior built 3,048 motorcycles between 1919 and 1940, and each was built to the customer’s tastes. T.E. Lawrence — aka Lawrence of Arabia — was among the marque’s most famous aficionados; he owned seven and called them all “Boanerges,” or “Sons of Thunder.” He is believed to have racked up 300,000 miles on his Superiors and once outran a Bristol Fighter at more than 120 mph.
About 1,000 Brough Superior motorcycles are believed to exist.
Motorola Video: iPad is just a "giant iPhone" lol
Of course, it's easy to claim just about anything when promoting a product that hasn't been formally announced and subjected to the rigors--and possible slings and arrows--of independent reviews.
But that hasn't stopped Motorola from denigrating the iPad by calling it a "giant iPhone" in the ad (above). That statement implies that Motorola's tablet isn't just a giant Droid X. We'll see, when Motorola shows its cards at CES next month.
What do we know about the tablet so far? Google's Andy Rubin demonstrated the new version of Google Maps running on a Motorola tablet at a recent conference. Rubin said the Motorola prototype was running Google's Honeycomb operating system, the next version of Android, on a dual-core Nvidia processor. At the conference, Rubin focused on the tablet's 3D image-processing capability.
The Motorola video does nothing to confirm the specs that Rubin discussed, though an animation of a buzzing bee at the end is a pretty clear reference to Honeycomb. Otherwise, the "Tablet Evolution" video conducts a tour of famous tablets throughout history, which includes citing the Rosetta Stone as providing "mutlilingual support," but at "low resolution."
So, guessing from some of the clues offered to date, the tablet will have a high-resolution screen powered by a dual-core Nvidia processor, packing a 3D graphics punch for which Nvidia is well known.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/
Bittersweet Year For Space Research
Any year in which we discover the potential for organisms to live elsewhere in the universe is a good year for science and research, and in 2010, NASA scientists did just that. In an experiment performed with microbes gathered at California's prehistoric Mono Lake, a team led by astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon was able to grow organisms in the lab substituting arsenic for phosphorus, which was previously thought to be one of the six elements at the root of all life here on earth.
Of course, NASA had an up-and-down year in other ways. On the one hand, the space agency's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) returned its first deep-space images (of the constellation Carina), a development that promises to open up the skies to new and larger surveys, and a NASA rover discovered sub-surface water on Mars. But on the other, the Obama administration decided that the long-running and expensive Constellation program, which would have taken us back to the moon, was a waste of time and resources. The program was canceled.
The primary beneficiary of that cancellation is likely to be the private space industry. And in 2010, one of the leaders in that field, SpaceX, was able to launch its Falcon 9 rocket into space in a demonstration of its ability to carry payloads to the International Space Station. And then Boeing and Space Adventures announced their partnership in an initiative aimed at building a new space tourism industry that could be within the reach of a wide new audience of celestial adventurers.
Research on and below the surface of our own seas was definitely a highlight of the year, even as the Gulf of Mexico took it on the chin in the form of the BP oil spill. First, scientists celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first (and only) manned mission to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on the planet. Then, engineers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute deployed a new class of autonomous underwater vehicle that's a hybrid of existing AUVs, a new long-range underwater robot capable of moving four times as fast as traditional gliders, and that can spend weeks hovering in place, using power it generates from the ocean itself to bring along a significant number of scientific instruments.
There was also the successful maiden voyage of the Plastiki, banking heir David de Rothschild's catamaran made entirely from plastic bottles, which sailed from Sausalito, Calif., to Australia, all in the hope of raising awareness about how humans treat the oceans.
2010 was definitely a good year for robotics; everywhere you turned, there were new developments. Perhaps the biggest of the year was the introduction of the Personal Robot 2 (PR2) by Willow Garage, a company that decided to give two-year loans of their $400,000 programmable, all-purpose, open-source robots to 11 organizations from around the world that agreed to work on unique and innovative projects. Willow Garage and companies like Anybots also got more attention for what are known as telepresence robots, devices that can help people and companies avoid long-distance travel.
Hermès is more synonymous with horse riding than with motorcycling. But the haute leather goods house has once again collaborated with Yamaha, having upholstered the new VMAX Concept Bike in buffalo leather. (Hermès and Yamaha worked together on a similar project 15 years ago.) The waterproof matte leather is available in black and chocolate, and is a sleek complement to the bike’s brushed aluminum fixtures. A matching helmet is also available, upon request. The price tag for the bike is approximately $62,000 and delivery takes from one to four months, but — hey — it’s quicker than a waiting-list Kelly bag.
An Extra Dimension
Wearing sunglasses at night, indoors, in the dark will be fashionable for the first time since Corey Hart’s ’80s anthem thanks to the recent introduction of the Calvin Klein 3D sunglasses collection. The three styles, which offer 100 percent UVA and UVB sun protection, are the only curved lenses that are RealD certified, making it easy to avoid those pesky peripheral distractions. They’ll be in stores in mid-December, perfect timing for the annual holiday cavalcade of cinema. And while they’re certainly no X-ray specs, these double-duty beauties will thrill any sun-worshipping film fan.
Air Jordan XIII Retro X Black X Varsity Red X White X Vibrant Yellow
As we’ve seen a couple times over the last week, New York’s Madison Square Garden tends to bring out the absolute best in visiting superstars. Michael Jordan was a notably successful cameo player at the basketball Mecca, with more MSG highlights over his career than we could fit in a reasonably-sized post. One significant (if ‘meaningless’) moment came in the 1998 NBA All Star Game where MJ racked up the MVP award and nearly a triple-double en route to an easy East win. Were that year like most others he probably would have rocked the Flints with the Eastern Conference’s blue unis, but with the MLB-style uniforms in effect, MJ broke out the Air Jordan XIII ‘Playoffs’. These might be the single most hotly anticipated release for Spring 2011 and look to be a perfect replica of the original. 
Nike Zoom KD 3
Despite minor ailments to his left knee and ankle this season, Oklahoma City Thunder swingmanKevin Durant has managed to retain his clutch on the NBA scoring title. Last year’s PPG champ will be playing a big role in the NBA’s annual Christmas Day showcase and when the Denver Nuggets roll into OKC, Durant will defend the Ford Center in this new Nike Zoom KD III. The Christmas Zoom KD III is unlike fellow Nike Basketball megastars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James’ Santa-day sigs, opting for a more uniform-friendly Vibrant Yellow look instead of something red/green/white. Should be an interesting day all around the Association, so be sure to check out our NBA Feet recap and look for the Nike Zoom KDIII ‘Christmas Day’ on Saturday the 25th at Eastbay
1.5 Million Windows Phone 7 handset sold
The early numbers are in for Microsoft’s brand-new phone operating system Windows Phone 7: 1.5 million handsets sold to date. However, that number requires some explaining.
Microsoft on Tuesday morning published a faux interview with Achim Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows phones, who says Windows Phone 7 is growing fast.
The “sales” number is a bit tricky.
“Another is phone manufacturer sales — phones being bought and stocked by mobile operators and retailers on their way to customers,” Berg said. “We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence.”
To be clear, that means Microsoft has sold 1.5 million phones to mobile operators and retailers to put on their shelves, not 1.5 million phones activated by customers.
Then again, I’d be surprised if 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handsets were activated already: Microsoft is entering a market already dominated by Google and Apple.
Google claims it’s activating 300,000 Android phones a day, and Apple claims 270,000 iPhones are activated each day. Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do before it can start boasting similar numbers.
However, Berg’s statements generally give a modest overview on a fresh, new start. Berg adds that after just six weeks, Microsoft has recruited 18,000 developers, and there are 4,000 Windows Phone 7 apps available in its app store. The number the company gives — 1.5 million “sales” — isn’t a sales figure we’d usually care about, but it shows that the software giant has a solid foundation of partners to help Windows Phone 7 potentially gain a foothold in the smartphone market in the coming years.
Next year will provide a better glimpse into Windows Phone 7’s performance on the market. A software update introducing copy-and-paste and other new features is due sometime early 2011, and we’ll probably see Verizon getting on board to carry Windows Phone 7 devices, as well.
Sports car with 6-wheels head in to production
After 32 years of development, the Covini Engineering team claims this is the production version of the six-wheeled C6W it finally is unveiling this week. The future is now.
The unusual sports car takes its engineering inspiration from the Tyrell P34 Formula 1 race car of 1976. The Tyrell had two pairs of 10-inch front wheels to improve downforce, increase traction and provide a smaller frontal area to reduce drag.
Although the specific engineering behind the Tyrell P34 doesn’t necessarily translate to the C6W, whenwe spoke to company founder Ferruccio Covini two years ago he provided several reasons why he’s creating his modern-day six-wheeler.
Paul Wall speaks about his weight loss and surgery
Paull Wall speaks about his weigt loss and surgery in the new upcoming issue of Ozone Magazine. Below is some of the interview......Honestly, when we were in Afghanistan and [reps for VH1's] Celebrity Fit Club were contacting [me] about coming on the show. That was a hell of a wake-up call. [Being fat] isn’t a secret. You can look in the mirror and try to hide it and cover it up, and it may work here or there, but there ain’t no shirt or hat you can put on or haircut you can get to hide the fact that you’re morbidly obese. That’s what the doctor said: I was “morbidly obese.” I decided not to do [the show] but it was still a wake-up call to have people calling you saying, “Hey, you’re really, really fat.”
What kind of weight-loss surgery did you get?
The surgery I got is called gastric sleeve. There’s three kinds: gastric bypass, lap band, and the gastric sleeve. Gastric bypass is the one where you lose the most weight the quickest; it’s for people who are 400-500 pounds and have health problems that they need to fix right away. Since [the weight loss] happens so fast it leaves you with a lot of saggy skin. The lap band, which is very popular, is when they put a band around your stomach and it makes you feel like you’re full, so you don’t eat. But there’s ways to cheat with it, and with the lap band, you can always get it removed to go back to normal. [My weight] has been up and down my whole life, so I wanted to do something to permanently fix the problem. Since going back and forth on the drugs for years and taking diet pills, my metabolism was really gone. So I decided to go with the gastric sleeve, because it’s a little more serious than the lap band. They also cut out the hormones that make you hungry. So I actually don’t even get hungry anymore. The doctor talked me out of doing the lap band; he told me it’s the most popular, but it’s not as effective. With the lap band, you lose about 50% of your excess weight. I was 120 pounds overweight. I weighed 320 pounds, and I’m six feet tall. So with the lap band I still would’ve been morbidly obese. With the gastric sleeve, you typically lose 80% of your excess fat. I lost 100 pounds with it, so that’s putting me in a more healthy weight class.
Having lost 100 pounds, do you see a noticeable difference in your life?
Yeah, hands down. I feel like I got my life back. When you’re so big like that, it’s embarrassing. I didn’t want to go out and be seen. I felt uncomfortable because I’m not used to being that big. People would see me and say something about it, because it was no secret. I was morbidly obese, 120 pounds overweight. It was just embarrassing. I’d be on stage feeling like I was about to collapse. I’d get dizzy spells. I’d be on the airplane and have to ask for seatbelt extensions. Once you go up in the air, it’s really hard to breath. I was just thinking, “What if I have a heart attack?” I want to be here for my kids. I don’t want to have a heart attack. My son is four and my daughter is two and a half. The doctor told me that when you’re 50 pounds overweight, it takes 15 years off your life. So it literally saved my life.
Have you been working out too?
Nah. I’ve probably worked out twice since I had [the surgery] and that was just a light workout.
361 feet jump on a snowmobile
No one does crazy stunts quite like Red Bull. Take, for example, its plan to have Levi LaVallee make the longest jump ever on a snowmobile. His record-setting run was slated for New Year’s Eve but was canceled after LaVallee busted his ass during a practice jump last week.
Still, the 28-year-old did jump 361 feet on a Polaris snowmobile during testing. We’ll pause here for a moment while that sinks in: 361 feet = football field with end zones, plus 1 foot. LaVallee eclipsed the previous record by 60 feet, and Red Bull is submitting the jump for world-record certification.
X-45 (the killer drone) Is Ready To Take Off
In the summer of 2009, the Air Force published a “road map” showing how robots might replace nearly every kind of manned aircraft in today’s arsenal. Just a few months later, the air branch lifted the (patchy) veil of secrecy surrounding its fighter-like MQ-170 spy drone, built by Lockheed Martin.As is often the case, the drama is taking place in California. Northrop’s X-47 is at the Navy’s China Lake base in the Mojave Desert, running ground tests prior to a planned first flight “before the end of the year.”
Not to be outdone by its former J-UCAS rival, Boeing two weeks ago bolted the new-and-improved X-45 to the back of a 747 for a ride from St. Louis to the Golden State’s Edwards Air Force Base, where the bot will have its first flight early next year. General Atomics beat both of the bigger companies into the air: The Avenger has racked up scores of test flights at Edwards since 2009.
Years ago, one analyst called J-UCAS “the worst-funded good idea in decades.” There’s still not a lot of government money behind the current revival: The Navy has allocated around a billion dollars for X-47 tests. The X-45 and the Avenger are both company-funded efforts.
But the idea is as good as ever. And with the impending first flights of the X-45 and X-47, killer drones are about to get a second shot at transforming aerial warfare.
No More Cell Phones In Cars????
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the nation’s preeminent anti-distracted-driving crusader, said in an interview on MSNBC yesterday that federal officials are looking at technology to disable cell phones inside cars.
“I think it will be done,” LaHood said. “I think the technology is there and I think you’re going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones. We need to do a lot more if were going to save lives.”
Also on Thursday, the SecTrans launched a new “Faces of Distracted Driving” video campaign that features people who have been killed or lost loved ones because of inattentive drivers. The video features heartwrenching stories of children killed in crashes because of text messaging, and new videos are expected to be added every few weeks, according to the New York Times.
More than 5,500 people were killed last year by distracted drivers, and another 500,000 were injured, according to the Department of Transportation. LaHood has said it is never safe to talk on a cell phone while driving, hands-free or not, because it is a “cognitive distraction.”
Incidentally, a lot of people seem to agree with this sentiment — a new poll released Thursday shows nearly two-thirds of American support a national ban on the use of cell phones while driving, even if the driver is using a hands-free device. But the poll didn’t ask how people feel about government-issued mobile phone scramblers or other disabling devices.
This Slinky Black Dress Is Also a Cellphone
Modern technology has created some thorny problems (Can a particle accelerator open up a cataclysmic black hole that will destroy the Earth? What the hell should we do with all of these nuclear weapons anyhow?), but perhaps none is so persistent as a (predominantly) female problem known as the little black dress conundrum. As in, "where will I keep my cell phone if I wear this incredibly form-fitting, irresistibly sexy but pocket-less little black dress?" High-tech high-fashion purveyors CuteCircuit have finally found the solution: a dress that IS a cell phone.
The M-dress is a wearable cell phone with a sim card and antenna integrated into the fabric, and while it's not necessarily perfect, it does make carrying a cell phone around a non-issue. But it also might turn some heads -- and not necessarily in a good way. To answer an incoming call, the wearer lifts her hand to her ear like an imaginary telephone and speaks into her imaginary receiver (we're presuming the receiver tech is actually built into the cuff).
There's no screen and no other interface of any kind, so you won't know who's calling. What's more, you don't have a way to dial out, so you can only pre-program a single number. We suggest you make that number the operator, who can patch you through to any number you like. Then you'll just need to make sure you keep your cell phone with you so you have all your contact info.
Problem solved.
Video: SEGA's New Urinal-Based Gaming Interface Lets You Pee for Points
If you can’t go standing up, perhaps Toirettsu isn’t for you (sorry ladies, but your hands-free method allows you to play Angry Birds on the can anyhow). Toirettsu targets restaurant and retail environments, ostensibly in hopes that by giving users goal-oriented mini-games to focus on, their men’s room floors might stay a bit cleaner as gents have somewhere to aim. And, of course, it gives establishments (and Sega) somewhere to place an ad.
We’re not so sure that urinal gaming is going to keep floors any cleaner – in fact, it’s not difficult to imagine it making floors dirtier (ever thrown your controller during a particularly frustrating round of Halo?). But it will make peeing in public toilets more fun. Layer in a multiplayer, head-to-head (pun intended) function and pretty soon men will be going to the bathroom in pairs too.
Spacex Falcon-9=$19 Million Dollars For A Ticket Outerspace
When NASA retires the space shuttle next year, the only Amercian-owned option the U.S. government will have for getting cargo to the International Space Staton is to ride with a private spaceflight company. Such arrangement became viable in June, when SpaceX's Falcon 9- a 180-foot, kerosene-and-liquid oxygen-fueled rocket capable of delivering six metric tons of cargo or seven astronauts to orbit-made its maiden voyage to space.SpaceX engineers designed nearly every piece from scratch, and made the Falcon 9 affordable enough that the company will haul cargo to space for $133 million per trip, compared with $450 million for each space -shuttle flight. SpaceX could begin regular cargo flights to the ISS as early as next year.
checkout spacex.com for details