Motorola�s Xoom Tablet

Motorola�s Xoom tablet computer went on sale   last Thursday and looks like this device is  the most powerful rival yet to Apple�s iPad.

Though companies like Samsung and Dell have tried to respond with tablets of their own based on Google�s Android operating system, the Xoom is the first tablet to feature the latest Android version, Honeycomb, which is optimised for tablets as opposed to smartphones.

The Xoom is roughly the same size as the iPad, and costs about the same for a similarly spec�d version, though buyers who opt for an iPad with limited memory and restricted to wi-fi connections can save hundreds of dollars.

The Xoom has slightly higher screen resolution than the iPad, and boasts front and rear facing cameras for picture-taking and video conferencing. Powering the device is a dual core 1GHZ processed with 1GB of RAM, and battery life is assessed at 10 hours.

This device seems to be  a worthy competitor to the iPad

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Now we have world's first anti-laser

A team of Physicist at Yale University, have built the world's first device that can cancel out a laser beam - a so-called anti-laser which is capable of absorbing an incoming laser beam entirely. Their device focuses two lasers beams of a specific frequency into a specially designed optical cavity made from silicon, which traps the incoming beams of light and forces them to bounce around until all their energy is dissipated.

In a paper published in the journal Science they demonstrated that the anti-laser could adsorb 99.4 per cent of incoming light, for a specific wavelength.

Altering the wavelength of the incoming light means that the anti-laser can effectively be turned on and off - and that could be used in optical switches.

The anti-laser's big advantage is that it is built using silicon, which is already widely used in computing.

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Coding Climate change: Galileo moment for GOP

I really liked the overall idea of this blog and relating it to the Catholic church. As I said in my review, I thought it was very insightful but not very informative. He did not really do a good job of providing a source and he kind of just focused on bashing the Republicans the entire time and not providing follow up. I decided to code the tone of the article. I thought that he spent more time focused on politics than providing facts and what the other party (the Democrats) think of it.

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Coding the Wilting Climate Change Debate

It seemed to me upon reading the article the first time that Plumer used a lot of sourcing in a very offhand manner with links that usually were not explained.  So, for this assignment, I decided to code two different things concerning the stories that were linked in the paper: their timeliness (when they were published) and their potential bias (whether or not the website it was published on stated up front that it had an axe to grind in the climate battle).  I found that out of the nine links used, three were for material that was over eight months old - a negative in my mind considering the article is about the ever-changing climate debate, and three were from websites that were clearly labeled as having pro-climate change tendencies.  It further confirmed my initial skepticism - when a third of your sources are dated and a third are biased, I don't see why your story should be taken as balanced.

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Coding for New Republic: The Wilting Climate Change Debate

I decided to code the blog based on the tone of each paragraph and how it affected the piece. The piece seems to be more about republicans who hold the power in the house and their ideas about climate change than the issue of climate change itself. It�s definitely condescending and sarcastic at times and the authors annoyance with the speakers he mentions is obvious. I think the tone may be received more harshly because it�s (re)posted on the NPR site. If it was posted by a different organization it would probably be more welcomed.

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Coding "The Wilting Climate Change Debate"

When I first read �New Republic: The Wilting Climate Change Debate,� I rated the story poorly on NewsTrust, as far as sources and fairness, and I commented that there is little evidence to support the bold and often sarcastic claims made in the piece. Although I realize that this is an opinion piece, coding this story has made even clearer just how biased and poorly supported this writer makes his arguments. Among other things, I coded for the types of sources in the story, the writer�s tone, how much sarcastic, opinionated language the writer used, and how often the writer supported his arguments with substantive evidence. After reviewing my coding, I could see that almost 80 percent of the paragraphs in this story were colored with rude or sarcastic opinions that were almost never supported with any evidence like data or reports. The author quotes heavily from the anti-climate change side, but only does so to bash these politicians. He also does not provide enough comment from the pro-climate change scientists or politicians who could substantiate his argument. Overall, this editorial is not just biased and poorly sourced, but it is not convincing because there is a lack of evidential support for the claims the author makes.

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Coding "The Wilting Climate Change Debate."

I appreciate how passionate Bradford Plumer is about climate change and that comes across in this article, but I think his deep opinions hinder his arguments.  Like Danielle, I thought it would be interesting to see how much of the article is made up of Plumer's opinions.  Within the 10 paragraphs, Plumer uses reliable and informative sources, like the EPA, IPCC and Politico.  However, I found 20 deeply opinionated phrases scattered throughout the article.  Most were put in parentheses after making an argument.  I noticed that much of the first and last paragraphs are opinion.  When it comes to an issue like climate change, where so many people have deep opinions, this article would have been more effective if Plumer had stuck to the facts and kept his government insults to himself. 

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Coding "The Wilting Climate Change Debate"

I, along with several NewsTrust reviewers, find Bradford Plumer�s �The Wilting Climate Change� highly and overly opinionated. While the article is an editorial, I believe Plumer crossed a line as a journalist by representing his thoughts much too boldly. I therefore decided to code the story based on how many overly-bold and borderline condescending phases were used to get Plumer�s point across. While nine links were provided and 12 quotations were used throughout the 10 paragraphs of the story, Plumer used 25 either single words or phrases out of the total 1,050 words, which, in my opinion, hurt his credibility as a journalist because of how babyish and condescending they make him sound. These phases include �once upon a time,� �blindly accepted everything,� �made-up non-problem,� �simply content to quote� and �barely even feel the need to argue,� and were used in about 10 percent of the entire article. While Plumer was possibly trying to elucidate his opinion, instead he just destroyed his ability to be taken seriously. 

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Large Hadron Collider -Update

Large Hadron Collider experiment is on track to discover new physics. On 31 January 2011. CERN announced that the LHC will run through to the end of 2012 with a short technical stop at the end of 2011. The beam energy for 2011 will be 3.5 TeV. LHC�s experiments a good chance of finding new physics in the next two years, before the LHC goes into a long shutdown to prepare for higher energy running starting 2014.

The LHC was previously scheduled to run to the end 2011 before going into a long technical stop necessary to prepare it for running at its full design energy of 7 TeV per beam. However, the machine�s excellent performance in its first full year of operation forced a rethink. Expected performance improvements in 2011 should increase the rate that the experiments can collect data by at least a factor of three compared to 2010. That would lead to enough data being collected this year to bring tantalising hints of new physics, if there is new physics currently within reach of the LHC operating at its current energy. However, to turn those hints into a discovery would require more data than can be delivered in one year, hence the decision to postpone the long shutdown. If there is no new physics in the energy range currently being explored by the LHC, running through 2012 will give the LHC experiments the data needed to fully explore this energy range before moving up to higher energy.

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Sun is sputtering X-flare

The Sun has unleashed its strongest flare in four years the so-called X-flare, the strongest type; such flares can affect communications on Earth


The eruptions are expected to hit the Earth's magnetic field field over the next couple of days, causing an increase in geomagnetic activity.

The monster flare was recorded at 0156 GMT on 15 February and directed at the Earth. According to the US space agency, the source of this activity - sunspot 1158 - is growing rapidly.

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the Sun's atmosphere.

Preliminary data from the Stereo-B and Soho spacecraft suggest that the explosion produced a fast but not particularly bright coronal mass ejection (CME) - a burst of charged particles released into space.

The unpredictable activity on the Sun can interfere with modern technology on Earth, such as electrical power grids, communications systems and satellites - including the satellite navigation (or sat-nav) signals used on Earth.

In 1972, geomagnetic storm provoked by a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone communication across the US state of Illinois.

And in 1989, another storm plunged six million people into darkness across the Canadian province of Quebec.

Displays of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) have already been seen further south than usual in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the UK. And further activity is expected over the next few days.

Researchers say the Sun has been awakening after a period of several years of low activity.

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Make free video conference calls with new Skype

Conference calls are vital part of any project or business. Putting people together for getting things done is simplified through conference calls. But most of the cases conferencing requires specific hardwares and dedicated lines. Skype helped by providing free audio conferencing calls through internet.

Now, the latest Skype software support  video conferencing, which can help you to have face to face discussion through internet. Apart from video conferencing Skype now supports different mobile platforms, thus helping mobile users to make cheap video calls!.

Download all new Skype.

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Signup link for Facebook Email program

There was a time when email service solutions were dominated by players like Yahoo, Hotmail, Rediff, Lycos and USA.net. But, in 2003-2004 GMail from Google made its entry into the email service providers list. And in few years raised itself to top of the list!.

Now its Mark Zuckerberg's turn!. Yes, Facebook is in the process of launching an email service solution. Already, Facebook is having an integrated messaging solution which facilitate messaging and chatting among Facebook members. Now they are evolving to be a full fledged email service solution.

All Facebook fans and techno enthusiasts are waiting for the launch of fbmail!.

You can visit the url:http://www.facebook.com/about/messages/ and make a request for signup invitation

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