10/30/2010 Authorities lift fire evacuations in Colorado (AP)

AP - More than 1,700 people evacuated because of a wildfire west of Boulder are being allowed to return to their homes after firefighters worked through the night to stop the fire from spreading.

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09/16/2010 Fierce air, ground attack to help slow fire 'S in advance (AP) AP - A fierce air and ground attack helped slow the advance of a California forest fire in the southern Sierra Nevada that has charred more than 6,100 acres and destroyed one home, authorities said.


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06/13/2010 Ethnic rioting spreads in Kyrgyzstan, with 80 dead (AP)

AP - Ethnic unrest spread Sunday in southern Kyrgyzstan, where at least 80 people were killed and more than 1000 injured. Thousands of Uzbeks fled after their homes were looted and burned by roving crowds of men in Kyrgyzstan.

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07/28/2010 Patriot Fires Off Three More Inferno SSDs

Patriot's scorching hot Inferno series SSDsspread to three new capacities - 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and - joining the existing 100 GB and 200GB models.

Built for the performance of MLC drives boast up to 285MB / s Read and up to 275MB / with the recording speed, as well as obscene 24K IOPS (record) in the 4K file size. In other words, these little fireballs quickly, which is starting to become standard fare for the drive is built around SandForce SF-1200 controller.

"The Inferno series of SSDs are the fastest and most exciting that Patriot has yet brought to the market," states Les Henry, Vice President of Engineering at Patriot. "Our Inferno series has been well received and reviewed. We are excited to expand the product family with the introduction of the new larger capacity Inferno drives as well as the new 60GB capacity option. With the addition of the 60GB capacity drive, enthusiasts can enjoy the blistering performance of the Inferno SSD at a more affordable price point making it ideal as a boot drive in a high performance system."

For those who plan to do that, all Inferno series SSDs ship with a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch adapter plate. No word yet on price or availability.

Image Credit: Patriot

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06/25/2010 Jeri experiments with electroluminescent phosphor

Those who follow Jeri's mad-scientist-like curiosity and sci-tech explorations in her many YouTube vids know that she's recently been hot to create electroluminescence. In this vid, she tries to make her own phoshor. It didn't quite work out, but she explains the process and then shows something cool that she did discover, triboluminescence, the optical phenom that occurs when crystal (or other) material is crushed, rubbed, pulled apart, etc. (think: Wint-O-Green Life Savers). Actually, when it's crystals being crushed, it's more specifically known as fractoluminescence. Keep at it, Jeri! We know you'll have a homebrewed EL display in no time.

Triboluminescence - Batteries, Glow Paint and Fire

Read more| Permalink | Comments| Read the article in Science | Digg this!


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04/15/2010 See out the apocalypse in luxury: Vivos Underground Survival Shelter Network

Tags: Catastrophe, Disaster "Housing

Articles:

• Oxfam innovates to tackle shelter crisis in earthquake zone
• Flexible solar strips shed light on the bus waiting
• Crosslink flexible lighting could change the look of the future
• Inflatable composite structures enable lightweight transportable buildings
• The Bushbunker: last resort wildfire protection
• The paraSITE - an inflatable shelter for the homeless that runs off expelled HVAC air

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07/03/2010 Firefox Home for iPhone awaiting Apple’s approval

Mozilla has submitted Firefox Home, its first iOS app, to the App Store. Although Apple shouldn't have any objections to it, nothing is certain until the software appears on the App Store. Firefox Home is a simple app that syncs your personal history, bookmarks, and open tabs from the Firefox browser on your desktop. Once you [...]

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07/12/2010 Let's not call it a 'panic button'

What exactly is a 'panic button'? I've written before that child safety and online behaviour is a far more nuanced problem than a single Batphone-style button could solve, but it's an image that still obscures the detail in the ongoing tustle between Facebook and Ceop, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

The solution announced today is not a panic button - it's an app. It is something every major brand has had, in the form of a page or an app, on Facebook for some time - but that public agencies don't have the marketing resources to come up with. This project took two months.


Photo by emilydickinsonridesabmx on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Facebook say the app combines its expertise on technology and marketing with Ceop's in online safety. This is not a 'reverse ferret' on the company's stance that a panic button is not an effective solution; it still holds that one button published on every page of the site will attract too many false reports and create too much work for Ceop. What it does do is give Ceop the chance to put its logo, which is recognised by most UK schoolchildren, on an official page and use the virality of Facebook to promote the service.

On the downside, because users have to actively add this app to their profiles to use it, the viral success of the app depends on how attractive it is. Though it will be helped by promotion in Facebook's ad spots over the next two years it will still be competing with Farmville, vibrating hamsters and quizzes about which member of Glee you most look like.

This is just one privacy-related issue Facebook is dealing with, alongside changes in its privacy terms that have triggered various protests and demands for a simplification of its privacy settings for users.

Obviously, no one has any truck with the mission of CEOP ", which is important. But I can 't help feeling that this decision is long overdue, and that in the bigger picture, CEOP needs a more complex and youth campaigns.

Though the name 'Ceop' is being promoted in schools, it's a terribly dull acronym and an unimaginative brand with little resonance that will miss the opportunity to engage a far larger audience. Think of the NSPCC's Full Stop campaign, the Department of Health's Change4Lifeor a brilliant campaign against drugs Talk to Frank . Still, with 40% cuts I don't suppose we'll see that kind of imagination or impact from a government-run campaign for years.

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05/10/2010 NEC announces new technology for the detection of pirate videos online

Tags: Copyright , NEC , Video

Articles:

• Wikipedia open on video
• TakeTV PC-to-video recording device
• Stand-alone MPEG-4 Video Recorder for Memory Stick Duo
• IOGEAR 's new wireless multimedia solutions
• Apple Unveils a preliminary version of QuickTime 7 for Windows
• Pinnacle Video Transfer records footage straight to USB devices

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