How Book Publishers Could Clobber Amazon

From The Raw Feed:

Walk into your local bookstore, and all is peace and order. But the tranquility masks an industry on fire. The traditional book business is being burned to the ground by technology, by recession, by the Internet -- but mostly by Amazon.

Amazon is the best thing that ever happened to self-published authors. They offer a complete publishing service that includes editing, design, and distribution -- even into brick-and-mortar bookstores. Meanwhile, they're getting ready to dictate terms over the fast-growing eBook market. Traditional publishing is being decimated, and the future looks bleak.

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Apple Poised To Start New Year With Launch Of Tablet Computer

From The Guardian:

The device, likely to be called the iSlate, has no keyboard and allows users to watch TV shows and read online magazines.

Apple is expected to start the new year with the launch of its latest gadget: a tablet computer that will allow users to surf the web, watch TV shows and read the next generation in online magazines and newspapers.

Speculation is rife that the Californian technology group will unveil the device, which has no keyboard and resembles a large iPhone, at an event on January 26 in San Francisco. Some technology bloggers have already christened the touchscreen device the iSlate after it emerged that Apple has registered the iSlate.com internet domain name.

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New Clues Emerge For Understanding Morphine Addiction

Scientists are reporting new clues to understanding morphine addiction.
(Credit: US Drug Enforcement Administration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 27, 2009) — Scientists are adding additional brush strokes to the revolutionary new image now emerging for star-shaped cells called astrocytes in the brain and spinal cord. Their report, which suggests a key role for astrocytes in morphine's ability to relieve pain and cause addiction, appears online in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, a monthly publication.

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9 Science Stories We Loved, And Hated, In 2009

From Live Science:

The best science answers tough questions, and so some of the hardest-hitting discoveries often elicit controversy, ruffling the feathers of readers and sometimes even other scientists. Here are some of the most loved and hated science stories of the year.

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Will Free Wi-Fi Become The Norm?

From CBS News:

McDonalds Is Latest Company to Offer Free Wireless Internet; Airlines and Many Hotels Still Charge.

(CBS) I'm a big fan of free Wi-Fi and appreciate it when coffee shops, hotels and other businesses are nice enough to let visitors use their laptops to surf the Web for free. Last year, for example, Starbucks started offering two hours of free service a day for those who purchase and register a Starbucks card.

And soon you'll be able to get Wi-Fi with your French fries when McDonalds rolls out its free service in January. The company last week announced that it will drop its $2.95 Wi-Fi fee.

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North Magnetic Pole Moving East Due To Core Flux

Blue lines show Earth's northern magnetic field and the magnetic north pole in an artist's rendering. Picture courtesy Stefan Maus, NOAA NGDC

From National Geographic:

Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says.

The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.

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How Tech Touched The '00s

From CNET News:

I've been enjoying all of the end-of-decade lists that have suddenly cropped up. I like knowing what I was intimately aware of and what I completely missed.

This week, the Associated Press came out with its list of "50 things that changed our lives in the aughts." First off, the reference to the "aughts" made me chuckle. Back in late 1999, I was concerned about two things: Y2K and what the heck we were going to call the first decade. Neither of those concerns turned out to be much of a problem in the end. "Aughts" certainly never caught on.

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Dec. 24, 1968: Christmas Eve Greetings From Lunar Orbit

From This Day In Tech:

1968: The crew of Apollo 8 delivers a live, televised Christmas Eve broadcast after becoming the first humans to orbit another space body.

Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders made their now-celebrated broadcast after entering lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, which might help explain the heavy religious content of the message. After announcing the arrival of lunar sunrise, each astronaut read from the Book of Genesis.

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Panasonic Will Market First Li-Ion Storage Battery For Home Use In 2011

Panasonic's Lithium-Ion Storage Battery Panasonic

From Popular Science:

The battery could power zero-emissions homes.

Bringing power storage to the people, Panasonic will bring a home-use lithium-ion storage cell to market in fiscal 2011, making it possible for homes to store a week's worth of electricity for later use. Panasonic -- along with the recently acquired Sanyo -- have already test-manufactured such a battery, which could allow for more widespread deployment of eco-friendly but inconsistent modes of power generation.

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High-Tech Cars Are Trouble For Some Mechanics

From MSNBC/AP:

Automakers hold onto information, bill in Congress would address problem.

LOS ANGELES - A sign inside the Humming Motors auto repair shop says, "We do the worrying so you don't have to."

These days, owner David Baur spends a lot of time worrying in his full-service garage near downtown Los Angeles.

As cars become vastly more complicated than models made just a few years ago, Baur is often turning down jobs and referring customers to auto dealer shops. Like many other independent mechanics, he does not have the thousands of dollars to purchase the online manuals and specialized tools needed to fix the computer-controlled machines.

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Vitamin C 'Could Boost Stem Cell Generation'

From The Independent:

Vitamin C could play an essential role in the manufacture of stem cells for treating human diseases, new research suggests.

The vitamin boosts the reprogramming of adult cells to give them the properties of embryonic stem cells.

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Christmas Card Snowflakes 'Corrupt Nature' By Defying Laws Of Physics

Real snowflakes clinging to a car window. Phoney flakes lack the characteristic six-fold, hexagonal symmetry. Photograph: M Scott Moon/AP

From The Guardian:

Professor rails against depictions of 'unnatural' snowflakes that lack hexagonal symmetry.

The fragile truce between science and art came under strain today when common depictions of snowflakes threatened to divide the two cultures over the festive season.

In the latest salvo between the warring factions, Christmas card manufacturers, advertising agencies and children's book publishers are accused of corrupting nature with "incorrect designer versions" of snowflakes that defy the laws of physics.

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2009: Year Of The Social Network

Artwork: Chip Taylor

From PC World:

As 2009 draws to a close, it's clear that the year was a watershed for social networks and the firms that own them.

The year saw major changes at sites like Facebook and Twitter as millions of non-technical users became regular users of social networks.

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Sun and Moon Trigger Deep Tremors On San Andreas Fault

Looking along the peak ridgeline of the Pinnacle National Monument. These jagged spires are the result of an ancient volcano, erosion and tectonic uplift along the San Andreas Fault. The faint tug of the sun and moon on the San Andreas Fault stimulates tremors deep underground, suggesting that the rock 15 miles below is lubricated with highly pressurized water that allows the rock to slip with little effort. (Credit: iStockphoto/Michael Almond)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 25, 2009) — The faint tug of the sun and moon on the San Andreas Fault stimulates tremors deep underground, suggesting that the rock 15 miles below is lubricated with highly pressurized water that allows the rock to slip with little effort, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, seismologists.

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5 Big Fat Holiday Health Lies

From Live Science:

It's the holidays, that ambiguous time of indulgence that used to be confined to Thanksgiving but which now encompasses the chunk of the year between Halloween and Valentine's Day — and, oh, why not, let's just throw in St. Patrick's Day.

Focusing just on Christmas, though, here are five pervasive health misconceptions you might encounter during your time of merriment:

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Average Net User Now Online 13 Hours Per Week

From CNET:

How much time do you spend online each week? If you're an average Net user, a new poll shows, it's around 13 hours--excluding e-mail.

The Harris Interactive poll, released Wednesday, found that 80 percent of U.S. adults go online, whether at home, work, or elsewhere. Those who surf the Net spend an average of 13 hours per week online, but that figure varies widely. Twenty percent are online for two hours or less a week, while 14 percent are there for 24 hours or more.

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The Operation To 'Cure' High Blood Pressure: How It Works

From The Telegraph:

High blood pressure increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and in general the higher the blood pressure, the greater the risk.

LIfestyle improvements such as weight loss if necessary, exercise, stopping smoking and a low salt diet can reduce high blood pressure but many will require medication.

There are an estimated 15 million people in Britain with raised blood pressure and drugs to treat the condition are amongst the most commonly prescribed drugs.

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Astronauts Follow Apollo 8 Crew's Example By Spreading Christmas Cheer In Space

A Nasa TV grab shows the Expedition 22 crew getting into the
Christmas spirit with santa hats and presents

From The Daily Mail:

Three astronauts arrived at the International Space Station bearing gifts today, just in time for Christmas.

The three wise men floated through the passage shortly after the hatches opened between the newly-arrived Soyuz spacecraft and the orbiter.

Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov entered first wearing a Santa hat and carrying a Christmas wreath. Next came Soichi Noguchi came in a Santa hat with a white bag of presents slung over his shoulder, followed by Nasa astronaut Timothy Creamer wearing an elf hat and elf ears.

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Applied Materials Moves Solar Expertise To China

Image: Glass power: Equipment at Applied Materials’s R&D center in Xi’an, China, processes glass panels 5.7 square meters to make solar cells. Credit: Applied Materials

From Technology Review:

The company says its future is in energy products for the Chinese market.

The world's biggest supplier of solar-manufacturing equipment has opened a research and development center in China, and its chief technology officer will relocate from Silicon Valley to that country next month. Applied Materials, founded in 1967 as a semiconductor company, has manufactured in China for 25 years, but is expanding its presence to be closer to its customers and develop products suited to the country's urban population.

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2010 Preview: The Polyglot Web

Mapping the internet as it goes truly global (Image: Matthew Hurst/SPL)

From The New Scientist:

Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don't recognise, from a language you don't speak. It's a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.

Net regulator ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) - the part of an address after the final "dot". The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.

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