Link Collection

DARPA awarded Duke $19.5 million to design a portable easy-to-use diagnostic device that can discover who is infected with an upper respiratory virus before the first cough or sneeze happens. This is useful for the military because commanders can discover which soldiers are likely to become sick and unfit for duty, but it also has obvious public health benefits. Businesses and schools could discover people that are sick before they have any symptoms and send them home or keep them quarantined before infecting others:
http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/darpa_funded_duke_study_to_detect_viral_infection_before_symptoms_appear


For a class project Stanford students created a model airplane that flew to 7,142 feet high!
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/?p=24626

Researchers showed that a new approach could eliminate CO2 emissions at coal-burning power plants. This could be very important because 90% of the world's energy is produced from fossil fuels and the emissions from fossil fuel-based power plants is projects to rise 50% by 2030:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/oxyfuel-coal.html

To close its budget deficit, Hawaii will have its teachers have 17 unpaid Fridays each year...school will be closed for those days, which means about 10% of the school year is gone! The Governor tried to have 30 unpaid days, but they compromised to 17:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090919/NEWS03/909190339/Hawaii+teachers+accept+furloughs+in+tentative+union+deal

T-Mobile might actually go from well behind in 3G service to having the fastest nationwide system next year due to their big HSPA+ push. AT&T's plan to get HSPA everywhere next year has been scaled back significantly because they will go to LTE sooner than had been planned. So, next year Verizon will have the biggest LTE deployments (30 cities) but T-Mobile will have the fastest nationwide data servce:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/will-t-mobile-usa-be-dark-horse-mobile-broadband-leader/2009-09-21?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Very detailed rumors about how Microsoft will be releasing two smartphones next year:
http://www.9to5mac.com/microsoft-sharp-danger-pink-sidekick-turtle-pure

http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=15659&news=Microsoft+Danger+Sharp+Turtle+Pure+Verizon

Settlement between Dell and New York will allow New Yorkers to be compensated for poor performance by Dell on computer service plans:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/new-yorkers-collect-compensation-dell-will-other-states-follow-410?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2009-09-21

Dell is buying IT services company Perot systems for $3.9 billion:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6628930.html

This website discusses the unhappiness that some Clearwire customers have--thanks to Steve for the link:
http://clearwiresucks.com/blog/

UK supermarket chain has been accused of religious discrimination after they told the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a supermarket...the 23-year-old founder of the International Church of Jediism has 500,000 followers worldwide. He's trying hard to claim that Jedi is a religion...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/18/jedi-religion-tesco-hood-jones