6:01 PM
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/karzai-wins-a-2nd-term-in-afghanistan-oh-crap/
Study found that the earthquake risk is greater than expected at Los Alamos National Lab. Federal experts say that "major deficiencies" in the nuclear weapons lab's safety planning could result in deadly amounts of airborne plutonium:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-plutonium-los-alamos28-2009oct28,0,6966430.story
Alameda County misspent $100,000 of Homeland Security money on bomb detectors--the detectors were apparently bought without consulting with the bomb squad, because the detectors only detect a bomb if a police officer walks right up to the bomb! So, the bomb squad won't use the detector so they use bomb-sniffing dogs and robots instead:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=7090431
Pipe-crawling robots of various sizes, some as small as 6 inches long, are used to pipes in nuclear power plants:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20091101/BUSINESS/911010308/1001/R.+Brooks++robots+are+called+to+inspect+nuclear+power+plants
The current President of South Africa rebuked their former President's policy of preventing anti-HIV/AIDS drugs in to their country and suppressing efforts to educate their people about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and how to minimize the risks. A study estimated that those policies led to 365,000 premature deaths in South Africa and countless HIV infections!
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/zuma-rebuking-mbeki%E2%80%99s-crack-pot-theories-rallies-south-africa-fight-aids
Japanese tech companies are struggling while South Korea's tech companies are up significantly. For example, Sony lost $289 million last quarter while Samsung has its profits triple to $3.14 billion:
http://www.cedmagazine.com/News-Japan-tech-slump-S-Korean-rebound-110209.aspx
The FCC accidentally released a confidential part of a letter sent to Google that revealed that Google Voice has more than 1.4 million users:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/google-voice-has-more-1-4m-users/2009-11-02?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Leaked documents shows that the HTC Droid Eris will launch on Verizon this Friday--though it will run Android 1.5 instead of Android 2.0 like the Droid phone. At least it will cost just $99:
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/10/31/leaked-docs-show-htcs-droid-eris-launching-on-november-6th-for/
Restaurant set the world record with a 222.5-pound meatball:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33578984/ns/us_news-weird_news/