Link Collection

Stanford researchers have figured out how to build a bird-like UAV that can land on the side of a wall, perch there for a while, then fly off again. The DoD has funded 3 companies to design legs for "micro air vehicles" to do similar things, but they may not be able to do better than what Stanford has already accomplished:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/pentagon-give-our-robot-spy-birds-life-like-legs/

The massive oil spill is reached shore today in Louisiana and it is feared that this spill will be a greater environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez spill. 10 wildlife refuges are in the oil's likely path and the oil could be a disaster for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coastal areas. It is estimated that it will cost $6 billion or more to clean up this mess...I'm glad that they passed that law after the Exxon spill so BP will be forced to pay the cost of this cleanup:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/30/louisiana.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100501,0,4113991,full.story

IBM scientists have created a 3D map of the earth so small that 1,000 of them could fit on a single grain of salt. Their new technique could open up new applicatinos for developing nanosized objects:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/2010/04/Manufacturing-Nanotechnology-IBM-invention-creates-worlds-smallest-3-D-map-of-the-world/

Chinese electric car company will locate its North American headquarters in downtown LA later this year and plans to start selling an electric car in the US in late 2010:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/more-details-emerge-on-chinese-car-companys-arrival-in-los-angeles.html

Toyota realized that its 2003 Sequoia SUV has a software acceleration problem within months of putting it into production, and issued to its dealers a technical service bulletin explaining to them how to fix the problem. However, owners were NOT notified, so some of them ended up paying to fix the problem despite Toyota knowing about the problem for years! Some people got the repair for free, especially if they complained about the problem quickly, but others had to pay for the fix:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-recall-20100428,0,6993931.story

Adobe says that they will be delivering their Flash Player 10.1 for Android smartphones as a public preview in May and then as a general release for all Android smartphones in June:
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/04/moving_forward.html

David Letterman addressed his sex scandal during his appearance on Regis' show today:
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b178906_letterman_talks_sex_scandal_it_was.html