5:46 PM
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/robot-inspects-dangerous-structures/1002211.article
Study found that between 1970 and 2007 NY City has been the most frequent site of terrorism in the US, with more attacks than the next 4 most targeted cities (Miami, SF, DC, LA). In addition to al-Qaeda, almost 40 other identified groups conducted terrorism attacks in NY during the study period:
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/sociss/release.cfm?ArticleID=2151
UCLA researchers show how the world's smallest 'coffee ring' may help biosensors detect disease:
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-engineering-researchers-identify-157602.aspx
Federal authorities are seeking the forfeiture of The French Gourmet (an operating San Diego-area bakery) due to their knowing employment of illegal immigrants. Normally punishments are just fines and jail time--I can't remember another example of seeking forfeiture. When the bakery received "No Match" letters saying that the Social Security numbers being used by employees did not match the names of the rightful owners of those numbers, the company paid the employees in cash until they were able to get documents with different Social Security numbers:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/us-seeks-forfeiture-business-employing-illegal-aliens
Uganda is an example of how the global war against AIDS is falling apart in some countries. Donations enable 200,000 people to get treatment for AIDS, but 500,000 people need treatment...and each year 110,000 more people in Uganda are infected!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/world/africa/10aids.html
Volvo demonstrated their new crash-avoidance technology for automobile journalists...and instead of avoiding a crash their demo car crashed straight into the car it was supposed to avoid. Oops...
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/05/doh-volvo-crashes-during-crash-avoidance-demo/
It is rumored that HP will be releasing a webOS (Palm)-based tablet computer in Q3 of this year. The report says that HP killed its internally developed Windows 7-based tablet:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/rumor-mill-hp-releasing-webos-tablet-q3/2010-05-10
WiFi and WirelessHD appear to be moving towards the Wireless Gigabit Alliance, so we could see WiFi products that operate in the 60 GHz band with a max throughput of 7 Gigabits per second:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/195914/wifi_wirelesshd_cozy_up_to_wigig_standard.html
Clearwire says they won't switch from WiMAX to LTE until 2012 at the earliest:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20004468-266.html
India's 3G spectrum auction is really heating up, with 9 bidders in a fierce competition. The latest bid of $2.65 billion is nearly 3.5 times the reserve price set by India's government and the bidding continues:
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=277553
Article about how it is a problem for AT&T that their poor network quality has become a punchline for stand-up comedians. My personal experience is that I *never* have problems talking with people on my cell phone via Verizon, but over half the time I talk with people on AT&T I either get a dropped call or poor audio quality. Last month was worse than I can ever remember it for talking with AT&T wireless customers:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/problem-ts-wireless-network-punchline/2010-05-10
The Android OS passed Apple to take the #2 position in smartphone OS in the US in Q1 of 2010. Android had 28% market share, Apple had 21%, and RIM had 36%. Verizon has more subscribers, but AT&T had more smartphone sales (32% of smartphone sales in the US in Q1) than Verizon (30%):
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100510005773&newsLang=en