5:14 PM
http://www.commonsensewithmoney.com/2010/05/target-free-bounty-paper-towels/
The Military Communications market was worth $15.2 billion in 2009 and will grow to $15.6 billion in 2010. The e-mail they sent to me (which I unfortunately cannot pass along) showed the breakdown on the projected sales between 2010-2020, with the US having 44.1%, RoW 30.7%, China 9.2%, and the UK and France both around 4%. Another figure shows how China is the fastest growing military communications market by FAR:
http://www.asdnews.com/news/27515/Military_Communications_Market_Worth_$152bn_in_2009.htm
Traces of explosives collected from the South Korean naval ship that was sunk have found to be identical in composition to those used in North Korean torpedoes. The investigation appears ready to announce their conclusions on Thursday:
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2010/05/18/20/0301000000AEN20100518004000315F.HTML
BP's emergency response plan was approved in July by the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS)--it does NOT mention how to react if a deep-water well spews oil uncontrollably! The plan lists seals, sea otters and walruses as animals that could be impacted by a Gulf spill even though those animals do not live in the Gulf! BP promised in their plan that they could respond to a spill of around 1 million gallons a day even though they have struggled for nearly a month with a spill 1/5 of that size:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-17-oil-plan_N.htm
The worldwide elimination of smallpox might have helped to spread HIV infection! The smallpox vaccine offered protection against HIV, but once people stopped getting the vaccine HIV began its spread. The smallpox vaccine appeared to cut HIV replication five-fold and researchers believe vaccination may offer protection against HIV by producing long-term alterations in the immune system, especially since both smallpox and HIV exploit the same receptor on the surface of white blood cells:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8686750.stm
Scientists are concerned that the full-body scanners being installed in airports can lead to chromosome damage and cancer:
http://gizmodo.com/5540815/scientists-concerned-about-safety-of-new-airport-x+ray-scanners
Some states have more parking spaces than cars, where parking lots lead to hotter cities, less ground water and less healthy streams. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin have nearly 3 parking spaces for every car, using almost 5% of urban land for parking even when you do not count street parking and parking structures:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/parking-lots-urban.html
China just got 40 all-electric taxis, with BYD planning to rapidly get more of the zero-emission taxis on the road in China soon. BYD plans to start selling the all-electric taxis in the US soon through its headquarters in LA:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-05/17/c_13299349.htm
AT&T discussed by they are upgrading with HSPA+ and once again criticized Verizon's plan to get LTE deployed a year before AT&T plans to get LTE--AT&T once again said that the initial LTE phones will be big, have bulky antennas, and short battery life. They did acknowledge that it will take a long time to get HSPA+ devices, saying that the first products will be data cards:
http://gigaom.com/2010/05/17/exclusive-the-details-on-atts-bridge-to-lte/
Google bought VoIP company Global IP solutions (audio and video through IP networks), with a hint towards video chat implementation for Android. Apple plans to have video chat with their next iPhone and iPhone 4.0, but it may work only on short-range WiFi networks while HTC and Google appear to be rolling out a video chat feature an an Android phone that works over cellular networks:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/05/18/google.buys.global.ip.solutions.for.android.tech/
Canadian woman is suing her cellphone company for $600k because her cellphone bill exposed her affair and led to the breakdown of her marriage. Didn't her *affair* lead to the breakdown of her marriage?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/woman-sues-rogers-over-cellphone-bill-says-it-ruined-her-marriage/article1572143/