7:21 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10156834.stm
The US is using a new type of explosive-sniffing dog: Vapor-wake dogs are genetically bred and trained to detect the scent plume of air that comes off a person, such as a suicide bomber, wearing an explosive device:
http://thehill.com/capital-living/cover-stories/99617-a-nose-for-explosives
It is interesting that police dogs are trained by placing drugs inside toys and then playing fetch with them...the dogs then associate the smell of drugs with the toys. So, the dogs don't think that they are looking for drugs...they think they are looking for toys! Police say that a dog can search a room in a minute where it would take a person 20 minutes to search by hand:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_drug_sniffing_dog.html
When planning the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA considered creating a video that made it look like Saddam was having sex with a teenage boy, in order to discredit him with the people of Iraq:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/05/cia_group_had_wacky_ideas_to_d.html
The Hubble discovered a planet in our galaxy being devoured by the star it orbits:
http://www.asdnews.com/news/28135/Hubble_catches_planet_being_devoured_by_its_star.htm
About 30% of Americans think they have food allergies when just 5% actually have food allergies! The problem is the unreliability of the skin test used to test for allergies. An MIT engineer came up with a new technology that could let doctors diagnose food allergies via a simple blood test that would be faster and more reliable than current tests:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/food-allergies-0521.html
Toyota stopped the sales of their high-end Lexus LS 460 and 600h sedans because of an electronics problem that can cause steering wheels to fall out of alignment. The LS 600h has a starting price of $108k so those owners will be shocked when they receive the recall notice in the mail next month!
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lexus-recall-20100525,0,6644368.story
The 5 biggest airlines in the US (Southwest and Alaska are not adding this charge) will charge a "peak travel surcharge" of between $10 and $30 per seat for flights more days this summer. A passenger on a major airline who checks one bag and travels on a peak travel day can expect to pay up to $100 round trip in fees in addition to the fare!
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0525-airfares-20100525,0,7130587.story
US teenagers prefer to communicate daily with their friends via text messages instead of talking on the phone or talking in person. Boys send and receive 30 text messages per day and girls send or receiver 80:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100524/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc2216
The website wanted to test Google's claim that Android 2.2 was a lot faster than Android 2.1, so they benchmarked 2.2 vs. 2.1...and found that the pre-release version of 2.2 that is not optimized yet was actually 600% faster than 2.1!
http://www.androidcentral.com/benchmarking-android-22-froyo-against-android-21-eclair
The HTC Incredible disappeared from Verizon's website, which worried a lot of people who were interested in the phone...but it appeared back on Verizon's website 6 minutes later with a *2 GB microSD card* added for the same price it cost before:
http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-incredible-vanishes-vzws-website-reappears-minutes-later
AT&T criticized T-Mobile for claiming in ads that their HSPA+ is 4G. T-Mobile doesn't have plans right now for either LTE or WiMAX, so it is interesting whether or not they can claim that HSPA+ (no HDPA+ are expected for a long time):
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/t-mobile-boasts-4g-speeds-hspa-expansion/2010-05-25
AT&T settled a class action lawsuit by providing codes to unlock any phones that were used on their network *except* the iPhone:
http://consumerist.com/2010/05/to-settle-lawsuit-att-lets-you-unlock-anything-thats-not-an-iphone.html
Specs and a video about Dell's Android tablet that will be on AT&T by late summer:
http://www.i4u.com/article34407.html
http://www.infoworld.com/t/smartphones/dell-streaks-mobile-fray-mini-tablet-026
When Google launched their Google Pac-Man on Friday, Google users consumed 4,819,352 hours of time!
http://blog.rescuetime.com/2010/05/24/the-tragic-cost-of-google-pac-man-4-82-million-hours/