7:37 PM
NASA discovered the first direct evidence of a superfluid at the core of a neutron star. Superfluids are an odd, friction-free state of matter that has properties such as being able to climb upward and escape airtight containers:
http://www.asdnews.com/news/33752/NASA_S_Chandra_Finds_Superfluid_in_Neutron_Star_s_Core.htm
Article about how more air pollution controls would save lives and money. This study found that the direct benefits from the Clean Air Act Amendments are estimated to reach almost $2 trillion by the year 2020, with a cost of implementing the amendments being $65 bil. Air pollution kills about 60,000 people in the US every year (and 3 million people around the world each year), more than the total US combat deaths in World War 1 and close to the average combat deaths per year in World War 2:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/more-air-pollution-controls-would-save.html
China plans to build an alternative to the Panama Canal--their deal with Columbia would enable China to build a *railway* system that would connect the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Columbia has a significant amount of coal and China has a huge need for coal, plus this is a good outlet for China's expertise in constructing railway systems:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/china-plans-build-alternative-panama-canal
The Washington Post looked into Mike Huckabee's "clarification" that he meant to say that Pres. Obama was raised in Indonesia instead of Kenya and found that made no sense based on what he said. Kenya was part of Britain and had the Mau Mau Revolution, but Indonesia was a *Dutch* colony with no relationship with Britain, so blaming Pres. Obama being raised in Indonesia for a skewed view of Britain seems like a real stretch:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/03/huckabees_kenya_clarification.html
South Korea is widely deploying WIBro, their country's version of WiMAX which is being evolved into a combination of WiMAX and LTE Advanced. WiBro is being expanded to cover 85% of their population with a top speed of 40 Mbps, and WiBro Evolution is being deployed and is expected to get speeds 10x faster than 3G networks (120 Mbps downlink). They are also getting 1 Gbps fiber connections to *every* home by the end of next year. Wow...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/korea-is-widely-deploying-wibro-version.html
Apple revealed the details of the iPad 2 today, which has a dual-core processor and improves graphics performance by 900% while having the same power consumption and battery life. It is 33% thinner and slightly lighter, comes in white and black, and will be available on Verizon and AT&T. It is even thinner than the iPhone 4. The price will be the same as the iPad. Shipments begin on March 11 and they will sell *millions* of these! It seems odd to me that Apple isn't really the highest-end portion of the tablet market right now--the iPad 2 will be cheaper than the Xoom (the $499 WiFi-only model is at a great price point, $200 less than the pricing released for the WiFi-only Xoom) and the Xoom seems to have better specs in a lot of areas (4G, Flash, etc.):
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/apple-ipad-2-and-steve-jobs-both.html
HP said that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet imitates webOS, basically accusing RIM of copying HP's Palm devices. RIM responded with an analogy about how cars over time end up with similar kinds of designs on their own:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-says-blackberry-playbook-result-of-fast-imitation-cycle-rim-responds
Verizon says that they will move to tiered pricing sometime mid-summer, ending their $29.99 unlimited data plan. They state that tiered pricing will allow them to have much cheaper data plans for people who want smartphones but don't want to pay $30 per month and don't need unlimited data. They want to go from 26% smartphone users at the start of this year to 50% smartphone users by the end of this year, so having a range of data plans/pricing is important for that:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-cfo-we-will-move-tiered-data-pricing-mid-summer/2011-03-01
Interesting article about how wireless carriers are dealing with the fact that a small number of users are taking up a HUGE amount of their available bandwidth. For example, Vodafone recently disclosed that 7% of their base stations are running at capacity, and that 6% of their subscribers generate 54% of data traffic while 75% of their subscribers only use 17% of data traffic. In the US, 5% of mobile users account for 68% of mobile traffic:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/what-do-subscribers-know-about-how-mobile-operators-manage-their-data-traff/2011-03-02
Feature article on Charlie Sheen's two live-in girlfriends:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/threezy_for_kinky_does_it_sheen_WephPCj8FaCFSc7ykBTnCJ
Penthouse launched the first 3D porn channel--it is available all throughout Europe now and will be available in the US in the 2Q of this year:
http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=47330&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10#
http://www.asdnews.com/news/33752/NASA_S_Chandra_Finds_Superfluid_in_Neutron_Star_s_Core.htm
Article about how more air pollution controls would save lives and money. This study found that the direct benefits from the Clean Air Act Amendments are estimated to reach almost $2 trillion by the year 2020, with a cost of implementing the amendments being $65 bil. Air pollution kills about 60,000 people in the US every year (and 3 million people around the world each year), more than the total US combat deaths in World War 1 and close to the average combat deaths per year in World War 2:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/more-air-pollution-controls-would-save.html
China plans to build an alternative to the Panama Canal--their deal with Columbia would enable China to build a *railway* system that would connect the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Columbia has a significant amount of coal and China has a huge need for coal, plus this is a good outlet for China's expertise in constructing railway systems:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/china-plans-build-alternative-panama-canal
The Washington Post looked into Mike Huckabee's "clarification" that he meant to say that Pres. Obama was raised in Indonesia instead of Kenya and found that made no sense based on what he said. Kenya was part of Britain and had the Mau Mau Revolution, but Indonesia was a *Dutch* colony with no relationship with Britain, so blaming Pres. Obama being raised in Indonesia for a skewed view of Britain seems like a real stretch:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/03/huckabees_kenya_clarification.html
South Korea is widely deploying WIBro, their country's version of WiMAX which is being evolved into a combination of WiMAX and LTE Advanced. WiBro is being expanded to cover 85% of their population with a top speed of 40 Mbps, and WiBro Evolution is being deployed and is expected to get speeds 10x faster than 3G networks (120 Mbps downlink). They are also getting 1 Gbps fiber connections to *every* home by the end of next year. Wow...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/korea-is-widely-deploying-wibro-version.html
Apple revealed the details of the iPad 2 today, which has a dual-core processor and improves graphics performance by 900% while having the same power consumption and battery life. It is 33% thinner and slightly lighter, comes in white and black, and will be available on Verizon and AT&T. It is even thinner than the iPhone 4. The price will be the same as the iPad. Shipments begin on March 11 and they will sell *millions* of these! It seems odd to me that Apple isn't really the highest-end portion of the tablet market right now--the iPad 2 will be cheaper than the Xoom (the $499 WiFi-only model is at a great price point, $200 less than the pricing released for the WiFi-only Xoom) and the Xoom seems to have better specs in a lot of areas (4G, Flash, etc.):
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/apple-ipad-2-and-steve-jobs-both.html
HP said that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet imitates webOS, basically accusing RIM of copying HP's Palm devices. RIM responded with an analogy about how cars over time end up with similar kinds of designs on their own:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-says-blackberry-playbook-result-of-fast-imitation-cycle-rim-responds
Verizon says that they will move to tiered pricing sometime mid-summer, ending their $29.99 unlimited data plan. They state that tiered pricing will allow them to have much cheaper data plans for people who want smartphones but don't want to pay $30 per month and don't need unlimited data. They want to go from 26% smartphone users at the start of this year to 50% smartphone users by the end of this year, so having a range of data plans/pricing is important for that:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-cfo-we-will-move-tiered-data-pricing-mid-summer/2011-03-01
Interesting article about how wireless carriers are dealing with the fact that a small number of users are taking up a HUGE amount of their available bandwidth. For example, Vodafone recently disclosed that 7% of their base stations are running at capacity, and that 6% of their subscribers generate 54% of data traffic while 75% of their subscribers only use 17% of data traffic. In the US, 5% of mobile users account for 68% of mobile traffic:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/what-do-subscribers-know-about-how-mobile-operators-manage-their-data-traff/2011-03-02
Feature article on Charlie Sheen's two live-in girlfriends:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/threezy_for_kinky_does_it_sheen_WephPCj8FaCFSc7ykBTnCJ
Penthouse launched the first 3D porn channel--it is available all throughout Europe now and will be available in the US in the 2Q of this year:
http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=47330&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10#