7:21 PM
A senior Iranian official admitted that the Stuxnet malware seriously damaged Iran's nuclear program, resulting in large-scale accidents and loss of life. Iran says that the virus was created in Texas and Israel, and they blame German company Siemens for letting the US and Israel have access to code for the equipment and software used at their nuclear power plant:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17863029?nclick_check=1
Siemens and McAfee will work together to help prevent critical infrastructure from being damaged by cyber attacks like the Stuxnet worm. McAfee says that its Application Control system product would have protected Iran's centrifuges (hardware and software from Siemens) from the Stuxnet virus that made them spin out of control:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/siemens-mcafee-team-defend-against-critical-infrastructure-attacks
Robots made by iRobot found that radiation levels are far too high in a damaged Japanese nuclear reactors for repair crews to go inside. The robots have taken photos and measurements of conditions in and around the plant while minimizing the exposure to radiation and other hazards for the human workers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/polls-show-diminishing-support-for-japanese-governments-handling-of-triple-disasters/2011/04/17/AFGXSfwD_story.html
For the first time in the 60 years that it has judged the US's credit quality, the S&P rated the US outlook as negative. Standard and Poor's warned that the US could lose its AAA credit rating (which would mean a significant interest rate increase, costing tens or hundreds of billions in tax dollars each year) if lawmakers don't deal with the deficit. S&P says that they don't think anything will get done until after the next presidential election...if partisan politics let it go that far, that would be horrible for our country:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sandp-lowers-its-outlook-on-us-debt-stocks-decline-sharply/2011/04/18/AFfg7QzD_story.html
Titan has been found to have an orbit similar to our Moon's, always presenting the same face toward Saturn and its axis of rotation tilts by about 0.3 degrees. The goes against all assumptions about Titan from before and appears to indicate that Titan may have a huge liquid ocean under its icy shell:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26662/?ref=rss
NASA released a huge batch of data from its sky mapping mission, allowing everyone to examine the data for millions of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other hard-to-see objects. There seems to be a lot of new data in this release, including more than 33,000 new asteroids between Mars and Jupiter and 20 comets. These images are a little more than half of what they have observed in the all-sky survey, with the full cosmic census scheduled to be released next spring:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110415/ap_on_sc/us_sci_sky_mapping_spacecraft
Google will invest $168 mil to help fund a massive solar power project in the Mojave Desert--the solar tower will generate 392 megawatts of energy and power 140,000 homes. BrightSource has already raised about $1.6 bil for the project that is expected to be completed in 2013:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/google-invests-168-million-world-s-largest-solar-tower
Looks like Groupon made a good business decision when they turned down Google's $6 bil offer last year. They are expected to announce that they have selected Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriters of their IPO that is expected to value their company between $15 bil and $20 bil:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ipo-could-value-groupon-15-billion-20-billion-130598
Article discussing whether or not wireless carriers will make a big push in the tablet market or if stores like Best Buy will end up taking over those sales just like they did with netbooks. I find it interesting that 60% of tablets sold last year were WiFi-only, and half of the owneers of tablets that included a 3G modem never used their 3G modem. So, people paid a premium for the 3G modem ($130 extra on the iPad 2) and never used it:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/wireless-carriers-and-tablets-what-opportunity/2011-04-18
RIM may try to outbid Google for Nortel's patents:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/rim-said-to-consider-bid-topping-google-s-offer-for-nortel-telecom-patents.html
The disaster in Japan has resulted in a huge disruption in auto production--Toyota will make as many as 35,000 less vehicles in North America and Honda and Subaru are cutting back on production because of the shortage of auto parts. This is affecting the TV industry because automakers are reducing their spending on ads because they need to conserve their vehicle inventory:
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/japan-catastrophe-causing-tremors-us-tv-ad-market-130677
I know that many people who read the LOTD are fans of Hawaii Five-O and they will be happy to know that TNT will be paying $2.4 mil per episode, starting to show the episodes in 2014. That pretty much guarantees that Hawaii Five-O will be profitable and they will continue to make new episodes for many years:
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/hawaii-five-o-episodes-will-run-tnt-130647
Comcast wants NBC Universal to challenge ESPN in sports programming by gaining rights to college sports (starting with the Pac-12) and getting new contracts with the NHL and Olympics that will help them build VS into a true rival to ESPN:
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nbcu-will-seek-bigger-sports-play-130597
3-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed himself. The boy's legal guardian was a sheriff in North Carolina and the boy somehow got hold of the sheriff's personal weapon:
http://www.wxii12.com/news/27576311/detail.html
NY City woman was getting $850/month in alimony because she was supposedly disabled and unable to work, but her ex-husband found out from her blog that she was belly dancing for several hours every day. The judge reduced her alimony payments by more than half (down to $400/month), made her pay her ex-husband's legal fees, and made her give him 60% of the proceeds from the sale of their home:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110417/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_caught_belly_dancing
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17863029?nclick_check=1
Siemens and McAfee will work together to help prevent critical infrastructure from being damaged by cyber attacks like the Stuxnet worm. McAfee says that its Application Control system product would have protected Iran's centrifuges (hardware and software from Siemens) from the Stuxnet virus that made them spin out of control:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/siemens-mcafee-team-defend-against-critical-infrastructure-attacks
Robots made by iRobot found that radiation levels are far too high in a damaged Japanese nuclear reactors for repair crews to go inside. The robots have taken photos and measurements of conditions in and around the plant while minimizing the exposure to radiation and other hazards for the human workers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/polls-show-diminishing-support-for-japanese-governments-handling-of-triple-disasters/2011/04/17/AFGXSfwD_story.html
For the first time in the 60 years that it has judged the US's credit quality, the S&P rated the US outlook as negative. Standard and Poor's warned that the US could lose its AAA credit rating (which would mean a significant interest rate increase, costing tens or hundreds of billions in tax dollars each year) if lawmakers don't deal with the deficit. S&P says that they don't think anything will get done until after the next presidential election...if partisan politics let it go that far, that would be horrible for our country:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sandp-lowers-its-outlook-on-us-debt-stocks-decline-sharply/2011/04/18/AFfg7QzD_story.html
Titan has been found to have an orbit similar to our Moon's, always presenting the same face toward Saturn and its axis of rotation tilts by about 0.3 degrees. The goes against all assumptions about Titan from before and appears to indicate that Titan may have a huge liquid ocean under its icy shell:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26662/?ref=rss
NASA released a huge batch of data from its sky mapping mission, allowing everyone to examine the data for millions of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other hard-to-see objects. There seems to be a lot of new data in this release, including more than 33,000 new asteroids between Mars and Jupiter and 20 comets. These images are a little more than half of what they have observed in the all-sky survey, with the full cosmic census scheduled to be released next spring:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110415/ap_on_sc/us_sci_sky_mapping_spacecraft
Google will invest $168 mil to help fund a massive solar power project in the Mojave Desert--the solar tower will generate 392 megawatts of energy and power 140,000 homes. BrightSource has already raised about $1.6 bil for the project that is expected to be completed in 2013:
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/google-invests-168-million-world-s-largest-solar-tower
Looks like Groupon made a good business decision when they turned down Google's $6 bil offer last year. They are expected to announce that they have selected Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriters of their IPO that is expected to value their company between $15 bil and $20 bil:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ipo-could-value-groupon-15-billion-20-billion-130598
Article discussing whether or not wireless carriers will make a big push in the tablet market or if stores like Best Buy will end up taking over those sales just like they did with netbooks. I find it interesting that 60% of tablets sold last year were WiFi-only, and half of the owneers of tablets that included a 3G modem never used their 3G modem. So, people paid a premium for the 3G modem ($130 extra on the iPad 2) and never used it:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/wireless-carriers-and-tablets-what-opportunity/2011-04-18
RIM may try to outbid Google for Nortel's patents:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/rim-said-to-consider-bid-topping-google-s-offer-for-nortel-telecom-patents.html
The disaster in Japan has resulted in a huge disruption in auto production--Toyota will make as many as 35,000 less vehicles in North America and Honda and Subaru are cutting back on production because of the shortage of auto parts. This is affecting the TV industry because automakers are reducing their spending on ads because they need to conserve their vehicle inventory:
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/japan-catastrophe-causing-tremors-us-tv-ad-market-130677
I know that many people who read the LOTD are fans of Hawaii Five-O and they will be happy to know that TNT will be paying $2.4 mil per episode, starting to show the episodes in 2014. That pretty much guarantees that Hawaii Five-O will be profitable and they will continue to make new episodes for many years:
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/hawaii-five-o-episodes-will-run-tnt-130647
Comcast wants NBC Universal to challenge ESPN in sports programming by gaining rights to college sports (starting with the Pac-12) and getting new contracts with the NHL and Olympics that will help them build VS into a true rival to ESPN:
http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nbcu-will-seek-bigger-sports-play-130597
3-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed himself. The boy's legal guardian was a sheriff in North Carolina and the boy somehow got hold of the sheriff's personal weapon:
http://www.wxii12.com/news/27576311/detail.html
NY City woman was getting $850/month in alimony because she was supposedly disabled and unable to work, but her ex-husband found out from her blog that she was belly dancing for several hours every day. The judge reduced her alimony payments by more than half (down to $400/month), made her pay her ex-husband's legal fees, and made her give him 60% of the proceeds from the sale of their home:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110417/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_caught_belly_dancing