5:48 PM
Video showing four Marines apparently peeing on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters is not going to make it easy for the US to win the PR battle in Afghanistan:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/marines-allegedly-urinate-taliban-corpes/story?id=15341700#.Tw46N2_y9w-
About 1 out of every 10 stars have a planet the size of the Earth with an orbit that would create a temperature and climate roughly like what we have on Earth if the planet has water. This 6-year study over millions of stars concludes that it is common for stars to have planets where humans could live if those planets had water. More of the Milky Way's 100 billion stars have planets similar to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, but planets like Jupiter and Saturn are more rare:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/about-one-out-of-every-ten-stars-has.html
Researchers have discovered a natural hormone that acts like exercise on muscle tissue (burning calories, improving insulin processing, boosting strength) and even transforms white fat cells into brown fat (which generates heat). This could lead to an "exercise pill" that can treat obesity, diabetes, and neuromuscular diseases like muscular dystrophy:
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/39449/?ref=rss
Israel apparently has killed another leading scientist involved with Iran's nuclear program. The deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility was killed when a "sticky" bomb was attached to his car by 2 men on a motorcycle. There are reports that this was a joint operation between Israel's Mossad and the MEK (leftist organization inside Iran that works against their government):
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/bull20120111-israel-takes-out-another-iranian-nuclear-scientist
China succeeded in producing a harvest of 13.9 tons a hectare during its trial planting of a new rice breed--China plants 29 million hectares of rice each year with an average output of 6.3 tons a hectare, so this trial produced more than 2x the rice efficiency. Rice is the staple food for more than half of the people in the world and more than 900 million people in the world experienced malnutrition and hunger in 2010, up from 800 million in 1995. This super rice can be planted in many countries in the world, and if it is grown on 75 million hectares globally then the increased yield will produce 150 million tonnes extra for feeding 400-500 million more people...this could end famine and guarantee food security! Note that this super rice does *not* involved genetic modification, it is just regular hybriding:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/20/content_13737437.htm
Intel announced its first 2 major customers for their Atom processor specifically designed for smartphones and tablets--Lenovo and Motorola:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ceslive/story/intel-notches-lenovo-motorola-customers-its-atom-expansion-mobile/2012-01-10
A tiny company called Globaltel was awarded a patent last year that it claims Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Nokia, most phone makers, and every wireless carrier in the world infringes! The patent covers text messages sent from a computer to a mobile phone that include a URL. Instead of suing the world, they wish to sell their patent for the highest bidder--they don't want to sell to any of the "patent trolls", but their CEO would sell for $100 mil to them. Globaltel also hopes to soon receive a patent for a mobile payment technology--their CEO says they were offered $100 mil for that technology last year *before* they even had a patent for it!
http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/company-says-carriers-phone-makers-infringe-patent-183643
Kodak filed lawsuits against Apple and HTC claiming infringement against Kodak's digital imaging patents. Kodak already was suing Apple about digital imaging patents, but this lawsuit adds 4 new claims and names basically every Apple device with a camera. The lawsuit against HTC includes the 4 patents HTC just sued Apple for, adds a 5th patent, and names a wide range of Android-based HTC smartphones. FOSS Patents speculates that Kodak filed the lawsuits to highlight its patent portfolio, which is has been trying to sell but has been unable to find a buyer for:
http://www.mobileburn.com/18209/news/kodak-files-new-patent-lawsuits-against-apple-htc
Nokia will provide each major US wireless carrier with an exclusive Windows Phone. They say that giving each carrier an exclusive and distinctive smartphone provides their products with more support from the carriers:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ceslive/story/nokia-deliver-exclusive-us-windows-phone-devices-each-carrier/2012-01-10
Apple isn't displaying anything at CES this year, but they are apparently sending *250* employees to see what their competitors are demonstrating:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-apple-idUSTRE80A0BK20120111
The CEO of Canonical (which makes Ubuntu) is trying to get Ubuntu Linux onto mobile devices such as tablets to compete with Android and iOS:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/canonical-ceo-ubuntu-tablet-os-will-battle-android-ios-183456
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/marines-allegedly-urinate-taliban-corpes/story?id=15341700#.Tw46N2_y9w-
About 1 out of every 10 stars have a planet the size of the Earth with an orbit that would create a temperature and climate roughly like what we have on Earth if the planet has water. This 6-year study over millions of stars concludes that it is common for stars to have planets where humans could live if those planets had water. More of the Milky Way's 100 billion stars have planets similar to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, but planets like Jupiter and Saturn are more rare:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/about-one-out-of-every-ten-stars-has.html
Researchers have discovered a natural hormone that acts like exercise on muscle tissue (burning calories, improving insulin processing, boosting strength) and even transforms white fat cells into brown fat (which generates heat). This could lead to an "exercise pill" that can treat obesity, diabetes, and neuromuscular diseases like muscular dystrophy:
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/39449/?ref=rss
Israel apparently has killed another leading scientist involved with Iran's nuclear program. The deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility was killed when a "sticky" bomb was attached to his car by 2 men on a motorcycle. There are reports that this was a joint operation between Israel's Mossad and the MEK (leftist organization inside Iran that works against their government):
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/bull20120111-israel-takes-out-another-iranian-nuclear-scientist
China succeeded in producing a harvest of 13.9 tons a hectare during its trial planting of a new rice breed--China plants 29 million hectares of rice each year with an average output of 6.3 tons a hectare, so this trial produced more than 2x the rice efficiency. Rice is the staple food for more than half of the people in the world and more than 900 million people in the world experienced malnutrition and hunger in 2010, up from 800 million in 1995. This super rice can be planted in many countries in the world, and if it is grown on 75 million hectares globally then the increased yield will produce 150 million tonnes extra for feeding 400-500 million more people...this could end famine and guarantee food security! Note that this super rice does *not* involved genetic modification, it is just regular hybriding:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/20/content_13737437.htm
Intel announced its first 2 major customers for their Atom processor specifically designed for smartphones and tablets--Lenovo and Motorola:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ceslive/story/intel-notches-lenovo-motorola-customers-its-atom-expansion-mobile/2012-01-10
A tiny company called Globaltel was awarded a patent last year that it claims Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Nokia, most phone makers, and every wireless carrier in the world infringes! The patent covers text messages sent from a computer to a mobile phone that include a URL. Instead of suing the world, they wish to sell their patent for the highest bidder--they don't want to sell to any of the "patent trolls", but their CEO would sell for $100 mil to them. Globaltel also hopes to soon receive a patent for a mobile payment technology--their CEO says they were offered $100 mil for that technology last year *before* they even had a patent for it!
http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/company-says-carriers-phone-makers-infringe-patent-183643
Kodak filed lawsuits against Apple and HTC claiming infringement against Kodak's digital imaging patents. Kodak already was suing Apple about digital imaging patents, but this lawsuit adds 4 new claims and names basically every Apple device with a camera. The lawsuit against HTC includes the 4 patents HTC just sued Apple for, adds a 5th patent, and names a wide range of Android-based HTC smartphones. FOSS Patents speculates that Kodak filed the lawsuits to highlight its patent portfolio, which is has been trying to sell but has been unable to find a buyer for:
http://www.mobileburn.com/18209/news/kodak-files-new-patent-lawsuits-against-apple-htc
Nokia will provide each major US wireless carrier with an exclusive Windows Phone. They say that giving each carrier an exclusive and distinctive smartphone provides their products with more support from the carriers:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ceslive/story/nokia-deliver-exclusive-us-windows-phone-devices-each-carrier/2012-01-10
Apple isn't displaying anything at CES this year, but they are apparently sending *250* employees to see what their competitors are demonstrating:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-apple-idUSTRE80A0BK20120111
The CEO of Canonical (which makes Ubuntu) is trying to get Ubuntu Linux onto mobile devices such as tablets to compete with Android and iOS:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/canonical-ceo-ubuntu-tablet-os-will-battle-android-ios-183456