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Apple’s iPad 2 hits overseas stores after US sellout

Anand Patel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:28:15 +0000

Hundreds of customers lined up outside Apple stores in Australia and New Zealand on Friday for the international launch of the iPad 2, which has flown off the shelves in the United States leaving the company struggling to meet demand.

Analysts forecast some 1 million devices may have been sold in the first weekend of the launch in the United States, but many warn that it’s not clear how supply constraints will affect availability following the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

The iPad 2, a thinner and faster version that features two cameras for video chat, was introduced in the United States on March 11. But some would-be buyers have expressed frustration at how difficult it has been to secure one of the wildly popular tablet computers, sparking speculation Apple misjudged demand.

It went on sale in New Zealand at 0400 GMT. One store in Wellington was allocated just 12 of the gadgets and they were snapped up in a matter of minutes.

Sales kick off in Australia at 0600 GMT and then roll out to other countries including France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, and Spain.

“If it wasn’t for the iPad, I wouldn’t be in Australia right now,” said Alex Lee, a backpacker from Canada, who was the first in the queue outside the glass-fronted Apple store in Sydney’s central business district. He said he diverted his travels from Singapore to attend the launch.

“It’s like a habit. I’ve also lined up on Regent Street in London for the iPhone”, added Lee, who had a folding chair and blanket and had spent two nights waiting.

Apple staff in Sydney, dressed in the company’s blue branded shirts , handed out trays of sandwiches to those in the queue, some of whom had bedded down on blankets overnight before being awoken by bright sunshine.

Its retail price in Australia starts at A$579 ($568), against $499 in the United States. The iPad 1 started selling in Australia from A$629 when it was launched.

In Wellington, staff at electronics retailer JB HiFi said they had only received about a dozen iPad 2s and they were snapped up in about 10 minutes. A sales assistant said the store did know when the next delivery would come in.

The first iPad, which went on sale a year ago, sold 500,000 units in the first week and crossed the 1 million unit mark in 28 days. Nearly 15 million iPads were sold in nine months of 2010, two or three times as many as analysts had predicted.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said on Tuesday the company was “working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.”

Fiona Martin, a spokeswoman for Apple in Australia, declined to comment on whether there was enough stock to meet demand.

“We don’t comment on speculation, we’ve got plenty down there for all those folk that are in the queue.”

A prospective buyer in Wellington, 22-year-old student Ian MacDonald, said he had held off buying the first generation iPad because it lacked a camera and he wanted any bugs ironed out.

“This version looks way better, with the cameras and it beats all the other tablets because there are so many apps (applications),” he said.

Myles Jihme, a student from Malaysia, waiting outside the Apple store in Sydney said he intended to buy two iPads, the maximum allowed by Apple, and would auction one for charity. “All the profits from the sale will go to Japan’s disaster fund,” he said.

In addition to Friday’s roll out, the iPad 2 will be available in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and other countries in April.

Apple now faces increased competition from rivals. Samsung Electronics and Motorola have tablets on the market and Blackberry-maker Research In Motion and Hewlett-Packard Co are set to release tablets in coming months.

JAPAN SUPPLY WOES

Analysts are also concerned that Apple will face shortages of key components for the iPad 2 because of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan two weeks ago.

“The quake will have an effect on supplies of the iPad, since some parts come from Japan,” said Akira Minamikawa, Vice President at iSuppli in Tokyo.

“It’s too early to say how far production will be affected. But there are a number of iPad parts manufacturers, including Toshiba and Hitachi for LCD panels, while Toshiba also makes flash memory.”

In Taiwan, the CFO of TPK Holdings , a major supplier of touch screens to companies that include Apple, said it has had no problems with supplies because it has many secondary sources outside of Japan.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co , a contract manufacturer and subsidiary of Foxconn that is heavily reliant on Apple’s business, said it does not expect supply problems in the near-term.

Most of the Japanese factories that are thought to supply Apple with parts are situated well away from the earthquake-hit area, still distribution of supplies is expected to be hit by nationwide fuel shortages.

Apple’s clout in the supply chain means investors remain confident – for now – that it enjoys priority and can secure critical components ahead of competing manufacturers.

Still, Apple is unlikely to avoid a hit from the disruption in Japan, analysts said.

“We think the disruption especially for chemical materials could continue throughout Q2 and when the components become absent, it’s inevitable that Apple would be affected,” said Calvin Huang, an analyst at Daiwa in Hong Kong.

“Then we will see a situation that customers will have to wait for months for an iPad to arrive after placing an order.”

Russia to send space probe to sun by 2015

Anand Patel — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:38:42 +0000

Photo from www.nasa.gov

Some scientists believe bursts of solar activity cause natural disasters on our planet, but until now the star has been too difficult to reach or explore in any detail. Some Russian researchers think they have the solution.

Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis – apocalyptic pictures are becoming an ordinary part of news bulletins across the globe. And scientists are not giving out reassuring forecasts.

“Unfortunately, we’re expecting more severe cataclysms which may lead to large-scale human losses and destruction,” says Baku-based Professor Elchin Kakhalilov of the Global Network for the Forecasting of Earthquakes. “I’m talking about even a possible shift of the centers of our entire civilization.”

The change in the Earth’s seismic activity coincides with the rise of activity on the sun. Scientists have been witnessing gigantic bursts of plasma on its surface and say they are affecting our planet, even though it is over 90 million miles away.

Each burst sends billions of particles into space which impacts the Earth’s magnetic field. This may trigger some of the processes going on deep bellow its surface, leading to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Scientists predict solar activity will increase and say in the next few years, large-scale disruptions of electronic equipment, radio transmissions, computer failures and massive black-outs could become parts of everyday life.

The sun is currently monitored either by stations on Earth or in orbit. But sending a probe four times closer to the star would be far more helpful. And it may not be science fiction much longer, thanks to a project currently being developed by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).

“This is going to be like a thermometer which would fly close to the Sun, measure its temperature, density and magnetic fields,” Dr. Sergey Bogachaev, an Interheliozond engineer from Moscow. “We’re making it from scratch: no one has ever done this before.”

The project of Interheliozond, as it is called, is intended to study the sun from close range, says RAS Space Research Institute Director Lev Zeleny according to Interfax. The space probe will provide new data about the sun. Scientists are currently carrying out preliminary design and trajectory studies of the future spacecraft. The project has been included into Russia’s Federal Space Program.

The Interheliozond is set to be launched by 2015. Of course it will not be able to control the star’s activities, but it could at least give a heads up to humanity before disaster strikes.

New cosmic ray data casts doubt on common theory

Anand Patel — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:50:29 +0000

New-cosmic-ray-data-casts-doubt-on-common-theory

New cosmic ray data casts doubt on common theory

Scientists studying data gathered by the cosmic ray detector PAMELA say the accepted theory on their origin may need to be corrected or completely eliminated.

Cosmic rays are steams of particles, mostly electrons, positrons and helium nuclei, with very high energy. Astronomers believe that they come from the remains of stars that go supernova. Such a catastrophic event produces strong magnetic fields, which linger for millennia and can serve as natural particle accelerators, producing cosmic rays.

PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Аstrophysics) is a cosmic ray detector mounted on a Russian earth surveillance satellite which has been collecting data since 2006. Now a group of Italian, Russian, Swedish and German scientists say the data is not in line with the previous theory.

In a paper published in Science magazine, the authors say the energy spectrum of the particles detected by PAMELA is too wide for all of them to have come from supernovae. The scientists speculate that at least some of the cosmic rays must have come from different sources somewhere closer to the Solar system. These sources may be stars similar in size to the Sun, but with higher activity, which can produce cosmic rays with lower energy that those produced by supernovae.

Carnivorous plant doubles as bat hotel

Anand Patel — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:49:55 +0000

Carnivorous-plant-doubles-as-bat-hotel

A rare meat-eating pitcher plant has re-made its insect traps into night shelters for tiny bats to have their feces as reward.

The nepenthes rafflesiana elongate, a variety of the species also known as Raffles’ pitcher plant, grows in Brunei’s muggy peat forests. It is remarkably poor at catching insects, unlike its many cousins, capturing about one seventh as many.

Now Ulmar Grafe of the University Brunei Darussalam and colleagues suggest a key to this oddity. The plant has adapted to get extra nutrition not from hunting, but from working as a sort of night hotel for Hardwicke’s woolly bats.

These tiny mammals are less than four centimeters long, and biologists knew they could dorm inside the pitchers. Grafe’s team used 17 miniature radio transmitters to learn more about the bats’ sleeping behavior and found out that the plant’s traps were their night shelters of choice.

The pitcher plants receive pay from their guests. Leaves near the occupied pitchers turned out to have about 13 per cent more nitrogen than the bat-less ones, the researchers report in a paper published in Biology Letters. The nutrient apparently comes from the bat guano, which they drop overnight into the plants’ digestive liquid at the bottom.

Such a mutually-beneficial arrangement is not unprecedented. Earlier, plant ecology researcher Jonathan Moran, a professor at the Royal Roads University in Victoria, Canada, and colleagues reported a similar relationship between some other pitcher plants and tree shrews, which eat their nectar while using the pitchers as sort of bio toilets in return.

Exterminate a species or two, save the planet

Anand Patel — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:43:09 +0000

Exterminate-a-species-or-two-save-the-planet

Biologists have suggested a mathematical model, which will hopefully predict which species need to be eliminated from an unstable ecosystem, and in which order, to help it recover.

The counterintuitive idea to kill living things for the sake of biodiversity conservation comes from the complex connections presented in ecosystems. Eliminate a predator, and its prey thrives and shrinks the amount of whatever it has for its own food. Such “cascading” impacts along the “food webs” can be unpredictable and sometimes catastrophic.

Sagar Sahasrabudhe and Adilson Motter of Northwestern University in the US have shown that in some food web models, the timely removal or suppression of one or several species can do quite the opposite and mitigate the damage caused by local extinction. The paper is described in Nature magazine.

The trick is not an easy one, since the timing of removal is just as important as the targeted species. A live example Sahasrabudhe and Motter use is that of island foxes on the Channel Islands off the coast of California. When feral pigs were introduced in the ecosystem, they attracted golden eagles, which preyed on foxes as well. Simply reversing the situation by removing the pigs would make the birds switch solely to foxes, which would eventually make them extinct. Instead, conservation activists captured and relocated the eagles before eradicating the pigs, saving the fox population.

Of course conservation scientists are not going to start taking decisions based on the models straight away. Real ecosystems are not limited to predator and prey relationships, and things like parasitism, pollination and nutrient dynamics have to be taken into account as well. On the other hand, ecosystems were thought to be too complex to be modeled at all some eight years ago, Martinez says. Their work gives more confidence that it will have practical uses in nearest future.

Theres is BUG system

Anand Patel — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 07:28:13 +0000

Theres a BUG in the system

His blood pressure is stable without any medication with the exception of hydrochortizone. They are weaning this to every 24 hours instead of every 12 hours.

His pulomonary blood pressure is down to 2/3rds of his systemic pressure. They are weaning him off the Nitric Oxide based on these results. This is a very good sign for his lungs. The will be checking this again on Monday I believe.

His blood gases look “great” to quote the doctor. Based on this they would like to take him off the High Frequency Oscillating Ventilator (HFOV) and put him on a standard ventilator. However, since he has a Bleb (see scary stuff below), they are going to leave him on the HFOV for now.

He still has a Grade 4 IVH (blood in his brain matter). They will check this again on Monday I think.

The tumors on his heart could be a condition called tuberoscholorosous. I haven’t researched this yet. The feeling I get from the doctors is that it would be a game changer on par with cerebral palsy. They will be doing some genetic testing today. We won’t know the resuts for 2 weeks.

There is a Bleb on his chest. As I understand it, this is an air bubble that is caused from air leaking out of his lungs. It is common in premies but if it bursts and causes a nemothorax, then they will have to insert a chest tube to remove the air

Bowels are still not working as far as I know. The doctors have not mentioned this for a couple of days.

They will be doing a spinal tap today to check for infection in the spinal fluid (meningitus). This is treatable with antibiotics. However, they don’t want to just treat it unless necessary since he is already on some serious antibiotics and too much antibiotics in his system can lead to hearing loss. The risks of the spinal tap are infection, which he already has and is being treated for, and excessive bleeding, which the doctor does not see as a likely outcome.

Billirubun is still high. They don’t seem too concerned with this since they see this with most premies. However his is lingering and it is an indication that his liver is not breaking down red blood cells adequately. They are hanging an additional light to help with this.

Playing With Moon

Anand Patel — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:18:05 +0000

Playing With Moon Photography

These pictures taken by amateur astronomer turned photographer Laurent Laveder show people painting, throwing, catching and bouncing the moon
Combining his love for astronomy and photography, physics graduate Laurent created the collection called ‘Moon Games’ on a beach near his home in France

Playing With Moon Photography

Fabulous Earth Photos

Anand Patel — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:00:15 +0000

Fabulous Earth Photos

Maybe this is an explanation to why the weather and the earth climate is acting totally out of control with both earthquakes and strange weather phenomenon. Because now an internationally renown geophysicist suggests a black hole may be responsible for recent Earth changes. What is causing the geomagnetic field flux? Why have regions of the field ripped and collapsed exposing Earth to the solar max fury rapidly approaching in 2012? Why is the Earth’s core seemingly spinning crazily out of control and behaving in a way never before seen? Geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat of the institute de Physique du Globe in Paris thinks he knows: a black hole has breached our planet’s core and may be about to release literal hell on Earth. Chulliat, who gave a major speech back in 2009 at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, focused on the geomagnetic field, anomalies, and the dangerous flux the field is undergoing. He addressed the wandering pole and some of the reasons why the magnetic field is behaving in an odd manner.

Fabulous Earth Photos

Fabulous Earth Photos By Astronaut Douglas Wheelock 2

Anand Patel — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:51:37 +0000

Fabulous Earth Photos By Astronaut Douglas Wheelock

Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales criticises injunctions.

Anand Patel — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:55:52 +0000

jimmy wales

The online encyclopaedia has fallen foul of UK privacy law in recent weeks, with details about those using super-injunctions appearing on the site.

Mr Wales told the BBC that such information would be removed because it did not come from a reliable source.

But if stories ran in foreign newspapers he would publish, he said.

“The Wikipedia community does not allow such things to come on the site unless there is a reliable source which currently there isn’t because the newspapers aren’t allowed to publish,” he told the BBC Radio 4′s PM programme.

But if they appeared in say the New York Times or a French newspaper he would run them, “without question”.
US law

Mr Wales said his personal view was that privacy laws were “grave injustices and human rights violations”.

“They should be done away with as quickly as possible. There should be no law constraining people from publishing legally obtained, factual information,” he said.

Exceptions to this would be information that was life-threatening, such as troop movements.

“But we aren’t talking about that. This is embarrassing facts about politicians and celebrities”.

Wikipedia is owned by the US-based charity the WikiMedia Foundation and and is therefore subject to US law.

That is the same legal loophole that has allowed Twitter to continue publishing details about the private lives and subsequent super-injunctions of a range of celebrities.
Making mockery

It has said it will not identify the user who has been exposing the super-injunction gliterrati on the site, despite the fact that some of the details appear to be untrue.

Users worried by libellous tweets are advised to contact a lawyer.

Experts warned that the lawyers of celebrities could turn the tables, pressing for ISPs and firms such as Twitter to hand over the details of who is publishing comments on the site.

To do so they would need to obtain what is known as a Norwich Pharmacal order from a judge, the same process used by rights holders to force ISPs to hand over details about alleged illegal file-sharers.

“Celebrities could apply for Norwich Pharmacal orders against ISPs, Twitter or other parties holding data that may lead to the identification of a defendant,” said solicitor Michael Forrester of law firm Ralli.

“The position is much more difficult when dealing with companies based in the US, such as Twitter and Google.

They may seek to avoid any applications on jurisdictional points and I suspect they may take a strong line with such applications, at least at first,” he added.

The legislative net also appears to be closing in on social media sites with the UK culture secretary Jeremy Hunt saying places such as Twitter “made a mockery” of privacy laws.

“Whatever the laws tried to do on privacy, the internet is a very powerful force that you can’t buck so we do need to look at it,” he said at a Westminster lunch with journalists this week.

Meanwhile Twitter continues to ride high on the furore, recording its busiest day of online traffic this week.