The mystery of the meteorite

The report presented at the conference for paleontology and the exploration of the moon in Texas unveiled the results of the analysis of spherical microparticles discovered in Antarctica.

A huge meteorite rammed into Antarctica about 480,000 years ago. The meteorite weighed hundreds of thousands of tons. Debris and dust were scattered 3,000 kilometers around. This area is comparable to the size of a whole mainland.

The blast, which occurred in the sky above Antarctica about 480,000 years ago, was similar to the Tunguska meteorite disaster of 1908.

The fine particles were Read more

A notable lack of 3-D TVs material …

Samsung and Panasonic will start selling 3-D TVs in U.S. stores this week, inaugurating what manufacturers hope is the era of 3-D viewing in the living room. But because the sets require bulky glasses, and there is for now little to watch in the enhanced format, it will take at least a few years for the technology to become mainstream, if that happens at all.

Samsung Electronics Co. announced Tuesday that it is selling two 3-D sets this week. For $3,000, buyers get a 46-inch set, two pairs of glasses and a 3-D Blu-ray player.
Want to be the first one on your block with a 3-D television? It will cost you about $3,000.

Panasonic Corp. has said it will start selling 3-D sets Wednesday.

The sales debut comes as moviegoers have shown considerable enthusiasm for the latest wave of 3-D titles in the theater. Last weekend, “Alice in Wonderland” grossed an estimated $116.2 million at the box office, beating the first-weekend receipts of “Avatar,” the winter’s 3-D blockbuster.

Although it’s clear that 3-D sets for the home will appeal to technology and home-theater enthusiasts, it remains to be seen whether other consumers will be enticed to spend at least $500 above the price of a comparably sized standard TV and Blu-ray player.

TV makers hope so, because sets with the last big technological improvement — high definition — have come way down in price, below $500.

One challenge will be that the 3-D effect requires viewers to wear relatively bulky battery-operated glasses that need to be recharged occasionally. They are not like the cheap throwaways that have been used in theaters since the 1950s.

When you’re wearing these 3-D TV glasses, room lights and computer screens may look like they’re flickering, making it difficult to combine 3-D viewing with other household activities. Anyone who’s not wearing the glasses when the set is in 3-D mode will see a blurry screen. (The sets can be used in 2-D mode as well, with no glasses required.)

To give buyers something to watch, Samsung is including a 3-D copy of “Monsters vs. Aliens” on Blu-ray disc with its packages, in a deal with the studio, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. Its CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, said it will convert its “Shrek” movies to 3-D for Samsung TV buyers later this year.

We continue to see this amazing level of enthusiasm and excitement for 3-D. The rate of adoption for this into the cinema has been a rocket ship these last couple of months.

Sets with 3-D-capability have been available for a few years from Mitsubishi Corp. But 3-D for the home is now coming together as a complete package with the arrival of more 3-D television models, as well as 3-D video players and 3-D movies.

But there’s still a notable lack of 3-D material to watch.

Eventually, sports and other programming that will benefit from a more immersive experience should be offered in 3-D. ESPN has said it will start a channel that will broadcast live events using the technology, starting with FIFA World Cup soccer in June. The sets could also be used for 3-D video games, when game consoles catch up to the new technology.

Samsung, the world’s largest maker of TVs, has high hopes for 3-D. Tim Baxter, head of the company’s U.S. electronics division, said he expects 3-D systems to be in 3 million to 4 million of the 35 million TV sets sold in the U.S. this year by all manufacturers.

Research firm iSuppli Corp. puts the figure at 4.2 million units globally this year. It expects the numbers to ramp quickly, to 12.9 million next year and 27 million in 2012. For comparison, there were more than 210 million TVs sold worldwide year.

Sony Corp. said Tuesday it will start selling 3-D televisions in June. U.S. prices were not revealed, but the sets will cost $3,200 and up in Japan. The company hopes that 10 percent of the TVs it sells in the next fiscal year will be 3-D units.

Sony also plans to issue software upgrades for its PlayStation 3 game consoles and some of its Blu-ray players so they will be able to play 3-D discs.

Panasonic has not revealed what its sets will cost. It’s taking a slightly different tack than Samsung, by introducing 3-D only on plasma screens, for maximum image quality. And rather than selling 3-D sets broadly, it’s going only through Best Buy Inc.’s Magnolia Home Theater stores.

Samsung’s two new sets will be followed by another 13 3-D-capable models in the next two months. Soon, 3-D packages with plasma sets will be available for about $2,000.

ISuppli analyst Randy Lawson said it’s a fairly simple, inexpensive move for manufacturers to modify their high-end sets to be 3-D-capable. That’s part of the reason iSuppli expects a quick increase in sales of such 3-D TVs. Whether people will use the feature is another matter.

Consumers should be more interested in the ability to connect the TV to the Internet, Lawson said. That feature, which started showing up last year, is more immediately useful, because it gives access to a vast array of online movies and TV shows.

I don’t believe that everyone will be watching 3-D all the time in two to three years. I don’t think it will be a predominant concern among average consumers.

GPS, Never Get Lost Again

Have you ever been lost in the woods? Have you ever wanted to go back to that great fishing spot but can’t remember where it was? Have you ever found yourself wandering aimlessly in an unfamiliar part of the city having to ask people for directions? It happens more often than we would like that we find ourselves taking a wrong turn, and taking twice as long to find our way back. Well luckily, there is the perfect tool to guide us safely: It’s called Global Positioning System. Read more

The story may sound very strange

A Canadian researcher managed to take a picture of the face of the legendary hairy giant – the mascot of the Winter Olympic Games 2010.
Randy Brisson, a well-known Canadian cryptozoologist, shared hot information with his Russian colleagues. The researcher sent a photograph of the North American Bigfoot to Igor Burtsev and Dmitry Bayanov, the directors of the International Center for Hominology. The Canadian took the picture of the creature in Vancouver, the capital of Winter Games 2010. Read more

The nuclear waste

Three European countries will within 15 years begin disposing of their nuclear waste deep underground, even though the public is not solidly behind the move, officials said.

In Finland, a deep geological repository where spent nuclear fuel will be disposed of is due to come onstream in 2020, said experts who addressed a forum at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Sweden will follow three years after its Nordic neighbor, and “France plans to start operating a deep geological repository Read more

Stage for the showdown for Google

Google will try to win court approval of a deal that would give it the digital rights to millions of books, despite legal concerns raised by the Justice Department.

The Internet search leader set the stage for the showdown with a Thursday court filing defending a complex settlement with U.S. authors and publishers.

The documents include a rebuttal to the Justice Department’s belief that the settlement would thwart competition in the book market and undermine copyright law. Read more

Gmail social-networking “Buzz”

Google is giving its free email service a “Buzz” by adding social-networking features which could challenge the supremacy of platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz product manager Todd Jackson equated the enhanced offering to “an entirely new world in Gmail” during an unveiling presentation on Tuesday at the Internet giant’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Buzz began rolling out Tuesday with users of Google’s Web-based email service getting updates about what friends are doing online and ways to share video, photos and other digitized snippets.

Google’s move comes as a direct Read more

UFO – Roswell Incident of the Soviet Union (Russia)

This internationally famous UFO incident took place in 1986, on January 29, at 7:55 p.m. Some have called it the Roswell Incident of the Soviet Union. The information concerning this incident was sent to us by a number of Russian ufologists.

Dalnegorsk is a small mining town in the Far East of Russia. That cold January day a reddish sphere flew into this town from the southeastern direction, crossed part of Dalnegorsk, and crashed at the Izvestkovaya Mountain (also known as Height or Hill 611, because of its size). The object flew noiselessly, and parallel to the ground; it was approximately three meters in diameter, of a near-perfect round shape, with no projections or cavities, its colour similar to that of burning stainless steel. One eyewitness, V. Kandakov, said that the speed of the UFO was close to 15 meters per hour. Read more

The link between aviation and weather

Nearly half of aviation accidents occur during operations in adverse weather conditions, while 75 per cent of delays in air traffic are weather-related in high-density regions. This highlights the need for accurate and reliable weather forecasts to guarantee that air transportation is both safe and regular. This week 150 of the world’s experts meet in Hong Kong, PR China, to discuss ways to optimise provision of timely and accurate weather information. Read more

Web browsing

Microsoft’s latest version of Internet Explorer (IE) is a hit but Google’s Chrome has been steadily gaining ground on the Web browsing software, according to industry figures .

Chrome’s share of the browser market rose from 1.62 percent in March of last year to 5.22 percent last month, according to Net Application trend data.

During the same period, Internet Explorer’s piece of the Web browser market dropped from 68.46 percent to 62.12 percent, Net Application reported. Read more

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