Windows Vista is out. And by now, almost everyone knows three things about Microsoft's first major operating system release in five years: it has enhanced security features, a snazzy interface, and better search capabilities.
But there's more to Vista than these three features - and the new is not all good. While some of Vista's secrets are bound to surprise you pleasantly, others could make you question your decision to upgrade altogether.
Science & Technology
Ad placement is very important. Advertisers pay more for their ads to be shown "above the fold" - that is, on the top half of a newspaper, or in the immediately-viewed part of a web page.
How much would you pay for your ad to be shown "above the atmosphere" - at the edge of space? It turns out that there is a company that can do just that.
JP Aerospace is currently lining up customers for their next flight in April. Your advertisement will be carried aloft to 100,000 feet - and photographed against the boundary between the Earth and outer space.
How much would you pay for your ad to be shown "above the atmosphere" - at the edge of space? It turns out that there is a company that can do just that.
JP Aerospace is currently lining up customers for their next flight in April. Your advertisement will be carried aloft to 100,000 feet - and photographed against the boundary between the Earth and outer space.
Europe's biggest telecoms groups are aiming to create a mobile phone search engine that could challenge Yahoo! and Google, the US giants.
Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are among the companies that will come together for secret, high-level talks at the mobile industry's biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week.
Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are among the companies that will come together for secret, high-level talks at the mobile industry's biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week.
President APJ Abdul Kalam's concerns over Google Earth providing detailed and unhindered view of 'sensitive' Indian establishments have been addressed, courtesy a formula which allows users uninterrupted access to the 'eye in the sky' while camouflaging key installations.
Fuzzy, low resolution pictures and distorted building plans is how the government and Google Earth have agreed to get around concerns that images of sensitive military and scientific establishments available on the Web could either allow unauthorised snooping or become a ready reckoner for terrorists.
Fuzzy, low resolution pictures and distorted building plans is how the government and Google Earth have agreed to get around concerns that images of sensitive military and scientific establishments available on the Web could either allow unauthorised snooping or become a ready reckoner for terrorists.
Regarding smell, scientists only have a few pieces of the puzzle, and it's unclear how they fit into the big picture. Basically, scientists know that odorant molecules in the air actuate several types of receptors in our noses, which then trigger nerve cells for the brain to analyze. But while scientists know that the shape and size of molecules can make odors smell differently, some molecules with nearly identical shapes smell nothing alike.
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| ©Peter DaSilva for The New York Times |
| Dr. Greenberg has grouped most of the world's languages into a small number of clusters based on their similarities. |
A new cosmological model demonstrates the universe can endlessly expand and contract, providing a rival to Big Bang theories and solving a thorny modern physics problem, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill physicists.
The cyclic model proposed by Dr. Paul Frampton, Louis J. Rubin Jr. distinguished professor of physics in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences, and co-author Lauris Baum, a UNC graduate student in physics, has four key parts: expansion, turnaround, contraction and bounce.
During expansion, dark energy -- the unknown force causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate -- pushes and pushes until all matter fragments into patches so far apart that nothing can bridge the gaps. Everything from black holes to atoms disintegrates. This point, just a fraction of a second before the end of time, is the turnaround.
The cyclic model proposed by Dr. Paul Frampton, Louis J. Rubin Jr. distinguished professor of physics in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences, and co-author Lauris Baum, a UNC graduate student in physics, has four key parts: expansion, turnaround, contraction and bounce.
During expansion, dark energy -- the unknown force causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate -- pushes and pushes until all matter fragments into patches so far apart that nothing can bridge the gaps. Everything from black holes to atoms disintegrates. This point, just a fraction of a second before the end of time, is the turnaround.
CAIRO: Police investigators in Luxor are at a loss to explain how three houses suddenly caught on fire and burned to the ground.
Forensic scientists have intensified efforts to unravel the mystery surrounding a number of night fires that started last week in a cluster of small houses in the village of Al Zeinya Qibli local press have been reporting recently.
And the stories are sowing the imaginations and usual conspiracy theories of Egyptians.
The fact that most of these houses are generally not equipped with electrical power due to their remoteness from any metropolitan center helps investigators rule out the possibility of an electric short circuit or overload as the cause of the fires.
When investigators showed up at one domicile that had been damaged by the flames, villagers said another house down the road mysteriously caught fire. [...]
And this is not the first time it happens.
A few years ago the residents of a village in Suhag, a major Upper Egypt province, were shocked to see fires raging on the roofs of their houses, which are usually used to store woods for country ovens or serve as a place for their pigeons' nesting towers.
In this case too, the cause of the fire had remained a riddle that was never resolved, but the only clue to the fires was an eyewitness who had spotted with the naked eye the tail of what he believed to be a meteor which he said darted its way through the sky and landed on one of the roofs.
Forensic scientists have intensified efforts to unravel the mystery surrounding a number of night fires that started last week in a cluster of small houses in the village of Al Zeinya Qibli local press have been reporting recently.
And the stories are sowing the imaginations and usual conspiracy theories of Egyptians.
The fact that most of these houses are generally not equipped with electrical power due to their remoteness from any metropolitan center helps investigators rule out the possibility of an electric short circuit or overload as the cause of the fires.
When investigators showed up at one domicile that had been damaged by the flames, villagers said another house down the road mysteriously caught fire. [...]
And this is not the first time it happens.
A few years ago the residents of a village in Suhag, a major Upper Egypt province, were shocked to see fires raging on the roofs of their houses, which are usually used to store woods for country ovens or serve as a place for their pigeons' nesting towers.
In this case too, the cause of the fire had remained a riddle that was never resolved, but the only clue to the fires was an eyewitness who had spotted with the naked eye the tail of what he believed to be a meteor which he said darted its way through the sky and landed on one of the roofs.
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| ©Baltics Worldwide |
| Anthropologist Arunas Barkus |
Anthropologist Arunas Barkus pokes at a leg bone in a pile of brittle skeletal remains tagged No. 151 and spread across an autopsy table at Vilnius University. At the touch of his fingers, dried marrow crumbles to the floor like snow.
What's now clear, he explains, is that the remains of 2,000 men unearthed in a pool-sized grave in Vilnius last year were soldiers in Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Army that attacked Russia 190 years ago.
Indonesian geophysicists hope to stem the flow of a destructive mud volcano on East Java by dropping chains of concrete balls into its mouth.
The mud eruption began on 29 May last year in the middle of a rice paddy in the village of Porong, 30 kilometres south of Surabaya, the provincial capital. Since then, the volcano has spewed out up to 126,000 cubic metres of mud a day, flooding an area of more than 4 square kilometres.
Some 10,000 people have been left homeless and 20 factories have closed. Another 200,000 homes could be at risk if the mudflow combines with the rainy season - which has just begun - and weakening dams to flood more land. Attempts to alleviate the problem by drilling relief wells or channelling the mud into a nearby river have so far failed.
The mud eruption began on 29 May last year in the middle of a rice paddy in the village of Porong, 30 kilometres south of Surabaya, the provincial capital. Since then, the volcano has spewed out up to 126,000 cubic metres of mud a day, flooding an area of more than 4 square kilometres.
Some 10,000 people have been left homeless and 20 factories have closed. Another 200,000 homes could be at risk if the mudflow combines with the rainy season - which has just begun - and weakening dams to flood more land. Attempts to alleviate the problem by drilling relief wells or channelling the mud into a nearby river have so far failed.
Comment: Well, whoever comes up with a search engine that is NOT google-ized (i.e., censored and controlled), will have my vote!