Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods' ex-wife who divorced the superstar golfer after discovering that he had been having multiple affairs, appears to have a new man in her life, according to the New York Post.
Nordegren has been dating Jamie Dingman, the son of billionaire Michael Dingman, for months, according to the Post.
The former Swedish model, 31, divorced Woods in August, almost a year ago, and reportedly received a settlement of around $100 million and joint custody of the couple's two children, the Telegraph reported. A confidentiality agreement was also part of the divorce settlement.
Dingman, an emerging-markets specialist, divides his time between China and the Bahamas and reportedly has had at least one rendezvous with Nordegren in Florida and at her luxury apartment in Stockholm, Sweden, according to the New York Post.
Dingman has been linked with Bridget Moynahan, the mother of football star Tom Brady's baby, and with Princess Madeleine of Sweden, but the New York Post says that he wasn't romantically involved with the princess, citing sources.
TMZ said that a Swedish photo agency approached staff members with photographs of the Dingman and Nordegren kissing and embracing outside her apartment in Sweden. TMZ said their employees saw the photos, but the photo agency decided to hold on to them for the moment.
Nordegren herself is very private. Swedes like to say that she embodies everything Swedish: humble, shy, discrete, independent, sporty, down to earth and liberal, according to GlobalPost. But her marriage to Woods exposed her to a very un-Swedish fame.
Nordegren has made it a policy to shun the media, and her family and friends have supported this, also refusing to make comments to the media.
The rivalry between Google and Apple continues to heat up as the two tech giants reported progressive development for Android and Apple App Store. Apple holds the lead with over 15 billion downloads while Android grew rapidly with over 4.5 billion. The increased number of Android smartphone and tablets flowing into the stores will attempt to even the playing field with Apple's iOS devices. Google has attracted developers with Android's open source platform along with support from other technology companies such as Sony. Sony's move to go with Android have shown positive returns in sales as their Google mobile OS powered devices are making a majority of revenue.
"Our shift to Android-based smartphones continues with smartphone sales accounting for more than 70pc of our total sales during the quarter," said Bert Nordberg, president and CEO of Sony Ericsson The Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphones continue to contribute to Androids growth with plans to release two new tablets by this fall. Their latest tablet devices, the Sony S1 and S2, could bring in a fresh wave of Android users. Powered by the latest Google OS, the two tablets appear to be an innovative device that could alter the landscape of the market. Not surprisingly, Google is now looking to Sony for adding onto the growth of Android users especially in the tablet arena where Apple's iPad continues to dominate. Google has close to 135 million devices on the market, mostly smartphones, and is now looking to increase market share of tablet sales.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab has driven Android into head-to-head competition with Apple but can Sony produce similar results with their new innovative tablets? Currently over 550,000 Android devices are being activated each day and developers appear to be streaming into the Google mobile OS open platform, though Apple has recently won back developers recently due to the iPhone 4 launch on Verizon. "Studying the numbers, it's readily apparent that Android has lost developer support to iOS. Specifically, Android new project starts have dropped from 36% in Q1 to 28% in Q2. Overall, total Flurry iOS and Android new project starts grew from 9,100 in Q1 to 10,200 in Q2...Of note, this drop in Android developer support represents the second quarter-over-quarter slide, which follows a year of significant, steady growth for the Google-built OS. The study conducted by Flurry, that deals with statistics regarding developer applications, said majority of the developers spent their time creating apps for Apple's mobile devices in comparison to the Android OS. Android continues to hold high potential to overtake Apple if it can maintain the current momentum of new devices and improved OS functions.
How many times have you been waiting for a bus or a train when you hear that alarming beep? You take out your phone only to find the battery is drained and only a sliver of red remains. Foolishly, you dig for your charger and look around for an outlet that doesn't exist. Well, search no more. Next time you're in this pickle, you just might find what you're looking for.
In an effort to plug (pun intended) the "energy-boosting" properties of their drink, Vitaminwater is outfitting bus shelter ads in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston with 5-volt battery USB ports so users can charge their phones, iPods and gaming devices while on the go. Sure, it's a brazen marketing campaign preying on the vulnerable, battery-depleted masses, but what isn't these days?
The ad campaign is brainchild of Miami-based advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, famous for their Truth anti-tobacco campaign. The agency has been named agency of the year for the second year in a row by Communication Arts.
Although bus shelters are literally a new outlet (Samsung offers this service in airports) creative marketing is no stranger to them. In 2009,the Got Milk? campaign rigged bus stations in San Francisco to smell like cookies.
Now if only an ad agency could come up with a way to recharge our spiritual batteries after enduring long, cross-town bus rides with loud talkers, sloppy eaters and crying babies. Wouldn't that be something?
Mosquito bites are perhaps the one thing that are worse than the heat in Japan during the summer. Not only do they itch the entire day, these pesky little blood-suckers annoy the general population with their loud buzzing and constant flying in circles. Sea’s Garden, a smart phone gaming and utility app maker, offers a solution to the terror that mosquitoes bring to man, without harming the environment.
The Mosquito Buster is an Android app (soon to be released for the iPhone as well) that acts as a mosquito coil, but instead of burning off insect killing smoke, it releases a high-frequency sound from your smart phone speakers which these insects detest.
The app is extremely simple to operate: users choose between 3 modes, each with corresponding frequencies. The first is obviously to avoid mosquitos, and the second, rodents. The third was what caught our attention and seemed particularly amusing. The third mode is titled “Avoid Children”, as it releases a frequency only detectable to children, as adult ears cannot hear the high pitched sound. It would be useful for parents who need a little bit of peace and quiet from their screaming, energetic toddlers. It’s nice to see useful utility apps like these that offer clever ways of solving consumer problems in an eco-friendly manner. Looks like I’m going to finally get a good nights sleep tonight without having to worry about pesky insects (or children for that matter) that bring a world of itchiness to my feet .
Imagine it's Friday night and you're having dinner with friends at that new French place next to the Walgreens. "What's good here?" you helplessly query the waiter. His response of "everything" is endlessly frustrating and unhelpful. As you ponder your choices, your friends frantically scan through the restaurant reviews for mentions of food or hints of tasty dishes. No clues. Undaunted, you wing it, "I'll have the grouper!" you exclaim proudly. Menus are whisked away, conversation ensues. Minutes later the grouper appears: a slimy assortment of mystery fish parts and soggy couscous! Gasps of horror percolate down the table.
As you strategically avoid eating (or even looking at) your doomed order, you notice diners at adjacent tables are eating with remarkable ease. Their phones are out as they laugh and take pictures of wondrous looking dishes -- no grouper in sight. What magic is this? How did they navigate this menu so expertly? Days later you will learn that there was a app called Nosh involved -- of course! Now it all becomes clear.
In the end, paper menus kind of suck. What’s the best dish at this place? What’s the worst? Have my friends ever been here? What should I order! These are all questions we want to know when we sit down to eat.
A paper menu couldn’t tell us these things so we built an app that could.
[nosh]
Just a week after Eminem's "Recovery" became the first album to sell 1 million digital downloads in the U.S., now Adele's "21" has hit the milestone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. And, "21" goes further -- as it surpasses "Recovery's" digital tally.
"21," which was released on Feb. 22, becomes the U.S.' second million-selling digital album, the fastest set to do so, and the first by a woman to achieve the feat. With another 25,000 downloads sold of "21," its digital sales now stand at 1,017,000 while "Recovery's" download tally is 1,005,000.
Eminem's 'Recovery' Becomes First Album to Sell 1 Million Downloads
"21" continues to reign as the year's best selling album overall, too, with 2.6 million copies sold in the U.S. It has spent 10 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and has yet to see a week where it has ranked lower than No. 3.
Its first single, "Rolling in the Deep," crowned the Billboard Hot 100 chart for seven weeks earlier this year. Adding to its accolades, this week it became the year's best selling digital song, with 4.23 million sold. Katy Perry's "E.T." (featuring Kanye West) was previously the year's highest-selling song, and now falls to the No. 2 position, with 4.19 million sold.
Adele recently announced a series of rescheduled tour dates after she had to postpone them due to illness. The slate of shows begin on Aug. 9 in Vancouver, and includes newly added gigs in San Diego, Las Vegas and Miami, among other locales.
Of the 15 million people around the world who entered their names in the U.S. green card lottery this year, Tarik Ansari was one of the lucky minority, fewer than 1 percent, who made it to the final stage. The 24-year-old French computer engineer was in his San Francisco apartment May 1 when the State Department announced the results of its annual giveaway of 50,000 diversity visas, awarded to people from countries with relatively low levels of immigration to the United States. The State Department voided the lottery results and promised a redraw in the summer. As the State Department prepares to announce the results of its redraw Friday, some of those angered by the bungled lottery have sued to demand that the government reconsider its original results. The Russian software engineer moved to the Bay Area on a temporary work visa four years ago, but getting permanent residency - a green card - has been difficult, he said.
This year was his third applying for the diversity visa. The chances of being randomly selected for the diversity visa are slim, so Kuraev was overjoyed to find out that he was picked to apply. Unlike most of the lottery entrants, applicants such as Kuraev and Ansari already live in the U.S., but their stay here is temporary. Some lawmakers are pointing to the lottery glitch as a reason to abolish the program entirely, arguing that it does not make sense to give people green cards purely on the luck of the draw. Gallegly this week is marking up a Virginia Republican's bill that would eliminate diversity visas.
The diversity visa lottery is one of the few methods for people without existing connections in the United States to settle here. The visa is for those from countries that have not already sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the last five years. The top countries for diversity visa applicants include Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Receiving so many green card applicants from those countries is not a priority for Gallegly, who said the U.S. already welcomes far too many immigrants annually. He pointed to a 2002 fatal shooting at Los Angeles International Airport committed by an Egyptian man who was able to migrate to the U.S. because his wife won a diversity visa several years earlier.
Demi Lovato is out of rehab -- and has changed her life for the better. The 18 year-old sat down with Ryan Seacrest to talk about her struggles, and how music keeps her going. Here’s the scoop from E! News:
“I wasn’t going to continue to be alive if I continued to treat my body the way I was,” she said. Demi entered rehab last October for help with anorexia, bulimia and cutting.
“It’s a daily journey and it’s definitely going to be a struggle that I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life,” she admitted. “Sometimes I think, ‘Why couldn’t I have been normal?’”
“I’m not going to be perfect, but…if I can make it through the day, that’s all that matters,” she said. She actually recorded two versions of her latest single, “Skyscraper,” one when her voice was weaker, and one post-rehab. Ultimately, they decided to go with the first one. “For me it was…so symbolic,” Demi said.
We’re so happy you’re back, girl!
Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. By scavenging this ambient energy from the air around us, the technique could provide a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips. "There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it, said Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research. Tentzeris and his team are using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy-scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. Communications devices transmit energy in many different frequency ranges, or bands.
The team's scavenging devices can capture this energy, convert it from AC to DC, and then store it in capacitors and batteries. The scavenging technology can take advantage presently of frequencies from FM radio to radar, a range spanning 100 megahertz (MHz) to 15 gigahertz (GHz) or higher. That amount of power is enough to operate many small electronic devices, including a variety of sensors and microprocessors. And by combining energy-scavenging technology with super-capacitors and cycled operation, the Georgia Tech team expects to power devices requiring above 50 milliwatts. The Researchers have already successfully operated a temperature sensor using electromagnetic energy captured from a television station that was half a kilometer distant.
Exploiting a range of electromagnetic bands increases the dependability of energy-scavenging devices, explained Tentzeris, who is also a faculty researcher in the Georgia Electronic Design Center at Georgia Tech. At night, when solar cells don't provide power, scavenged energy would continue to increase the battery charge or would prevent discharging. If a battery or a solar-collector/battery package failed completely, scavenged energy could allow the system to transmit a wireless distress signal while also potentially maintaining critical functionalities. The Researchers are utilizing inkjet technology to print these energy scavenging devices on paper or flexible paperlike polymers a technique they already using to produce sensors and antennas. When Tentzeris and his research group began inkjet printing of antennas in 2006, the paper-based circuits only functioned at frequencies of 100 or 200 MHz, recalled Rushi Vyas, a graduate student who is working with Tentzeris and graduate student Vasileios Lakafosis on several projects.
The 18-year-old Disney Channel alumna, who said her family had known about her eating issues for six years, has had the words "stay" and "strong" tatooed over self-mutilation scars on her wrists.
Why does it all too often take so long to recognize and deal with a problem such as an eating disorder? Lovato called her situation the "elephant in the room."
It's certainly true that being immersed in an environment that values thinness at a premium probably doesn't help matters much.
But it may also be that people suffering from eating disorders actually tend to cling to them. A 2009 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry compared patients' responses to a rapid-response visual test and found that anorexic patients tend to stick to "familiar" behavioral responses more often than healthy subjects do.
Thus, they're less likely to engage in an "alternative" behavior -- such as breaking out of the vicious cycle of eating disorders.
Apple yesterday urged developers to submit their Lion apps for review before the OS X upgrade launches, making some wonder whether the operating system will launch this week as many had expected.
In an email Monday, Apple told registered developers to "Submit your Lion apps for review now so they can be on the Mac App Store when Lion ships this month."
Apple has kept mum about a release date for Lion, otherwise known as Mac OS X 10.7, saying only that it would ship this month. In the email to developers, Apple said the upgrade would be available "soon."
It's unclear how long it will take Apple to review new applications that support Lion for inclusion in the Mac App Store.
The typically-secretive company does not usually talk about the approval process for its app stores, but at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2010, CEO Steve Jobs said, "Ninety-five percent of all the apps we get submitted are approved within seven days."
Apple has never disclosed a similar statistic for the Mac App Store, which launched in January 2011.
The late call for developers to submit their Lion applications for review may mean that Apple will not launch the upgrade on Thursday, as several Apple blogs have reported.
In any case, Apple has historically preferred Fridays to launch its operating systems.
For example, Snow Leopard went on sale Friday, Aug. 28, 2009, while Leopard hit the shelves Friday, Oct. 26, 2007. In fact, since 2005's Tiger, aka Mac OS X 10.4, Apple has issued operating system upgrades only on a Friday.
A wild card in this edition of Apple's release game is that Lion will be distributed only as a digital download through the Mac App Store, giving the company more flexibility when it ships the product because it does not need to duplicate physical media, package the product and deliver it to brick-and-mortar stores.
Apple provided a "gold master" build of Lion -- the label some developers use for software that has been completed and presumably is ready to ship -- on July 1, and has not seeded them with another version since.
Lion requires a Mac with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 or Xeon processor; 2GB of memory; and Snow Leopard.
The Mac App Store download will be priced at $29.99.
Philips has announced that it will partner with Kvadrat Soft Cells in order to create a luminous type of textile to the consumer market. The panels will work by integrating Philips' addressable LEDs into the Soft Cells acoustic panels, designed to work with sound waves, in order to create a fabric that can glow and play with the idea of ambient light in designs as well as adding a textural element to the lighting in a room.
This style of lighting will create a kind of a glowing wallpaper panels for rooms that can be used in ways that traditional wall and ceiling mounted lighting cannot be. The lights could potentially have the ability to change colors based on the owner’s desires. The textile will also have a secondary effect, the dampening of noise, since the panels are designed to dampen noise and softens echoes.
The panels are able to take a variety of forms, thanks to a patented aluminum frame that allows the panels not only to fit into the shapes that it needs to in order to fit into a wide variety of spaces, but also conceals a tensioning mechanism that keeps the frame stretched to the correct tension to keep the sound and light moving in the right directions.
Currently, there is no word on when Phillips will be releasing the panels on the market, or how much each one will cost. Currently, the company is targeting businesses and hotel chains with this lighting, so the odds are that, at least at first; this glow in the dark wall covering will not be an inexpensive lighting option for home use.
A majority-Muslim public school in Toronto is defending its policy of allowing an imam to lead Friday prayers in the cafeteria, saying students who leave school for prayers at a mosque typically don't return to school.
For the past three years, some 300 Muslim students at Valley Park Middle School have been allowed to use the school cafeteria for Friday prayers. Before the policy change, school officials say students would leave classes early and not return.
"I think it's important to note the prayer isn't conducted under the auspices of the board," Jim Spyropoulos, a superintendent for inclusive schools with the Toronto District School Board, told the Globe and Mail newspaper. "This was the best solution that avoided compromising instructional time."
The issue is "about religious accommodation," Shari Schwartz-Maltz, a school district spokeswoman, told The Canadian Press.
Those explanations have not placated angry parents, who are lighting up radio call-in shows and blogging furiously about alleged favoritism toward Islam. Christian and other prayers are disallowed in the public school system.
In an unlikely alliance, Canadian Hindu Advocacy, the Jewish Defense League and the Muslim Canadian Congress have voiced strong opposition to the arrangement.
Islamic groups are "imposing their view" to "spread their ideology," Ron Banerjee, director of Canadian Hindu Advocacy, told the Globe and Mail.
The Muslim Canadian Congress has asked for the services to be halted or closely monitored to avert the spread of radicalism.
Only one man on earth knows, and he shared his story with the crowd at TED Global in Edinburgh, Scotland on Tuesday.
Yves Rossy’s invention allows him to fly by attaching a 4-engine jet suit with wings to his back, which he starts up after jumping out of a helicopter or plane.
Unlike similar aircraft, Rossy’s has no steering controls. Rather, he uses his body to steer — arching his back gains altitude and pushing his shoulders forward sends him into a dive. “If you put steering in it’s more like an airplane … I wanted to keep freedom of movement,” Rossy told the TED Global crowd.
Traveling at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour and a height of 3,000 meters, the aircraft can stay in the air for about 10 minutes, which was enough time for Rossy to cross the English Channel. He also recently flew above the Grand Canyon.
The device isn’t quite ready for mass consumption, however. Rossy, who served as both a commercial and military pilot earlier in his life, has had to use the wing’s escape parachute about 20 times — sometimes after becoming disoriented in the clouds, others after more than one of the engines fails.
Rossy, who does hope that one day his invention or something like it could be used by anyone, summarized the experience by saying, “I don’t have feathers, but I feel like a bird sometimes. It’s an unreal feeling.”
This is the ninth year for the Imagine Cup, Microsoft's student technology competition. Teams from all over the world, representing 70 countries, have gathered this week in New York City for the Imagine Cup finals. As part of the Imagine Cup mandate, the students' projects must tackle some of the world's most pressing issues, as outlined by the United Nations' Millennium Goals. Team Dragon (U.S.) Asthma is the most common chronic illness in children. While an asthma attack is a terribly traumatic experience for kids, routine asthma care - performing regular breathing tests - can feel like a chore.
Enter Azmo the Dragon, a mobile roleplaying game that makes these daily breathing tests fun. The game connects the mobile phone to a spirometer (the device that asthma sufferers breathe into to record their lung performance). Azmo the Dragon takes a baseline of user's lung function, takes track of a patient's daily data, and as such will make it easier to tell when an asthma attack may be impending (typically asthma sufferers experience several days of declining lung function beforehand). The students who built the game attend Rice University, and at the Imagine Cup are showcasing not only their incredible game but also the spirometer hardware (developed at Rice) that is far cheaper than other apparatuses on the market. Team Note-Taker (U.S.) Arizona State University student David Hayden is legally blind, and when he enrolled in math classes, found it incredibly difficult to keep up with note-taking in the classes, so much so that he had to drop the courses.
Hayden is one of the members of Team Note-Taker, the winner of the U.S. Imagine Cup finals. The tool has a number of great features, including the ability to enhance the image (when an instructor's dry-erase marker is about to run out, for example), to swipe the video back a few frames (so a student can see the whiteboard and continue taking notes, even if the instructor has stepped in front and blocked the view), to take screenshots of the whiteboard, and to search all of this offline. Studies have shown that students learn best when they take their own notes, and Note-Taker helps give visually impaired students the ability to do just that, easily moving between the distance-reading of the whiteboard at the front of the class and the close-reading of handwritten notes.
OneBuzz's tool aggregates data from a variety of sources to help manage the supply chain for malaria medicine, not so that clinics can react to outbreaks but so they can respond in real-time and even better, actually predict them. As malaria is seasonal and cyclical, the system utilizes data from past years and past weeks in order to ascertain which clinics and which communities will need help.
BMW recently highlighted an electric scooter, currently still in the concept phase, targeted at green-leaning commuters. BMW is by no means inventing the electric scooter here. But it claims that its scooter will offer "a much broader spectrum of use" than those models already out there.
Funded in part by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development, the e-scooter charges at a typical power socket--no special charging stations necessary. Details on performance are scarce for the time being, but we do know that it performs best at 37 miles per hour and under. That's not to say that it won't be able to attain a higher speed than that, though, and BMW emphasizes that it understands the importance of being able to pass others on the road, even while carrying two people. A release suggests that the BMW e-scooter's engine offers performance on par with a 600 cc engine, the kind seen in rival scooters. BMW's offering gets a range of a little over 60 miles--good enough for most commutes.
The scooter does away with a main frame, instead using the aluminum battery casing for that purpose. The rear frame and swing arm is connected to that casing. The scooter's battery is cooled by the air to save space, while the electric motor and electronics are cooled by liquid. The drivetrain is set up in such a way that braking produces energy for the battery. Wired breaks down the mechanics of this nice and succinctly, explaining that "the electric motor is mounted behind the battery and connected via toothed belt to the belt pulley, which is mounted coaxially on the swinging fork pivot with drive pinion. A roller chain connects to the rear wheel." The regenerative forces that result wind up in a 10-20% extended range.
"We are aiming at the typical commuter," says a BMW spokesperson in the requisite (but fun) zooming-around-tracks-and-closed-roads video. "People living in or around big cities, going to work every day maybe to the supermarket or the cinema in the evening and back home again." It's not quite ready for the mass market yet, and given its manufacturer and funder, it's of course most likely to hit the streets of Europe well before it makes its way stateside.
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Would you like a little nudity with your shoes? In an interesting turn of events, Zappos has decided to get saucy with its latest ad campaign. The New York Times has reported that the new Zappos Fall ad campaign will feature athletic activities while in the buff. I guess they couldn’t make their models go through airport security like BlueFly had done in the past.
“Zappos has a quirky culture … Doing something typical is not really them.” Tim Vaccarino, group creative director at Mullen, Zappos’ ad agency, told the New York Times.
Zappos is known for cultivating a work environment, as well as business model that other companies look up to, so this provocative advertising campaign will certainly keep them ahead of the curve or illicit snickers from their competitors.
The new ads were primarily shot in Manhattan in outdoor locations like Park Avenue, as well as the West Village. The models had sensor bars put in strategically placed areas while riding Vespas’s and other assorted activities.
Along with the tastefully done nudity in its ads, Zappos is hopeful consumers will also pay attention to the QR codes, that when scanned with their smartphone will send you to a mobile site featuring videos of the naked women in the ads. You can select clothing for the models to wear and then enter the Zappos mobile site to buy them for yourself.
Ladies have no fear. Woman are not the only ones being exploited for this campaign. By the end of July we will get to ‘dress’ a scantily clad gent on his way to the Zappos online store.
Engineers at MIT are tinkering with all sorts of advanced solar power technology, like self-assembling solar cells, virus-structured cells and an artificial leaf system that mimics photosynthesis. Their latest project is somewhat more simple: It can be printed on a regular sheet of paper.
The cell is tough enough to work even after being folded into a paper airplane — unlike many "flexible" cells, it's not merely bendable, but foldable as well. It’s made using a relatively simple vapor deposition process, rather than the typical high-temperature etching process used to make solar cells.
Like the silver ballpoint pen we saw earlier this month, the system uses a 3-D printing technique to deposit materials onto a surface. The process is a little more complex than using a printer, however, because it requires five layers of material and a stencil to form the patterns of the cells. It also has to be done in a vacuum chamber, so it’s probably not doable for the average DIY-er.
But as MIT News points out, the vapor deposition process is widely used throughout various industries — it’s similar to the process used to make the silver lining in bags of potato chips — so it can be done on a large scale at low cost.
To test their technology, engineers led by chemical engineering professor Karen Gleason folded a paper photovoltaic cell into a paper airplane, and the cell still collected energy from sunlight. They also printed one on a piece of plastic, like the kind used to make soda bottles, and folded that one 1,000 times. It still worked, while a traditionally-produced cell on the same plastic failed after just one fold.
The team even printed a cell on a piece of paper, and then put that paper in a regular laser printer to see what would happen. It still worked, even after a laser-heated layer of toner ink was printed on top of it. In tests, the folded cells were still able to gather ambient sunlight to power a clock and other devices.
They are not that efficient — a paltry 1 percent — but the researchers think that will improve as they fine-tune the “ink” and the deposition process. But even now, “it’s good enough to power a small electric gizmo,” said engineering professor Vladimir Bulović. Watch a demonstration below.
Foldability is important for portable, cheap circuits — a circuit or PV cell that can withstand being crumpled in a pocket would be a major advancement for portable devices. But the lightweight nature of this cell may be its biggest breakthrough. Functional photovoltaic cells printed on paper or thin plastic could have a host of uses, from lightweight battery technology to portable power for developing countries.
In concurrence with 7-Eleven's 84th anniversary, the international chain of convenience stores is offering free 7.11 ounce Slurpees at chains across the country. The home of the Slurpee is making a strong social media push to promote its birthday as well as the year.
7-Eleven is currently a top trend on Twitter in accordance with its heavy promotional push of its anniversary give-away since 7/11/11 marks a huge day for the company as it celebrates its unofficial birthday.
On the seventh of each month in 2011, Twitter promotes the hashtag #yearof711, taking advantage of the year and the coinciding connection to the stores name, i.e. 7/7/11 or 8/7/11. 7-Eleven's approach to social media includes having a Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages and websites for the store itself and the ever-popular Slurpee. The Slurpee fan page on Facebook even has 3.75 million fans, no small feat for the icy drink.
Seven-Eleven's senior vice president of merchandising, marketing and logistics, Jesus Delgado-Jenkins, stated in a press release, "7-Eleven day and giving away free Slurpee beverages is our way of thanking customers for their patronage throughout the year and showing appreciation for their support."
As fans of the drink and those trying to escape the summer heat suffer the brain freezing side effects of the slush, the company enjoys a promotion that has projected giveaways of five million Slurpees. That figure is compounded by social media endorsements, putting it far above their 2007 figure of three million give-a-ways.
With five million costumers popping into their local 7-Elevens, the mega-chain stands to make a pretty penny on other items customers are sure to buy while in the store receiving their free drink. Similarly, 7-Eleven Vice President of marketing Nancy Smith told USA Today that on the same day last year, Slurpee sales jumped 38 percent. It seems that a 7.11 ounce cup of Slurpee isn't enough for some people as costumers ended up buying larger drinks.
Nissan is testing a super-green way to recharge its Leaf electric vehicle using solar power, part of a broader drive to improve electricity storage systems. Nissan's Leaf went on sale late last year, but the automaker is looking ahead to about five years time when aging Leaf vehicles may offer alternative business opportunities in using their lithium-ion batteries as a storage place for electricity. Nissan acknowledges that, once the Leaf catches on, a flood of used batteries could result as the life span of a battery is longer than an electric vehicle's. electricity generation and storage are drawing attention in Japan after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused massive blackouts in the country's northeast. A nuclear power plant that went into meltdown, Fukushima Dai-ichi, after backup generators were destroyed by the tsunami, is also renewing fears about a power crunch.
In the new charging system, demonstrated to reporters today, electricity is generated through 488 solar cells installed on the roof of the Nissan headquarters building in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo. Four batteries from the Leaf had been placed in a box in a cellar-like part of the building, and store the electricity generated from the solar cells, which is enough to fully charge 1800 Leaf vehicles a year, according to Nissan. Although interest is growing in renewable energy such as solar and wind power, a major challenge is the storage of electricity, which remains expensive without a breakthrough in battery technology. Such interest is likely to keep growing in Japan because of fears about the safety of nuclear power. Other Japanese automakers, such as Toyota and Honda, are working on similar projects, such as linking hybrids with solar-equipped homes as part of energy-efficient communities called "smart grids".
Electric vehicles produce no pollution or global-warming gases but need electricity, whose production mostly relies on polluting oil or gas. Even after a Leaf is ready to be scrapped, its battery is likely to have 80 per cent of its capacity. On the plus side, the Leaf with its high-capacity battery can store the equivalent of two days of household electricity use, Nissan said. A joint venture with Sumitomo called 4R Energy plans to offer electricity storage systems like the one at Nissan headquarters for business and public facilities as a commercial product by 2016. Nissan also hopes to start selling such storage systems for regular homes by the fiscal year starting in April 2012.
Kate Hudson gives birth to a 'healthy baby boy!' Actress and fiancé Matt Bellamy have a brand new Muse
Kate Hudson and her fiancé Matt Bellamy have welcomed a son.
The 32-year-old actress gave birth to a 'healthy baby boy' in Los Angeles last night her rep has confirmed to Us Weekly.
Kate is also mother to seven-year-old Ryder who will play big brother to the new addition to their family.
Kate and the Muse frontman began dating last year although they reportedly met a few years ago in Australia.
The Almost Famous star told Elle UK in September that she and Matt were very happy together, calling him 'lovely'.
The couple are said to be close to purchasing a Malibu mansion to raise their new baby in.
The 7,000 square foot home is reportedly worth $5.3million and is nestled in the exclusive Pacific Palisades.
However, Kate is rumoured to be going to spend a few months in the UK while Bellamy finishes recording his next album before finally settling back in LA.
Although Kate had was initially not receptive to the idea of getting married again saying she 'didn't feel it necessary' as she 'already had one child and one divorce' clearly changed her mind.
Her elder son is from her first marriage to Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson who divorced in 2007.
Bellamy proposed to the pregnant actress in April, with Kate making the announcement during an interview with Matt Lauer on The Today Show that Matt's proposal occurred in the prior week.
She showed off the huge engagement ring, estimated to be worth $200,000.
Kate was treated to a baby shower on June 5 at a private home in Malibu. It was attended by friends Courteney Cox, Nicole Richie and Rachel Zoe.
It has been a weekend for births as Victoria Beckham also had her baby too.
The former Spice Girl gave birth to her fourth child - a 7lbs 10oz baby girl at 7.55am today.
Victoria and husband David are said to be 'delighted' with their new daughter.
Yet another massive earthquake of a 7.3 magnitude jolted Japan's northeastern coast on Sunday that triggered a brief tsunami warning for the area, which is still recovering from the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami that destroyed houses, power and swept away whole towns.
ccording to public broadcaster NHK, the tsunami alert for the northeast coast has been lifted, about two hours after the quake. Earlier, the workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were warned to evacuate following an alert for a tsunami of 50 centimeters issued by the country's metreological agency. However, there were no immediate reports of damage from the earthquake.
The earthquake struck at 9:57 local time (0057 GMT). The epicenter of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan's main island, Honshu, at a depth of about 20 miles (30 kilometers).
Scientists believe that pieces of rock and seafloor from deep in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica might be helpful in explaining why Japan's deadly magnitude-9.0 quake was so large. Falling within the so-called Ring of Fire zone, both Japan and Costa Rica nations are prone earthquakes. Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the Ring of Fire, a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Scientists have collected nearly 1 mile of sediment cores (cylinders of earth drilled out from the ground) from the ocean floor off the coast of Costa Rica, revealing detailed records of about 2 million years of tectonic activity along a nearby seismic plate boundary, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, called a subduction zone. It was the crack of a subduction zone that generated the Japan quake, Insidecostarica reported.
"It's critical to understand how subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis originate - especially in light of recent events in Japan," said Rodey Batiza of the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences. "The results of this expedition will also help us learn more about our own such zone off the Pacific Northwest."
There was a lot going on during Britney Spears' almost sold-out show at the United Center on Friday night. From pyrotechnics to dancers and Cirque De Soleil-style acrobatics, to myriad sexy costume changes and trapdoors and a stage that moved up, down and around. But all of the dazzling distractions couldn't disguise Spears' near-robotic performance.
It wasn't just the lack of actual singing, that was pretty much a given at a Spears' show. She wasn't necessarily inanimate, either. There were constant choreographed numbers. She walked a catwalk. She rode a giant guitar while covering Madonna's "Burning Up." She rode an actual car. She rose from the stage on a swing during "Piece of Me." But with each step and each hair-whipping/hip-thrusting cue, her execution felt increasingly dispassionate. She was just going through the motions.
It was in stark contrast to opener Nicki Minaj. While Minaj appeared over reliant on backing tracks versus live singing as well, the energy Minaj exuded set them chasms apart. From the one-two out-of-the-gate punch of "Roman's Revenge" and "Did It On'em," Minaj owned the stage. The high-octane atmosphere pumped through her 45-minute set, which included her Kanye West collaboration, "Monster." And "Check it Out," with its fun "Video Killed the Radio Star" sample, featured Will.i.am on a video screen singing his parts.
Spears' set focused on recent album, "Femme Fatale," and the overly auto-tuned material furthered the already-synthetic vibe that ensued. First, there was the show's narrative, told via video clips that were littered throughout Spears' set. In it she was a femme fatale on the lam, and there was a bad guy whom she defeats. That device was seemingly meant to pull the action onstage together, giving a reason for Spears to run from dancing police, be locked up to gyrate behind bars during "Up N' Down," and in the end, rise from the stage wearing wings during encore "Till the World Ends." Where the dancing ninjas and motorcycles fit into the clip's storyline was anybody's guess, but what it mostly did was kill the show's pacing.
There was also the matter of Spears' dancing, which has always been a strong part of her repertoire. But on Friday, it was forced. It was especially apparent during "Gimme More." Despite the defiant "It's Britney, Bitch" declaration, Spears looked bored, as if the stairs she scaled for the choreography were too much to tolerate.
While the overall mechanical feel prevailed, some life came through during the Asian-themed "Toxic," which was sped up and had a more driving beat. Spears seemed like she might finally be enjoying herself. Or perhaps it was relief; by then there was only one song left before a confetti drop signaled it was over.
With a beaming Duchess Kate at his side, Prince William cracked one joke after another during their very first engagement in L.A. on Friday night.
After landing in Los Angeles just before 4 p.m from Canada, the Duke and Duchess, both 29, were special guests for the "Case Study on Tech City" panel at Variety's Venture Capital and New Media Summit held at the Beverly Hilton.
The crowd of tech entrepreneurs in the audience couldn't help but get excited -- standing to applaud and cheer -- when the royals made their entrance to the stage. Giggling and resplendent in a lavender Peridot dress by Roksanda Illinic, Kate joined her hubby to wave to the crowd and warmly shake hands with moderators onstage.
After listening to the 20-minute presentation with keen interest, they stayed on hand to chat some more and then visited several booths showcasing new products and technologies -- with some middle-aged CEOs even taking off their shoes to stand on their chairs and take camera phone pics as they passed by!
Wayne St. Amand, Vice President, Marketing of Crimson Hexagon showed the royal couple data about Canadian interest in the new British monarchy. "William made a joke!" Amand told Us Weekly. "He said, 'There should have been a category of people who were only interested because they had nothing better to do!'"
Ian Truitner, CEO of tech company Randian, also got a taste of the Prince's comic side when he demonstrated a new online shopping program, which allows a user to instantly purchase a piece of clothing they see on celebs online.
"William was joking about Kate being able to do too much online shopping with this program," Truitner told Us. "He laughed and said, 'Oh no, so from now on we'll only be able to watch cartoons!' Kate was definitely very interested in the technology."
William got a bit racy when Jay Wright of Qualcomm showed off a new technology that allows users to easily modify photos and video. When Wright pulled out a pic from the royal wedding, "Will laughed a little and said, 'You're not going to do something that'll take our clothes off, are you?' I assured him that wasn't the case! Kate was laughing too."
"They were just lovely," Randall Serbo, President of Randian, told Us. "They were down to earth, they had no pretenses. What you see is what you get with them. What lovely people. Kate was just beautiful."
"We were greatly honored to have the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge here," Neil Stiles of Variety gushed to Us. "They were smart, they were comfortable, they were very charming, and they greatly lifted the event.
He added that the couple's interest in tech and social media was genuine. "They were wonderful! Will was asking questions! You know, they're young - they're a young couple and they don't have to learn it, they get it!"
