While solar-thermal flat panels are proficient at delivering hot showers, their ability to keep the lights on has been a little dim.
Currently, solar-thermal flat panels absorb sunlight to heat water and generate thermal energy, but they don't produce much electricity.
However, researchers from Boston College and MIT recently reported that, by introducing two innovations, they were able to increase the efficiency of solar-thermal flat panels by seven to eight times, as well as generate a sizable amount of electricity.
By combining the two innovations, the scientists were able to enhance the flat panel's electricity-generating capacity, said Boston College Professor of Physics Zhifeng Ren, co-author of a report published in the journal Nature Materials.
"We have developed a flat panel that is a hybrid capable of generating hot water and electricity in the same system," said Ren. "The ability to generate electricity by improving existing technology at minimal cost makes this type of power generation self-sustaining from a cost standpoint."
These new advances potentially promise more cost-effective solutions for converting solar energy into electricity. According to Ren, this should greatly impact the rapidly expanding residential and industrial clean energy markets.
"Existing solar-thermal technologies do a good job generating hot water. For the new product, this will produce both hot water and electricity," said Ren. "Because of the new ability to generate valuable electricity, the system promises to give users a quicker payback on their investment. This new technology can shorten the payback time by one third."
Apple's iPhone is often touted as being more "secure" than Google's Android equivalents because it has a tightly managed ecosystem. Apple's careful not to let malicious apps into its App Store, from where they could worm their way into devices. It turns out that the update dealt with a single loophole uncovered by Trustwave Spiderlabs' Nick Percoco and team, and Apple worked fast to solve it because as holes go, it was gaping. To get a certificate, a website offering this type of security has to officially request one from a trusted certificate authority, and the certificate is crafted to have the identity of the website built into it. Percoco's team decided to test iOS devices with the same kind of hack that a malicious coder could use to break SSL.
They bought an officially issued SSL for a genuine website, cut out the parts of the certificate's code that equate to its signature of authenticity, and bolted that signature onto a fake certificate for a different website. Trustwave explained to us that they alerted Apple on July 15th, and Apple's security team was sufficiently motivated to put a fix in place, test it, and roll it out to the public this week on July 25th, as iOS 4.3.4, In addition, Percoco's team also pulled off an elegant hack of Google's Android OS that's actually more fundamentally problematic. The trick involves using perfectly legitimate APIs, the code hooks that let app writers gain access to special features of the Android core code, the kind of connector that lets an app turn on your phone's camera for a video call, for example. By combining specific APIs, Percoco's team discovered that it's possible to steal user log-in credentials-passwords, usernames, and so on-from "the most popular apps in the Android application market."
They've alerted Google to the problem, but Google can't pull off the same kind of fix as Apple quickly pushed out, because the hack involves perfectly valid code right at the core of Android that thousands of apps legitimately use. But when it comes to Apple's community, Percoco would wait until an iPhone jailbreak came out, and then attack the code to insert maliclous code on it: "The jailbreak is basically getting root access to your device. You could say 'here's a jailbreak, everybody' and it actually does jailbreak the phone and install the Cydia market," but you also install a backdoor that gives you, as a remote hacker, direct access to the phone and thus all the data stored in it, and potentially any web activity like log-ins, passwords, and credit card numbers. Google and Apple have different problems to face in terms of security on their phones. And users have to be smart to avoid exposing themselves: Don't install any old app from the Android marketplace without checking to see if it's legitimate, and keep your iPhone up to date with Apple's latest iOS upgrades and unjailbroken.
Matt and Kelly Grocoff have renovated their 110-year-old home in Ann Arbor, Michigan to state-of-the-art energy standards. Their energy bills demonstrate the results: They actually generate more energy from on-site renewable sources than they consume. The Grocoffs believe they now have the oldest "net zero" home in America.
There's a lot to like about this, but what I like best is that the home is green not only with respect to building energy but also with respect to transportation energy, because it is in a walkable city neighborhood of older homes on compact lots on gridded streets, with services and amenities close by. They sit within a block's walk of three schools by my count, and there is a transit line also a block away. There's a neighborhood pocket park just down their own block. There's a market, a bank branch, and several restaurants within a 10- to 12-minute walk. Yet theirs is a leafy neighborhood of mostly single-family homes.
I ran the address through the Center for Neighborhood Technology's Abogo calculator for transportation costs and emissions: an average household in the Grocoffs' neighborhood emits only half as much carbon from transportation as does an average household for the metropolitan region as a whole. This is because the Grocoffs' more central, more walkable location shortens driving distances and tends to reduce automobile trips, compared to more outlying subdivisions.
So finally we have a well-publicized green home that is also in a green location. I hope the Grocoffs begin to stress that in their materials as they move forward. And so much the better that the home fully retains its historic character. Here's the neighborhood (the large building complex in the lower left corner is two schools):
Regular readers of my work know that few things bug me more than boasts about "green" homes and other buildings placed in locations with high driving rates that wipe out whatever energy savings they achieve from superior building technology. (See my posts about a bogus "net zero" claim, and green awards for sprawl from the American Institute of Architects and even the US Green Building Council.)
You can read about the Grocoffs' energy-efficient home on their own site, on Treehugger, on annarbor.com, or on GreenovationTV, which Matt Grocoff founded. Or you can just take the three-minute video tour, courtesy of a local TV station. The home looks not just green, but also a very nice place to live.
Whole Foods has become the first prominent supermarket chain to run a Ramadan marketing campaign-and they're hoping Muslim customers will return the favor as they break fast. Even though Muslims traditionally forego meals during the day, lavish evening Ramadan meals could mean big bucks for the natural foods giant ... as well as brand loyalty from a demographic not traditionally courted by megastore advertising. Whole Foods is teaming up with Halal frozen entree brand Saffron Road (who sell a variety of Indian-, Thai-, and Moroccan-flavored dinners) to host several promoted blog items on Whole Foods' website along with sponsored giveaways of Saffron Road food and supermarket gift certificates. The "campaign focuses on reaching Muslim consumers online where they are already having conversations about halal foods, grocery shopping, and preparing for Ramadan, Saffron Road spokesperson Lisa Mabe tells Fast Company. Saffron Road maintains a heavy social media presence and an ongoing charitable relationship with Whole Foods' Whole Planet foundation, and hopes the promotion will further strengthen their brand awareness.
And 45% of Muslim immigrants report annual household income levels of $50,000 or higher-placing them squarely in Whole Foods' demographic. Whole Foods' marketing campaign might earn them customer loyalty, but it is taking place in a market that sometimes exhibits anti-Muslim sentiment. Extensive Ramadan advertising campaigns have existed in Europe for years, but the Ground Zero Mosque controversy remains a sore point in many parts of the United States and large chains have been caught in the crossfire between Muslim- and non-Muslim consumers in the past. With Whole Foods' self-consciously granola self-presentation and liberal-, cosmopolitan-skewing customer base, they are the ideal chain to attempt a marketing project aimed squarely at Muslim-American consumers. So, knowing that Muslims usually fast on Ramadan and wanting to know more about why a supermarket chain would advertise during a fast, we reached out to the expert-Aman Ali of the must-read mosque-hopping project 30 Mosques in 30 Days: Ramadan is the Islamic holy month of purification, where Muslims fast (abstaining from food, drink, etc.) from sunrise to sunset.
On our trips we've eaten everything from Indian food, to Arab food, to Pakistani food to good ol' fashioned $5 foot-long Subway sandwiches. Believe it or not, a lot of the major supermarket chains are starting to carry halal foods. Kroger carries Midamar meats, a major halal food supplier based in Iowa. And I believe Wal-Mart and Whole Foods carry halal frozen dishes from a company called Saffron Road. In places with large Muslim populations, like Dearborn, Michigan, there are Wal-Marts and Krogers that actually carry halal butchered food there.
Google launched a new service on Thursday that can automatically speed up a website's page load times. That's a good thing, as separate studies from Google and Aberdeen Group have shown faster-loading sites boost customer satisfaction and ad revenue.
Today, Google released Page Speed Service, a paid feature that automatically optimizes websites so that their pages load faster. The feature should benefit users lacking expertise in things like Java and CSS coding, or lacking the time to constantly tweak their sites. "It's for people who either don't know how to make these changes or don't want to make these changes," explains Google engineering manager Ram Ramadi.
Google's financial interest in a faster Internet is hard to overestimate. For a meager 400 millisecond delay, Google's own experiment showed a 0.21% drop in searches (for billions of searches, that adds up quickly). According to the Aberdeen Group, a one-second delay in performance drops page views by 11% [PDF]. After car review website Edmunds partnered with Google for fast load times, they saw an increase in ad revenue.
Google is, of course, also happy to remind potential customers that their coveted Page Rank system favors websites with faster load times, which might be a selling point to websites that see substantial traffic from Google servers.
For the web-curious, Google has set up a testing site that shows how much faster their site could be with Page Speed. According to webpagetest.org, CNN.com would see an 8.6% percent increase (.36 seconds), and Whitehouse.gov would get a 34% boost (or 4.4 seconds). Google's own tests show around a 25-60% increase for websites.
Currently, Google's Page Speed Service is only available to a limited number of webmasters free of charge, and will open to the public for a "competitive" pricing model "later."
[via FC]
South Korean scientists said on Wednesday they have created a glowing dog using a cloning technique that could help find cures for human diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Yonhap news agency reported.
A research team from Seoul National University (SNU) said the genetically modified female beagle, named Tegon and born in 2009, has been found to glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light if given a doxycycline antibiotic, the report said.
The researchers, who completed a two-year test, said the ability to glow can be turned on or off by adding a drug to the dog's food.
"The creation of Tegon opens new horizons since the gene injected to make the dog glow can be substituted with genes that trigger fatal human diseases," the news agency quoted lead researcher Lee Byeong-chun as saying.
He said the dog was created using the somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that the university team used to make the world's first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005.
The scientist said that because there are 268 illnesses that humans and dogs have in common, creating dogs that artificially show such symptoms could aid treatment methods for diseases that afflict humans.
The latest discovery published in 'Genesis', an international journal, took four years of research with roughly 3.2 billion won ($3 million) spent to make the dog and conduct the necessary verification tests.
You may want to consider a health IT job, for which openings-along with pay-are soaring year over year, according to online career site, Dice.com, which specializes in engineering and technology postings. While the number of open IT jobs posted on Dice.com overall has climbed 24% since last year, demand for health IT talent has shot up the most, said Alice Hill managing director of Dice.com. "health IT jobs are up 75% over last year," said Hill in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare. Although health IT jobs make up a relatively small segment of overall tech jobs posted on Dice.com, "nothing has been as large" as the surge in demand seen by Dice for health IT postings, she said. Approximately 3,000 health IT jobs are currently posted on Dice.com, she said.
It's not just the number of health IT job openings that are spiking, but pay for those positions is climbing too, she said. Health IT annual pay averaged in the mid to upper $70K range for many years till recently when it broke the $80K mark, she said. Of health IT, the set of skills being most sought after are those related to e-health records or e-medical records, she said. Also, among health IT job openings, positions that require skills in working with Cerner health IT platforms have jumped 80%, said Hill. Overall within health IT, many employers are seeking professionals with previous experience working in enterprise environments, as well as strong analytical and problem solving skills, she said.
Among employers looking to fill health IT jobs include Sharp Healthcare in San Diego, UnitedHealth in Minneapolis, and Baylor Health in Dallas, according to a Dice spokeswoman. Open positions at those organizations include health IT program and project mangers, and senior systems analyst. The hunt for experienced health IT people could get tougher as Meaningful Use deadlines loom, and newly installed EHR, computerized physician order entry, and other clinical information systems require ongoing support and enhancements, Hill said. In addition, private organizations have been also stepping up with new programs to train an emerging health IT workforce. Recent offerings range from new certificate programs for health IT implementation and support technicians from professional organization CompTIA to online training EHR courses for techies and non-techies from private educational firm Alameda Services.
A Southern California man was taken by ambulance to hospital after he tried to remove a painful hernia from his own body with a butter knife,
The wife of the 63-year-old Glendale man called emergency services when she discovered his attempt at self-surgery to remove the protruding hernia, police said.
"She said he had impaled himself with a knife," Sergeant Lorenz said, Associated Press reports.
Officers found the man naked on a patio lounge chair outside his apartment with a 15-centimeter butter knife sticking out of his stomach, AP says.
He was upset by the hernia and wanted to get it out, his wife told police.
While waiting for paramedics, he apparently pulled out the knife and stuffed a cigarette into the bleeding, open wound, police said.
"What he was thinking, I don't know. I don't know if he was cauterizing it [the wound]," Sergeant Lorenz said.
The man wasn't screaming or showing any signs of pain, he said.
The man was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center for psychiatric assessment.
"You just never know what to expect," said Lorenz, who has been on the police force for 29 years. "I've seen self-mutilation, but not a maneuver like this"
Stanford researcher Yi Cui looked across the field of transparent electronics and saw that all was not equal. While all other major electronics components--things like transistors, displays, and other circuitry--have been made transparent, no one had taken the time and effort to create a transparent power source. And you can’t have a fully transparent device without a transparent battery. So Cui made one.
There are a few ways to make an electronic component transparent. One is to make it so thin that it doesn’t register with the human eye. Or you can make the component take the form of a pattern whose features are so small they are invisible. Some battery components are easy to render transparent by shrinking them, but electrodes are particularly difficult to make thin. A super-thin electrode isn’t energy dense, and therefore it doesn’t store up enough power to be useful in any realistic way.
So Cui opted for the second approach. He and his team figured that if you can pattern the electrode into a superfine mesh, you can still build an energy dense battery. With enough electrode material distributed across the mesh, a battery can still hold a significant charge.
So using a relatively straightforward lithography method, they built a framework for the mesh in a soft, clear, spongy material called PDMS. To make a complete battery, they simply need two of these layers filled with electrode material--in this case, they used the makings of a standard lithium-ion battery--with a gel electrolyte (also clear, of course) sandwiched in between. Encase the whole thing in plastic, and you’ve got a see-through battery.
In the lab, the batteries have been used to power a small LED light (which can be viewed straight through the battery itself). Cui thinks the batteries should be roughly half as energy dense as a equally-sized regular battery. So right now the prototype is about as powerful as a NiCad battery, but Cui says he and his team should be able to improve that by an order of magnitude by reducing inefficiencies in the prototype design and layering batteries one atop the other. Depending on how it scales, the Stanford team thinks such transparent batteries could be commercialized in just two to four years.
[via popularSCI]
At Quicken Loans arena Tuesday night, Britney Spears drove into the center of the stage perched atop the windshield of a pink convertible Mini Cooper with a stripper pole erected in its back seat. Attached to that pole was a guy she'd pulled from the audience named Greg, a daddy-ish type in a blue polo shirt. His hands tied behind his back, he had to sit still while Brit wrapped her fishnet-clad thighs around his neck. I got nine lives like a kitty cat." That lyric, from "How I Roll," a nonsensical yet sizzling new single, is hardly hyperbole.
Once written off as the punch line to jokes about washed up superstars, Brit is back - washboard abs and all. The K-Fed loving, paparazzi-whacking, head-shaving antics of years ago are ancient history. With "Femme Fatale," her new No. 1 album, two Video Music Award nominations and a kinetic summer tour, the 29-year-old mother of two is thumbing her darling, turned-up nose at all the haters out there and dancing her toned bum off. They wore naughty Catholic school girl plaid mini skirts and white button-down shirts knotted just under the bosom, hot pants and stilettos. There were more tanned thighs and exposed navels on display than spring break in Cancun.
The Femme Fatale Tour was a decidedly estrogen-heavy affair with opening acts Nervo - twin Aussie DJs who also model on the side, one with pink hair gelled into a "Heat Meiser" do - and Jessie and the Toy Boys, a Britney look-alike flanked by leaping dudes in fluffy mohawks. But the intergalactic girl power passion play put on by Nicki Minaj turned the arena into a full-out rave. Minaj, in a platinum wig and black body suit festooned with glittery pipe cleaner shooting from her pelvis and shoulders gyrated and sweated as she battled a faux foe in black fright wig and what appeared to be the rubber mask worn by the villain Jigsaw in all those "Saw" movies. As Britney cycled through hits new and old - a Geisha version of "Toxic," "Womanizer," "Slave 4 U" - she seemed more like the girl that first burst onto the scene with "Baby One More Time." Repeating "I love you, Cleveland" and waving coquettishly, she was happy, flirty and fun, not what some critics called "the robot Brit" of last tour, just going through the slick, choreographed motions with little heart. She returned to the stage to take her bows, laughing like a little girl, "glitterfetti" raining down.
The first smartphone based on the new "Mango" edition of Microsoft's Windows Phone platform was unveiled on Wednesday in Tokyo. The phone is the first of several handsets due over the next few months, that Microsoft hopes will signal its return to the smartphone market as a serious player. (Video of the new phone and its launch is available on YouTube.) If that wish sounds familiar, it is. This time last year the company was hoping the first version of the Windows Phone 7 would accomplish the same thing. Far from boosting its market share, the introduction of the new operating system saw Microsoft lose share.
But a year earlier during the first quarter of 2010, its market share was 7.1 percent, the market research company said. In terms of handsets shipped, those with Windows Phone 7 or Windows Mobile fell from 3.9 million to 2.8 million phones in the two periods. Mango, officially Windows Phone 7.5, adds some 500 improvements to the Windows Phone 7 platform, according to the company. Built by Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications, the phone will be available in September or after. The company is one of several partners Microsoft is working with on Mango handsets.
The Finnish cell phone maker threw its weight behind Windows Phone 7 earlier this year when it announced a wide ranging agreement with Microsoft to collaborate on future handsets and technologies. Nokia is losing market share to aggressive competitors, but it remains one of the world's largest manufacturers of smart phones, so it has the potential to help Microsoft shift the market. The launch of the phone came just hours after Microsoft signed off on the operating system and declared it ready to be installed in consumer handsets. That should mean additional phones will get launched in the coming weeks. Bluetooth and WiFi are included in the CDMA-based phone.
The premiere of “The Smurfs” took place at the Ziegfeld Theater on July 24, 2011 in New York City.
“When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours — in fact, smack dab in the middle of Central Park. Just three apples high and stuck in the Big Apple, the Smurfs must find a way to get back to their village before Gargamel tracks them down.” Written by Columbia Pictures
Microsoft this morning pushed Avatar Kinect out to Xbox 360 users with its $150 Kinect motion camera accessory.
The software, which was publicly unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES in January, tracks facial movements and applies them to the user's virtual representation on screen. That means if your head is cocked, or your eyebrows are raised, those same motions get translated on screen. The technology is bundled into the Avatar Kinect software, which serves as a casual chat room for up to eight people in one of 24 virtual scenes.
The new chat tool joins a handful of other mini applications offered by Microsoft as part of its Kinect Fun Labs, which launched last month. On Thursday, Microsoft plans to add "Kinect Sparkler" to that collection of apps, $3 software that tracks hand movements to write with light on a 3D virtual canvas.
As part of the Avatar Kinect launch Microsoft is making the feature free for all Xbox Live members up until September 8. After that the feature will only be available to paying Xbox Live gold subscribers.
A showdown between desert tortoises and a solar-power plant is shaping up in the Mojave Desert. "Clean and green" are the big environmental buzzwords these days, but some projects come with a cost. At a conference in Los Angeles, Governor Jerry Brown vowed to crush efforts to block renewable energy projects in California, helping them overcome permitting and environmental challenges. He signed a law earlier this year mandating the state get 33 percent of its energy from alternative sources by 2020, including solar energy. "The sun in California is like the oil in Texas: It's fabulous wealth waiting to be developed," said Brown. "And those who would resist that have to offer a pretty darn good argument for me to give up on solar energy."
Putting money where his mouth is, the governor filed a brief with the federal court asking a judge to deny a request by an environmental group to stop a solar thermal power project in the Mojave Desert. BrightSource energy and Bechtel want to put up 347,000 heliostat mirrors around three power towers. But the Western Watersheds Project says it'll harm the endangered desert tortoise by destroying its habitat. The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife agrees. "We don't really know, actually, when you clear 10 square miles of desert, how it's going to respond in 30 to 50 years," said Kim Delfino, Defenders of Wildlife.
The Mojave solar project is just one example of how tough it is to get green projects off the ground. "We can have clean energy and preserve the environment. But it's important to get those ground rules set out, work through the proper permits, and do it quickly," said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Californians for clean energy and Jobs. "We can't afford in this economy to have plants held up for years and years." Solar power is now competitively priced these days, so there will be a push to build more of these installations.
When the clock struck midnight in New York State on Sunday morning, same-sex marriage was suddenly legal in the state. What better place to tie the knot than Niagara Falls, especially when it’s lit up like a rainbow?
As gay couples began their midnight nuptials at the traditional honeymoon spot, they were surprised by the sudden colorful backdrop of Niagara Falls sporting the rainbow hues that have served as a rallying banner for LGBT activists fighting for their civil rights.
Pop singer/actor and former ‘N Sync-er Lance Bass tweeted this photo of the Falls (update: turns out he didn’t create this pic — it was taken a while ago by Flickr user Mykelle Nicole, and now it’s being passed around as a symbol of the official beginning of gay marriage in NY), and posted it to TwitPic as the crowd celebrated the auspicious occasion. Now the photo’s gone viral, with more than 31,000 views so far. Exclaimed Bass in a Twitter post just after midnight, “Niagra Falls right now! So amazing!”
Nobody talks on the phone anymore, but people are talking at their phones. On any platform, check your settings and helper guides to get an understanding of what your app or phone can actually do, as completely misunderstood responses from a speech app can be pretty infuriating. Android phones with Google's Voice Search installed, for example, can make a phone call, compose email, send a text message, get directions, and pull up musical artists-but can't launch applications from vocal commands. This isn't so much an issue on iPhones, but Androids and other phones can have pinhole-style microphones that can get gummed up or partially covered by awkward cases. Intermediate: Stop Slowing Down, But Think Before Speaking You need not talk like a robot to be understood by one, says Vlad Sejnoha, chief technical officer at Nuance, maker of the Dragon speech-to-text software for Windows, Macs, iPhones and iPads.
Dragon's software learns speech styles and tics over time, and you want to aim for a natural speaking flow. Digging around Android forums and elsewhere, I found a good number of tesimonies from speech-to-text enthusiasts who saw better results from simply speaking at a normal clip. Google representative Nadja Blagojevic offered much the same advice for the search giant's voice product in both Android and its Chrome browser: Speak naturally and clearly, but don't strain to enunciate too much or speak slowly. Advanced Dictation: Punctuation and Personalization Another embarrassing thing you can stop doing is holding your phone or desktop microphone directly in front of your mouth. In your Mac's System Preferences, there's a whole range of Speech options, sure; but check in the Input section of the Sound options, and you'll find a check box to Use ambient noise reduction, which Google's Blagojevic recommends for using the Chrome browser's speech function.
The best noise cancellation tools put in cars and hearing aids use multiple microphones to pinpoint the speaker and amplify their Input, but your phone isn't quite as refined an audio tool. Punctuation is no different than words, as Dragon, Google, and most good voice recognition software will train itself to how you say "period," "comma," or even "smiley." Just be sure to actually go back and fix bad Punctuation, as that's often how the software learns. Finally, if you're using an Android phone, be sure that you've enabled Personalized Voice Recognition. It benefits your speech-to-text on Android, in your browser, and, ultimately, your self-driving car.
Twentieth Century Fox is set to allow Android smartphone and tablet owners to view the studio's Blu-ray movies on their mobile devices.
The move will see movies 'side loaded' via an Android application in a launch due in the US, UK, Germany and France this October.
The Blu-ray movie to be made available on Android devices is to be "X-Men: First Class"
"Given its strong growth as a mobile operating system, the support for Android is an important move for us because it further enhances Blu-ray discs as the best way to get your movies to all your screens," Fox marketing veep Vincent Marcais told the Financial Times.
It's not known if Fox will make digital copies of movies for sale separately from Blu-ray discs.
A 12-year-old African tortoise that had his front left leg amputated is on a roll, thanks to a swiveling wheel attached to his shell recently at Washington State University's veterinary hospital.
Gamera, a 23-pound African spur-thighed tortoise, has gained weight and is thriving with his new appendage.
"I don't know whether he'd pass the hare, but he moves around very well," a hospital spokesman said last week.
Gamera was brought to the hospital by his owner with a life-threatening leg injury.
His leg was amputated at the shoulder. Vets attached the wheel to his shell with epoxy adhesive, and Gamera was up and rolling immediately.
The wheel should last for years before it has to be replaced, vets said. That's good news because tortoises can live to a ripe old age.
Troubled singer Amy Winehouse, whose struggle with drink and drugs overshadowed her sultry musical talents, has been found dead at her flat in north London, emergency services said. She was 27.
The Grammy award-winning soul singer with her trademark beehive battled with well-documented addictions that she documented in her hit single "Rehab". Her death is being treated as unexplained, police said.
Winehouse rocketed to fame after winning five Grammy awards off the back of her 2006 second album "Back to Black" and the hit single "Rehab."
The singer had a European comeback tour schedule but pulled out following a disastrous opening performance in Serbia on June 18.
In the run-up to her live return, Winehouse spent a week at an addiction treatment clinic in London, reportedly at the suggestion of her father, Mitch, over concerns that she was drinking too much.
But she was booed at the opening performance in Belgrade, apparently too drunk to sing.
"Amy Winehouse is withdrawing from all scheduled performances," a statement from her representatives said.
"Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen."
Known for her distinctive voice and beehive hairstyle, Winehouse's debut album "Frank" was released in 2003 and brought her wide acclaim. It went triple platinum in Britain.
The follow-up, "Back to Black", was a worldwide smash hit, reaching number one in Britain and number two in the US charts. It went six times platinum in Britain and double platinum in the United States.
[via discovery]
As industry observers point to a September release date for the iPhone 5, surprising analysis shows that the previous iPhone is still selling strongly on U.S. carriers. The sell-through of the iPhone 4 at Verizon and AT&T last quarter are "quite impressive," says Mogan Keegan's Tavis McCourt, especially considering the device is 12-months old - a lifetime in smartphone years. At AT&T, iPhone sales beat non-iPhone sales outstripped Android and other non-iOS devices by a margin of two-one. Non-iPhone sales dominated Verizon however, giving the two carriers 7.1 million non-iPhone sales and 5.9 million iPhone sales respectively. McCourt attributes the discrepancy at Verizon due to Verizon's strong selection of 4G phones, including the HTC Thunderbolt, LG Revolution and Samsung's Droid Charge.
Comparing carrier activations in this way, McCourt thinks, "strips out any channel inventory changes, and shows that the iPhone is broadly gaining share in a rather dramatic fashion. Apple's sell-through is expected to increase even more once the anticipated iPhone 5 comes, he believes. Reports surfaced earlier this week that the iPhone 5 is already entering testing at major U.S. mobile carriers, giving muster to a 2011 release date. AT&T has been testing the iPhone 5 since July 6, Web site Chiphazard reported, with the test serving as the final stage before hitting mass production. "Our sources claim that the next generation iPhone is in the hands of beta testers right now," according to the report.
The report corroborates supply chain checks by Wall Street analysts that indicate Apple has already stepped up manufacturing orders in China and other places. Most observers have pegged the new phone to come in Q4, likely September, with some even venturing to say two models will emerge - a minor upgrade this year, followed by a major change in 2012. Indeed, anticipation for the iPhone 5 has already dampens sales of the current iPhone 4 model. "The launch weekend could see 3M iPhone sales (compared to 1.7M last year, when the iPhone launched in 5 countries that accounted for a then estimated ~60 percent of iPhone sales), given the boost from Verizon this year, where we expect the iPhone to launch simultaneously. "We expect post-launch weekend run-rate to drop by half and then continue to drop until it stabilizes at 20 percent global smartphone share at the end of the quarter.
