The threat of Hurricane Sun, 20 times larger than the effects of Hurricane Katrina

Solar activity would become more active and will result in negative effects for the Earth. To prepare for the worst, a leading solar scientists gathered in Washington DC, USA Tuesday, June 8, 2010, to discuss the best ways to protect satellites and Earth’s vital systems of the solar storm.

Solar storm occurs when some point the sun burst and spew splashing of particles that can be damaging. This activity took place in a cycle of 11 years. “The sun has got up from bed length. And in the next few years we will see solar activity in the higher level,” said the head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, Richard Fisher, like the Christian Science Monitor published pages.

‘At the same time, technological society is developing a new sense of the storm the sun. Society in the 21st century rely heavily on high-tech systems in everyday life are susceptible to storm the sun. GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could all die suddenly by solar activity. Economic damage caused by solar storms are expected twenty times larger than Hurricane Katrina – as a warning, issued the National Academy of Sciences in a report in 2008.

Fortunately, a lot of damage can be overcome if it knows when a storm is coming. That is why understanding of solar weather and a better ability to provide early warning, it is very important. Placing the satellite in ‘safe mode’ and release the transformer in order to protect the electronics from damaging power surge.

“Space weather forecast is still under development, but we’re making rapid progress,” said Thomas Bogdan, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA and NOAA are working together to manage the fleet of satellites that monitor the sun and help to predict changes in solar.

A pair of spacecraft called Stereo (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is located on the opposite side of the sun, which can display a mix of 90 percent of the solar surface. In addition, the SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory which), which has just launched in February 2010, can produce new photo active part in the solar surface.

Also, an old satellite, called the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which was launched in 1997, still monitoring the sun. “I believe we are on the verge of new era where space weather can affect our lives everyday like usual weather of the earth.” Fisher said. “For us, this is very serious.”

GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470,W860CU-3D, multimedia notebooks from Clevo

GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470, Nvidia-based graphics chip directly presenting their Fermi architecture in the form of GeForce GTX 480M.Upper-class chip, the Nvidia mentioned on his official blog, as the fastest notebook graphics chips in the world.As the available chip similar to a desktop PC platform, the chip supports many commonly available features including 3D Vision, PhysX, Cuda, two-way SLI, and supports DirectX 11.

To guard the chips stay cool to the size of a notebook, Fermi mobile version is only set at 425MHz speed. A total of 325 stream processors are set to operate at 850MHz, as for GDDR 5 memory used by running at 1200MHz frequency.Compare with the GeForce GTX 480 core version of its desktop that runs at 700MHz and memory speed of 1848MHz.

Currently no information on the consumption of power used. Although it seems notebooks with GeForce GTX 480M is not for users who need a notebook with a long active period, but the notebooks are certainly attractive to the user segment of the media editing and gaming.As quoted from Hexus, May 26, 2010, the first notebook manufacturer to take advantage of GeForce GTX 480M is a Clevo, the manufacturer from Taiwan notebook makers.

Toyota has told dealers it will provide replacement accelerator pedals to owners

WASHINGTON, Toyota has told dealers it will provide replacement accelerator pedals to owners who are unsatisfied with their repairs under the massive recall following dozens of complaints about the fix.The Japanese automaker said in a memo obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press that if a customer is unhappy with the feel of the accelerator after the car is repaired, dealers can provide a replacement pedal at no charge. Dealers have been inserting a piece of metal into the gas pedal mechanism to eliminate friction that was causing the pedal problem on more than 4 million vehicles involved in a January recall.

“A replacement pedal should only be offered to a customer after the reinforcement bar has been installed and the customer has expressed dissatisfaction with the operation and/or feel of the pedal,” Toyota said in a memo to dealers, service manager and parts managers.

The memo, dated February 2010, said the pedal replacement “is based upon specific customer request only. Dealers are not to solicit pedal replacement.” The memo was first reported by The New York Times.

An AP analysis of government data found that more than 100 owners have complained to the government about problems with sudden acceleration after Toyota dealers fixed their vehicles. Toyota has said it is confident in its repairs and has found no evidence of other problems, such as faulty electronics.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally over sticky pedals and accelerators that can become entrapped in floor mats, tarnishing the company’s safety reputation and leading to government investigations and congressional hearings.

The memo addresses Toyota vehicles that were listed in the January recall. The vehicles include: the 2005-10 Avalon; 2007-10 Camry and Tundra; 2009-10 Corolla, Matrix and RAV4; 2008-10 Sequoia and 2010 Highlander.

“If a customer is not satisfied with the operation and/or the feel of the accelerator pedal after the reinforcement bar has been installed, please assist us by assuring a replacement pedal is provided at no charge to these customers,” the company said in the memo.

Officials with Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not immediately comment.

A group of consumer advocates and engineers who contend Toyota has discounted potential electronic problems in problem vehicles planned to hold a news conference Tuesday on the massive recalls. Toyota has said it has found no evidence that electrical issues are behind the recalls.

Kristen Tabar, an electronics general manager with Toyota’s technical center in Ann Arbor, Mich., said in a video clip posted by the company on Monday that the automaker has eight labs in Japan that it uses to bombard vehicles with electronic interference.

She said Toyota ensures that “every system in the vehicle operates properly under those conditions.”(AP)

Packard Bell Studio ST, allows to store and play music files, videos and photos

Company Packard Bell has added its line of devices for storing multimedia files, the new model – Packard Bell Studio ST, allows to store and play music files, videos and photos.This device is bundled remote control, and also equipped with a USB port for playback or share files stored on other drives with USB, such as flash memory or hard drives. Packard Bell Studio ST can play all versions of popular video formats, images and audio, including Dolby Digital. It has an intuitive graphical interface with support for most European languages can.

Packard Bell has announced a home media player, called Packard Bell Studio ST, intended for viewing media content to TVs and monitors.

The Packard Bell Studio ST supports playback of 1080p Full HD video, equipped with 500GB to 2TB hard drive. Packard Bell Studio ST media player has USB port, which is allowing connection of external drives, as well as HDMI connector. It is bundled with remote control and a full set of cables: a composite audio and video, component (YPbPr), HDMI and USB. It is supported by spatial audio Dolby Digital technology.

However, the Packard Bell Studio ST Player comes with Packard Bell Software Suite for automatic backup of data (including the schedule). In addition, the Packard Bell Studio ST is implements PowerSave technology that reduce power consumption by 60%.Information about the cost of new Packard Bell Studio ST is not reported.

Nuvifones The WinMo M10 and Nuvifones The Android A50

The partnership between Garmin and Asustek has resulted in a few lacklustre phones, but the A50 actually sounds more than decent.They’re boasting it brings “more location technology than any other smartphone,” as you’d expect from the satnav dudes at Garmin. The hardware isn’t all that surprising, with a 3.5-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen, a 3.0-megapixel camera with autofocus and geotagging, Bluetooth, 4GB of internal storage (with the usual microSD card slot) and an accelerometer. No word on Wi-Fi just yet.Bundled with the phone is a car mount and power cable for the car, which is a nice touch—nothing worse than having to fork out for additional accessories after laying down a few hundred on the actual device. The software is, of course, Garmin’s turn-by-turn navigation.

It’ll go on sale sometime in the first six months of 2010—nice and vague—and the price hasn’t been announced (or rumored, in the M10’s case) just yet.That aforementioned M10 (above) won’t be showing up with Windows Mobile 7, launching instead with 6.5.3 (though presumably it’ll be available for a software update once WinMo 7 launches at the end of the year). Specs sound just like they did when Asustek president Benson Lin blabbed last month about it, with the 3.5-inch WVGA resistive touchscreen, 4GB of internal storage, 512MB of RAM and the same again for ROM. Garmin and Asustek have chosen a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM 7227 chip which won’t steal too many headlines, but at least it’s running the most recent version of WinMo, eh? The rumored price was $435 last month, but we’ll keep you updated once we receive official word.

The 2010 World Cup is going 3-D.Sony Corp

sony corp

The 2010 World Cup is going 3-D.Sony Corp. said Friday it has signed a deal with FIFA, the international football governing body, to record up to 25 World Cup games in 3-D – a technology that gives viewers an illusion of depth on the screen.The Japanese electronics and entertainment company is one of several electronics makers planning or working on 3-D technology for TVs and movies. Sony makes 3-D capable video cameras, and plans to sell 3-D TVs for homes next year.People wear special glasses to see 3-D footage because the illusion of dimension is created by sending different images to the left and the right eye, although manufacturers are working on upgrades that will show 3-D without glasses.Chief Executive Howard Stringer expressed his enthusiasm for watching a soccer game in 3-D in an interview this week.”I thought that was very cool,” he said at Tokyo headquarters.

Most 3-D releases so far have been animation films but the feature is gradually spreading to other genres, such as the soon-to-be-released sci-fi epic “Avatar.”Stringer said sports was definitely one area 3-D could display its strengths.He also said he wanted to see “thoughtful” movies someday being made in 3-D. He ruled out Michael Jackson videos and the next “Spider-Man” movie as 3-D possibilities.

For now, 3-D video of the World Cup in South Africa won’t be shown in TV broadcast for homes, according to Sony, which makes Bravia TVs, Walkman portable players and PlayStation 3 game consoles.They will be shown at Sony booths at FIFA events in Berlin, London, Mexico City, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Sydney in June and July. Highlights will be shown in Sony showrooms, and a video version will be sold through Sony Pictures.”It’s a great opportunity to get people to experience 3-D firsthand,” said Sony spokesman Atsuo Omagari.

Intel to pay AMD $1.25 billion in settlement

Intel, the computer-chip giant accused of abusing its market power, will pay Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), $1.25 billion (£755 million) to settle all long-standing disputes over competitive and licensing issues.Intel, which makes 80 per cent of the central processing units at the heart of all personal computers, was accused in 2005 by AMD, its smaller rival, of offering financial incentives to computer makers and retailers to buy its microprocessors.Under the terms of the settlement, AMD said that the two companies will have a new five-year cross license agreement, as well as the one-off settlement pay-out. They will give up any claims of breach from the previous license agreement and drop all pending litigation including the case in U.S. District Court in Delaware and two cases pending in Japan.