Adele: 24
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Sen. Manchin Breaks Down in Tears Meeting With Newtown Parents (ABC News)
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Sony Xperia ZL review: a giant phone in a surprisingly compact frame
Sony took a rather unusual path with its flagship smartphone for 2013: it designed the hardware twice. The Xperia Z is ostensibly the star of the show with its glass body and waterproofing, but it's launching alongside the Xperia ZL, an equally brawny, yet plainer sibling. On a spec sheet, there's no apparent reason for the ZL to exist when its features almost perfectly match those of the slimmer and more stylish Z.
Still, it's precisely that emphasis on function over form that might just win the day. Sony bills the ZL as the most compact 5-inch smartphone on the market, which could win over folks who see large-screened phones as unwieldy. But is it enough to challenge conventional thinking on big phones, especially in light of fiercer competition? And is there anything special lurking underneath the ZL's reworked hood? Read on and we'll let you know whether the second device in Sony's dual-phone strategy is strong enough to outshine the Z -- and, more importantly, its rivals.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sony
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/iwcFAiutYAo/
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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Tin nanocrystals for the battery of the future
Apr. 8, 2013 ? More powerful batteries could help electric cars achieve a considerably larger range and thus a breakthrough on the market. A new nanomaterial for lithium ion batteries developed in the labs of chemists at ETH Zurich and Empa could come into play here.
They provide power for electric cars, electric bicycles, smartphones and laptops; nowadays, rechargeable lithium ion batteries are the storage media of choice when it comes to supplying a large amount of energy in a small space and light weight. All over the world, scientists are currently researching a new generation of such batteries with an improved performance. Scientists headed by Maksym Kovalenko from the Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich and Empa have now developed a nanomaterial which enables considerably more power to be stored in lithium ion batteries.
The nanomaterial is composed of tiny tin crystals, which are to be deployed at the minus pole of the batteries (anode). When charging the batteries, lithium ions are absorbed at this electrode; while discharging, they are released again (see box). "The more lithium ions the electrodes can absorb and release -- the better they can breathe, as it were -- the more energy can be stored in a battery," explains Kovalenko.
Uniform crystals
The element tin is ideal for this: every tin atom can absorb at least four lithium ions. However, the challenge is to deal with the volume change of tin electrodes: tin crystal becomes up to three times bigger if it absorbs a lot of lithium ions and shrinks again when it releases them back. The scientists thus resorted to nanotechnology: they produced the tiniest tin nanocrystals and embedded a large number of them in a porous, conductive permeable carbon matrix. Much like how a sponge can suck up water and release it again, an electrode constructed in this way can absorb lithium ions while charging and release them when discharging. If the electrode were made of a compact tin block, this would practically be impossible.
During the development of the nanomaterial, the issue of the ideal size for the nanocrystals arose, which also carries the challenge of producing uniform crystals. "The trick here was to separate the two basic steps in the formation of the crystals -- the formation of as small as a crystal nucleus as possible on the one hand and its subsequent growth on the other," explains Kovalenko. By influencing the time and temperature of the growth phase, the scientists were able to control the size of the crystals. "We are the first to produce such small tin crystals with such precision," says the scientist.
Larger cycle stability
Using uniform tin nanocrystals, carbon, and binding agents, the scientists produced different test electrodes for batteries. "This enables twice as much power to be stored compared to conventional electrodes," says Kovalenko. The size of the nanocrystals did not affect the storage capacity during the initial charging and discharging cycle. After a few charging and discharging cycles, however, differences caused by the crystal size became apparent: batteries with ten-nanometre crystals in the electrodes were able to store considerably more energy than ones with twice the diameter. The scientists assume that the smaller crystals perform better because they can absorb and release lithium ions more effectively. "Ten-nanometre tin crystals thus seem to be just the ticket for lithium ion batteries," says Kovalenko.
As the scientists now know the ideal size for the tin nanocrystals, they would like to turn their attention to the remaining challenges of producing optimum tin electrodes in further research projects. These include the choice of the best possible carbon matrix and binding agent for the electrodes, and the electrodes' ideal microscopic structure. Moreover, an optimal and stable electrolyte liquid in which the lithium ions can travel back and forth between the two poles in the battery also needs to be selected. Ultimately, the production costs are also an issue, which the researchers are looking to reduce by testing which cost-effective base materials are suitable for electrode production. The aim is to prepare batteries with an increased energy storage capacity and lifespan for the market, in collaboration with a Swiss industrial partner.
How lithium ion batteries work
In lithium ion batteries, the energy is stored in the form of positively charged lithium atoms (ions) that are found at the minus pole in a charged battery. If energy is taken from the battery, negatively charged electrons flow from the minus pole to the plus pole via the external circuit. To balance the charge, positively charged lithium ions also flow from the minus pole to the plus pole. However, these travel in the electrolyte fluid inside the battery. The process is reversible: lithium ion batteries can be recharged with electricity. In most lithium ion batteries these days, the plus pole is composed of the transition metal oxides cobalt, nickel, and manganese, the minus pole of graphite. In more powerful lithium ion batteries of the next generation, however, elements such as tin or silicon may well be used at the minus pole.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by ETH Zurich. The original article was written by Fabio Bergamin.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Kostiantyn Kravchyk, Loredana Protesescu, Maryna I. Bodnarchuk, Frank Krumeich, Maksym Yarema, Marc Walter, Christoph Guntlin, Maksym V. Kovalenko. Monodisperse and Inorganically Capped Sn and Sn/SnO2Nanocrystals for High-Performance Li-Ion Battery Anodes. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013; 135 (11): 4199 DOI: 10.1021/ja312604r
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Micro Gaming Console GameStick Delays Shipments Until June ...
by Glen Tickle | 12:00 pm, April 7th, 2013
The GameStick micro console by PlayJam caught our attention with its wildly popular Kickstarter campaign that netted more than six times its goal of $100,000. It?s a clever idea ? placing an entire console on something the size of a flash drive that can be easily plugged into a television?s HDMI port. The problem is that GameStick became a little too popular, and not just for gaming hipsters. The huge number of backers means GameStick has had to delay shipment of units for backers until June.
GameStick will be shipping its developer units ? about 600 ? out on time, but the units promised to early backers of the project on Kickstarter have been delayed. That?s because instead of having to produce and ship a few thousand consoles as expected, they actually have to produce and ship tens of thousands of units. That creates more problems than just the extra time needed to build the tiny game systems.
Due to the larger-than-anticipated order, the GameStick consoles will have to be shipped from the manufacturer by boat rather than by plane. In almost every case, planes are faster than boats, but they can?t carry as much weight. The system was supposed to ship to backers this month, but now it seem folks will just have to be a bit more patient as they wait for their tiny game console.
(Kickstarter via Engadget, image via PlayJam)
Source: http://www.geekosystem.com/gamestick-delays/
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SKorea: NKorea may be preparing to test missile
A South Korean soldier closes a military gate in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 7, 2013. A top South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act with its warning that it soon will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in Pyongyang. But he added that the North's clearest objective is to extract concessions from Washington and Seoul. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A South Korean soldier closes a military gate in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 7, 2013. A top South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act with its warning that it soon will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in Pyongyang. But he added that the North's clearest objective is to extract concessions from Washington and Seoul. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A North Korean military guard post is seen near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 7, 2013. A top South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act with its warning that it soon will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in Pyongyang. But he added that the North's clearest objective is to extract concessions from Washington and Seoul. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A South Korean Army soldier salutes as a military vehicle crosses the barricaded Unification Bridge near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 7, 2013. South Korea said its top military officer has put off a plan to visit Washington due to current tension with North Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
People watch a TV program showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 7, 2013. South Korea?s top military officer has put off a plan to visit Washington because of escalating tension with North Korea that have also led more than a dozen South Korean companies to halt operations at a joint factory complex in the North, officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
North Koreans, working at a field in North Korea's Kaepoong, are viewed from the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 7, 2013. South Korea said its top military officer has put off a plan to visit Washington due to current tension with North Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? A top South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act with its warning that it soon will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in Pyongyang. But he added that the North's clearest objective is to extract concessions from Washington and Seoul.
North Korea's warning last week followed weeks of war threats and other efforts to punish South Korea and the U.S. for ongoing joint military drills, and for their support of U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang's Feb. 12 nuclear test. Many nations are deciding what to do about the notice, which said their diplomats' safety in Pyongyang cannot be guaranteed beginning this Wednesday.
Tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang led South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff to announce Sunday that its chairman had put off a visit to Washington. The U.S. military said its top commander in South Korea had also canceled a trip to Washington. The South Korean defense minister said Thursday that North Korea had moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, possibly to conduct a test launch.
His description suggests that the missile could be the Musudan missile, capable of striking American bases in Guam with its estimated range of up to 4,000 kilometers (2,490 miles).
Citing North Korea's suggestion that diplomats leave the country, South Korean President Park Geun-hye's national security director said Pyongyang may be planning a missile launch or another provocation around Wednesday, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing.
During a meeting with other South Korean officials, the official, Kim Jang-Soo, also said the notice to diplomats and other recent North Korean actions are an attempt to stoke security concerns and to force South Korea and the U.S. to offer a dialogue. Washington and Seoul want North Korea to resume the six-party nuclear talks ? which also include China, Russia and Japan ? that it abandoned in 2009.
The roughly two dozen countries with embassies in North Korea had not yet announced whether they would evacuate their staffs.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague suggested that North Korea's comments about foreign diplomats are "consistent" with a regime that is using the prospect of an external threat to justify its militarization to its people.
"I haven't seen any immediate need to respond to that by moving our diplomats out of there," he told the BBC on Saturday. "We will keep this under close review with our allies, but we shouldn't respond and play to that rhetoric and that presentation of an external threat every time they come out with it."
Germany said its embassy in Pyongyang would stay open for at least the time being.
"The situation there is tense but calm," a German Foreign Office official, who declined to be named in line with department policy, said in an email. "The security and danger of the situation is constantly being evaluated. The different international embassies there are in close touch with each other."
Indonesia's foreign affairs ministry said it was considering a plan to evacuate its diplomats. A statement released by the ministry on Saturday said that its embassy in Pyongyang has been preparing a contingency plan to anticipate the worst-case scenario, and that the Indonesian foreign minister is communicating with the staff there to monitor the situation.
India also said it was monitoring events. "We have been informed about it," said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India's external affairs ministry. "We are in constant touch with our embassy and are monitoring the situation. We will carefully consider all aspects and decide well in time."
Seoul and Washington, which lack diplomatic relations with the North, are taking the threats seriously, though they say they have seen no signs that Pyongyang is preparing for a large-scale attack.
Kim Jang-soo said the North would face "severalfold damages" for any hostilities. Since 2010, when attacks Seoul blames on North Korea killed 50 people, South Korea has vowed to aggressively respond to any future attack.
South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Jung Seung-jo had planned to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Gen. Martin Dempsey, in Washington on April 16 for regular talks. But tensions on the Korean Peninsula are so high that Jung cannot take a long trip away from South Korea, so the meeting will be rescheduled, a South Korean Joint Chiefs officer said Sunday. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.
The top U.S. military commander in South Korea, Gen. James Thurman, will not make a planned trip to Washington this week to testify before Congress because of tensions with North Korea. In an email Sunday to The Associated Press, Army Col. Amy Hannah said Thurman would remain in Seoul as "a prudent measure." He was scheduled to testify on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The U.S. Defense Department has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had been planned for this week because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis, a senior defense official told The Associated Press.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to delay the test at an Air Force base in California until sometime next month, the official said Saturday. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the test delay and requested anonymity.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has followed provocations from North Korea with shows of force connected to the joint exercises with South Korea. It has sent nuclear capable B-2 and B-52 bombers and stealth F-22 fighters to participate in the drills.
In addition, the U.S. said last week that two of the Navy's missile-defense ships were moved closer to the Korean Peninsula, and a land-based missile-defense system is being deployed to the Pacific territory of Guam later this month. The Pentagon last month announced longer-term plans to strengthen its U.S.-based missile defenses.
The U.S. military also is considering deploying an intelligence drone at the Misawa Air Base in northern Japan to step up surveillance of North Korea, a Japanese Defense Ministry official said Sunday.
Three Global Hawk surveillance planes are deployed on Guam and one of them is being considered for deployment in Japan, the official said on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak about the issue.
Also on Sunday, Iran's foreign ministry urged all sides to exercise restraint and not to move toward "provocative behavior."
"We think that the event that is intensifying between North Korea, South Korea and the United states should be controlled as soon as possible," Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying. "Both parties should not move toward a corner in which there is a threatening climate."
Mehmanparast's comments came two days after Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, reportedly said that North Korea had "no choice except confronting the U.S."
North Korea successfully shot a satellite into space in December and conducted its third nuclear test in February. It has threatened to launch a nuclear attack on the United States, though many analysts say the North hasn't achieved the technology to manufacture a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could fit on a long-range missile capable of hitting the U.S.
North Korea also raised tensions Wednesday when it barred South Koreans and supply trucks from entering the Kaesong industrial complex, where South Korean companies have employed thousands of North Korean workers for the past decade.
North Korea is not forcing South Korean managers to leave the factory complex, and nearly 520 of them remained at Kaesong on Sunday. But the entry ban at the park, the last remaining inter-Korean rapprochement project, is posing a serious challenge to many of the more than 120 South Korean firms there because they are running out of raw materials and are short on replacement workers.
Nine more firms, including food and textile companies, have stopped operations at Kaesong, bringing to 13 the total number of companies that have done so, South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a statement Sunday.
North Korea briefly restricted the heavily fortified border crossing at Kaesong in 2009 ? also during South Korea-U.S. drills ? but manufacturers fear the current border shutdown could last longer.
___
AP writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Robert Burns in Bagram, Afghanistan, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Louise Watt in Beijing, Cassandra Vinograd in London, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
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Monday, April 8, 2013
'President Hillary Clinton?' In mock election, she wallops the competition. (+video)
Political professionals and grassroots supporters are organizing and raising money in case Hillary Clinton runs for the presidency in 2016. So far, she's leading potential opponents of both parties.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking at the Women in the World Conference on Friday in New York. Clinton is working on a memoir and policy book about her years with the Obama administration. The book is tentatively scheduled for June 2014.
Marc Bryan-Brown/Women in the World/AP
EnlargeIt may be the weekend for the ?Final Four? in the NCAA basketball championship. But for political junkies out there, the ?Sweet Sixteen? already has been whittled down to the two major party candidates in the 2016 presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Marco Rubio.
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That is, if you believe the chart concocted by the Washington Post the other day pitting 32 possible candidates among Republicans and Democrats who (in their dreams, at least) have a shot at the White House.
More on that later. But former first lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State Clinton seemed to be all over the news this week.
Among the headlines: ?Be Afraid, GOP: Hillary Clinton Is Back and She Will Beat You in 2016? (The Daily Beast). ?A viewer's guide to Hillary Clinton Fever? (Politico). ?James Carville Joins Hillary Clinton Super PAC? (Huffington Post). ?Hillary 2016 Supporters Are an Intrepid Bunch? (Slate).
Even the nay-sayers kept Clinton?s name in the news. ?Hillary Clinton, a mistake for 2016? (CNN). ?Hopefully the Worst Column Anyone Will Write About Hillary Clinton During This Slow News Week? (Slate again).
Part of the buzz no doubt is tied to the (not surprising) news that she has another book deal with Simon & Schuster ? a memoir about her years in the Obama administration.
Financial terms have not been disclosed, the Associated Press reports. Clinton reportedly received $8 million for her 2003 memoir, "Living History," also published by Simon & Schuster. This new book is untitled so far, but it?s scheduled to come out in June 2014 ? right in the middle of the mid-term elections campaign.
Meanwhile, a ?Ready for Hillary? political action committee has formed up.
?It?s a shadow campaign set up at least two years before Clinton will actually decide whether or not to run for president,? reports Slate?s David Wegel. ?It?ll raise money, sell merchandise, and build lists until the actual Clinton campaign bursts to life. And then it will change its name to ?Ready PAC,? raise money, sell merchandise, and build lists, etc.?
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