- Wireless Internet connections have had more of an effect that most people realize. Just thinking about how few people access the Internet with their laptop or desktop hooked up to a string of CAT-6 cable underscores that point. Intel is among the companies with the most to gain by continuing to improve WiFi and the company’s researchers believe they have found a way to do that by making it both faster and more energy efficient. The increased speed and efficiency come from a new chip called Rosepoint, which is still in the development stage but could be ready for use in smartphones and laptops in the next few years. Rosepoint represents a significant step forward in a process Intel engineers have been working on for years. In the past they have been able to digitize small blocks of radio components, but researchers have finally found a way to place a digital 2.4 GHz WiFi radio on a chip, right next to one of their low-power Atom central processing units (CPUs). Building WiFi chips is extremely challenging because engineers must construct complex, customized circuits that operate on a continuum of voltages. Reducing the size of analog designs to fit the tiny scale that’s possible with today’s cutting-edge chipmaking processes is all but impossible. Digital RF chips change the equation because they are simpler, with just two voltage levels. That allows engineers to more easily shrink them down to fit whatever size is needed. Smaller size and increased simplicity will mean “state of the art power efficiency” and superior signal quality, according to Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. “With a digital approach to radio, you can bring the benefits of Moore’s law to RF and radio circuits,” Rattner said. Development plans also call for a digital cellular radio chip too, in the “not too distant future,” Rattner vowed. Doing so would place Intel in more direct competition with RF chip companies such as Texas Instruments and Broadcom. Increased competition should mean better products for all, although not necessarily cheaper products………..
- If someone is so in love with their Second Amendment rights that they feel the need to exercise those rights by toting their sidearm around with them, that person tacitly agrees to a few things. One, they concur that they will not whip out their piece as a means of settling disputes in cases of road rage, showdowns over mall parking lot spaces or quarrels over the last pair of size 4 stone-washed skinny jeans at Abercrombie. Secondly, they agree to keep their weapon out of reach for children, wherever they may be. And thirdly…..the gun owner agrees to FREAKING KEEP TRACK OF WHERE THEIR DAMN GUN IS. Of those three points, the third one just might be the most crucial. After all, it’s difficult to ensure that everyone is safe from deliberate or accidental gun violence if you aren’t aware of where you left your 9mm or Glock. That message goes out to an unidentified Tallahassee, Fla. woman who went shopping at the Governor's Square Mall and took her concealed weapon with her. The best part of her story is that while she shopped, she kept it on top of her child's stroller. That’s right, mom is packing heat with a child young enough to still need a stroller. She explained that some time during her shopping trip, she lost her gun. Her theory is that is may have fallen out when she was moving a diaper bag. Diaper bags….gun cases…..whiny kids….who can keep track of it all? Once she realized the gun was missing, this pistol-toting mother contacted mall security. A search for the gun, which was inside a black zippered case, turned up nothing. The woman is offering a reward for the gun’s return, no questions asked. Anyone with information on its whereabouts is asked to call the Tallahassee Police Department…………
- Lindsay Lohan is not good at many things. She can’t act, she can’t sing and she can’t stay sober for more than a few hours at a time. She’s not even that good at activities she seems to do a lot of these days, serving time in prison, appearing in court or completing community service efforts. But she may have finally stumbled across something she can make a career of: taking her clothes off for money. She stripped for the pages of Playboy in December, putting her one step away from her true calling of being a porn star, and the issue was a huge seller for Hugh Hefner’s skin rag. Images from her photo spread leaked online, forcing the issue’s early release. Despite its expedited appearance on the top shelf of gas station magazine racks around the United States, the issue sold exceptionally well and retailers across the country were forced to re-order the issue several times over. Furthermore, subscriptions increased in the aftermath of Lohan’s appearance on the pages of Playboy and sales were so impressive that Hefner tweeted that the “The Lindsay Lohan January-February Double Issue is breaking sales records.” He celebrated the issue’s success again last week at the pre-Grammy Music Cares dinner honoring Paul McCartney and suggested Lohan may “quite possibly” do another shoot. That’s right, another chance to take her clothes off for millions of strangers. Lohan said through a spokesperson that nothing is planned at the moment, but it’s not as if she has a ton of great options open to her. She has to find something to bide her time until Vivid comes calling for her to begin her adult film career…………
- Again, North and South Korea? You two are duking it out on the Korean peninsula again and threatening to use destructive force on each other? Do we even want to ask why? Just for the heck of it, let’s play this one out. South Korea planned an artillery drill Monday near a disputed maritime border and because of the region’s contentious status, the North warned that it would retaliate by shelling inhabited islands in the Yellow Sea if the South went ahead with its plan. The South did exactly that, with officials in Seoul explaining that the morning exercise was routine and included the firing of self-propelled howitzers and mortars. A small number of attack helicopters also joined the exercise on the western frontier islands, but a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says no shots were fired towards the Northern Limit Line, which is the disputed maritime border. Now it remains to be seen whether Pyongyang follows through on its threat to shell the aforementioned island. On Sunday, the North warned inhabitants of the five islands to evacuate to avoid its possible retaliatory shelling.
In fact, a message carried by state radio and the official news agency just hours before the South Korean exercise commenced termed the drill “a clear declaration of war” against the North. Unless the North is a nonexistent, fictional target in the middle of the sea and looks a lot like a massive body of water, that doesn’t seem accurate. In the message, the North Korean announcer cautioned that if South Korea fired recklessly, then it “will not escape punishment thousands-fold more severe than the shelling of Yeonpyeong island.”
Pyongyang made good on a similar threat on Nov. 23, 2010, when it responded to a South Korean military exercise by bombarding one of the same islands it is now threatening, killing four people.
To further agitate the North, South Korea and the United States this week are also holding an anti-submarine drill in the Yellow Sea and beginning next Monday, they are to commence the first of two annual large-scale war games involving thousands of soldiers from both of their militaries.
Will any of this be enough to provoke the North to action and officially kick off World War III? Probably not, but when newly minted dictator Kim Jong-Un is involved, there’s always a chance……….
- U.S.A.! U.S.A.! All together now! At long last, America has achieved dominance in a sport that has long left us looking more like Doug E. Doug and his crew in the iconic John Candy movie “Cool Runnings” than the home of the world’s best and brightest athletes. The two-man bobsled race has defeated one hopeful American sledding team after another, but no more. Steven Holcomb, the top driver on the U.S. bobsled team, broke a 50-year gold-medal drought for America in four-man competition at the Bobsled World Championships on Sunday. Two years ago, he won the first four-man Olympic gold for his country since 1948, on Sunday he brought back the title in an event the U.S. had never won at the world championships. "That's going to take a little while to sink in," Holcomb said. "My world championship medal it had been 50 years. My (Olympic) gold medal was 62 years. And now this -- never, ever. This is no years. It's going to take a little bit to sink in." Holcomb won by blowing right by first-day leader Lyndon Rush of Canada with a near-flawless third run. He and brakeman Steve Langton had a four-run time over two days of 3 minutes, 42.88 seconds, putting them 0.46 seconds ahead of Rush and brakeman Jesse Lumsden. Lumsden was fired up as well after the amazing feat to revive American pride in a sport no one cares about outside a two-day span every four years ago when the Winter Olympics roll around. "This is fantastic," Langton said. "This is my fifth year in the sport and I've had some good results, but to come out here and win my first big championship is pretty amazing. It's really indescribable." The triumph came over traditional bobsledding powers like Germany (third) and Switzerland (fourth). "I'm at a loss for words," said Darrin Steele, chief executive officer of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. "It's been a long time for us. Holcomb's becoming a legend in his own right, and all these teams. It's just been an amazing race." Prior to Sunday, the U.S. had never placed higher than second in the two-man race at the world championships. Best of all, Holcomb knew he was about to do something great on the first day of the event. : "Got it figured out. Time to make my move," he tweeted between runs on the first day. With a final run of 55.63, he proved his premonition true. Now if only the Winter Games weren’t two years away. Back to the shallow end of the American sports pool, bobsledding…………
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