aftershock in Japan

aftershock in Japan
A strong 6.0 magnitude aftershock rocked Japan's Fukushima prefecture, a day after a devastating earthquake triggered a tsunami that has left at least 1,700 people dead or unaccounted for.

The quake with a preliminary magnitude occurred at 10; 15 pm local time, Kyodo news agency said.

The quake was followed by several tremblors off the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan over the next hour.

The 6.0 magnitude aftershock came after an explosion at Fukushima nuclear plant in northern Japan, 250 kilometres north of Tokyo, destroying the building housing the reactor and triggering radiation leaks.

The radiation leak was low after the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor, Government spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters. The explosion which left four persons injured led to a "nationwide atomic alert".

Kyodo news agency said the combined number of people who have died or are unaccounted for in yesterday''s double disaster that devastated the country''s north-western coast is feared to top 1,700.

Local media reports said at least 1,300 may have been killed while Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said it was believed that more than 1,000 people had died.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Naoto Kan inspected areas of northeastern Japan affected by the earth quake, and said the government will do all it can to save people.

He also inspected Fukushima nuclear plant 1 where the radiation has been detected.

There were fears that the death toll would rise with Fuji TV reporting that as many as 10,000 people were missing in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi. One report said four whole trains had disappeared and still not been located

Tsunami hits Japan after massive quake

Tsunami hits Japan after massive quake

The most powerful earthquake to hit Japan since records began has hit the country's north-east and triggered a devastating tsunami.

Japanese TV showed cars, ships and buildings swept away by a vast wall of water after the 8.9-magnitude quake.
A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant but officials said there were no radiation leaks.
At least 60 people have been killed by the quake, which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
The death toll is expected to rise significantly.
Some reports quote Japanese police as saying 200 to 300 bodies have been found in the port city of Sendai

The tremor, measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, hit at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.

A tsunami warning was extended across the Pacific to North and South America.
The Red Cross in Geneva warned that the tsunami waves could be higher than some Pacific islands, Reuters news agency said.
Coastal areas in the Philippines, and other parts of the Pacific were evacuated ahead of the tsunami's expected arrival.
The first waves, currently under a metre high, have started reaching Hawaii.
New Zealand downgraded its alert to a marine threat, meaning strong and unusual currents were expected
Strong waves hit Japan's Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, officials said, damaging dozens of coastal communities.
Kyodo news agency said a 10-metre wave (33ft) struck Sendai, which is in Miyagi.

Japan's NHK television showed a massive surge of debris-filled water sweeping away buildings, cars and ships and reaching far inland.
Motorists could be seen trying to speed away from the wall of water.
A passenger train with an unknown number of people aboard was missing in one coastal area, police told Kyodo.
And a ship carrying 100 people was swept away, Japanese media reported, quoting police in Miyagi. It is not clear what happened to the vessel.
Farmland around Sendai was submerged and the waves pushed cars across the runway of the city's airport. Fires broke out in the city's centre.
A state of emergency was declared at the Fukushima power plant after the cooling system failed in one of its reactors when it shut down automatically because of the earthquake

The local government urged 2,000 nearby residents to evacuate the area as a precaution. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said no radiation leaks at that power plant or any of the other reactors in the quake-hit zone had been detected.

The UN's nuclear agency said four nuclear power plants had shut down safely.
In Iwate prefecture, also near the epicentre, an official said it was difficult to gauge the extent of the destruction.
"Roads were badly damaged and cut off as the tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things," said Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in Iwate.
The earthquake also triggered a massive blaze at an oil refinery in Ichihara city in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo, engulfing storage tanks.
There were reports of about 20 people injured in Tokyo after the roof of a hall collapsed on to a graduation ceremony.

Residents and workers in Tokyo rushed out of apartment buildings and office blocks and gathered in parks and open spaces as aftershocks continued to hit.
Many people in Tokyo said they had never felt such a powerful earthquake.
In central Tokyo, Jeffrey Balanag said he was stuck in his office in the Shiodome Sumitomo building because the elevators had stopped working.
"We're almost seasick from the constant rolling of the building," he told the BBC.
Bullet train services to northern Japan were halted and rapid transit in Tokyo was suspended, stranding many workers in the city centre.
About four million homes in and around Tokyo suffered power outages.
In a televised address, Mr Kan extended his sympathy to the victims of the disaster and said an emergency response headquarters had been set up.

from -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598

what happen in 2012

2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?

11.06.09

 

Scenes from the motion picture "2012." Courtesy Columbia Pictures. Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice.

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Q: Could a phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.
Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history

from - http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

HP’s dv7 Sandy Bridge Notebook Sold And Benchmarked A Bit Early

HP’s dv7 Sandy Bridge Notebook Sold And Benchmarked A Bit Early





The Sandy Bridge refresh of the HP dv7 isn’t exactly official yet; that’s coming next week when Intel officially announces the next-gen Core CPUs. But one Micro Center clearly didn’t get the memo as a member of NoteBookReview’s forum site found out when the retailer was more than happy to sell him one. Lucky for us, he not only took a pic of the retail packaging that clearly spells out the internal components, but he also ran some benchmarks on next-gen Intel platform with results that should make you smile.
So along with the 2nd-gen Core i7 running at 2.0 GHz, there’s a 1TB 5400RPM HDD, 6GB of RAM, 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6570 GPU, and a 17.3-inch 1600 x 900 LED display. All this goodness resulted in benchmarks that ring in just slightly less than the current crop of quad-core desktop i7 CPUs. The buyer also notes that the 9-cell battery expires just under the four hour mark when running only Hulu, with normal web browsing and music playing extending it out a bit to around four and half hours.
Unfortunately Micro Center now longer lists the notebook as available, but chances are that will change once HP makes it along with the rest of its Sandy Bridge counterparts official next week. The release is clearly imminent.

Sony VAIO VGN-T2XP review

Looking at the outside of Sony's new VAIO VGN-T2XP, it's hard to know whether to take it seriously or not - is it a toy or a real computer? It weighs just 1.4kg and, at only 272 x 206 x 39mm, takes up less space than a desktop keyboard. Look at what's inside, however, and you become a believer.

It's impressive enough that a 1.2GHz ULV (Ultra Low VoltagePentium M 753 processor, 512MB of memory and a 60GB hard disk are squeezed into the tiny casing, but how did Sony shoehorn a dual-format DVD burner in there as well? In this respect, it tops Samsung's Q30, since that relies on an external drive. The T2 does have a huge battery sticking out the back, accounting for about 20mm of the depth and one quarter of the 1.4kg total weight, but we aren't complaining because this gives it simply enormous staying power. On a heavy workload at full brightness, the T2 ran for an amazing three hours, 25 minutes, and a simply stunning seven hours, 19 minutes on a light workload.

There are two main compromises for compactness, though: screen and keyboard size. Samsung's Q30 has a keyboard almost 7 per cent bigger horizontally across the main keys and a massive 18 per cent vertically, but Sony has still done an admirable job with the T2. The fuller-fingered among the PC Pro eam found it restrictive, and it isn't one you'd choose to type on at the office every day, but with an intelligent layout and smooth key response, it's manageable on the road. Subtle dishing of the keys keeps your fingers in place, and ancillary keys are in the right locations, such as Ctrl bottom-left and Delete top-right. The touchpad and mouse buttons are pleasant to use, and a nice inclusion on a chassis of this size.

More of a surprise is the inclusion of Sony's glossy X-black screen. The theory is that by not scattering light as standard screens do, more of the backlight's output reaches your eyes. The result is brighter images and richer colours, but it also means more reflections - potentially a problem when working for long periods. The T2's 10.6in 1,280 x 768 screen isn't actually that bright, but it's certainly crisp, and reflections aren't troublesome except in movies with dark scenes. The only real disappointment was some shadowing created by uneven backlighting.

In such a portable device, it's nice to see great protection behind the display. Build quality elsewhere is less convincing, with a degree of flexing and creaking from the casing in various places, but the underlying structure is solid enough.

In such a tiny frame, port selection can often be limited, but all the essentials are here. A 56K modem and 10/100 Ethernet connectors sit behind the DVD drive on the right, while the left is blessed with two USB 2 ports, one mini-FireWire, D-SUB, a Type I/II PC Card slot and a Memory Stick PRO reader (which also supports the Duo format). Round the front, you'll find a reassuring on/off switch for the 802.11b/g wireless LAN, volume controls for the surprisingly loud speakers and a button to launch a graphic equaliser. There's also a Bluetooth wireless adaptor inside.

Above the keyboard are some media-control buttons, although there's no instant-on function. They work well with the supplied WinDVD software, and when that's not running they launch Sony's VAIO Zone interface. This is similar to Microsoft's Windows Media Center, but it's far from impressive: VAIO Zone didn't play MP3s from a CD and was fussy about which DVDs it accepted; and content played from your hard disk must be stored in D:Contents; plus, there's no remote control.

because the 1.2GHz ULV Pentium M 753 had little bother turning our benchmarks around with an overall score of 1.22. It's one of the new CPUs released with Intel's Sonoma, although it's paired with an 855GME chipset and runs with a 400MHz front side bus. The T2 uses Intel's integrated Extreme Graphics 2 video chipset, which dynamically shares up to 64MB of system RAM, so any serious 3D gaming is off the agenda.

The memory used, 512MB of PC2700 DDR SDRAM, is fixed to the motherboard, but there's an empty slot beneath the keyboard in which you can install up to 512MB. It's not difficult getting the keyboard off (another sign of the good design) and Sony has a tutorial on its www.vaio-link.com site.

There's no denying this is a fantastic piece of hardware, but it's more specialised than Samsung's Q30. The latter could be used as your only PC at a pinch, whereas the T2 needs a bigger screen and keyboard in the office, driving up the cost. Thankfully, Sony has a docking station that will make connecting and disconnecting easier. For the habitual airport traveller, though, it's a godsend - if you're after the ultimate in portability, the T2 is the most practical option we've seen.

What's next after Blu-ray?

What's next after Blu-ray?
- I think that Blu-ray will suceed in becoming mainstream but never get as big as DVD. I also think that it will be the last big mainstream physical media. It is almost certainly the last disk based media. There will be more layers for backups and computer use but thats it.
The next one will be holographic blocks or something. It will not just be for movie watching, it will run programs like virtual girlfriends like on The 6th Day or tennis instructors like in Total Recall. There will be a vitual chef projected into the kitchen helping you make recipies etc. There will be a blackmarket for specialty stuff like sex programs with your favorite actress's head pasted on the holographic matrix. Then come the feedback gloves and other sicko attachments for long distance relationships. Virtual phone calls. In a few decades hell we could have full fledged holodecks.

Sony VAIO Business Notebooks

Sony VAIO Business Notebooks

Don't Let Their Good Looks Deceive You

Sony VAIO F Series Notebook

Wherever you go, the name Sony always attracts attention.  It’s the brand most associated with quality audio, rich video, and true fidelity.  If you demanded the same high quality construction, world-class performance, and captivating style from a business computer as you expect from Sony for home audio, HDTV, gaming, and portable media, what would you expect?

Go ahead, give it some thought.  In your mind, rip off the plastic nameplate from your business PC, and substitute Sony.  What happens to it next?

You expect a versatile, adaptable device that fits your work style.  You anticipate the power and performance to move your business desktop with you into the conference room, onto the airplane, in your hotel room, and out in the open.  You want a machine you enjoy, but also one you can trust.

You want a machine that’s less theirs, and more yours.

Sony VAIO Work Style

If your business computer bears the name Sony, you expect connectivity.  You expect the thing you do after you turn it on is to be there, not wait.

Take a look at Sony VAIO Z Series.  Okay, sure, you’ve already done that, and you’re impressed.  But let’s peek under that gorgeous one-piece milled aluminum chassis.  VAIO Z Series offers unparalleled connectivity, powered by an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 WiFi adapter

from - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sony-vaio-notebook-laptop,2870.html