Archive for November, 2009

Considering Plastic Surgery?

I know that there are many men and women out there who suffer from a lack of confidence due to not liking something about their body. For many women the area of their body that they dislike the appearance of the most is their breasts. For some this may be due to a size issue (either considering them to be too small or too big) or due to the sagging that often occurs after pregnancy and breast feeding. If you are one of these women, you may be considering having a breast augmentation surgery performed, such as breast implants.

We all know how popular breast implants have become however if you are considering such an operation you should take the time to find a qualified physician that has lots of experience with breast augmentation procedures.  If you are interested in learning more about breast implants then I would suggest visiting the lookingyourbest.com website where you will find an abundance of information.

Eek, Woman Loses Benefits After Facebook Fiasco!

Wow, people really need to start being a little (or a lot) more careful about what they post on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, especially if they want to keep their insurance benefits! I say this because today I read that a Canadian woman recently had her unemployment benefits terminated by her insurance company due to pics they saw on her Facebook page. The woman was on a leave of absence from work due to depression, however photos on her Facebook page showed her out having fun at parties. She says she was engaging in Doctor recommend activities in order to help alleviate her condition, and the insurance companies claims that the pics paint a picture of her being in good health.

Regardless who is right or wrong, it sure makes me realize just how public social networking sites are, and that photos or words we post can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people.

iPhone App Analyzes Baby Cries

A new application for the iPhone application is intended to analyze the crying of babies for its meaning. The
technology looks at tone and cry lengths to see if it can decipher whether a baby is  sleepy, annoyed, hungry,stressed or bored. It even provides suggestions on what to do in each case. The 5 cry types are universal, whether a baby is from North America, Asia, etc’. It has been reported that the application development time was 6 years and has been independently verified by the pediatric department of Clinic Hospital Juaneda Menorca.

Each cry takes about 10 seconds to record and analyze, and has a 90% accuracy rate during these tests involving 104 infants. The cost for the app is $9.99 in Apple’s App Store.

New Super Collider Problem Caused by Bird

The Hadron Collider has suffered another setback. This is a $7.3 billion machine located 100m below ground in the country of Switzerland, is supposed to replicate the environment that existed during the Big Bang. The latest problem came when a bird dropped a “bit of baguette.

As a result, parts of the machine, which launches protons through a 17-mile-long tunnel at near light speeds, resulted in overheating. The incident was discovered when interested individuals who had looked at the machine data published on the web and noticed the temperature changes, contacted journalists.

Previous problems included a large amount of helium leaking into the tunnel. Some scientists even asserted that this is nature’s way of telling humanity to stop meddling with it by sabotaging the machine.

Growing Gaming Addiction in Australia

A Sydney University professor of psychiatry and gaming addiction expert Vladan Starcevic is advocating the opening of rehab center for video game addicts. The first such facility has already opened in London. The London facility uses a 12-step program to stop the addiction, including some group therapy, self-help tapes and videos in addition to involving therapeutic chores such as vacuuming and recreational activities.

A recent online poll by Dr. Starcevic showed that up to one in ten gamers indicated addiction behaviour. The professor began being interested in the topic once he noticed more of his patients exhibiting the warning signs. It turns out that 70% of gamers who are showing the signs are playing for more than 4 hours every single day.

Best Buy to Offer Movies Online

Best Buy is attempting a new way of luring customers away from DVD shelves and into having them rent or buy movies using Internet broadband access. The company is collaborating with CinemaNow, which already formed deals with several movie studios.

The software application will allow user to shop at the CinemaNow video library through a device purchased at a Best Buy store. This would allow consumers the ability to download the movies on the same day they become available on DVD.

This move introduces 2 benefits, that of essentially stepping away from the DVD format and makes it easier for consumers to get a hold of home entertainment. Companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have introduced their own digital delivery systems.

North Korea has Cyberattack Capabilities

Cyberattacks by North Korea have been found to cause Internet outages both the US and South Korea during the summer. The South Korea spy agency disclosed the IP addresses, leased from China and used by the North Korean Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.

The cyberattacks took place in July and consisted of denial of service, which imitates many computers attempting to access a single website or server simultaneously. This resulted in outages on major government-run websites in the US and South Korea., including the American White House and the South Korean’s presidential Blue House.

North Korea was the clear suspect from the beginning but no clear evidence was available until now. According to the South Korean media, the North has an Internet warfare division, employing up to 1000 experts for hacking into U.S. and South Korean military targets, designed for collecting sensitive data and interrupt service.

An air force commander from China has recently stated that a space arms race is all but inevitable. The commander Xu Qiliang proclaimed it was essential for China to produce operations that are both offensive and defensive when it comes to its space endeavours.

It is important to note that having superiority in space can would allow a given country a greater military strategic advantage and control over land and sea war zones anywhere on earth. The government of China has proclaimed for a long time that it intends to explore outer space for peaceful purposes and not to weaponize its space missions. It has even gone further when it called for the establishment of an international treaty for controlling the deployment of space weapons. It is important to mention that in early 2007, China had shot down one of its weather satellites, surprising many in the space and military fields and increasing worries of a space arms race.

NBA to Offer Live Games via Mobile

The NBA is ready to offer complete live coverage of basketball games on mobile devices. The cost is estimated at an affordable $40 a year. The NBA coverage for wireless devices was only available as game highlights, whereas it was already possible to view full games on PCs(and of course TV). Attendance for NBA league games reached 21.5 million in 2008 and almost 60 million mobile devices in the U.S. should be capable of receiving the new offering of 40 live games each week.

Live major League Baseball games have been available for iPhone since June and the National Hockey League has been offering the mobile version in Canada, but not the US yest. The NFL allows certain DirectTV customers to view live games on their wireless devices. The NBA application will also allow digital video recording for pausing and rewinding 30 seconds of action and still be able to view the games with 2 days. Game stats will also be available while viewing the games.

This mobile news really got me thinking about how amazing it is that we can do so many things with our cell phones these days. I mean, it wasn’t even so many years ago that we had those big “brick” style cell phones. Times have sure changed fast!