Archive for March 18th, 2008Many readers are sending in word that Arthur C. Clarke has died in Sri Lanka. He wrote over 100 books including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama, and popularized the ideas of geosynchronous communications satellites and space elevators. Read more of this story at Slashdot. Lucas123 writes “The University of Michigan’s Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology (COM-BAT) is working on building a robot bat that would perform long-range reconnaissance for the U.S. Army, but U.Mich is currently struggling with miniaturizing components in order to make the bat small enough to be stealthy. ‘The focus is to shrink down many electronics that while currently available would only be good if the US Army wanted, state, a 12-foot spy-bat.’ Some components need to be 1,000 times smaller than they currently are. The Army’s $10 million allow proposal calls for the bat to be six inches in length, weigh four ounces and use just one watt of power. The bat is supposed to be powered by a lithium-ion battery, charged by solar and wind energy, as well as easy vibrations.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Discussion of Internet Addiction as Mental Illness ResurfacesPosted by: in Life and ScienceLone Writer writes “The editorial section of the American Journal of Psychiatry for March offers the thought that Internet addiction is a ‘compulsive-impulsive’ disorder, and should be added to the official guidebook of disorders. The editorial characterizes net addiction as including ‘excessive gaming, [online] sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging’. From the article: ‘Like other addicts, users experience cravings, urges, withdrawal and tolerance, requiring more and better equipment and software, or more and more hours online, according to Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr. Block states people can lose all track of time or neglect “basic drives,” like eating or sleeping. Relapse rates are high, he writes, and some people might need psychoactive medications or hospitalization.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. Filed under: Products and services, Apple Inc (AAPL), Dell (DELL)
Even worse, it seems that the first crop of these PCs isn’t living up to the hype. The one saving grace is that an SSD-equipped laptop is silent — but the speed gains and performance that would be the main selling points are just not there. And while Dell has been the largest proponent of the SSD laptop, Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is also taking orders for Mac laptops with SSD drives. Other manufacturers might follow. Reports say that a “computer manufacturer” is seeing a return rate of SSD-equipped laptop PCs of 20% to 30%. This is due to a high failure rate. Is the $900 price premium just not slicing the mustard? Probably not. The combination of slow performance and outright failure is said to be responsible for the high return rate of SSD laptop PCs, and this is probably not sitting well with Samsung Electronics, which makes the SSD drives inside these laptop PCs. Although nothing is perfect out of the gate, didn’t OEMs like Dell and Apple test (and test and test) these newer SSD devices extensively in multiple scenarios before allowing these products to be sold inside their own products? From reading this, that’s hard to believe.
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2008
Wal-Mart saves Americans over $1 billion on prescriptions?Posted by: in Products and ServicesFiled under: Products and services, Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising
The retailer reported that it has “saved” customers nationwide more than $1 billion, with the top “savings” states being Texas at $132.6 million; Florida at $72.4 million; North Carolina at $48.2 million; and Georgia at $42.3 million. Wal-Mart also reported that nearly 30% of those prescriptions are filled by customers without insurance. But my question is this: how is Wal-Mart measuring this amount? Sure, one can say that the difference between an average generic prescription drug price and the newer $4 rate equals this amount — and call it a “savings.” That’s probably the way this is being measured, and I don’t see a problem with that. In addition to that, Wal-Mart forced the hand of competitors to lower these generic prescription prices as well. Will Wal-Mart use more than a press release to let customers know about this? Let’s hope so — because it lets too many good PR opportunities slip by without due promotion. This one is a biggie. Not many candidates for the U.S. Senate are 4′9″ tall and only have one hand. But Oregon Democrat Steve Novick qualifies on both counts — and uses them as pluses in his Television ads. Like this one, where he shows why he’s the best beer-drinking partner among all the candidates. Or this one, where it’s obvious why he’s for “the tiny guy.” Also, as far as we know, he’s the only candidate this year for any major office who has his own brand of beer. And his on the web campaign manager is a major Slashdot junkie, too, which is certainly in his favor. But will humor and oddness get Steve into the Senate? We don’t know. So ask him. In fact, ask him anything else you’d like about campaigning and politics. He’s promised to respond, and seems like the kind of guy who will give interesting answers, at that. (Please follow Slashdot interview rules, as always.) Read more of this story at Slashdot. S1mmo+61 writes “Salon is examining a Time Magazine article today, a piece that essentially claims Americans don’t care about the domestic spying. The analysis of the Time magazine piece (which is longer than the article itself) is interesting, if only as a swift history of domestic spying in the last eight years. ‘Time claims that “nobody cares” about the Government’s increased spying powers and that “polling consistently supports that conclusion.” They don’t cite a single poll because that assertion is blatantly false. Just this weekend, a new poll released by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University proves that exactly the opposite is true. That poll shows that the percentage of Americans who believe the Federal Government is “very secretive” has doubled in the last two years alone (to 44%)’” Read more of this story at Slashdot. ideonexus writes “The Pew group has released its annual study into the state of news media. They conclude that science and technology content is a rare treat for cable newscast viewers; some five hours of programming could pass with the average viewer seeing only one minute of science news coverage.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. Mab_Mass writes “Widespread space tourism is getting closer to reality, reports the BBC. In fact, Aerospace company EADS sees that sector of the tourism market being so lucrative that it will need a ‘production line’ of rockets to satisfy the needs of rich travelers. ‘[EAD’s] market assessment advocates there would be 15,000 people a year prepared to part with some 200,000 euros ( |
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