“Hands Free” EV Charger from Evatran installed at Google Headquarters

Evatran has found its first partner in Google for testing its advanced wireless EV charger, which uses something called "proximity charging" to pump up Googlers' Nissan Leafs and Tesla Roadsters. Instead of using an electrical outlet, the product features a charging pad where vehicles can park for a recharge.

Evatran is testing this technology using a retrofitted short-range Electric Vechiles owned by Google and is working with automakers to integrate its adapter technology at scale by next year. This Plugless Power charging station comprises three main components: the parking block, a control tower that tracks the charge and an adapter that is mounted to individual electric vehicles. When an adapter-equipped car pulls up to the parking space, the block adjusts to align with the adapter and starts charging. However, the Plugless Power stations lose a little bit of energy in the transfer from coil to coil. There are also some uncovered facts on a sale price for the parking block.

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LightSquared ties up with Best Buy for its LTE service

After the announcement providing 4G connectivity to Leap Wireless’s Cricket customers earlier this week; Sanjiv Ahuja, LightSquared Chief Executive, announced Best Buy has signed on as a client for its pending LTE-based nationwide broadband network, on Wednesday during a major talk at the CTIA wireless industry conference in Florida. Mr Ahuja also expects to start testing this service in 2012. At present, Best Buy offers 3G mobile broadband data service using Sprint’s network since last July, and it will be a clever move to 4G networks which offer download speeds at least 10 times as fast as 3G services.

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Microsoft online video rankings jumps from seventh to second place in Comscore's ranking

Microsoft very gently has jumped from seventh place to the second place in online video watching, just in a single month leaving behind its competitor including Hulu, Yahoo, Turner, AOL, and others. Google's websites, which include Youtube, still keep hold of its giant lead over everyone else with 141.1 million unique viewers. Microsoft's website is second in the list with 48.8 million viewers, followed by Yahoo and then Facebook. How Microsoft achieved this position is still unclear, but SFGate observes more traffic preferred Bing Video to search and play video clips.

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Posted in: Internet

Monirobo in action at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. to help monitor radiation risks

Monirobo (monitor robot), measuring 32 inches long by 52 inches high, and weighing in at approximately 590kg, has been deployed to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station this week to monitor areas of the site that have become so contaminated with radiation and is unsafe for humans. Red Monirobo is the first non-human responder to go on-site and said to be operated remotely from a distance of about 1km at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The other Monirobo, which is yellow in color is more specialized and comes equipped with excavation tools and sensors for flammable gas will soon join its counterpart Red Monirobo in this operation.

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Posted in: Robots

World’s first Gemlike 3D microscope lens developed

Allen Yi and Lei Li from Ohio State University have developed a single fixed lens that allows microscopes to capture three-dimensional images. Earlier with the help of 3D microscopy, it required the use of multiple lenses, or a single camera that moves around the subject; however this new gemlike 3D microscope has one lens that’s fixed in place on an existing microscope. The prototype lens looks like a gem cut for a ring, and is about the size of a fingernail.

Subject to its commercialization, this lens can then be used in the manufacturing of microelectronics and medical devices, for medical testing, and to replace more complex machine vision system.

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Posted in: Science

ICANN’s nod to .xxx domains for porn sites

On 18 March 2011, ICANN voted 9-3 to get approval of .xxx domain. The name .xxx (known as "dot triple-X") is inspired by the former Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) "X" rating, now commonly applied to pornographic movies as "XXX". The approval grants ICM Registry’s .XXX web suffix with the same rights as .com, .net, .co.uk and other TLDs. The only difference being that as a sponsored TLD, .XXX domain names will only be available to the adult entertainment industry. The contract will require anyone registering a .XXX domain to complete an application process endorsed and overseen by the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR).

For consumers, it will provide benefits like more protected from the risk of viruses, identity theft, credit card fraud and inadvertent exposure to child abuse images. ICM Registry will offer current intellectual property owners the opportunity to reserve relevant domain names before going to the open market, enabling them to protect their brand names and intellectual property rights within .XXX.

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Posted in: Alt,Internet

WebM Video support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 but still have some underlines unanswered question

IE9 can now play HTML5 video in the newer WebM format. WebM for IE9 is free software that enables support for playing WebM videos in Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. But there are still some unanswered questions regarding how and when Google really make room for the Open Web Standards community to engage? Who bears the liability and risk for consumers, businesses and developers until the legal system resolves the intellectual-property issues? Still with these pending issues, IE9 is the only browser offering support to both formats (industry-standard H.264 format and the newer WebM format) directly.

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Posted in: Internet,Software