New LG GD510 has optional solar panel cover

Good news to fans of solar gadgets, LG’s new mobile phone, the GD510 may appear to look like any LG phone running S-Class UI but in fact its secret lies on its back. The GD510 will apparently have an optional solar panel that will replace the battery cover and can be used to charge the phone’s battery. We are yet to find out how exactly this mechanism will be achieved, but it sounds like this won’t be an accessory you will find on unboxing.

The phone comes with a 3-inch WQVGA touchscreen display with a resolution of 240 x 400, a 3-megapixel camera, and a 8GB of storage space to store your captured pictures or videos. The LG GD510 will be available beginning in mid-October in Europe, it will be interesting to know if this solar panel will in the future be compatible with other currently existing LG phones.

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Michael Jackson's Autopsy

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson's arms were covered with punctures, his face and neck were scarred and he had tattooed eyebrows and lips, but he wasn't the sickly skeleton of a man portrayed by tabloids, according to his autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press.

In fact, the Los Angeles County coroner's report shows Jackson was a fairly healthy 50-year-old before he died of an overdose. His 136 pounds were in the acceptable range for a 5-foot-9 man. His heart was strong with no sign of plaque buildup. And his kidneys and most other major organs were normal.

Still, Jackson had health issues: arthritis in the lower spine and some fingers, and mild plaque buildup in his leg arteries. Most serious was his lungs, which the autopsy report said were chronically inflamed and had reduced capacity that might have left him short of breath.

However, according to the document, the lung condition was not serious enough to be a direct or contributing cause of death.

"His overall health was fine," said Dr. Zeev Kain, chairman of the anesthesiology department at the University of California, Irvine, who reviewed a copy of the autopsy report for the AP. "The results are within normal limits."

Kain was not involved in the autopsy. The full autopsy report has not been released publicly, but the AP obtained a copy.

Jackson died at his rented Los Angeles mansion June 25 after his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, administered the anesthetic propofol and two other sedatives to get the chronic insomniac to sleep, court documents state. Propofol, normally a surgical anesthetic used in operating rooms, acts as a respiratory depressant and requires constant monitoring,

Murray told police he left the room to use the bathroom and phone records show he also made calls for 47 minutes around the time Jackson encountered problems. When Murray realized Jackson was unresponsive, he began frantic efforts to revive him, but Jackson never regained consciousness and was declared dead at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center.

The coroner's office announced last month that Jackson's death was a homicide caused by "acute propofol intoxication," with the other sedatives listed as a contributing factor. They said the standard of care for administering propofol was not met and the recommended equipment for patient monitoring, precision dosing and resuscitation was missing.

Murray is the target of what Los Angeles police term a manslaughter investigation. The decision on criminal charges will come from the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Murray has been interviewed twice by police.

Except for a brief video posted to YouTube, Murray has not spoken publicly since Jackson's death, and his lawyer Edward Chernoff did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. In the video, Murray said: "I told the truth and I have faith the truth will prevail." Chernoff previously has said nothing Murray gave Jackson "should have" killed him.

Jackson was declared dead a little more than two hours after paramedics were called. Evidence of the desperate struggle to save the star was evident on his body. He had chest bruising and cracked ribs from CPR, and a mechanical device known as a balloon pump was inserted into his heart to try to restart it, according to the autopsy report.

Jackson's body was taken by helicopter to the coroner's office where the following morning Chief Medical Examiner Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran and Dr. Christopher Rogers carried out an extensive review and ordered a toxicology screening to look for drugs in his system.

Aside from propofol and the sedatives, the only substances found in his system were the local anesthetic, Lidocaine, sometimes used to numb injection sites and ephedrine, a commonly used resuscitation stimulant.

No other drugs — legal or otherwise — were detected, nor was any alcohol.

Kain said he was surprised that three other sedatives, known as benzodiazepines, were present with propofol. Anesthesiologists sometimes mix one "benzo" with propofol to help put a patient under, but using three increases the danger for the patient.

"People don't mix the benzodiazepines together because they interact with each other and increase the risk of respiratory arrest," Kain said, adding it was likely Jackson first stopped breathing and then suffered cardiac arrest.

The autopsy findings cut off a potential defense for Murray — that Jackson hid serious pre-existing conditions that increased the risk of death from the drugs he willingly took. Even if he did hide a condition such as his weakened lungs, a prosecutor could argue Murray should have detected the condition before administering drugs, said Michael Brennan, a clinical law professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in criminal defense.

"A doctor has some obligation to know what his patient's physical condition is," Brennan said. "The doctor is going to try to substantiate whatever the patient told him ... and not simply rely on a patient's descriptions of his physical condition."

At the time of his death Jackson was preparing for a series of comeback concerts in London. Rehearsals were rigorous and there were questions about whether Jackson would be physically able to hold up.

But aside from his lungs, the autopsy report did not identify any serious physical problems that might have limited Jackson's ability to perform. It also provided details about his physical state from head to toes.

He had a 3/4-inch scar behind his left ear and another apparent scar behind his right ear. He had a scar beside each of his nostrils and another, 4-inch scar on his right shoulder. He had a pair of additional scars about 3-inches long at the base of his neck and smaller scars on his arms and wrist. He also had a small scar near his navel and a 2-inch scar on the right-hand side of his abdomen.

Kain said most of the scars appeared to be from plastic surgery though others, like a scar on the knee, could have been from a medical procedure.

The medical examiner found numerous punctures on both arms and on a knee and ankle. The leg punctures could have been from intravenous therapies not described in the autopsy report, Kain said.

Jackson had several tattoos, all them cosmetic, including dark tattoos in the areas of both eyebrows and under his eyes, and a pink tattoo around his lips.

He was going bald at the front of his head, with his remaining hair described as short and tightly curled. The bald part of his scalp was darkened with what appeared to be a tattoo stretching across the top of his head from ear to ear.

The coroner found depigmentation of his skin around his chest, abdomen, face and arms.

The coroner also found Jackson was actively producing sperm.

Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman April Harding said the investigation was ongoing and she couldn't comment further.

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'Pepeng could be super-typhoon'

Major dams to release water for buffer storage

MANILA - Weather bureau PAGASA on Thursday said typhoon Pepeng (international codename Parma) is forecast to bring more rains and very strong winds in Northern Luzon including Metro Manila once it makes landfall Saturday afternoon.

"There is a big possibility that it will become a supertyphoon. This is a very strong storm, packing winds of 175 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 210 kph. Most likely it will make landfall in the afternoon of Saturday. That is when it is most critical," Nathaniel Cruz, PAGASA director for operations, said in a press briefing.

Cruz said Pepeng is much stronger than last Saturday's tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana), which brought record amounts of rainfall and triggered the worst flooding in Metro Manila in 40 years.

"In terms of wind intensity, Ondoy was only half of the strength of Pepeng. When it made landfall, Ondoy only had winds of 85 kph while Pepeng is 175 kph. However, we cannot really compare the two because it was the rain that was really destructive about Ondoy," he said.

He added: "Our major concern with Pepeng is the disastrous winds - 175 kph to 210 kph. We expect typhoon Pepeng to intensify further as it moves towards northern Luzon."

He said the weather bureau will give a forecast on the typhoon's estimated rainfall intensity before it makes landfall.

As of 10 a.m., the new typhoon was sighted 520 km east of Borongan, Eastern Samar and is moving 24 kilometers per hour in the general direction of Northern Luzon and the Taiwan area.

Cruz said the typhoon is forecast to make landfall over Aurora-Isabela by Saturday morning. It said the typhoon will bring occasional rains over the eastern section of Luzon and Visayas and more frequent rains in Samar and Bicol Thursday afternoon.

Storm Signal no.1 remains hoisted in Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur and Catanduanes, he added.

Similar to 'Reming'

Cruz also likened typhoon Pepeng to super-typhoon Reming (international codename Durian), which killed at least 734 people in the country in 2006.

"This could be like Reming. We are not just talking here about Metro Manila. We are talking of the entire Luzon area where there is probability of devastation in terms of flooding...and wind," he said.

Dr. Susan Espinueva, assistant weather services chief of the Hydro Metrological Division of PAGASA, said major dams in Northern Luzon will be releasing water today until Friday before Pepeng hits.

"All major dams in Northen Luzon wll be releasing water to lower the water level so that when the storm hits, there will be a buffer of storage capacity in our dams and the spillover will not be as severe,' she said.

The government has started preparing more evacuation centers as it anticipates more people to be displaced by the new storm.

Disaster officials fear more rains spawned by the typhoon could trigger another massive flood as streets and drainage systems remain clogged from the tons of debris left by the previous deluge caused by tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana).

As of 6 a.m., the National Disaster Coordinating Council said more than half a million families of 2.50 million individuals have been affected by Ondoy in 11 regions, including Metro Manila and the Calabarzon area in southern Luzon.

It said that a total of 686,699 people are now staying in 726 evacuation centers. It said Ondoy’s death toll has reached 277 and 42 were still missing.

The storm, which also devastated Vietnam and Cambodia, damaged crops and infrastructure worth at least P4.80 billion.



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'Ondoy' death toll hits 246 as 'Pepeng' nears Philippines

Photo released by the Philippine Air Force shows flood victims scampering for relief supplies being dropped by PAF crewmen in San Mateo, Rizal yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines - Swollen rivers and debris-strewn streets yielded more bodies yesterday, bringing the death toll from massive flooding brought by tropical storm “Ondoy” to 246.

As disaster teams sifted through tons of debris in search of bodies – and hopefully survivors – two new storms brewing in the Pacific threatened to complicate relief efforts.

Heavy rain brought by Ondoy (international name Ketsana) inundated the homes of nearly 1.9 million people in Metro Manila and surrounding areas over the weekend, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said yesterday. Nearly 380,000 people have sought shelter in schools, churches and other evacuation centers.

In a press briefing after a Cabinet meeting at the NDCC headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said 101 of the casualties were from Metro Manila.

The biggest number of fatalities in Metro Manila was in Quezon City at 44, followed by Marikina with 26, and Pasig, 17. Five people were reported killed in Valenzuela and three each in Mandaluyong, San Juan, and Muntinlupa.

There were 105 reported deaths in Rizal, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas, 25 in Bulacan and 12 in Pampanga. Three casualties were reported in Kabugao, Apayao and Buguias, Benguet. Thirty-seven people remained missing as of press time yesterday.

The Defense chief said damage to infrastructure was P1.5 billion and to agriculture P888.5 million.

He said the figures are expected to go up. “We’ll get a clearer picture (today),” he said.

“It is a partial damage assessment, definitely. Even opportunity loss to revenues of establishments alone would amount to hundreds of millions at the least per day,” he said.

With the number of affected persons estimated at close to 1.9 million, more evacuation centers have been set up from more than 200 on Sunday to 607 yesterday.

Overwhelmed officials have called for international aid, warning they may not have sufficient resources to withstand two new storms forecasters have spotted east of the country in the Pacific Ocean. One could hit parts of Luzon later this week and the other early next week, although meteorologists say that could change.

Forced evacuation

As two new tropical storms threaten Luzon, President Arroyo ordered “preemptive evacuation” of residents in high-risk areas at the first sign of massive flooding.

Mrs. Arroyo issued the order during the NDCC-Cabinet meeting at Camp Aguinaldo.

“What we have to do here as soon as we know where it (tropical depression) will go, we have to do forced evacuation, preemptive evacuation like what they did in Albay,” Mrs. Arroyo told the Cabinet.

“Many residents said they were warned but it (calamity) did not happen so they ignored it this time,” the President said.

She said local disaster teams as well as the Philippine National Police would supervise the evacuation.

“The other thing is those living along the rivers, and along the hillsides, who should have not been there anyway, should not return to those places anymore,” Mrs. Arroyo said.

She directed Interior Undersecretary Mel Robles to mobilize concerned barangay officials to prevent the return of residents living near high-risk areas such as riverbanks and hillsides.

The Civil Service Commission, for its part, directed heads of government offices and personnel to make their facilities available “for those who need temporary shelter, without compromising security and public service.”

Crackdown on looters

Mrs. Arroyo also ordered the PNP to set up detachments in affected residential areas to prevent looting.

PNP chief Jesus Verzosa said there are enough police patrols for all affected areas, particularly in Metro Manila.

“We assure all our affected residents in the different areas in Metro Manila that the PNP will be there. They will be pre-positioned with mobile cars for easy ID and they will be moving around to provide security to all affected residents,” PNP spokesperson Nicanor Bartolome said. He said even cadets of the Philippine National Police Academy might be asked to assist in securing the affected towns and villages.

Bartolome said the PNP has around 3,500 new recruits and an estimated 800 to 1,000 cadets from the PNPA.

Desperation

Angry flood survivors queued for tinned fish and noodles while another line built for a single toilet at a gymnasium that was turned into an evacuation center in Cainta, Rizal.

On the concrete floor of the covered basketball court, bedraggled children wearing dirty clothes or barely anything at all lay on flattened cardboard cartons, sleeping side-by-side with dogs.

Their parents attempted to build fires with charcoal to cook their meager food rations.

“Get in line!” local official Candy Regavillo barked at the hungry hordes. “Show us some discipline and we will assure everyone gets his or her share.”

Some in the crowd angrily yelled back: “When will we get ours?!”

About 3,000 residents of the depressed neighborhood of San Andres, situated beside a creek in Cainta on the outskirts of Metro Manila, fled to the government gym after floodwaters swamped their homes on Saturday.

“I lined up at 4 a.m. and all I got was a bottle of water,” grumbled 67-year-old grandfather Primo Orcillo at breakfast time, who was barefoot and had the trouser-less child of a missing neighbor with him.

Like many others, Orcillo had missed out on a blue plastic bag of two canned sardines and a pack of noodles designed to sustain each family for an entire day.

“We are very hungry. I haven’t even had coffee,” Orcillo complained.

He said his own daughter was in a different shelter in another part of town, while her husband had gone back to their home to try to salvage what he could.

Even though the food was gone, the lines continued to stretch 250 meters as people hoped more supplies would be delivered.

Some nursing mothers were also asking for infant formula milk, while a top concern was stopping any disease outbreaks that could arise from having so many people crammed together in dirty conditions, officials said.

“We are trying to educate them on proper handling of water and sanitation,” said Cristina Bernaldo, a district social welfare worker. “That’s the most difficult thing to teach.”

Even harder was when 3,000 people had access to just one toilet.

Bernaldo’s boss, Joe Ferrer, summed up the exasperation felt by so many in Cainta and the hundreds of other shelters set up over the past few days.

“We need clothing, food supplies, food rations and medicines,” said Ferrer.

“We don’t know how long we will be able to sustain this,” he said.


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Victims of Tsunami in South Pacific (Samoa)

Victims of the tsunami that swept across the South Pacific had only minutes to escape the deadly waves and in some cases didn't receive alerts of danger, despite years of work to upgrade early-warning systems across the region.

At least 99 people were killed and dozens left missing by the tsunami, which inundated tourist resorts and local villages after a massive 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Samoa early Tuesday morning local time. Disaster authorities warned the death toll could rise significantly over the next few days as the full scale of the disaster – much of which occurred in remote areas – is assessed.

AUDIO

WSJ reporter Patrick Barta discusses the damage from the Tsunami that hit Samoa and the surrounding islands, and the difficulty of assessing the situation in remote areas.

WSJ Topics

Tsunamis
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Associated Press
A boat from Malaloa Marina is seen on the edge of the main highway in the village of Fagatogo in American Samoa.
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News Hub: Tsunami Hits Samoa, Wipes Out Village
1:50
Reporting from Wellington, New Zealand, Dow Jones Newswires' Simon Louisson tells The News Hub at least one village in Samoa was wiped out by a tsunami wave. The wave followed a massive earthquake that struck close to the Pacific Island group.
Fears of further waves generally abated late in the day as relief workers set about treating victims and recovering bodies that were washing up along the shores. Although small waves were measured as far away as Japan, that country withdrew its tsunami warnings by afternoon and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, which monitors possible tsunami threats in the region and issued its own temporary warnings earlier, didn't raise fresh alerts.

The warnings appeared to help prevent injury in some areas. Residents in the Samoan capital of Apia said emergency officials fanned out across the city to warn of the Tsunami Warning Center's first alerts, while staff at Aggie Grey's, a historic hotel along the waterfront, said they quickly moved guests to upper levels to escape danger.

"There were sirens and emergency workers all over the place, pestering people to walk up the hill," said Cherelle Jackson, a resident. But much of the worst danger "was on the other side of the island," she said, and informing residents in those areas, which are less densely populated, was much harder. In some places, she and others said, the messages didn't get through.

Indeed, the fact that many people died in the Samoan islands underscores the most vexing element of planning for tsunamis: Often the biggest challenge isn't knowing when a tsunami is coming, but getting the information out to everyone once the risk arises.

Although Samoa has a system to alert residents by text message, it was unclear if messages went sent out to all parts of the country and residents said some radio stations never interrupted their music. Mobile-phone service is spotty in some rural parts of Samoa, which may have complicated matters. Calls to Samoan government officials were not answered by day's end.

Morison McGregor, a 47-year IT consultant who lives in Denmark, says he and his girlfriend received no official warning after they felt the earthquake while at a resort along the Samoan coast, so they assumed everything was okay. Within ten minutes, though, his girlfriend saw a wave coming and started signaling for the two of them to flee, he said.

"When you looked back you could see a three- to four-meter wall of water behind you," he said. They ran to a hill about 100 to 150 meters away and escaped without major injury, though they lost their passports, laptops and other possessions.

Several other guests were killed, he said, including a Brazilian woman who was staying in an adjacent villa and a three-year old child of a British man there. More than a dozen other residents in the area were killed as well, and the resort was largely destroyed, he said.

"It's easy for us because we can go back home, we can replace our laptops, but people there have nothing," he said.

Experts generally agree that tsunami detection methods have improved significantly over the years through the use of high-tech buoys and other equipment that measure changes in water pressure. Such information is used by scientific centers like the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to alert governments, which then must notify their citizens.

Governments in the South Pacific, meanwhile, have taken their own steps, especially since a massive tsunami hit South and Southeast Asia in December 2004, killing more than 200,000 people. Their efforts have included boosting training of disaster-preparedness staff and identifying more evacuation routes, experts say.


Tsunamis Sweep Samoa
1:28
A series of tsunamis smashing into American and Western Samoa in the Pacific have killed possibly more than 100 people, according to officials. Courtesy Reuters
But many people in Asia and the South Pacific live in remote areas that may not have been listening for radio or phone warnings. The problem was compounded in the case of the latest tsunami because the earthquake occurred so close to land, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Samoa and American Samoa, meaning there was only a matter of minutes before the waves began sweeping ashore.

Many people "did get a warning, as I understand it, but it was a very short time because the earthquake wasn't far offshore," said Bob McMullan, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance in Australia. At least one Australian woman was killed, and six others were missing. "I don't think the tsunami warning failed; I just think there wasn't time for it to have effect," he said, though he added, "we'll have to have a look at whether there was a planning or information problem."

In cases involving earthquakes that are so close to the shore, "the propagation of warnings from official sources" can be "useless," added Sanny Ramos Jegillos a regional crisis prevention and recovery coordinator for the United Nations Development Program in Bangkok. What may be needed, he said, is more training of local communities to teach residents and tourists that they must evacuate to higher ground even without official warnings whenever a strong earthquake occurs.


It remained difficult to get a full reading of the damage due to problems in reaching remote areas by phone or by road. On one Samoan island, a giant boat was found washed ashore alongside a highway, while wetlands were filled with trash and debris. Several tourist resorts reported partial or total destruction.

Hundreds of people in Samoa were being treated for injuries, the Associated Press reported, with many continuing to straggle into treatment centers late in the day, and the Samoa Red Cross said it had opened five temporary shelters to help with the 15,000 people who were affected by the tsunami. At least 63 people were dead in Samoa, and 30 were killed in American Samoa, the AP said, citing local police and other officials.

Authorities in Tonga confirmed at least six people were killed in that nearby island nation, the AP said.

At the Sinalei Reef Resort and Spa, a posh retreat of white sand beaches and bungalows along Samoa's southern coast, a restaurant and pier were severely damaged or destroyed, along with the resort's presidential suite and honeymoon villa, according to a note from management posted on the resort's Web site. The resort said that all guests and staff were safe and relocated to other undamaged resorts and that Sinalei is now closed until further notice. An employee who answered the phone at the resort said staff were too busy to answer additional questions.

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EU sends aid to Asian typhoon victims

Ketsana (Ondoy) ravage in Philippines Killing nearly 250 people

The European Union is sending aid and rapid response teams to several Asian-Pacific countries stricken by a tsunami and a typhoon.

The European Commission has announced 150,000 euros ($219,000) in emergency aid to the Samoan Islands which were hit by a deadly tsunami on Tuesday.

"This initial funding will be disbursed to the International Red Cross Federation ... to assist with primary emergency needs in Samoa," the EU's executive said on Wednesday.

The death toll from the tsunami, which was triggered by an 8.0 magnitude quake off American Samoa in the Pacific Ocean, rose above 100 on Wednesday. At least 77 died in Samoa, over 25 in neighbouring American Samoa and at least six people were killed in nearby Tonga.

"Thankfully the alarm sounded on the radio and gave people time to climb to higher ground. But not everyone escaped," said Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.

Amateur video footage from Samoa showed demolished villages and cars stuck in treetops where they had been hurled by the force of the wave.

Later on Wednesday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre cancelled a tsunami watch for Indonesia, India, Thailand and Malaysia after a second 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

In a separate move, the European Commission announced two million euros ($2.9 million) of emergency humanitarian aid to help the victims of typhoon Ketsana in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
This comes on top of a similar sum provided for the Philippines, the country that was worst hit by the typhoon.
"These initial fast-track funds are for basic emergency needs but we recognise that people may need humanitarian support for some time after this tragedy. We are ready to boost our support further, if required," said EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Karel De Gucht.

Ketsana has killed over 300 people since Saturday, with the Philippines worst hit with up to 246 dead, according to figures released on Wednesday.

The European Commission's humanitarian aid department has deployed a rapid response team to Vietnam where Ketsana has destroyed or damaged an estimated 190,000 homes.

"We need to get help to the affected people as quickly as possible which is why we are mobilising more financial and human resources," de Gucht said.

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Despite tsunami tragedy, Survivor: Samoa to air as scheduled

The Survivor: Samoa cast -- Ashley Trainer, Monica Padilla, Brett Clouser, Natalie White, Jaison Robinson, Marisa Calihan (bottom row, L-R), Erik Cardona, Betsy Bolan, Mick Trimming, Dave Ball, John Fincher, Laura Morett, Russell Swan, Kelly Sharbaugh, Ben Browning, Russell Hantz, Shannon “Shambo” Waters, Elizabeth Kim and Mike Borassi (top row, L-R).

Every so often, harsh reality intrudes on reality TV.

That was never more true than Tuesday afternoon, as word emerged from the South Pacific that a tsunami triggered by a strong undersea earthquake killed at least 28 people on the island nations of Samoa and American Samoa.

Survivor was filmed this past summer on the major island of Upolu, and so the tsunami did not have a direct effect on the program’s production. Upolu was reported to be one of the hardest-hit regions, however.

There was a chance early Wednesday that CBS might pull the episode, out of respect to the tsunami victims, or else broadcast a public service announcement for flood relief.

Survivor: Samoa is broadcast in Canada by Global TV, and is one of this country’s most watched prime-time entertainment programs, with an estimated weekly audience of more than 2.5 million viewers, according to BBM Canada.

Earlier this summer, CBS replaced a repeat episode of CSI: New York set in Athens during the same week out-of-control brush fires threatened much of southern Greece.

In Survivor’s 10-year, 19-edition history, the program’s producers have had a history of supporting charitable causes and relief operations throughout the developing world in countries where the popular reality series was based.

Proceeds from the sale of clothing and artifacts from last year’s Survivor: Gabon were donated to The Alliance for Children’s Rights and Survivor host Jeff Probst’s Serpentine Project. Similarly, proceeds from a commemorative organic cotton Survivor: Gabon T-shirt, designed by U2 singer Bono and his wife Ali Hewson for their socially conscious clothing line Edun Live, were directed to a program promoting sustainable employment throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

Survivor: Samoa is scheduled to air weekly throughout the fall and early winter, until the program’s live finale and reunion show in mid-December. It is possible that, depending on the seriousness of reports emanating from the South Pacific late Wednesday, the production will become actively involved in raising funds for those displaced by the tsunami.

Reports say an 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck the South Pacific region some 190 kilometres southwest of the main Samoan town of Apia at 1748 GMT, generating 4.5-metre waves across both Samoa and American Samoa.

Many of the more remote, far-flung island areas are only a metre or two above sea level. The Red Cross reported that at least 14 people had been killed in both Samoa and American Samoa, according to Agence France-Presse.

There were unconfirmed reports of “bodies everywhere” in a regional hospital on Upolu, according to the BBC.

Despite the apparent seriousness and loss of life from Tuesday’s tsunami, early reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested that the quake contained just three per cent of the energy generated by the December 2004 earthquake that caused the Indonesian tsunami which killed more than 200,000 people in 11 countries.

Barring a last-minute change, Survivor: Samoa is scheduled to air Thursday at 8 ET/PT on both Global and CBS.

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Robot obeys its Master’s thoughts

Of course, I was completely mesmerized when I saw this particular item of interest: a robot that obeys your thoughts.

Stop right there. Is this serious? Apparently so. Inventor Taku Ichikawa of the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo is creating this robot for the Robo-One contest in Toyama, Japan.
The Robo-One is sort of a battlebots style competition, and I suppose that thoughts really are the best interface for that. Unfortunately, this is about all the information my sources have about this.
In other words, I have no idea if the user has to “think real hard” in order to get this robot to move, or if thinking about other things will distract the robot as well as the user.
A thought based interface is probably the best choice for any type of robot manipulation. It’s a lot better than that keyboard that the bad guy used to control Deadpool in at the end of that Wolverine movie. I mean, he has to type in “DECAPITATE” for crying out loud.
However, robots that are controlled by our thoughts? That seems a little too science fiction for me. And if there is one thing that science fiction has taught us is that mind and robots don’t mix.

Source1 and Source2

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Hands on Review of 19-Key USB Numeric Keypad and Optical Mouse

For those who have notebooks or netbooks, you may have noticed a lack of numeric keypad with your particular model. You could probably get a USB numeric keypad if you really wanted one of those, but you are probably going to also have to purchase a mouse.

Why not combine those purchases with the Adesso 19 Key USB Numeric Keypad? In addition to having the number pad, the mouse has 1000 dpi resolution. When I tried it out, it was a lot smoother than my usual mouse.
The keypad has a transparent cover that flips up when in use, and closes conveniently when not needed. The keypad is perfect for quick calculations on the Calculator program, or for more complex accounting calculations for Quicken or Microsoft Money. There is a video of it after the jump if you want to see it in action.
As an added bonus, it has a glowing scroll wheel. The Adesso Keypad mouse is completely driver-free, so it plugs right in, and it is easily recognized.
My only complaint is that I’m not certain why Adesso has a “000″ button on the keypad, as I would have put a “00″ button there. I used to work at a bank, and if you can hit “00″ instead of one zero, it saves time. However, I rarely had to input three zeroes. Clearly, this keypad is made for some big money makers.
The Adesso 19 Key USB Numeric Keypad can be purchased from the Adesso site for about $27.99. More information about it can be obtained here.

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Iran Test-Fires Missiles That Put Israel in Range

PARIS — Locked in a deepening dispute with the United States and its allies over its nuclear program, Iran said Monday that its Revolutionary Guards had test-fired missiles with sufficient range to strike Israel, parts of Europe and American bases in the Persian Gulf.

“Iranian missiles are able to target any place that threatens Iran,” a senior Revolutionary Guards official, Abdullah Araqi, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars news agency.

The reported tests of the medium-range, liquid-fueled Shahab-3 and the solid-fueled Sejil-2 missiles on Monday, as well as short-range missiles on Sunday, came just days after President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain used the disclosure of a previously secret nuclear processing plant under construction in Iran to threaten Tehran with a stronger response to its efforts to enrich uranium.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but many in the West say it is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration is now working to assemble a package of tougher sanctions, which could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil and gas industry as well as restrictions on many more Iranian banks, senior administration officials said Sunday.

The first direct contact in decades between the United States and Iran is scheduled to take place Thursday at international talks in Geneva. Analysts said the launchings might have been intended to give Iranian negotiators the appearance of a stronger hand at the talks.

A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said at a news conference that the missile tests had been planned for some time and were not linked to the nuclear dispute, the state-run, English-language Press TV reported. The report said the tests were part of an effort to improve Iran’s defenses.

Concern about Iranian hostility toward Israel is matched by frequent speculation that Israel might carry out a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

Hassan Qashqavi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Monday that the just-disclosed enrichment facility was in Fordo, a village about 115 miles south of Tehran, and 60 miles from Natanz, the site of Iran’s other enrichment plant, The Associated Press reported. That would place it, as United States officials have said, close to the holy city of Qum.

Less than two weeks ago Mr. Obama canceled a plan from the administration of George W. Bush to station a radar facility in the Czech Republic and 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland as part of what had been described as a shield against potential missile attacks from Iran.

The Obama administration now plans to deploy smaller SM-3 interceptors by 2011, first aboard ships and later in Europe, possibly in Poland or the Czech Republic.

On Sunday, Iran test-fired three short-range missiles with a range of 90 to 125 miles as part of a military exercise named the Great Prophet IV, the state-run television said. Press TV said the tests of the Shahab-3 and Sejil-2 on Monday were also part of the exercise.

An “optimized” Shahab-3 missile has a range of 800 to 1,250 miles, it said. The Sejil-2, a two-stage missile, is more sophisticated than the Shahab-3, although it has a similar range. Parts of western Iran lie some 650 miles from Tel Aviv.

Iran first acquired the Shahab-3 from North Korea. Because the Sejil-2 is powered by solid fuel, experts said, it can be stored in mountains, transported, reassembled and fired on shorter notice, and thus could be harder for Israel or other nations to target.

The military exercise and escalating tensions with the West coincide with a period of political uncertainty in Iran, in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed June 12 election.

On Monday a protest erupted at Tehran University, the first of the new school year and the first since the demonstrations that followed the vote, when opponents accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of falsifying results.

The Revolutionary Guards were essential to safeguarding the president’s victory and led the violent crackdown after the election that opposition leaders say killed at least 72 people.

The force, which also runs the country’s missile program, remains close to Mr. Ahmadinejad and accountable only to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Sunday, in a deal that underlined its expanding economic and political power, the Revolutionary Guards purchased just over 50 percent of Iran’s Telecommunication Company in a $7.8 billion deal.

The Revolutionary Guards, in addition to being part of Iran’s military complex, has in recent years become one of the largest conglomerates in the country. It has been awarded more than 750 construction, oil and gas contracts and has its own ports.

Its political influence has also increased, with many of its members elected to Parliament in 2003 or appointed as cabinet ministers in 2004.

Now, the Revolutionary Guards’ hold on the country’s telecommunications systems will give it further control over land-line, Internet and cellphone services. On election day, the country’s text messaging service was cut off; the cellphone network was disconnected during the unrest that followed. Opposition leaders accused the government of misusing state-run services.

The deal announced Sunday was part of the government’s plan to privatize business sectors. But critics have complained that the government is awarding institutions close to it while the real private sector is excluded. The Revolutionary Guards’ unit involved in the deal competed only with a company affiliated with the Basij, a paramilitary organization that assisted the Revolutionary Guards in putting down the postelection protests.

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