eBay

If you've ever sold something on eBay, you may have been pleased to receive positive feedback from the buyer. Multiply that by a million, and you can imagine how Jack Sheng feels. Sheng, 33, owns Los Angeles-based Eforcity Corp., which has been selling electronics accessories on the online auction site since he started his business in 2000 with two childhood friends.

In the past two months, four separate eBay user IDs that belongs to Sheng and his company each got more than 1 million feedback points. No one else on eBay has come close.
EBay sellers can get a positive feedback point from a buyer by sending items quickly, having them arrive as advertised and helping to solve any issues that come up. Those positive customer points are offset by any negative ratings the seller receives.

Sheng realized about six months ago that Eforcity would probably hit the 1 million feedback marks this year. "It's a great morale booster for our employees," he said.

Sheng is a ways ahead of the No. 2 feedback holder on eBay, a DVD and CD seller with a score of about 754,000.

Source: (2008, November 13). eBay seller reaches million-point milestone. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from www.cnn.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/11/13/ebay.million.seller.ap/index.html

Mumbaii;

Terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India, social media sites like Twitter were inundated with a huge volume of messages. More than 6 million members worldwide, an estimated 80 messages, or "tweets," were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds. Many Twitter users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in Mumbai where doctors were faced with low stocks and rising casualties. Others sent information about helplines and contact numbers for those who had friends and relatives caught up in the attacks. Twitter user wrote: "Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action." People were sending in messages about what they were hearing. There were at least five or six blogs from people who were trapped, or who were very close to what happened. Someone tweets a news headline, their friends see it and retweet, and creates a circle of endless information recycled.

Source: Busari, Stephanie (2008, November 28). Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from www.cnn.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/mumbai.twitter/index.html

New rifts form on Antarctic ice shelf

Scientists have identified new rifts on an Antarctic ice shelf that could lead to it breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula, the European Space Agency said. a large sheet of floating ice south of South America, is connected to two Antarctic islands by a strip of ice is called the Wilkins ice shelf. A satellite image captured November 26 shows new rifts on the ice shelf that make it dangerously close to breaking away from the strip of ice. Scientists first spotted rifts in the ice shelf in late February, and they noticed further deterioration the following week. Wilkins is the size of the state of Connecticut or about half the area of Scotland. It is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened.Scientists say that, if the ice shelf breaks away from the peninsula, it will not cause a rise in sea level, because it is already floating.

Source: (2008, November 29). New rifts form on Antarctic ice shelf. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from www.cnn.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/antarctic.ice.shelf.collapse/index.html

Ichan boosts Yahoo stake

Yahoo Inc.'s search for a new chief executive, activist investor Carl Icahn has bought up close to 7 million additional shares of the Internet company. Icahn, a billionaire hedge-fund manager who threatened to oust Yahoo's board this summer after it rejected a deal with Microsoft Inc., snapped up about $67 million worth of shares over three days this week. Icahn bought 6.8 million shares for an average of $9.92 each in three batches from Monday through Wednesday, bringing his total stake to 75.6 million, or nearly 5.5% of the company. Icahn has been among the loudest voices arguing for a new direction at Yahoo. He threatened to nominate a new slate of directors after the Sunnyvale, California, company rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft this summer. Yahoo gave him a seat on its board and two other slots for members of his choosing. Yahoo shares closed Wednesday at $10.58, down about 65%, from a 52-week high of $30.25.

Source: (2008, November 28). Icahn boosts Yahoo stake. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from www.cnn.com Web site: http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/28/technology/icahn_yahoo.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008112809

Space Shuttle ready to come back to Earth

The astronauts have accomplished their work in orbit. Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts got the green light to return to Earth, but were warned about the weather at the main land siting could keep them away for another day or send them across the country. Mission Control informed the seven astronauts that Endeavour had been cleared for re-entry following analysis of data beamed down from a final thermal survey of their ship. The space shuttle was not found in any serious defects caused by space junk that could jeopardize the descent.Endeavour originally was supposed to land Saturday, but mission managers kept the astronauts at the space station an extra day to help with the balky urine processor. The weather was beautiful Saturday at kennedy space center, but a cold front was expected to bring stiff wind and possibly thunderstorms on Sunday and even worse conditions on Monday.

Source: 2008, November 29). Shuttle ready to come down to Earth. Retrieved November 29, 2008, from www.cnn.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/11/29/space.shuttle.ap/index.html

Pentagon Clears Flying-Car Project for Takeoff

Pentagon mad-science division Darpa is helping build thought-controlled robotic limbs, artificial pack mules, real-life laser guns and "kill-proof" soldiers. So it comes as no surprise, really, that the agency is now getting into the flying-car business, too.
Darpa hopes its "Personal Air Vehicle Technology" project, announced yesterday, will ultimately lead to a working prototype of a military-suitable flying car -- a two- or four-passenger vehicle that can "drive on roads" one minute and take off like a helicopter the next. The hybrid machine would be perfect for "urban scouting," casualty evacuation and commando-delivery missions, the agency believes.Flying cars have been a just-around-the-corner promise for decades, of course. Today, several companies swear that they are just on the verge of manufacturing such machines. Terrafugia claims its folding-wing mini-plane will be ready to deliver by 2009. Pal-V has a three-wheeled gyrocopter thingy. Urban Aeronautics promises to do the whole thing without any wings or rotors at all. And let's not even get into the personal flying saucers.
Darpa says its Cessna-sized combo vehicle should be able to cruise at 60 mph on land, and 150 mph in the air. It should be able to stay aloft for two hours on a tank of fuel. "The challenge," the agency says, "is to define the major components of such a vehicle that would be suitable for military scouting and personnel transport missions, yet are small enough, inexpensive enough, and easy enough to operate that it can be widely used."
To make the flying car work, Darpa believes, makers will have to use "morphing wings" to ease the transition from road to sky; "optimized disk loading" propulsion, "for the combined fly/drive mission"; and strong flight control software. Darpa isn't making an enormous commitment to the flying car, just yet. This is a project aimed at small business; contracts of this type are typically under a million dollars per year. But maybe, with a small Pentagon push, the flying car dream could finally clear the ground.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/darpas-flying-c.html

Find your Neighbour's Videos Online!

The YouTube team released an example mashup that merges Gears geolocation and the video geo search. Using the demo application, you can find nearby videos based on your location, maybe even your neighbor’s Firefly tribute movie.
The technology grabbing the videos is YouTube’s new geotag searchable API. With a latitude/longitude pair and a keyword, the service spits back a list of videos.
So, where do those coordinates come from? YouTube’s example uses Google Gears’ new geolocation feature. There are a few different implementations, and a developing standard for accessing location. My JavaScript geolocation tutorial covers the bases, including the similar Geode plugin baked into the next version of Firefox.
The best part about the example application is that the source code is available. I wish everyone did this. It sure makes picking up new technologies easier.

http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Find_Your_Neighbor_s_Videos_Online

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Phones On A Diet!

Ever since the release of the Motorola Razr in late 2004, the trend of the superskinny phone has taken the country by storm. Fashionable, sexy, and easily portable, slim phones are still popular today. Many handsets have since superseded the Razr in the skinny phone department, however. For example, the Samsung SGH-A727 is quite possibly the thinnest phone we've ever seen, at 0.35 inch. If you're a fan of slider phones, the Helio Mysto, which is a CDMA version of the Samsung U600, measures only 0.43 inch thick. For music phone fans, the Sony Ericsson W350a is only 0.4 inch, while the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music is 0.41 inch. If you're into texting, the Pantech Slate claims to be the world's thinnest messaging phone at 0.39 inch thick. But if you're really more of a smartphone person, the Motorola Q9c is one of a few slim Windows Mobile phones at only 0.4 inch thick.


http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6454_7-6509001.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0