Gizmorama - December 12, 2012

Good Morning,

Looking for a great stocking stuffer? Well, I have it, and the best part this is great for teenagers and adults. It's the IGlove Texting Gloves! These allow you to operate any touch screen smartphone, ATM, or tablet without having to take your gloves off. Everyone should really own a pair of
these. Check them out...

Order Your IGlove Texting Gloves Here

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. EVTV1 is back and better than ever! This video portal was created to weed through the online clutter to bring you the best animal video clips...funniest videos...most popular...PLUS the most unusual. New videos are added daily! It's the future of entertainment available today, all in one place.

Visit and Enjoy: EVTV1.com

***
*-- Mars rover finishes first soil examination --*
GREENBELT, Md. - NASA says its Mars Curiosity rover has used all its instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, finding a complex chemistry but no organics -- yet. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, were detected in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an onboard analytical laboratory inside the rover, the space agency reported Monday. The rover's laboratory includes the Sample Analysis at Mars lab instrument that used three methods to analyze gases given off from the dusty sand when it was heated in a tiny oven. One class of substances SAM checks for is organic compounds -- carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life -- but there's been no sign of them, scientists said. We have no definitive detection of martian organics at this point, but we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater," said SAM principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The soil sample came from a drift of windblown dust and sand called "Rocknest" inside the Gale Crater. The water detected by SAM does not mean the area where the sample was taken was wet, scientists said; water molecules bound to grains of sand or dust are not unusual, although the quantity seen was higher than anticipated. Curiosity is trying to assess whether areas inside the Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbes.


*-- 20 years on, is texting on the way out? --*
NEW YORK - Twenty years after the world's first text message was sent -- reading "Merry Christmas" -- texting technology may be on the way out, U.S. analysts say. Text messages face stiff competition as people with smartphones increasingly turn to email, instant messaging and other mobile messaging services to communicate, they said. "Texting isn't evolving, therefore it's declining," Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told ABC News. "There are way too many alternatives like iMessage, BBM, Facebook chat and Google Chat that are cross-platform [so] texting is a backup now for sophisticated users. Texting is more reliable but is declining as a primary tool." On Dec. 3, 1992, a British engineer working on a project for Vodafone, a European cellular carrier, hit the "send" button on the world's first short message service, or SMS. "It happened that day that Vodafone wanted to try sending a message to Richard Jarvis, one of the directors there, who was at a Christmas party," engineer Neil Papworth said. "So we sat at the computer and typed him a message and then sent him the message 'Merry Christmas,'" "For me it was just another day's testing, it didn't seem to be anything big at the time."


*-- Mars trip radiation said 'survivable' --*
SAN FRANCISCO - Astronauts on a long-term, round-trip mission to Mars would experience radiation exposure levels considered significant but survivable, NASA says. Radiation data gathered by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity -- both on the way to the Red Planet and while on the planet's surface -- suggest astronauts on a two-and-a-half year mission there would receive a total radiation dose of about 1.1 sieverts, the space agency reported. "The rough ballpark average for an astronaut career limit is on the order of a sievert," Curiosity scientist Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., said Monday. Data from instruments on Curiosity show radiation levels on the Martian surface -- about 0.7 millisieverts a day -- are similar to the 0.4 to 1.0 daily millisieverts astronauts in low-Earth orbit encounter, SPACE.com reported. Levels encountered in space during the long trip to Mars would be a greater concern, scientists said. Radiation levels recorded by Curiosity instruments during the 8-month voyage to Mars averaged 1.9 millisieverts a day. "We can survive the Mars surface," Hassler said. "The hard part is the cruise." Hassler made the comments at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.


*-- Smartphone app gives air quality reports --*
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - People with respiratory problems can get an instant up-to-date local report on a key air pollutant with a new free mobile phone app, its U.S. developers say. MobileAQI (Mobile Air Quality Index), developed at the University of Alabama Huntsville, combines data from satellites operated by NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration with other pollution estimates to give app users an accurate and reliable report on fine particulates in the air, the researchers said. Fine particulates are defined as particles no bigger than 2.5 microns. "That is the size that is most efficient at getting into your lungs," atmospheric science Professor Udaysankar Nair said. "The population most at risk is the elderly, especially people with respiratory problems, although this could be of use to children or anyone with serious respiratory problems, such as bad asthma." The app, available for both Android and iPhone systems, provides a quick reading on local particulate levels, a university release said, with an estimate of current conditions and air quality forecasts hour-by-hour as much as 24 hours in advance. The app's coverage area includes most of the eastern United States from the tip of Florida as far north as Milwaukee and from the Atlantic Ocean as far west as the border between Kansas and Colorado, the researchers said.

***
Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives