Gizmorama - October 24th, 2012
Good Morning,There has been quite a few stories about stars, planets, solar systems and space in the last few issues. It seems to be a rather hot topic recently. To keep this theme going I have story for you about the discovery of a compact and distant solar system. Fascinating stuff!
Learn about this great discovery and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
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Visit and Enjoy: EVTV1.com****-- Apple confirms Oct. 23 introduction event --*CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple has confirmed an Oct. 23 event with "a little more to show you," and tech watchers say they expect the U.S. debut of its smaller iPad Mini tablet. Apple has announced a media event, to be held at the California Theater in San Jose, a much smaller venue than the one used for the iPhone 5 introductory event in San Francisco, Wired reported Tuesday. The iPad Mini is expected to have a 7.85-inch display with a 1024 by 768 resolution and will compete with the similarly sized Kindle Fire from Amazon and Google's Nexus 7. The smaller iPad may have to share the stage with another couple of devices, as a thinner 13-inch MacBook Pro laptop and an upgraded Mac Mini are also being rumored by many tech websites. A German-language website posted an image Saturday of a spreadsheet revealing purported models and pricing for the iPad Mini, ranging from $250 for an 8 gigabyte WiFi model to $550 for a 64 GB model. An 8 gigabyte model with cellular connectivity in addition to WiFi will sell for $350, the Flo's Weblog site said.
*-- EU watchdogs slam Google on privacy --*BRUSSELS - Google Inc.'s privacy practices don't comply with Europe-wide data-protection rules, regulators in 27 European Union countries say. EU privacy watchdog agencies released a report Tuesday urging the Internet giant to give users more control over personal data Google collects from its search engine and other services, The Wall Street Journal reported. "We're asking them to change their policies and practices," said Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of France's privacy regulator CNIL, which headed an investigation into Google's overhaul of its privacy policy conducted in March. Google should offer better information on what it does with users' personal data, the regulators said, inform users of how long it keeps their data, and offer easier ways for users to opt out of having information harvested by Google services. Google will be given several months to implement the changes before individual data-protection regulators start to pursue their own enforcement actions, Falque-Pierrotin said. If Google fails to implement changes within three or four months, "then we'll enter another phase, which will be more contentious," she said. Google has strongly defended its privacy policy. "Our new privacy policy demonstrates our long-standing commitment to protecting our users' information and creating great products. We are confident that our privacy notices respect European law," Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel at Google, said in a statement.
*-- Tiny 'compact' distant solar system seen --*GAINESVILLE, Fla. - U.S. astronomers say they've discovered a tiny distant solar system with five planets orbiting a star at a distance much closer than Earth is to our sun. The multi-planet system is in tight orbit around the star KOI-500, a star about the mass of the sun but only about 1 billion years old, less than one-quarter the sun's age. The five planets in the system, the most tightly packed one discovered yet, range in size from 1.3 to 2.6 times the size of Earth. "All five planets zip around their star within a region 150 times smaller in area than the Earth's orbit, despite containing more material than several Earths," study lead author Darin Ragozzine, a planetary scientist at the University of Florida, said in a statement. "At this rate, you could easily pack in 10 more planets, and they would still all fit comfortably inside the Earth's orbit." These five planets orbit so close the their star their "years," or period of their orbit around the star, are only 1.0, 3.1, 4.6, 7.1, and 9.5 days long, SPACE.com reported. "As the most compact system of a new
compact population of planets, KOI-500 will become a touchstone for future theories that will attempt to describe how compact planetary systems form," Ragozzine said.
*-- Cadillac to introduce electric/gas hybrid --*DETROIT - U.S. automaker Cadillac says it will introduce an electric/gasoline hybrid car similar to the Chevrolet Volt in 2012, dubbed the Cadillac ELR. Based on the Cadillac Converj concept car of 2009, the two-door coupe will contain a T-shaped battery pack and a four-cylinder engine, the same configuration found on the Chevy vehicle, Fox News reported Tuesday. The rechargeable Volt has an all-electric range of 38 miles before switching to the gasoline engine for longer trips. Cadillac has not yet announced range and fuel efficiency targets for the ELR. The Chevrolet Volt has been given an overall Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy rating equivalent to 98 miles per gallon. Slightly more than 16,000 of the $39,995 Volts have been sold, significantly fewer than initial annual sales projections of 45,000. Cadillac has not yet released any ELR pricing figures. The ELR will be built in the same Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant where the Volt is manufactured.
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