Samsung’s new 3DTVs get an early eyes-on, through $150 shutter glasses – “Firsthand impressions outside the CES crucible are flowing in following the worldwide launch of Samsung’s new LCD 3DTVs. UK publications have gotten up close with production versions of the new HDTVs, TechRadar observed the Monsters vs. Aliens Blu-ray disc packed in with the new displays over there plus the 2D-to-3D conversion feature, reporting the latter worked better on sports footage of ice skaters but caused “disconcerting” effect on news broadcasts…”

Huge New Dinosaur Found via “Mind-boggling” Skulls – “Four skulls of a giant new species of plant-eating dinosaur may give scientists a head start on understanding the biggest animals ever to have walked the Earth, a new study says…”

Photo: Armadillo-like Crocodile Fossil Found in Brazil – “An ancient crocodile with armadillo-like body armor (above, a reconstruction of the fossil in an undated picture) roamed the arid interior of Brazil about 90 million years ago, say researchers who found the fossil in São Paolo state…”

A curvy body’s like a drug to men – “Watching a curvaceous woman can feel like a reward in the brain of men, much as drinking alcohol or taking drugs might, research now reveals…”

TigerText: An iPhone App for Cheating Spouses? – “Tiger Woods, if you’re reading this, remember that you’ve been through what mothers call a “valuable learning experience” and you’re probably a “better man for it” and so on. Having said that, an iPhone app that launched on Feb. 25 could totally have saved your hide…”

Tiny Chip Made of Paper Diagnoses Diseases and Costs Just a Penny – “Existing lab-on-a-chip designs can put the power of testing in the palm of your hand, but an upcoming model may represent the cheapest and most colorful one yet. A Harvard University chemist has created a prototype “chip” technology out of paper that could help diagnose HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases for just a penny each time, according to CNN…”

The Present and Future of Unmanned Drone Aircraft: An Illustrated Field Guide – ” Inside the wild kingdom of the world’s newest and most spectacular species of unmanned aircraft, from swarming insect ’bots that can storm a burning building to a seven-ton weaponized spyplane invisible to radar…”

Spy cameras won’t make us safer – “Pervasive security cameras don’t substantially reduce crime. This fact has been demonstrated repeatedly: in San Francisco, California, public housing; in a New York apartment complex; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in Washington; in study after study in both the U.S. and the U.K. Nor are they instrumental in solving many crimes after the fact…”

The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work – “But, in all the writing and bitching on the topic, everyone seems to be missing the most significant detail of this new system. Everyone always assumes that all DRM will be broken immediately and pirated versions will appear instantly and anti-hacker measures never work. But this system (and I know saying this will immediately get me written off as an idiot, but bear with me) is the one that will finally do a good enough job of holding off pirates. It won’t hold them off forever (I think) but it will hold them long enough for the game to get its sales…”

‘Explicit’ category rumoured to be coming to App Store – “Apple is thought to be considering introducing a new category to its App Store, as the row over ‘overtly sexual’ apps rumbles on …”

Searching for Saddam – A five-part series on how the U.S. military used social networking to capture the Iraqi dictator. – “The war in Iraq will always be remembered for the failures of intelligence that preceded it and the insurgency that bedeviled coalition forces long after President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations. Amid all that disaster, the capture of Saddam Hussein has become a forgotten success story. It’s an accomplishment that wasn’t inevitable. In a five-part series that begins today, I’ll explain how a handful of innovative American soldiers used the same theories that underpin Facebook to hunt down Saddam Hussein. I’ll also look at how this hunt was a departure in strategy for the military, why its techniques aren’t deployed more often, and why social-networking theory hasn’t helped us nab Osama Bin Laden…”

Mechanical devices stamped on plastic – “Microelectromechanical devices gave us the Wii and the digital movie projector. MIT researchers have found a new way to make them…”

23,000 now expected to lose jobs after shuttle retirement – “That sum includes 9,000 “direct” space jobs and — conservatively speaking — 14,000 “indirect” jobs at hotels, restaurants, retail stores and others that depend on activity at the space center, said Lisa Rice, Brevard Workforce president…”

WEATHER: HOTTEST JANUARY EVER SAY CLIMATE EXPERTS – “At the height of the big freeze, the entire country was blanketed in snow. But Australian weather expert Professor Neville Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne, said yesterday: “January, according to satellite data, was the hottest January we’ve ever seen…”

Arctic Sea Ice: Heat Shield – ” Three decades of satellite records show ongoing decline in Arctic sea ice. The images here contrast 1979, the first year of this record, with 2007, the year the ice reached its minimum extent so far. This melting appears to be a symptom of climate change: over the same period, the Arctic warmed more than any other region on the planet as large…”

Piecing together the temperature puzzle – “Each year, scientists at NASA’S Goddard Institute for Space Studies analyze global temperature data. The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year since global instrumental temperature records began 130 years ago. Worldwide, the mean temperature was 0.57°C (1.03°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 base period. And January 2000 to December 2009 came out as the warmest decade on record…”

Vast Antarctic iceberg ‘threatens marine life’ – “The calving of the iceberg, which has an estimated mass of 700-800bn tonnes, has changed the shape of the local geography, Dr Young explained.”

Scientist eyes 39-day voyage to Mars – ” A journey from Earth to Mars could soon take just 39 days, cutting current travel time nearly six times, a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency NASA has said…”

Leaked Microsoft intelligence document: Here’s what Microsoft will reveal to police about you – “I’ve got my hands on a copy of the leaked, confidential Microsoft “Global Criminal Compliance Handbook,” which details for police and intelligence services exactly what information Microsoft collects about users of its online services, and how they can be accessed. What is gathered and available about you is quite comprehensive, including your emails, detailed information about when you sign in and use the services, credit card information, and so on…”

Is the Recovery Act Stimulating Science and the Economy? – “So far, $9.3 million for researchers building robotic bees, $1.3 million to hunt for viruses that infect single-celled organisms, and $845,000 to study past climate change in Russia has been doled out. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been able to fund thousands of new research projects with money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), aka the economic stimulus package, which was passed a year ago today…”

The 12 Biggest Ripoffs in America – “Many of us feel ripped off in our day to day spending, so much so that bringing up even a single rip-off story in a group of people is likely to trigger a flood of them from everyone else. Whether it’s at the movies, in restaurants or on vacation, we seldom believe we are getting as much for our money as we ought to. Of course, some rip-off stories are more debatable than others. Often times, what is called a ripoff is little more than someone’s subjective opinion of what they “really” deserve for their money, whatever that means. However, other purchases actually do appear, by all objective criteria, to be a raw deal just about all the time. Today, BillShrink analyzes some common ripoffs as mentioned recently by CNN Money, that most of our readers are likely to be well acquainted with…”

IBM announcing crazy algorithm in Seattle – ” “The new method was tested on the fourth largest supercomputer in the world and what would normally have taken a day, was crunched in 20 minutes. In terms of energy savings, the analysis required 700 kilowatts total, compared with 52800 kilowatts total.”"

On Fox News: Shep Smith Obliterates GOP Healthcare Talking Points – “Republican Sen. John Thune was on Fox News’ Studio B program trying to sell the talking point that healthcare reform would raise premiums but host Shep Smith would have none of it…”

Deepest Part of the Ocean – “The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean, just east of the 14 Mariana Islands (11″21′ North latitude and 142″ 12′ East longitude ) near Japan. As you probably already know, it is the deepest part of the earth’s oceans, and the deepest location of the earth itself. It was created by ocean-to-ocean subduction, a phenomena in which a plate topped by oceanic crust is subducted beneath another plate topped by oceanic crust…”

IPad Apps Could Put Apple in Charge of the News – “Publishers should think twice before worshipping the iPad as the future platform for magazines and newspapers. That is, if they value their independence from an often-capricious corporate gatekeeper…”

Hope fades for Palm – “The market crushed shares of Palm on Thursday after it admitted that sales of its anticipated new phones were missing expectations, quelling hopes the company could regain ground in the competitive mobile market…” See also: Why Aren’t Palm’s New Smartphones Selling?

Plastic chemical BPA found to induce epigenetic changes – “Scientists from Yale have shown how exposure to the ubiquitous chemical bisphenol A (BPA) induces epigenetic changes in pregnant mice that trigger hormonal imbalances in the later life of female offspring…”

Facebook to developers: Get ready for Credits – “Facebook’s virtual currency, “Facebook Credits,” is getting very close to its full launch: a post on the Facebook developer blog explains some of the full terms of the system and what developers can expect as the currency continues to roll out slowly…”

Few Nations Support U.S. Decision to Keep Piracy Pact Secret – “The U.S. Government insisted that the terms of its privacy and rights-trampling treaty were too sensitive to expose to the public…”

Genome sequencing falls to $5000 – “The price of sequencing a human genome is about to plummet. A company called Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, California, says it can read entire human genomes at $5000 a shot…”

Real World Test: Does 1080p Truly Matter? – “TV Testing.jpgI often write about displays, and sometimes wonder whether all the new features we’re seeing really matter to real consumers. When it comes to TVs, the size of the display certainly matters, but sometimes I wonder whether most people can really tell the difference when it comes to “full HD” and 1080p. In my office, we happen to have two nearly identical TVs that vary only in resolution, so I decided to give it a try…”

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