Click for the photo – Tropical storm leaves more than 115 dead in Central America – “At least 115 people have died after a tropical storm battered Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador over the weekend, officials in those countries reported…”

NHK Japan is Promising Functional Holographic TV by 2016 and Will Work With Korea to Present 2022 World Cup With 3D Holography – “Basically Japan is promising true 3D television and images that do not require glasses and full court 3D experience (pretty close to holodeck like) by 2022. They will be using 60 to 100 million pixels of resolution to create the 3D effect. They demonstrated a 33 million pixel system in Las Vegas in 2009….”

HD 101: Overscan and why all TVs do it – “The concept of overscan seems particularly difficult for geeks to comprehend — normal people usually don’t care to even understand it — and some even get down right confrontational when they first learn that all TVs do it. But the fact is that even the latest LCDs and plasmas don’t show all 2 million pixels of a 1080p signal out of the box. Instead about 3 percent of ‘em are cropped off the edges (as illustrated by the red line in the image above) and the remaining pixels are scaled to fill in all the pixels of your HDTV. The real kick in the head is that the reason isn’t a good one, especially when you consider the advanced technology that’s available today. So in this HD 101 we’re going to cover what overscan is, why it’s there, and finally how to “fix” it…”

Facebook malware attack spreading quickly – “Social networking site Facebook faced a third phishing attack on the weekend, with a malware, which steals login credentials and even gets home addresses, being downloaded through a video…”

NASA: Is Approaching Space Object Artificial? – “Comet_1342249c NASA authorities report that an unknown object approaching the Earth from deep space is almost certainly artificial in origin rather than being an asteroid. Object 2010 KQ was detected by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona earlier this month, and subsequently tracked by NASA’s asteroid-watching service, the Near-Earth Object Program headquartered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California…”

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet – “sraeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country’s siege on Gaza. At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, Israeli radio reported. The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast….” See also: Netanyahu’s cancellation of meeting with Obama delays efforts to improve ties

The mystery of the disappearing #flotilla on Twitter – “As we know from breaking news right now over 10 people have died after Israeli commandos boarded a convoy of ships carrying aid to Gaza, sparking an international controvery. But we’re not going to get into the politics of that situation. What we’re interested in is what happened on Twitter today…”

James Randi Speaks: Powered by Sunlight – “A recent study in India by the Defense Research and Development Organization observed a holy man who claims that he has lived for decades without food or water. A team of 30 medics are reported to have been in attendance during a 14 day observation of the man…”

YouPorn Goes HTML5, Gets on the iPad – “In an email exchange with Valleywag’s Ryan Tate last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs touted the iPad’s “freedom from porn” as one of the device’s key selling points (along with “freedom from programs that steal your private data” and “freedom from programs that trash your battery”). Well, that freedom didn’t last very long, as at least one of the major adult sites — YouPorn.com (link not safe for work) — has begun encoding its videos to work on the Apple tablet and is now using HTML5 video for playback in the device’s browser…”

Mozilla Attempts To Sidestep iPhone Ban On Rival Browsers – “In an effort to get around Apple’s ban on rival browsers for its iPhone, Mozilla plans to offer a Firefox application that will give users access to their browser bookmarks and history. The app will also let users open tabs from their most recent Firefox sessions…”

The Great Spare-Time Revolution – “Now their paths are intersecting. In December, Pink, a Wired contributing editor, came out with Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The book digs through more than five decades of behavioral science to challenge the orthodoxy that carrots and sticks are the most effective ways to motivate workers in the 21st century. Instead, he argues, the most enduring motivations aren’t external but internal—things we do for our own satisfaction…”

New Dinosaur Had Record-Sized Horns – “A newly discovered five-ton dinosaur has the largest horns ever found on a dinosaur, with a set that were 4-feet-long each, according to paleontologists who unearthed the hefty herbivore in Mexico…”

MSI WindPad 110: a 10-inch Tegra 2-powered Android tablet – “The 10-inch slate runs Android 2.1 and is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. It’s got a different design to the WindPad 100, but retains the same 10-inch capacitive touchscreen and will have a USB port and video-out capability…”

ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC and EP121 preview – “At long last, the ASUS Eee Pads have arrived, but unfortunately they’re just not working the way we’ve been imagining for all these months. We got a few minutes to toy around with the 10-inch EP101TC and 12-inch EP121, but both were barely working. And “barely” is being gracious. We can tell you that both models are incredibly well built — they’ve got aluminum edges and matte back covers — and neither was particularly heavy…”

ExoPC Slate hands-on – “19diggsdigg We don’t say this very often, but some products are just worth the wait. And well, the ExoPC Slate looks like it’s going to be one of those very products. After months of following along, we finally got to spend some quality time with the 11.6-inch slate at Computex, and came away surprisingly impressed. Read on after the break for our impressions of this Windows 7 tablet, what that funky UI is all about, and a video of the Slate in action. Oh, and after you’ve done all that, don’t forget to feast your eyes on the gallery below…”

Unlocking your hotel room with your smartphone? OpenWays is an app for that. – “Holiday Inn locations in two cities are experimenting with a system that lets guests unlock their rooms using a smartphone. When you check in online, the system (called OpenWays) sends you an encrypted audio code that unlocks your door, and then texts you your room number…”

Did Apple Break the Law? DOJ Investigators to Probe Apple Much Deeper – “Apple has long played itself up as the cool outsider, making fun of rivals like Microsoft as stodgy, uptight business people. However, Apple’s success has transformed it into exactly the type of company it mocks — a giant with effective monopolies in several markets. And according to many observers, the company — one of the tech industry’s largest firms — has become increasingly brazen in its violation of antitrust laws…”

China aims to be become supercomputer superpower – “China is ramping up efforts to become the world’s supercomputing superpower. Its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list…”

The Coming War: ARM versus x86 – ” In this in-depth analysis, we will discuss the emerging competition between ARM and x86 microprocessors. Led by the Intel Atom, x86 chips are quickly migrating downwards into embedded, low-power environments, while ARM CPUs are beginning to flood upwards into the more sophisticated and demanding market spaces currently owned by x86 processors. The central focus of this report will be an extensive compute performance comparison between the ARM Cortex-A8 versus the new Intel Atom N450, the new VIA Nano L3050 and, for historical perspective, an old AMD Mobile Athlon based upon the Barton core. The Apple iPad A4 system-on-chip [SoC] is equipped with a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8.”

In graphics: Supercomputing superpowers – “The biannual Top 500 supercomputer list has been released. Use this graphic to explore the world’s fastest number crunchers or find out more about alternative supercomputer powers…”

Internet access a human right? – ” Internet use has become so woven into everyday life that some technology experts say online access should be legally protected, even to the point of considering it a human right…”

In Aussie Gyms, It’s the Same Old Song—but Who’s That Singing? – “In a ruling this week, the Copyright Tribunal of Australia ruled that music is essential to fitness classes, and artists should be paid accordingly. The tribunal raised tariffs for playing original artists’ recordings to roughly 85 cents (A$1) per class participant—capped at about $13 per class—boosting the annual tab for the typical Australian fitness center from around $1,300 to more than $19,000….”

Acupuncture’s Molecular Effects Pinned Down: New Insights Spur Effort to Boost Treatment’s Impact Significantly – “The research focuses on adenosine, a natural compound known for its role in regulating sleep, for its effects on the heart, and for its anti-inflammatory properties. But adenosine also acts as a natural painkiller, becoming active in the skin after an injury to inhibit nerve signals and ease pain in a way similar to lidocaine…”

Drunken monkeys reveal how binge-drinking harms the adolescent brain – “Most of us will be all too familiar with the consequences of night of heavy drinking. But alcohol’s effects on our heads go well beyond a mere hangover. The brain suffers too. A penchant for incoherent slurring aside, alcohol abusers tend to show problems with their spatial skills, short-term memory, impulse control and ability to make decisions or prioritise tasks. Many of these skills are heavily influenced by a part of the brain called the hippocampus. Now, Michael Taffe and researchers from the Scripps Research Institute have shown how binge-drinking during adolescence can cause lasting damage to this vital area…”

Willow Garage Is Building A Platform To Propel All Of Robotics (video) – “Willow Garage is making a play to become the definitive platform for robotics research. They have a powerful tag team of open source hardware and software – the PR2 Beta robot and the Robot Operating System (ROS). Willow Garage is giving away eleven of these bots to research groups around the world to foster innovation through open source collaboration. But by distributing the PR2 they aren’t just invigorating robotics research, they’re also placing the PR2 at the center of that burgeoning industry. ROS is gaining ground rapidly too, well on its way to becoming the Linux of robotics. Together these two systems form an amazing platform that is open for everyone to share. A flurry of new research is set to explode forth from this platform, and Willow Garage will be at the center of it all. ..”

Senate antitrust leader fears Comcast will kneecap Hulu – “Kohl’s concern is that “over-the-top” Internet-delivered video poses a serious challenge to the existing business model of a cable company like Comcast. If Comcast acquires NBC and takes over NBC’s 32 percent stake in Hulu, the company might be tempted to cripple the service, or weigh it down with enough conditions to make sure people stick with expensive, separate cable subscriptions. Kohl writes…”

Senators call for end to anonymous, prepaid cell phones – “Earlier this month, the FBI revealed that the suspected Times Square bomber had used an anonymous prepaid cell phone to purchase the Nissan Pathfinder and M-88 fireworks used in the bomb attempt. The case sparked new calls to regulate prepaid cell phones in order to provide more accountability and make the devices less attractive to criminals. Yesterday, Congress responded…”

Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains – “During the winter of 2007, a UCLA professor of psychiatry named Gary Small recruited six volunteers—three experienced Web surfers and three novices—for a study on brain activity. He gave each a pair of goggles onto which Web pages could be projected. Then he slid his subjects, one by one, into the cylinder of a whole-brain magnetic resonance imager and told them to start searching the Internet. As they used a handheld keypad to Google various preselected topics—the nutritional benefits of chocolate, vacationing in the Galapagos Islands, buying a new car—the MRI scanned their brains for areas of high activation, indicated by increases in blood flow…”

Northrop Grumman Makes Worlds Fastest Integrated Circuit at 670 Gigahertz – “Northrop Grumman Corporation has set a new electronics performance record with a Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) operating at 0.67 terahertz (THz), or 0.67 trillion cycles per second…”

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