Google Earth Helps Swiss Cops

More and more, internet tools are helping police-organizations around the world to track down criminals, and stop those who would do illegal things. The latest example of this comes as Swiss police officials found what they believed to be a marijuana grow-op operation while using Google Earth for another police-related purpose.

The cops were surprised at what they saw, which was a field full of what looked like marijuana plants surrounded by fields of corn. Police officials soon made their way to the location, and confirmed their suspicions, confiscating in excess of one ton of marijuana. It’s unlikely the drug operation would have ever been found if not for the aid of Google Earth.

Samsung Produces Top Density DRAM Chip

The great minds at Samsung have been hard at work, and are now ready to unveil (and market) the newest fruit of their labors: the highest density DRAM chip ever made for commercial production.

Okay, I admit that you may have to be a major tech/computer geek or guru to appreciate this one (like I am) but for those of you who fall into that category, the news is pretty impressive.

What exactly does the new DRAM offer? Samsung has produced a fifty nanometer, four GB chip, which in turn means that they are able to produce a thirty-two GB DDR3 consumer RAM model — that’s some powerful RAM!

Florida Couple Clones Beloved Dog

Losing a beloved pet can be very heartbreaking, and that’s why it didn’t come as a huge surprised to me when I heard that a Florida couple has now actually cloned their past-away pet. Okay, I was a little surprised — I mean, cloning of any kind is not exactly common-place. Not yet, at least…

The Florida couple actually had a sample of their dog’s DNA frozen a few years ago, anticipating that they may one day be able to use it for cloning purposes. After winning an auction for the dog-cloning service, the couple paid $ 155,000 USD to a San Fran bio tech company which was then able to clone the dog.

The new pup is the first dog cloned for commercial purposes in North America. Pretty amazing, really.

Congress Launches own YouTube Websites

Congress is introducing official YouTube channels where members of the House and Senate can create and manage videos of floor speeches, hearings or ceremonies. The new channels give viewers a centralized destination to find out what their representatives are doing and voice their own opinions. The lawmaker websites, can be located on a Google Map interface, can be found on http://youtube.com/househub and http://youtube.com/senatehub.

So far, a few members have posted videos on the sites. John Boehner, R-Ohio, has 97 videos, including one introducing the new “house hub” web site. To facilitate the YouTube interface, the House and Senate revised  their rules at the opening of the new Congress last week to allow members, who all have their own official websites, also post material on third-party websites. The House rules necessitates that a member must include a notice advising site visitors when they leave an official House Web site for a 3rd-party site. There must also be a disclaimer that neither the member nor the House is responsible for the content of the linked sites.

iphone Gloves?

If you have an Apple iPhone, Apple iTouch, Blackberry Storm, or another touch-screen gadget all together, and also live in a place where it gets cold in the winter, you might be interested in some high-tech new gloves hitting the market.

You see, the problem with cold climates and touch-screen devices is that you need to have a “naked finger” in order to use such gadgets. So to use one while outside wearing gloves in a Canadian winter is pretty much impossible. For that reason, a company named 4sight Products have introduced a new glove product to the market. Basically, the gloves have a special material on the thumb and tip of the iPhone finger (also known as the index finger) which will allow users to stay warm and use their touch-screen device at the same time. The gloves are called “Tavo” and go for approximately forty dollars US.

Gmail Ads Offline-Mode

Gmail enthusiasts can be happy with a new change being made to the popular email program. Users of Gmail will now be able to access their email, including all applicable folders in a new “off-line” mode.

The new mode of use for Gmail should benefit those who would like to access their email from offline locations, such as business people during long flights. It’s easy to implement the option, and you don’t need to set up a special account to do so. Simply log into your Gmail account and click on the settings tabs, after-which you’ll want to enter the Google Labs section, where you’ll be able to set up offline mode for your account.

Personally, I’m glad that I’ll be able to access the important information in my email folders when away from an internet connection, and see this being a big success for Google!

New Google Tool To Take On Net Neutrality

Afraid your ISP is a web traffic throttling offender? Well, with the help of Google you can now find out!

The giant web company out of California, USA has unveiled what is being called M-Lab, or Measurement Lab, a service that will allow web users to gauge web connection speeds, and find out whether specific programs are being blocked or throttled.

The service is brand-new, and still in Beta at this point but it already offers very useful programs. For one, the users will be able to tell if the frequently throttled BitTorrent program is being slowed down. As well, using the program’s network diagnostic tool a user will be able to gauge their web-connection speed.

Help in Choosing a Web Host

As a website owner I am aware that  a dependable web hosting provider, with expert customer service can make the difference between technical headaches and a seamless operation. High uptime and informed, gracious customer service representatives are among my top factors to look for when selecting a web host, and that’s why I always conduct significant research before choosing a webhosting company.

One website that I usually visit when conducting the research, is WebHostingGeeks.com. The site offers unbiased reviews of many website hosting providers. Additionally, Web Hosting Geeks offer suggestions depending on a customer’s needs. For example, they have categories for those looking for cheap hosting, forum hosting, e-commerce hosting, etc’. Their recommendations are presented in an easy to read table of the Top Ten Web Hosting Companies of the year. This list is complete with the host’s specific features and any bonuses that are applicable. Notably, there are also useful articles on the website’s blog, such as ‘why you need a good control panel‘.

If you’re looking for a new web host, you’ll save yourself plenty of possible future aggravation by doing your research before coming to a final decision. For this purpose, I recommend checking out Web Hosting Geeks, and reading what they, and other user comments say concerning the available web hosting companies.

LG Recalls 129,000 Wireless Phones

If you own or know somebody who owns a LG 150 cellphones, you’ll want to know about a large recall that currently concerns the model. LG Electronics Canada have officially made a recall alert to owners of the device, as during recent testing it was discovered that the device is breaking Government regulations in regards to radio frequency signals.

As stated above the recall effects only the LG 150 model of cellphone, specifically those manufactured between August 2007 and February 2008. An estimated 129,000 LG 150 cellphones are thought to be included in that range. If you own the aforementioned model, you should be able to return or get further instructions from the place of purchase.

Online Newspapers Increase Exposure

Major U.S. newspaper websites are receiving more visitors, and those visitors are coming more often, in an otherwise difficult times for an industry struggling with declining exposure and revenues.
However, those visitors aren’t spending much time on the sites. They averaged slightly more than a half-hour at the top ten newspaper websites during all of December. The latest figures from Nielsen Online highlight the struggles that newspapers still confront with how to translate their audiences into revenues. So far, online ads aren’t strong enough to offset loses of the traditional sales from print and in-paper ads.

According to Nielsen, 40 million people in the US visited at least one of the top 10 newspaper sites in December, a 16% increase over last year. The New York Times remains the top newspaper site, with 18 million unique visitors in December, an increase of 6%. USA Today and The Washington Post follow. Nielsen said visitors were returning more often. Each visitor came, on average, 6.3 times in December, compared with 5.8 times a year earlier.

While heavy news consumers are spending more time at the sites, those sites also now get a lot more casual visitors. That makes the average visit relatively brief. The average time spent at the top 10 newspaper sites in December — 32.5 minutes — increased by just 2% from the same month in 2007. This 2% increase lags the 9% increase in time spent at all leading news sites, which include broadcasters’ sites and news sections at websites like Yahoo Inc. and AOL. In unique visitors, MSNBC, Yahoo, CNN and AOL all were ahead of The New York Times.