A sea-going robotic glider that harvests heat energy from the ocean has been tested by US scientists.

The yellow, torpedo-shaped machine has been combing the depths of seas around the Caribbean since December 2007.

The team which developed the autonomous vehicle say it has covered “thousands of kilometres” during the tests.

The team believe the glider - which needs no batteries - could undertake oceanographic surveys for up to six months at a time.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Robot glider harvests ocean heat

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Ryuta Kawashima, the researcher behind Nintendo’s Brain Age series of games for the DS portable system, would rather be working than enjoying $11 million in royalties he could have earned from his creations.

Instead, he used the proceeds to help fund $6.5 million in construction projects on Tohoku’s campus.”My hobby is work,” he said.

“Everyone in my family is mad at me but I tell them that if they want money, go out and earn it.”

Game researcher ducks millions in royalties - Video Game Feature - Yahoo! Video Games

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Amazon.com, which has been rapidly adding digital downloads to its vast Web store, said on Thursday that it had agreed to buy Audible, the largest online seller of audiobooks.

Amazon will pay $300 million in cash for the company, or $11.50 a share, a 23 percent premium to the stock’s closing price on Wednesday.

Audible, based in Newark, offers 80,000 audiobooks and spoken-word products from magazines, radio shows and newspapers, including The New York Times. It sells its digital files through its own Web site and, since 2003, through Apple’s popular iTunes service.

The move could also allow owners of the Kindle, Amazon’s cream-colored electronic book reader, to download audiobooks directly to the device. Amazon introduced the Kindle to great fanfare late last year.

Amazon to Buy Audiobook Seller for $300 Million - New York Times

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Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill a few weeks later, she was floored. “I just couldn’t believe it,” Beam said. “I was like, ‘What are they thinking?’”

Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment destroyed in the Jan. 7 twister that struck the southeast corner of the state. Beam’s bill covered five cable boxes and five remote controls.

She immediately called the cable company, but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do.

Tornado victim billed for cable devices - Yahoo! News

I am not sure what’s odder in this story.  That the person in question had 5 cable boxes or that they are $400 dollars each.

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Apple has postponed the release of the Apple TV software update by a week or two, saying it needed more time to finish the upgrade that would let people rent movies directly from their televisions.

In delaying the Apple TV upgrade, the company said the software wasn’t quite finished. “Apple now plans to make the free software download available to existing Apple TV customers in another week or two,” the company said in a statement. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs had said during his Macworld keynote that the software would be ready by the end of January.

Apple Delays Apple TV Software Update — Apple — InformationWeek

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The wireless data network operated by AT&T Mobility had returned to service for most customers by Thursday afternoon, a company spokeswoman said, and should be working for the rest of the customers by evening.

“Service for our Edge and 3G networks was disrupted for customers in the Midwest and Southeast, but our technicians have begun to restore service,” said Meghan Roskopf, an AT&T spokeswoman.

Cause of the outage, which was discovered about 5:30 a.m. Central Standard Time, is still unknown, she said.

AT&T says Edge data network is back up — chicagotribune.com

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Large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.One major telecommunications provider blamed the outage, which started Wednesday, on a major undersea cable failure in the Mediterranean.

India’s Internet bandwidth has been sliced in half, The Associated Press reported, leaving its lucrative outsourcing industry trying to reroute traffic to satellites and other cables through Asia.

Reports say that Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain are also experiencing severe problems.Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel — whose traffic uses a different route — and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.

Internet failure hits two continents - CNN.com

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The way people interact with computers is going to dramatically change in the next five years, Microsoft chief Bill Gates has told BBC News.

He predicted that the keyboard and mouse would gradually give way to more intuitive and natural technologies.

In particular, he said, touch, vision and speech interfaces would become increasingly important.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Gates hails age of digital senses

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U.S. video game industry sales growth is expected to slow in 2008 as accelerated demand for software is tempered by a decline in hardware revenue, the Consumer Electronics Association said on Saturday.

Overall U.S. industry sales are seen rising to $17.9 billion in 2008, up 13 percent from an estimated $15.8 billion in 2007, the CEA said. That compares with a 22 percent increase from 2006 to 2007.

U.S. video game industry growth seen slowing: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

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The NH GOP released the following statement on their website.

“The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary serves a national purpose by giving all candidates an equal opportunity on a level playing field. Only in New Hampshire do lesser known, lesser funded underdogs have a fighting chance to establish themselves as national figures. Consistent with that tradition, we believe all recognized major candidates should have an equal opportunity to participate in pre-primary debates and forums.

“This principle applies to tonight’s debates on ABC as well as Sunday’s planned forum on FOX. The New Hampshire Republican Party believes Congressmen Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter should be included in the FOX forum on Sunday evening. Our mutual efforts to resolve this difference have failed.”

“While we understand that FOX News continues to move forward it is with regret, the New Hampshire Republican Party hereby withdraws as a partner in this forum.”

New Hampshire Republican State Committee - Home - NH REPUBLICAN PARTY WITHDRAWS AS FOX FORUM PARTNER

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