Top Stories – Virginia shootings –
Eight adults have been shot and killed by a lone gunman in the US state of Virginia. Police say seven bodies were found at one home, while an eighth shooting victim was found at the side of the road and died on the way to hospital. Officers say they have surrounded a suspect in woodland just outside the central town of Appomattox.
Take your tablets –
“Tens of millions” of tablet computers will be sold in 2010, according to technology analysts at Deloitte. A report says keyboard and mouse-free devices are likely to be a top trend among consumers and describes tablets as “the Goldilocks of devices (not too big, not too small)”. HP Tablet PC
Top Stories – Apple introduce the “iPad” –
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs introduces the “iPad” a new tablet with no keyboard or mouse. Designed for browsing the internet, it is 0.5 inches (13mm) thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds (680g). The iPad, which will launch in March for $499 (16Gb version), includes 12 new apps and will run most of the 140,000 apps in the App Store. Jobs described the iPad as “a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.” Steve Jobs with the iPad
Throw out the running shoes –
Dr Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University reveals that running barefoot is better than wearing running shoes. The researchers found that people who run barefoot tend to land on the ball or the middle of the foot, moving smoothly, but those who run in shoes tend to land on the heels, sending shockwaves through the body.
Bubble Wrap hits middle age –
Bubble Wrap is 50 years old. It was first invented by Marc Chavannes and Al Fielding as textured wallpaper and there are more than 250 dedicated Facebook pages. Sealed Air who owns the patent and manufactures Bubble Wrap makes more than $4bn a year.
Top Video –
The first Mackintosh commercial (1984)
Mieko Nagaoka: 100-year-old Japanese swimmer sets 1,500m record –
A Japanese woman has become the first 100-year-old to complete a 1,500m freestyle swim in a 25m pool. Mieko Nagaoka, who only took up swimming at the age of 82, already holds the record in her age category for the same distance in a 50m pool. She completed the latest feat in just over one hour and 15 minutes, using backstroke all the way. She was the only person taking part in her age range – 100 to 104 – at the competition in Matsuyama on Saturday. Nagaoka already dominates the world record board for her age group, as awarded by the international swimming federation (Fina), holding 24 titles over both short and long distances. [BBC]
Smartphones could be charged in 60 seconds with new battery –
An iPhone 6 takes around two hours to charge but could be full of power in a minute if fitted with a new aluminium battery. Smartphones could be charged in less than one minute after scientists at Stanford University invented an aluminium battery so powerful it could revolutionise the industry. The new rechargeable battery can go from flat to full in a fraction of the time it currently takes to pull in enough electricity to fully charge a phone, laptop or tablet. While an iPhone 6 takes around two hours to fully charge its in-built battery, if it was fitted with the aluminium power source it would be completely topped up in around 60 seconds. And it will keep going for more than seven times as long as a lithium-ion battery. A traditional battery can be recharged around 1,000 times, while the new one can withstand 7,500 cycles. [Daily Telegraph]
Biggest American Indian tribe in US introduces country’s first junk food tax –
As diabetes and obesity spiral out of control on their vast reservation, Navajo Nation harks back to a healthier time and starts taxing Spam and crisps. In times gone by, Navajo Indians ate whatever mother nature was generous enough to bestow, their existence intimately and spiritually bound up with the land on which they lived. Their food would have been the envy of any modern dietitian as they foraged for pinyon nuts and wild potato, and nibbled on sumac berries, yucca fruit, prickly pears and beeweed greens. Today, life is very different in the Navajo Nation, the largest American Indian reservation in America, which covers an area of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah that is the size of Scotland and has a tribal population of 300,000. The modern Navajo, who prefer to be called the Diné, are facing an intensifying health crisis fuelled by a complete transition to a diet based largely on fried potatoes, tortillas, cookies, crisps, sugary drinks and Spam. [Daily Telegraph]
HP Tablet PC
