Google Music (Beta) vs Apple’s iTunes?

Looks like Google’s adding some finishing touches to their ‘rumored’ online digital store.

There’s no doubt that Google’s product portfolio is immense, there’s social networking, internet search, operating systems, consumer software, maps, web browsers, hardware, advertising… and the list goes on. The only thing that’s missing in Google’s product portfolio is an online music download store, Google Music Beta is there to fill in for the most part but it doesn’t let you purchase/download MP3′s, it just lets you listen to over 20,000 tracks online — for now that is.

Google Music, search engine's new product that will compete against Apple.

There have been multiple reports claiming that Google will be launching a music download service within the next few weeks but Google’s yet to confirm what they’re hiding up their sleeves. According to Engadget, AsiaD’s Senior Vice President Andy Rubin has made it quite clear that Google is indeed “very close” to introducing a digital download store that’ll include “a little twist.”, “It won’t just be buying songs for 99 cents”.

Also, some reports are claiming that this new online store from Google is directly linked to the seemingly bland Music Beta service that Google is currently pushing through, which comes to no surprise since it was their first step in venturing the online music business in the first place.

It’s worth noting that Google has already encountered problems with numerous recording labels and music publishers in the past (during the launch of the Music Beta), simply because they weren’t happy with Google’s previously proposed locker-type storage service which rendered the Music Beta service ‘lacking’  since the day of its launch, they’re also yet to obtain music licensing agreements with the record companies music publishers alike. Google has also been previously hit by a multi-million dollar lawsuit with Bedrock Computer Technologies as well as Apple (Indirectly) — both cases are related to patent infringement, so naturally, they no longer want to go through the same problems again.

Numerous reports are also stating that Google will be introducing their new digital download service to the public ahead of the Apple iTunes Match launch which, will be held by the end of this month. Will Google be able to successfully execute the service this time? How will Apple react to Google’s new offering? We’re yet to find out.

Quoted from POP Herald

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'Many Dead' as 7.2 Quake Shakes Turkey

'Many dead' as powerful earthquake shakes eastern Turkey's Van province

State-run television reports that 45 people are killed and 150 others injured

ANKARA, Turkey — A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, collapsing dozens of buildings into piles of twisted steel and chunks of concrete. Desperate survivors dug into the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the trapped and injured.

State-run television reported that 45 people were killed and 150 others injured in the eastern town of Ercis, but scientists estimated that up to 1,000 people could already be dead, due to low housing standards in the area and the size of the quake.

Ercis, a town of 75,000 in the mountainous province of Van close to the Iranian border, was the hardest hit. It lies on the Ercis Fault in one of Turkey's most earthquake-prone zones. The bustling regional center of Van, 55 miles (90 kilometers) to the south, also suffered substantial damage.

Up to 30 buildings collapsed in Ercis, including a dormitory, and 10 buildings collapsed in Van, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said.

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Rescuers in Ercis scrambled to find survivors in a flattened eight-story building that had shops on the ground floor, television footage showed. Residents sobbed outside the ruins, hoping that missing relatives would be rescued.

"My wife and child are inside! My 4-month-old baby is inside!" CNN-Turk television showed one young man crying.

Witnesses said eight people were rescued from the rubble, but frequent aftershocks were hampering search efforts, CNN-Turk reported.

"There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction," Zulfikar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told NTV television. "We need urgent aid. We need medics."

The quake's epicenter was in the village of Tabanli, 10 miles (17 kilometers) from Van.

Turkey lies in one of the world's most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. Sunday's earthquake struck in the country's most earthquake-prone region, around Lake Van near the border with Iran.

U.S. scientists recorded eight aftershocks within three hours of the quake, including two with a magnitude of 5.6.

Atalay said authorities had no information yet on remote villages but the governor was touring the region by helicopter to assess damage.

Authorities did not provide a casualty figure but the Kandilli observatory, Turkey's main seismography center, said the quake was capable of killing many people.

"We are estimating a death toll between 500 and 1,000," Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli observatory, told a televised news conference.

In Van, terrified residents spilled into the streets in panic as rescue workers and residents using their bare hands and shovels struggled to find people believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings, television footage showed. At least 50 people were treated in the courtyard of the state hospital, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.

There was no immediate information about a recently restored 10th century Armenian church, Akdamar Church, which is perched on a rocky island in the nearby Lake Van.

Serious damage and casualties were also reported in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.

"There are many people under the rubble," Veysel Keser, mayor of Celebibag, told NTV. "People are in agony, we can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help."

"It's a great disaster," he said. "Many buildings have collapsed, student dormitories, hotels and gas stations have collapsed."

Houses also collapsed in the province of Bitlis, where at least one person, an 8-year-old girl was killed, authorities said. The quake also toppled the minarets of two mosques in the nearby province of Mus, reports said.

NTV said Van's airport was damaged and planes were being diverted to neighboring cities.

The earthquake also shook buildings in neighboring Armenia. In the Armenian capital of Yerevan, located 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Ercis, people rushed into the streets fearing buildings would collapse. No damage or injuries were immediately reported. Armenia was the site of a devastating earthquake in 1988 that killed 25,000 people.

The quake also caused panic among residents in several Iranian towns, close to the Turkish border, and caused cracks in some buildings in Chaldoran and cut telephone links, Iranian state TV said on its website.

An officials said the quake was also felt in Salmas, Maku, Khoi and several other towns in northeastern Iran but no damage has been reported.

Turkey sees frequent earthquakes. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

More recently, a 6.0-magnitude quake in March 2010 killed 51 people in eastern Turkey, while in 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in the southeastern city of Bingol.

Turkey's worst earthquake in the last century came in 1939 in Erzincan, causing an estimated 160,000 deaths.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city with more than 12 million people, lies in northwestern Turkey near a major fault line. Authorities say the city is ill-prepared for a major earthquake and experts have warned that overcrowding and faulty construction could lead to the deaths of over 40,000 people in a major quake.

Quoted from MSN

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Dead satellite tumbles to Earth — but where?

Up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons could have hit the planet, experts believe

Scientists were trying to establish how and where a defunct research satellite returned to the Earth Sunday, after warning that some parts might survive re-entry and crash at up to 280 mph.

There was no immediate solid evidence to determine above which continent or country the ROSAT scientific research satellite entered the atmosphere, said Andreas Schuetz, spokesman for the German Aerospace Center.

Most parts of the minivan-sized German satellite were expected to burn up, but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons could have hit the planet.

Citing officials, Space.com reported that ROSAT slammed into Earth's atmosphere sometime between 9:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Scientists were no longer able to communicate with the dead satellite and it must have traveled about 12,500 miles in the final 30 minutes before entering the atmosphere, Schuetz said.

Schuetz said it could take days to determine exactly where pieces of the satellite had fallen, but that the agency had not received any reports that it had hit any populated areas.

"We have no such information," he said Sunday.

Based on ROSAT's orbital path, these fragments could be scattered along a swath of the planet about 50 miles wide, German aerospace officials have said.

Scientists said hours before the re-entry into the atmosphere that the satellite was not expected to hit over Europe, Africa or Australia. According to a precalculated path it could have been above Asia, possibly China, at the time of its re-entry, but Schuetz said he could not confirm that.

The 2.69-ton scientific ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990 to study X-ray radiation from stars, comets, supernovas, nebulas and black holes, among other things. The satellite was originally designed for an 18-month mission, but it far outlived its projected lifespan. [Photos of Doomed ROSAT Satellite]

Heat-resistant mirror 

It retired in 1999 after performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.

The largest single fragment of ROSAT that could hit into the earth is the telescope's heat-resistant mirror.

During its mission, the satellite orbited about 370 miles above the Earth's surface, but since its decommissioning it has lost altitude, circling at a distance of only 205 miles above ground in June for example, the agency said.

Even in the last days, the satellite still circled the planet every 90 minutes, making it hard to predict where on Earth it would eventually come down.

Mission controllers initially estimated that ROSAT could fall to Earth in November, but increased solar activity caused the satellite's orbit to decay faster than originally expected. As the sun's activity ramps up, it heats up and expands the atmosphere, which creates more drag on satellites in orbit.

'Catch them' 

ROSAT's fall from space shone a spotlight on the growing problem of debris in space.

"One option is we want to be able to catch uncontrolled satellites in the future," Jan Woerner, head of the executive board of the German Aerospace Center, told Space.com. "We're working on such a mission to catch them, depending on their state, and have a controlled re-entry or send them to a graveyard, in order to prevent this situation in the future."

A dead NASA satellite fell into the southern Pacific Ocean last month, causing no damage, despite fears it would hit a populated area and cause damage or kill people.

Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile span.

The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at one in 2,000 — a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA satellite. But any one individual's odds of being struck are one in 14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.

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Ghost hunting in HD isn't so easy

Why ghosts get 'spooked' by HD cameras

That grainy, low-budget look is intentional, all the better to scare you

"Paranormal Activity 3," the latest in a series of successful low-budget horror films about amateur ghost hunters, opens on Friday. The first film, released in 2007, was a surprise indie hit around the world.

The films are shot in a "found footage" style, in which the audience is treated to footage supposedly taken in real life from home videos and security cameras. This technique, often involving handheld cameras and actors talking to the camera operator, has been around for years but was widely popularized in the 1999 film "The Blair Witch Project."

The grainy, low-budget look of the films is no accident; it was done partly because the films actually are low-budget, and partly for added "realism." The fact that the low-quality picture skips and jitters adds to the suspense, and Horror Filmmaking 101 teaches that a dark, partly obscured monster is much scarier than one that's seen clearly in bright light.

It's been an effective technique in the first two films, scaring up hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. And it's also true in real-life ghost hunting: Virtually all of the "evidence" for ghosts appears in the form of brief, ambiguous anomalies recorded with low-quality cameras (or good-quality cameras sabotaged by low-light conditions).

People have long reported weird, ghostly and paranormal activity, but perhaps the biggest mystery is why the evidence — especially the photographic evidence — hasn't improved. Are ghosts afraid of high-definition cameras?

Review: 'Paranormal Activity 3' is pretty scary

The idea that amateur ghost hunters wandering in the dark with crummy video cameras are going to uncover genuine evidence of a spirit realm unknown to science seems absurd. Nonetheless, the SyFy show "Ghost Hunters" has been wildly popular for years — it was recently picked up for an eighth season — despite the fact that the team has never found scientific evidence for ghosts.

The show is, of course, entertainment television instead of real investigation, but what about the hundreds of amateur ghost-hunting groups around the world inspired by the show?

If ghosts exist, you would expect the photographic and video evidence for them should improve dramatically as more and more people look for them with better and better equipment.

There are more people actively trying to document paranormal activity than ever. And, thanks to smartphones, at no time in history have so many people had high-quality cameras on hand virtually all the time.

Today there's no excuse for anyone to capture grainy photos or video images of anything, whether it's your aunt in a horrid floral hat, Bigfoot in the woods, or paranormal activity in your hallway. And yet that is so often the quality of the footage that makes the rounds on the internet. [ Mythical Creatures: Beasts That Don't Really Exist (or Do They?) ]

Last weekend, Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S units, each of them equipped with a built-in high definition 1080p camera featuring state-of-the-art optics, image stabilization, automatic lighting adjustment and other features that rival cameras used by Hollywood videographers only a few years ago. Perhaps one of those iPhone users will finally record some clear evidence of ghosts.

High definition provides more image information, which helps identify things often mistaken for ghosts, such as random shadows, unnoticed reflections and video artifacts. With those ghost impostors more easily dismissed, any real ghostly images should be sharper and clearer than ever before.

The age of amateurs posting questionable video evidence of the paranormal should be coming to an end. Professional ghost hunters, however, might well continue using cameras that produce low-quality images. After all, that's where the ghosts appear.

Quoted from MSN

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