What’s Green, Made of Corn and Has Buttons ?
Leave it to Sprint, the phone company based in Kansas, to introduce a cellphone made from corn. (Never mind that the phone is made by Samsung in South Korea, hardly a major corn producer.)
Nonetheless, a corn-based “bioplastic” case was part of the array of ecological features of the new Reclaim phone Sprint said Thursday that it would start selling next week. The box is made of recycled material. To add to its green sheen, the company said $2 of every phone sale goes to the Nature Conservancy. The phone also beeps telling you to unplug the charger when its battery is full, a special button links to environmental news. The case, by the way, is either “ocean blue” or “earth green.”
For Sprint, however, this isn’t a niche product to sell to granola munchers in Berkeley and Boulder. It is an attempt to add some green sizzle to its lead entry this fall in the hottest segment of the cellphone market this year: cheap phones with full keyboards.
Monday, July 27 2009
Jupiter: Our Cosmic Protector ?
Jupiter took a bullet for us last weekend. An object, probably a comet that nobody saw coming, plowed into the giant planet’s colorful cloud tops sometime Sunday, splashing up debris and leaving a black eye the size of the Pacific Ocean. This was the second time in 15 years that this had happened. The whole world was watching when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fell apart and its pieces crashed into Jupiter in 1994, leaving Earth-size marks that persisted up to a year.
That’s Jupiter doing its cosmic job, astronomers like to say. Better it than us. Part of what makes the Earth such a nice place to live, the story goes, is that Jupiter’s overbearing gravity acts as a gravitational shield deflecting incoming space junk, mainly comets, away from the inner solar system where it could do for us what an asteroid apparently did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Indeed, astronomers look for similar configurations — a giant outer planet with room for smaller planets in closer to the home stars — in other planetary systems as an indication of their hospitableness to life.
Tuesday, July 7 2009
Le tram arrivera en 2015
LUXEMBOURG – Le tram est un des dossiers phares dans les négociations du prochain gouvernement en cours.
L’avancement du projet était également le sujet d’une discussion entre une délégation du syndicat des chemins de fer, Syprolux, et les responsables du projet.
Lors de leur entretien, le calendrier pour la réalisation du tram, qui reliera la gare au Kirchberg, s’est confirmé. La priorité est à l’élaboration du projet de loi qui devrait passer le Parlement l’an prochain. Si tous les délais sont respectés, les travaux se feront entre 2011 et 2014.
Tuesday, June 2 2009
Le Luxembourg connaît son premier cas de grippe A
Un premier cas de virus A (H1N1) de la grippe a été identifié au Luxembourg chez un habitant du nord du pays, a annoncé mardi le ministère de la santé.
“Il s’agit d’une personne (…) qui a séjourné récemment aux Etats-Unis d’Amérique (New York) et qui s’est présentée l’après-midi du lundi 1er juin auprès d’un médecin avec des symptômes grippaux bénins”, indique un communiqué du ministère. Les analyses effectuées par le laboratoire national de la santé ont confirmé la présence de la nouvelle variante du virus A (H1N1).
Le patient, en bonne condition mais isolé à son domicile, fait l’objet d’un traitement avec le médicament anti-grippal Tamiflu, souligne encore la direction de la santé. Les autorités sanitaires luxembourgeoises indiquent être en contact permanent avec l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) et le Centre européen de prévention et de contrôle des maladies “pour suivre de près l’évolution de la situation et prendre les mesures nécessaires”.
Wednesday, April 29 2009
In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit
SHENZHEN, China — The phone’s sleek lines and touch-screen keyboard are unmistakably familiar. So is the logo on the back. But a sales clerk at a sprawling electronic goods market in this Chinese coastal city admits what is clear upon closer inspection: this is not the Apple iPhone; this is the Hi-Phone.
But it’s just as good,” the clerk says.
Nearby, dozens of other vendors are selling counterfeit Nokia, Motorola and Samsung phones — as well as cheap look-alikes that make no bones about being knockoffs.
“Five years ago, there were no counterfeit phones,” says Xiong Ting, a sales manager at Triquint Semiconductor, a maker of mobile phone parts, while visiting Shenzhen. “You needed a design house. You needed software guys. You needed hardware design. But now, a company with five guys can do it. Within 100 miles of here, you can find all your suppliers.”
