A team of engineers has created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries — rechargeable batteries such as those found in cellphones and iPods — that allows the batteries to hold a charge up to 10 times greater than current technology. Batteries with the new electrode also can charge 10 times faster than current batteries.
I say it can’t get here fast enough because my ‘smart’ phone battery life sucks!
So what do you think? Are you a buyer at $41,000 ($33,500 after rebate)? This is supposed to be the savior, at least for GM. It will be the 2011 Motor Trend car of the year. It will get an unprecedented advertising blitz. It will be subsidized by your fellow taxpayers to the tune of $7,500 per copy. I have to wonder, does that bother you at all if you’re a buyer? We all know how tough times are and the huge problem our debt and spending is causing. You could buy many different cars in the mid $30 grand range, either GM or not, so it’s not a buy American issue . For example, a Cadillac CTS starts at just over $35,000. They won’t put the taxpayers on the hook for your subsidy. I’m talking about someone who is already making a car purchase anyway. Does the feeling of being “green” offset the fact that you are increasing our debt to own this car?
James Bond, step aside. You’ve been punked by Stuxnet. Stuxnet is the computer malware that has been wreaking havoc around the globe. It is an extremely sophisticated, state sponsored cyber-warfare weapon. It is well beyond the scope of traditional hackers. It takes a well-funded, well-connected organization to pull something like this off. Stuxnet is not the norm. Usually, viruses and malware that make news headlines are over-hyped. This one is the opposite.
I’ll link to a place where you can read the details of Stuxnet if your interested later in this post. Suffice it to say, it’s very techno-geeky stuff. The bottom line is it worked and was, and still is, a significant setback to the Iranian nuclear enrichment program. As far as who was behind it, no one yet knows for sure. It has been speculated that it was a byproduct of the cyber war between China and India. Others say it carries the signature of Israel. And beyond that, it was the CIA that started it all using Israel as a state sponsored terrorist.
This would explain one thing. Many wonder why the U.S. has sat on its hands while Iran continues to near completion of obtaining a nuclear weapon despite dire warnings from around the globe. Perhaps the U.S. did develop the Stuxnet malware and utilize the Israeli’s to execute it. They would have known this was going to buy them significant time due to the setbacks in store for the Iranians. Ehud Barak of Israel has gone on record in June of 2009 as stating that we only had a window of 6-18 months in which to stop the Iranian nuclear enrichment program. After that, there would be unacceptable collateral damage from an attack on Iran. Well, next month is the outside of that window. Perhaps, he gave such a wide window based on the knowledge that the Stuxnet malware operation was underway with an unknown execution date.
This video runs down some of the best tech inventions from 007 over the years. What’s weird is it looks like real life is reverse engineering tech gadgets from the movies.
The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber was finally unveiled publicly on this date in 1988 in Palmdale, CA. This was a rare case in which the Air Force publicly displayed a top-secret airplane before it had ever even flown a test flight. That didn’t happen until July of 1989. $40 billion was spent on development and each plane carries a price tag exceeding $1 billion. 132 were originally ordered, but they only made 21 in total and 20 remain after one crashed and burned. Here is what was left of that one.
