Google Reader Lets You Subscribe to Any Page on the Web
January 26th, 2010 | 
Author: RSS technology makes it possible for anyone to keep up with fresh content without having to visit the site in question. Now the same holds for webpages without RSS thanks to a new Google Reader feature.
Today Google has rolled out a subtle change to Google ReaderGoogle Reader that lets you create custom feeds to track pages that don’t already have them. So you can subscribe to updates for any webpage simply by typing the URL into the “Add a subscription” text box.
Should you put the new feature to work, you’ll start to receive short snippets for any updates made to the pages, and GoogleGoogle asserts that it’s committed to improving the quality of these tiny blurbs over time. On the flip side, webpage owners can choose to opt out by adjusting a few lines of code.
So when might this come in handy? While most companies have their own blogs, receiving automatic notifications any time there’s an update to the homepage or product pages of a business of interest could prove to be vital. For example, with Apple releasing a “new product” and potentially news about the iPhoneiPhone on Wednesday, you bet that I’m going to create some custom feeds.
Source :
Posted in Entertainment, Google, Google Reader, Internet | 
Tags: Google, Google Reader, RSS Feed | 
Comments Closed
Tesla Motors finalizes DOE loan for Model S
Tesla Motors will receive a long-sought $465 million loan to build a factory to build its planned Model S electric sedan, the U.S. Department of Energy said on Thursday.
With the loan, Tesla will be able to start making the Model S in volume during 2012 and ramp up to 20,000 units by the end of 2013. The location of the facility is expected to be in Southern California.
The Model S is one of a few highly anticipated electric cars coming out in the next few years. It’s designed to go over 300 miles on batteries, be large enough to carry five adults and two children, and still have lots of cargo space. The base price for the car will be almost $49,900.
For Tesla, the loan allows it to move ahead with its production plans in a difficult environment for raising the large amounts of capital needed to build a factory.
A number of other automakers invested in electrification will also receive Energy Department loans to encourage domestic auto manufacturing. Ford Motor received a $5.9 billion loan and the Energy Department has made conditional commitments to Tesla competitor Fisker Automotive and Nissan North America, which plans to introduce the all-electric Leaf later this year.
In a statement, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the loan program is an effort to “lay the foundation” for the electric-vehicle industry.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10439050-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in cars, evironment, Green |
Tags: electric car, environment, Green, Tesla, Tesla Motors |
Comments Closed
Space shuttles (slightly used) — now on sale!
WASHINGTON — With more than 100 million miles apiece on the odometer, NASA’s Endeavour and Atlantis space shuttles are well-used — but lovingly cared for.
And now they’re on sale.
NASA announced Friday that it was slashing the price for the orbiters to $28.8 million apiece to help encourage buyers from schools and museums to snap them up once the agency retires the shuttle fleet at the end of the year. In December 2008, NASA put the per-shuttle price at $42 million.
“Our intent is to have them displayed in the United States and have them shown to as many citizens as possible,” said NASA spokesman Michael Curie, who said it was unlikely that oil tycoons or dot-com billionaires would win the bid for that reason.
‘The intent is not for NASA to make money,” Curie said.
He said the original price tag was higher because NASA wanted prospective buyers — rather than the agency itself — to pay to make the orbiters safe for display. NASA now plans to do that work and cut the price as a result.
Willing buyers, however, still are responsible for shipping and handling.
About 20 prospective buyers have expressed interest so far, Curie said, and customers have until Feb. 19 to submit their bids. If everything goes smoothly, NASA expects the two orbiters could be in place by July 2011.
The National Air and Space Museum already has laid claim to Discovery, the third and final orbiter in the shuttle fleet. It already has the test shuttle Enterprise — which never flew into space — on display, and Curie said NASA could help the museum unload Enterprise to another prospective buyer if officials wanted to and if there was interest.
“But that’s a lot of ifs,” Curie said.
Kennedy Space Center has said it wants one of the orbiters for display at its visitor’s center.
Source:
Apple seeks ban on U.S. Nokia imports
The ongoing patent battle between Apple and Nokia escalated Friday, when Apple moved to block imports of Nokia cell phones to the U.S.
Apple made its request in a complaint filed with the International Trade Commission in Washington, an independent federal agency that examines issues including unfair trade practices involving patent, trademark, and copyright infringement. The agency will need to approve the request before it begins an investigation.
Will Nokia devices be blocked from the U.S.?
(Credit: Nokia)
In December, Nokia filed its own complaint with the USITC. In it, the Finnish company alleged that Apple infringes seven Nokia patents “in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers” and sought to ban imports of Apple’s iPhone, iPod, and MacBook products.
Responding to Apple’s latest move, Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant told Bloomberg that “Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously. However this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia’s innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007.”
Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment on the filing.
Back in October, before the patent debate between the two companies moved to the trade commission, Nokia filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Delaware regarding 10 patents related to wireless handsets, which Nokia says Apple has refused to license. Every iPhone model since the original, introduced in 2007, infringes on those patents, Nokia has charged.
Apple then filed a countersuit accusing Nokia of copying technology inside the iPhone.
In November, research firm Strategy Analytics reported that Apple had surpassed Nokia in quarterly mobile phone profits, bringing in $1.6 billion from the iPhone, compared with Nokia’s $1.1 billion in cell phone profits.
Nokia’s new mobile chief, Rick Simonson, acknowledged in an interview earlier this month that 2009 had been a difficult year for the company.
“Yes, we have lost ground in the smartphone space over the past 18 months, but the decline has stopped and stablized in the second and third quarters of 2009,” Simonson told the India Times.
“The new year will see [our] recovery in smartphones with the introduction of Maemo and the stabilization of the Symbian operating system, which by the way, continues to be the platform for the largest number of smartphones, globally,” Simonson added.
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10436415-37.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
7.0 earthquake hits Haiti
A major earthquake struck just off the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, sparking a tsunami watch for parts of the Caribbean, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
There was no immediate report of damage or injuries from the quake. However, The Associated Press reported that a hospital had collapsed.
The quake had a reported magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles (16km) off the coast and about 6 miles (10 km) underground, according to the USGS.
A tsunami watch was posted for Haiti and parts of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas, but historical data suggests a destructive, widespread tsunami was not a threat, the USGS reported.
Source :
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/12/haiti.earthquake/index.html