Famous Twitter-ers Have Accounts Hacked

Twitter discovered yesterday that 33 prominent users of the service had their accounts compromised by an individual "who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can't remember or get stuck." Those hacked included Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama. The tools were immediately taken offline to prevent further hacking and the company says they will only go live again when the security issue has been addressed. In addition, many users were also the target of a Phishing scam on the weekend. There can be no doubt now... Twitter is a hit!

Source: Twitter Blog

Steve Jobs Issues Letter To Apple Community Regarding His Health

In an attempt to quell the rumors regarding his health, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has issued a letter to the Apple community via the company's web site. In it Jobs explains that "...after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis."
He also goes on to assure everyone that he will remain at the helm. Great news!

Source: Apple.com

LG To Announce Line Of Broadband HDTVs

LG is expected to announce today a line of televisions that can directly receive Internet video in addition to satellite and cable signals. The tv's will have access to a variety of specific video sites including Netflix, but do not have sufficient processor power to allow users to freely surf the web. The Netflix partnership will make it possible for LG owners to stream any of the 12,000 films and television shows in Netflix’s Watch Instantly library, without a set top box or other internet capable device.

Source: NYTimes.

Mars Landers Celebrate 4 Years On Surface

The Mars Lander "Spirit" celebrated it's 4th anniversary on the surface of the Red Planet yesterday and it's twin "Opportunity" will do the same on January 24th, not bad for missions that were expected to last in the neighborhood of 3 months each! "These rovers are incredibly resilient considering the extreme environment the hardware experiences every day," said John Callas, project manager for Spirit and Opportunity at Nasa's Jet Propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We realise that a major rover component on either vehicle could fail at any time and end a mission with no advance notice, but on the other hand, we could accomplish the equivalent duration of four more prime missions on each rover in the year ahead."

The 4 years of service have not been easy on the rovers though, Spirit must drive backwards everywhere it goes because of a jammed wheel; while Opportunity's robotic arm suffers from a glitch in a shoulder joint because of a broken electrical wire.

Source: BBC News

UK Company Creates Injectable Bone To Speed Healing

RegenTec, a UK company, hopes to speed up the healing process for broken bones with the injection of a white powder designed to seal bones together in minutes. "You won't be able to just walk out of a hospital with a broken leg," said Robin Quirk, a professor at the University of Nottingham who, along with Kevin Shakesheff in the United States, originally developed the technology. "What we are trying to do in the short term is have something that fills the void left by a break that acts like normal spongy bone and encourages natural regeneration." At room temperature the material is in a power form but once injected into the body the materials fuse together in a hard, spongy mass much like living bone.

Jennifer Elisseef, a professor at Johns Hopkins University says "There is a lot of interest in bone filler materials from clinicians and from the military,"

Personally, I think the big market would be in professional sports!

Source: Discovery Channel

Zunes Recover After New Years Hangover

It seems that a little time is all that is required to fix your broken Zune.

Microsoft's Zune tech support said in a posting on it's forum that users should:

• Disconnect the player from USB and AC power sources to drain the battery.
• Wait until after noon GMT on Thursday (7 a.m. ET or 4 a.m. PT).
• Connect the player to either a USB port on the back of a computer or to AC power and let it charge.

"Once the battery has sufficient power, the player should start normally. No other action is required," the posting said.

Users are reporting that the steps do indeed repair their Zune's... that was a close one Microsoft!

Source: CBC

Microsoft Zune 30 Suffers From Leap Year Bug

Zune 30 owners around the globe have been experiencing a bug that appears to be related to a leap year issue. One posting on the Zune.net forum read: “My Zune has managed to freeze itself with the Zune Logo and the loading bar on the screen and none of the buttons are responding, rebooting isn’t responding, plugging it into the computer isn’t responding, nothing is working.” Microsoft says it has traced the problem to a software bug “related to the way the device handles a leap year.” The Zune apparently was expecting 2008 to have 365 days, and not 366. More troubles for Microsoft hardware...

Source: NYTimes.com

Wikipedia Founders Plea For Donations Successful

Even in an economic downturn the pleas of Jimmy Wales for donations to keep the Wikimedia Foundation afloat have netted the non profit organization an average of more than $215,000 in donations every day. The foundation has a budget of $6-million for operations in 2009 and the most recent call for donations is expected to reach the funds needed by the middle of January. “We're really thrilled that people have come out in force and made a clear statement that they care about this cause and they care about Wikipedia, even though we were kind of nervous after the economic news became really clear,” said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation. The foundation has 23 paid staff members but relies on some 150,000 volunteers to keep the site running and reasonably accurate.

Source: Globe and Mail.

Times Square Ball Gets Green Makeover

The new version of the Time Square Ball has increased in size to 12 feet in diameter doubling the size of the previous one that was lit for the past 100 years. Besides growing in size the new ball will also require more lights too, 32,256 L.E.D. bulbs to be exact! The New York Times has the complete story of the makeover here.

John Lennon For OLPC

The One Laptop Per Child campaign seems to have a new champion in... John Lennon? Imagine!