The next generation of the Sync in-car entertainment and information system will use a USB mobile broadband modem to establish a secure wireless connection capable of supporting several devices simultaneously. The system will be available next year on selected models — no word yet which ones — and you won’t need a subscription or hardware beyond the modem. ‘While you’re driving to grandma’s house, your spouse can be finishing the holiday shopping and the kids can be chatting with friends and updating their Facebook profiles,’ said Mark Fields, Ford president of the Americas. ‘And you’re not paying for yet another mobile subscription or piece of hardware because Ford will let you use technology you already have.’ Several automakers already offer in-car Internet access — Japanese drivers have been using it since 1997 — and many others are rushing to bring it to us. Ford’s announcement follows General Motors’ promise last week to make in-car connectivity available in seven models of trucks and SUVs. They’re the latest automakers to bring the infobahn to the autobahn. Mercedes recently announced it has successfully tested in-vehicle Internet applications — including web browsing, vehicle software updates and VOIP — on a […]
NAGOYA, Japan — On a desolate stretch of track just before midnight, when all passenger lines have been put to bed, a juiced-up Japanese bullet train goes online and accelerates to more than 200 mph. The 700-ton train, about a quarter of a mile long, whooshes by rice paddies in under five seconds. There are no locals around to witness the train glide to a stop at a deserted Kyoto Station, but that’s not the point. This is an accelerated sales pitch aimed squarely at the U.S., where Japan is competing with European train makers for a new high-speed train network that could deliver contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Diplomats, business leaders and journalists were crammed in to watch special speedometers record the feat recently, the first time operator Japan Central Railway Co. has allowed outsiders to join a test run. Rivals abroad said Japanese trains weren’t up to spec, and JR Central wanted to set the record straight. ‘In France and Germany, they have been saying we can only do 280 kilometers (170 miles) per hour, so we had to demonstrate, said Yoshiyuki Kasai, company chairman. That Japan’s bottle-nosed bullet trains – known […]
ROCHESTER — The ceremonial pipe organ of the 18th century was the Formula One racer of its time, a masterpiece of human ingenuity so elegant in its outward appearance that a casual observer could only guess at the complexity that lay within. Each organ was designed to fit its intended space, ranging in size from local churches where townspeople could worship to vast cathedrals fit for royalty. The builders were precision craftsmen celebrated for their skill in hand-making thousands of moving parts and in shaping and tuning metal and wooden pipes to mimic the sounds of each instrument in an orchestra. The effect was breathtaking. ‘Each instrument speaks to you in a different way, said Hans Davidsson, a concert organist, sitting before the console of the organ at the cavernous Christ Church, Episcopal, in Rochester. Dr. Davidsson began to play the Bach hymn ‘Gottes Sohn Ist Kommen (‘The Son of God Has Come), and an enormous, bell-clear sound exploded from the gleaming pipes that soared above him. The organ, the Craighead-Saunders, is a unique instrument, not only because of its lovely sound, but also because it is a nearly exact copy of a late Baroque organ built […]
OMAHA, Nebraska — Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust. Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining. Tribes put more than 840,000 acres - or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island - into trust from 1998 to 2007, according to information The Associated Press obtained from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act. Those buying back land include the Winnebago, who have put more than 700 acres in eastern Nebraska in federal trust in the past five years, and the Pawnee, who have 1,600 acres of trust land in Oklahoma. Land held in federal trust is exempt from local and state laws and taxes, but subject to most federal laws. Three tribes have bought land around Bear Butte in South Dakota’s Black Hills to keep it from developers eager to cater to the bikers […]
MONTEREY BAY NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY, Calif. – If the world ever does get around to significantly reducing carbon emissions, the sea lions, harbor seals and sea otters reposing along the shoreline and kelp forests of this protected marine area will be among the beneficiaries. These foragers of the sanctuary’s frigid waters, flipping in and out of sight of California’s coastal kayakers, may not seem like obvious beneficiaries. But reducing carbon emissions worldwide also would help mend a lesser-known environmental problem: ocean acidification. ‘We’re having a change in water chemistry, so 20 years from now the system we’re looking at could be affected dramatically but we’re not really sure how. So we see a train wreck coming,’ said Andrew DeVogelaere, the sanctuary’s research director, while out kayaking this fall with a reporter in the cold waters. Oceans absorb about 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere from human activities each year, helping to take off some warming pressure. But carbon dissolving in oceans also forms carbonic acid, raising waters’ acidity that damages all manner of hard-shelled creatures, and setting off a chain reaction that threatens the food chain supporting marine life, including the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
