All Blog Posts from Tech Talk

A short posting today but wanted to encourage everyone to watch the CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor on Saturday night. We'll be updating our story from last year about the massive die-off of bats in the northeast. The phenomenon has spread from four states to eight, and hundreds of thousands of them are dying from a mysterious condition. The leading cause is the so-called "white nose syndrome" or fungus that appears on their snouts. But researchers aren't sure if that's the cause or a symptom of something larger. And why should we care about bats? They are a critical part of the eco-system in controlling bug and pest populations from moths to mosquitoes. And their decline in numbers will have a serious impact on forests, crops, and eventually food prices. I hope you'll be watching.

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Tapping into the wi-fi feature on an iPhone can be handy, and definitely faster than the current AT&T EDGE network allows. But now users are wondering what the deal is after AT&T first told subscribers that all AT&T wi-fi hotspots could be accessed for free, then apparently removing any trace of the offer from its Web sites. Has anyone else experience this? In other Apple news, a report looking at the "greenness" of various tech companies gave Steve Jobs' company low marks for greenhouse gas emissions. The ClimateCounts survey put Apple at the back of the pack, well behind firms like IBM, Canon and Toshiba, which finished at the top. For more, check out the story here. This particular survey aside, does the "green practices" of a tech company have any bearing on your purchases? Worth thinking about.

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Most everyone in tech agrees: lasers are cool. These days a red laser pen is sort of 2003. A green laser pen is very 2007. ThinkGeek has blue laser pens for 2008 costing about $900 each. But what would you pay for a laser that when turned on -- even for a fraction of a second -- is 2,000 times more powerful than all the power plants in the U.S.? Does $7 million seem reasonable? You can read more about the work being done at Unveristy of Texas at Austin here.

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