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On November 11, 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe saw what he thought was a new star. Outshining the planet Venus, it was visible for several months until it faded. What Brahe actually saw was a supernova - the titanic explosion of a dying massive star.
 
William J. Gillis Jr. filed a lawsuit against Apple in September which alleged that Apple and AT&T had made overstated the performance of the iPhone ("twice the speed, half the price," remember?). Apple's interesting legal response says, in part, we're not lying about the performance, but honestly, you should know better than to believe us.
 
On Wednesday, Logitech announced that it had shipped its one billionth mouse. I'm not sure how that compares with other mouse manufacturers, it's a huge milestone. Full disclosure: I have to admit, I have used nothing but Logitech mice for years. I love the fit and finish of them.
 
The state of Hawaii and Hawaiian Electric have endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with exchangeable batteries and an "intelligent" battery recharging network.
 
It's one of the most spot-on and vicious skewerings ever written about that babbling fool Ben Stein and his pack of smears and lies called "Expelled". His review is so scathing it should be posted on every science site on the Web, just so people don't soon forget what amazing deception IDers/creationists are capable of.
 
On Wednesday Amazon.com released its first iPhone app, Amazon Mobile. While it has the normal functionality you might expect, meaning helping you research prices, check your account, and hey, buy stuff, it has what Amazon.com calls an "experimental" feature: Amazon Remembers which allows users to use snapshots to buy things --- sorta.
 
Attendees at Microsoft's MSDN Developer Conferences (MDC) will receive a Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD, according to information about the conferences posted by Microsoft on Tuesday. Those attending December conferences will receive the DVD via mail once it is ready.
 

Good news about our brains-turns out our visual memory is bigger and better than previously thought. The study authors even offer a tip to help improve your memory, and keep you from losing your keys.

 
The First Annual SYLVANIA Socket Survey, commissioned by lighting technology company, OSRAM SYLVANIA, a division of Siemens AG, highlights (pun intended) some bad, and mostly good information. While many Americans know many of the advantages of compact flourescent bulbs, 78% are unaware that standard incandescent bulbs will be phased out beginning in the year 2012.
 
Last year, Allan Mueller thinks he saw the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. The wildlife biologist wants to make sure of it this winter.
 
On Tuesday at Nokia World '08 in Barcelona, Spain, Nokia announced its latest iPhone killer. It didn't really claim it to be that, but it did claim that its newest mobile device, called a mobile computer rather than a mobile phone, would "transform the way people connect to the Internet and to each other."
 
In late October Microsoft released the first beta of Windows Vista SP2 to a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers. In a blog post, Microsoft said they are going to open up the beta to more testers, starting this week.
 
It's that time of the year when everyone announces their "Top" list. Top this, top that. Feeling left out, Apple has launched a special section of iTunes that lists the top iTunes downloads of 2008. This includes not only movies, TV shows and music, but also App Store purchases for the iPod Touch and iPhone.
 
Users of the Roku video streaming player have seen a noticeable degradation of video quality, as evidenced by forum posts on the Roku site. Roku's aware of the problem, but according to the company, it's made no changes, and it's asking for end user help.
 
It's long been asserted that Apple computers are invulnerable to viruses. This has not been because the OS is flawless, but rather because hackers focused on the more popular OS: Windows, as well as the fact that most hackers had Windows machines. But no longer.
 

Space shuttle Endeavour slipped out of a brilliant desert sky and touched down safely in California after a nearly 16-day mission to repair and upgrade the international space station.

 
In their typical fashion, The Simpsons 11/30 episode, "Mypods and Boomsticks," lay waste to the Cult of Apple. When Lisa finds that their local mall now has a Mapple store, the family just has to visit it.
 
If you're worried about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) bringing the world to an end, you can breathe easy for a few more months. The restart of the world's largest particle accelerator, which was estimated for the spring of 2009, has now been pushed back until late summer.
 
The App Store is doing well, there's no doubt of that. And according to reports, the list of official, approved apps in the App Store has surpassed 10,000. This, of course, doesn't include apps for jailbroken phones.
 
It's not new; I've written about the use of technology by insurgents and terrorists before, quite some time ago, in fact. This week, as spectators around the world either watched TV news, tracked Twitter feeds, read blogs and sites in horror as the Mumbai terrorist attacks unfolded, the terrorists themselves were tech'ed up in order to track the police response themselves.
 


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