1. Detroit Free Press - Half of all adult Americans now own either a tablet computer or a smartphone, and one-third use their mobile devices to view news stories and video clips at least once a week. That's according to a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, which polled more than 9,500 adults from late June to early August.
Devices based on Google Inc.'s Android platform are gaining momentum. Pew found that just over half of tablet owners reported owning Apple's iPad, compared with 81% a year ago. Forty-eight percent now own an Android-based device, including Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire.
2. Gigaom - Starting this month, Sharp will have a full production line producing full HD displays for smartphones. The 5-inch LCD screens will support 1920 x 1080 resolution, which is the highest found on HDTVs that are in stores today. That works out to an eye-popping 443 pixels per inch, or a pixel density roughly 30 percent higher than the Retina display used on Apple’s iPhone.
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World Nuclear News - The Japan Electric Power Development Corp (J-Power) will resume construction of the Ohma nuclear power plant in Aomori prefecture. It will be the first Japanese nuclear construction project to restart since all such projects were suspended following the Fukushima accident.
Statistics Canada revised Canada's historical GDP statistics from 1981 to 2012
Technology Review - an accumulation of improvements have lowered the cost premium on hybridcars from $6000 to $2500. The extra cost is about 40% of what it was a few years ago.
The drop in cost is due to an accumulation of incremental technology improvements, along with economies of scale. And advances going forward—better batteries, electric motors, and power electronics and transmissions—could cut costs by another 50 percent.
At Toyota, for example, the company shifted from a 500-volt electrical system to a 650-volt one, a decision that produced "a host of benefits," says Justin Ward, advanced power-train program manager at the Toyota Technical Center. The company was able to reduce the cost and weight of copper wiring, use cheaper power transistors in the electronics that control the hybrid system, and make the electric motor cheaper and smaller. Read more »
Psy is the Korean rapper who has exploded onto the internet with his "Gangnam style" video. It is not yet the most viewed video on Youtube. However, it will likely crack the top ten this week.
The tenth most popular video is Enimem - "Not Afraid" at about 360 million views. Gangnam Style is at 334 million (after 60 days) and is increasing its views by about 5 to 10 million each day. A Justin Bieber video is number one with about 780 million views. By the end of 2012, it will probably take 1 billion views to be number 1 on Youtube.
For those who have not seen it.
Trivia
The elevator scene - the person in the elevator was a friend of Psy who visited during the shooting of the video. They improvised that scene.
From a comment - The word "oppa" (literally older brother) is an informal title like "daddy" and "mommy" in English. This title, "oppa," can be used only by a girl when she calls out to or talks to either (1) her real older brother in her family, or (2) a male friend slightly older than she is (not older than, very roughly, 10 years, in which case the title "a-jo-ssi," literally uncle, would be more appropriate). For the second use, the older male friend does not necessarily have to be her boyfriend, although he can be. "Oppa" conveys a sense of warm friendship, so all Korean guys love to be called "oppa" by younger girls--especially by those they find attractive. As for what the difference between "oppa" and "oppan" is, "oppan" simply means "oppa is." So "Oppan Gangnam style" means "(girls!) Older brother is Gangnam style,"
Gangnam is the richest district in Korea full of expensive condos many of which are well over US $2 million dollars.
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