They just put the explosives in, someone else lit the fuse!

Apple's iPhone may be the darling of the mobile-phone industry right now, but some users in France aren't singing its praises, claiming that the device explodes or cracks without warning.

However, after conducting an internal investigation into the cause of the broken touch-screen glass, Apple denies that there is an underlying iPhone flaw. In fact, Apple said that in all cases it investigated, some kind of force was applied to the iPhone, causing the glass to break, according to a BBC report Friday.
"The iPhones with broken glass that we have analyzed to date show that in all cases, the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone," Apple said in a statement cited by the BBC.

Last Tuesday, in response to a European Commission investigation into accusations of overheating and exploding iPhones, Apple referred to its internal investigation, saying, "We are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers."
As part of its investigation, Apple also looked into complaints of the iPhone battery overheating but again said it found no problems. "To date, there are no confirmed battery-overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS, and the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits," according to the statement.

The investigation's findings don't mean much to France's Frank Benoiton, a consumer who said his wife's iPhone cracked, and it "was not dropped and experienced no unusual shock," he told the Associated Press.

France's trade minister declined to comment on a meeting with Apple about an investigation that the country's consumer protection agency is conducting into the reports, according to Bloomberg.
The European Commission also issued a warning using its rapid-alert system, Rapex, which warns of dangerous consumer products.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10321361-37.html

Get me my tin foil hat and umbrella, stat!

Cosmic rays pour down on Earth like a constant rain. We don't much notice these high-energy particles, but they may have played a role in the evolution of life on our planet.

Some of the mass extinctions identified in the fossil record can be linked to an asteroid impact or increased volcanism, but many of the causes of those ancient die-offs are still open for debate.

"There may have been nearby astronomical goings-on that drastically increased the radiation on Earth," says Brian Fields from the University of Illinois.

A supernova going off 30 light-years away could cause such a jump in radiation on our planet that could directly, or indirectly, wipe out huge numbers of species. Currently researchers are looking for possible evidence for this sort of cosmic foul play.

"Just finding dead beasties is not proof of a nearby supernova," Fields says.

Cosmic rays are mostly high-energy protons originating from supernova shock waves. We can't precisely trace where a cosmic ray came from because its trajectory is bent by magnetic fields. In fact, a typical cosmic ray will bounce inside the galaxy's magnetic field for millions of years before eventually colliding with something... like Earth.

"Every square centimeter on the top of the Earth's atmosphere is hit by several cosmic rays per second," Fields says. "This is forever going on."

None of these "primary" cosmic rays ever reach us on the ground. Instead, they collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of lower energy "secondary" particles.

At sea level, the majority of cosmic ray secondaries are highly penetrating muons. About 10,000 muons pass through our bodies every minute. Some of these muons will ionize molecules as they go through our flesh, occasionally leading to genetic mutations that may be harmful.

At present, the average human receives the equivalent of about 10 chest X-rays per year from cosmic rays. We shouldn't be alarmed by this, since it is just part of the natural background radiation under which humans and our ancestors have been exposed to for eons. Indeed, cosmic-ray-induced mutations may sometimes be beneficial.


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090827-cosmic-rays.html

Designers designers designers designers!

Could Apple gain the whole world without losing its soul?
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/what-if-steve-ballmer-ran-apple--628881

The Apollo 11 spacecraft was equipped for its mission to the Moon with a state-of-the-art on-board computer. The CPU ran at a pace of 1 Megahertz, and the system memory was 36K in size. Currently, the typical home computer is equipped with a CPU running at least 300 MHz and many hand-held calculators contain more than 36K memory.

- One Giant Leap

Are you smarter than a fifth grade journalist?

Round 1: http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/programming-iq-test-round-1-166

Acing last year's quiz was nothing. Only true hacker heroes will survive
Round 2: http://infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/programming-iq-test-round-2-224