Tech Today w/ Ken May

Yet another aftershock of the March 11 earthquake hit Japan today. So it seems like a good time to bring up the United States Geological Survey’s fascinating FAQ on earthquake myths. Here’s one new thing that I learned.

Q: Will California eventually fall off into the ocean?

A: No. The San Andreas Fault System, which crosses California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north, is the boundary between the Pacific Plate and North American Plate. The Pacific Plate is moving northwest with respect to the North American Plate at approximately 46 millimeters per year (the rate your fingernails grow). The strike-slip earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault are a result of this plate motion. The plates are moving horizontally past one another, so California is not going to fall into the ocean. However, Los Angeles and San Francisco will one day be adjacent to one another!

Image: Photo taken by Wikipedia user Ikluft, used via CC

Read the original:
USGS: California is not doomed to fall into the ocean

While I’m not sure FastCustomer’s stat that the average person spends 60 hours waiting on hold annually is correct (though that could be because I’ve pretty much given up calling those numbers), there’s no disputing how sorely-needed this app is. More

Systems and Methods for Switching Between an Electronic Paper Display and a Video Display. That’s the lengthy title of a patent filled by Apple in October of 2009 but recently discovered that, as the title suggests, details a hybrid display. A translucent e-ink screen would lay on-top of a traditional LCD screen giving the user the option of switching between a battery saving and sunlight-friendly e-ink display and the LCD. The

The highly anticipated (and controversial) GNOME 3 desktop environment released its final version today, adding better hardware integration, window management, and application management to Linux. More

It’s been one week since Google pulled the PSX4Droid emulator from the Android Market without warning, and today its lead developer has decided to take a stand — ZodTTD’s made a new version of the app free of charge, and is hosting it at his personal website as a downloadable APK. He now claims that not only did Google pull his app, the company has frozen his developer accounts, effectively restricting his ability to publish to (and profit from) the Android Market until this gets sorted out. We can’t confirm his story at this point — and we hear things may not be quite as cut-and-dried as he claims — but we can tell you that if you happen to have a legally-obtained PlayStation BIOS and ROMs sitting around, you’re only a few clicks away from being able to use them on your Android phone. Not a bad deal, eh?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

ZodTTD makes PSX4Droid 3.0 free, claims Google booted him from Android Market originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Japanese research team has successfully grown a “rudimentary” mouse eye in a petri dish using stem cells. This has many implications for future research and curing blindness. Above is a time-lapse video of the stem sells spontaneously organizing into an “optic cup”—the precursor to an eye. Now they need to grow a little pair of Ray Bans in a petri dish and we'll have the coolest mouse in the world. [Video via The Guardian] More

A Japanese research team has successfully grown a “rudimentary” mouse eye in a petri dish using stem cells. This has many implications for future research and curing blindness. Above is a time-lapse video of the stem sells spontaneously organizing into an “optic cup”—the precursor to an eye. Now they need to grow a little pair of Ray Bans in a petri dish and we'll have the coolest mouse in the world. [Video via The Guardian] More

Facebook’s believed to be opening the lid on Deals for the US today, which will bring Groupon-like offers and coupons like parts of Europe (and Canada) have seen. If you check out Facebook Deals’ site, it mentions that “Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco.” Expect more details today. [Facebook Deals via The Next Web] More

Facebook’s believed to be opening the lid on Deals for the US today, which will bring Groupon-like offers and coupons like parts of Europe (and Canada) have seen. If you check out Facebook Deals’ site, it mentions that “Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco.” Expect more details today. [Facebook Deals via The Next Web] More

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