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Sunday, March 29, 2009 

A highly radioactive lead ball that vanished from a factory in China has been traced to a Shaanxi Province metalworks. The ball was removed during the dismantling of a factory in Tongchuan City.

The component vanished on Monday when workers broke up the Shaanxi Qinling Cement Company’s 53-year-old factory for not meeting environmental standards. The ball contains the radioactive isotope caesium-137 and was part of a scale to gauge the quantity of goods passing on a conveyor belt.

Caesium-137 emits gamma rays which can damage the nervous system, lead to infertility and be fatal. It is formed by nuclear fission.

Investigators thought the missing part had most likely been accidentally mixed in with scrap and sold on to metalworkers. On Friday, high levels of radiation were detected at the Xingbao Steel and Iron Company Ltd. The Weinan City business had bought eight truckloads of scrap metal from the cement factory.

Further investigations determined that the ball had been melted down in the No. 6 smelter at Xingbao’s factory. Slag from the smelter was found to be radioactive, and technicians are now working to clean the toxic slag and the smelter. Xi’an-based Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology researcher Wang Xuhui stated that the steel products themselves were safe, as the caesium-137 had mostly ended up in the slag.

The iPod Touch (stylized and marketed as iPod touch) is a multi-purpose pocket computer designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a user interface that is touchscreen-based. It can be used as a music and video player, digital camera, handheld game device, and personal digital assistant (PDA).^[8] It connects to the Internet through Wi-Fi base stations and is therefore not a smartphone, though its design and iOS operating system are very similar to Apple’s iPhone. As of May 2013, 100 million iPod Touch units have been sold.^[1]

All models of the same generation typically consist of identical features, processors, and performance, in addition to available operating system upgrades, differing only in outer color and internal storage space. An exception is the currently available iPod Touch (fifth generation), as the low-end (16 GB) model is sold without a rear-facing iSight photographic camera and also lacks the iPod Touch loop.

The iPod Touch runs Apple’s Unix-based iOS operating system (called ‘iPhone OS’ until 2010) and includes bundled software to browse the Internet, view maps, send and receive email, view media, and work with office documents such as presentations and spreadsheets. Users type on a virtual keyboard displayed on the screen. Apple operates an online store, allowing users to buy and directly download music, videos and third-party software. From launch, the iPod Touch was described by journalists as an ‘iPhone without the phone’,^[9] and each iPod Touch model to date has been introduced with the same release number of iOS as the contemporary iPhone model.

Successive updates to iOS since the initial release in 2007 have released additional features. iPhone OS 2.0, released on July 11, 2008, introduced the App Store, which allowed third-party applications for the first time. iPhone OS 3.0, released on June 17, 2009, added features such as cut, copy, and paste, data tethering and push notification support. iOS 4.0, released on June 21, 2010, introduced iBooks, FaceTime, and multitasking. It dropped support for the first generation iPod Touch.

In June 2011, iOS 5, the fifth major release of iOS software, was announced at Apple’s WWDC 2011, which added notification, messaging and reminder features.^[10] Apple limited some features, most notably the voice control system Siri, to the iPhone.^[11]iOS 6, which was released on September 19, 2012 to the fourth and fifth generation iPod Touch models, contains 200 new features including Passbook, Facebook integration and Apple Maps. The fifth generation iPod Touch gained the ability to take panoramic photos, a feature shared with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5.^[12]

Recent iOS updates have been free for owners of supported iPod Touch models, but Apple received criticism for charging iPod Touch owners for versions 2.0 and 3.0, which iPhone owners received for free, and for excluding certain features from the iPod Touch software that the iPhone included.^[13][14] Apple’s position was that they could add features for free to the iPhone because the revenue from it is accounted for on a subscription basis under accounting rules, rather than as a one time payment.^[15] At WWDC in June 2010, as of iOS 4, Steve Jobs announced that Apple had “found a way” to make subsequent OS upgrades available free to iPod Touch owners.

To purchase content on the iPod Touch, the user must create an Apple ID or have an existing account. With this account one may download music and videos from the iTunes Store, apps from the App Store, or books from the iBookstore. An Apple ID account created without a credit card can be used to get free content, and gift cards can be bought to pay for apps instead of using credit cards.

The only official way to obtain third-party applications for the iPod Touch is Apple’s App Store, which is a branch of iTunes Store. The App Store application, available in all versions of iOS from 2.0 onwards, allows users to browse and download applications from a single online repository (hosted by Apple) with the iTunes Store. To develop such software, a software development kit (SDK) was officially announced on March 6, 2008, at an Apple Town Hall meeting.^[16] The iOS SDK allows making applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch after paying a fee to join the development team. The developer can then set the price for the applications they develop and will receive 70% of money earned. Apple retains 30% of the sale price with no minimum fixed fee.

Like all Apple’s iOS devices, the iPod Touch is a tightly controlled or closed platform. Modifying or replacing the operating system violates the device warranty, communication between apps is limited and controlled, and Apple is the only authorized software vendor. Hackers have therefore attempted to ‘jailbreak’ all iOS devices to enable forbidden or unsupported features, such as multitasking in iOS versions before 4.0, themes for the home screen, the use of software Apple has refused to sell, or a battery percentage indicator. Jailbreaks for the iPod Touch first surfaced a month after the first model was released in September 2007, when hackers released JailbreakMe 1.0 (also called “AppSnapp”) to jailbreak iPhone OS 1.1.1.^[17][18] This allowed users to install third-party programs on their devices before Apple permitted this.

As of December 2013, each version of iOS on iPod Touches can be jailbroken using tools such as PwnageTool, redsn0w, Absinthe, and both versions of evasi0n. Apple’s warranty statement implies that an iPod Touch after jailbreaking or other modification made by unofficial means is not covered by Apple’s warranty. Jailbreaking is a violation of the Terms and Conditions for using iOS. The jailbreaking process can normally be undone by performing a restore through iTunes.^[19][20]

The iPod Touch is generally similar to the iPhone. The iPod Touch lacks some of the iPhone’s features and associated apps, including the built-in compass, but is also thinner, lighter and less expensive. It is closely related to the iPhone 5C, which is also available in a variety of colors. Older models also lack IPS display technology, speakers, microphones, and cameras, and the camera has never been as high quality as on contemporary iPhone models.^[21] Until the fifth generation, the iPod Touch camera lacked a flash for low-light photography, and until the fourth generation the sleep/wake button was on the opposite side. Steve Jobs once referred to the iPod Touch as “training wheels for the iPhone”.^[22]

For iPod Touch units bought before October 12, 2011, users must own a Mac or PC computer to be able to use the iPod. Users then must install iTunes and connect the iPod through a USB port. The iPod will then be set up in iTunes. New iPods bought after October 12, 2011 have iOS 5.0 preloaded, and allow activation wirelessly, without the need of a PC or Mac.^[23]

Earlier iPod Touch units must be plugged into a computer to be synced. This will charge the iPod Touch and sync the music library, videos, pictures and backup data. iOS 5 enables the user to do all this from the device and send it to the iCloud service, which supports Mac OS X Lion and later.

Starting with the second generation, iPod Touch can only be charged from the 5 V pin of the dock connector while most prior iPod models (including the original iPod Touch) could also be charged from the 12 V pin for FireWire power.^[24] This change dropped support for charging in vehicles equipped with a FireWire-based iPod connection. Most aftermarket manufacturers of such equipment offer cables and/or adapters which convert the vehicle’s 12 V to 5 V. Charging the iPod Touch takes about 2 hours (80 per cent capacity) for fast charge, and full charge takes about 4 hours.

The iPod Touch (fifth generation) and iPhone 5 feature a new dock connector, named “Lightning”, which replaces the Apple Dock connector on older iPhone, iPad, iPod models. The Apple Lightning connector has eight pins and all signaling is digital. This new connector is smaller than the previous one allowing the iPhone 5 slimmer form factor. Apple Lightning cables have duplicate pins on two sides of each plug, so it can be inserted either way around. Various accessories will be available to convert the Apple Lightning connector to the older Apple Dock connector or USB,^[25] although not all old accessories will work, as not all signals are available.^[26]

Sunday, June 25, 2006 

Arcelor, Luxembourg’s largest steel company, has reached in an agreement with Mittal Steel over a €26.9 billion merger (at €40.44 per share). The new company will be called Arcelor-Mittal. Mittal Steel will hold 45% stake in the new company. Arcelor would pay Severstal €130 million as a “fine” for the fall-out of their failed talks. Lakshmi Mittal (owner of Mittal Steel) and Joseph Kinsch (current Arcelor chairman) will be the co-chairmen of the new company. The new company will have a net capacity of 120 million tonnes.

Friday, September 3, 2010 

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the next version of Windows Mobile OS series, Windows Phone 7, had been released to manufacturing after more than 6 months of its development. The announcement outlined some of the changes in this version, and was generally positive about the milestone.

The term “release to manufacturing”, also known as “going gold”, is a term used to indicate that the software has reached a point that it is ready to be provided to the customer. After the event, Windows Phone 7 code has been locked down. The work in progress is the testing of Windows Phone 7 on other hardware, software, and networks. The structure of the system itself is not expected to be changed any more before the final release. “We are ready,” Terry Myerson said.

“Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7”, Terry Myerson announced in a post on the official Windows Phone Blog.

The internal testing of the system had been finished. It included usage of the operating system by the development team itself on regular basis, and millions of hours of automated tests daily, as Terry Myerson said: “We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.”

The system is now named “Windows Phone” instead of “Windows Mobile”, with a redesigned user interface and a changed development environment, which is called “Windows Phone Developer Tools”. It features a combination of Silverlight, XNA technologies, and Visual Studio 2010 to make use of these possible in the applications developers create.

Microsoft did not confirm any planned commercial release date, calling October as an optimistic estimate.

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 

With the Australian dollar “strong” against the world’s major currencies, the local film industry has suffered as a result. As of this report, $A1 is roughly equal to $US0.9874

“It’s killing us all,” Tony Clark, co-founder of Rising Sun Pictures, said. Rising Sun is the organisation working on digital effects of the Harry Potter and Green Lantern films. “We have existing contracts that are in play that are hedged but finding new business is just diabolical at the moment.”

Wikinews reporter Patrick Gillett looks into other, cheaper methods of promoting the Australian film industry. On October 7, was equivelent to roughly 98.73 US cents – give or take a fraction of a cent either side during the day.

Australia’s film industry is generally grouped with those that benefit from a low – or weak – Australian dollar. It relies on government grants and international investment.

“The industry is in crisis and in real pain but we can’t tell the real story without sending your international customers running,” another film executive told The Australian newspaper.

Australian television productions are propped up by a local production quota, wihch applies to free to air networks, set by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The quota, which is set to 55% of all programming between six in the morning to midnight, is split into three sub quotas – adult drama, documentary and children.

To fulfill these sub genres, broadcasters have to broadcast 20 hours of documentaries, 25 hours of childrens drama and 860 “points” of adult drama. The adult drama score is worked out as format factor x duration (in hours).

The Australian reported that subscription television services invested $541.4 million in Australian television content.

According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data, there are approximately 2500 businesses providing film and video production and post-production services.

Many low budget filmmakers use standard definition cameras. The tape based MiniDV format is popular with some filmakers as tapes generally have a longer life span and are harder to damage.

However, memory card and hard drive based camera’s are also becoming popular. This is due in part to the lack of needing to transfer footage to a computer for editing.

National governing bodies, such as the Australian Football League, oppose “monetisation” of what they see as their ittelectual property rights.

During a senate enquiry into sport reporting, the point was made that “[the AFL’s] complaint is how, when you get beyond the elements of that [news] package—for instance, footage—it could be subsequently exploited.”

AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan responded to this point saying, “[i]n the end what we are talking about is the question of balance. Through our history of accrediting journalists and promoting coverage of our sport we need, want and encourage the widest possible coverage of our game. The issue is where that bleeds over into media organisations doing what they do, monetising that content and essentially monetising our intellectual property.”

Wikinews coverage of local sport, including the Gippsland Football League 2010 season and recent Sunshine Coast Rugby Union matches, has included video and photographic coverage.

Major film studios, such as Paramount, have their films distributed through the iTunes Store and other such services.

However, some pointed to Apples “aggressive” pricing structure cutting into profit margins. The DIY Flmmaking Sucks blog published an article in 2007 which stated, “… let’s pretend [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs is egalitarian and charges everyone … 30% to get onto iTunes. [I]f your film costs $250,000 to make and market then you’ll need to sell around 180,000 downloads on iTunes before you see a profit on such a film at $1.99 per download. That’s a lot of viewers. Far too many for most small DIY films.”

Studio films cost around $30 and would find it easier to get a profit due to marketing leverage. Indie films usually do not have such leverage and would cost close to the $1.99 quoted by DIY Flmmaking Sucks.

A developing method of distributing is being experimented with, trying to merge the technology of bitTorrent with corporate profitability. The tool is currently only available as a Firefox plugin – even then only in version 3.x.

The Wikimedia Foundation announced that it is working with “swarming” communication technologists to make use of the Swarmplayer plugin on it’s sites, including this one, to play it’s videos.

“Eventually bandwidth costs could saturate the foundation budget or leave less resources for other projects and programs,” the Foundation wrote on it’s tech blog. “For this reason it is important to start exploring and experimenting with future content distribution platforms and partnerships.”

Australian content producers face similar challenges to those of the Wikimedia Foundation. They do not always have enough money or resources to distribute online, particularly if they host the content on ther own servers.

The exact business model is for distributing films in this way is not entirely clear, but one method is understood is to include some type of promotion for investors.

Torrents may be used as promotional tools. TorrentFreak points out “[t]he more hype their movie gets early on, the greater the chance of someone wanting to buy the DVD or go see it in the cinema.”

Another way of monetising free downloads has been Digital on-screen graphics. Traditionally these graphics are used to identify the television channel being watched or promote an upcoming show.

Critisism of on-screen graphics relates to timing and placement of them. Michael Simkins of The Telegraph has noted that even a graphic lasting thirty seconds can ruin the enjoyment of a programme.

Category:Film

Category:Australia Category:Oceania Category:Culture and entertainment

Friday, February 20, 2009 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its lowest level in over six years on Thursday, having lost 1.16%, or 89.68 points, bringing it to a level of 7,465.95. It had, at one point, set an intraday bear market low of 7,447.55. It was the lowest ending for the index since October 9, 2002. The Dow has fallen almost fifteen percent since the start of this year.

Two other US indexes also fell today: the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P) fell by 9.48 points, or 1.20 percent, to 778.94 points. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.71% or 25.15 points, closing at 1,442.82.

The S&P had seen its fourth consecutive loss on Thursday, its longest losing streak since last October. It has lost almost fourteen percent since the start of 2009.

Dan Cook, the senior market analyst at IG Markets, said that the Dow’s descent is worrisome since without that level of support, investors may worry that the markets can fall even further. “It’s kind of like if we’re walking across a frozen pond. If that ice starts to crack a bit we’re going to be very wary,” he said.

Other analysts, however, point out that despite the bad news, the stock market had not descended as quickly as it had been in October and November, and volume was low, suggesting a lack of conviction.

“There’s not that panic that there was in November,” said Paul Nolte, the director of investments at Hinsdale Associates.

Among some of the losers at the stock market today were Citigroup, which fell 13.8% to US$2.51 a share, and Bank of America, which dropped 14% to $3.93.

In other markets, the British FTSE index increased by 0.3%, and Germany’s DAX was up by a fifth of a percent.