Crude drops on demand worry, fading hope for stimulus

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ViaSat Exede review

Broadband in the boonies has long been an unreasonable ask. As slack-jawed farmers are fond of telling lost tourists "Ya can't get there from here," broadband-starved country bumpkins have heard from cable companies, "We don't offer service in that location." Options have been few, like paying said cable company thousands to run some copper a few miles down the road, or making a second mortgage payment for a dedicated T3 line.

Over the years satellite internet has been offered as an alternative for broadband in places where bears do their business, but as we've seen it's never really worked. Bandwidth has been low, latency high and pricing on the tall side of average have made services like WildBlue and HughesNet untenable to all but the most dedicated wilderness lovers.

Now a new player approaches, and the offerings certainly sound compelling. It's called Exede from ViaSat and it promises speeds of up to 12Mbps down and 3Mbps up -- comparable to your average household "broadband" connection. However, with monthly fees ranging from $50 to $130 depending on how much data you need, this has the potential to be considerably more costly. Worth it? Put on your best pair of overalls then click on through to find out.

Gallery: ViaSat Exede review

Continue reading ViaSat Exede review

ViaSat Exede review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Must-Have Accessories and Gadgets for Business Travelers | Travel ...

By Scott Tharler

Fodor's Travel Technology Columnist

In many ways, today's road warriors have it easy. There are more amazing gadgets to get business done while on the go than the businessperson of yesteryear could ever have even imagined. Of course, the ability to be so terribly productive can be viewed as both a blessing and a curse (but that's another story). We've rounded up seven cutting-edge business travel gadgets to ensure your wardrobe, computer work, meetings, and presentations rank tops while you're traveling for work.

1. Multi-Tool Collar Stays

Why We Like Them: These 2.5-inch titanium stays can do much more than just make your collar pop the right way. They can also be used to tighten screws, cut wires, and pop off bottle caps?all very handy stuff for road warriors. These fashionable, functional accessories come in a set of four and fit all collar styles.

How Much: $50

Buy It: Visit Bonobos.com.

2. Power-Up Rolling Office Bag

Why We Like It: This smooth-rolling, dual-purpose bag not only neatly swallows all your business travel essentials?including a tablet, clothing, cards, pens, and up to a 17-inch laptop?it also breathes new life into your gadgets. It comes with a removable battery which, on a full charge, can re-juice the average smartphone several times. And as you roll along, its integrated wiring lets you connect and power up a wide variety of tablets, cameras, e-readers, music players, and most other current accessories.

How Much: $250

Buy It: Visit MyPowerBag.com.

3. MP180 Wireless Pocket Projector

Why We Like It: This handheld projector is quite the bright little presentation tool, on a couple of levels. It comes with cords to connect it directly to a computer or TV, but you might not need them, since you can also load your documents right into its internal memory or built-in card reader. Or, you can wirelessly transfer files to the projector from your laptop or smartphone, and then project them as big as 80 inches, for up to two hours. It has a touch screen and can connect to the Internet, so you can throw live online images onto the wall, as well. And its built-in speakers come in handy for multimedia presentations (though it can also be hooked up to external speakers). This pocket-size powerhouse comes with a carrying pouch, the above-mentioned connection cords, and a charger with international adapters.

How Much: $450

Buy It: Visit 3M.com/MPro.

4. Logitech Wireless Touchpad

Why We Like It: This handy five-inch touchpad lets you do everything your antiquated mouse does, plus a ton more. Based on tapping and swiping with one to four fingers, you can point, click, drag-and-drop, scroll, minimize windows, and switch applications. Best of all, a tiny receiver gives it wireless capabilities, with a range of up to 25 meters from your computer. It also has good battery life, so you can mouse around for months before having to refresh.

How Much: $50

Buy It: Visit Logitech.com.

5. SlimScan Portable Scanner

Why We Like It: This credit card-size scanner makes managing receipts on the road much easier. In addition to tracking your expenses, you can also use it to scan pictures, business cards, and articles?and save them each into special directories. The included software recognizes category types, allows you to edit and compartmentalize what you've scanned, and helps you create reports. It works with eight different languages, and comes with a case, lens brush, and PC connection cord, to boot.

How Much: $140

Buy It: Visit PlanonStore.com.

6. Cinq Portable Monitor

Why We Like It: This lightweight 10-inch side monitor is a portable, affordable way to boost your screen size as you travel. It can stand on its own or physically attach to your laptop. Either way, it automatically rotates the picture when switching between portrait and landscape. It also has its own card reader, great for one-on-one presentations, keeping track of your social feeds, and flashing photos of loved ones when you're missing home.

How Much: $249

Buy It: Visit MyCinq.com.

7. Echo Smartpen

Why We Like It: This ink-based pen?which is a little on the thick side, but easy enough to grip?is a mini-computer, complete with a processor, screen, memory, microphone, speaker, and audio jack. As you take notes in various lectures and meetings, you can also use it to record audio. Then you can play them back, upload them to your computer, and share them with friends and colleagues (even if they don't have a similar pen). It comes with a notebook featuring special compatible paper; when you run out, you can buy other pads or print your own for free. Plus, you can also load apps onto it, including handy travel phrases in German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish or French.

How Much: $120?$180

Buy It: Visit Livescribe.com.

Enter to win a 3M PocketProjector MP180

Fodors.com Travel Technology Columnist Scott Tharler is an expert in gadgets, gambling, and travel. He?s written four books, plus hundreds of mobile and wireless tips for Sony and PC World. In addition to his daily Discovery News?gadget blog, you can find links to other gadget articles, social feeds and lists of his current favorite gadgets at about.me/gadgetfans.

Photo Credits: 1. Bonobos; 2. Powerbag; 3. 3M; 4. Logitech; 5. Planon System Solutions, Inc.; 6. James David Phenicie; 7. Livescribe, Inc.

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Explosion simulates mysterious Buncefield blast

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

On 11 December, 2005, a massive explosion rocked a fuel storage depot in Buncefield, UK, causing ?1.5 billion in damage. Although it was clear that the fire started when vapour from a huge petrol leak ignited, the scale of the damage was puzzling. Metal structures were flattened, cars blown apart and lamp posts bent out of shape, all in a pattern of destruction that was much more extreme than what calculations predicted.

Now simulations by Mike Johnson from oil and gas consultants GL Noble Denton and a team of investigators are revealing the likely cause of the blast. By attempting to recreate the explosion, they're showing that trees close to the site could have helped propagate the flame front, creating turbulence and accelerating combustion.

In this video, the first test with propane gas and flexible pine trees doesn't result in detonation. However, in the second simulation, which uses dense, deciduous trees more similar to the hedgerows near Buncefield, a massive blast occurs.

To find out more about the Buncefield investigation, read our full-length feature "Impossible explosion: The Buncefield blast explained".

If you enjoyed this post, see how the latest fire-resistant knitwear can defy 1000??C flames or watch a spherical flame engulf fuel in space.

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Toshiba Portege R835-P88

In a world where ultrabooks are hip and happening, ultraportables can seem like yesterday's news. The Toshiba Portege R835-P88 ($849.99 list) is the latest version of a model that's been around for years. It weighs a third of a pound more than the average ultrabook. It has an old-fashioned optical drive instead of a newfangled backlit keyboard. It also costs less than virtually all ultrabooks and runs faster than any of them?and yeah, an optical drive can still come in pretty handy sometimes. For portability, performance, and value (especially at street prices markedly below its $850 list), the Portege R835-P88 is what we said its R835-P50X predecessor was 11 months ago: the epitome of what an ultraportable should be, and an easy successor to last year's model as an Editors' Choice in the category.

Design
The R835-P88 weighs 3.2 pounds on PC Labs' scale?more than the 2.9 pounds of the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt) ($1,299 direct, 4 stars) and numerous ultrabooks, though actually an ounce less than our Editors' Choice ultrabook HP Folio 13 ($1,048.99 direct, 4 stars). Its magnesium alloy chassis is a handsome dark blue, accented by chrome (plastic) screen hinges.

The screen feels solid, less flexible or flimsy than that of Toshiba's 2.5-pound ultrabook models such as the Portege Z830-S8302. It's a glossy 13.3-inch panel with the usual 1,366 by 768 resolution; vertical viewing angles are narrow enough that you'll find yourself adjusting its tilt, but horizontal angles are sufficiently broad and brightness and color are fine.

The keyboard, as mentioned, isn't backlit but offers a first-class layout, with dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys plus Ctrl and Delete in their proper lower left and top right corners, respectively. Its typing feel is snappy and sure, if a little shallow. The touchpad works smoothly, its twin buttons giving just the right amount of tactile feedback.

Features
On the right side of the R835-P88's chassis, next to the DVD?RW drive, are headphone and microphone jacks, a USB 3.0 port, and an Ethernet port. On the left are VGA and HDMI ports and two USB 2.0 ports, one an eSATA combo port with Toshiba's "sleep and charge" functionality for recharging handheld devices without turning the laptop on.

Bluetooth and WiMax are absent, but the R835-P88's 802.11n Wi-Fi worked fine in our tests and Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) is on hand for users who want to zap audio and video to an HDTV set equipped with a Belkin or Netgear adapter. Toshiba preloads the system's spacious 640GB (550GB free out of the box), 5,400-rpm hard drive with a slew of house-brand utilities and a scanty 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security.

The diminutive speakers above the keyboard pump out pleasant enough audio, but were occasionally drowned out during our tests by the Toshiba's cooling fan?inaudible during routine productivity work, the latter grew noticeably loud during strenuous exercises such as our graphics benchmarks.

Performance
While most Intel Core i5 ultrabooks we've seen use a low-voltage (17-watt) processor running at 1.6GHz, the R835-P88 ultraportable boasts a standard-voltage (35-watt) Core i5-2450M chip running at 2.5GHz. Teamed with 6GB of RAM, it delivers performance that not only bests those flyweights, but even edges Core i7 ultrabooks like the Toshiba Z830-S8302 (1 minute 59 seconds in our Handbrake video encoding test, versus 1:46 for the R835-P88) and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s (4:25 in our Photoshop CS5 image editing test, versus 3:55 for the R835-P88).

The R835-P88's PCMark 7 score of 2,313 is only middling, because it has a hard drive instead of one of the SSDs that PCMark 7 adores. But its other benchmark numbers are thoroughly competitive with other ultraportables such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X220 and Panasonic Toughbook CF-S10, leading the field in Handbrake and tying the Lenovo X220 in Photoshop. The only reality check came in our gaming tests, where its Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics predictably fell short of playable frame rates?plus or minus 21 frames per second in Crysis and Lost Planet 2.

The R835-P88's 66Wh battery will get you through a whole day's work: Though shy of the 9 hours 26 minutes of its predecessor, the R835-P50X (not to mention the 11 hours of the big-batteried Acer TravelMate 8481T-6440), it lasted a solid 8:40?longer than any ultrabook we've tested?in our MobileMark 2007 rundown test.

We've made it clear in other reviews that we're fans of ultrabooks, but the Toshiba Portege R835-P88 is an eye-opener: Almost light enough to forget it's in your briefcase, it delivers ultrabook-beating performance plus the convenience (even if you only use it occasionally) of an onboard optical drive plus the appeal (even if it's mostly due to a hard disk instead of SSD) of a bargain price. At the very least, it's worth keeping our ultraportable category on the books so we can give it an Editors' Choice.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE:
Compare the Toshiba Portege R835-P88 with several other laptops side by side.

More laptop reviews:
??? Toshiba Satellite C655-S5542
??? Toshiba Portege R835-P88
??? Toshiba Satellite P775D-S7144
??? Sony VAIO VPC-EH35FM/B
??? Alienware M18x
?? more

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Myanmar opposition claims landmark Suu Kyi win

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Shell overcomes legal obstacles to Arctic drilling

Oil giant Shell last week overcame the last major legal obstacle to its plans in the Arctic Ocean this summer. On Wednesday, the US Department of the Interior (DoI) approved the firm's oil spill response plan, effectively granting permission for exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska.

Shell intends to drill from the start of July and must stop by the end of October, before the dark, cold and ice set in for winter. They received permission to drill in the nearby Chukchi Sea in February, and are now awaiting permits from environmental agencies.

The DoI upped the ante in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf of Mexico. It required Shell to prepare for a blowout three times larger. Shell's response was that they would first deploy a cap similar to the one that eventually sealed the Deepwater well, and if that failed, employ extensive backup measures.

These are the strictest offshore measures the DoI has ever required, but is Shell really prepared for the nightmare scenario: a blowout at the end of the drilling season that extends into the Arctic winter? New Scientist asked some experts to assess the plans.

Prevention please

The best cure is prevention, and Kulluk, Shell's rig, contains numerous sensors and automatic shut-off systems to detect early problems and deploy the cap. The technology is far more advanced than what the Deepwater rig had, says Arne Jernel?v at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, Sweden. "The DoI has done a good job by requiring that," he says. "I think it's likely to work."

If oil did enter the water, Shell and the DoI agree that containing it with booms would be ineffective as floating sea ice would obstruct them. Shell says it has several backups, including dropping dispersants from helicopters, burning the oil, and skimming it off the surface.

Those plans have problems. Jernel?v points out that dispersants can leave fish more exposed to oil's harmful effects. And it's not clear how well they would work in the Arctic: even in mid-summer, low-angle sunlight and cold water could fail to activate the chemicals. The flammable materials that are added to oil spills for burn-offs would also be less efficient there, Jernel?v says.

Ice-breaker issue

Shell will have ice-breaker ships on hand to create a path for skimmers, but broken ice may create more problems. "On a good day, we can recover 15 per cent of the oil from a fixed release in open water," says Richard Charter of the Ocean Foundation.

"If you get tar oil mixed with broken sea ice, you're not going to recover it at all."

And if oil gets under the ice, he says, it could stay there indefinitely since it won't be degraded by sunlight or bacteria. Shell says they can track the oil under seasonal ice using radar and other sensors, and recover it in the spring. But recovering oil that's carried out to sea would be too dangerous for skimmer ships.

Last resort

The last resort would be to drill a relief well ? the only solution that has been consistently and permanently effective, says Jernel?v. Shell is required to be able to do this, but it takes three to six months ? precious time they would not have if the blowout were late in the season. Ideally, they would drill two wells in parallel in order to have one ready, says Jernel?v. This would add hugely to Shell's drilling costs, and they're not required to take this precaution.

In the Gulf, the best cleaners were the natural ones: microbes that consumed both the oil and the methane gas that leaked with it. No one has done an extensive survey of the Beaufort Sea, says David Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He guesses that many of the bacteria there will be similar to those in the Gulf, but at Arctic temperatures the bugs would be moving slowly and the ice might be a physical hindrance to them, curbing their ability to degrade oil and methane.

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