New Technology 4 U

Houston the fourth most populated city in US is plagued with humidity and intense sun and also lots of flooding. SoHouston is paying to build this geodesic dome over the city of Houston, called the Houston Dome.

The Houston Dome Project is the design and builds The Houston Dome.

The material used to build the Houston Dome to cover the entire city of Houston must be durable, but also lightweight enough. The Houston Dome Project is expected to use a project called Texlon EFTE, which is light-weight and durable and is expected to withstand winds up to 180 MPH. Texlon EFTE is able to hold up against fire as well as water and even a hurricane with the strongest category 5. The Texlon EFTE will be used in conjunction with steel for support. continue reading…

Toyota’s US president apologizes for sudden acceleration problems: The president of Toyota’s U.S. operations is apologizing for the company’s slow handling of sudden acceleration problems in its vehicles.

James Lentz says Toyota took too long to confront the issue. He says Toyota had poor communications within the company, with government regulators and with its customers.

Lentz’s written apology was prepared for the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative panel, which is holding the first congressional hearing Tuesday on Toyota’s safety issues.

Lentz also asserted that no problems exist with the Toyota’s electronic throttle control system. He said the vehicles are built with multiple fail-safe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power if the system fails.

After 9/11, cockpit doors were sealed, air marshals were added and airport searches became more aggressive, all to make sure an airliner could never again be used as a weapon. Yet little has been done to guard against attacks with smaller planes.

That point was driven home with chilling force on Thursday when a Texas man with a grudge against the IRS crashed his single-engine plane into an office building in a fiery suicide attack. One person inside the building was also killed.

“It’s a big gap,” said R. William Johnstone, an aviation security consultant and former staff member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. “It wouldn’t take much, even a minor incident involving two simultaneously attacking planes, to inflict enough damage to set off alarm bells and do some serious harm to the economy and national psyche.”

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Online payments service PayPal says its suspension of certain transactions in India could last months.

In a post on PayPal’s blog Tuesday, spokesman Anuj Nayar wrote that the company will keep blocking personal payments to and from India as it works out questions that Indian regulators have posed. The payments were initially suspended Jan. 28, after regulators questioned whether PayPal payments should be regulated like wire transfers of cash.

However, local bank withdrawals, which had also been suspended, should be available within a few days, Nayar said.

The size of PayPal’s India business is not publicly disclosed, but it appears to be relatively small.

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If Apple is really considering price cuts on its just-introduced iPad, the best advice is to make them before launch, not after.

Not today, or tomorrow, but a price drop a week–or even a day–before it goes on sale might give the iPad an incredible boost. I will also describe what other businesses can learn from Apple’s troubles.

The iPad has been gradually settling back to early after a less than stellar Steve Jobs introduction on Jan. 27. The truth is that, for many, a supersized iPod touch just isn’t too terribly interesting.

A well-timed price cut could light a fire under iPad sales. That such a cut would be a bit of a black-eye for Apple would be noticed by only a few.

Just the fact that Apple appears to already be talking to analysts about “nimble” pricing suggests consumer interest in the iPad is less than the company hoped. A post-introduction survey actually found that the more consumers knew about the iPad, the less they wanted one.

Conservative wisdom might be for Apple to save face by keeping prices where they are and dropping them sometime after iPad sales begin.

Of course, some of us still have copies of the $100 rebates Apple reluctantly sent after it cut the price of the original iPhone a mere two months after many of us stood in line to get one on launch day.

If Apple has to wait to take iPad pricing action until it won’t upset early adopters, however, it could take nearly a year. Better to take the cuts early, when Apple will make fans, not enemies.

There are lessons for all businesses here.

Apple is not the first company to have a product launch go a tad sour. A $50-$100 price cut would send hard-core Apple fans over the edge with iPad excitement. It might also convince fence sitters to make their purchases closer to launch day.

That it might cause others to wait for the next price cut would be lost in the noise. Just like the idea that if things had gone well, the price cut would not have been necessary.

It seems clear that a sudden, unexpected, even last-second price cut could turn so-so first week sales into a blockbuster, generating momentum to carry the iPad forcefully into the marketplace.

After all, 16GB iPad for $449 (a $50 cut) is the sort of pricing to which even a jaded tech columnist might succumb.

PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country.

Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants cannot withdraw funds in rupees at local Indian banks, it added.

The services have been suspended while the company works with its “business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service,” according to PayPal’s blog. PayPal did not say what questions have been raised.

PayPal said it is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that it may cause its customers in India and around the world. A number of bloggers and Web sites have reported that the company has reversed and returned payments to senders.

PayPal executives in the region were not available for comment on specific reasons why the service was discontinued.

The move by PayPal may be linked to new Indian government rules aimed at preventing money laundering, according to an analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last November, the Indian government introduced rules requiring financial institutions and other intermediaries to verify the identity of clients carrying out international money transfers.

PayPal’s user agreement says it does not guarantee any user’s identity because user verification on the Internet is difficult. PayPal does reserve the right to validate customers’ identities, including asking for documents.

PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing.

Here is the new LED Flashlight from eGear that is powered by a built-in solar panel or pull string dynamo generator, so its always ready to use. Weighing at just 3.2 ounces, the Solar Pull LED Flashlight uses a high-efficiency Lithium battery allowing it to be recharged over and over. What makes this eco-friendly gadget more special is that it has 3 super-bright LEDs that are unbreakable and never need replacing.

The dynamo generator is powered by a string pull cord. You just need to grip the ring with your fingers and pull the string to a length of about 25-inch and release. Charging times by the solar panel vary based on proximity to sunlight. Available in Red, Blue or Silver, the Solar Pull LED Flashlight retails for $19.95.

Brando has introduced their latest spy gadget in the form of the Flashlight LED Torch and Spy Camera Camcorder. The gadget comes equipped with a microSD slot, 8 LED torch, a USB port and a rechargeable battery. Its camcorder can capture VGA resolution video at 29fps. $59.90 is all you need to bring home the Brando Flashlight LED Torch and Spy Camera Camcorder.