Schiavo Dies After Feeding Tube Removed

Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose final years tethered to a feeding tube sparked a bitter feud over her fate that divided a family and a nation, died Thursday, her husband's attorney said.

Toshiba battery charges to 80% in one minute

From InfoSyncWorld:

Battery recharging woes may soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new battery developed by Toshiba. According to an announcement made today, Toshiba has improved on its existing Lithium Ion battery technology through the implementation of nanoparticles which aid in preventing the rapid disassembly of organic electrolytes witnessed in current batteries, allowing for rapid charging and a massive improvement in battery capacity loss over time.

Toshiba claims its new battery is capable of obtaining a charge of 80% in as short time as a minute, and also produced test results showing that following a test cycle of 1,000 charges and depletions, the decrease seen in battery capacity was a mere 1%. Aiming to commercialize the technology in 2006, Toshiba did not comment on whether pricing levels for batteries based on the new technology would remain similar to current battery pricing.

This would be nice, but they could also do everybody a favor and make the average battery life a lot longer. A story in the NYTimes in January ("Power Users, Ready for a Refill") talked about the scarce resource of power outlets in Starbucks and other cafe-type places of business -- more and more people are using battery-powered devices constantly, and battery life needs to keep up. And we have yet to see the wire-free recharging pad come to market, first mentioned in 2002 coming from MobileWise.

The Laura K. Pahl Saga

It's the story of how a college student turned to plagiarism, and how the Internet crushed her.

Start here, and if you can't find your way from there...

go here...

then here...

and then here for the surprise ending.

Via Waxy Links.

Oops, did I say Laura K. Pahl? I meant Laura K. Krishna.

Neurologist Exam of Terri in 2002

This is a must read. It is the most extensive report on her condition that I have seen. And he had his examination of her videotaped.

Orb Networks Drops Subscription Fees, Streaming Media Service Now Free to All Users

From ehomeupgrade.com:

Orb Networks, Inc., a developer of streaming media software and services, today announced the company’s groundbreaking streaming media software, Orb Media, will now be FREE to all users. Orb’s software and service gives consumers the ability to spontaneously access their live TV, music, photos, videos, and other digital content located on their home PC from virtually any Internet-enabled device, from anywhere in the world, and now provides that service without adding any new monthly fees for new and current customers. Additionally, Orb has added a new Photo Sharing service to its solution allowing customers to share all of their selected photos with friends and family at any time.

Orb’s mission is to provide consumers with the easiest, most innovative way to access their digital home media files wherever they are. The Orb solution is available to the millions of Windows® XP operating system and Windows® XP Media Center Edition users in the United States and is now made even more convenient for users to access their digital worlds by providing Orb Media absolutely FREE.

This is exactly what I have been envisioning for some time now: a service that lets you access the music, video, tv, photos, etc. on your home computer from anywhere via the Internet. This service makes that functionality easy and accessible to the average computer user. It's not as sophisticated as the 1337 h@ck3r5 would want, but that's OK...