In 2009, winter ended at Saturn’s North Pole and began to let sunlight in to brighten up the place. It was then that scientists discovered that there was a massive hurricane in the region. Three years later, in November 2012, NASA’s unmanned Cassini spacecraft moved into position to capture images and video of the storm.

What you see above is a false color image of the hurricane, with the color red corresponding to low clouds and green to high ones. It has cloud speeds of up to 330 miles per hour and its eye is 1,250 miles wide, which is about 20 times the size of an average hurricane on our planet. But they do not know for how many years it’s been active.

Scientists are wondering how such a hurricane exists on Saturn with just small amounts of water vapor. Their study will certainly shed more light on how storms are formed here on Earth.

So, that’s a hurricane the size of Australia. You think that’s big? You clearly haven’t heard about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, which is a storm two to three times the size of Earth.

What did you think of the videos above? Pretty fascinating stuff, wouldn’t you say?

[Source]

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That line comes by way of Australian police officials. More specifically, the police of Victoria are urging motorists to avoid using Apple Maps altogether, because the inaccurate directions could lead people into the middle of the Australian Outback. Remember that when you get lost in the Outback, you really are in the middle of nowhere. You could be left with no food, no water, no gas stations, and no shelter from the potentially sweltering heat.

Apple Maps is, for whatever reason, placing the town of Mildura about 70km away from its actual location. People trying to get to Mildura, using Apple Maps, are instead ending up in Murray Sunset National Park and “there is no water supply within the Park and temperatures can reach as high as 46 degrees [Celsius].”

It’s one thing to get annoyed at being sent to the wrong part of town when you want to visit a certain store; it’s another thing altogether to end up in a situation where you could die by dehydration and heat exhaustion. Be sure to review those driving directions to make sure they make sense before you actually start driving!

So are Apple Maps really all that bad? Honestly, it depends on where you live. In some parts of the world, Apple has already done enough to update its maps and ensure improved accuracy. In other places, like parts of Australia, you might want to use them at your own risk.

[Source]

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Basically Motorola would have to put up a €100 million bond for the injunction to take effect… and if the ruling is later overturned on appeal, Motorola could lose that money. According to Thompson Reuters, the current front lines and dispositions of legal warriors on that bloody battlefield look like this:

The blue and red strike lines above depict here huge money streams. Sure, the direction of arrows on these can be reverted any minute, and the only undisputed winners are patent law courts and lawyers. Customers, on average, are on a losing side as Apple plans to go after basically any non-Apple tablet for supposed infringements.

However, there are some local successes at some fronts, like Australia where after a long and grueling battle in which Apple attempted to ban the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, Samsung is winning for now. The High Court of Australia has ruled that Apple’s case lacks merit, meaning Samsung is now in the clear to sell the tablet as it sees fit.

Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will go on sale in time for the holidays in Australia now that things have been straightened out legally. That is definitely not to say that Apple has unconditionally surrendered and capitulated out there, it’s just a reversal of this decision may cost way too much.

The post Samsung winning in Apple’s law suits in Australia; Germany may ban iPad, iPhone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Samsung’s goal is to have a ban on sales of the iPhone 4S in Australia. After temporary bans on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung has been accusing Apple of infringing on multiple patents in courts in Europe and now in Australia. Samsung’s legal counsel in Australia is claiming that Samsung needs access to the Apple source code and other information in order to properly make a case for a ban on the iPhone 4S in the country.

Interestingly, Apple claims that it had properly licensed the intellectual property. Apple suggests Samsung did agree to license the patents to them, but experts believe that Samsung is planning to argue that the patent agreement under the FRAND standard doesn’t extend to Australia.

The case, scheduled to resume on November 4th, is being presided over by the same judge that had handed down the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Many, including Apple’s legal counsel, believe the court date may be too late for Samsung to be granted any injunctive action, as the iPhone 4S has already been on sale in Australia for over two weeks.

The post We Want The Source Code appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

There’s some big green energy news from down under: the Eco Whisper Turbine is up and running. Renewable Energy Solutions Australia, or RESA, out of Brisbane recently unveiled the Eco Whisper, which is said to be the world’s quietest wind turbine. This energy solution is smaller than the traditional three-blade model; it is about half the size both in height and in blade diameter.

This smart turbine also adjusts automatically to position itself for optimal wind capture. Additionally, the near-silent design may produce over 30% more energy than other turbines. These quiet, eco-friendly turbines are expected to fulfill medium to high power needs in rural and urban areas alike. RESA envisions these turbines in a variety of locals including farms, airports, business parks and universities.

The Eco Whisper Turbine has a cowl / ring design. This design is not only visibly different than the large blades one normally associates with turbines, it is what makes it quieter and more economical. Instead of air rushing off the large blades of other turbines, more air filters through the 30 aluminum blades of the Eco Whisper. Other notable features of the Eco Whisper Turbine include the hinged steel pole, which allows the turbine to be lowered during severe weather or for maintenance. The Eco Whisper also has high visibility, which is an excellent innovation for the local avian population.

The post The Nearly Silent Eco Whisper Wind Turbine appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The idea is to patch these lightweight wearable solar panels onto the garb of the soldiers in the field. They can have them attached to their helmets, clothing, backpacks, tents, weapons, equipment and whatever else. The silver solar panels are somewhat bendable, so they should be able to wrap around the contours accordingly.

In doing so, the soldiers get a near constant supply of power for various electronics and communication equipment. It won’t be quite as useful for nighttime missions, but the stored power from the day could be still utilized. I think another concern would be, well, the solar panels kind of ruin the camouflage of their usual garb, don’t you think?

The post Silver solar panels getting patched onto Australian military personnel appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Can’t we all just get along? The legal battle between Seoul and Cupertino is continuing to heat up, this time taking the combat down under. Because of the current patent dispute launched by Apple, Samsung has agreed to halt sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia until further notice. After going through a hearing in an Australian federal court, Samsung agreed to stop advertising the Android tablet and it will not sell the device until it gets a go-ahead from the courts that the disputes have been resolved. So, Samsung is the loser here, right?

Not necessarily. Since Samsung isn’t selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia anymore, Apple has also agreed that it will “pay damages” if it loses the infringement lawsuit. It is then up to the Samsung lawyers to justify a number that would represent lost sales and other damages. Remember that, for now, this is only Australia. There’s no saying that Apple and Samsung won’t end up with similar (or totally different) arrangements in other markets.

Does this mean that Aussies can’t have a Samsung tablet? No, that’s not true either. The ban is on the US version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung will develop an Australian version that’s different enough, whatever that means, providing samples to Apple before it starts shipping them out to Aussie vendors.

The post Australian lawsuit leads to Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 being pulled from store shelves appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Researchers at the University of Technology in Sydney have come up with an interesting solution for devices like the Apple iPad. In effect, you can rest your fingers on the screen of the tablet without accidentally typing anything. That’s the biggest problem with the virtual keyboard on the iPad (and other products like it); you touch it, you type it, but you don’t get the clickity-clack of a physical button. But the full QWERTY keyboard is “liquid” insofar that it follows your fingers. No matter where you rest your four fingers, that half of the keyboard will be there. The “fluid” keyboard adjusts to your specific physiology too, since people have different size hands and slightly different finger positioning.

The LiquidKeyboard won’t give you that “sense of where keys are relative to others” like how a physical equivalent would, but it’s probably closer than the rigid layout of a standard tablet’s virtual keyboard.

[GizMag via UTS]

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Melbourne police recently used an iPhone GPS app to track down a thief. They combined the power of this free app with the ridiculous expense of a helicopter to nab the sticky-fingered bandit.

After a woman’s iPhone was snatched from a hospital in suburban Heidelberg in northeast Melbourne, police utilized the iPhone’s GPS application to track the hot phone on Tuesday afternoon.

We’ll give credit to the coppers for not launching a helicopter as part of the chase but happened to have an air wing in the area which spotted the 16-year-old thief on a bike. Upon noticing the whirlybird overhead, the paranoid burglar ditched his bike and jumped on a tram but even more coppers on foot nabbed him at the next stop.

The young fella is expected to be charged with burglary, theft, possessing cannabis (hence the paranoia) and handling the proceeds of crime.

[SMH]

The post Aussie Police use iPhone GPS to Nab 16-Year-Old iPhone Snatcher appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

DreamBook ePad L11 HD

The tablet market is really heating up. Just about everyone is making an “iPad killer” these days and the latest to join the fray is the Pioneer DreamBook ePad L11. I’m more familiar with Pioneer’s audio products, but it looks like they’re expanding their portfolio into the touchscreen handheld realm too.

From what I hear, the Pioneer tablet will come powered by Windows 7 Home Premium and it’ll rock an Intel Atom N450 (1.66GHz) processor. The DreamBook ePad L11, aside from its 11.6-inch touchscreen display, will resemble a netbook on the inside: NVIDIA ION graphics, 16GB to 64GB solid state drive, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n Wi-Fi and 3G.

The display is a capacitive multitouch number and the resolution is pretty good too at 1366 x 768 pixels. Rounding out the specs are a 4800mAh battery and 1.3 megapixel webcam. You can expect this Windows tablet to hit Australian store shelves next month starting from about $699 in Aussie Dollars. And thats not including a camera, bluetooth, or GPS. The tricked out version will cost upwards of $1000 USD.

DreamBook ePad L11 HD [Pioneer Australia]
Pioneer DreamBook ePad L11 tablet to to hit Australia next month[Liliputing]

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