Back to the past - Chemistry

Long back, when i was in my 11th and 12th, preparing for IITs,NITs and all other Ts, my dream was to become a chemical engineer. Chemistry was home turf for me , especially the organic part. My dreams revolved around the Benzene rings , the H2O2 and the likes of HexaMethylene Tri-Acetides (Does it exist??). All I could see were elements and compounds around me waiting for me to tinker with. And some of the most horribly gone wrong experiments in my life involved chemistry(there are others involving physics and magnetism too, but all about that later).Once

• when I tried creating hydrogen from water ( was pretty dangerous and dumb too)
• and when for the sake of human kind , I ventured into home based Methane production.It was a failure on a grand scale.

The lessons learnt ? - That water is a good conductor of electricity and that trash kept for a long time stinks.

So when i saw this article in sciencenews.org about Nitrogen-Nitrogen bonds all that terrible memories came flooding in.
The article talks about a new method of breaking N-N bonds to create carbon-nitrogen bond.
Facts that I learnt in school about N2.

Nitrogen is the element that makes up the largest percentage of the atmosphere, about 80%.But still we need nitrogen fixing bacteria to bring it to soil. For fertilizer production the N2 has to be bonded with Hydrogen and converted to ammonia to form a carbon-nitrogen bond,because N-N bonds are one of the toughest bonds found.

Why don't you just read the rest here - article

Panasonic wins control of Sanyo

Panasonic has bought majority shares in Sanyo. Both lead the market in rechargeable batteries for hybrid cars and other such environmentally sound products. with the current hype in environmentalism reaching a feverish pitch , the deal makes much sense, for the opportunities are clear and evident.
Related :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8405757.stm
http://www.skynews.com.au/tech/article.aspx?id=404593

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Bing to index Twitter updates

Microsoft has a new weapon in its Internet search duel with Google - full access to Twitter’ tweets.Microsoft apparently outbid Google Inc. for the right to index and display the tweets almost as soon as they are posted.

But,recently i had also come across another article saying Google is coming up with a next generation search engine that indexes tweets real time. Also there are claims of Yahoo having access to twitter's data. Well, one thing that's certain is , that access to twitter , the one window to real time happenings is the apple pie that everyone wants.

And the most ironic thing is twitter is yet to make a profit.

Google to limit free news access ?

Well, apparently , the web giant found it difficult to take on the likes of Rupert Murdoch and is setting a limit on its users on the number of free articles they can read from a site.
Read original article

Google to limit free news access

Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.

The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages.Under the First Click Free programme, publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages.

"Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free," Google senior business product manager

“ This may still be a significant moment in the battle between old and new media ”
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent

"Now, we've updated the programme so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing."Google users may start seeing registration pages appear when they click for a sixth time on any given day at websites of publishers using the programme, according to Mr Cohen.

'Significant move'

The announcement is seen as a reaction to concerns in the newspaper industry that Google is using newspaper content unfairly.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of Newscorp, has accused firms such as Google of profiting from journalism by generating advertising revenue by linking readers to newspaper articles.

Some readers have discovered they can avoid paying subscription fees to newspaper websites by calling up their pages via Google. This is because Google searches frequently link directly to newspaper articles, bypassing some sites' subscription systems.

The Webby Awards

link I came across this award way back in 2000 and what caught my attention was their five word limit for the winner's speech. And the eye catcher was Al Gore's five word speech -
"Please don't recount this vote"
A reference to that year's presidential race fiasco . Al Gore was given the webby lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet .Article

The Webby Awards is an international paid-entry-exclusive award honoring excellence on the Internet, including websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile web sites, presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences since 1996.[Wiki]

2009 awards-http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/the-webby-awards-in-more-than-five-words/

News : Webby Awards Entries Deadline Is On DEC. 18TH!

The annual webby awards deadline for entries is on Dec 18th link.

I promise to write a detailed article on webby awards and their most interesting award winning speeches. My favourite one is Al gore's.

[The Webby 411]
WEBBY AWARDS ENTRIES DEADLINE IS DEC. 18TH!

The time to submit your entries for the 14th Annual Webby Awards is now. Never have there been more ways to be recognized for your amazing online content. With over 100 categories, this year promises to highlight the best of the best on the Web like never before. To acknowledge your innovative Mobile Web work, last year we introduced the much-requested Mobile Applications category. This includes apps for the iPhone, Android, Nokia devices, and all other mobile operating systems. We're getting some very exciting entries in this category already and we're sure there's more to come. In the meantime, go check out last year's winners. Enter now to get your work in front of the judges and part of the only award show CNN referred to as, "An online institution for more than a decade." Enter now before the Final Entry Deadline of Dec. 18th.

Oprah Winfrey to End Her Talk Show !!

I don't know much about this talk show simply because i haven't seen even a single episode. However one need not see a thing to believe it. So it came as a shocker when news about drawing the final curtains on the show broke.
Well , it had to end some day.And no better time to stop than when the show is going well, sitting on the top of the charts with loyal viewers who have nothing bad to say.

This is the original news article on the topic. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/oprah-winfrey-to-end-her-talk-show/?hp&emc=na