Kepler update

This is a little late, the news came on January 4th that Kepler has found 5 planets orbiting other stars.

http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=16

From the press release:

NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Kepler's high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by the members of the Kepler science team during a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington.
"These observations contribute to our understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve from the gas and dust disks that give rise to both the stars and their planets," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki is the mission's science principal investigator. "The discoveries also show that our science instrument is working well. Indications are that Kepler will meet all its science goals."
Known as "hot Jupiters" because of their high masses and extreme temperatures, the new exoplanets range in size from similar to Neptune to larger than Jupiter. They have orbits ranging from 3.3 to 4.9 days. Estimated temperatures of the planets range from 2,200 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than molten lava and much too hot for life as we know it. All five of the exoplanets orbit stars hotter and larger than Earth's sun.

Fusion

Everyday we are getting closer to fusion power. Today an article on MSNBC tells about a new experiment that they believe will finally achieve fusion. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/28/2187974.aspx

Problem with this method is that how to capture and use the energy. It probably never will be able to, but it is a good method for learning about atoms and atomic physics. Farther down in the article it tells about 4 other methods that are being tested.

The most known what is ITER, http://www.iter.org/default.aspx. This method uses a big donut shaped device to produce plasma and shape it into a narrow band. This produces heat which heats water into steam and turns generators.

Another is the LDX at MIT. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35126008/ns/technology_and_science-science/
This is similar to the ITER project but defers in the way the plasma is shaped.

Another is the project run by Emc2 Fusion. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/12/1136887.aspx
This to me sounds like another one for experimenting and not actual energy production.

One project that uses a combination of the first one and normal fission (found nuclear power plants), problem is the waste. https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/how_life_works.php

iPad

While the iPhone is neat and you can do lots of things on it, I can't get past the price of it. It's a phone/PDA with too many strings attached. So unless your business is paying for it which I know a lot are (would be nice here too) the only other people that are buying into it are people that have to keep up with the crowd or are complete Apple freaks.

Now, as for the iPad (which is a bigger iTouch (which is an iPhone without the phone)) this is something those Apple freaks are just freaking out about. They think this is the coolest gadget in years and is going to change everything. Problem is that tablets have been around for years. Most major PC makers are on their 2nd or 3rd generation of them and with Windows 7 and multi-touch they are so much better. So Apple is a little late to the game.

And if history shows us anything, they will have problems with it when it first launches just like the iPhone. But of course they fix those fairly quickly. As with any software or hardware vendor, it is impossible to know what your customers are going to try with your product, so they put it out there and listen. I'll let the freaks and Jones get them first and deal with the problems.

When I first heard about it I thought, "Great, another hyped up product we don't need." But after hearing that they will have a $499 version with only WiFi and you don't need to switch cell carriers my wife and I thought this might be the thing for our oldest girl. The great thing about the iPad is that the OS is built with it in mind. PC versions adapt Windows to work on it and it just doesn't quite feel right. It will be interesting to see what happens when it goes on sale in 60 days.