In the dark, chilly tropics of Saturn's moon Titan, the Cassini probe has spotted what appears to be a lake of liquid methane, fuelling speculation that caverns below might harbour life.
Titan has a rocky, icy surface coated by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane. It's a geologically-young moon, but below its dense atmosphere the surface is dotted by mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes, which are thought to erupt methane rather than magma.
It's the only extraterrestrial object to have even shown clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid -- in Titan's case, methane -- but these lakes of hydrocarbon have previously only been spotted in the planet's polar regions. In 2009, exometeorologists saw evidence of weather on Titan, and since then the moon has been found to have a methane cycle rather like the water cycle on Earth -- where methane evaporates and then rains down as a liquid elsewhere.
However, the discovery of the liquid methane lake in the desert-like tropical regions of the planet might throw a spanner into the works -- any surface liquid there should evaporate and be transported to the cooler poles. "Lakes at the poles are easy to explain, but lakes in the tropics are not," Caitlin Griffith, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, told Nature.
The lake that Griffith and her colleagues found is 60 kilometres long, 40 kilometres wide and at least a metre deep. It was persistent through observations between 2004 and 2008, and appears as a black mark on near-infrared wavelengths (which can penetrate Titan's thick atmosphere). The team also found several smaller, brighter marks, which they believe may be "shallower ponds similar to marshes on Earth, with knee-to-ankle-level depths".
So where is that methane coming from? One potential source could be below the surface. The researchers believe that subsurface oases of liquid methane could be replenishing these lakes as they evaporate from above. If that's the case, it adds to the number of places where life could be found on Titan.
Of course it's entirely plausible that it might not be a lake at all. A solid organic compound on the surface could also show up dark at these wavelengths. So far, only 17 percent of the moon's equatorial regions have been analysed at a resolution capable of spotting features of this size, but lower-resolution scans don't indicate that tropical lakes are widespread.
A Nasa mission to Titan to look at its complex chemistry in more detail, named the Titan Mare Explorer, has been proposed. It would spend three months in a sea of methane on the moon's north polar region, measuring its composition with a mass spectrometer. Nasa will decide soon on its fate.
The Xperia Miro has been launched on Sony's Facebook page, following its clever Fast Forward marketing campaign.
Sony’s Fast Forward Facebook campaign has come to its conclusion, and it has announced the Xperia Miro. The campaign started on Monday, when Sony put a countdown clock up on its official Facebook page, along with a fast forward button. When clicked, it shaved a few seconds off the time remaining, promising that when it reached zero a new Xperia phone would be revealed.
The Xperia Miro appeared after 25,941 people sped up time with the fast forward button, and it certainly lives up to the “fun, social and colorful” tagline. But as with everything that’s not a quad-core, $800 device these days, it has prompted an angry response from those who expected something else.
What a shame that after an innovative prelude to the Miro’s unveiling, the Facebook comments are all bemoaning the fact it’s not a top-of-the-range handset, despite it having an interesting connection with Facebook itself.
It’s not all that dissimilar to the Xperia Sola, but does fall beneath it in the range, although Sony has yet to reveal the entire spec sheet. What it has said is the Xperia Miro has a 3.5-inch touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot video at 30fps (but at an unknown resolution) and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Also featured is a forward-facing video call camera, DLNA connectivity, Sony’s xLoud audio technology and a battery that Sony promises is large and primed for “longer usage.” The phone will be available in several colors: Black, black and pink, white, and white with gold.
So why did Sony chose Facebook to launch the Miro? It’s because the social network has been integrated into Sony’s version of Android, right down to being able to customize the notification light to change color for certain Facebook updates. Sony’s blurb calls the Miro an “Xperia with Facebook” phone, and says it’s “easier and faster to like, comment and share” using the device.
More details should be announced about how this will work, along with the complete Miro spec list during the day, as the timer expired very early in the morning in the UK, the time zone in which the campaign was launched
As if the Porsche Design BlackBerry weren't enough to satiate the desires of those seeking exorbitant smartphones with an automotive twist, Lamborghini is here to help out those of a more Italian persuasion. Russian site Mail has the first details on the new Lamborghini lineup, which includes two gold-plated feature phones, a tablet, and an Android smartphone. The devices are expected to be released in Russia this August.
The TL700 smartphone has a body made of metal and crocodile skin with sapphire glass protecting the display, which might go some way to explaining why Lamborghini is asking 90,000 rubles ($2,758) for an Android 2.3 device with a 3.7-inch 800 x 480 display and a 5-megapixel camera. Meanwhile, the L2800 tablet has the same tempting blend of high price and middling specs, with a 9.7-inch 1024 x 768 display, a 1.2GHz processor, and 512MB RAM.
The design isn't quite as ostentatious as the phones, without a hint of gold in sight, but the price of 75,000 rubles ($2,298) should at least give you something to mention at dinner parties. There's also the promise of an Android 4.0 update. No word on whether any of these products are set to ever leave Russia, but we'll let you know if so — with Vertu's future in doubt, there may well be a gap in the market.
The hammer test should be one that every smartphone goes through before arriving in our hands. If it isn’t tough enough to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, why would I want it? A recent video has surfaced showing an HTC engineer using the HTC One X as a hammer and I approve. Can your phone handle this?
The video was originally uploaded on YouTube, but was quickly taken down. Luckliy a Chinese video hosting website managed to get a copy. I’m not sure how true this next part is, but it seems that HTC wasn’t happy about this video and the engineer in the video was fired
Hopefully that is not the case. They should be promoting this guy. The phone survived and the video demonstrates how tough it is. This guy got them all kinds of free press.
After spending more than a year being washed around the Pacific Ocean, a Canon EOS 1000D camera and the photographs contained on its SD card have been reunited with its owner.
As you would expect the Canon EOS camera, pictured below, is no longer working. But the SanDisk Extreme III SD card inside of it was able to be washed, and more than 50 images were recovered. With a date stamp suggesting the camera had been in the salty depths for over a year.
The camera was found during a scuba trip by Markus Thompson, who was diving in Deep Bay just outside Vancouver. After publishing some of the images on Google+, Markus was able to track down the Canon EOS 1000D camera’s original owner. A firefighter and his family from British Columbia and reunite them with their photographs and Canon EOS 1000D paperweight.
Toshiba continues to refresh its laptop line-up with the Portege Z930, a super-light ultrabook. So slight, in fact, that at 1.12kg, it's the lightest 13.3-inch laptop around.
It's not the most lithe ultrabook full stop though. That title goes to the Gigabyte X11, which weighs just 975g, though its screen is 11.6-inches across, so it's not a fair comparison with the Toshiba.
The Portege Z930 weighs less than the same size Apple MacBook Air (1.35kg). Impressive indeed. At its thinnest point, it's just 8.3mm. But because it's slim and light doesn't mean Toshiba has scrimped on the specs. Built for business, it boasts an 8-hour battery life that will last you the whole working day. Provided you're not too busy to power down for lunch, that is.
If you do choose to eat at your desk, the keyboard features a spill-resistant membrane, protecting your documents should you tip over your sparkling San Pellegrino (or whatever it is important business types drink).
You can choose up to 512GB SSD storage and up to 12GB RAM. It's powered by a third-generation Intel Core processor. And thanks to Intel's Rapid Start Technology, it'll boot up in seconds.
Other specs include one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and VGA sockets and an SD card reader. Bluetooth 4.0 comes as standard and the stereo speakers feature SRS Premium Sound 3D, for fully immersive noises.
It's due sometime between July and September and will cost £899. That means it's cheaper than the same size MacBook Air. Apple is expected to refresh its laptop line-up very soon though, with the new MacBook Pro set to resemble the Air in looks and dimensions. It might also feature a retina display, which would be a serious offering. (cnet)
The world may not be ready for another Facebook-flavored smartphone, but that hasn't stopped designer Michal Bonikowski from dreaming one up. Ubergizmo reports that Mr. Bonikowski has imagined his own take on a handset targeted at Facebook addicts. Judging from the pictures posted by the tech Web site, unlike HTC's ill-fated Status phone, this fantastic device sports a big 4.2-inch display.
It's also painted Facebook blue and has a distinctively HTC-esque aesthetic complete with a flat slab of a body with softly blunted edges. The handset even flaunts a unibody metal chassis like the HTC One S and HTC One V.
Made to be an ultra-communicator,Mr. Bonikowski envisions the phone to have an 8-megapixel main camera plus a high-resolution 5-megapixel front-facing camera for sharp video chats too. It's certainly a far cry from the HTC Status (aka Cha Cha), which was tiny, plastic, and had both a painfully tiny screen and physical keyboard.
But is there any demand for a Facebook-centered gadget like this? If Facebook's weak stock performance is any judge, perhaps not. I feel that if a Zuckerberg sanctioned mobile gadget is to succeed, it better take a page from the Nokia Lumia 900's playbook and be very aggressively priced.
In any case I think that this is the wrong direction for smartphones to go. I'd rather pay a little more for a higher degree of functionality. Image a phone that you could effortlessly flip from pure stock Android over to a manufacturer's best software interface (Sense, Touchwiz, what have you) at will without any data loss or warranty headaches. Now that's a smartphone worth dreaming about.
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