WISE Telescope for NASA

On Tuesday, NASA engineers aiming for new images of the stars did what every photographer needs to remember to do before taking snapshots–they removed the lens cap. In this case, they sent signals to the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope to jettison a cover that protected the optical gear during launch and helped to keep it chilled. WISE will start its infrared survey in January, and the “first light” images will be released to the public about a month from now, NASA said. The Delta II rocket carrying the telescope into Earth orbit lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on December 14.

Mommy, I Want an App For Christmas!

This year, Apple was given a gift – the buying of apps. iPod Touch apps were bought 1,000% higher than the average of the past 3 Fridays. Downloads/apps for the iPod Touch 36 sailed to 900% on Christmas. Flurry’s “Holiday 2009 Christmas Growth” said that this chaos of apps was triggered by the giving of iTunes Gift Cards.

Of the 58 million iPod Touches and iPhones, 40% of those are iPod Touches, surprisingly. Along with gift cards, some people can become slap happy and a little too excited for their new iPod Touch, so people may have been downloading tons and tons of apps. The iPod Touch jumped above the iPhone’s app store by 172%, and the trend continued.

This is Flurry's view of Apple's app sales.

The volume in overall App Store downloads also grew by more than 50 percent in December (with estimates for the final week of the month) over November, surpassing Flurry’s estimate of only 20 percent.

Flurry’s Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago spoke with CNET about the success of the App Store. Though some forecasts question how much further the App Store can grow, Farago thinks this is just the beginning. “The growth has been meteoric for Apple for iPhone and iPod Touch penetration,” he said. “They’re already past 50 million units in the marketplace for iPhone and iPod Touch.”

Farago notes that while the iPhone is a killer device that gives people a portable computer in their pocket, Apple knows it needs third-party developers, which is one reason the company controls the store. And developers will go wherever they can get a good customer base, realizing that they can build an app once for the App Store and draw in a lot of consumers.

Even recent criticisms leveled against the App Store haven’t dented its growth. Though some developers have complained that the App Store is hard to deal with, Farago says there are a lot of success stories from people who have created and sold apps through Apple.

Farago also sees the iPod Touch as Apple’s silent killer, with a huge market share that will help the company in the years to come. “What I’d be scared about if I were a phone maker is that Apple has a relationship now with all these teens and pre-teens using a device that is basically an iPhone with the radio turned off,” he said. “They’ve got 24 million [customers], and with Christmas, probably add a couple million or so to that. All those kids are getting trained to be iPhone users in the next two to five years.”

Google’s Android Market can’t compare with the App Store at this point, but its recent download volume should offer Android vendors some holiday cheer. December downloads from the Android Market store grew by more than 20 percent over November. Downloads for Motorola’s Droid, in particular, rose 93 percent on Christmas Day compared with the three previous Fridays of the month. The Droid also captured 48 percent of all download volume versus other top Android devices, including the myTouch 3G, G1, and the HTC Hero).

Android's products sales

Technology In The New Decade, 2010

In the early 1990s, cell phones were introduced. People were going around saying, “How is it possible to talk to someone without a cord, or without any Double AA batteries?” In 2009, cell phones back then are like what oil lamps were 100 years ago compared to lightbulbs now. In the past decade, so many things have been made in such a cramped amount of time.

Now, what would it be like in 2010, or 2020? If we’ve made such an improvement in our technology in the past 10 years, what’s to come? You may think, well, what else is there? Don’t think about flying cars – that’s something that will probably happen in the next 100 years – but maybe instead of newer things, cell phones and computers will just be improved greatly. Faster, and more to offer. We already have touch screens, even for computers. But what about a computer (maybe even added to your whole house) could hear you and obey all of your requests?

No. Probably not.  Like I said, probably just more improvements. Hopefully Windows 16 will be pretty good…….

Kindle is Amazon.com’s Bestseller!

Amazon.com on Saturday released its annual post-Christmas statement on holiday sales, and made one thing clear: the Kindle was king, perhaps fueled by continued shifts in plans for shipments of Barnes & Noble’s competing Nook e-reader.

“We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

In another milestone for the e-reader, the company noted that on Christmas Day, for the first time ever, Amazon customers bought more Kindle books than physical books. The company didn’t offer specific numbers for either category.

The peak shopping day for the online retailer was December 14, when customers ordered more than 9.5 million items worldwide, “a record-breaking 110 items per second.”

Among those items bought between November 15 and December 19, the top electronics, following the Kindle, were Apple’s iPod Touch 8GB and the Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS.

In the video game category, top sellers were the Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board; New Super Mario Bros., and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Among software purchases, top items were Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (Home and Student Edition).

Top wireless purchases included the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (unlocked), Plantronics 510 Bluetooth Headset, and BlackBerry Bold 9700 Phone (AT&T).

Other top selling gadgets included Casio’s Waveceptor Atomic Dual-Time Watch, Oster’s Electric Wine-Bottle Opener, Omron’s HJ-112 Digital Pocket Pedometer, and Bosch’s Laser Distance Measuring Device.

We’ll have more comprehensive coverage on what looks to be a strong online holiday sales season as the figures come in. In the meantime, here are a few more fun gadget sales factoids from Amazon:

• If all the computers customers purchased this holiday were stacked one on top of the other, they would be more than twice as high as Mount Everest.
• Amazon customers bought more than 50 times more light therapy devices this holiday season than there are sunny days in Seattle the entire year.
• For the holiday time period alone, Amazon customers purchased enough shoot-and-share camcorders to supply 50 years’ worth of nonstop YouTube watching.
• Amazon customers purchased so many Blu-ray disc players, that if you lined them up side to side, they would stretch for more than 27 miles.
• During the 2009 holiday season, Amazon customers bought enough 8GB iPod Touches to play 442 years of continuous music.
• In 2009, Amazon customers purchased enough heart rate monitor watches to put one on the wrist of everyone who finished the New York City marathons in 2008 and 2009.
• The last Local Express Delivery order that was delivered in time for Christmas, was placed by a Prime member and went to Seattle. It was a Kindle that was ordered at 1:43 p.m. on Christmas Eve and delivered at 4:57 p.m. that evening.

Is more technology bad?

Here’s the main question with the world. Is more technology (such as bigger and better gaming consoles, etc.) worse and worse for the Earth? What if possibly games were banned in some areas of the world, because of a green policy? It is sure to happen. Currently, PS3s and Xbox360s waste and drain out a lot of electricty; and xxs that by the 1,000,000s for people that have one. What would happen to the world in the next 20 years?

Many famous tech have gone green, such as Apple.

 Many tech have gone green, such as Apple. As upgrades happen, such as Windows Vista to Windows 7, many changes have been made so it doesn’t take away so much electricity. We all know about lights, with the “spiral” lightbulbs. Many people turn off their lights for 1 hour during the day every week to try and cut off the electric; if everybody in the US did that it would save up as much energy as gaming consoles take every day.

Solar panels are used to power their houses without using electricity.

A con about all this is saving electricity costs a lot of money, compared to regular lightbulbs and green machines. In sunny places, such as Florida or California, people have solar panels. Solar panels are used to power their houses without using electricty, and using the sun. “Spiral” lightbulbs cost at least $5.00 more than regular, and turning off your lights may affect what you do; reading, playing, and any other activities. One tip: Just remember to turn off lights when you leave a rom!