LG's WCD-800 goes wireless to power your phone

In addition to the shiny new smartphones that it introduced last week at Mobile World Congress, LG also showed off a wireless charger that encourages you to use your device while it's receiving juice. 

The WCD-800 is shaped like a cradle and can accommodate your phone in either a portrait or landscape position. So while you make calls, send texts, and watch a video, the charger uses electric coils located inside to power your device via magnetic fields.

It's an interesting idea, no doubt, though it's not as if a standard wired charger prohibits you from using your phone while it's being zapped. Sure, the wired part means that you have to stay in one place for a short period, but there are more inconvenient things.

Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-57390102-78/lgs-wcd-800-goes-wireless-to-power-your-phone/#ixzz1o9X6sDOm

Tajikistan Blocks Facebook

(Reuters ) Tajikistan blocked local access to Facebook and two Russian-language sites that published an article critical of its long-serving president on Saturday, representatives of two Internet providers said.

The shutdown was ordered by the state-run communications service, the local Internet providers told Reuters, requesting anonymity. Users who tried to access Facebook or the two websites, which published a story critical of President Imomali Rakhmon, were automatically re-directed to the home page of their provider.

Tighter Internet controls echo measures taken by other ex-Soviet, Central Asian republics, where authoritarian rulers are wary of the role social media played in revolutions in the Arab world and mass protests in Russia.

Government opponents in Tunisia and Egypt used Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to run rings around censors and organize protests that eventually toppled their leaders.

"This morning, we carried out the instruction of the communications service and blocked the sites facebook.com, tjknews.com and zvezda.ru," said one of the providers. "We could not refuse to carry out this instruction."

The communications service was not available for comment. Government officials directed all questions about the shutdown to the service.

Rakhmon has ruled Tajikistan, a mountainous country of 7.5 million people bordering Afghanistan and China, for two decades. Though media operate with less restrictions than in neighboring Uzbekistan, journalists have been detained in recent months.

Authorities have also launched a crackdown on religious groups and imprisoned more than 150 people in the last two years on charges of extremism and attempting to subvert the constitution.

Facebook's popularity has soared in Tajikistan. Membership of the social networking website doubled there last year to 26,000 people. Several Facebook groups openly discuss politics and some users have been critical of the authorities. Russia-based zvezda.ru had published an article on Friday entitled: 'Tajikistan on the eve of a revolution'. Local news site tjknews.com republished the article.

Access to microblogging site Twitter appeared unaffected. Tajikistan is the most impoverished of 15 former Soviet republics. Its economy relies heavily on exports of aluminum and cotton, as well as remittances from around 1 million migrant laborers, most of them young men living in Russia.

Rakhmon must stand again for election by November 2013. Victory would secure seven more years as president of the mainly Muslim country.

Honest Fourth Grader Finds And Returns 50-Year-Old Ring

A class ring from 1959 found its way home last Friday -- after missing for almost 50 years.

Nathan Garcia, a D.P. Morris Elementary School fourth grader, spotted the shiny treasure while biking near his school in Mansfield, Tex., KDAF reports.

"[At] first I didn't want to return it," Garcia told the news source, "and I kept it for a little bit and I thought what the owner would feel. So, I took it back and I returned it."

Garcia gave the ring to the school's staff, who, with the help of two high school students, helped track down the owner. The ring was engraved with the initials MEN.

After looking through library books, they zeroed in on a woman named Mary Elizabeth Sloan (maiden name North), who was a 1959 graduate of Mansfield High School.

"At first I didn't believe them," Sloan told KDAF, "and then they showed me the ring and I thought, 'what?'

Once she got over her surprise, Sloan was very grateful about the ring's return.

"It's a sentimental thing," she added. "I'm a very sentimental person. Things like this mean a lot to me."

Source: Huffington Post

Why so many tornadoes are striking US?

Deadly tornadoes are spawning across the United States. Only today 48 tornadoes were reported with a few fatalities. This massive storm system also spawned deadly tornadoes on Leap Day, which raked Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. The severe storms killed at least 12 people and included a strong EF-4 twister in Harrisburg, Ill., a rarity for February.

As of this morning, the severe storm risk area covered an estimated 162 million people, or 56 percent of the United States, according to weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

While the main tornado season runs from spring to early summer, this year's early outbreaks show that tornadoes can form under a variety of conditions and strike during fall and winter, too. This year's mild winter and warm start to meteorological spring has upped the risk of dangerous storms.

Student is 3,000th bone marrow donor

The nation’s 3,000th bone marrow donor Kim Ji-in (center)
poses for a photo

A local university student has become the 3,000th bone marrow donor in the country.

Kim Ji-in, 21, a police administration major at Dongshin University, recently donated bone marrow to a child ill with leukemia, and became the 3,000th bone marrow donor in the country, according to Korea Marrow Donor Program last week.

“I didn’t have enough preparation time because I was about to take the police recruitment exam, but I couldn’t delay the help a child needs desperately from me,” said Kim.

Her decision came after she found out her bone marrow matched with a child with leukemia. She had registered as an bone marrow donation aspirant during a bone marrow donation campaign held on campus in June 2010.

Source: koreaherald.com