Netflix Resumes Operations After Outage

(Reuters) - Online DVD rental pioneer Netflix Inc resumed normal shipping on Friday after the most severe outage in the company's decade of operations, a spokesman said.
"With possible rare exceptions we will get everything out today," said spokesman Steve Swasey.Netflix said all customers whose shipments were delayed will get a 15 percent credit to their next billing statement. New customers using the service on a free trial basis will have their trial extended by a week.
"We don't have in our terms of agreement that if you miss a day you get a credit," Swasey said. "We just do that voluntarily because it's the right thing to do."
Netflix did not disclose what caused the outage, which affected about a third of its 8.4 million customers.
The disruption prevented Netflix from mailing out any DVDs on Tuesday, but the company did have partial deliveries on Wednesday and on Thursday.

Partial Lunar Eclipse On Saturday

Ready the telescopes! People across the world will have the chance to see a partial eclipse of the Moon on Saturday.

In a lunar eclipse, the Sun, Earth and Moon are directly aligned as the Moon swings into the cone of shadow cast by our planet. Observers on Earth will see a Moon that is partly light and partly dark, with hints of color that depend on terrestrial conditions.

Lunar eclipses are visible wherever the Moon is above the horizon. This one will be best seen from most of Africa, Eastern Europe, central Asia, India and the Middle East.

From Western Europe and the United Kingdom, the Moon will rise during the eclipse. It will begin at 18:23 Greenwich Mean Time and peak at 21:10 GMT.

Follow the link for 97 images of lunar eclipses.

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8 Suckers Buy $1000 Worthless iPhone App

In its first 24 hours available, EIGHT people - six Americans and two from Europe - bought "I Am Rich," a seemingly useless iPhone application for $999.
Once downloaded, the app doesn't do much -- a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext "I Am Rich." Once activated, it treats the user to a large, glowing gem (pictured above). That's about it. For a thousand dollars. The app has since been removed from the App Store.
At least one buyer apparently thought it was a joke, posting "I saw this app with a few friends and we jokingly clicked 'buy' thinking it was a joke, to see what would happen. ... THIS IS NO JOKE...DO NOT BUY THIS APP AND APPLE PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM THE APP STORE."

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Class M Planets Common?

A new study by Northwestern University astronomers, using recent data from the 300 planets discovered orbiting other stars, puts forth the view that Earth-like planets are not uncommon.
"These other planetary systems don't look like the solar system at all," said Prof Frederic Rasio, senior author of a study in the journal Science.
However, it does suggest that 'Goldilocks' planets such as Earth, which are not too hot and not too cold for life to thrive, could still be common.
The study illustrates that if early conditions had been just slightly different, very unpleasant things could have happened - like planets being thrown into the sun or jettisoned into deep space.

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Consumers Shun Blu-ray Players

A recent survey released by ABI Research gaging consumer interest in the Blu-ray Disc format states only 23% of consumers are likely to buy one and 40% said the picture quality was only "somewhat better" than DVD. The lukewarm response to Blu-ray shows that most consumers don't see enough of a benefit to switch to Blu-ray.

In a survey of 1,000 consumers, ABI Research found more than half of the respondents citing "other priorities" as their reason for having no plans to purchase a Blu-ray player. The 23% likely to buy one said they wouldn't until sometime next year.
In the case of movies in the Blu-ray format, more than half of the respondents said it was "much better" than standard DVD, but another 40% said it was only "somewhat better." Most of the respondents said they were very satisfied with the performance of standard DVD players.

In other news, Sony, evidently living in an alternate reality, is stating in just over 2 years, Blu-ray will outsell DVD. The only way this will happen is if players reach the under $200 price point and Blu-ray movies cost the same or almost the same as DVDs. Neither looks to happen this year.

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DHS Can Now Seize Your Laptop Indefinitely

Be aware if you're crossing the border...A pair of DHS policies (1 and 2 [pdf warning]) from last month say that customs agents can routinely--as a matter of course--seize, make copies of, and "analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States."
The new DHS policies say that customs agents can, "absent individualized suspicion," seize electronic gear: "Documents and electronic media, or copies thereof, may be detained for further review, either on-site at the place of detention or at an off-site location, including a location associated with a demand for assistance from an outside agency or entity."
An electronic device is defined as "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form" including hard drives, compact discs, DVDs, flash drives, portable music players, cell phones, pagers, beepers, and videotapes.
This follows the recent news that Canadian border officials will begin inspecting your digital devices for copyrighted media if ACTA is enacted. How a customs officer is supposed to tell if a file is pirated vs. legitimately downloaded is not known. Online accounts of border agents/TSA not knowing what PSPs and MacBook Airs are and looking for illegal porn in the My Pictures folder on Windows do not bode well for any of these plans.

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Black Liquid Lake Confirmed on Titan's Surface

Scientists say that a dark, smooth surface feature spotted on the moon last year is definitely a lake filled primarily with liquid ethane, a simple hydrocarbon.
Mixed in solution with the ethane, the lake is also believed to contain nitrogen, methane, and a variety of other simple hydrocarbons.
University of Arizona professor Robert Brown: "It was hard for us to accept the fact that the feature was so black when we first saw it," Brown said. "More than 99.9 percent of the light that reaches the lake never gets out again. For it to be that dark, the surface has to be extremely quiescent, mirror smooth. No naturally produced solid could be that smooth."

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