Ibraheem YASHAR

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth’s rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

 

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

 

“Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth’s axis,” NASA officials said in a Monday update.

 

The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth’s figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).  

 

The Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph).

 

The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth’s mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth’s north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

 

Strong earthquakes have altered Earth’s days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth’s days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).

 

One Earth day is about 24 hours long. Over the course of a year, the length of a day normally changes gradually by one millisecond. It increases in the winter, when the Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer, Gross has said in the past.

 

The Chile earthquake was much smaller than the Sumatran temblor, but its effects on the Earth are larger because of its location. Its epicenter was located in the Earth’s mid-latitudes rather than near the equator like the Sumatran event.

 

The fault responsible for the 2010 Chile quake also slices through Earth at a steeper angle than the Sumatran quake’s fault, NASA scientists said.

 

“This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth’s mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth’s figure axis,” NASA officials said.

 

Gross said his findings are based on early data available on the Chile earthquake. As more information about its characteristics are revealed, his prediction of its effects will likely change.

 

The Chile earthquake has killed more than 700 people and caused widespread devastation in the South American country.

 

Several major telescopes in Chile’s Atacama Desert have escaped damage, according to the European Southern Observatory managing them.

 

A salt-measuring NASA satellite instrument destined to be installed on an Argentinean satellite was also undamaged in the earthquake, JPL officials said.

 

The Aquarius instrument was in the city of Bariloche, Argentina, where it is being installed in the Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC-D) satellite. The satellite integration facility is about 365 miles (588 km) from the Chile quake’s epicenter.

 

The Aquarius instrument is designed to provide monthly global maps of the ocean’s salt concentration in order to track current circulation and its role in climate change.

A devastating earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and plunging trucks into the fractured earth. A tsunami set off by the magnitude-8.8 quake threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.

Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Chile in 50 years and one of the strongest ever measured anywhere. President-elect Sebastian Pinera said more than 120 people died, but that number was rising quickly.

The quake shook buildings in Argentina‘s capital of Buenos Aires, and was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east.

In Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, furniture toppled as the earth shook for more than a minute in something akin to major airplane turbulence. The historic center of town largely collapsed, but most of the buildings of adobe mud and straw were businesses that were not inhabited during the 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT) quake.

Neighbors pulled at least five people from the rubble while emergency workers, themselves disoriented, asked for information from reporters.

Collapsed roads and bridges complicated north-south travel in the narrow Andean nation. Electricity, water and phone lines were cut to many areas — meaning there was no word of death or damage from many outlying areas.

In the Chilean capital of Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) northeast of the epicenter, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building’s two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.

Experts warned that a tsunami could strike anywhere in the Pacific. Emergency officials set off shrieking alarm sirens across parts of Hawaii, which could face its largest waves since 1964 starting at 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. EST, 2119 GMT), according to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Police and troops in Tonga began evacuating people from low-lying coastal areas and experts warned that tsunami waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of the earthquake. The U.S. West Coast and Alaska, too, were threatened.

Waves 6 feet (1.8 meter) above normal hit Talcahuano near Concepcion 23 minutes after the quake, and President Michelle Bachelet said a huge wave swept into a populated area in the Robinson Crusoe Islands, 410 miles (660 kilometers) off the Chilean coast. There were no immediate reports of major damage from the waves.

Bachelet said she had no information on the number of people injured in the quake. She declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile but said Chile has not asked for assistance from other countries.

“The system is functioning. People should remain calm. We’re doing everything we can with all the forces we have,” she said.

Powerful aftershocks rattled Chile’s coast — 29 of them magnitude 5 or greater and one reaching magnitude 6.9 — the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

In Santiago, modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, but many older ones were heavily damaged, including the Nuestra Senora de la Providencia church, whose bell tower collapsed. A bridge just outside the capital also collapsed, and at least one car flipped upside down.

Several hospitals were evacuated due to earthquake damage, Bachelet said.

Santiago’s airport will remain closed for at least 24 hours after the passenger terminal suffered major damage, airport director Eduardo del Canto told Chilean television. TV images showed smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings and pedestrian walkways destroyed.

Santiago’s subway was shut as well and hundreds of buses were trapped at a terminal by a damaged bridge, Transportation and Telecommunications Minister said. He urged Chileans to make phone calls or travel only when absolutely necessary.

In Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city and only 70 miles (115 kilometers) from the epicenter, nurses and residents pushed the injured through the streets on stretchers. Others walked around in a daze wrapped in blankets, some carrying infants in their arms. A 15-story building collapsed, leaving only a few floors intact.

“I was on the 8th floor and all of a sudden I was down here,” said Fernando Abarzua, marveling that he escaped with no major injuries. He said a relative was still trapped in the rubble six hours after the quake, “but he keeps shouting, saying he’s OK.”

Marco Vidal, a program director for Grand Circle Travel who was traveling with a group of 34 Americans, was on the 19th floor of the Crown Plaza Santiago hotel when the quake struck.

“All the things start to fall. The lamps, everything, was going on the floor,” he said. “I felt terrified.”

Cynthia Iocono, from Linwood, Pennsylvania, said she first thought the quake was a train.

“But then I thought, `Oh, there’s no train here.’ And then the lamps flew off the dresser and my TV flew off onto the floor and crashed.”

The quake struck after concert-goers had left South America’s leading music festival in the coastal city of Vina del Mar, but it caught partiers leaving a disco.

“It was very bad. People were screaming. Some people were running, others appeared paralyzed. I was one of them,” Julio Alvarez told Radio Cooperativa.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center called for “urgent action to protect lives and property” in Hawaii, which is among 53 nations and territories subject to tsunami warnings.

“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also be a threat to more distant coasts,” the warning center said. It did not expect a tsunami along the west of the U.S. or Canada.

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. The tsunami that it caused killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage to the west coast of the United States.

Saturday’s quake matched a 1906 temblor off the Ecuadorean coast as the seventh-strongest ever recorded in the world.

If Microsoft and Yahoo merge Google may have to worry about its hold on the consumer search and online advertising markets.

The potential of a Microsoft-Yahoo blockbuster deal probably doesn’t have rivals at Google shaking in their boots just yet, but if a merger comes to fruition Google may have to worry about its hold on the consumer search and online advertising markets.

Googlehas performed well in creating and acquiring interesting technology with audience and advertiser reach, says Yankee Group analyst Jennifer Simpson, while noting Google’s purchase of YouTube and Internet advertising company DoubleClick.

But if Microsoft and Yahoo officially announce a merger, Google co-founders “Sergey Brin and Larry Page might be kept up a little bit at night thinking about how they might improve the platform,” Simpson says. “But Google’s still in a very good position.”

Newspapers reported Friday that Microsoft has started a new round of talks with Yahoo, though in the past Yahoo turned down an offer from Microsoft. The companies appear to be in “early-stage discussions” over a merger or some other type of deal that would combine their respective strengths, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft officials are feeling somewhat threatened by Google’s new suite of collaboration and communication tools for businesses, and are deeply bitter about losing out to Google in their bid for DoubleClick, says Rebecca Lieb, editor-in-chief of the ClickZ Network and Search Engine Watch , a publication covering all things related to search.

Microsoft is not the type of company that makes acquisitions right and left, and buying Yahoo would ease some of the pain of failing to take over DoubleClick, she says.

“It was a tremendous blow to Microsoft that they did not emerge the victors in the acquisition of DoubleClick,” Lieb says. “I’ve spoken to people close to that deal and I know it is an enormous pain point at the most senior management levels.”

Microsoft wanted DoubleClick so it could better compete with Google in the rapidly growing online advertising market.

“Online advertising is the fastest-growing medium in history. It’s gone to a multibillion dollar business in about a decade. Television advertising didn’t grow that quickly,” Lieb says.

Talk about a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is just speculation at this point, Lieb stressed. A Microsoft-AOL deal might make more sense because the sale price probably would be lower, she says.

Plus, Microsoft and Yahoo would face technological difficulties when trying to integrate their very different products, limiting their ability to compete against Google, Lieb believes.

“I don’t think Google’s worried about this. I think Google is in the superior position,” she says. “Even if [Microsoft and Yahoo] merged today they couldn’t get themselves in shape to fight Google tomorrow.”

Size in the advertising world does matter, though, and the combination of Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo! would encroach on Google territory in the search market, according to Simpson.

Advertisers will always say the most important factor is search relevancy, so a Microsoft-Yahoo venture would still have to prove it can help advertisers reach the customers they want, she says.

Another possible area of competition between Google and a combined Microsoft-Yahoo company is the range of portal home page services offered through Internet service providers, Simpson says. Microsoft and Yahoo have separately offered these services but their reach into the market has declined as Internet service providers began making their own portal home pages, she says.

Google has not made a play in this area, but it might feel it has to if Microsoft and Yahoo team up and make a compelling offer to ISPs. “That’s certainly something Google would be wary of,” Simpson says.

Twitter.com was down Thursday evening, and there is a suggestion that the microblogging site may have been hacked or the victim of a DNS hijacking.

The site, which was inaccessible for about an hour starting around 10 p.m.

The message below the image read:

Iranian Cyber Army

THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY

iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM

U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….

NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?

WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST

Take Care.

Twitter’s status blog was also inaccessible. CNET has inquiries out to Twitter and we will let you know more when we hear back.

Chris Hoare, a Flickr user in Leicester, England, captured the screenshot above and said his attempt to connect to Twitter bounced through a second Web-hosting server before the image was displayed but that he couldn’t catch the address.

“The HTML was pretty basic, and everything that it showed was local on the server it was being sent from,” Hoare told CNET News.

Security has been an issue for Twitter in the past. In January, a hacker hijacked CNN anchor Rick Sanchez’s feed and proclaimed the journalist was “high on crack.” Twitter users have also been the target of a password-stealing phishing scam. Disguising itself as a private message that led to a fake Twitter log-in screen, the scam was widespread enough for Twitter to put a warning message on all members’ home pages alerting them of the issue.

Certainly, there is a contentious history between Twitter and Iran. In the wake of supposed results of that nation’s presidential election in June, protesters in Iran used Twitter to skirt government filters to report events, express outrage, and get people out to opposition rallies. Twitter even rescheduled some planned downtime in order to stay accessible for Iranian users in the midst of political upheaval at the request of the U.S. Department of State.

About Nortech
The Nortech Group was founded in 2001 with one clear objective – to be a leading value adding distributor in Scandinavia for refurbished(redeployed or used) as well as new Telecom equipment. Nortechs product focus is telephones and switches from all major vendors.
Refurbished equipment
A refurbished telephone system offers organisations an alternative if cost is a key determining factor in the purchase is cost. Nortech is working with leading PBX brands including: Ericsson, Nortel, Panasonic, Avaya, Siemens, Alcatel, LG and Samsung. We have over 200 resellers in Scandinavia working in all customer segments. One of Nortechs key differentiators compared to our competitors is our strive to always do everything in our power to deliver quality in terms of products and related services. Our refurbished equipment is always delivered in very good condition and shipped with minimum 6 months warranty. As a result of this, Nortech is successfully doing business with an extensive base of partners and customer all over Europe.
New IP Telephony Equipment

As of 2005 The Nortech Group is The General Agent of Mitel Networks in the Nordics with exclusive right to sell Mitel products in Scandinavian. In addition to the traditional role of distributor, Nortechs objective is value adding, wherefore Nortech through an extensively trained and experienced staff also offers customer services such as installation, project management and support in the eras of Mitel IP solutions.
The Mitel Corporation, which is based in Canada, is a progressive technology company and a leading provider of IP communications solutions clearly focused on voice and unified messaging. According to MTZ, Mitel is nr 2 in Europe in IP telephony market.
The comprehensive product portfolio from Mitel offers IP Communications platforms; IP Desktops as well advanced CTI applications and customer interaction solutions such as Contact Centres and video conference systems. Moreover, the solutions are highly scalable and deliver concrete business value to companies in all sizes and as industry segments leveraging on technical innovation for competitive advantage.
Further, Mitel is key partner to Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, HP Procurve, Cisco Systems and IBM
We welcome the opportunity to work with you and your company. Our mindset when is comes to partner set-up is that mutual business opportunities always should be the driving factor. We are therefore flexible around different types of partner models and cooperation terms.

Microsoft said late Monday that is suspending access to an MSN China microblogging site amid allegations the service is based on code swiped from a rival.

Canadian start-up Plurk lashed out at Microsoft earlier on Monday, saying that 80 percent of the code for Juku appeared to be lifted directly from its service.

Microsoft reiterated late Monday that it is investigating the matter but issued a statement saying it was pulling down the Juku feature while it looks into things. [Ibra]

“Earlier today, questions arose over a feature developed by a third-party vendor for our MSN China joint venture,” Microsoft said in a statement. “Because questions have been raised about the code base comprising the service, MSN China will be suspending access to the Juku beta feature temporarily while we investigate the matter fully.”

Microsoft added that the investigation was slowed by the fact that when questions were first raised it was the middle of the night in China.

“Now that the day has begun in China, our teams are working hard to track down the information,” Microsoft said.

The company also confirmed what a source previously told CNET, namely that Microsoft’s MSN China joint venture “contracted with an independent vendor” to create the MSN Juku feature, which debuted last month and is still in beta.

Earlier on Monday, Microsoft said it was investigating the issue.

For its part, Plurk said it is still trying to decide how to handle things.

“We’re not entirely sure but we are exploring our options,” Plurk said in its blog posting. “We have been seeking advice from respected colleagues, responding to press inquiries and gathering facts on the timeline of events and parties involved here to understand why and how this took place.”

It’s the second time in recent weeks that Microsoft has been accused of lifting other’s work in its products. Last month, the company was forced to pull down a tool for loading Windows 7 onto Netbooks after allegations that the product improperly included open-source code. Microsoft later apologized and last week re-released the tool under the GPL open-source license. Microsoft also blamed a third-party vendor in that case.