Toronto – Rogers Communications says it is extending the $30/month data plan on the iPhone in order to spur sales of smartphones.
Rogers is the only carrier of the iPhone in Canada and the largest cell phone provider in the country.
The plan allows iPhones owners, other smartphones and computer laptop aircards download up to six gigabytes a month — until the end of September, CBC reported.
Liz Hamilton, spokesperson for Rogers, said that “just over one per cent of iPhone owners used more than one gigabyte of data in their first month, while about 95 per cent of owners used less than 500MB.â€
Rogers will eventually introduce a $25/month plan for iPhone and smartphone owners on Oct 1Â that will allow 500 megabytes of downloading per month, which will be bundled with a three-month promotion of unlimited usage. Another plan will allow one gigabyte of usage for $30.
The iphone was released in Canada in July.
Hollywood (ECN) – The box office better get ready, as a movie based on the popular social-networking site Facebook is in the works.
The Facebook movie is being written by the man who developed the hit TV show The West Wing Aaron Sorkin.
He recently confirmed that he is going to be hard at work on a Facebook movie, looking at how it was founded.
Facebook has grown into the fastest-growing social-networking site in the world, even more than MySpace on a global scale.
The film will look at the founders, Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
Reactor Not Able To Meet Sudden Increased World Isotope Needs
Chalk River, Ontario- There is an increasing shortage of medical Isotopes worldwide, and the Chalk River Ontario Nuclear reactor has been providing much of the worldwide needs, but it is not going to be able to provide enough to meet the sudden worldwide isotope shortage.
A spokesman for the Crown Corporation, owners of the reactor said that the production of the facility would be increased to try and help meet the increased need.
A reactor in Belgium that produces much of the same material closes this week, and its closure will leave a shortage worldwide that the Chalk River reactor will be not able to meet.
Dale Coffin, Crown spokesman, said that there is no way that the Chalk River Reactor will be able to take up the shortage, or make up the slack.
All of the major reactors around the world that produce these types of medical radioactive isotopes were shut down this last week, for unrelated reasons.
The reactors are located in South Africa, Europe, and Canada, and each of them being closed at the same time means that the shortage of these medical isotopes will approach critical situations likely over the next week or two.
Radioactive isotopes are instrumental in helping to diagnose some forms of cancer, and are also used to diagnose heart disease. These isotopes are used in over 30 million different medical procedures around the world each year.
West Nile Virus Strikes With A Second Orange County Death
Orange County, CA- The West Nile Virus is a mosquito-transmitted disease that has now resulted in a second Orange County California Death.
The health officials in Orange County have confirmed that there has now been a second death, this time a 64 year Garden Grove man.
The details and other information such as the man’s identity has not been released, but tests by the Health authority confirmed the presence of West Nile Virus in the mans remains.
The West Nile Virus can be spread by several methods, but the most common is via being bitten by a mosquito that is carrying the virus.
One of the methods of detecting West Nile Virus is by examining the bodies of dead birds, if there are a number of dead birds in an area, more than is normal, then it is likely that West Nile is present, as it is especially potent on bird populations.
The first death from West Nile was a 72 year old Buena Park California woman, and the health authorities in the region are worried that there will be more deaths to come this season.
Produce Industry Says Consumer Confidence Is Shattered
Washington, D.C.- Nearly 4 months after the first cases of Salmonella were discovered the produce industry is in tatters, and it is still not certain how it first began.
The Food and Drug Administration issued warnings over the course of the investigation that warned against peppers, tomatoes, and caused the produce, fruit and vegetable industry to suffer losses calculated in the millions of dollars.
The numbers of cases from the nations largest ever Salmonella epidemic has now been reduced to the normal number of cases that were present before the outbreak in April.
There have been no new clusters of salmonella cases since the middle of July, and the FDA thinks that the outbreak is now over.
The industry estimates that it has cost somewhere from $130 million dollars to over $250 dollars in lost produce, sales and other damages from the intensive investigation.
Despite cooperation the produce industry has suffered greatly from the different warnings. There was never any definite evidence against tomatoes, but despite this the tomato industry was one of the main produce items affected, with a long several week warning issued at one point by the FDA.
Cells Changed Inside Mice To Achieve Different Biological Purpose
Boston, MA- There are a number of different research studies that have been performed with stem cells, but there has been a new advance accomplished by researchers from the Harvard medical research facility.
Harvard researchers have announced that they have been able to take adult pancreas cells and re program them, inside of mice, to do a different function than they originally were meant to do.
Three molecular switches were used by researchers, and it resulted to convert adult cells that are commonplace in the pancreas, into more specific insulin production cells, similar to the ones that diabetics need to survive.
The research is being published in the Journal of Nature, and the article describes how the cells that are present in mice were used to change, and how they were reprogrammed to do a different function.
The prospect that this type of research could be duplicated with human beings is a huge discovery, one that could radically affect the ongoing search for a cure for diabetes.
New Restrictions For Subscribers Will Begin October 1st
Philadelphia, PA- In a move that continued their earlier announcement the ComCast cable Internet provider has stated that they will begin their new data limiting-throttling actions beginning on October 1st.
Subscribers will be limited to 250 gigabytes a month beginning October 1st, and the ComCast company states that they believe it will prevent their subscribers from suffering from sluggish and slow Internet responses.
First time violators of the new ComCast policy will receive a courtesy call from ComCast, and if they violate the policy a second time they will suffer their Internet account suspended for a year.
This is in direct opposition to their earlier announcement in May of this year, where a fee of $15 dollars per every 10 gigabytes above the monthly limit was discussed.
ComCast, along with Bell Canada, and other large North American providers are currently waging war against those subscribers that they believe are using more than their fair share of Internet broadband services.
Steve Jobs Apple CEO Is Alive And Well
Cupertino, CA- The Bloomberg national financial Newswire has at times published items that are in error, but normally they do not publish reports that are grossly inaccurate.
That all changed for a brief period on Wednesday, when the Bloomberg national Newswire reported that Apple founder and CEO was dead. They published an incomplete obituary but then it was hurriedly retracted.
It’s a pretty common practice to have obituaries ready for people that are in the public light, and it is done to bring the news of a death to the public more swiftly.
But only one problem:Â Steve Jobs is alive and well, and in no way near death.
There have been rumors recently that Steve Joes is ill, but there has been no official confirmation. Many people in the industry believe that Steve Jobs is the core and heart of Apple, and that if he were to die suddenly that Apple would be left in huge disarray.
Newest Edition Features InPrivacy Web Surfing Feature
Redmond, WA- The newest version of the Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 8, has a new feature that is causing a great deal of anxiety among Internet advertising firms.
The new feature, called InPrivate is one that allows the individual user to decide if they want to surf the web without leaving a trace, in private, or they can surf and visit web sites on the Internet in the open.
One of the nicknames that have been attached to the new feature is “Porn Mode,†to point out the obvious possible misuse of the browser feature.
Many companies in the Internet Advertising industry are alarmed, it is the ability of different web sites to gain information from visitors that allow advertising to be tailored to users, and also it gives information about individual users to the web sites that they visit.
Now, with the new Internet Explorer 8, this may be a thing of the past.
Hollywood – Michael Phelps, who made history at the Beijing Olympics, is set to host the season premiere of Saturday Night Live.
He will be hosting the 34th season premiere of SNL, which is set to take place on September 13th.
The musical guest for the season premiere is set to be none other than Lil Wayne.
It should be pretty interesting to see how Phelps does in this role as host
Phelps is coming off a historic Olympics, where he won eight gold medals.
He will also be a guest on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on September 8th.