I'm Gina Smith

The hottest tech news this week (The Week Ahead)

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Two new IBM nanotech discoveries.

Interesting story today. Excerpt below, full version here.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Imagine cramming 30,000 full-length movies into a gadget the size of an iPod.

Scientists at IBM said on Thursday they had moved closer to such a feat by learning how to steer single atoms in a way that could create building blocks for ultra-tiny storage devices.

Understanding and manipulating the behavior of atoms is critical to harnessing the power of nanotechnology, which deals with particles tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair.

"One of the most basic properties that every atom has is that it behaves like a little magnet," said Cyrus Hirjibehedin, a scientist at International Business Machines Corp.'s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.

"If you can keep that magnetic orientation stable over time, then you can use that to store information. That is how your hard drive works," Hirjibehedin said in a telephone interview.

"What we are trying to understand is how this fundamental property works for a single atom."

Hirjibehedin and colleague Andreas Heinrich studied this property -- known as magnetic anisotropy -- in individual iron atoms using a special microscope developed at IBM.

"What we've been able to do is to look at an iron atom on a copper surface and to move that magnetic orientation around," Heinrich said.

Now they are looking for an atom that remains stable over a long time. "We have a couple of ideas but we don't really know which ones will work out," Hirjibehedin said.

Leona leaves $2 million to beloved dog, but cuts two grandchildren out of will entirely. (Reuters)

Caught this on Reuters today.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Real estate billionaire Leona Helmsley left $12 million in her will for her dog Trouble but cut out two of her four grandchildren entirely.

Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean" who was famously quoted as saying "only the little people pay taxes" before going to jail for tax evasion, died August 20 at 87.

The 14-page will was made public in Surrogate's Court on Tuesday and reported in New York media on Wednesday, with the New York Post headlining the story "Rich bitch," referring to the female dog.

Trouble, a white Maltese, will be cared for by Helmsley's brother Alvin Rosenthal, who was left $10 million.

Two grandchildren, David and Walter Panzirer, will be left $5 million each as long as they visit their father's grave at least once a year -- Helmsley's son, Jay Panzirer, died in 1982 -- and her chauffeur will get $100,000.

"I have not made any provisions in this will for my grandson Craig Panzirer or my granddaughter Meegan Panzirer for reasons which are known to them," Helmsley wrote.

The will calls for Trouble to be entombed alongside Helmsley and husband Harry Helmsley, who died in 1997, in their $1.4 million mausoleum, for which Leona Helmsley set aside $3 million for upkeep including annual cleanings.

A spokesman for Helmsley declined to comment on the will.

Helmsley was convicted of evading $1.7 million in taxes in 1989 and served 18 months in federal prison.

At trial a former housekeeper recounted that Helmsley had once told her: "We don't pay taxes. Only little people pay taxes." Helmsley denied making the statement.

Much of her estimated $4 billion fortune is tied up in Helmsley Enterprises, which will be controlled by five people, Walter and David Panzirer, Rosenthal, Helmsley's lawyer and a Helmsley adviser, the New York Post reported. Other proceeds from the sale of her estate are destined for a charitable trust.

Gaping hole found in the universe. (Reuters)

Wild. Click here for this story.

Today's Saturday Zen Story: Killing

From this site.

Gasan instructed his adherents one day: "Those who speak against killing and who desire to spare the lives of all conscious beings are right. It is good to protect even animals and insects. But what about those persons who kill time, what about those who are destroying wealth, and those who destroy political economy? We should not overlook them. Furthermore, what of the one who preaches without enlightenment? He is killing Buddhism."

The hottest tech news for next week (The Week Ahead with Gina Smith)

Check out the short video I do previewing Infoworld's upcoming news.

Click here.

I KNEW they would do this.

Google Sky!

Click here.

The world's oldest human footprint! (reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian archaeologists have found what they said could be the oldest human footprint in history in the country's western desert, the Arab country's antiquities' chief said on Monday.

"This could go back about two million years," said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. "It could be the most important discovery in Egypt," he told Reuters.

Archaeologists found the footprint, imprinted on mud and then hardened into rock, while exploring a prehistoric site in Siwa, a desert oasis.

Scientists are using carbon tests on plants found in the rock to determine its exact age, Hawass said.

Khaled Saad, the director of prehistory at the council, said that based on the age of the rock where the footprint was found, it could date back even further than the renowned 3-million year-old fossil Lucy, the partial skeleton of an ape-man, found in Ethiopia in 1974.

Most archaeological interest in Egypt is focused on the time of the pharaohs.

Previously, the earliest human archaeological evidence from Egypt dated back around 200,000 years, Saad said.

Glacier surfing in Alaska. (Thanks Woz)

This video shows a surfer (with a safeguard jetski nearby) surfing the huge waves generated by glacier melts. Watch this video closely and through to the end. It will blow your mind.

People are always asking where I grew up.

It was a city called Ormond Beach, Florida. Here's a great, short page that details the bizarre, white sand hamlet where I grew up.

These days, I live in San Francisco. But as Wolfe said, you never really can go home again.