watches World’s first vending machine for gold installed in Tokyo

World’s first vending machine for gold installed in Tokyo

The special vending machine, which sells gold coins and bullions weighing from one to seven grammes to anyone wishing to do so, has been devised by the Space International Ltd Company.

The sole vending machine of its kind is installed here in a downtown building that houses the Company’s office. Another such vending machine is to be installed soon at Imperial Hotel in downtownTokyo.

The price of gold sold by the hambaiki is regulated every day in line with the stock market current prices. A gold coin weighing 7.2 grammes, issued by the Central Bank, is now the most expensive commodity sold by this vending machine at a price of approximately $410.

Company CEO Makishi Rokugawa points out, “It may so happen that waking up one day you would realize that all your money turned into a mere paper. This is why, I am sure that gold is the best way of monetary investment.”

Rokugawa told journalists that his company got far reaching plans for developing vending machines to sell precious metals. Next year the Space International is planning to reach out to the nationwide level, siting similar vending machines in a majority of large cities of Japan.

The Company also mulls in earnest over the possiblity of getting to the market of Hong Kong.

On the last day of 2010, gold price bounced up to an all-time high.

Many analysts are inclined to think that gold is currently the most optimum object of financial inputs. Besides , gold has been always immensely popular in China and India -- the two most rapidly developing economies of our time.

Coppied by http://www.livemint.com/2011/01/19144537/World8217s-first-vending-ma.html#

Watches Photography experts amazed at world's first lensman's pioneering technique

Photography experts amazed at world's first lensman's pioneering technique
Analysis of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's work reveals baked lavender oil method used in first ever camera images

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras - thought to be the world's first photograph, taken in 1826 from the window of a French farmhouse. Photograph: AP
The grey, blurred images are not exactly easy on the eye, but they are three of the world's very first photographs and, it will be announced today, were made using a range of techniques including one previously undiscovered method.

Scientists will admit that they are having to rewrite the reference books for one of photography's true pioneers, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, the man widely acknowledged as the world's first photographer.

New analysis of three of the finest examples of Niépce's work, part of the national collection of photographs at Bradford, has astonished researchers.

They have always been hugely regarded but normally described as simple etched plates of pewter, created using a process that involved bitumen. Now,the Guardian can reveal, fresh technical analysis by Dusan Stulik and Art Kaplan at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles has shown them to have been made by different photographic processes developed by Niépce. The most eye-opening is a plate called Un Clair de Lune which uses a chemical process not previously discovered; one that involved baking lavender oil to create the image.

The revelations shed new light on the early development of photography and raise Niépce's contribution even higher.

Stulik called the discoveries hugely significant. "This is something completely new in the history of photography. My eureka moment was finding that the plate was not an etched plate – we spent some time not believing what we were seeing.

"To see the whole range of experiments is absolutely amazing."

Philippa Wright, the National Media Museum's curator of photographs, recalled: "There was a moment when Dusan was looking down the microscope and he literally stopped breathing." Stulik added: "I did start breathing again."

The revelations will be made at a two-day conference on Niépce in England at the National Media Museum today and tomorrow where 120 delegates will gather from 10 countries to hear in full why the plates were brought to England and what happened to them afterwards.

The conference will hear details of recent advancements in scientific, art historical and conservation research and the three plates will be on display out of their frames – probably for the last ever time – so they can be looked at front and back.

Stulik said the research conclusions meant that even more respect is due to the French inventor, that he truly was the world's first photographer. "Our findings are shining a different light on the early history of photography than has been previously described in literature.
Coppied by http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/13/photography-photography

We are see this Private spaceship makes first solo glide flight

Private spaceship makes first solo glide flight
AP – In this photo released by Virgin Galactic, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, or VSS Enterprise, is released
MOJAVE, Calif. – Virgin Galactic's space tourism rocket SpaceShipTwo achieved its first solo glide flight Sunday, marking another step in the company's eventual plans to fly paying passengers.
SpaceShipTwo was carried aloft by its mothership to an altitude of 45,000 feet and released over the Mojave Desert. After the separation, SpaceShipTwo, manned by two pilots, flew freely for 11 minutes before landing at an airport runway followed by the mothership.
The entire test flight lasted about 25 minutes.
"It flew beautifully," said Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides.
The six-passenger SpaceShipTwo is undergoing rigorous testing before it can carry tourists to space. In the latest test, SpaceShipTwo did not fire its rocket engine to climb to space.
Until now, SpaceShipTwo has flown attached to the wing of its special jet-powered mothership dubbed WhiteKnightTwo. Sunday was the first time the spaceship flew on its own.
"It's a very big deal," Virgin president Sir Richard Branson told The Associated Press. "There are a number of big deals on the way to getting commercial space travel becoming a reality. This was a very big step. We now know that the spaceship glides. We know it can be dropped safely from the mothership and we know it can land safely. That's three big ticks."
SpaceShipTwo will make a series of additional glide flights before rocketing to space.
"The next big step will be the rocket tests actually on the spacecraft itself," Branson said. "We've obviously have done thousands of rocket tests on the ground, the next big test is in the air. We'll be doing gentle rocket tests in the air, ultimately culminating into taking the spaceship into space."
SpaceShipTwo, built by famed aircraft designer Burt Rutan, is based on a prototype that won a $10 million prize in 2004 for being the first manned private rocket to reach space.
Tickets to ride aboard SpaceShipTwo cost $200,000. Some 370 customers have plunked down deposits totaling $50 million, according to Virgin Galactic.
Commercial flights will fly out of New Mexico where a spaceport is under construction. Officials from Virgin Galactic and other dignitaries will gather at the spaceport Oct. 22 for an event commemorating the finished runway. The event will also feature a flyover by SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo.
Coppied by http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101011/ap_on_sc/us_space_tourism;_ylt=AnGZTG6zI8mdNn5CdpVrqMSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlbzE0ZmxsBHBvcwMxMTQEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9zY2llbmNlBHNsawNwcml2YXRlc3BhY2U-

Welsh migrant becomes Australia’s first female PM

We know this enjoy Welsh migrant becomes Australia’s first female PM
CANBERRA, Australia - Julia Gillard was a sickly child when her family left her native Wales in search of a warmer climate. She thrived and went on to become Australia’s first female prime minister.
Gillard was 4 years old, the younger of two sisters, when the family left the Welsh coal port of Barry for the South Australian state capital of Adelaide. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia as a child.

Gillard studied law at universities in Adelaide and Melbourne, where she became a leader in the national student union movement. At 29, she became a partner in a prominent Melbourne law firm and specialized in industrial law. Gillard was a Labor Party state political staffer before entering the federal parliament in 1998.

She became deputy Labor leader under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after striking a deal with him in 2006 to topple then-leader Kim Beazley.

Gillard lives with a common law partner, Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser by profession. They have been together since 2006.

Gillard, 48, decided as a teenager that she never wanted children. Her stance has led to attacks from political opponents who say she is unsuitable to lead because she lacks empathy with Australian families.

Unlike her opponent Tony Abbott and predecessor Rudd, who are both observant Christians, Gillard has declared herself atheist.

She has been accused of being a communist over ties to the far-left group Socialist Forum — allegations she denies. Gillard has also been branded an abortion advocate for her founding role in the pro-choice group Emily’s List Australia.

The Rudd-Gillard leadership team led Labor into government at general elections in 2007.

Party power-brokers blamed Rudd for dragging down the government’s popularity in recent opinion polls, and Gillard seized the leadership unopposed when she challenged him on June 24 in a party ballot.
Coppied by http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2010/August/international_August1050.xml§ion=international

We are see the First wave of transfers in mass repatriation of Roma

Watches this enjoy First wave of transfers in mass repatriation of Roma

FRANCE SENT dozens of Roma on flights home to Romania yesterday in the first mass repatriation since French president Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a crackdown on crime, a move condemned by human rights groups.

Some 60 Roma left on a chartered plane from Lyon and about a dozen boarded a flight from Paris, the first wave of transfers in a campaign to send 700 people living in squalid camps across France back to Romania and Bulgaria by the end of the month.

Following riots in two French cities last month, Mr Sarkozy ordered 300 illegal camps of Roma dismantled. The move came as part of a crime crackdown targeting immigrants the government blames for a rise in violent crime in France’s poor suburbs.

Roma who agree to leave receive €300 and an additional €100 for each of their children.

The French government says the departures are all voluntary, though some Roma say they were coerced to leave and many are vowing to return to France.

“I want to return. It’s much easier there. Here we don’t have any chance, no jobs, nothing,” Ovidiu, a thin man of 23 from the western Romanian city of Oradea on the border with Hungary, said after arriving at Bucharest.

France repatriated some 10,000 Roma last year and other European countries, including Germany, Italy, Denmark and Sweden have taken similar steps.

But the latest deportations have gained more attention and some French politicians, including a deputy in the president’s UMP party, have likened the raids on Roma camps to the round-up of Jews in Nazi-occupied France.

Others have accused Mr Sarkozy of waging a cynical campaign to distract voters from an illegal donations scandal and high unemployment that have dogged his government and pushed his personal ratings near record lows.

Romanian foreign minister Teodor Baconschi told French radio that he was worried France’s campaign could spark “xenophobic reactions”. The European Commission has said it is scrutinising the situation to ensure France does not violate bloc rules.

The French government says it has a right to counter the influx of Roma, many of whom beg on street corners and live in camps under atrocious conditions. Many experts question the effectiveness of the French plan, arguing it is a waste of resources as nothing will prevent those who have received cash from returning.
Coppied by http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0820/1224277228587.html

We saw this First Guantanamo trial under Obama begins

Canadian defendant Omar Khadr sits with his defense team as FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller testifies during a pre-trial hearing at the Camp Justice compound on Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, April 29, 2010.
now watches this First Guantanamo trial under Obama begins
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Thirteen hundred miles from Washington, on a sun-drenched corner of this iguana-dotted island, the U.S. military is gearing up for the trial of the youngest and last Western detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

The trial of Omar Khadr, 23, opened here Monday. Khadr was detained in Afghanistan in 2002, and is accused of murdering a U.S. soldier, conspiracy, spying and other charges.

The son of an Egyptian who became a Canadian citizen, Khadr moved between homes in Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan for years. Other Western countries have secured the release of their citizens from Guantanamo, but successive Canadian governments have refused to even ask for Khadr’s return.

A successful trial and conviction for Khadr would mark a significant success for U.S. efforts to move beyond the legal limbo that has plagued Guantanamo for years. But Khadr was 15 when he was detained and human rights advocates criticize the administration for starting the tribunals with a case against a child soldier.

Khadr’s trial is the first military commission to take place under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Nearly 800 prisoners have passed through the facility since the United States began using it as a detention center in 2002. Six have been charged and three have been convicted.
coppied by http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/americas/100811/guantanamo-trial-omar-khadr

Giorgia Boscolo endured First lady joins official ranks of Venice's gondoliers

Giorgia Boscolo endured a year of stringent tests and training
Watched being this enjoy First lady joins official ranks of Venice's gondoliers
Authorities in Italy's lagoon city of Venice have granted a full licence to a female gondolier for the first time.

Mother-of-two Giorgia Boscolo, 24, whose father was also a gondolier, passed a year-long series of practical and written tests.

Mrs Boscolo joins the hitherto all-male Venetian gondoliers' guild and can now officially row tourists through the city's narrow canals.

She hopes to have her own gondola tied up in front of St Mark's Basilica.

Venice deputy mayor Sandro Simionato admitted there had been "excessive male domination" inside the 425-strong gondoliers' guild, which jealously guards its ancient traditions and skills.

But the BBC's David Willey in Rome says that even now, Giorgia Boscolo can only stand in for a male colleague if he wants to take a day off from the lucrative job of rowing tourists.

Fares start from 40 euros ($50 £32) for a 20-minute ride in the glossy 11-metre long, black-painted craft with its distinctive metal prow.
Coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10976450