Monday, January 26, 2009

Obama's Inaguration

Obama's inauguration is very important because he is the first African-American president of our country. He did what no other African-American did so far, he became the president. On the 20th of January, Obama officially became the president of the United States of America. Also, he gave a speech on what he plans to do to while he is president.
The first article is about the inauguration day and the schedule of events that occur on that day. For example, it shows when the people without tickets get to enter the National Mall, where they get to watch the inauguration on giant screens. Also, it shows when "The metros start in Washington where two million people are expected to come to the city center to watch the inauguration."
A basic summary of the second article is Obama reversed counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration. After talking with 16 retired generals, he wants to rewrite the rules for dealing with terrorism suspects. However, many questions came up, such as "What should be done with terrorists who cannot be tried in American courts, either because evidence against them was obtained by torture or because intelligence is too sensitive to use in court? Should some interrogation methods remain secret to keep Al Qaeda from training to resist them? How can the United States make sure prisoners transferred to other countries will not be tortured?" Everyone wishes he gets good answers for these questions.
1st article
2nd article

Friday, January 23, 2009

Current event: HOLOGRAPHIC T.V.!

Picture this... You are playing your new video game (or watching a TV show)... a game/TV show you waited for a long time... you put it into your system... Then it LITERALLY COMES OUT OF YOUR TV! These aren't your ordinary 3-D glasses, these are TVs that produce holograms! "Don't be surprised if within our lifetime you find yourself discarding your plasma and LCD sets in exchange for a holographic 3-D television that can put Cristiano Ronaldo in your living room or bring you face-to-face with life-sized versions of your gaming heroes." (CNN). Now, you will be scared when you watch scary movies... Now you'll be surprised in movies when someone sneaks up behind you! Now... You will click here to read more!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Current Event: Solar power - advanced!

Have you ever noticed that solar panels are always tilted- askew? They are never facing up, but diagonal! This is because the panels could only absorb sunlight from one direction. The bad thing about this is that when the sun is faced away from the panels, the panels don't absorb anything- those were the old times. Now, researchers have developed a new anti-reflective coating that boosts the efficiency of solar panels and allows sunlight to be absorbed from almost any angle. The old untreated solar cell absorbs two thirds of the sunlight it receives; but the new solar cell absorbs 96.21%! Hopefully, we can give up other fuels and start using solar panels for energy! Jeremy Leggett, founder of Solar Century, a leading UK solar-energy company, believes that the future is already very bright for the solar industry. Even though solar power is expensive, maybe we should all try to get ahead of time and start using it now and save money in later years!

If you want to read more about the new solar energy, click here!