US stresses limits of NKorea's nuclear firepower

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, greets upon his arrival at Seoul military airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Friday, April 12, 2013. Kerry is traveling directly into a region bracing for a possible North Korean missile test and risking that his presence alone could spur Pyongyang into another headline-seeking provocation. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, greets upon his arrival at Seoul military airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Friday, April 12, 2013. Kerry is traveling directly into a region bracing for a possible North Korean missile test and risking that his presence alone could spur Pyongyang into another headline-seeking provocation. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and South Korea Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se share a few words while waiting for a group meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, Friday, April 12, 2013. Kerry is making his first-ever visit to Seoul amid strong suspicion that North Korea may soon test a mid-range missile. (AP Photo/Paul J. Richards, Pool)

North Korean children hold up red scarves to be tied around their necks during an induction ceremony into the Korean Children's Union, the first political organization for North Koreans, held at a stadium in Pyongyang on Friday, April 12, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? On the brink of an expected North Korean missile test, U.S. officials focused on the limits of Pyongyang's nuclear firepower Friday, trying to shift attention from the disclosure that the Koreans might be able to launch a nuclear strike. They insisted that while the unpredictable government might have rudimentary nuclear capabilities, it has not proven it has a weapon that could reach the United States.

A senior defense official said the U.S. sees a "strong likelihood" that North Korea will launch a test missile in coming days in defiance of international calls for restraint. The effort is expected to test the North's ballistic missile technologies, not a nuclear weapon, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Unless the missile unexpectedly heads for a U.S. or allied target, the Pentagon does not plan to try to shoot it down, several officials said. As a precaution, the U.S. has arrayed in the Pacific a number of missile defense Navy ships, tracking radars and other elements of its worldwide network for shooting down hostile missiles.

The tensions playing out on the Korean peninsula are the latest in a long-running drama that dates to the 1950-53 Korean War, fed by the North's conviction that Washington is intent on destroying the government in Pyongyang and Washington's worry that the North could, out of desperation, reignite the war by invading the South.

The mood in the North Korean capital, meanwhile, was hardly so tense. Many people were in the streets preparing for the birthday of national founder Kim Il Sung ? the biggest holiday of the year. Even so, this year's big flower show in Kim's honor features an exhibition of orchids built around mock-ups of red-tipped missiles, slogans hailing the military and reminders of threats to the nation.

The plain fact is that no one can be sure how far North Korea has progressed in its pursuit of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, aside perhaps from a few people close to its new leader, Kim Jong Un.

Concern about the North's threatening rhetoric jumped a notch on Thursday with the disclosure on Capitol Hill that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency believes with "moderate confidence" that the North could deliver a nuclear weapon by ballistic missile. The DIA assessment did not mention the potential range of such a strike, but it led to a push by administration officials to minimize the significance of the jarring disclosure.

Secretary of State John Kerry said in Seoul on Friday "it's inaccurate to suggest" that the North had fully tested and demonstrated its ability to deliver a nuclear weapon by ballistic missile, a message also delivered by the Pentagon and by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.

Indeed, the attention-getting DIA report made no such suggestion; it simply offered what amounts to an educated guess that the North has some level of nuclear weapons capability. It has been working on that for at least 20 years, and private analysts who closely track North Korean developments say it's fairly clear that the North has made progress.

Kerry, who was headed to Beijing to seek Chinese help in persuading North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile testing, told reporters in Seoul that the North's progress on nuclear weapons, as described in the DIA report, pushed the country "closer to a line that is more dangerous." Kerry also was due to visit Japan.

"If Kim Jong Un decides to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or some other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community," Kerry said. "And it will be a provocation and unwanted act that will raise people's temperatures."

The DIA report's assessment, written in March, was in line with a statement it issued two years earlier.

In March 2011, the agency's director, Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, told a Senate panel, "The North may now have several plutonium-based nuclear warheads that it can deliver by ballistic missiles and aircraft as well as by unconventional means."

David Albright, a leading North Korea expert at the Institute for Science and International Security, wrote in February, after the North's latest nuclear test, that he believes North Korea can mount a nuclear warhead on a shorter-range Nodong ballistic missile, whose estimated range of about 800 miles puts it within range of Japan.

"Pyongyang still lacks the ability to deploy a warhead on an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), although it shows progress at this effort," Albright wrote.

Bruce Bennett, a Rand Corp. specialist on North Korea, said this week there is a "reasonable chance" that North Korea has short-range nuclear missile capability, but it is "very unlikely" that it has one that can reach the U.S.

While U.S. officials are watching for a missile test as early as this weekend, they are equally concerned about other actions the North Koreans might take to provoke a reaction either by the United States or South Korea.

Officials say that the U.S. has seen North Korea moving troops, trucks and other equipment arrayed along the Demilitarized Zone that separates the North and South. And they worry about the possibility Pyongyang could once again shell a South Korean island, torpedo a ship or perhaps fire artillery rounds at South Korean people or troops.

Limited attacks of that sort could be a greater threat because they would more likely result in injuries or deaths, and could more quickly trigger a military response from South Korea or the U.S. and its allies.

___

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, and AP broadcast correspondent Sagar Meghani contributed to this report.

Follow Robert Burns on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-12-US-North%20Korea/id-760ff569598b4d3e94f690347edc032a

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Report: Global warming didn't cause big US drought

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Last year's huge drought was a freak of nature that wasn't caused by man-made global warming, a new federal science study finds.

Scientists say the lack of moisture usually pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico was the main reason for the drought in the nation's midsection.

Thursday's report by dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies looked into why forecasters didn't see the drought coming. The researchers concluded that it was so unusual and unpredictable that it couldn't have been forecast.

"This is one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of years," said lead author Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Climate change was not a significant part, if any, of the event."

Researchers focused on six states ? Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Iowa ? but the drought spread much farther and eventually included nearly two-thirds of the Lower 48 states. For the six states, the drought was the worst four-month period for lack of rainfall since records started being kept in 1895, Hoerling said.

He said the jet stream that draws moisture north from the Gulf was stuck unusually north in Canada.

Other scientists have linked recent changes in the jet stream to shrinking Arctic sea ice, but Hoerling and study co-author Richard Seager of Columbia University said those global warming connections are not valid.

Hoerling used computer simulations to see if he could replicate the drought using man-made global warming conditions. He couldn't. So that means it was a random event, he said.

Using similar methods, Hoerling has been able to attribute increasing droughts in the Mediterranean Sea region to climate change and found that greenhouse gases could be linked to a small portion of the 2011 Texas heat wave.

Another scientist though, blasted the report.

Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federally funded university-run research center, said the report didn't take into account the lack of snowfall in the Rockies the previous winter and how that affected overall moisture in the air. Nor did the study look at the how global warming exacerbated the high pressure system that kept the jet stream north and the rainfall away, he said.

"This was natural variability exacerbated by global warming," Trenberth said in an email. "That is true of all such events from the Russian heat wave of 2010, to the drought and heat waves in Australia."

Hoerling noted that in the past 20 years, the world is seeing more La Ninas, the occasional cooling of the central Pacific Ocean that is the flip side of El Nino. Hoerling said that factor, not part of global warming but part of a natural cycle, increases the chances of such droughts.

Some regions should see more droughts as the world warms because of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, he said. But the six state area isn't expected to get an increase of droughts from global warming ? unlike parts of the Southwest ? Hoerling said.

___

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-global-warming-didnt-cause-122520026.html

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Alarm over vanishing frogs in the Caribbean

In this March 21, 2013 photo, Ana Longo, a researcher with Proyecto Coqui, holds a Coqui or Common Coqui (Eleutherodactylus coqui) at a tropical forest in Patillas, Puerto Rico. A familiar sound is vanishing from the Caribbean night. The bird-like peeps and chirping of frogs are fainter across the region, a decline scientists say appears to be caused by a combination of climate change, a fungus that has been killing amphibians around the world, and habitat loss. It's a global problem, but worrisome in the Caribbean because the island geography means many species exist nowhere else on earth and the loss of frogs, a principal nocturnal predator of mosquitoes, may have severe consequences for humans. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

In this March 21, 2013 photo, Ana Longo, a researcher with Proyecto Coqui, holds a Coqui or Common Coqui (Eleutherodactylus coqui) at a tropical forest in Patillas, Puerto Rico. A familiar sound is vanishing from the Caribbean night. The bird-like peeps and chirping of frogs are fainter across the region, a decline scientists say appears to be caused by a combination of climate change, a fungus that has been killing amphibians around the world, and habitat loss. It's a global problem, but worrisome in the Caribbean because the island geography means many species exist nowhere else on earth and the loss of frogs, a principal nocturnal predator of mosquitoes, may have severe consequences for humans. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

In this March 21, 2013 photo, Alberto Lopez, a researcher with Proyecto Coqui, slips into the mouth of a cave searching for Coqui frogs at a tropical forest in Patillas, Puerto Rico. A familiar sound is vanishing from the Caribbean night. The bird-like peeps and chirping of frogs are fainter across the region, a decline scientists say appears to be caused by a combination of climate change, a fungus that has been killing amphibians around the world, and habitat loss. It's a global problem, but worrisome in the Caribbean because the island geography means many species exist nowhere else on earth and the loss of frogs, a principal nocturnal predator of mosquitoes, may have severe consequences for humans. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

In this March 21, 2013 photo, Alberto Lopez, a researcher with Proyecto Coqui, holds a Coqui de las Hierbas or Grass Coqui (Eleutherodactylus brittoni) at a tropical forest in Patillas, Puerto Rico. A familiar sound is vanishing from the Caribbean night. The bird-like peeps and chirping of frogs are fainter across the region, a decline scientists say appears to be caused by a combination of climate change, a fungus that has been killing amphibians around the world, and habitat loss. It's a global problem, but worrisome in the Caribbean because the island geography means many species exist nowhere else on earth and the loss of frogs, a principal nocturnal predator of mosquitoes, may have severe consequences for humans. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

In this March 21, 2013 photo, Ana Longo, a researcher with Proyecto Coqui, takes samples from a Coqui Guajon or Rock Frog (Eleutherodactylus cooki) at a tropical forest in Patillas, Puerto Rico. A familiar sound is vanishing from the Caribbean night. The bird-like peeps and chirping of frogs are fainter across the region, a decline scientists say appears to be caused by a combination of climate change, a fungus that has been killing amphibians around the world, and habitat loss. It's a global problem, but worrisome in the Caribbean because the island geography means many species exist nowhere else on earth and the loss of frogs, a principal nocturnal predator of mosquitoes, may have severe consequences for humans. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

In this March 21, 2013 photo, Ana Longo, a researcher with Proyecto Coqui, takes measurements of a Coqui Guajon or Rock Frog (Eleutherodactylus cooki) at a tropical forest in Patillas, Puerto Rico. A familiar sound is vanishing from the Caribbean night. The bird-like peeps and chirping of frogs are fainter across the region, a decline scientists say appears to be caused by a combination of climate change, a fungus that has been killing amphibians around the world, and habitat loss. It's a global problem, but worrisome in the Caribbean because the island geography means many species exist nowhere else on earth and the loss of frogs, a principal nocturnal predator of mosquitoes, may have severe consequences for humans. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

PATILLAS, Puerto Rico (AP) ? A curtain of sound envelops the two researchers as they make their way along the side of a mountain in darkness, occasionally hacking their way with a machete to reach the mouth of a small cave.

Peeps, tweets and staccato whistles fill the air, a pulsing undercurrent in the tropical night. To the untrained ear, it's just a mishmash of noise. To experts tracking a decline in amphibians with growing alarm, it's like a symphony in which some of the players haven't been showing up.

In parts of Puerto Rico, for example, there are places where researchers used to hear four species at once and they are now hearing one or two, a subtle but important change.

"You are not hearing what you were before," said Alberto Lopez, part of a husband-and-wife team of biologists trying to gauge the health of frogs on the island.

Scientists report that many types of amphibians, especially frogs, are in a steep global decline likely caused by a mix of habitat loss, climate change, pollution and a virulent fungus. The downward spiral is striking particularly hard in the Caribbean, where a majority of species are now losing a fragile hold in the ecosystem.

Without new conservation measures, there could be a massive die-off of Caribbean frogs within 15 years, warned Adrell Nunez, an amphibian expert with the Santo Domingo Zoo in the Dominican Republic. "There are species that we literally know nothing about" that could be lost, he said.

Researchers such as Lopez and his wife, Ana Longo Berrios, have been fanning out across the Caribbean and returning with new and troubling evidence of the decline. In some places, especially in Haiti, where severe deforestation is added to the mix of problems, extinctions are possible.

It is part of a grim picture overall. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has found that 32 percent of the world's amphibian species are threatened or extinct, including more than 200 alone in both Mexico and Colombia.

"Everywhere we are seeing declines and it's severe," said Jan Zegarra, a biologist based in Puerto Rico for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Frogs may be less charismatic than some other troubled species, but their role in the environment is important. They are consumed by birds and snakes and they in turn are major predators of mosquitoes. Their absence could lead to a rise in malaria and dengue, not to mention discomfort.

There are also less tangible reasons for protection. The coqui, the common name for a genus that includes 17 species in Puerto Rico, including three believed to be already extinct, is important to the cultural heritage of the island; it's considered a symbol of the island, seen in everything from indigenous petroglyphs to coffee mugs sold to tourists at the airport. Frogs, which breathe and process toxins through their skin, are considered a promising area for pharmaceutical research and a bio-indicator that can tell scientists about what's going on in the environment.

"We are just starting to understand the ripple down effects and the repercussions of losing amphibians," said Jamie Voyles, a biologist at New Mexico Tech in Albuquerque and one of the principal investigators of Project Atelopus, an effort to study and protect frogs of an endangered genus in Panama.

Rafael Joglar, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico, has noted the diminishing nighttime calls in decades of research on the island and not just from the three species believe to have gone extinct. "Many of the other species that were common when I was a younger student ... are now disappearing and are actually very rare."

In percentage terms, the worst situation for frogs is the Caribbean, where more than 80 percent of species are threatened or extinct in the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Jamaica and more than 90 percent in Haiti, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In Puerto Rico, it's around 70 percent.

"The frogs in the Caribbean are in very bad shape," Joglar said.

One major reason the Caribbean is so vulnerable is that many species are found only within a small habitat on just one island. Take, for example, the coqui guajon, or rock frog, which was the focus of attention by Lopez and Longo on a recent night. About the size of a golf ball, it is what's known as a habitat specialist, found only in caves of a certain kind of volcanic rock along streams in southeastern Puerto Rico.

There are 17 known spots designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as critical habitat for the rock frog, all of them on private land. Longo and Lopez, working for a research and public education initiative called Proyecto Coqui, have been trying to determine the health of the populations on those isolated patches.

"That's why it's such a vulnerable species," Lopez said. "If something happens to the habitat, people can't just grab them and put them in another place on the island because this habitat is only found on the southeast of the island."

In densely populated Haiti, the degradation of the environment has been so severe that only a handful of species are known for certain to still be viable in the country and even they are in trouble, said S. Blair Hedges, a biology professor at Pennsylvania State University who has studied frogs in the Caribbean since the 1980s.

"I'm really certain that some species are going over the edge, are disappearing," Hedges said.

Frogs have been under siege around the world from a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, known for short as "Bd," which has been known to be weakening and killing amphibians since the late 1990s though much about it remains under scientific study, Voyles said. Its effects, however, are dramatic.

"When I first went to Panama the sounds at night were incredible and now it's just silent," she said. "It's hard to communicate the absence of that incredible cacophony of beautiful sounds. It's very striking how much we have lost."

Among research efforts on the fungus is one by Lopez and Longo, who have been catching frogs in the forest, checking them for Bd and ticks, and then releasing them back into the night. They have started finding the fungus in the coqui guajon and are still trying to determine how it will affect the population.

After three weeks on the winding back roads of Puerto Rico, politely knocking on people's doors to ask if they could root around on their land for frogs, the researchers were relieved to find plentiful specimens. But they were also dismayed to confirm that one place designated as critical habitat had not a single coqui guajon left.

"To our surprise, the habitat is there, but no frogs, no frogs at all," he said.

_____

Associated Press writer Trenton Daniel contributed from Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Lopez reported from the Dominican Republic; Fox reported from Puerto Rico.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-04-10-AP-CB-Caribbean-Vanishing-Frogs/id-2c4be69429bf42ecb20e3d1561255108

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190M-year-old dino bones shed light on development

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A cache of fossilized dinosaur embryos unearthed in China is giving scientists their best glimpse yet into the development of these ancient creatures.

The 190 million-year-old bones belonged to a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur known for its gigantic size that roamed during the early Jurassic age.

An international team of scientists headed by the University of Toronto examined more than 200 bones from 20 individuals at various stages of development. They found this type of dinosaur grew much more rapidly inside the egg than others.

The discovery is detailed in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The latest embryos are the same age as the world's oldest dinosaur embryos found in South Africa.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-04-10-Dinosaur%20Embryos/id-4231cddade6b4652a06f309599799322

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Top Technology Trends For Your Vancouver Home in 2013 ...

New technology significantly affects the way we live, making our daily routines easier, quicker, and sometimes even more entertaining. All the innovations and gadgets we use in our homes have given the word ?comfort? a completely new meaning. More and more home features and appliances are becoming automated, providing convenience, energy efficiency, and security. Thanks to the newest home tech trends, we are able to remotely control devices such as vacuum cleaners, fridges, security systems, lighting, and even blenders.

In this article, we focus on the newest tech trends that could make everyday life for Vancouverites a little bit easier. Together with Brian Zingle, a Vancouver-based home technology consultant who boasts an electrical and computer engineering background with expertise in networking and wireless solutions, we?ve created a list of the top nine tech trends for your Vancouver home in 2013. Brian applies his unique knowledge and skill set in his company called Simpleer, which creates homeowner-friendly plans for music integration, Wi-Fi networking, and home automation. Here are our top nine picks.

The Nest Learning Thermostat is much more than any other gadget. It?s a cool, easy-to-install and effective way to heat your home while saving significant amounts of energy. This thermostat from the creators of the iPod and iPhone, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, learns your temperature preferences and creates a schedule for your home that helps you save energy.

The installation is really simple, and it takes no more than 30 minutes ? including removing your old thermostat. All you have to do to set the Nest thermostat up is answer a few questions, and then Nest will optimize itself for your system and start learning from your temperature changes. It connects to a WiFi network to enable remote control features. As Brian points out,

It also makes it really easy set your home to ?away? to save energy when you?re not around, and equally easy to use its smartphone app to heat things up as you?re heading home

Nest Thermostat

Nest has a simple yet stylish design and is developed to fit in most homes and offices, as it is compatible with many home heating and cooling systems ? even those without a dedicated power wire. Nest?s auto-schedule helps you save up to 20 per cent on your heating and cooling bills, and these savings can be even increased if you combine all of Nest?s features.

Wall outlets with USB outlets

Are you fed up with all the chargers and adapters that you have to store and carry around for your devices? USB wall outlets provide a great solution to eliminate clutter in our Vancouver homes, allowing us to charge electronic devices directly from a wall outlet. Several manufacturers offer USB wall outlets, including Leviton and Cooper. However, according to Brian,

Newer Technology gets props, as it turns off the charger to save power when nothing is plugged in.

The Philips Hue lighting system consists of three Hue lights with a Hue Bridge that allows you to remotely control the lights. We?ve already learned we can turn the lights on or off using a smartphone or tablet, but as Brian informed us,

These light bulbs allow the usual scheduling and control of your lights from your smartphone or tablet, but they also allow colour control!

Hue is a great way to set the right mood for different occasions in our Vancouver homes. And setting the mood is just the start! The Hue system allows its users to do all kinds of cool tricks. For example, you can set the system to full brightness when it?s time to wake up, or to flash red light when it?s time to go somewhere.

Even though the initial pack includes just three connected bulbs, you can add up to 50 lights throughout your home. Each bulb includes 11 LEDs and is able to glow any colour of the rainbow ? including all the shades of white that are normally used in indoor lighting. Each bulb has a built-in wireless sensor, using Zigbee?s Light Link standard so that the bulbs can communicate with each other outside the range of the controller. Note that Hue is targeted primarily toward iOS and Android users.

WeMo

Belkin?s WeMo is a set of simple and customizable products that allow users to control their home electronics from anywhere. It provides a reasonably priced solution for Wi-Fi connected, remote home automation. Brian described WeMo as ?a good first baby step to home automation.? It currently offers four options: Switch, Switch+Motion, Motion, and Baby. Brian informed us,

We?d started with the WeMo Switch as it can be used to replace those cumbersome mechanical timers, plus you can use your smartphone to turn stuff on and off at a whim. They are easy to set up and use. If you have or are about to have a baby, the WeMo Baby monitor is definitely worth checking out as well.

In addition, Belkin announced that the WeMo team is finally addressing customer requests for an Android control app for WeMo systems. Beta versions should launch soon for devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S III, and we can expect an extensive launch sometime during the summer.

WeMo Baby

Wireless Music Systems

Music is becoming more and more portable. Nowadays, it?s very easy to share music with different devices for playback. Wireless Music Systems provide a convenient way of creating our home sound systems without being limited to the length of wire that connects to your audio system. All you need is a device that can stream music from the Internet or play MP3 files and transmit audio files directly to a receiver attached to your stereo. Brian gave us some advice:

For Vancouverites with iPhones, iPads or Macs, we?re huge fans of Apple?s AirPlay products to distribute music and media wirelessly around the home. Other manufacturers are also supporting the AirPlay standard, including Bowers & Wilkins, Altec Lansing and Denon ? some real quality choices available. Sonos also has excellent music systems. We can help make sense of this for you and your home to get you rocking out (or chilling when required) at the touch of a button.

Bowers & Wilkins Wireless Music System

A huge advantage of wireless music systems is that you don?t need to store all your music on hard drives, as the products allow you to play your music directly from your cloud data storage services, such as Box, Google,iCloud, Dropbox, or SkyDrive. These services provide users with instant access to a wide array of resources and applications hosted on remote servers via a web service interface. The newest trend in wireless music systems allows us to grab the music from the cloud and play it in our homes.

Network Cameras

Network cameras allow us to stream live video and audio directly to our smartphones or tablets and can be used in a wide array of situations. Moreover, the quality of network cameras is increasing, while the price is coming down. Brian introduced a couple of gadgets that use network cameras:

For cameras to keep an eye on your baby at nap time, your vacation home or even your pets? antics while you?re out, companies like D-Link and Linksys have some great options. If you?re looking for a convenient method to check and talk with who?s at the front door regardless of whether you?re home or not, the DoorBot Doorbell with built-in network camera may fit your bill.

With DoorBot, you don?t have to worry about dropping everything to answer the door anymore. Setting up DoorBot is very simple. After installing it next to your front door using four screws and four AA batteries, you just download the free app and sync it with the home?s wireless network. Its perforated, brushed aluminum faceplate is designed to look good on almost all kinds of front doors. Furthermore, DoorBot works with the Lockitron, a gadget that fits over your deadbolt?s interior thumb button and allows you to check if your door is locked or unlocked from anywhere.

Built-in Speakers

Built-in speakers allow us to enjoy incredible sound in places where external speakers can?t be placed. They provide a stylish solution that integrates music into our Vancouver homes. Furthermore, Brian adds:

They?re also great to use with Apple?s AirPlay products and for stealth home theatre systems. There are tons of choices at all price points, including Polk Audio and B&W. If you?re looking for something distinctive, then Bang & Olufsen?s new built-in speakers might be for you. Either way, we can help find the right speaker for your ears, aesthetics, and budget.

The new Bang & Olufsen sound system includes the Beolab 15 speakers and the Beolap 16 subwoofer, which incorporate outstanding sound with discreet design. The speakers include a motorized tilt function that allows you to direct the sound exactly where you want. In addition, the tilt function allows you to change the direction of middle and high tones according to your preferences. The speaker automatically tilts back as soon as the device is turned off.

Bang & Olufsen?s Beolab 15

Phone Finder Apps

It seems like every Vancouverite has a smartphone and tablet, and we all spend a lot of time every day searching for our misplaced belongings ?especially these two devices. According to a study conducted by Lookout, a mobile security company, Americans lose an average of one cellphone per year. Losing a phone or tablet doesn?t mean only losing all data such as music, photos, apps, or contacts, but it also grants the person who has your smartphone or tablet access to your online accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and personal email ? and in the worst scenario, also Internet banking. Brian told us that there?s a way of avoiding such inconveniences:

Have no worries, as Apple has Find iPhone and there is Find My Phone for Android. Apple?s app is compatible with iPhone, iPads, iPods and even MacBooks. You can make it play a loud ring to find your device or to erase it if you think its stolen. Find My Phone covers your Android devices. These apps are very handy to keep a tab on your loved ones too if they are open to that. These apps are very powerful for elder care to help guard their independence, while still offering support when needed. Just remember to install the app and set it up now before you need it later!

As Brian pointed out, ?The need for owning multiple cars or any car at all is shrinking in Vancouver. With most homes here, parking is also getting tight. There are times when you just need a car for a quick trip though.? An innovative and sustainable solution for such situations are car shares and micro rentals. Together with Brian, we have chosen one of our favourites, Car2Go. They offer a network of several hundred environmentally compatible smart ?Car2Go edition? vehicles for rent. You can find the cars parked around the city using their smartphone apps. All you have to do is sign up for membership, and afterwards you just scan your card, use the car, and park the car when you?re done. Plus you only pay for the time you?re actually using the car.

The pick-up and drop-off area in Vancouver encompasses about 47 square kilometres. The south border follows 41st Avenue, while the north border follows the Burrard Inlet, the east border is located at Nanaimo Street, and the west border is at Alma Street.

Car2Go in Vancouver

Source: http://jaybanks.ca/vancouver-blog/2013/04/09/top-technology-home-trends-vancouver/

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Defiant Iran inaugurates 2 nuclear-linked projects

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran has inaugurated of two key nuclear-related projects just days after another round of talks with world powers seeking to limit Tehran's atomic program.

State TV said Tuesday that operations are now underway at Iran's biggest uranium mine at Saghand and a uranium ore concentrate production plant in Ardakan, both in central Iran.

Neither site represents breakout technology for Iran, which already has smaller uranium mines and processing facilities. But it gives Iran greater self-sufficiency in making the raw materials for enrichment to nuclear fuel and, potentially, for warhead-grade material.

Iran is looking to dramatically expand its enrichment program amid U.N. sanctions that prevent Iran from buying nuclear materials.

The U.S. and its allies fear that Iran may ultimately be able to develop a nuclear weapon, a charge Tehran denies.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/defiant-iran-inaugurates-2-nuclear-linked-projects-070442786.html

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Largest private yacht in the world is launched

Robert Frank , CNBC ? ? ? 3 hrs.

Sorry Roman. You've been eclipsed.

A new yacht launched Friday by L?rssen, the German luxury boatbuilder, is now the largest motor yacht in the world. It's name is Azzam, and at 590 feet long, it has officially bumped Roman Abramovich's yacht ? the 536-foot Eclipse ? from its number one ranking.

L?rssen won't comment on the ownership. But industry sources say the owner is likely the royal family of Abu Dhabi.

L?rssen will say that the boat was "without the a doubt the most challenging yacht that has ever been built." Aside from its sheer size, Azzam had to be super-fast and able to ply shallow waters "while providing luxurious and sophisticated accommodation to its guests."

For speed, the boat is powered by jets rather than propellers. It's got 94,000 horsepower under the hood. And it hit a top speed of 30 knots, which is about 30 percent faster than most mega-yachts. "It's like a 590-foot jet ski," said one executive involved in the project.

There are no immediate descriptions available of the interior, though we know it's in the hands of French interior designer Christophe Leoni, who's using a "turn of the century Empire style." Nor do we have critical details on the number of Jacuzzis, rotating beds or helicopter pads. But the main salon, at 95 feet long by 60 feet wide has no pillars dividing the space.

Read more: Russian Billionaire's Yacht Makes Waves in NYC

So think Napoleon, if he had a megayacht and $600 million to spend.

Azzam will go through sea trials later this summer and will officially launch sometime in the fall.

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Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653351/s/2a78e4d2/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Cbusiness0Clargest0Eprivate0Eyacht0Eworld0Elaunched0E1C92550A45/story01.htm

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