Online, voters are still getting to know Santorum

On Super Tuesday, Yahoo! Search trends suggested that voters are still generally less familiar with Rick Santorum than with Mitt Romney. The top searches for Santorum still dealt with fairly basic topics, like "Rick Santorum on the issues," "Rick Santorum biography," and even "how much does Rick Santorum weigh?" Nearly half of Romney's top search terms, meanwhile, were about his wife. Searchers were also curious about Romney's wealth.

Overall, we saw about twice the total search volume for Romney as we did for Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul.

You can have your election; we'll take a cute video

On Twitter, the hashtag "#song" appeared alongside Santorum's name, thanks to an original song in support of Santorum that sisters Camille and Haley Harris recorded with their large musical family and posted to YouTube (below). The song has yet to go viral. There is competing traffic from a song Rosie O'Donnell wrote attacking the candidate.

Palin and Ann Romney catch fire despite the primary distraction

When Sarah Palin spoke to CNN at the Alaska Caucus, mentions of the former vice presidential candidate spiked on Twitter, higher even than mentions of Newt Gingrich when he won Georgia.

We also still saw tremendous volume around Ann Romney's remark on Monday: "I don't even consider myself wealthy." Tweets on this topic were, of course, mostly negative.

Here are two tweets that capture the sentiment we saw circulating on the topic:

@clarkekant: "The Romneys make $56,000 a day, but Ann Romney doesn't consider herself wealthy. You poor thing! Would another tax cut help?"

@TheCanadaParty: "Ann Romney: "I don't even consider myself wealthy." We know you don't. That's the problem."

The biggest spike we saw in tweets on Super Tuesday was around Santorum's speech, which were also largely negative. (Let's face it: People turn to Twitter to complain about and insult candidates more than they do to lavish praise on them.)

In any case, Twitter may be over the GOP primary

The most important insight from Twitter may be this one, from the service itself:

GOP candidates by new followers (Twitter)

The chart shows the number of new Twitter followers received by the candidates each day. It's been slowly dropping as the contest drags on.

Thanks to the Yahoo! Labs Content Science team for raw data.

View the original article here

Calling Chicken Little: Clouds Getting Lower

By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

Chicken Licken was right, the sky really is falling. NASA satellite data has shown that the Earth’s cloud tops have been lowering over the last decade.

Cloud-top height fell 1 percent on average between March 2000 and February 2010, according to measurements from the multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer mounted on NASA’s Terra satellite. That 1 percent means a reduction of 30 to 40 meters in the average maximum height of clouds, during the 00s.

While the short record means it’s difficult to draw any strong conclusions from the data, it does hint towards a longer-term trend. Roger Davies, the lead researcher on the project, warns that it’s something that should be monitored in the coming decades to determine how significant it is for global temperatures.

If there is indeed a consistent reduction in cloud height, and this isn’t just natural variability, then Earth would begin cooling to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperatures and slowing the effects of climate change. “We don’t know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower,” Davies said in a press release. “But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude.”

The Terra spacecraft, which launched in 1999 and records three-dimensional images of clouds around the globe, will continue gathering data in the coming years.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech [high-resolution]

Source: Wired.co.uk

View the original article here

Online, voters are still getting to know Santorum

On Super Tuesday, Yahoo! Search trends suggested that voters are still generally less familiar with Rick Santorum than with Mitt Romney. The top searches for Santorum still dealt with fairly basic topics, like "Rick Santorum on the issues," "Rick Santorum biography," and even "how much does Rick Santorum weigh?" Nearly half of Romney's top search terms, meanwhile, were about his wife. Searchers were also curious about Romney's wealth.

Overall, we saw about twice the total search volume for Romney as we did for Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul.

You can have your election; we'll take a cute video

On Twitter, the hashtag "#song" appeared alongside Santorum's name, thanks to an original song in support of Santorum that sisters Camille and Haley Harris recorded with their large musical family and posted to YouTube (below). The song has yet to go viral. There is competing traffic from a song Rosie O'Donnell wrote attacking the candidate.

Palin and Ann Romney catch fire despite the primary distraction

When Sarah Palin spoke to CNN at the Alaska Caucus, mentions of the former vice presidential candidate spiked on Twitter, higher even than mentions of Newt Gingrich when he won Georgia.

We also still saw tremendous volume around Ann Romney's remark on Monday: "I don't even consider myself wealthy." Tweets on this topic were, of course, mostly negative.

Here are two tweets that capture the sentiment we saw circulating on the topic:

@clarkekant: "The Romneys make $56,000 a day, but Ann Romney doesn't consider herself wealthy. You poor thing! Would another tax cut help?"

@TheCanadaParty: "Ann Romney: "I don't even consider myself wealthy." We know you don't. That's the problem."

The biggest spike we saw in tweets on Super Tuesday was around Santorum's speech, which were also largely negative. (Let's face it: People turn to Twitter to complain about and insult candidates more than they do to lavish praise on them.)

In any case, Twitter may be over the GOP primary

The most important insight from Twitter may be this one, from the service itself:

GOP candidates by new followers (Twitter)

The chart shows the number of new Twitter followers received by the candidates each day. It's been slowly dropping as the contest drags on.

Thanks to the Yahoo! Labs Content Science team for raw data.

View the original article here

T-Mobile US getting new myTouch devices from...Huawei

The two devices are codenamed the U8680 and U8730, and other than running Gingerbread on WVGA screens (and one of them having a slide-out keyboard), nothing else is known in terms of specifications.

You'll remember that HTC kicked off its own foray into the myTouch line back in 2009 with the rebranded HTC Magic, and LG also partook in the festivities with their LG Maxx Touch.

Expect the competitively priced myTouch phones to land sometime by the end of May.

Source

View the original article here

Calling Chicken Little: Clouds Getting Lower

By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

Chicken Licken was right, the sky really is falling. NASA satellite data has shown that the Earth’s cloud tops have been lowering over the last decade.

Cloud-top height fell 1 percent on average between March 2000 and February 2010, according to measurements from the multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer mounted on NASA’s Terra satellite. That 1 percent means a reduction of 30 to 40 meters in the average maximum height of clouds, during the 00s.

While the short record means it’s difficult to draw any strong conclusions from the data, it does hint towards a longer-term trend. Roger Davies, the lead researcher on the project, warns that it’s something that should be monitored in the coming decades to determine how significant it is for global temperatures.

If there is indeed a consistent reduction in cloud height, and this isn’t just natural variability, then Earth would begin cooling to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperatures and slowing the effects of climate change. “We don’t know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower,” Davies said in a press release. “But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude.”

The Terra spacecraft, which launched in 1999 and records three-dimensional images of clouds around the globe, will continue gathering data in the coming years.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech [high-resolution]

Source: Wired.co.uk

View the original article here

Calling Chicken Little: Clouds Getting Lower

By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

Chicken Licken was right, the sky really is falling. NASA satellite data has shown that the Earth’s cloud tops have been lowering over the last decade.

Cloud-top height fell 1 percent on average between March 2000 and February 2010, according to measurements from the multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer mounted on NASA’s Terra satellite. That 1 percent means a reduction of 30 to 40 meters in the average maximum height of clouds, during the 00s.

While the short record means it’s difficult to draw any strong conclusions from the data, it does hint towards a longer-term trend. Roger Davies, the lead researcher on the project, warns that it’s something that should be monitored in the coming decades to determine how significant it is for global temperatures.

If there is indeed a consistent reduction in cloud height, and this isn’t just natural variability, then Earth would begin cooling to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperatures and slowing the effects of climate change. “We don’t know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower,” Davies said in a press release. “But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude.”

The Terra spacecraft, which launched in 1999 and records three-dimensional images of clouds around the globe, will continue gathering data in the coming years.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech [high-resolution]

Source: Wired.co.uk

View the original article here