• Another Little Ice Age? Solar activity and climate change #
• Extrasolar Planets at Full Tilt #

Now for the tech news:

• Microsoft’s OneApp targets non-smartphones #
• Nokia to deliver Windows 7-powered netbook with 12 hours of battery life #
• Opera 10 Slated For September 1 Launch. Will Anyone Take Notice? #
• Sony’s new Reader lineup assaults Amazon Kindle #

Another Little Ice Age? Solar activity and climate change

The Sun’s is experiencing a slow return to normal activity after its natural 11-year cycle. The number of sun-spots have decreased, which could indicated a “Little Ice Age” may be impending. The last time this happened was the late 17th century. This time around its effects may not be as chilling due to the vast amount of greenhouse gases now circulating our atmosphere. Source at ArsTechnica.

Extrasolar Planets at Full Tilt

Exoplanets – scientists have recently discovered – don’t generally follow our Solar System’s common circular orbits. Instead, they’re usually tilted more than 30 degrees, causing some of them to actually orbit backwards relative to its parent star. The most tilted planet (7 degrees) in our solar system is Mercury. Interesting insights. Source at Discovery.

Microsoft’s OneApp targets non-smartphones

Microsoft recently launched a mobile application called “OneApp”, which is directed at the non-smartphone market. The application will act as a gateway to web applications and services like Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, and more. Because non-smartphones are so low on processing power, OneApp will relay processing and storage to the web. The app itself only takes up 150KB and will even work on the most basic GPRS/EDGE phones. Source at TechRadar.

Nokia to deliver Windows 7-powered netbook with 12 hours of battery life

Yes. Truly. Read the specs at Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite Blog post.

Opera 10 Slated For September 1 Launch. Will Anyone Take Notice?

The cursed underdog of browser-land, Opera, has published the Release Candidate for its upcoming browser Opera 10. Codenamed “Peregrine”, it will offer “an improved user interface, increased web standards support, bug fixes, performance improvements, and new tools for web developers”. As with every release from Opera, I will download it and give it a fair chance. I rarely like what I see, though. So, in those terms, this will be Opera’s tenth chance to convince me. Source at TechCrunch.

Sony’s new Reader lineup assaults Amazon Kindle

Sony has refreshed its lineup of eBook readers with a trio of readers, each specialized in a certain type of end user. The first – called “Pocket Edition” – is portable and cheap. The second one – “Touch Edition” – offers a bigger screen with touch capabilities. And the über-reader is called the “Daily Edition”, with a big screen, touch capabilities and 3G & WIFI connectivity. In each case, Sony’s equivalents to the Kindle and Kindle DX are significantly cheaper than Amazon’s offerings. Also, Sony scrambles behind eBook-standard EPUB enabling broader compatibility. It has also partnered with Google. Source at ZDNET.
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