Bus-Size Asteroid to Gave Earth Close Shave on Jan. 27

Newly discovered asteroid 2012 BX34 (whose orbit is represented by blue line) came within 0.17 lunar distances of Earth on Jan 27, 2012

A small asteroid will make an extremely close pass by Earth Friday (Jan. 27), coming much nearer than the moon, but the space rock poses no danger of impacting our planet, NASA scientists say.

The newfound asteroid 2012 BX34, which is about the size of a city bus, will pass within 36,750 miles (59,044 kilometers) of Earth at about 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) Friday, astronomers with NASA's Asteroid Watch program announced via Twitter.

The space rock is about 36 feet (11 meters) wide, making it much too small to pose a threat to Earth.

"It wouldn't get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try," Asteroid Watch scientists tweeted today (Jan. 26). Asteroid Watch is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Asteroid 2012 BX34 will zip by at a distance about 0.17 times that separating Earth and the moon. The moon orbits Earth at an average distance of about 240,000 miles (386,000 km).

Top 5 Android mobile phones under Rs 10K for Dec & Jan

Almost a year ago, Android phones under the Rs 10,000 category were not great enough to attract consumer attention. With sluggish performance due to myriad hardware models and delayed updates, several users preferred to wait till good Android handsets showed up in that price range.

Now we have a range of relatively powerful mobile phones that can run the latest Android OS smoothly. It is indeed very important to know the version of Android the mobile phone uses to make the best of it.

Android phones under Rs 10,000 are expected to have a feature rich package. They need to have a reasonably large capacitive touchscreen, decent processor, at least 3.2 megapixel camera and, of course, a recent version of Android OS.

Here is a list of the best mobile phones one must consider while buying a new Android phone for Rs 10,000 or less.

LG Optimus Net P690 (Rs 9,999)

 

 

Successor to the popular Optimus One, the new Optimus Net P690 has instantly been accepted as a budget friendly smartphone, mostly because the phone is a feature rich package. Optimus Net P690 has a 3.2 inch touchscreen display with 320 x 480 pixel resolution and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system.

Under the slim chassis, Optimus Net houses an 800 MHz mobile processor along with 512 MB of RAM, which is a good enough combination to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread smoothly. If third party developers get interested in this device then perhaps a custom ROM with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich might be supported on it.

Supporting 3G networks, Optimus Net offers wireless connectivity via WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 as well. LG has used a 3.15 megapixel camera at its rear for decent quality photos to be uploaded and shared on social networks.

Finally, a mobile phone with a seemingly fast processor, decent camera and capacitive touchscreen should be your best bet if you plan to spend under five figures.

2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Several outlets have had a chance to take the wheel of the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and we concur with the consensus that General Motors has built a world-class sports car on a pony-car budget. What we haven't seen yet is anyone who's captured on video the experience of hurtling the ZL1 down the drag strip, all 580 horses in full gallop. That ends now.

If you think the ZL1's visage seems familiar, it's because director Michael Bay chose it for Bumblebee's look in the new "Transformers" movies before GM even went bankrupt. Those financial problems delayed the ZL1's arrival until this week, when the first production models began rolling from the plant in Oshawa, Ontario.

Apple beat Google Smartphones

Suppliers basked in the reflection of Apple's glowing results on Wednesday after the company's gold standard iPhones and iPads flew off the shelves over the holiday sales season.
Apple's forecast-beating fourth-quarter figures late on Tuesday helped it to beat Google's Android as the largest smartphone platform in the United States and to regain the world's largest smartphone maker spot from Samsung.
Apple's results were spearheaded by sales of the iPhone 4S, which is packed with technology from British chip designer ARM, said analyst Nick James at Numis.
Apple accounts for about 10 percent of ARM's technology revenues, and for about 35 percent of graphics and video chip designer Imagination's technology revenues, he said.