Interview on gadgets used for spying aired on ABS-CBN TV-Patrol:

Gadgets used for spying revealed

Interview about cyber security aired on GMA7 Saksi and QTV11 News on Q:

TechTrends – Cyber security tips

India’s Tata Motors is buying the British-based luxury car marques Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for 1.46 billion euros in cash.

Analysts have expressed concerns about how Tata will fund this deal given the current credit crunch, and how Jaguar and Land Rover will fit into its stable of vehicles, including the Nano, the world’s cheapest car.

Many Asian currencies have risen against the U.S. dollar this year, making exports more expensive and their foreign exchange reserves less valuable. But economists say regional governments should not be too worried about the trend.

The Philippine peso rose to its highest level against the U.S. dollar in seven years this week, while the Singapore dollar hit a 10-year high. In India, the rupee has risen 12 percent this year. The Indonesian rupiah, South Korean won, Taiwan dollar and Thai baht also have strengthened steadily.

Song Seng Wun is a regional economist for CIMB-GK Research in Singapore. He says Asian governments are not taking aggressive measures to stop the trend.

Now, Asia is booming. At the same time, worries about an economic slowdown and the mortgage crisis in the United States, are driving a wave of currency appreciation in Asia. The recent cut in U.S. interest rates also hurt the dollar.

A weaker dollar makes Asian exports more expensive for American consumers. But Song says Asian governments are not too concerned about rising export prices, in part because most regional currencies are in the same situation. That means no one country is being priced out of the market.

Starbucks is recalling around 250,000 children’s cups because the cups pose a choking hazard. The coffee company recalled the plastic products because they can break, leaving sharp edges and small pieces children can choke on.

This is another item on a list of recalled products that were manufactured in China. Other recalled products include many children’s toys as some were painted with paint that contained dangerous amounts of lead.

The recalled cups with protruding faces of a ladybug, a turtle, a bunny, and a chick were sold in Starbucks stores.

Starbucks is offering a free beverage to anyone who returns one of the cups.

Revolymer, a spin out company from the University of Bristol, has completed development of its new Clean Gum that can be easily removed from shoes, clothes, pavements and hair. Preliminary results also indicate that the gum will degrade naturally in water.

The basis of its technology is to add an amphiphilic polymer to a modified chewing gum formulation which alters the interfacial properties of the discarded gum cuds, making them less adhesive to most common surfaces.

iRobot Corp. introduced its smartest, most powerful and efficient vacuuming robots yet, the new iRobot Roomba 500 series Vacuum Cleaning Robots.

The new robots can free themselves from almost any household jam, minimizing the need to prep rooms before Roomba begins cleaning. Using wireless technology, the robots now know when they have finished cleaning one room and then move on to the next.

Roomba’s intelligent cleaning system evaluates its environment more than 60 times per second so the robot is always delivering the right amount of cleaning power

Three of six large car models earn the top rating of good, but one is marginal in side impact crash tests conducted by the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The Acura RL, Kia Amanti and Volvo S80 all earned the highest safety rating. The Cadillac STS and Mercedes E-Class earned the second-highest rating.  The 2008 BMW 5 Series was the worst performer in side-impact crash tests of luxury sedans.  All 6 cars are equipped with standard side airbags that protect the heads of people in front and rear seats.

How side tests are conducted: A vehicle’s side evaluation is based on performance in a crash test in which the side of the vehicle is struck by a barrier moving at 31 mph. The barrier represents the front end of a pickup or SUV. Overall ratings reflect injury measures recorded on two instrumented SID-IIs dummies, assessment of head protection countermeasures, and the vehicle’s structural performance during the test. Injury measures obtained from the two dummies, one in the driver seat and the other in the back seat behind the driver, are used to determine the likelihood that a driver and/or passenger in a real-world crash would sustain serious injury to various body regions. The movements and contacts of the dummies’ heads during the test also are evaluated. Structural performance is based on measurements indicating the amount of B-pillar intrusion into the occupant compartment.

The CEO of Lee Der Industrial Company, Zhang Shuhong, committed suicide after nearly one million toys manufactured by the Chinese company were recalled due to lead content in paint.

Reports indicated Shuhong hanged himself in disgrace.

Yone Minagawa, recognized as the world’s oldest living person, died Monday at a hospital in Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan.  She was 114.