Gold Mercedes Benz Value of 9 Million USD

You’re looking at pictures of a Mercedes C63 AMG with a chrome (gold?) paint job in none other than Dubai. While the popular new C63 AMG comes with many options and luxuries from the factory, a chrome paint job is not one of them. These pictures were originally posted on a popular online message board for Dubai car enthusiasts called SupercarsDubai. Maybe this C63 AMG is the the daily driver of the person who owns this chrome Mercedes SLR McLaren. - http://www.exoticsandluxury.com

Sex, porn, and Michael Jackson top kids' searches in 2009

by Lance Whitney

Sex, porn, and Michael Jackson were among the most popular items kids searched for online in 2009, as tracked by Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton.

Symantec on Thursday revealed the top 100 favorite search terms among children 18 and under found by its free OnlineFamily.Norton service, which helps parents monitor their kids' online searches. Though innocuous terms like Sesame Street and "New Moon"--a popular movie in the Twilight vampire series--made the cut, sex showed up fourth on the list for boys and fifth for girls, following YouTube, Google, and Facebook as the three top terms.

Top 10 search terms by boys and girls for 2009 (Credit: Symantec)

For boys, the top 25 search terms focused on social-networking sites, shopping sites, and certain adult terms. Girls seemed to favor subjects related to music, TV shows and movies, and celebrities.

Speaking of celebrities, to no one's surprise, the late Michael Jackson was the most searched for celebrity, coming in at number 12, followed by pop singer Taylor Swift at No. 13. Other hot stars that made the list included Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, Eminem, Rihanna, and Chris Brown (who was in the news this year after admitting that he assaulted ex-girlfriend Rihanna).

Searching for celebrities online, however, may be hazardous to your PC's health. Symantec has found found that these searches sometimes draw people to dangerous Web sites, which spew out viruses, spam, and other malware.

Kids seven and under searched for items related to video games, while older kids were heavy into music, with 34 percent of teens and 27 percent of tweens searching for music-related topics. The Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA" was the most-searched for tune among kids, while "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eye Peas took the No. 2 spot.

Top 10 searches by age group for 2009 (Credit: Symantec)

Tech terms that popped up on the list included MySpace at No. 8, MSN at No. 33, the iPod Touch at No. 98, and Bing last at No. 100.

To compile its top 100 list, Symantec tracked 14.6 million searches run by users of its OnlineFamily.Norton service and ranked the terms according to ones submitted most frequently to those submitted the least. The terms were collected anonymously, so none could be associated with any specific children or families. - http://news.cnet.com

New paper battery may change the energy landscape

Ordinary paper could one day be used as ultra-lightweight, bendable batteries, according to scientists from Stanford University.

Simply coating a sheet of paper with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials makes an efficient storage device that is 10 times as powerful as lithium-ion batteries used to power laptops.

The light-weight battery is created by painting nanotube ink onto paper

Paper is a porous material that helps carbon nanotubes and silver nanowire films stick to it, much like ink does.

After it is coated and heated heated the paper becomes super-conductive and works as a battery even if the material is crumpled.

'Taking advantage of the mature paper technology, low cost, light and high-performance energy-storage are realized by using conductive paper as current collectors and electrodes,' the scientists said in research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This type of battery could be especially useful for applications like electric or hybrid cars, which depend on the quick transfer of electricity.

Battery weight and life have been an obstacle to commercial viability of electric-powered cars and trucks.

'Society really needs a low-cost, high-performance energy storage device, such as batteries and simple supercapacitors,' Stanford assistant professor Yi Cui said.

'Our paper supercapacitors can be used for all kinds of applications that require instant high power.

'Since our paper batteries and supercapacitors can be very low cost, they are also good for grid-connected energy storage.'

Peidong Yang, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley, said the technology could be commercialized within a short time.- www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech

Windows 7 users hit by 'black screen of death'

Frustrated Windows 7 users are facing 'black screens of death' after logging on to their computers, Microsoft have confirmed.

The software giant said they were investigating a disabling glitch that seems to particularly affect its latest operating system.

However, they have denied reports that its latest monthly security update has caused the serious system problems.

Microsoft wrote in a blog posting: 'We have conducted a comprehensive review of the November Security Updates, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November.

An artist on the website 'Poorly Drawn Portraits' made this picture of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer using photos of crashed Windows computers showing the iconic 'blue screen of death'


A close-up of the Ballmer portrait showing the computer screens

'That investigation has shown that none of these updates make any changes to the permissions in the registry. Thus, we don’t believe the updates are related to the 'black screen' behaviour described in these reports.'

It had been suggested by Software firm Prevx that the blank screen problem was caused by the firm's latest security patch.

Prevx said millions of people may have been affected and issued a general fix it said would save many from the laborious process of reloading their machines.

However, they have since retracted this claim and suggested malware could be the culprit.

Prevx's Director of research Jacques Erasmus said: 'We apologise to Microsoft for any inconvenience our blog may have caused.'

Microsoft said that people who are affected by the problem should contact its customer service line.

The 'black screen of death' is a play on the 'blue screen of death' colloquialism used for the error screen that has plagued Windows users over the years.-www.dailymail.co.uk

The Windows 7 software is supposed to make it easier to become connected and share or to sync files