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Arctic Oscillation Causes Temperature Swings

• Dec 17, 2010 from softpedia(Softpedia)
  In a temperature map released by the American space agency, the pattern of influences caused by the Arctic Oscillation becomes clearly visible. Cooling is recorded for Northern Europe and Eastern America, while Northern Canada and Greenland are a lot warmer than usual. The conclusions were derived from the attached map, which reveals aver... (read more)

Germany: Europe's fed-up sugar daddy

• Jul 24, 2010 from TheEconomist
  Charlemagne's notebook
  
  
  
  
  
  The euro crisis
  
  
  
  
  
  Charlemagne
  
  
  
  
  
  The message from Berlin: we are big, anxious and do not take us for granted any more
  Brussels before it is presented to Parliament, which is what the European Commission wants to force us to do, even though we are not in the euro. Other demands will be harder to resist, particularly given the presence of Lib Dem Europhiles in the Cabinet. The more the eurozone falters, the more its defenders will seek to extend the dirigiste economic approach that contributed to its failure; they must be resisted.So far, so bullish. Yet, being the hand-wringing, worrying sort, I can see two potential clouds drifting across the horizon.One is this. France is rather keen on using this crisis to conjure up a new dirigiste power-block of national leaders from the 16-strong eurozone, a "council of the eurozone", which would push Britain, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states or other annoyingly free market-minded places to the outer margins of the club. Germany is much warier, preferring strongly to see economic policy decided at the level of the 27 members of the whole European Union. That is because the 16 is a bit too Club Med for their tastes, a bit too French for their tastes, and because the Germans fear the French game is to create a decision-making body with the oomph to give direct orders to the European Central Bank.I can see that it is an exceptionally hard sell for a British government to opt in to any system of eurozone regulation, especially if that means signing up to the 440 billion eurozone defence fund being created at the moment. But I also see a risk that the British desire to stand aloof risks pushing the Germans into the arms of the French. If the British refuse to consider any new rules at 27, and Germany wants new rules, then Germany is going to have to settle for working with France at 16. Overnight, Europe will see a new constellation of power in which all kinds of big decisions are taken without Britain or other liberal powers at the table.Here is my second worry. Imagine that the bailout plan for Greece does not work, and markets return to the attack, perhaps by testing the EU's resolve to defend Spain. Now, British banks are not as exposed as French and German banks to Greek sovereign debt. But with Spain it is a different picture: thanks to Anglo-Spanish cross-ownership of banks, among other factors, British banks are hugely exposed to Spain, and hold many, many billions in Spanish bonds.That means that if the eurozone mechanism is triggered to shore up Spain in the near future, and ward off a default that would punish banks holding Spanish debt, the biggest beneficiaries would be British banks, even though Britain has said it wants no part of the 440 billion defend mechanism.Add all of this up: a potential Spanish credit crisis, Britain's refusal to pay for a eurozone bailout, the desire of big eurozone countries to adopt new rules for the eurozone, Britain's desire to maintain a veto over all new treaties, and Eurosceptic calls to use that veto to secure new concessions, and you could end up with the following scenario.Here goes:1 eurozone countries find themselves having to lend Spain hundreds of billions of euros, thereby (among other things) using their taxpayers' money to bail out British banks that hold Spanish debt2 but Britain refuses to pay a penny towards the Spanish bailout3 as the crisis deepens, eurozone countries announce that to save the single currency they need much more ambitious budget co-ordination and discipline within the eurozone and this needs a new treaty4 Britain says it wants no part of such rules and insists that they should only affect the 16 countries that use the single currency5 Britain secures that opt-out but threatens to block the new "treaty to save the euro" anyway, because it wants to link its agreement
  
  IS Germany becoming Eurosceptic? That is the charge in Brussels and other EU capitals, as politicians and senior officials grumble about Chancellor Angela Merkel and her reluctance to join bail outs of first Greece and now, potentially, the whole eurozone.I am not sure Eurosceptic is the right word. I think fed up is a better term. And that is not a small development. A fed up Germany could have big consequences for Europe.I am in Berlin right now with a clutch of EU correspondents invited by the German government, and the message from ministers and politicians is that Germany still wants the European Union to work, and would like to see deeper integration of the EU. But, and it is a big but, Germany has changed. The days of France having all the ideas and Germany meekly paying the bills are over, we have heard.Germany is fed up of paying more than any other country into the EU...

Software Dc: TomTom Europe East U including Russia 875.3612

• Feb 03, 2012 from ridvanhaxha(Ridvan Haxha) in Business
  TomTom Europe East U including Russia 875.3612 (20/08/11) | 1.36 GB
  
  Zone map of Eastern Europe to devices with an internal memory of 2 GB. Neuproschennaya, Unicode supports ALG, IQ Route, HNR, ASR and Cspeech.
  System requirements:

MapQuest Open Now in India!

• Oct 19, 2010 from mapquest(MapQuest) in Lifestyle
  Today, weve launched a new MapQuest Open site thats outside of Europe http://open.mapquest.in for all our friends in India! MapQuest has many other websites that are international country specific, but weve never had one for India until now and its using OpenStreetMap data!
  When you first visit open.mapquest.in in your browser the map is centered on India and the default language is English. Heres a nice map of Mumbai that has a lot of detail that has been created from scratch by OpenStreetMap (OSM) mappers from all ov

What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To You [Graphics]

• Jul 08, 2010 from gizmodo(Gizmodo) in Technology
  The new graphics API comes with new buzzwords. We'll tell you what they mean and how they matter to your gaming experience.
  Just when you think you've grasped all the jargon surrounding 3D graphics, new terms and technologies flood onto the market.
  AMD has been aggressively shipping DirectX 11 GPUs in almost every price category, while cards based on Nvidia's new GTX 470 and GTX 480 DX11 parts are finally becoming available. Meanwhile, Windows 7's sales ramp has been extraordinary-the fastest-selling Microsoft OS in history. Given that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, it's also arguable that DirectX 11 is what DX10 should have been.
  When DirectX 10 games hit the streets, the new API gave users marginal improvements in image quality alongside huge performance decreases. The tiny gain in visual fidelity didn't really make up for the performance hit. On the other hand, DirectX 11 brings users some very cool potential eye-candy improvements, but also promises better performance-even if you don't have a DirectX 11 GPU.
  Along with new graphics, APIs come with new buzzwords: tessellation, SSAO, HDAO, and postprocessing. That last buzzword being a catchphrase for many small but cool effects made possible with today's programmable graphics chips.
  We'll take a closer look at these buzzwords to dissect what they actually deliver, plus discuss the performance impact of using high-end AMD and Nvidia GPUs.
  Tessellation
  Tessellation essentially creates something from nothing-or more properly, more from less. Hardware tessellation, which is required by DirectX 11, means that the GPU can generate more triangles from existing geometry using the hardware tessellation engine that's part of the graphics chip. Now, generating more triangles for a flat surface is pointless-after all, a flat square looks like a flat square, whether it's two triangles or 2,000. What's more interesting is generating more triangles for an actual 3D model. Let's look at a simple example, the cobblestone surface from Microsoft's DirectX developer's kit.
  Bump Mapping
  
  Displacement Mapping
  The tessellation engine in DX11 hardware is capable of generating many more triangles from existing geometry, as seen in the screen on the lower left, to provide objects that are actually 3D.
  In the top-right screen, we have a flat surface that looks somewhat more realistic by the application of a bump map. Bump maps fake you into thinking a flat polygon has depth by modeling the way light falls on a bumpy object (such as cobblestones.) However, if you were to bring the camera level with the pavement surface, you'd realize it was actually a flat surface. If geometry is tessellated, the cobblestones are actually 3D, as seen in the lower-right screen.
  The tessellation in the cobblestone image is handled by a technique known as displacement mapping. A displacement map is just a special grayscale texture map in which different shades of gray define how much the geometry is displaced.
  Cobblestones are nice, but will we ever see differences in real games? Let's look at the recently released Metro 2033 (below). The left image is the game with tessellation disabled; tessellation is enabled in the right image. Note how the object is more rounded in the second shot. The effect is somewhat subtle here, but the point stands: This is the beginning of the end of polygonal heads. Tessellation means that character heads will someday all be rounder.
  Without Tessellation
  
  
  With Tessellation
  
  In this sceen from Metro 2033, you can see how tessellation makes it possible to create curved edges.
  Yet another example of tessellation, from the DirectX SDK, shows a technique known as subdivision surfaces (below). The key idea in this technique is to start with a basic set of polygons, then divide them in ways that make sense for the object at hand. In this character model, we overlay the textures on top of the visible wireframe. You can see the additional geometry added in the right-side screen, as well as the more naturalistic, rounded features.
  Other Uses for Tessellation
  Tessellation is great for creating rounder heads and more realistic cobblestones. But it has other uses, too. Take water, for example. Instead of using pixel shaders to build better-looking water, just add more triangles a lot more triangles, as in the case of the Nvidia Island demo.
  Without Tessellation
  
  
  With Tessellation
  
  Tessellation makes water appear more real in Nvidia's Island demo.
  In the new racing game Dirt 2, cars driving through water will throw up waves in the DirectX 11 version of the game, using hardware tessellation to generate hundreds of triangles to form the effect. In DX9 mode, you see some spray, but no waves, and the water puddle itself can be as few as two triangles.
  Without Tessellation
  
  
  With Tessellation
  
  Tessellation adds waves and ripples to a scene in Dirt 2.
  Tessellation Going Forward
  Tessellation offers the promise of better, more realistic-looking 3D objects, but it's no panacea. As...