The tech giant is planning to announce the next iteration of its wildly popular tablet next month, according to Apple blog iMore.com, which cites sources "who have been reliable in the past."
Right now, the specs of the next iPad are still sketchy and unconfirmed. But numerous Internet reports seem to have settled on a few details, namely that the iPad will be faster and feature a smaller screen.
Word has it the new iPad will come with a "retina display" boasting super high-definition resolution – 2048 x 1536 pixels. But the screen could be smaller.
Apple has been testing out a smaller, 8-inch tablet with Asian suppliers and has actually shown off the overall design to several manufacturing partners, a report from The Wall Street Journal says.
Last week, a new video surfaced claiming to show a live woolly mammoth -- an animal scientists think has been extinct for at least four millennia -- crossing a river in Russia. The suspiciously blurry footage was allegedly "caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia," according to a story in The Sun newspaper.
The video became an Internet sensation, making headlines around the world. Some Bigfoot believers and Loch Ness Monster lovers murmured their tentative approval, hoping it proved that large unknown (or assumed extinct) animals still exist in Earth's remote wilds.
While most people didn't believe that the animal in the video was really a woolly mammoth as claimed, viewers were sharply divided about what exactly it was.
Some suspected the video is an outright hoax -- a computer-generated mammoth digitally inserted into a real river scene. Many others, however, were convinced that the animal was real: not a mammoth, but instead a bear with a large fish hanging from its mouth. That would explain its relatively small size, the shape of the "trunk" on its head, and the color. Experts cast doubts on the video's authenticity; Derek Serra, a Hollywood video effects artist, concluded that it "appears to have been intentionally blurred."
Serra isn't the only expert who can shed some light on this mystery: another person is Ludovic Petho. His name may not be familiar to most people, but his work has been seen by millions; he filmed themammoth footage at the Kitoy River in Siberia's Sayan Mountains in the summer of 2011.
MILAN - Italian prosecutors are appealing to Italy's highest criminal court a decision to throw out the murder conviction of American student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend.
After spending four years in an Italian prison, and having been convicted of participating in the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher, Knox's conviction was overturned by an appeals court and she was released last October, when she returned home to Seattle.
Prosecutors saw their case collapse over discredited DNA evidence against Knox and her co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, who was also freed.
On Tuesday Perugia prosecutors filed the 111-page appeal.
Luca Maori, Sollecito's lawyer, said the high court is expected to issue its decision toward the end of the year.
When a piece of muscle in a person's heart dies from lack of blood flow, it scars over and is lost. But a team of researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles has proven that those muscles may not necessarily be gone forever.
In a ground-breaking study that may change how heart attacks are treated, Dr. Eduardo Marban and his team used stem cells to re-grow damaged heart muscle. In the 17 patients who received the therapy, Marban measured an average 50 percent reduction in the size of the scar tissue
"One of the holy grails in medicine has been the use of medicine to achieve regeneration," Marban said. "Patients that were treated not only experienced shrinkage of their scars, but also new growth of their heart muscle, which is very exciting."
The stem cells were not derived from embryos, but instead were developed from the patients' own hearts. Marban's team inserted a catheter into the diseased hearts and took a small biopsy of muscle. In the laboratory, the tissue was manipulated into producing stem cells. After a few weeks of marinating in culture, researchers had enough stem cells to re-inject them into the patients' hearts. Over the course of a year, the stem cells took root in cardiac tissue, encouraging the heart to create new muscle and blood vessels. In other words, the heart actually began to mend itself.
"We've achieved what we have achieved using adult stem cells – in this case – actually specifically from a patient's own heart back into the same patient. There's no ethical issues with that – there's no destruction of embryos. There's no reason to worry about immune rejection."
While similar research has been done using stem cells from bone marrow, this is the first time that stem cells derived from a patient's own cardiac tissue have been used.
Marban believes this therapy could be broadly used in many of the 5 to 7 million Americans who suffer from heart disease every year. And he said the applications could go well beyond diseased hearts.
Italy's premier has scrapped Rome's bid for the 2020 Olympics, saying the government can't supply the required financial backing at a time of financial crisis.
Premier Mario Monti announced after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that it would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer money to fund the Olympic project.
Costs for hosting the Olympics in Rome are estimated at $12.5 billion.
The decision came a day before the deadline for formal submission of bid files to the International Olympic Committee. The IOC requires government financial guarantees.
Rome was the first of six cities to submit a bid for the 2020 Games. The others are Baku, Azerbaijan; Doha, Qatar; Istanbul; Madrid; and Tokyo.
The IOC will select the host city in 2013.
Linsanity goes north of the border this evening when Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks shoot for a sixth straight win against the Toronto Raptors at Air Canada Centre.
One night after netting a career-best 38 points against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Lincredible run continued in Minnesota, as the point guard from nowhere scored 20 points, including a go ahead free throw with 4.9 seconds remaining in the Knicks' 100-98 win over the Timberwolves.
"Obviously it was an ugly one. It was a gutsy one, it was a road win," said Lin. "Everybody was tired. But that's the duty of basketball. We never gave up. I struggled a lot tonight but I mean everyone who came in gave us a lift and picked us up."
The Knicks, who will start a five-game homestand after tonight's tilt, haven't won six in a row since a seven-game run from March 28-April 10.
"We've talked about it all year, that if we got a point guard who can set people up, then we'll be better off," head coach Mike D'Antoni said. "And it's happened."
Lin also had eight assists, while Iman Shumpert added 20 points and Landry Fields contributed 19 for the Knicks, who are expected to have Amare Stoudemire back in the lineup tonight. Stoudemire, of course, has missed the team's last four games following the tragic death of his brother.
"The only positive for us during that whole week was we were watching the basketball games and we were watching Linsanity," Stoudemire said. "My family was getting a kick out of it. That's the only smiles they really had all week."
The team's other star, Carmelo Anthony, remains sidelined with a groin injury, but could return by the end of the week.
Lin's strong play was rewarded on Monday when he was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week. In the four games since taken over the starting reins for New York, Lin has averaged 27.3 points, 8.3 assists and 2.0 steals. He also became the first player in NBA history to record at least 20 points and seven assists in each of his first four starts.
