links for 2009-08-08

"Silicon Valley’s electric car company, Tesla Motors, says that it hit profitability in July. The private company reports that it made “approximately $1 million of earnings” on revenues of $20 million, and that it shipped 109 Roadsters, its $109,000 all-electric sports car." Good job.

"Comparing the iPhone to the HTC Magic, a phone running Android, shows the problems that a virtual keyboard can cause, and how they can be solved. Typing on the iPhone – especially in English – works perfectly well, perhaps better than on a physical keyboard. Doing the same thing on an HTC Magic is often annoying and wrought with errors. Note that some of the Magic’s problems are not specific to Android, but to the Magic." Though somewhat unfair comparing a 1.0 product to a 3.0 product.

"The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas. But, in this stunning vista, the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared cameras penetrate much of the dust, revealing the stars of the crowded galactic center region. A mosaic of many smaller snapshots, this detailed, false-color image shows older, cool stars in bluish hues. Reddish glowing dust clouds are associated with young, hot stars in stellar nurseries. The galactic center lies some 26,000 light-years away, toward the constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this picture spans about 900 light-years." Pretty photo.