flooding

The recent flooding in the Philippines has left many people stranded or missing. Now Google is using its Person Finder to aid in the search.

Person Finder is aimed at connecting missing persons with their loved ones. Anyone who is looking for a lost person or has information about someone who's been found can use the Person Finder page to post that person's name.

If you're looking for someone who's missing, you can enter the person's name or at least parts of the name. And if you've have information on someone who's been … Read more

One of the larger questions for tech companies going into fourth-quarter earnings revolved around hard drive shortages and whether the supply chain could adapt after flooding in Thailand.

Answering that question is still fairly tricky. Why? There were no uniform trends. Some companies thrived and a few struggled. Seagate was a clear winner. Western Digital held up better than expected. Meanwhile, other companies such as Sony--a financial basket case to start with--flopped.

The takeaway here is that October's severe flooding in Thailand continues to whack the technology industry. But the impact is far from uniform.

Here's a tour … Read more

Microsoft warned today that PC sales in the fourth quarter may be lower than analysts had previously expected due to flooding in Thailand.

While analysts had expected PC shipments to fall about 1 percent, the actual number may be lower, Microsoft Windows CFO Tami Reller said during an appearance today at the Consumer Electronics Show, according to a Bloomberg report. Reller said during a Nomura Holdings event that more downward adjustments may be coming.

That opinion was echoed at a separate event by Bill Koefoed, the general manager of Investor Relations for Microsoft.

"As the numbers come out, you'… Read more

Hard disk giant Western Digital said today that it has partially restored production at a facility that had been shut down because of the flooding in Thailand.

The world's largest HDD manufacturer in terms of volume, Western Digital was one of the hardest hit by the flooding. The company has 37,000 workers in Thailand, and production in the country accounts for 60 percent of the company's total capacity, according to IHS-iSuppli.

WD restarted production of hard drives this week in one of its buildings in Bang Pa-in, Thailand, one week ahead of internal schedules, the company said. … Read more

Micron Technology said today that demand is increasing for solid-state drives in the wake of the flooding in Thailand.

Since late summer, the prices of traditional spinning hard disk drives have been steadily rising because of shortages due to flooding in Thailand. That country accounts for about 70 percent of global hard drive-related production. And recently Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman said that large customers are calling HP because they can't get drives.

Micron Technology, one of the largest flash memory chip manufacturers in the world, told CNET today that the solid-state drive industry has seen orders spike.

"Clearly … Read more

Seagate Technology said its sales will be stronger than expected as it is one of the few hard-drive makers to navigate the floods in Thailand successfully.

Flooding in Thailand has wreaked havoc on the hard-drive supply chain, and shortages are likely into 2012. Seagate facilities were largely unscathed, but the company said that its “ability to manufacture hard-disk drives has been impacted due to external component supply constraints.”

Nevertheless, Seagate’s outlook is looking strong. Seagate said that it will ship about 43 million units in the December quarter (fiscal second quarter) with revenue of $2.8 billion.

Wall Street … Read more

After Hewlett-Packard reported earnings today, CEO Meg Whitman said that the Googles and Facebooks of the world are coming to HP to get servers because of the dearth of hard disk drives.

Whitman was responding to a question from an analyst during today's earnings conference call about companies like Google and Facebook building their own servers and not getting them from the traditional sources--PC makers like HP and Dell.

"We hear all the time that people are building their own servers. There are a few...that are building their own servers," she said.

Whitman continued. "[But] … Read more

Highly sophisticated robots are being used in a variety of ways: think tsunamis, earthquakes, and land mines, to name a few. In the case of wildfires, though, they wouldn't survive long in the heat of battle.

So a team of graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Cincinnati is testing a tiny new aerial system designed to fly above fires to calculate the scope of damage and the anticipated path the fire will take.

"What we are designing is a complete system," says Kelly Cohen, associate professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics, in a news release. &… Read more

What's an 8-foot-tall Lego man doing on the beaches of Siesta Key Village, Florida? We don't have the answer, but it's the third one that's washed ashore in the last three years--similar occurances were reported three years ago in Brighton, England, and Zandvoort, Holland; each bearing the same cryptic messaging: "NO REAL THAN YOU ARE."

Yahoo News did the dirty work and inquired about the phenomenon to Lego's assistant brand relations manager, who vehemently denied, on record, any affiliation with the stunt, eliminating the possibility of it being a viral stunt. Who knows, maybe it was printed on a 3D imaging device by the folks at MakerBot!… Read more