Technology Slice Blog

Who Dies First in the Godfather - Tonight on Million Dollar Money Drop the questions just got tougher as the couple wanted to save as much money as they could to take it home. The third question of the evening was about the 1972 movie of 'The Godfather'. The classic movie gave the couple a scare as they changed their answer at the last minute in a safe that saved them a bad choice. Tonight the question was 'Who dies first in the 1972 Godfather film?' The answer was James Caan. The actor played Santino 'Sonny' Corleone was one of the most violent Vito's children and he was portrayed to be in the family business at a young age when compared to the other characters. The other answers that were wrong included: Marlon Brando (who played Don Vito Corleone), Al Pachino (who played Michael Corleone) and (Robert Duvall who played Tom Hagen.) Who Dies First in the Godfather

Bayer Aspirin - Million Dollar Money Drop tonight had the couple Casey and Kyle looking to make a million dollars after answering 7 questions. While the couple struggled to find the right answer, they definitely did their best in the short time alloted to answer the common knowledge questions. While one could argue the questions are easy, they aren't that easy and people don't always go through life knowing useless trivia. The question tonight that really stumped the couple was number 4 where they lost a majority of their money. The question for the competition of number was was: Which one of these were introduced first? Bayer Aspirin Band-Aid Brand Bandages Bayer Asprin Nyquil The answer was Bayer Aspirin. In case you are interested here is the 'cheat sheet' for the question: When was Bayer Aspirin introduced? The first year of introduction for Bayer Aspirin was 1897 When was Band-Aid Brand Banages introduced? 1921 When was Nyquil introduced? 1960...

iPod Nano 8gb - Scott Wilson’s TikTok/LunaTik iPod Nano watch idea was a huge hit on microfinancing site Kickstarter, netting the project close to one million dollars. Microfinancing platforms like Kickstarter allow people with an idea to gather funding for it by petitioning a large number of people for small investments, as opposed to getting a small number of people to each give them a larger amount of money. The Kickstarter model is based on an “all-or-nothing” premise wherein no money changes hands until the minimum pledge total is met. Kickstarter bills itself as a great way to determine public interest in a project before going through with it. iPod Nano 8gb The iPod Nano watch idea came about after an offhand comment by Steve Jobs about how the new Nano was so small that it could easily be worn. This got into the head of Scott Wilson of Chicago-based MINIMAL, a wide-ranging studio that develops furniture, fashion, consumer goods, and much much more. When the idea hit Kickst...

Hollywood-Style Special Effects Give Girl New Ear - Elise never let her friends see what was left of her ear. She'd carefully style her long hair into a one-sided ponytail, or swelter under a swim cap for hours at meets, to cover the molten lump from a severe burn as a toddler in her native China. But as a teenager, the North Carolina girl expressed her desire to be whole again with a simple request: She really wanted pierced earrings. Thus began a months-long quest for a new right ear, one made of silicone but so lifelike that it even glows a bit in the sun like real skin. Elise benefited from a little known field called anaplastology, where medical artists make Hollywood-like special effects come alive to fix disfigurements that standard plastic surgery cannot. "It kind of took forever, but it was worth it," says Elise, 14, as she headed to show her transformation to her dad and sisters. "I'm so excited, I'm more than 100 excited." Hollywood...

G-dep Confesses to Killing - The 1993 killing of a man outside a housing complex was a cold case for years until a suspect appeared on detectives' doorstep last week. Apparently haunted by his secret, once-promising rapper G. Dep walked into a police precinct to confess to the shooting, authorities said. The rapper is being held without bail on a murder charge after surprised investigators matched the details he provided to the unsolved slaying of John Henkel. For the 36-year-old G. Dep, the charge marks a nadir in his long fall from rapper on the rise. After scoring a couple of hits in the early 2000s, he has been mired in drug and legal problems in recent years, though he was attempting a comeback with an album released online this year. But the murder case also represents his determination to turn a troubled life around, his lawyer said Tuesday. G-dep Confesses to Killing "He's trying to remake his life," attorney Michael Alperstein said. Guided by a subs...

Hexavalent Chromium Tap Water - The nation's top environmental regulator on Tuesday promised to complete a scientific review of hexavalent chromium by summer and consider ordering cities to start testing for the toxic metal in tap water. During a meeting with senators from Illinois and six other states, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said new research may lead to an overhaul of federal regulations limiting chromium, a metal that occurs naturally in the environment but also is discharged into water and air by steel mills and other industries. A study released this week by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, found hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, in tap water from 31 cities. The amount in Lake Michigan water pumped to 7 million people in Chicago and its suburbs was 0.18 parts per billion, three times higher than a safety limit proposed last year by California officials. Hexavalent Chrom...

U.S. Citizens more Likely to Die on Christmas Day - A new study has baffled researchers after revealing U.S. citizens are more likely to die on Christmas Day than any other time of the year. Analysis of U.S. death certificates between 1979 and 2004 found an extra 42,325 natural deaths in the two weeks starting with Christmas above the usual seasonal winter increase. In an article in the Social Science & Medicine journal, researchers said that mortality in general increased over the holidays, and deaths in hospitals rose dramatically on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The study found that more people died on hospital wards, or had died before arrival, on the public holidays than on any other days of the year. U.S. Citizens more Likely to Die on Christmas Day Researcher David Phillips, a sociology professor at the University of California, told the National Post: 'It's not trivial. We looked at all cause categories and, for nearly every one, we found an exces...