Possible Debris From Missing Air France Plane Found

Brazil's Air Force said Tuesday that search planes have spotted some signs of debris, including plane seats, that may be from the Air France jetliner carrying 228 people that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean. But the air force isn't immediately confirming it is the lost jet.

Military pilots spotted two areas of floating debris about 35 miles apart, about 410 miles beyond the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, roughly along Flight 447's path from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, said Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral.

"The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted," Amaral said. "That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis."

Also spotted were small white pieces of debris, material that may be metallic, an orange buoy, a life jacket, and signs of oil and kerosene, which is used as jet fuel. No signs of life were found.

Brazilian ships are headed to the scene to collect the debris for closer examination, but are not expected to arrive until Wednesday. According to Brazilian TV, a radar plane detected some "electronic signs" in the area around 7 a.m. local time. A Hercules C-130 military plane then got a visual on the debris.

On Tuesday, two Americans on board the Air France flight were identified.

Anne DeBaillon Harris, 54, and Michael P. Harris, 60, are from a Houston suburb but were transferred to Rio for work in July, 2008. They were traveling to France for a training seminar, Ann's sister Mary Miley told KRIV.

Anne worked as a physical therapist for many years and Michael was a geologist for Devon Energy.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department confirmed that a third American, a female dual national was on board, but her identity was not immediately revealed.

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Windows 7 Officially Released Today

October 22nd, 2009
it’s been an eventful day: among all the breaking news about Microsoft signing a search deal with Facebook and Twitter, Google doing the same with Twitter and later announcing social search, one can easily forget that today is the day that Vista gets replaced by something better: Windows 7.

As we wrote earlier, the interest for the new OS from Microsoft has been huge, making Windows 7 the biggest pre-order item in the history of Amazon UK and a perpetual trending topic on Twitter. The reactions from users and reviewers have been mostly positive, but after the lukewarm it’s-ok-but-why-should-switch-from-WinXP attempt that was Vista, the fact that people can’t wait to get their hands on Windows 7 is hardly a surprise.

And, for the most part, it’s true. Annoying security features such as UAC have been fixed in Windows 7 (you can now manually set its annoyance level), the system feels speedier and more responsive (although it really isn’t that much faster when you actually measure it (for example, boot time on both systems is pretty much the same on my computer), but it feels that way, and it’s all that matters), compatibility issues have been fixed. In short, it’s more of a really, really good service pack for Vista than a new OS, but it’s definitely enough to switch from the eight year old Windows XP.

If you’re interested in making the switch, the price is $319 for Windows 7 Ultimate, and $299 for the Professional version ($219 and $199 for the upgrade, respectively). Windows 7 Home Premium will set you back $199, and an upgrade from either Vista or XP will cost you $119.

Hulu Desktop

Hulu Desktop is a lean-back viewing experience for your personal computer. It features a sleek new look that's optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu's entire library with just six buttons. For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled. Hulu Desktop is a downloadable application and will work on PCs and Macs. It will initially launch as a beta product during which we plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service.