Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The following is the third edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: two individuals previously interviewed by Wikinews announce their candidacies for the Reform Party presidential nomination; a former Republican Congressman comments on the Republican National Convention; and Wikinews interviews an historic Democratic National Convention speaker.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Friday, March 9, 2007

IBM and Cisco have announced the development of a new platform, based on Eclipse and OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), which should unite all communication and collaboration software developers under a single platform.

Before the UC2 (Unified Communication and Collaboration) the unified communication has suffered because of a lack of a platform to be used by all software developers, rather than a series of them and, moreover, provided by different vendors. According to Adam Gartenberg from IBM Lotus Software Group this was the main cause for this partial stagnation.

However, the UC2 is meant to ease the work of software developers. Gartenberg stated that this platform is very flexible and will certainly draw much attention form programmers. They will be able to create different plug-ins and small applications to remotely control other, major application.

The companies have also unveiled a series of their other joint projects. These project will be based on a set of application programming interface from Lotus (SameTime) and Cisco.

The add-ons planned are integration of a series of additional functions and features into the SameTime software from Lotus. Thus, in a few months, the SameTime users will benefit from such functions as click-to-call and voicemail. This will enable easier instant messaging inside the Cisco’s Unified IP phones’ system.

The fact that the platform will be based on Eclipse will make the numerous developers create many communications services, mainly for remote users to benefit from a series of new functions of ERP and CRM applications.

Nortel Networks – a partner of Microsoft since last year and Cisco’s rival in the area – didn’t have much success in the communication services field.

As for Microsoft, the experts are waiting for the reaction of the Bill Gates’ company on the ideas and offers made by IBM and Cisco for enterprise communications and collaboration solutions.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

A park in the U.S. state of Wisconsin has been closed, due to being over-run by gypsy moth caterpillars.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced the unprecedented move yesterday, with officials saying they would temporarily close Rocky Arbor State Park near Wisconsin Dells due to an infestation of gypsy moth larvae.

The larvae are present at the park in such large numbers that, according to a report by the Wisconsin State Journal, camping there would “apparently be a squishy, nightmarish experience.”

Mark Guthmiller, DNR gypsy moth suppression coordinator said that “there are also health and safety considerations that prompted our action,” explaining that there was a significant risk of people having severe allergic reactions to the caterpillars. There were also concerns that the caterpillars might be accidentally transported out of the park on park user’s vehicles to areas where the moths have as yet failed to establish themselves. Guthmiller also commented that related sanitation issues” would also “significantly detract from the quality park camping experience.”

Andrea Diss-Torrance, another gypsy moth coordinator for the DNR, said of the infestation: “It’s very severe – it’s as severe as I have ever seen.”

The closure, which will run until at least June 27, is thought to affect around 95 campground reservations at the site, which covers 255 acres. State officials have been attempting to arrange alternatives for campers at nearby parks, or, failing this being acceptable, are offering refunds. The park will be closed until after the caterpillars have completed pupation – the period in their life cycle in which they transform into moths.

The gypsy moth is a pest in the U.S., having been introduced in the 19th-century in a failed attempt to to try to breed a hardy variant of silkworm. The moths can strip the leaves off at least 250 different tree species, and as they lack natural predators in the U.S., cause significant damage. The moths often chew leaves but don’t actually eat them, thus increasing the potential damage.

At Rocky Arbor, they have already stripped all the trees in some areas of the park. The caterpillars can kill trees directly, but more usually weaken them so that they are more susceptible to die from other causes, such as disease.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Two tornadoes touched down around the same time yesterday afternoon near the small town of Wellington, Utah in the Mill Creek Subdivision area. Initial reports are that both tornadoes rated somewhere between F0 and F1, on the lower end of the Fujita scale. Several trees were reported to have toppled over, a mobile home was severely damaged, and a travel trailer was reported to have been thrown over 50 yards. Other homes had minor damage.

It is exceedingly rare for a tornado to touch down in settled areas of Utah, and even more rare for two to touch down at the same time. The last tornado to touch down in Utah was the Salt Lake City tornado in 1999.

Wellington is about 130 miles (200 km) by road south-east of Salt Lake City, the capital of the US state of Utah.