Why Apple's 11-Inch MacBook Air Is TSA-Approved - PC World

Have you heard? Apple's new 11-inch MacBook Air is preapproved for airport security. That's right: Carry one of those bad boys through a TSA checkpoint, and you don't even have to take it out of your bag.

So what sets the MacBook Air apart from other noncheckpoint-friendly notebooks? It isn't that the TSA is full of certified Apple fanboys. The truth is that it all comes down to size.

Apple's MacBook Air and Airport Security

Though Apple doesn't consider the 11-inch MacBook Air a netbook, the computer's small profile puts it in the same category as netbook-designated devices -- at least, in the eyes of Homeland Security. We tech folks may look at things like specs and price tags when categorizing a computer, but the TSA is more concerned with how much space the system takes up.

In the case of Apple's 11-inch MacBook Air, the fact that the computer is "smaller than a standard-size laptop" is the sole reason the TSA green-lighted it to stay inside your carry-on at airport security. As first reported by CNN, the MacBook Air is seen by the government as the same type of gadget as an iPad, an e-reader, or -- yep, you guessed it -- a netbook.

"Small and portable electronic items ... should not need to be removed from their carrying cases," a TSA spokesperson tells me.

The big question, then, is where we draw the "small item" line.

Would Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Air, for example, be OK to go through an airport checkpoint while inside a bag? What about ultraportable but high-performing notebooks on the PC side of the equation -- will they get the same security love as Apple's 11-inch Air? What is the "standard size" of a laptop nowadays, anyway?

It turns out there's no easy answer.

In the case of the 13-inch MacBook Air, the TSA has yet to reach a final verdict, according to CNN. A TSA representative did tell me that anything "similar in size to an iPad" should generally be safe to stay in your bag. She was unable, however, to provide any firm guidelines as to what separates a "small and portable electronic item" from a full-fledged laptop. Long story short, there is no magic number.

Rather than obsess over the size of your gizmo, then, the smartest option may be to go with a checkpoint-friendly laptop bag. Throw your notebook, netbook, or whatever you want to call it in one of those suckers and -- unless you're flagged for extra screening -- you should be able to breeze right through airport security.

And yes, by "breeze right through," I mean "waddle through shoeless while hanging onto your unbelted pants and the little dignity you have remaining."

But hey, at least you won't have to unpack your laptop.

JR Raphael is a PCWorld contributing editor and the co-founder of geek-humor site eSarcasm. You can find him on both Facebook and Twitter.

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Jon Stewart and His Rally May Shun Politics, but Attendees Are Embracing It - New York Times

Interviews with some of the tens of thousands of people expected to attend suggest that they want a message, not a simple comedy show. Liberal groups like Media Matters and Naral Pro-Choice America will be out in force to attract new members and even Organizing for America, President Obama’s political organization, wants to draw attendees to phone banks set up near the Mall.

Tracie Lewis Kinard, 36, from Mobile, Ala., said that when she heard about the rally, “I felt like my way of thinking was finally being represented.”

She is spending about $750 on a flight and two nights at a hotel. It is worth it, she said. “For one moment, the moderates will be the news.”

Mr. Stewart has always dismissed suggestions that his satiric commentary on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” has any influence over the political process. But coming on the heels of the large Glenn Beck rally on the Mall in August, his event is a new high-wire act for him and his late-night comedy partner, Stephen Colbert: the huge crowd — observed by a horde of news media representatives — anticipated at noon on Saturday is expecting not only to be entertained, but also to be stirred.

While the event is pitched to moderates of all political persuasions, Mr. Stewart is known for having a progressive audience. In interviews, some people who plan to attend said it might bolster the spirits of Democrats on the eve of a midterm election that is expected to carry a surge of Republicans to Washington.

“To the extent that people are showing up because of their enthusiasm for the message behind the rally — that is, discontent with extremist rhetoric and divisive politics — that is a political statement, and that makes their participation political,” said Lauren Feldman, an assistant professor of communication at American University, who specializes in examining the nexus of entertainment and politics.

Mr. Stewart declined interview requests and has offered little description of what is planned. He also has apparently lowered a cone of silence over members of his staff and executives at Comedy Central, which will broadcast the rally live.

Even Judy McGrath, the chief executive at MTV Networks, the parent company of Comedy Central, also has not divulged many details. “Whatever you think it’s going to be, it’s probably not going to be that,” she said last week.

And Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group and chief executive of Comedy Central, left it to the network spokesman, Tony Fox, to answer basic logistical questions.

Among the morsels: the idea for the rally was broached with the network in mid-September; there will be no commercials during the broadcast; Comedy Central will use a tape delay to block out any vulgarities; the channel will also carry the press conference with Mr. Stewart scheduled after the event; Comedy Central will own the rights to the broadcast but has no plans to replay it.

More than 1,000 individuals applied for press credentials, but the list was whittled down to 400. “We tried to be as accommodating as possible, and when we could not grant credentials, we encouraged people who didn’t get credentials to just come, because it is a free public event,” said Craig Minassian, a former Clinton administration press aide who is a consultant to Comedy Central and is helping produce the rally.

An early rundown of the event, shared by the National Parks Service, which issued the permit for the event, listed a first hour dominated by musical acts (including The Roots), with Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert performing largely in the second hour, and more musicians (including Sheryl Crow) and a taped, fake-awards conclusion in the third hour. Other guest stars are likely to appear. One on the list is Don Novello, who played Father Guido Sarducci years ago on “Saturday Night Live.” He is expected to offer an opening comic benediction, almost surely intended as a parody of the religious-themed rally headed by Mr. Beck.

Mr. Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally, held on Aug. 28, the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, was the inspiration for Mr. Stewart’s event.

“To me, Stewart is almost saying, it’s so ludicrous that Glenn Beck has done this on the same spot as Martin Luther King that I can show how ludicrous it is by getting people to come from all over the country to watch me tell some jokes,” said Joe Cutbirth, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia (who, like Ms. Feldman, is traveling to Washington for the rally).

Amber Day, from Bryant University in Rhode Island, who will also be attending the rally, said the political basis for the event was inescapable. “I think Jon is being cagey,” said Ms. Day whose book, “Satire and Dissent,” will be published in February. “What he wants to say is, it’s not partisan. He wants to preserve his persona of just being the guy at the back of the class throwing spitballs.”

Success in rallies is usually defined by crowd count and coverage. Ms. Day said one measure of the event’s success would be how much time it earned on CNN and Fox News.

The reaction of other cable channels is likely to be of less concern to Mr. Stewart than meeting the expectations of fans who are crowding the city’s hotels for the weekend or those across the country watching on TV and staging satellite rallies in several cities. “I like the fact that I am going to something and I have no idea what will happen there,” wrote Charlie Caldwell, 18, a student at Louisiana State University, in a Facebook post Wednesday. “But I know I will have a good time.”

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Rover finds signs of buried Martian water - msnbc.com

NASA's stuck Mars rover Spirit has found more evidence that water trickled beneath the Red Planet's surface in the past perhaps within the last few hundred thousand years.

The sandy spot where Spirit got bogged down last year harbors stratified layers of dirt with different compositions close to the surface, a new study reveals. Researchers suspect these layers were caused by seepage of thin films of water on Mars, perhaps from melting frost or snow.

This seepage could have occurred during cyclical climate changes when Mars was tilted more on its axis, researchers said. The water may have moved down into the sand, carrying soluble minerals deeper than less-soluble ones, they added. [ Most Amazing Mars Rover Discoveries ]

The axis tilt of Mars varies over time scales of hundreds of thousands of years. The fact that Spirit found these layers in the dirt rather than locked away in rock further suggests the water was seeping relatively recently, rather than billions of years ago, researchers said.

"Once you freeze that evidence in a rock, it can stay there for a long time," said Bruce Banerdt, a project scientist for the Mars Exploration Rovers project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "But you don't expect to maintain evidence in loose dirt for long periods of time."

Buried water in Martian history
The relatively insoluble minerals near the surface include what is thought to be hematite, silica and gypsum, according to researchers. Iron-rich ferric sulfates, which are more soluble, appear to have been dissolved and carried down deeper by water, they added.

None of these minerals is exposed at the surface, which is covered by wind-blown sand and dust.

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"The lack of exposures at the surface indicates the preferential dissolution of ferric sulfates must be a relatively recent and ongoing process since wind has been systematically stripping soil and altering landscapes in the region Spirit has been examining," rover deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, explained in a statement.

The new study, which appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research, is based on observations made by Spirit before it stopped communicating with Earth in March of this year. The findings contribute to an accumulating set of evidence that Mars may harbor small amounts of liquid water at some periods during ongoing climate cycles.

Spirit, its rover twin Opportunity and other NASA Mars missions have found evidence of wet Martian environments billions of years ago that may have been favorable for life. Observations by the Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008 and various orbiters since 2002 have identified buried layers of water ice at high and middle latitudes and frozen water in polar ice caps.

Spirit still sleeping
The twin Mars rovers finished their three-month prime missions in April 2004, then kept exploring in bonus missions. One of Spirit's six wheels quit working in 2006.

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In April 2009, Spirit's left wheels broke through a crust at a site called "Troy" and churned into soft sand. A second wheel stopped working seven months later. Spirit could not maneuver into a position slanting its solar panels toward the sun for the winter, as it had done for previous winters.

Engineers anticipated it would enter a low-power, silent hibernation mode, and the rover stopped communicating March 22 of this year. Spring begins next month at Spirit's site, and NASA is listening to see if the rover reawakens, officials said.

"Most of us have high hopes," Banerdt told SPACE.com. "Our models say she could start communicating any day now. But we also recognize that this is an extremely risky situation for Spirit, and there are so many unknowns that we just can't be sure."

Among those unknowns, according to Banerdt: how much dust blankets Spirit's solar panels, how cold the rover's interior got and the current surface conditions where it bogged down.

Researchers took advantage of Spirit's months at Troy last year to examine in great detail soil layers the wheels had exposed, along with neighboring surfaces. Spirit made 13 inches of progress in its last 10 backward drives before energy levels fell too low for further driving in February.

Those drives exposed a new area of soil for possible examination if Spirit does awaken and its robotic arm is still usable, researchers said.

"With insufficient solar energy during the winter, Spirit goes into a deep-sleep hibernation mode where all rover systems are turned off, including the radio and survival heaters," said rover project manager John Callas of JPL. "All available solar array energy goes into charging the batteries and keeping the mission clock running."

The rover is expected to have experienced temperatures colder than it ever has before, and it may not survive. If Spirit does get back to work, the top priority is a multi-month study that can be done without driving the rover, researchers said.

The study would measure the rotation of Mars through the Doppler signature of the stationary rover's radio signal with enough precision to gain new information about the planet's core. The rover Opportunity has been making steady progress toward a large crater, Endeavour, which is now approximately 5 miles away.

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