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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jan 6, 2016
January 6, 2016
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North Korea nuclear bomb test:
The big story of the morning --North Korea says it's conducted a successful test of a hydrogen bomb. An official statement was issued by the official Korean Central News Agency, which called it an "H-bomb of justice," and said it needed the weapon for defense against the United States, which it described as "the chieftain of aggression, watching for a chance for attack on it with huge nukes of various types."
There appears to be some truth to the rumor about a bomb test --The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 5.1-magnitude earthquake about 20 miles from the place where North Korea has carried out its three previous nuclear tests. But experts say the explosion would have caused a bigger quake had it been a hydrogen bomb, which is far stronger than the three atomic bombs in 2006, 2009 and 2013 that North Korea has previously tested.
BRUCE BENNETT, a senior defense analyst with the Rand Corporation, told the BBC, "This weapon was probably the size of the US Hiroshima bomb but this was not a hydrogen bomb. The bang they should have gotten would have been 10 times greater than what they got," he added.Re-gift and help people:
Raise your hand if you got a gift over the holidays that you won't ever use. Save it to re-gift? Goodwill Industries makes it easy to do that immediately and spare your closet space. Give Back Box lets you donate all kinds of stuff to Goodwill from the comfort of your home. Here's how:
1. Find a box to pack your unwanted things in (one caveat: no electronics). Tape it up!
2. Go to GiveBackBox.com and print out a shipping label.
3. Drop the box off at UPS or a nearby post office, or request a free pickup.
The company's mission is not only to help Goodwill get more donations, but also to get cardboard boxes reused, so the one you ship will be recycled, too. (Kaye)Filling a need:
Latest gimmick at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas --a "smart bra."
A San Francisco company called OMsignal, says their OMbra will measure all the stuff that a Fitbit or Apple watch does. The bra will retail for around $150 and is expected to start shipping later this spring; the company is accepting pre-orders now on its website.Meanwhile, shares of the Fitbit wristband fell 18 percent yesterday.
The Fitbit company introduced the Fitbit Blaze, a fitness watch priced at $200, yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show, which will compete with the Apple watch.
It'll be available in March, but apparently investors were worried about Fitbit's ability to compete with Apple in that field, even though the Fitbit watch is much cheaper than Apple's watch, which goes for a minimum of $350. -
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