How a supervolcano can threaten Earth

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming -- It's hard not to stand in complete awe of everything the Earth has to offer when you're in the middle of Yellowstone National Park.

Its most famous geyser, Old Faithful, shoots up into the sky as crowds tilt their heads just to see how high it really can go. The saturated blues and greens of geothermal pools appear to be otherworldly.

Towering mountains wrap themselves around the park, providing shelter for wild animals to roam. But below the beauty of Yellowstone, is a volcano powerful enough devastate most of the United States and change the entire world.

"Yellowstone and other volcanoes around the world are called supervolcanoes and the reason is they're like a super sized drink. It means it's just big," says Hank Hessler, a geologist at Yellowstone in the U.S. state of Wyoming.

Supervolcano describes a geological phenomenon never witnessed by man. Supervolcanoes are off the charts big when comparing them to a normal volcanic eruption.

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens in the northwest corner of the United States erupted. It killed 57 people and expelled one cubic kilometer of ash.

The first Yellowstone supervolcanic eruption 2.1 million years ago was at least 25,000 times larger than the Mount St. Helens eruption. Two other Yellowstone super eruptions 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago, though smaller than the first one, would still dwarf any normal volcanic eruption.

You can monitor Yellowstone activity

Few would expect the tranquil national park would actually be sitting on the mouth of a sleeping giant.

The physical characteristic of a supervolcano isn't a typical cone-shaped mountainous peak.

Instead, supervolcanoes have what are called calderas. These are vast sunken areas that are formed after previous super eruptions as the ground was blown out and fell back to rest.

Geophysicist Bob Smith first called Yellowstone a "living breathing caldera" in 1979. He now heads the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory at the University of Utah.

"Yellowstone has been very important. It's my laboratory," says Smith.

He sees Yellowstone as more than a supervolcano, in fact he doesn't even like that term. "I prefer to use the term hotspot because it reflects a zone of concentrated and active volcanism."

Hawaii and Iceland are other examples of hot spots, but Yellowstone is the only hot spot located underneath land rather than sea which has made it easier for Smith to study.

His team has setup a series of different sensors around the park so that they can keep a close eye on its vital signs. They measure ground movement and record the frequent earthquakes that occur in the area.

The sensors have also helped Smith's team figure out what they were dealing with. As little as eight kilometers below the surface is a shallow reservoir of solid rock and magma. And below the reservoir is an enormous 57,000-cubic-kilometer plume of very hot rock, the fuel behind every bubbling pool and geyser in Yellowstone.

With all of this heat just sitting, waiting beneath Yellowstone, what exactly would it look like if it were all to blow? Smith and other scientists all have scenarios and every one is bleak.

In Smith's book, "Windows into the Earth," he says, "Devastation would be complete and incomprehensible." Before the super eruption, large earthquakes would likely swarm the surrounding areas until the huge blast that would erase Yellowstone completely off the map.

After the initial eruption, clouds of gas and rock would burn everything in its path with temperatures reaching to hundreds of degrees Celsius. Ashfall would cover the western United States and also enter the jet stream with the potential to cripple air transportation and threaten the world's food supply.

There are some estimates that 87,000 people would die immediately.

You can imagine that with this kind of catastrophe on the line, the question Smith gets asked the most is, "When is going to blow next?"

The three Yellowstone super eruptions have occurred about 800,000 years apart, so people have started to speculate that another one is due.

Also, in 2004 Smith noticed that the ground had started to rise then lowered again in 2010. It was like the supervolcano was breathing.

However, Smith says there is absolutely no need to panic. "We create scenarios. We know roughly what to expect of the patterns of time and space of the earthquakes ground information. Again, acquired from other experiences around the world. We use that to interpret our own data in terms of what the potential threat or risk might be," says Smith.

For him, the more immediate threat is earthquakes and smaller eruptions since the probability of one of those instances occurring is much higher.

Whether that may be comforting or not, millions of visitors will still make their way each year to the geological wonderland that is Yellowstone National Park.

Five texts you should never send

We're texting more than ever, and, like society, the texts themselves are getting worse and worse.

That's a conclusion cobbled together from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which found that the median number of texts adults send and receive in a day doubled from 2009 to 2010, and much anecdotal observation from the authors.

Read on to learn just how terrible silent cell phone users are these days, and the five texts that should never traverse that satellite-banked arc from your hands to the eyes of another.

1. "I think we should see other people."

It isn't just skittish teenagers pulling this rude move. Last year, a survey from Lab 42 found that 33% of adults (adults!) had broken up with someone via text, e-mail or Facebook. Forty percent said they "would ever" do it, indicating that 7% of the surveyed humans are soulless jerks who haven't but would hurtfully sever ties with a lover if only someone would respond to their advances.

Yes, breaking up is hard. Knowing you're going to hurt someone you cared about with your words indeed makes your stomach do some Cirque de Soleil-esque acrobatics. But shooting over a one-way missive to deliver the news for you? It's supremely cruel, because it leaves the other person cocking his or her head with Fred Willard-esque histrionics and asking, "Hey, wha' happened?" That complete lack of closure (not to mention the dearth of soothing, I-care-about-you-as-a-human-being signals you send with your voice and motions) add up to WAY more ruminating than is necessary.

Netiquette: Be careful when diagnosing your ailments online

The break-up text is only this much more noble than ghosting on someone you're dating, letting the silences grow longer and longer until you can tell yourself it was a mutual separation and then scuttle into the night like a cowardly cockroach. If you went on enough dates to call this person your boyfriend or girlfriend, he or she deserves at least a call.

2. "Will you marry me?"

A text proposal. It actually happened, people. And if that isn't innards-wrenchingly horrific enough, after it happened, Miss Manners went on to condone it. Can we please consider marriage proposals one of the few remaining bastions of old-fashioned romance, free from the lackadaisical pall that technology has cast over everything?

Unless you've rigged some clever feat that ties in the nerdy way you met, your phone should be put away, your knee should be on the pavement, and your hands should be clutching a ring, not picking a ringtone.

3. "We're thinking about going to Shortstop later but Aiden is still napping & Mona was talking abt having ppl over for a cookout. IDK if I want to be out in the heat tho since I'm still hungo from Bosco's pirate party thing last night. Are you and Weeds still... [1 of 2]"

4. "...wandering around the park or did you want to do something later? Hit me up if you see this before 10. Gonna go pass out for a while. [2 of 2]"

Texting was supposed to save us time by letting us bypass the phone call and just instantly telegraph the important stuff. But we've grown so reliant upon it that we obliviously miss, Mr. Bean-like, the conversations that could happen expeditiously over the phone.

Netiquette: An open letter to texting-crazed teens

So often, we put our thumbs to work typing out long and convoluted messages that warrant a detailed, meticulous volley of responses, when wagging our tongues would have cleared things up in 30 seconds flat. More than half of texters have "long, personal text message exchanges," according to a 2010 survey. They are all wasting time.

Our rule of (red, raw, overused) thumb: If your text is longer than two sentences and it demands a response other than a simple yes or no, just hit Call. You'll save everyone a little time and a lot of confusion.

5. [a photo of your junk]

According to a Pew Research Center study that is (according to the Times) due out later this year, 6% of American adults -- that's one in 17 upstanding citizens -- has sent a nude or nearly nude (but not "never-nude") photo on a cell phone. And 15% have received such a text. (Apparently these self-portraitists are prolific.)

Leave something to the imagination, folks.

Super PAC App - knows when political ads stretch the truth

CNN - What if every political ad came with a "truthiness" disclaimer?

That's essentially the goal of the Super PAC App, a new project from former students at MIT's Media Lab.

Their free iPhone app, which will be available on Wednesday, listens to political advertisements on television and matches the ad's audio waves against a database -- much like the Shazam app identifies music. It then tells the app's user who paid for the ad and how much they're spending on the campaign before pointing them to nonpartisan sources -- PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and others -- to try to verify the ad's claims.

The app is free of advertising and is funded in full by a grant from the Knight Foundation, according to Dan Siegel, one of the app's co-creators.

The fact-checking process is especially important this year, said Siegel, because Super PACs for the first time can spend unlimited funds on presidential campaign ads. In recent weeks TV airwaves in battleground states have been full of ads making negative claims about both President Obama and his rival Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee.

"The campaigns are spending a lot of money and all of that money is going into television ads," he said. "And therefore there's a need for users to be able to play through the noise a little bit."

Siegel spoke with CNN recently about how the app works and how he hopes it will change the way voters interact with television ads. The following transcript is edited for length and clarity:

CNN: Tell me about the idea for this app. Where did the idea come from?

Siegel: I was at the business school at MIT and decided to take a class at the Media Lab. I came into it with this interest in politics and a fascination with how much money is going to be spent in this election. When you look into the numbers, it's very clear that the overwhelming percentage of the money raised goes into television ads. So it's like, well, what are those ads trying to tell us?

And Jenn (Jennifer Hollett), my co-founder, came into the class from the (Harvard) Kennedy School, and has a background in broadcast journalism. And so really from day one it was kind of a perfect fit.

Jenn threw out the idea: "What about an app that can -- and I have no idea if this is possible -- but what about an app that can actually tell you what you're watching on TV as you're watching it?" I said, "Yes! What you're talking about is audio fingerprinting technology. That is a great idea. Let's go with that."

For a while, we called it a class project. And we were working on it as a class project. And there was a moment where we were about to get on the phone with a major media outlet who just had actually heard about this class project ... and they wanted to talk to us about partnering. Before that call, Jenn and I looked at each other and said, "Hey, why don't we stop calling this a class project and call it an app. That is real. That we're building. And, like, see what happens."

CNN: So you mentioned "audio fingerprinting." What does that mean exactly?

Siegel: The short answer is that we're collecting a database of all the presidential political ads. So we have that. That database grows, obviously, by the day, as the new ads are released.

The users submits to us, though the app, an audio sample of sound (from the campaign ad). And we can match that audio sample, with our partner TuneSat, against the database that we have.

With enough audio -- it's typically about 10 seconds required to make a match -- we can say, "Gotcha." We know which ad you're listening to right now.

And then the app fires up and the user can explore the information.

CNN: What information pops up on your screen?

Siegel: We think it's still important to know basic facts. So the first screen is information including: Who is this organization? What are they called? Is it Restore Our Future? Is it Obama for America? Is Crossroads GPS? Is it Priorities USA Action? Then what are they? Are they the official campaign? Are they a super PAC? Is it something else? And then it's how much money have they raised? How much money have they spent in this campaign season?

And then it's an opportunity for the user to actually rate the ad -- and rate them with fun buttons (like) "love," "fair," "fishy," "fail." Once they do that, they can see how others have rated the ad. And then from there there's an opportunity to go into another screen, which is the actual claims of the ad. So a user can click through and we're disaggregating an ad into distinct claims. For each of those claims, here are objective, nonpartisan, third-party sources that are talking about that claim.

So you can quickly get a sense of, "Is this claim based in any kind of fact or is it all noise?" And hopefully that's an opportunity for the user not to have to do a lot of homework to figure out, "Am I watching an ad that's kind of true? Not true at all? Or actually, yeah, that is telling me some really valuable information."

CNN: So it's fact checking it, in a way.

Siegel: It is fact checking it, but we as Super PAC App are not doing the fact checking. We are, you know, standing on the shoulders of some great organizations, including FactCheck.org and PolitiFact. But also, you know, major media outlets who are doing their own reporting.

CNN: I imagine this has got to be an incredible amount of data. How do you keep up with that while, as you mentioned, more and more ads keep coming in all the time?

Siegel: We have a Web crawler and we are pointing it at the right places to find these ads. Reliably, you can find many of these ads on YouTube. But that's probably not going to get us all the way there. You can imagine some organizations that don't create YouTube channels or never post (the ads) online. And you can also imagine an organization that posts it online 24 hours after it's actually run. And we want to have to not wait for that window.

We have informal partnerships with journalists. ... We're plugged in with those journalists and they're feeding us ads on a one-off basis. And then, separately, on our own, we're signed up for all the newsletters and press sheets that alert us to when new ads are put out there.

CNN: Does the app track information about its users?

Siegel: It tracks how "a user" has rated the ads. But we have absolutely no identifying information. We do know, in aggregate, how many people have rated an ad as "love" or "fishy," but we have no way of tracing that back to a user. A given user will be able to fire up his or her prior tags, so if you go on the app before and tagged five different ads, you can find those ads in a filter for "my tags." But that's all data that's stored on your phone. You're not sending that data back to us.

CNN: What have you found so far? Are most of the ads factual?

Siegel: I wouldn't necessarily even want to comment on that. That's painting with such a broad brush. What I can say is that we're really excited about what we're doing. We're not trying to say super PACs are good or bad, necessarily, but they're definitely here, and they're definitely spending lots of money. The campaigns are spending a lot of money and all of that money is going into television ads. And therefore there's a need for users to be able to play through the noise a little bit.

Some of these ads are complete distortions of the truth and you can quickly discover that if you have some trusted news source telling you so. And some of the ads are completely accurate and are telling you really valuable information that can help make you a more informed voter. And you need to know that, too.

It allows us to reach people who are like, "Yeah, this is kinda weird that my television is screaming all these ads at me, 24-7. I don't get it, but, by the same token, I've got a life. I'm going to go make dinner now and I'm going to go play catch with my kids. And that's that." Fine, great, don't get off your couch. Just hold up your phone to the TV and we can give you some very basic information that will help make you a little bit more informed.

CNN: It seems like this election cycle is unique in terms of the amount of money being spent on campaign ads, and the presence of super PACs. Can you talk about why you think this app is especially important now?

Siegel: Because of the "Citizens United" decision, that Supreme Court decision, super PACs can exist. And what it means is that anyone who's willing and able to write a check can have a voice in this election. And by anyone, that is a union, that is an individual, that is a company. And they can do so to an unlimited degree.

The amount of voice you can have is only limited by the amount of airtime you are able to buy. And that's unprecedented. That means that sometime in mid-August or late August, there's going to be, particularly in swing states, no more (nonpolitical) commercials. And I suspect that's going to feel very weird to the average person.

We're hoping people will say, at the very least, "Well, I want to understand why there are so many commercials on?" We think the Super PAC App is a way to very quickly, very easily -- and actually in a fun way -- get to that message.

CNN: What do you think the next presidential election will look like in terms of the use of technology to help get people information?

Siegel: Yeah, someone asked that question of me recently and my response, which was kind of flippant at the time but I think is honest, is that "I can't even imagine." Right? Like the advancement of technology in the next four years -- it's so exciting to think what might be possible. What I said to that person at the time is "Who knows, in 2016, we might all be flying in cars."

And I honestly do feel that way. What is applied in terms of mobile technology in the next four years? I hope it's something like the Super PAC App on 10 rounds of steroids. I don't know what it is, but I'm really excited to see it and I'm really excited to use it. And, potentially, even be the one developing it.

Malaysia flush with Middle East cash

When Facebook went public in May it became the biggest stock launch of the year, but the two next biggest initial public offerings had something in common - they were both Malaysian companies.

In June, Felda Global Ventures Holdings raised $3.1 billion in shares, and a month later IHH Healthcare raised $2.1billion. Both are Malaysian and for both, key investors came from the Middle East.

“Middle East investment is highly important,” Fung Siu, Asia editor for the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNN’s Ayesha Durgahee.

Siu added: “There are synergies to be had between the two countries - not least because they are Muslim-dominated countries, they have that in common. Sharia law is common to both countries and they try to leverage that in the Islamic finance sector - particularly Malaysia which is at the vanguard of Islamic finance.

“So the Middle East could actually use and tap Malaysia as its financial center and hub, and source of finance as well.

“Foreign direct investment is crucial to Malaysia's transformation into a high-income economy by 2020."

Malaysia's economy is growing rapidly, with the country's GDP rising by 5.4% over the past three months.

A report by HSBC in January predicted that Malaysia will be the world's 21st-largest economy by 2050, with income per capita jumping from $5,224 to $29, 249.

“It’s still an export-led economy, buoyed by palm oil, the oil and gas sector, the manufacturing sector is also very strong ,” said Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, CEO of Malaysia Airlines. “You can only export to a certain extent. What the government is trying to do is to encourage more the consumer economy.”

Boosting visitor numbers could be part of the formula. Tourism currently accounts for 8% of the country's GDP. A change in foreign-ownership rules could increase it to 13%, which could generate a total of $54 billion in revenue by 2020.

“We have nine airlines flying from the Middle Eastern region,” said Chong Yoke Har, director of Tourism Malaysia. “Malaysia is very strategically located in the middle of Southeast Asia, and therefore foreigner investors look at this as a very attractive area to invest in.”

And they've already started to bite. Qatar Holding, owner of Harrods department store, announced in July that its first Harrods hotel will be built and launched in Kuala Lumpur.

A launchpad for hotels and a potential springboard for investment, Malaysia's multicultural roots are helping to change the economic landscape of the country, whilst moving the Middle East closer to Asia.

Barcelona take slender advantage over Real

Barcelona came from behind to beat arch-rivals Real Madrid 3-2 in the Nou Camp in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup on Thursday.

Spanish champions Real took a 55th minute lead when Cristiano Ronaldo headed home from a Mesut Ozil corner, but their lead lasted just a minute as Pedro equalized for the home side.

The game had come to life in the second half and both sides had good opportunities before Lionel Messi scored from the penalty spot after Sergio Ramos had pulled down Andres Iniesta.

Spain star Iniesta then set away his midfield partner Xavi to score Barcelona's third.

A comfortable two-goal advantage seemed enough to set the seal on a great night for the Catalan giants

But they were undone five minutes from time when their goalkeeper Victor Valdes tried to take the ball around Angel Di Maria, lost possession and gifted the Argentine an open goal.

It means Barcelona will take only a slender lead into the second leg in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium next Wednesday.

"One of our aims was to score in the Nou Camp, that goal from Di Maria changed everything," Real captain Iker Casillas told the club's official website.

New Barca coach Tito Vilanova refused to blame his goalkeeper.

"We asked him to do that. If he boots the ball down the field we wouldn't have any semblance of a passing style of play," said Vilanova. "During these years he's given us a lot and he's helped us build our play up from the back.

"The result isn't definitive for either side. It's good that we won but we could have ended the match with a larger margin of victory yet, in the end, the result was pretty tight."

Real boss Jose Mourinho admitted that his side had struggled at the outset, but battled back into the game.

"I didn't enjoy the first half. Sometimes you play a way you don't want to. The opponent has the ability to change the game plan you have and Barcelona did that in the first half," Mourinho said.

"They pressed well and didn't let us play. We defended well and we occupied defensive positions, but Barcelona was better. It might appear as though it was a defensive plan, but it wasn't and we showed that in the second half, where we played completely differently."

In Europa League qualifying action Thursday, an own goal from Andy Webster gave Liverpool a 1-0 win at Scottish side Hearts in their first leg tie.

Fellow English Premier League side Newcastle held Greek side Atromitos to a 1-1 draw while Italian giants Inter Milan were 2-1 winners at Romania's FC Vaslui.

Last year's runners-up Athletic Bilboa thumped HJK Helsinki 6-0 and Marseille were 2-1 winners at Sheriff Tiraspol.

IBM Buys Texas Memory To Battle Intel-Micron Flash JV

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), the No. 2 computer maker that's also one of the biggest chipmakers, said it plans to acquire private Texas Memory Systems to bolster its offerings in the flash-memory sector crucial for new servers and mobile products.

Terms weren't disclosed.

Texas Memory, based in Houston, Texas, has provided enterprise-grade solid state disks, or SSDs, as well as application-specific digital signal processors to the computer industry, including Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), the No. 3 PC maker, for 34 years.

IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., reported cash and investments exceeding $11.7 billion as of June 30.

IBM's acquisition of well-regarded Texas Memory comes six months after Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, and Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) upgraded their six-year-old partnership, IM Flash Technologies, which designs and manufactures NAND flash memory chips, which are gradually replacing the large-size dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, chips that had been required for all earlier computers.

Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., sold its interests in a chip factory in Singapore to Micron, of Boise, Ida., as well as its interest in a joint-venture factory in Manassas, Va., to Micron for $600 million. In return, Micron, the largest remaining U.S. maker of memory chips aside from IBM, will enjoy a long-term supply relationship with Intel.

For IBM, acquiring Texas Memory's portfolio speeds its way into the same sectors, as NAND flash products are designed into current servers, as well as mobile products. It also meshes with IBM's PureSystems initiative, announced last quarter, to make all IBM systems interoperable with customers' products from a wide range of suppliers. The goal is enable more orders of IBM services and software.

As well, Texas Memory has a proprietary technology, Enterprise MLC (or multilevel cell) flash, which is especially suitable for enterprise for use in data warehousing, content-delivery networks and other read-intensive environments. They're sold under the RamSan brand name.

The deal is expected to "align well with our Smarter Computing approach to information technology by helping clients realize increased performance and efficiencies at lower costs," said Brian Truskowski, IBM general manager, systems storage and networking.

Over time, IBM plans to integrate Texas Memory products into storage, software, server and Pure Systems products, he added.

Holy Frost, Texas Memory CEO, welcomed the takeover and said it ought to allow the company expand its engineering staff and lines faster due to IBM's "global reach."

Shares of IBM fell 75 cents to $199.75 on Tuesday afternoon, as Intel's were unchanged at $16.23 and Micron's rose a nickel to $6.54. :)

Dell’s 2Q Misses Estimates; Projects Low Growth As Shares Plunge

Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), the No. 3 PC maker, reported second-quarter results that missed analyst estimates. Worse, the company said it expected third-quarter performance to fall below expectations.

The news sent Dell shares down more than 3 percent in after-hours trading to $11.94, down 41 cents. Earlier, they closed at $12.34, down 22 cents.

For the first time, the company founded by Chairman Michael S. Dell nearly 30 years ago in a dorm room will be ranked No. 3 in PC sales, having lost its No. 2 ranking last quarter to China's Lenovo Group (Pink: LNVGY).

Dell said second-quarter operating earnings fell 13 percent to 42 cents a share, compared with the 45 cents expected by analyst surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue dipped to $14.5 billion, down 8 percent, about $300 million below estimates.

"Growth in our PC busines was challenging," said CFO Brian Gladden, " as we saw a tough macroeconomic and competitive environment."

Michael Dell and Gladden are expected to brief investors later on Tuesday about how the company ramps up shipments of Ultrabook-based chips from Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, and software king Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) starts to ship Windows 8.

As well, they'll wonder where Dell, of Round Rock, Tex., fits in with tablets, where it's not been visible; perhaps a telephone product and more crucially, storage and services, where the company has moved aggressively, acquiring companies like Perot Systems and Compellent Technologies. The idea is to boost Dell more into the corporate market and derive more revenue from services along the model of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM).

Analyst Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee expected Dell to match or slightly exceed the estimates because "expectations are low." The company's PC status "in a tough fundamental position" between the low-cost players like Lenovo and Taiwan's Acer Group (Taipei: 2353) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the world's most valuable technology company, at the high end.

Dell has made giant strides in sales to the so-called BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - but now may have to deal with reports of slower growth in India and China. Dell's India chief last week complained about doing business in India.

Other analysts are looking at different aspects of Dell strategy. At Stifel Nicolaus, Aaron Rakers wanted to see more muscle in software, which accounted for about $400 million last fiscal year but is tapped to grow to $2 billion by fiscal 2016. Last week, he cut his price target for Dell to $17 from $18 after trimming his earnings estimates to $1.92 a share for full-year earnings from $2.01.

Dell is planning to close its acquisition of Quest Software (Nasdaq: QSFT) next quarter, one reason for the lowering of full-year operating earnings to $1.70 a share from the previous "above $2.13." But third-quarter revenue may fall as much as 5 percent.

One bright note: Dell reported cash and investments of $14.6 billion, down from the prior quarter's $17.2 billion.

At Tuesday prices, Dell's market value has fallen to $21.58 billion, down 16 percent in 2012.

Disappointing Japan Trade Data Weigh Down US Stock Futures

The U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open Wednesday as investor confidence was weighed down by the report that Japan returned to trade deficit in July, indicating a soft global demand and weakening economic growth momentum.

The futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.20 percent, those on the Standard & Poor's 500 index were down 0.33 percent while the Nasdaq 100 index futures were down 0.27 percent.

The data released by Japan's Finance Ministry showed that the country recorded a 517.4 billion yen ($6.5 billion) trade deficit in July, down from the 60.3 billion yen surplus in June. Investors feel that the Bank of Japan will have to come up with bold measures to improve the country's economic condition.

The National Association of Realtors' home sales report that measures the change in the annualized number of existing residential buildings sold during the previous month will be made public Wednesday. It is expected to rise to 4.52 million units in July, up from 4.37 million units in June.

Investors are likely to focus on the minutes of the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting to be announced by the Fed Wednesday. With the FOMC closely monitoring the incoming information on economic and financial developments, market players will be on the alert watching the minutes closely for any indications of the announcement of stimulus measures.

The U.S. markets fell Tuesday as investors revived worries about the lack of stimulus measures from policymakers to rejuvenate the world economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.51 percent, the S&P 500 Index was down 0.35 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.29 percent.

Major European indices were in red as investors were disappointed to note that Japanese exports to the European Union slumped in July hinting at the slack economic condition in the euro zone. London's FTSE 100 was down 49.34 points, Germany's DAX 30 Index fell 54.99 points and France's CAC 40 declined 31.63 points.

Asian stocks also fell on the disappointing Japanese trade data.

Backers raise cash for Tesla museum honoring 'cult hero'

At the dawn of the 20th century, Nikola Tesla wanted to save the world from fuel dependency. Now, an Internet cartoonist wants to save Tesla's last remaining laboratory as a tribute to the futurist inventor.

The structure, a 94-by-94-foot building, was the location where Tesla hoped to develop wireless communications and clean, free energy for everyone in the early 1900s. He moved his operation to the Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York, in 1902 -- so named because of a 187-foot tower rising from the ground (as well as being sunk 120 feet below it) that was to be one of the great transmitters for his wireless energy dream.

The facility was lost a few years later due to debts Tesla racked up, and the huge tower was demolished in 1917. The site would ultimately become a Superfund location because of silver and cadmium toxicity in the ground after a photographic film company used it for nearly 48 years. It has now been cleaned up and is no longer harmful.

Tesla died penniless and in debt in 1943.

Currently, the building and surrounding land sit idle and are up for sale. Matthew Inman, the creator of Web cartoon "The Oatmeal," is joining forces with a nonprofit group, The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, to help preserve the facility as a science center and museum honoring "the father of the electric age."

"Tesla is an unsung hero, and there are very few monuments to him in the United States. I feel like that's something we need to fix," Inman said. "I made a comic about Tesla on my site. It got the most 'likes' on Facebook that I've ever seen in my career. Combine (the fact) that I've got this army of Tesla fans and the experience and success with my other fund-raiser, I felt like I was the ideal person to step in to control."

Inman's previous experience with the IndieGoGo crowdfunding site stemmed from a potential lawsuit and his subsequent campaign to raise money for the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. This current effort, bluntly titled "Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum," exploded after it was launched, raising more than $750,000 within five days.

It had topped $792,000 as of Tuesday morning.

The goal was to raise enough money to buy the property and begin efforts to restore the facility. The asking price is $1.6 million, and Inman's goal of $850,000 would be matched by a New York state grant for the same amount, raising a total of $1.7 million. Inman said he was shocked by how much, and how quickly, people have donated to save Tesla's lab.

"What I expected to happen was we'd raise 20 or 30 grand and trickle over for the next six weeks. I didn't expect to average $27,000 per hour (in the first few days)," he said. "That was insane."

Inman used the power of social media and drew from his 700,000 fans on Facebook, 300,000 followers on Twitter and over 1 million followers on Google+ to get his campaign rolling. He's also asked the General Electric Company, co-founded by Tesla rival Thomas Edison, to contribute, and received a "modest amount" from Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and Tesla Motors.

The site quickly sold out of donation perks, items people could receive for their gift. So the campaign created new perks, using Tesla's love of the number 3 in the amount.

"Tesla, for the past year or two on the Internet, has risen as a cult hero to geek people," Inman said. "I think a lot of people are donating, not to say how noble they are, but are willing to support him."

Wardenclyffe was the last official laboratory where Tesla worked. Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center, said he moved into offices in New York City later, but Wardenclyffe was his final experimental location. That fact, along with his efforts to develop green energy, is why the site holds special significance.

"Tesla viewed the Earth as a generator of electricity. He believed that each of the planets resonates," Alcorn explained. "If you could tap into that resonance, you would be able to tap into the energy that is in the Earth and you could bounce it off the ionosphere to any other place on the globe."

Read more space and science news on CNN's Light Years blog

Designed by Stanford White, a pre-eminent architect at the time, the square brick building was originally split down the middle, creating two large rectangular rooms for experiments. The tall tower and the overturned bowl at the top loomed over the countryside, and started out as a transmitter of messages while Tesla turned his thoughts and creativity toward global energy.

"Tesla foresaw the wireless transmissions we do with our cell phones and our laptops," Alcorn said. "He said there would come a day when people would send pictures, messages, words from one place to another without wires."

The inventor convinced banker and philanthropist J.P. Morgan of how beneficial such wireless communication would be to business and received financial backing for his project. But after Guglielmo Marconi sent his radio signal across the Atlantic in 1901, Morgan pulled his funding.

Eventually, the property was lost in 1915 -- to pay off a debt to George Boldt of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel -- before Tesla could realize his dream of free electricity for everyone. The U.S. government destroyed the tower in 1917, fearing German spies were using it to send messages during World War I.

The property changed hands a couple more times and is currently owned by Agfa-Gevaert, a technology company based in Belgium. The company put the property up for sale in 2009 and got an offer from a potential buyer who wanted to develop the land.

That created a sense of urgency for Alcorn's group, which has been working for nearly 17 years to preserve it.

"When we heard that, and there was a letter of interest with a price involved, all of that made us a little bit wary and concerned because someone could come along and purchase this property before we had an opportunity to make an offer, " she said. "But we didn't have the money to make an offer."

She said her group made a plea on the Internet to the people involved, which attracted the attention of Inman. He reached out to Alcorn to offer his online influence and experience to the effort.

Alcorn said the money raised by the IndieGoGo campaign would just purchase the property and facility, not finance the cleanup or restoration of the building into a museum. If the group is successful in its bid, she expects it will be a couple of years before the museum opens, while additional funding and exhibits are arranged. - CNN

New tech could mean 3D movies with no glasses

Watching 3-D movies generally means suffering through two things: crappy plotlines that favor spectacle over substance and the need to wear some annoying, dorky glasses. Scientists may have solved one of these frustrations. (You might be able to guess which.)

Researchers in South Korea have created a new method that would allow moviegoers to simply sit down and start watching a 3-D movie with no extra gear necessary. The research was published Monday in Optics Express.

"This is essentially the next step that was required for 3-D display technology without glasses," said physicist John Koshel, who studies optical science at the University of Arizona and was not associated with the new work.

We see the world in three dimensions because our eyes are spaced slightly apart, each looking out at a different angle. Your brain combines the information from both eyes, determining where each object in your field of view is to generate depth perception.

To achieve 3-D movies or television, the trick is to send a slightly different, offset picture to each eye. Special glasses handle this task for most modern 3-D blockbuster movies, with each lens only letting in one polarization of light. Polarization describes the direction in which the electromagnetic waves in light oscillate, either up-down, left-right, or something in between.

When you sit down to watch something like "Avatar," two projectors are displaying two images on the same screen, with the light from one polarized left-right and the other up-down. This is why the screen looks kind of blurry when you take the glasses off -- there are two movies playing on it at the same time. The 3-D glasses correct the situation by separating these images, allowing the left-projector movie to go to your left eye and the right-projector movie into your right.

But needing two projectors perfectly synced in a theater is awkward and expensive. There are some glasses-free methods around, where a special filter covering the screen sends some of the light to your right eye and some to your left, creating a 3-D image. This is the technology in Nintendo's 3DS gaming system and several smart phone displays, such as the HTC Evo 3D. In a movie theater, this glasses-free 3-D technique would require the projector to sit behind the screen, but most theaters are not designed for this.

The new method would allow movie theaters to keep their projectors where they've always been, behind the audience, and uses fairly simple optical technology. A special array sits in front of the projector and polarizes its light. A filter covering the screen then obscures different vertical regions of the screen, like the slats of venetian blinds. Each of your eyes, sitting at a slightly different angle, has some of the screen blocked and some of the screen visible. The movie has the right-eye and left-eye images interleaved in vertical columns with one another. The trick then is to have the light visible to your left eye contain the left-eye pixels and vice versa for the right eye.

The new method is less cumbersome than both the current two-projector and the behind-the-screen-projector methods. But because it blocks some of the light to your different eyes, the current image resolution is fairly low. Koshel expects that 3-D movie companies will be interested in upgrading the method's abilities and resolution to bring glasses-free 3-D to the masses.

"This technology is still in its infancy, but it's a new step that was hidden for a long time," Koshel said.