Japan quake aftershocks could go on for years, says expert

An expert has warned that people in Japan should brace for aftershocks from devastating earthquake because it could go on for years, though they'd get weaker as time goes on.

Dr Marcia McNutt, director of the US Geological Survey, told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning" co-anchor Rebecca Jarvis that the 8.9-magnitude temblor's power could provide electricity for a city the size of Los Angeles "for an entire year."

The aftershocks, she said, are "the unnerving part of it" in that it's not "just the five minutes of shaking from this earthquake, but it keeps going on and on and on, in terms of disrupting the lives of not only the citizens, but the relief workers. There's something called Omori's Law, which governs the aftershocks, that there's aftershocks on Day One. And half as many aftershocks on Day Two. And one-third as many aftershocks on Day Three. And it keeps going on for literally years afterwards, disrupting the lives."

" ... The aftershocks themselves could bring down buildings that have already been stressed by the main shock itself. And they will hamper the efforts of the relief workers, " CBS News quoted McNutt as saying.

"It will taper off in time," McNutt said, "but it could go on for years."

As competitors pop up, iPad 2 keeps price advantage

The new iPad model that hit stores comes with several improvements over the original version but the same price tag, hobbling efforts by rivals at breaking Apple Inc.'s hold on the emerging market for tablet computers.

Competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. can't seem to match the iPad's starting price of $499. Tablets that are comparable to the iPad in features cost hundreds of dollars more, while cheaper tablets are inferior to the iPad in quality.

This is highly unusual in the gadget business, where early products, such as the first Blu-ray players or digital cameras, are expensive. Competition then gradually brings prices down. With the iPad, the reverse is happening.

It looks as if this is a result of Apple's strategy. The company appears to have chosen, right from the start, to make less of a profit from its iPads than it does from iPods and iPhones. The move is particularly odd for a company that isn't known for cheap products.

Apple's profit margin on the $499 entry-level iPad model is about 25 percent, according to an estimate by Toni Sacconaghi at Bernstein Research.