The distance was small but the accomplishment was great.

Todd Reichert, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, flew for 476 feet in an engineless plane with a 105 ft wing span using a foot pump to make the aircraft’s wings flap.  He believes he has achieved the first sustained flight in a human-powered, wing-flapping aircraft.

Reichert said his aircraft, called Snowbird “represents the completion of an age-old aeronautical dream. Throughout history, countless men and women have dreamt of flying like a bird under their own power, and hundreds, if not thousands have attempted to achieve it,” he said in a statement.

“This represents one of the last of the aviation firsts.”

An e-mail virus using the subject line “Here you have” or “Just for you” started spreading around the world yesterday afternoon. The virus generated so much spam that it brought some major corporations to a virtual stand-still today. Operations at companies such as, AIG, Disney, Wells Fargo, Comcast and NASA were affected.

The Department of Homeland Security is currently investigating and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and the DHS National Cyber Security Division are expected to issue a bulletin later today.

“US-CERT has received multiple reports from a number of federal agencies and private sector entities experiencing an email worm…US-CERT is in the process of collecting and analyzing samples of the malware and has developed and disseminated mitigation strategies,” DHS press secretary Amy Kudwa said in a statement.

McAfee reported its findings, saying “We do know that it’s essentially an e-mail based worm that’s propagating that has a link that alleges to be a pdf document that it wants the user to click on. In reality, it’s a piece of malware that’s obfuscating as a pdf and it has the capabilities to spread virally once it’s installed on your machine.”

If you receive suspicious messages, McAfee says to delete them without clicking on the link .

At 1:35 p.m. ET today, (4:35 a.m, Saturday in New Zealand), the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 7.5 mile deep, 7.0 magnitude, earthquake striking Christchurch, New Zealand’s second largest city.  No major injuries have been reported to date, but there has been extensive damage throughout the city.

Airport and rail services have been shut down. Christchurch authorities reported “substantial infrastructure damage” to utilities, particularly bridges and sewer and water facilities, and told Radio New Zealand that many other buildings had been damaged.

Within thirty minutes the national government reported that numerous aftershocks, including a 5.7 magnitude aftershock had struck close to the epicenter and  more were expected.  It had not yet activated its National Crisis Center, but will make that decision after sunrise when it will be possible to get a better look at the extent of damage suffered by the city.

Police said several city streets that were blocked by falling building facades and many suburban roads were clogged with cars as worried residents tried to flee the city.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no immediate danger of a Pacific tsunami.

Steven Jobs, Apple’s CEO, made a presentation in San Francisco today showcasing improvements in a number of Apple products and introducing a new iTunes 10 service named Ping.

The Apple TV was the recipient of a major redesign. The improved Apple TV set-top box is smaller, cheaper and contains no disk storage. Instead it can wirelessly stream movie rentals from Netflix, TV shows, music and photos to a wide screen TV.  Apple has agreements with FOX and ABC to provide TV shows for 99¢ a rental. By setting its price at $99 the Apple TV will likely be a better performer than the original $299 version.

The new Apple service called Ping will enable iTune users to follow friends and share information about their music and entertainment interests. Ping will be available to Apple’s millions of iTunes users just by downloading some software. Apple likely expects to increase its iTunes sales as users begin comparing their favorite songs.

New versions of the Shuffle, Nano and Touch iPod models revealed significant improvements as well.  specifically, the iPod touch is now capable of making video calls between iPod Touch models or between an iPod Touch and an iPhone4.