Branson's Flying Submarine

When you count yourself amongst the worlds wealthiest people you can commission just about anything, and if you are British mogul Richard Branson that means an "underwater plane" named "Necker Nymph," that can dive up to 40 meters below the surface of the water. No matter how cool this thing is, you don't become one of the world's richest without finding some way to make money from your belongings. If you are so inclined you can charter the $631,000 flying sub for $25,000 and another $88,000 for the sub's superyacht launch vessel, "Necker Belle."

The Necker Nymph uses fighter jet technology and was designed by Hawkes Ocean Technologies.

Source: CNN

Please Rob Me, Really?

Boy Van Amstel and a group of Dutch developers created pleaserobme.com to prove a point about the dangers of sharing your precise location information on the internet, according to this BBC article."It started with me and a friend looking at our Twitter feeds and seeing more and more Foursquare posts," said Van Amstel, one of PleaseRobMe's developers."People were checking in at their house, or their girlfriend's or friend's house, and sharing the address - I don't think they were aware of how much they were sharing."

While the site does heighten awareness to the potential dangers of broadcasting your current location online, I think the logic is slightly flawed as it assumes a number of things:

1. That you live alone;

2. That you haven't taken any precautions against theft; and

3. That the bad guys are sifting through millions of tweets to single you out.

Not to say that there aren't potential risks and that you shouldn't take precautions! I just don't buy into the notion that this makes you any more vulnerable than the next guy, if you use you head a little.

Thanks for the post idea Dawn!

Google's Schmidt Declares "...the principle of mobile first"

Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has declared that mobile has come of age, speaking at Mobile World Congress. 

 

“It's like magic. All of a sudden there are things that you can do that didn't really occur to you... because of this convergence point,” he said.

“That time is upon us -- right now, right here, for this year and at least the next many years.”

Do you think so Eric?

Source: The Globe and Mail

Confusion Over Blogging/Tweets By Olympic Athletes In Vancouver

It appears as though the athletes are unsure of the Olympic Committee's stance on blogging and tweeting from the games.however, Bob Condron, the Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee says “Athletes are free to blog during the Games,”  “And Twitter is just a blog that’s written 140 characters at a time.”

There will be  some restrictions on what athletes can do online during the games. The IOC Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games, says that accredited people, including athletes, must keep their posts confined to their personal experiences. “You can’t act as a journalist if you aren’t,” says Condron. “You need to do things in a first person way.”

“These are going to be the Twitter Olympics,” says Condron. “There’s no telling where the updates will come from. It could be the bench during a hockey game, or even on the medal stand."

I wonder how much this will affect Twitter's numbers as the world tunes into the Olympics?

Source: Wired

Olympic Tourch Design Withstands Canadian Winter

I was fortunate to have viewed the Olympic torch run as it passed through our community and then even more fortunate to be able to handle one of the actual torches as a coworker's wife took part in the relay. Torchbearers were given the opportunity to purchase the torch that they carried on their leg of the journey, which I think is an incredible honor and a memento that will be cherished for a lifetime. If you've not had the honor of seeing and touching one of these treasures, it is truly a thing of beauty (imho) and a work of fine engineering. The manufacturer chosen to design and build the device that would carry the Olympic Flame on it's journey across the country was Montreal based Bombardier Inc.maker of aircraft, trains, and famous for their snowmobiles, fitting I guess.

A press release from the company yesterday says, among other things, "In collaboration with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), Bombardier engineers and industrial designers spent more than two years designing and testing the 2010 Olympic Torch. A fuel blend of propane and isobutane allows the torch to burn in colder temperatures than any other torch in Olympic history. A vent in the side of the torch allows the Olympic Flame to unfurl like a flag."  

If you feel the need to see the guts of the torch check out this link:  www.bombardier.com/files/en/supporting_docs/BI-Bombardier-torch.pdf/en/supporting_docs/BI-Bombardier-torch.pdf

Blazing The Trails - Olympic Sites Brought To You Via Street View

I was excited enough today to find that Charlottetown, my home city, had been released on Street View. I knew it was coming as I had viewed their vehicle on several occasions this summer. Then a friend and blog reader sent me a link about Google using snowmobiles and Street View cameras to capture the ski hills and other mountain vistas being used for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics! What a perfect story in keeping with the sports theme that has taken over the blog this week. It was one of those "of course" moments that I had when I saw the video below, why not strap the camera gear to a snowmobile or quad bike and take off down country trails or off into the back country? I'm sure many of you, as do I, would love to stroll down a country trail or scout out a ski hill prior to that March Break trip! Way to go Google! Thanks for the post idea Chris!

 

2010 Superbowl Google Searches

The Official Google Blog has posted a list of the most searched terms surrounding the 2010 Superbowl. It seems the most searched team was the New Orleans Saints, the unlikely winner of the Superbowl. "Peyton Manning earned the status of the Super Bowl's most searched-for player" while Reggie Bush's girlfriend Kim Kardashian was also a hot search. When it came to Superbowl parties "Some top rising recipe searches on game day included buffalo chicken dip, guacamole, 7-layer dip and pigs in a blanket."

The interesting thing for me about these stats is that the guys that I was watching the game with had similar questions, which we googled using our smartphones through out the game, and I guess added to these numbers.

Check out the entire list at the Official Google Blog. 

Seems like we've got a sports theme going on this week, timely perhaps with the Vancouver Olympics starting at weeks end.

Secret Science Equals Gold Medals?

With the 2010 Winter Olympics about to get underway in Vancouver, the Canadian government is hoping that money poured into it's "Own The Podium" program equates to  Olympic medals. One of the pieces of science that particularly interests me is research being conducted on the curling ice where researchers are using infrared and other technical methods of studying the effect of sweeping on a curling stone. The theory was always that the sweeping action actually melted the ice slightly giving the desired affect on the curling stone as it travels down the sheet of ice. Professor Tom Jenkin, University of Western Ontario, has dispelled this theory and has come up with dozens of other discoveries to assist the Canadian teams in their quest for gold.

Source: CBC

 

The Most Important Suit You'll Never Wear?

I've heard about these, they were all the rage after 9/11, but unless you work above the 75th floor you're SOL. It's the silicone-coated Apache wingsuit and UC-3 BASE jumping rig. I have the feeling that they look a lot cooler when you are soaring through the air with the wind beneath your wings. Still when I saw this shot from Wired I thought it worth posting... who hasn't dreamed about soaring through the sky of Metropolis like Superman? 

 

Credit: Wired

Sun CEO Tweets Resignation

Jonathan Schwartz is now the former CEO of Sun Microsystems after he tweeted “Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more,” This after the company was acquired by Oracle and Oracle’s chief executive, Larry Ellison, publicly saying that he hoped that Schwartz would resign rather than play any role in the combined company. Schwartz was the first fortune 200 CEO to blog and is apparently the first to resign via Twitter.

As for his future Schwartz reportedly said “In the short run, I’m planning to spend some long overdue time with my family. Longer run, with a few million businesses and a few billion consumers on the Web, rumor has it there are some interesting opportunities to be had.”

I'll bet he's right!

Source: The New York Times Bits Blog