I know this doesn't relate to technology at first but once you kind of get into it, it does have a hint of technology. First it's an automated website where you sign up either as a blogger or advertiser and once your blog is accepted or your advertising account is approved you will be able to take offers from there. They are a creative bunch, whoever run this site because of the way it is set up. It is unlike most paid to post websites, as there aren't many places to go which means they are concentrating on getting advertisers to bloggers and they also make posting as clear as day. The biggest added benefit is the payment process. Within 7 days of writing your blog post, the post will either get approved or rejected and if approved, your payment will arrive via one of the internet's most successful payment processors, PayPal in a matter of weeks. I do recommend Smorty over alot of other paid to post websites because they are a growing website that will make big things in the future.Get paid for blogging at Smorty.
Microsoft is yet again trying to expand and this time they are mostly competing with Google. Specifically they are rolling out a version of Google Docs called Microsoft Office Live Workspace that is currently in public beta. I have signed up but it hasn't accepted any members yet.
Youtube has long been the king of online video sharing which is why Google bought it this year but that's becauase most of the other video sharing sites have never gotten enough publicity. There are 8 different sites that are competing with Youtube and most of them have been rated better when it comes to performance, features, and specifications. Blip.tv was the best because the audio quality is great and the video is pretty good, but much better than Youtube. The reason why this site has such good video quality is that it lets users upload the original high-quality file as well as Divx Stage 6. Youtube uses the old Flash 7. Many of these sites that I will tell you about share the revenue of the advertising to it's uploaders and people who link videos to there blogs. Check out Rocket Boom news. It adds spice and comdey to the news. Blip.tv also allows you to download videos on the site for ideal playback on an iPod or cellphone. This is not a huge site yet, as in it doesn't get much viewers so stick to Youtube if you want to get a huge audience for now.
Blip.tv, Brightcove, Metacafe, Revver, and Veoh will all split advertising revenue with you right down the middle. Youtube does none of these. Revver has an extra feature that will make non-video uploaders smile. They let you earn 20% of the revenue from videos you've decided to share on the Revver page or your blog/website. The remaining 80% is split between Revver and the uploader.
Wi-Fi is in the future for an American airliner called Alaska Airlines. Honestly it's the least expected airline to be associated with a term like Wi-Fi. But they are and are planning to use Westlake Village's technology on one of it's Boeing 737 jet this spring. If the experiment works, and we all hope it does, they will put it on the rest of there 114 aircraft. Obviously you know what WiFi is but how will it work on a fast moving jet? There will be a dome-shaped objecet on top of the plane will house a powerful antenna that will receive and transmit satellite signals. Currently they are looking over different price ranges and I'm scared to think about the cost considering that a cookie costs over $2 on a flight. There is a general guideline though. A year ago, Boeing pulled it's program after not enough carriers would sign on. Connexion was planned to cost $10 an hour or $27 for 24 hours with a satellite connection. Started in 2000, prices should be a little bit cheaper because as technology gets more used it gets cheaper. But then 9/11 happened and that made everything more expenisve. Hopefully this new Wi-Fi service will lift off the ground on top of each aircraft.
Developed and tested by Seimens AG, is polymer optical fiber cable. It has been used to transmit data at a speed of about 1 gigabit per second compared to the average 1-8megabits per second in North America. Even though glass optical fiber is able to transmit at higher speeds, it is much thicker, easier to break, and can only be cut cleanly with a diamond blade. Polymer optical fiber however can be cut with a razpr blade, is 1mm thick, and doesn't break easily. Details aren't clear about the projected cost and when it would be released but my guess and many others would say the costs are high and the release date will be in a year. But's it's only a guess and not a well thought out one. Look out for the new technology to start hitting the airwaves sometime soon though.
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Kitchen/ Dining Room
The kitchen will be a marvelous thing once
you own a smart house. I think the most exciting thing is the storage system. There will be no cupboards at all, except for your fridge, all your food related products you bought will be in a separate storage space. Once your computer knows what you eat everyday, it'll bring out that product with everything else you need to prepare it. For a teenager, they usually eat cereal, so once the computer learns that in less than a week, it will bring up the cereal to the special area where it brings the products up. If the computer gets it wrong you just push it back and ask for something else.
The computer tracks all your items with tags. These tags will be able to let computers know the price and what it is. No more cashiers, but that means your shopping experience is much faster. When you get home and load it in your fridge or send it to your storage space, the computers wil be able to recognize each and every one. This comes in handy when you're at the store and you forget how many eggs or milk you have. All you do is call or text your computer and ask. Your answer comes back instantly. Another great thing about this system is that when you are ready to prepare a meal, bring out some of the items and the counter will be able to suggest some meals. Select one and it will give you the instructions. The dining room will be capable of changing the design of the tabletop which can also be applied to any other table. The example that Microsoft used is for a children's party. There can be planes and they will be able to fly them around the table. The same technology is used for the Microsoft Surface. There is a promotional video at Youtube. This technology is right now only going to be sold to companies for there own use. By the time smart houses are common, the technology will be cheap enough to incorporate throughout the house. The drawback to this system is that it is designed my Microsoft, but hopefully they will make it compatible with other parts like the fridge, counter, and storage centre. If not, competition and the court will take care of that.
Bedroom
Microsoft has developed technology that will be able to display images along the walls of rooms. This technology was made for bedrooms, but mostly for children who like changes often, and the images depicted on the walls can be changed with the touch of a button. In the bedroom, as the computer learns your usual wakeup time, it will start opening the curtains at a certain time to let in the light acting as a natural alarm clock. While you are sleeping in the bedroom, the computer will check out vital stats of your health much like the system used in The Island except there will be no need for urine samples and you won't be cloned. Great movie if you're interested.
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Living/Family Room
In the future a family room which contains a 30-46inch TV nowadays, will soon have an extremely large TV that is integrated within the wall of one side of the family room, interchangeable at any time. Speakers will be all over the room so you'll always have a theatre experience at home. You'll have a remote that 
can do everything like change the lighting to preset degrees as well as control all the electronics such as the TV, DVD player, and speakers. This remote will be used to adjust any other electronics within the house and will change the different options on the remote to whichever room you're currently in. To make changing the volume of the TV in the family room, say in the kitchen, you'd be able to change to the remote buttons to a different room. The remote changes rooms automatically just to simplify things. I mention this remote in this section because most of us would keep this remote in one of these two rooms as it is a room shared by the whole family.
Office
We have a room in our house that has a computer and whatnot and acts as an office at 
home. I believe most other people have a room like this. Now what I've discovered is that many different companies have different views on what the computer will be in the future. Some say that it definitly won't look like a computer we see today. Some say it will be integrated into walls or part of something, in other words being disguised. I personally am not looking forward to that as I am completely in love with the modern day computer except for the security issues and the speed. If the future can solve those two then there is no point in scraping the beautiful laptop.
Smart houses are the future of where we live and how we live. They will change our work habits and make our lives easier while in the background making it more complicated as the computer did. Smart houses as we refer to them now, will not only be single family homes that we regularly see in the suburbs but that same technology we associate with smart houses will also be in smaller homes like townhouses and condominiums. We are already seeing it take shape right now as companies are testing them with families.
We as human beings, feel it is on our future to move in with technology and make it one with us. Therefore converting the places we live into a piece of technology rather than brick and wood is the perfect way to do it. That being said, let's take look at the different parts of the typical
General
At birth from a time in the future, parents will have the opportunity to implant a chip within their childs' forearms for a small fee yet to be determined. Parents and other adults who didn't have this opportunity at birth will be able to buy this technology as well with people already using it today. What this chip does is: lets other electronics, like computers and smart house computers, know your there and it will be able to track your movements and anything that needs to be done. It is really useful because it replaces keys, brain space for passwords and usernames, and critical certificates like passports and ID. As I mentioned before, the whole house acts like a human, equipped with a brain (computer) and nervous system (appliances and electronics). As the computer gets used to what you do everyday, like brew coffee at 6am and take a bath at 9pm every weekday, it remembers it and stores it as your daily routine. This makes your day faster because it starts to brew coffee before you get there and draws your bath just as you arrive home. You ask, what if traffic is slow? The computer will be working online so it will be able to monitor this and act accordingly. This is all scary to people because computers will have more control and smart house viruses will become a huge threat. All Smart Houses will come equipped with backup power just in case of a major storm or brownout.
Bathroom
Panasonics parent company has developed a toilet that has the industry's lowest water and electricity usage per flush and it requires no tank and no cleaning for 3 months making it the 
most eco-friendly toilet in the world. (Only available in Japan) It is a glimpse into what we will be seeing in the smart houses in the next decade. In the next century there will be no need for toilet as "it" all evaporates (just wishing). On a cleaner note, a company has developed a multi-colour grout that can be used in tile joints between 1-5mm where the ultra-white is used for indoor bathrooms with tile joints between 1-3mm. This grout will be able to eliminate bacteria growth, mould, and mildew for a lifetime.How about those times when you're shaving or doing your hair, and you want to see the sports highlights or a cooking show? Well, somebody has invented and produced a mirror that can act as a high quality LCD TV. Press the Power button on the remote and the TV comes to life, replacing the mirror image. Turn it off, and the mirror returns to its normal classy self. Obviously this mirror is not just for the bathroom, but it is designed to withstand the heat, wetness, and sweaty conditions of a bathroom. The crazy thing I find with this system is that it comes with hidden speakers behind the mirror! Next is dedicated music for when you're in the shower. Since it's all wirelessly connected, all you need is speakers in your shower or anywhere else and you can access your music anywhere there are speakers, not just in the bathroom. For bathroom speakers though, specially coated speakers will be used so humidity and the steam of the bathroom will not effect its system.
Ever wanted to know how it felt to live, sleep, and play underwater? We'll new hotels across the world are planning to open underwater. Places like, Fiji, Florida, Shanghai, Ontario, Macau (the new capital for gambling), and Dubai. The first one to come and probably the most publicized about is the Poseidon Undersea Resort on the edge of a South Pacific Coral cliff in Fiji which is scheduled to open in 2009. The resort was originally planned to open in the Bahamas but because of demand and cost issues, was shifted to Fiji. How does this all relate to technology? Well technology is a part of these projects including the pressurized cabins needed to sustain life, as well as the air cleansing technologies needed to make sure the air is up to par with that of the air on land.
Many believe that space is the next frontier and I was one of them too, until I learned about underwater hotels and condos. I changed my mind because the next step to moon colonies is underwater colonies. Humans can't breate in space and underwater without the aid of technology, but lakes, oceans, and seas are closer testing ground to where we live.
The Poseidon Undersea Resort will be built on land and then transported to Fiji and placed in a deep lagoon. 12 metres below the surface will be 24 hotel suites and apartments with sizes of around 170 square feet each. These don't come cheap with prices rumoured to be $15 000 per person per week but luckily the building has an elevator going to the surface so you don't have to get your feet wet plus a fleet of submarines.
An Australian scientest has already made a 'hotel' and submerged it in a gravel pit with the backing of Australian Geographic. It was the worlds first self-sufficient, self-sustaining underwater habitat. To produce electricity he used solar sensors on the surface plus a stationary bike. Electricity was needed for lights, a computer, and a phone. The amazing this was, was that the air he breathed was purified and recycled by algae soaked in his own urine. Basically, the algae took in the carbon dioxide and released oxygen. He did at first need scuba air tanks to supplement his air supply.To learn more about the hotel go to Poseidon Undersea Resort.
Now some Apple followers might not even know about this product yet but I'm guessing most of you do so in essence I'm just covering a mundane topic no one is interested in except me. I just heard about this new product and supposed new category of product. I am not an Apple supporter, especially the iPod, but Apples new wave of products including the iPhone and this, the iPod Touch have got me thinking about purchasing one. When looking for the iPod Touch it was hard to know which picture was correct as I had never seen it so, I had to go to the source, the Apple Store.
The Apple iPod Touch looks much like an Apple iPhone plus the new earbuds. It comes in 8GB and 16GB each priced at $329 and $449 respectively. Both of them ship by September 28 2007 and both come equipped with the same things except the hard drive space. This includes: a 3.5inch widescreen multi-touch display(which I will touch on later in the article), Wi-Fi, Safari, YouTube, WiFi Music Store, and with an 8mm thin casing. The WiFi Music Store is Apple's new music store to support the Apple iPod Touch. As well that music store will be able to work with the Apple iPhone by letting owners of the supposed revolutionary phone create there own ringtones using songs bought from the store, although there is one catch. The songs cost an extra 99 cents for the service.
The multi-touch screen is an exact replica of the iPhone multi-touch screen. I learned so many new features of the screen when looking at the iPod Touch Guided Tour such as "pinching" which lets you resize an image and when you rotate the Touch, the screen rotates too. As well it lets you glide through album covers and tap the one of your choosing. It does all this by recognizing your finger movements using electrical fields on the screen.
Spiral Frog is the weirdest name I've heard of for a site like this. It is a downloading site for music and videos but the catch is you have to download a spyware-free download manager. It's a totally free site that is supported by ads like banners unlike some sites where they make you see the ad and give you the option to skip. This site just has the banners. I just downloaded a song and it took under 30 seconds for me to download and I have a regular connection for North Americans. They only offer released albums so the problem is you can't buy songs on a CD that is months away from being released but I'd rather do it the legal way than the illegal way with the cost of waiting a little bit. Now people who will seek this type of service will want to know that because they are doing this, the artists and labels are getting paid which is exactly what happens. All this site requires is your time, hint, little details like postal/zip code, country, email, gender, but no address or credit card. Membership lasts 30 days and then you have to renew it by re-entering your email, password and a verification code.
I learned from CutEdge about more technical things like who Spiral Frog pays to which is EMI and Universal and the files are encoded at 128kbps which is on par with iTunes. The songs are in .wma format which will play on most mp3 players namely not the iPod. An important thing I found out is the DRM. The DRM expires after 60 sixty days only if you haven't renewed your membership after that time and it only allows you to download the file once and put it on two digital audio playe