Wired @ Home

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.

Ever wonder why your network is slow? Well, could somebody else be using it and not telling you? Well if so or if not, then I have a tip and/or trick to help you figure that question out. Ethereal will help you find out who is using your network that you are paying for.

I have to give credit to Apple for doing so much in so little time. As my previous post mentioned, Apple has just introduced a new line of iPod products. The Nano, Classic, and Touch all along with the Shuffle and iPhone. Now they've decided to revamp there all-in-one desktop called the iMac. It now has an even sleeker design with a newly redesigned keyboard that comes equipped with two USB 2.0 ports; one on each side at the rear. The problem with this is that most USB drives will mess up the balance of the keyboard since it is so low. Some of the improvements are a better screen quality which is thinner and all around nice. I learned also that the quality of the package is better using anodized aluminum chassis instead of the old polycarbonate plastic.

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.

Apple has not only introduced a new category into the digital device market but it also has revamped its line-up of products. The iPod Nano is now in my opinion, an ugly looking player. I'd easily rather buy a Creative Zen V. As well, the iPod Video has become the iPod classic and has retained most of its shape but has added an 80GB version and a whopping 160GB version and to make things better, they slashed there prices. A little touch they added is you can now laser engrave your iPod to make it more personal.

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.

Sorry for no new articles in the past couple weeks but I've been on the go and fritz in England and France so I haven't had much time to write about articles. I saw the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and some local sites. Now enough about me, it's now about you. I too am looking for an unlocked phone as I can get a middle of the pack price and a great phone I never would have considered with Pay As You Go. I am currently looking at 5 websites. First off is:
Overstock - This website is American but has great shipping rates and has mediocre deals on phones. They aren't a full cell phone website, they do have other products including furniture. I probably won't be buying any phone from here because there prices are more on the expensive side compared to my other two recommendations
Cellular Blowout - This is another American website and it has much better prices and slightly better phones but I'd rate the quality and integrity of the website below Overstock. They do have better descriptions of the phones they sell which is a great plus to me. There selection is a little bit lacking although I can't complain.
PureMobile- This website is Canadian and this one is my favourite because they have tons of amazing phones at great prices. The problem though is that they show phones that haven't been released and some of those unreleased phones are actually released and are shown on the website. As well they show many versions of each phone for particular phones like the Motorola L7. They do have the Apple iPhone for Canadian buyers at a measly price of $1 149.00.
Kijiji CA, Kijiji US, & Craigslist - All these sites are like ebay but local. They are great in my opinion but my own beef with it is the warranty issue. I can never be sure whether the product is going to be reliable. These websites replace eBay's customer complaint with you going over to the persons house and demanding your money back as all dealings are local.
My personal opinion is I want to buy from the online marketplaces but I'm too worried about the phone breaking down even though I can get a better phone for the price. So my other choices in Cellular Blowout with a RIZR or L7 for $130 and $180 respectively. I will update this article by September 13th on what I chose if anything.

Have you ever wanted to create your own furniture? Well I have, especially chairs and this is where a Swedish company comes in. They have created a pen coupled with cameras to sense where you move the pen, track it, and use this information to create the structure you drew in the air. After I saw the creations it turned me off but it was mainly because it was ugly white and the pen draws the lines in a cylinder form. On the other hand the technology was a great demonstration of what kind of technology we have. My dream machine would convert AutoCad drawings, namely buildings, into a 3-D model which could use the same type of technology. The pen is not commercially available yet so don`start saving those pennies.

Basically what the system does is it converts the sketches into 3D digital files with the root of that information coming from the cameras. These 3D files can be easily used by the machine to then create a protype of your project. There is a laser beam on top of the prototyping machine that molds the plastic 0.1mm at a time. This whole process takes around a day.