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Archive for the 'The Planet' Category
Internet: Lights go out on two fiber backbones
A reminder on how dependent we already are on global communication networks and how quickly these can fall apart has again been provided yesterday afternoon.
Close to the Egyptian harbor of Alexandria, ships that could not enter the harbor due to weather conditions have stripped apart underwater fiber network cables for Internet and telephone communications with their anchors. The damaged cables are part of the “SEA-ME-WE 4″ fiber backbones reaching from Europe to Asia and into Africa. As a result from these damages Internet connectivity in Egypt has dropped to about 30% of the normal bandwidth and also Arabian countries as well as India have reported substantial impairments within data traffic to and from these countries…
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Space travel: Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShipTwo
Today Richard Branson’s space travel company “Virgin Galactic” has unveiled the design of its new space launch system.
Together with the new SpaceShipTwo the carrier aircraft called White Knight Two (WK2) was presented. Virgin Galactic says that WK2 is very close to completion and is expected to begin flight testing in the summer of 2008.
The carrier aircraft WK2 will get SpaceShipTwo up into the sky to about 60,000 feet (18,288 meters) where the two vessel then separate and SpaceShipTwo rockets into outer space.
For an expected ticket price of USD 200,000 six passengers and two crew members will then get about 4 1/2 minutes of zero-gravity time 68 miles (110 km) above us mere mortals before gliding back to Earth…
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Data visualization: Leading surveillance societies around the world
Since 1997 two NGOs - the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International - have surveyed and assessed the state of surveillance and privacy protection in 47 countries. The annual Privacy & Human Rights Report compiled from their findings has by now become one of the most comprehensive surveys of global privacy and citizen rights.
Their “most recent report” published a few days ago has been created with the help of more than 200 experts from around the world and has grown to 1,100 pages. It shows trends of
“…an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance of privacy safeguards…“, and
“…an increasing trend amongst governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion…
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Earthrace - the last run on its 2007 record attempt (Part 2)
Earlier this year - in May - we had a chance to participate for a few days on the attempt of “Earthrace” to break the UIM world record for circumnavigation with their bio-diesel boat.
(this post a continuation of the post Earthrace - the last run on its 2007 record attempt (Part 1) )
We have (together with another company) sponsored their last leg on their attempt to break the world record during 2007. On their “web site” there is now information that their second run to break the record will commence in March 2008 from Valencia, Spain. Good luck with that…
While a lot could be said about the 4-5 days leg from Port Suez to Valencia we participated - one thing’s for sure - it was quite an experience.
We have not taken many images after heading out into the Mediterranean, but some of the pictures from the Suez Canal came out quite well…
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Images of the week: Trees around the world
This post starts a weekly series where we will select images on different subjects from various sources on the web. This week we’re a bit short on time so we just browsed our image archives…
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Cartoon: So the UN was right about Global Warming…
Great cartoon by “Jack Ohman” at Washington Post’s “Slate magazine”…
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Data visualization: Supercities of the 21st century
Have a look at the 19.20.21 (19 cities in the world with 20 million people in the 21st century) web site.
It introduces a study on key aspects of the phenomenon of supercities. The project is managed by Richard Wurman who is also the author of one of the most stylish fact-books called “Understanding USA“. Already included are a few pages on the development of the world’s largest cities from 1000 to 2005…
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OLPC: Give One Get One
MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte’s “OLPC program” has started delivering the long awaited One Laptop Per Child computers in the US and Canada.
We have recently seen how greatly these small computers were received by children in Africa and how cleverly features have been designed into it. They create mash networks between them automatically so that children can communicate with each other, can change from color to B&W so that the display is still readable outside in bright sunlight and you can - a key feature in many countries for which this computer is intended - recharge its batteries without electricity from the grid. But most importantly we’ve seen the joy and fun the children had while using the XO laptops.
So this month until November 26, OLPC is offering a “Give One Get One program” in the United States and Canada. And it works like this…
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Time: Melting and collapsing iceberg videos
While watching calving icebergs or glaciers always has been kind of spectacular for most people, these days with continuously shrinking polar ice caps something might be different.
Watch the videos to see how even a “small piece” or iceberg collapsing can cause gigantic waves or a tsunami…
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Data Visualization: 3-D Map of Air Pollution in London
If you live in London air pollution is your daily companion. While it is believed that new measures like the Congestion charge have brought improvements to air quality in central London pollution remains a hot topic in the UK’s capital.
The 3D pollution maps were created by overlaying 3D models for London with pollution data and predictions. Data from the London’s air pollution sensors network together with pollution predictions from
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