If you have an envious streak, you probably shouldn't read this.
Because chances are, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old student from a small town in England, is cleverer than you. And he is proving it by earning a cool million dollars in four months on the Internet.
Selling porn? Dealing prescription drugs? Nope. All he sells are pixels, the tiny dots on the screen that appear when you call up his home page.
He had the brainstorm for his million dollar home page, called, logically enough, www.milliondollarhomepage.com, while lying in bed thinking out how he would pay for university.
The idea: turn his home page into a billboard made up of a million dots, and sell them for a dollar a dot to anyone who wants to put up their logo. A 10 by 10 dot square, roughly the size of a letter of type, costs $100.
He sold a few to his brothers and some friends, and when he had made $1,000, he issued a press release.
Look For The Latest & Greatest Gadgets At 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show
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While most people are still sleeping off the effects of their New Year's Eve debauchery, more than 130,000 industry gearheads and 2,500 hopeful exhibitors will flock to Sin City for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. CES is a buzz-filled mecca, where the latest and greatest electronic wares are hyped by small startups and global conglomerates alike.
The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off in Las Vegas on January 5, and this time it's all about high-definition, portable video, home networking, and fun.
How I wish I can attend this highly anticipated show. It is so amazing. I expect great announcements during this exhibition so watch out and stay tuned ;)
Joe Hynek, 27, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at Iowa State University, designed the Solarjo Power Purse during a handbag competition in an experimental garment design class. The purse is designed to power any small device that uses a USB port, including cell phones, personal digital assistants, iPods, global positioning devices, voice recorders and small cameras.
There's extra padding in the purse for protection and a zipper for security.
Mark Bryden, a mechanical engineering professor at Iowa State, predicts the idea could bloom into other sorts of wearable items. Already, there are backpacks that convert solar energy into battery power.
Hynek wants to eventually market the purse to environmentally conscious consumers. Although materials can be costly, Hynek hopes to keep the retail price under $300.
"I don't want to make it so that it's an elitist kind of item," he said.
NASA Astronomers Spot Rare Lunar Meteor Strike
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November 7, 2005, Astronomers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., have recorded a small but powerful meteoroid strike in the night on the moon’s surface.
On Earth, the atmosphere vaporizes most small meteoroids, leaving nothing behind but a brief streak of light. The vacuum environment on the moon, however, means there is nothing to slow incoming meteoroids before they strike.
Based on the amount of light produced the object was roughly five inches (12cm) in diameter, traveling more than 60,000 mph (27 km/s), and may have gouged a crater nearly 10 feet in diameter out of the moon's surface.
So do we really see how grateful we should be for living in such a planet with an atmosphere that acts like a shield against high speed destructive meteors? I don't think we realize this fact as we should be.
Saudi Telecom Stops Text Vote For Arab Talent Show (Star Academy)
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Saudi mobile operator Mobily has stopped users from text message voting for an Arab "Star Academy" competition because of an Islamic decree branding the reality show immoral, the company said today.
Saudi religious scholars last May condemned the hugely popular talent show aired by Lebanese channel LBC as a crime against Islam when a young Saudi returned to a hero's welcome after winning in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
"The decision was taken last night because of a fatwa (religious decree) issued last year, since the program is culturally inappropriate," spokesman Humoud Alghodaini said.
"It shows men and women living in one house, sometimes semi-naked and in inappropriate situations," he added.
My God ... Am I glade to hear such good news! Finally somebody has the guts to stop this non sense. I hope all other telecommunication companies in Muslim world will follow the footsteps of the Saudi Telecom.
PC World 50 Greatest Gadgets Of The Past 50 Years
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"In honor of this raging gizmo infatuation, we polled our editors and asked them to name the top 50 gadgets of the last 50 years. The rules? The devices had to be relatively small (no cars or big-screen TVs, for example), and we considered only those items whose digital descendants are covered in PC World (cameras, yes; blenders, no). We rated each gadget on its usefulness, design, degree of innovation, and influence on subsequent gadgets, as well as the ineffable quality we called the "cool factor." Then we tallied the results.", said Dan Tynan in his article (The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years) in PC World.
Get ready for a minute with 61 seconds. Scientists are delaying the start of 2006 by the first "leap second" in seven years, a timing tweak meant to make up for changes in the Earth's rotation.
The adjustment will be carried out by sticking an extra second into atomic clocks worldwide at the stroke of midnight Coordinated Universal Time, the widely adopted international standard, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology said this week.
Coordinated Universal Time coincides with winter time in London. On the U.S. East Coast, the extra second occurs just before 7 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Atomic clocks at that moment will read 23:59:60 before rolling over to all zeros.
A leap second is added to keep uniform timekeeping within 0.9 second of the Earth's rotational time, which can speed up or slow down because of many factors, including ocean tides. The first leap second was added on June 30, 1972, according to NIST, an arm of the U.S. Commerce Department.
I thought I lost this picture forever. This was the first picture I took with my old Kodak camera back in 1995. It is a picture of Abu Dhabi corniche. I took this picture for the purpose of taking it to the United States to scan it (in my university computer lab) and add it to my newly created web site (UAE Forever). Back then, I did not have a PC in UAE and internet was unknown that part of the world. As you can see, it is not a good picture at all but it was my first try in adding pictures of the UAE to the net. Back in those days there were not many sites or pictures about the UAE. The picture was part of the process of creating a site talking about the UAE and showing the world some interesting information about the country.
I was recently surprised to see that there are some people still actually displaying this picture in their web pages :) This picture brings back some memories ... I just thought it is interesting to have this picture displayed back in my site.
Hubble Space Telescope Shows Two New Moons For Planet Uranus
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click above for a larger image
New images from the Hubble Space Telescope show the planet Uranus has two additional moons and two faint rings never observed before.
The new moons, which were named Mab and Cupid, bring the total number of satellites orbiting Uranus to 27.
New orbital data on two moons of Uranus and two rings suggest the seventh planet may be a more chaotic place than thought.
The two new moons were discovered in 2003 using the Hubble Space Telescope and archived images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Since then, the moons' discoverers, Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute and Jack Lissauer of NASA Ames Research Center, both in California, US, have refined the orbits of the moons and spotted two previously undetected dust rings.
“To me, the exciting part of this discovery is the fact that there were these faint outer rings that previously escaped detection,” says Richard French, an astronomer at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, US, who studies the dynamics of planetary rings.
The finds bring the number of Uranian moons to 27 and the rings to 12. Cupid orbits a mere 863 kilometres from a larger moon, Belinda, making them the solar system’s closest pair of orbiting satellites that do not share the same orbit.
Boeing displayed its vision of the future of air warfare Tuesday December 20th, a batlike model of a small fighter craft that exudes silent menace. The military already is using unmanned aircraft to deadly effect. An unmanned Predator, made by General Atomics.
Boeing originally built two smaller concept models, the X-45As, which passed flight tests and successfully bombed targets. On display Tuesday was a plastic mock-up of the X-45C, a larger model under construction in St. Louis.
Where the Predator is slow and low-flying, a relatively easy target from the ground, the new Boeing jet has the speed and altitude of a manned fighter plane, albeit with greater range.
Flying at Mach 0.8 at an altitude of 40,000 feet, the X-45 will have a range of up to 1,500 miles, compared with about 600 miles for a Boeing-built F-18 manned fighter jet.
The Boeing X-45X incorporates stealth technology and controlled via satellite communications. It employs precision-guided weapons using two internal weapons bays and can independently perform all maneuvers, bay door operations and weapon-away release sequences under human supervision.
I was blown away when I first saw this picture! Can it really be true? Topeless sandals? Looks like the dream came true ... I don't know how efficient it is but I think it worth a try. The price is $12.00 per pair. Click here to see how they work.
Seagate To Buy Maxtor For $1.9 Billion In Stock
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Seagate Technology said today it would buy rival computer disk-drive maker Maxtor Corp. for $1.9 billion in stock, aiming to cut combined costs and drive development of new products.
Seagate's Chief Financial Officer Charles Pope said on a conference call that the deal would not close until the last half of 2006, given that it may take some time for an antitrust review with regulators.
"Even after this combination there will be significant competitors out there with very large resources -- both financial and technical resources," he said.
Seagate shareholders will own about 84 percent and Maxtor shareholders about 16 percent of the new combined company.
The Inventor of the WWW Is Finally Blogging!
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"I am going to try this blog thing using blog tools. So this is for all the people who have been saying I ought to have a blog.", said Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web!
Tim did not expect his first blog to be overwhelmed with 455 comments in only one week period. He then decided to turn the comments off on his first blog. He then added:
"I can't answer them all, but I would point out one thing. I just played my part. I built on the work of others -- the Internet, invented 20 years before the web, by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn and colleagues, for example, and hypertext, a word coined by Ted Nelson for an idea of links which was already implemented in many non-networked systems. I just put these technologies together. And then, it all took off because of this amazing community of enthusiasts, who have done such incredible things with the technology, and are still advancing it in so many ways."
In his first blog, Tim said: "In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights ... Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space".
The first Web site Berners-Lee built (and therefore the first Web site) was at http://info.cern.ch/ (which has been archived) and was first put online on August 6, 1991. It provided an explanation about what the World Wide Web was, how one could own a browser, how to set up a Web server, and so on. It was also the world's first Web directory, since Berners-Lee maintained a list of other Web sites apart from his own.
Google Pays $1 Billion For 5 Percent Stake In AOL
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Today, Google Inc. and America Online Inc. expanded their search and advertising alliance to include video and instant messaging, shutting out Microsoft Corp., which had fought hard for a deal with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit.
America Online said Google had agreed to invest $1 billion to take a 5 percent stake in AOL, as part of an enhanced pact where Google will move beyond text-based advertising to allow AOL to sell graphical ads to Google's fast-growing ad network.
Shares of Google edged lower in after-hours trade on the Nasdaq Tuesday after closing at $429.74. Time Warner shares edged higher after the bell after closing over 1 percent higher at $17.74 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Japanese Government Looks To Develop Own Search Engine
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This week, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry will kick off a study group consisting of about 20 Japanese electronics companies and universities on Internet search engines, according to AP. The group will hold the first meeting Friday and plans to put together an interim report by March and a final report by July.
Japan's government is asking both the business and education/research sectors if the country should develop its own search engine technology and a service that's "unique to Japan" to compete with AJ Japan, Google Japan, Yahoo Japan, and others.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., NTT Corp. and Tokyo University are among the participants, according to Fumihiro Kajikawa, a ministry official in charge of information policies. Electronics makers Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC will also join.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported Monday that the government plans to spend several billions of yen (tens of millions of dollars and euros) for this three-to-five year project regarding the development of a search engine beginning in fiscal 2007.
Michelin Reinvents The Wheel With Tweel: The Tire That Never Needs Air
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January 9th, 2005, Michelin showcased a potential future for mobility, an integrated tire and wheel combination missing one ingredient that is vital for traditional tire performance...air. The company unveiled the first real-world fitments for its revolutionary "Tweel" – which operates entirely without air.
Michelin's Tweel is a wheel with shock-absorbing rubber tread band that distributes pressure to dozens of flexible polyurethane spokes. The spokes in turn are supported by an aluminum center. Because the Tweel is airless, it is more rugged than a pneumatic tire and never goes flat. The Tweel has been tested on the IBOT robotic wheelchair and military vehicles. Tweel won't be available for cars until 2020! Michelin says it is still too noisy for automotive applications.
Sling Media's Slingbox: Watch & Control Your TV Anywhere
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What if you were able to watch live television wherever you go? Now what if you were told that you could do that without having to lug a television, a cable box, a satellite dish, or a subscription along with you? In fact, you don’t need anything besides your laptop (which is attached to your hip already).
That’s because back home, you have a Slingbox sitting on top of your television. The simple silver device looks suspiciously like a gigantic chocolate bar, but the technology inside is truly sweet. This gadget is a breakthrough device that enables you to watch and control your living room television programming from anywhere by turning any Internet-connected laptop or PC into a personal television.
I have noticed this new gadget before but never paid attention to it. Thanks to Marwan from Marwan.com, he brought this back to my attention when he asked me if this technology can be used in the United Arab Emirates. You know what? I really don't know ... I'm worried that it is going to be affected by UAE proxy.
New 1TB Iomega Desktop Hard Drive XL Series
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Iomega International S.A has introduced the Iomega Desktop Hard Drive Tera Series, a compact four-drive enclosure with 1 terabyte (TB) of capacity.
Designed for creative services professionals and others who require fast access to data, the Iomega 1TB drive delivers high capacity with a complete backup and disaster recovery solution.
The new Iomega Tera Series connects to the host PC through FireWire 800 or USB 2.0 (backwards compatible with USB 1.1) and is compatible with FireWire 400 through an adapter which is included in the box.
The unit measures 318mm x 163mm x 203mm (L x W x H), and is designed to take up little space on the desktop.
It comes with four 250GB SATA drives, that can be easily removed and replaced, each running at 7200 RPM with 8MB cache for high performance, configurable as RAID 0 (striped).
The Iomega® Desktop Hard Drive XL Series is now available for $899.95
Swash: A High-Tech Toilet Seat That Provides Unparalleled Comfort and Hygiene!
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What is a Swash? A Swash is a high-tech toilet seat (also known as a seat bidet) that utilizes two retractable water wands to provide a fresh and hygienic cleansing of posterior and feminine areas. A Swash actually replaces your conventional toilet seat. Better than a conventional toilet seat, it has a heated seat and delivers a warm water wash with temperature, pressure, and pulsation adjustability. All functions are easily operated at the push of a button through side-mounted controls (Swash 400) or through a remote control (Swash 600).
"This is the next evolution of the toilet," Scott Pinizzotto said of the Swash, an upscale seat made by his San Francisco startup, Brondell Inc. "We are trying to educate people that there is a more hygienic and comfortable way to go to the bathroom."
The Swash was introduced nearly a year ago. It retails for $429 to $549, yet sales have risen by nearly 50 percent every three months, said Pinizzotto, the company's co-founder and chief executive.
Walletex announced Sunday December 11th the launch of Wallet Flash 1.1, the world's first credit card-sized wallet flash drive (WFD), in the United States. The company also announced the deliveries of Wallet Flash units to its first customers.
It is the gadget of the day according to Stuff Magazine. The capacity options range from 128MB to 2GB. The available option right now is the 128 MB unit for (US $29.00).
Staellium UK has come up with a "self-destruct" text messaging service, that allows for sending a message with the knowledge that the message will delete itself as soon as the recipient has read it.
This "Mission: Impossible" style innovation, dubbed "Stealth Text", promises to delete text within 40 seconds of being read.
"In spring 2006 we will be launching new services such as self-destruct email, voice and picture messages, so ultimately no one will ever have to worry about their messages or pictures ending up in the wrong hands ever again," said Staellium CEO Carole Barnum in a statement.
TextPayMe: Send Money Using Your Cell Phone SMS!
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TextPayMe is a service that allows you to send money using text messaging. You can send a payment simply by entering the amount you want to send and the recipient's cell phone number. The transaction is instantaneous, and it works on any phone. TextPayMe is a fast, easy, and secure way to send money.
Also for a limited time, new users receive $5 upon signup. This service sounds like a very convenient way to send money without the need to login to your PC. I may give it a try .... but I don't owe anybody any money ... :)
Yahoo Launches "Yahoo Answers Beta" To Give Personalized Answers
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In a bid to give it a personal touch, Yahoo Inc. has launched it latest beta service Wednesday December 7th, where users' questions are answered online by other visitors on its site.
Named Yahoo Answers, this service is a value-add to its search engine. Henceforth, viewers can ask questions on any subject on answers.yahoo.com and answers will come via responses of other Yahoo users. This service also lets individuals rate the responses so as to weed out inaccuracies.
I have just tried asking the following question, "What is the fastest upload/download USB Flash Drive?". Forst I was asked to login into my Yahoo account. Then I was asked to add any more details if I wanted to. Then I had to select a category ... in my case: "Consumer Electronics > Other - Electronics" Finally, I got the following instant message:
"Your Question was Posted! You will be notified via email when someone answers your question. Your question will be kept open, accepting answers for 14 days. During the 14 days, please come back and choose the best answer among all the answers posted. Or, you can ask others at Yahoo! Answers to vote on the answers received."
Adidas Reveals +Teamgeist: The Official Matchball Of The 2006 FIFA World Cup
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Yesterday, the ball that will be used at next year's World Cup finals in Germany was unveiled by manufacturers Adidas at the draw ceremony in Leipzig.
The ball will be used for the first time in an Austrian first division match between Red Bull Salzburg and Rapid Vienna on Saturday.
England captain David Beckham, who was given an opportunity to train with the ball with his Real Madrid teammates, said he was very satisfied with it.
"I like the classical design, it is what balls should be like," he said.
This what Adidas has to say about this new ball:
"The +Teamgeist is the Official Matchball of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. It's the most accurate football ever produced. No other ball reacts so flawlessly shot after dribble after pass, in the air and on the ground.
Revolutionary panel shape eliminates surface irregularities to create a perfectly round ball for greater accuracy
Panels are thermally bonded to create a smooth, seamless kicking surface
Complete underglass print significantly decreases wear of colors and design
New carcass retains shape better for improved accuracy and power
PC World has announced its Top 10 Desktop PCs according to their Test Center's variety of rigorous performance tests and tools (Click here). I would strongly recommend that you take a look at this list if you are thinking of buying a Desktop PC. PC World had listed the winner Desktop PCs into 2 categories, Power PC & Value PC:
Today, Google has added virus scanning to Gmail complementing the existing virus protection based on blocking certain types of file attachments.
Now, Gmail will automatically scan all attachments users send and receive. It will attempt to clean or remove viruses from infected attachments so that users can access the attachment's information; otherwise, users will not be able to download the attachment. Gmail will also prevent users from sending messages with infected attachments.
European Spacecraft Finds Water Ice Buried on Mars
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For the first time in the history of planetary exploration, the MARSIS radar on board ESA's Mars Express has provided direct information about the deep subsurface of Mars. First data include buried impact craters, probing of layered deposits at the north pole and hints of the presence of deep underground water-ice.
It is thought the greatest reservoir of retained water on Mars could be found beneath the surface, perhaps providing a habitat for microbial life.
I have talked before about this new service coming soon in a previous post (Windows Live: Web 2.0, Microsoft Style?). Microsoft posted its second public beta of Windows OneCare Live Wednesday November 30th at its Windows Live Ideas Web page. OneCare is an umbrella of PC utilities, backup tools, security components, and tech support options available to Windows users on a subscription basis.
So what is (Windows One Care Live)? According to their website, it is an automatically self-updating PC health service that runs quietly in the background. It helps give you persistent protection against viruses, hackers, and other threats, and helps keep your PC tuned up and your important documents backed up.
WidowPC’s Sting 917X2: World’s First Dual Core Processor Laptop
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WidowPC Gaming Computers announced yesterday the world's first dual core processor laptop. According to Engadget, the new laptop has the following specs: AMD 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (other options are available as well), 17-inch widescreen 1900 x 1200 WUXGA+ SuperBrite LCD, nVidia 7800 GTX graphics card with PCI-Express, up to 2GB of 400 MHz dual channel DDR RAM, dual SATA drives for as much as 240GB of storage, dual optical drive bays for optional dual-layer DVD burners, 7-in-1 memory card reader, optional TV tuner with remote, front panel LCD with media controls, built-in webcam, 2 FireWire ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, serial port, infrared port, parallel port, external keyboard/mouse port, DVI, S-Video in and out, audio in/out, digital audio out, and 802.11a/b/g.
Currently, the dual core laptop is preorder only. The basic price is around ($3447) and can go up to ($5,500).
