Google Plans to Build 1000 Satellite Dishes

Google is asking the FCC for permission to build 4.5 meter satellite dishes on 1000 acres of land next to Google`s data center in Iowa.

The land where the satellite dishes would be built can easily be seen on Google Maps, right beside Google`s $600 million data center.

This would be a huge step for Google since it wants to expand its uber-fast network around the U.S..

The Google fiber isn`t available to many people currently. Hopefully is will spread to all of North America!

The New Reddit-Originated Free Internet Bill (FIA)

A new user-made bill called the Free Internet Bill, has sparked up on Reddit. The bill is designed to protect the Internet. 

A Reddit user who goes by the name of "RoyalWithCheese22" started the whole group. Royal came up with this idea from the recent bills such as SOPA and PIPA which sparked up recently. Royal doesn't consider himself to be a leader of the group even though he is a moderator. 

A quick explanation can be found on the sidebar of the subreddit: 

“To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by preventing the restriction of liberty and preventing the means of censorship. FIA will allow internet users to browse freely without any means of censorship, users have the right to free speech and to free knowledge; we govern the content of the internet, governments don’t. However enforcements/laws must also be put into place to protect copyrighted content.”

Another user on Reddit who's named "Downing_Street_Cat" saw Royal's post and created a subreddit on FIA.

There is no sign if FIA will actually become an actual bill. 

The group has become very popular in a short amount of time. It continues to gain popularity. Make sure to check out FIA and upvote it while you're there!

Get Ready for Angry Birds Space

Angry Birds Space will be released next month. The release is set to happen on March 22.

Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, have recruited NASA and National Geographic as partners of Angry Birds Space. The reason is unknown. The only reason I can think of is they could help out in the design such as the gravity.

This twist of the original game will mainly have new features such as gravity. This will bring a new aspect of the game. I will be sure to try the trial of the game when it's available!

Mass Effect 3 Launches Into Space

This really is no joke. The release of Mass Effect 3 is closing in and BioWare is making it even better by launching copies of Mass Effect 3 into space.

Six copies will be launched into space at six cities including Berlin, Paris, London, New York City, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. The copies will be launched by using a weather balloon. Each copy will have a GPS on it for tracking. They will be shown on the game's website so everyone can see where they end up. The copies will then land back to Earth. Whoever finds them will be able to play Mass Effect 3 before its release on March 6th.

If you don't plan on running to the landing locations you can try the game out with the demo which is available for Xbox, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Samsung's Galaxy Note Ad Sparks Best Super Bowl Ad

Samsung's Note commercial which aired during the Super Bowl has been voted one of the best ads on Twitter.

The advertisement was advertising Samsung's new smartphone, the Galaxy Note, during the Super Bowl. A poll was started on Twitter asking viewers to vote for their favourite ad. The fans voted using the hashtag #VoteForNote which received 13.4% of the votes. The second ad at 12.4% was The Avengers trailer.

Do you think the Galaxy Note was the best commercial during the Super Bowl 2012? There definitely were some great commercials during the Super Bowl. Some other ones would have come pretty close to the Galaxy Note commercial.

Father Shoots Daughter's Laptop Over Facebook

A video has gone viral as a father shoots his daughter's laptop with hollow point rounds.

The daughter of this dad wrote a rebellious post on Facebook complaining about the chores she does and how her life is hard. The daughter attempted to hide her Facebook with security settings but failed. The father was uploading pictures to their dogs Facebook and then found out about the post from there. The dad created a video, reading the post and describing his thoughts on it. In the end he shot his daughter's laptop with a .45 pistol with nine hollow-point rounds.

This video has gone viral considerably in a short amount of time. The video currently has 15 million hits and counting. I recommend watching the entire video. It is definitively worth it!

Organic Computer Made Out of Biomolecules

Scientist at Scripps Research Institute in California and Technion Israel Institute of Technology have recently developed a "biological computer."

The "biological computer" is made of biomolecules which decipher images which are encrypted on DNA chips. The general computer is created out of hardware. This computer uses biomolecules to create a unique computing system.

"Our biological computing device is based on the 75-year-old design by the English mathematician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist Alan Turing," Keinan explained, "He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation, and he played a significant role in the creation of the modern computer".


The definition of a computer is a "machine made of four components, hardware, software, input, and output".

"In contrast to electronic computers, there are computing machines in which all four components are nothing but molecules," Keinan explained.

This new technology could be the future of computing. Technology and humans could possibly combine in a way. What do you think?

Google Tests Mystery Product in Employees' Homes

Google is testing a mystery product in employees' homes for 7 months.

Google applied for a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) experimental licence to test this product. Not much is known about this product except that it will use wireless to connect to the Internet and Bluetooth to connect to other devices.

Google's will be testing the mystery product from January 17th 2012 to July 17th 2012.

“From this testing we hope to modify the design in order to maximize product robustness and user experience,” the application --- Utilizing the requested number of units will allow testing of real world network performance and its impact on applications running on the device, so that any problems can be discovered and addressed promptly." - Richard Whitt, Google’s director and managing counsel for Telecom and Media, submits.

Hopefully in the future Google will release more information on this mystery Google product. So Google, what are you hiding?

Angry Birds Launching to Facebook on Valentine's Day

Angry Birds is coming to Facebook on Valentine's Day. The Facebook version of Angry Birds will possibly have a twist.

The Facebook version of Angry Birds won't be exactly the same as the mobile version. Rovio, the studio who created the game, say the Facebook version of Angry Birds will have new aspects as well as a collaborative feel. It will also focus on the pigs.

Nothing is certain for what the difference will be with this version. But it will still focus on the core of the game.

 

Lego Project Space - Lego 'Astronaut' Reaches Space

A Lego figurine was launched into space using a helium weather balloon.

Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad of Agincourt, Toronto created this project on free weekends. The craft was made of a helium weather balloon, a point-and-shoot camera, a wide-angle camera, and a GPS enabled cellphone. A parachute was also included for the landing.

The craft was launched on a Saturday afternoon. The craft was calculated where it was going to land before lift off. It took 32 minutes to descend and 2 hours to return to Earth. The Lego craft look 1 500 pictures as well as video clips.

Facebook App Says Your Last Words When You Die

A brand new Facebook app called "If I Die" is out. This app lets users create a final message which will be posted when they die.

The message is posted when three friends agree that the person is dead. You pick people to do this when you create your final message. The message is posted on the users Facebook profile once the three friends confirm. This message can either be text or a video message.

Apps have covered topics you usually wouldn't suspect. Will you use this app?

Tumblr Reaches 15 Billion Monthly Visitors - With a "B"

Tumblr has reached 15 billion monthly visitors. Tumblr has officially exploded with visitors!

Yes, that is a "B" and not just a typo. Tumblr has grown very popular and has proven itself with the huge amount of traffic. Tumblr also receives 120 million unique visitors monthly.

The last time Tumblr announced its numbers was in September of last year when it got 13 billion monthly visitors.  That is 2 billion more visitors in a short amount of time.

Tumblr continues to grow and is very popular in the teen market. Tumblr just needs to get the future teens on it earlier to ensure continuous traffic.

Google+ Reaches Ninety Million Users

Google+ has finally reached ninety million users. Google+ continues to climb the user count.

Google+ doubled its user count compared to last quarter. Over sixty percent of users are active daily and over eighty percent of users are active weekly.

Some sources are complaining about Google+'s personnel search. Twitter and other social networks say it is unfair that Google promotes its social network using its popular search engine.

Google+ has grown steadily but will need time to get anywhere near Facebook. Like I've said in another post Facebook has a lot of fake accounts so the numbers are closer than they appear.

Wikipedia Plans to Black Out Against SOPA

Wikipedia will be blacking out the English-language Wikipedia in the matter of hours. This is Wikipedia's way of protesting against SOPA.

The black out will begin at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18th. The blackout will last for 24 hours and then Wikipedia will resume back to normal.

A public statement signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst said:

"Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation."


This type of protesting is very interesting. It is a great method to get the word out to everyone who uses the English version of Wikipedia. Just hope no one needs to use Wikipedia tomorrow!

The Revolutionary PowerTrekk System - Power Your Gadgets With Water

Hiking in the woods with electronics can be tricky. Signa Chemistry has created a mini charger which charges your devices with only one tablespoon of water.

This mini charger only uses water to power devices. Just by adding one tablespoon of water the charger acts as four AA batteries. This charger would give approximately ten hours of phone battery life. Only one tablespoon is needed to power a phone for ten hours.

Into the scientific part of this charger is interesting. Basically the metal tin can -- where you put the water -- contains a chemical called sodium silicide. This chemical reacts with the water to produce hydrogen gas. The gas then passes into a membrane where the gas mixes with oxygen which produces electricity. Water vapour is also created but evaporates away. Basically this charger is a hydrogen fuel cell.

The PowerTrekk system as its called is being produced and should be available by May in REI stores. The charger will cost approximately $200.

Google Introduces Search Plus Your World

Google announced the release of Search Plus Your World yesterday. Search Plus Your World includes personnel results, profiles in search, and profiles and pages when you search.

Search Plus enables personnel content from Google+ to affect your searches. Your personnel results include photos and posts which then end up in your searches. For example if you were to search your favourite dog and you just so happened to have posted a picture of it on your Google+ account it would end up in your search results. This also includes people in your circles. If they also had pictures of your favourite dog they would also end up in your search results.

You do have the option to turn off these personnel searches if you don't want it.

Twitter has raised a concern on Google's new feature. Twitter claims it will be harder to find timely Twitter posts about news from protesters in Egypt and Syria.

The problem with Twitter raising this concern is that it didn't renew its search result agreement with Google in July. So a lot of Twitter's data has been walled off.

This new feature is a neat thing to use but sometimes you just aren't searching for personnel content. Luckily you can simply turn Search Plus off at anytime you want. When you want to use Google Search for personnel searching you can simply turn it on.

LEGO and Particle Collider Collide

Sascha Mehlhase of the Niels Bohr Institute has created a LEGO version of the Large Hadron Collider.

The LEGO version of the Large Hadron Collider is about 1:50 scale to the real Large Hadron Collider.

Sascha Mehlhase spent her personal time after working hours to work on this project. After weeks of building she ended up with this masterpiece.

This is a stunning creation. In all the things I've seen which are made of LEGO, this one is unique. Not many people would mix science and LEGO together and create such a unique creation.

Anonymous Strikes Stratfor Think Tank

Anonymous has hacked think tank Stratfor and stole thousands of credit card numbers. Anonymous also claimed to have stolen Stratfor's confidential client list.

Stratfor has denied Anonymous stealing the confidential client list.

Stratfor went offline on Monday. It only displayed a "undergoing maintenance" screen. At this moment Stratfor is still offline.

Credit card lists have been published to the Internet by Anonymous. These lists contain thousands of credit card numbers. More lists could be posted in the future.

It was interesting to hear this was done near the holidays. These Anonymous members must have had extra time to hack Stratfor!

Eye Control for Mobile Devices - Senseye

There are many reasons to buy a smartphone, but Senseye makes it much more interesting.

Senseye lets the user use their eyes to control the device. You can scroll without using your hands. It also knows when you are looking at the screen so it will only be bright when you are looking at it. This new technology even lets you play games with your eyes.

Senseye has won two awards. ABB Global Innovation Award for best overall technology showcase and 1st runner-up in ICT Championship.

Senseye is a very cool technology. Being able to interact with your smartphone just by looking at it would be convenient and also fun. This technology looks to be the next step for smartphones. It beats a touch interface in some areas but not in everything. Being able to scroll with your eyes is cool, but if you were to try to type with your eyes that would be quite hard to get used to.

New Worlds Smallest USB Stick - Deonet's New Design

Deonet, a Dutch company, has created the worlds smallest USB stick.

This new USB sticks is smaller than any other USB stick. The USB stick is based around the UDP micro chip. All of the components are built to reduce the size of the stick.

The USB stick will come in 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB. I was surprised of the amount of space this USB stick could hold since it`s very small.

This new design is neat and all but there is one problem. Something that is this small with be easy to misplace. You could loose this USB stick very easily. This USB stick will also be coloured black which won`t help at all either! The benefit of having this USB stick is also the size. You won`t have it sticking out of your laptop or PC which could be dangerous for your USB. It won`t have that chance of snapping or being pulled out of the device.