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Missions of the largest aircrafts: Western H-4 Hercules & Airbus A380, Russia’s Antonov An-225 Mriya & ‘Caspian Sea Monster’
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The one Lun-class ekranoplan originally developed by the Soviet Union military transports, and based mostly on the shores of the Caspian Sea and Black, at a naval base near Kaspiysk. During the Cold War, ekranoplans were sighted for years on the Caspian Sea as huge, fast-moving objects. The name Caspian Sea Monster was given by US intelligence operatives who had spotted the huge vehicle, which looked like an airplane with the outer halves of the wings removed. After the end of the Cold War, the "monster" was revealed to be one of several Soviet military designs meant to fly only a few meters above water, saving energy and staying below enemy radar.
The 8-engined sea skimmer could have been a deadly weapon of war with it’s 6 ‘Sunburn’ anti-ship missiles and ability to travel at high speed under the radar of patrol aircraft. The Lun-class (Russian: "Hen Harrier") (NATO reporting name: "Utka"; Russian: "Duck") ekranoplan Wing-In-Ground effect vehicle was an extremely unusual aircraft designed by Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeev and used by the Soviet & Russian navies from 1987 to sometime in the late '90s. Wing-in-ground-effect aircraft use the extra lift of their large wings when in proximity to the surface (about one to four meters). It is also interesting to note that this is the largest military aircraft ever built, with a length of 73m, rivaling that of the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" and many modern jumbo jets. read more »
At sea, the bigger, the better? "Oasis of the Sea", largest cruise ship, tall as a 12-story building, wider than Panama Canal
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When Royal Caribbean launches its $1.2 billion 'Oasis of the Sea' in 2009, it will carry up to 5,400 passengers and will be as tall as a 12-story building, as long as four football fields, and wider than the Panama Canal.
Formidably awesome – a floating city.
The question is - at sea, the bigger, the better?
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Photos courtesy of Robert Polidori
Original Source: CNN
Italian shoppers use texting service to check and compare best food prices while at the market
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The rising cost of food is a growing concern for many people across the world. There have been protests, and even riots, in countries including Mexico, India and Egypt, clear evidence of the struggle that many people are now facing. However, if Italians feel that their local food retailer is charging unreasonable prices, they can now call on a new service to help them haggle or walk away. Thanks to a short message service (SMS) text system set up jointly by the Italian agriculture ministry and consumer associations, shoppers can check the average price of different foods in northern, central and southern Italy.
Italy’s Department of Agriculture, Food & Forestry, along with consumer organisations, have come up with the SMS Consumatori service www.smsconsumatori.it, which tracks prices for over 80 types of fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products and so on. To use the service, shoppers send a text message to 47947 for free, typing the name of the product they want a price for. They get a reply straightaway listing both a wholesale price and average retail prices in the north, centre and south. If a product comes in varieties, the service sends separate messages for each of the most popular ones.
Sun and Moon put on show. Total solar eclipse seen in Russia, China, draws millions of sky-watchers across Asia and worldwide
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The new Moon drew its shadow across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere earlier today, totally eclipsing the Sun along a track that crossed the Arctic, Siberia, and interior China. Thousands of eclipse chasers had stationed themselves along the path in anticipation. The Moon's shadow arced over the Earth as the lunar body passed directly between our planet and its star. In all, the path of darkness covered about 10,200km (6,300 miles). Russia saw the longest full eclipse, for two minutes, 27 seconds, at 1021 GMT - but the UK and most of Europe experienced just a partial eclipse.
"Totality" began at sunrise at 0921 GMT in Queen Maud Gulf off Victoria Island in the territory of Nunavut, Canada. The instant of greatest eclipse occurred at 1021 GMT close to the Russian city of Nadym, before totality came to an end at 1121 GMT near the Chinese city of Xi'an, in Shaanxi province.
Can Cuil woo you from Google? New search engine launched on Monday to a rocky start, shows promise, needs work
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Boasting big plans, startup search engine Cuil (pronounced "cool") launched on Monday. The Cuil in the name is pronounced "Cool," and derives from an old Irish word for knowledge. Tom Costello, a co-founder and the CEO of the company, is from Dorgheda, Ireland. The company sold itself on having indexed more pages than Google, ranking based on context rather than on popularity, and displaying results organized by concept within a beautiful user interface. There was just one problem: when the search engine launched, it didn't work very well. Cuil's site was down intermittently throughout the day on Monday, and even when the site was up, it sometimes returned no results for common queries, or failed to produce the most relevant or up-to-date results. For example, as of Wednesday morning, searching Cuil for its own name returns nothing on the first results page that is related to the engine itself, in spite of the buckets of press it got this week. read more »
253 million regular Internet users and counting: China now has the world's largest net-using population, surpassing the US
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China now has the world's largest net-using population, say official figures. The news comes from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which stated that 253 million Chinese went online by the end of June of this year. The total represents a 56.2% year-on-year growth - up by 91 million from June of last year, and up 43 million from December. The figure is higher than the 223 million that the US mustered in June, according to Nielsen Online.
Net penetration in the US stands at 71% compared to 19% in China suggesting it will eventually vastly outstrip the US. The development is significant because the US has had the largest net-using population since records of how many people were online started to be kept.
"This is the first time the number has drastically surpassed the United States, becoming the world's number one," said a statement from the CNNIC, the nation's official net monitoring body.
The 2008 figure is up 56% in a year, said CNNIC. Analysts expect the total to grow by about 18% per annum and hit 490 million by 2012.
About 95% of those going online connect via high-speed links. Take up of broadband has been boosted by deals offered by China's fixed line phone firms as they fight to win customers away from mobile operators. China's mobile phone-using population stands at about 500 million people.
Despite having a greater number of people online, China's net economy still has a long way to go to match or exceed that of the US or even that of South Korea.
Breaking it down further, 214 million of those on the Internet in China accessed via a broadband Internet connection.
The percentage of the population in China on the Internet now stands at 19%, still way below that of the United States, at 71%.
Comparing this to previous numbers, just in 2006 alone, there were 137 million Internet users in China. This shows that the number of people in the Internet in the country continues to grow at a rapid pace.
People under the age of 30 in China make up 69% of the total Internet users.
Figures from Analysys International said China's net firms reported total revenues of $5.9bn in 2007. By contrast net advertising revenue alone for US firms in 2007 stood at $21.2bn.
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Photos courtesy of dBTechno, AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, and DanWei.org
Original Source: dBTechno and BBC News
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