(CNN) — Ambitious plans to build a revolutionary 420-meter shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai have been unveiled by architects.

The 80-story Dynamic Tower, described as the “world’s first building in motion,” will also be the first skyscraper constructed from prefabricated units, according to a press statement released by New York-based architect David Fisher’s Dynamic Group.

Each floor would be capable of rotating independently, powered by wind turbines fitted between each floor.

“You can adjust the shape the way you like every given moment,” Fisher said. “It’s not a piece of architecture somebody designed today and that’s it. It remains forever. It’s designed by life, shaped by time.”

Apartments will sell for around $3,000 per square foot, making each unit range in price from about $4 million to $40 million. Work on the tower is due to be completed by 2010, according to Dynamic’s Web site.

Fisher said plans to build a second rotating skyscraper in Moscow were at an advanced stage and that the group intended to build a third tower in New York. He said developers and public officials in Canada, Europe and South Korea had also expressed interest in the project. -link-

Who would have guessed google would create incentives for private enterprise to dive into space exploration?

By A. Pawlowski
CNN

This is an interesting visualization generated from the commit history of the Python scripting language project. Definately shows the domino effect of a major open source project through its on-going development lifecycle.

Now this is good news! The more efficient we get with solar panel/cells the better off we are. Having big companies buy into the advancement of solar energy will allow us to reduce our dependency on power grids. What electric bill?

(The Channel Wire) - IBM said Monday that it was teaming up with semiconductor process company Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK) to develop more efficient and cost-effective solar power technologies, Reuters reported.

IBM will bring its expertise in producing power cells to the partnership, while TOK will contribute its technology for coating LCD panels, and technology used in the semiconductor industry.

The IBM/TOK collaboration will focus on improving the efficiency of thin film solar modules. The partnership will seek new techniques for printing copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) cells. Current solar CIGS makers are producing cells that can turn between six and 12 percent of sunlight into solar power. IBM and TOK aim to create methods that will produce cells with a 15 percent or more efficiency.

CIGS cells produced in laboratory conditions can reach higher levels of efficiency — for instance, a cell produced in April by researchers at the U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory set a new efficiency record for CIGS cells, of 19.9 percent. But cells produced in factories, where cost-effective cell mass-production is key, have yet to come close to that record.

According to Reuters, IBM Research’s Supratik Guha, who leads its solar photovoltaic activities, said that IBM and TOK do not plan to enter the solar module production business themselves, but hope in the next two to three years to license their technology to solar module producers.

The goal of the IBM/TOK partnership, according to Guha, is to create a process for producing the cells cheaply enough to reach “grid parity” — the level at which solar power is financially competitive with traditional forms of generating electricity.  -Link-

Can you imagine every Data Center cage with a R2-D2 robot? I can!

I have yet to buy the iPhone due to its lack of true exchange support.
Maybe apple heard my thoughts?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils the 3G iPhone.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

(CNN) - The second chapter of Apple’s iPhone era is almost ready to begin, and it’s already clear that things will be a little different this time around.

Few people who pay even scant attention to the technology industry could claim to be shocked by the introduction of a faster iPhone earlier on Monday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Apple has sold 6 million iPhones since June 2007, Jobs said, and will likely sell a few more once the new model arrives on July 11 with a faster networking chip, GPS capabilities, and a software upgrade that’s an IT manager’s dream for a mobile device.

From a features point of view, the new model delivers on what iPhone customers want and need. Yes, you still can’t do mobile messaging, and I still don’t think you can do cut-and-paste, which is just bizarre. But Apple has added just about everything else people have asked for or complained about in iPhone 1.0: faster networks, secure access to corporate e-mail, precise location-based services, and third-party applications.

What’s perhaps more interesting is what Apple has learned about the mobile phone business. It’s not all that surprising that Apple, which has a proud legacy of product design and software development, would have created an excellent product that has the rest of the industry scrambling to overtake.

But several developments later on Monday indicate that Apple has had to learn just as many lessons about playing in the mobile phone market over the past year as it has taught the mobile phone industry about product development.

About 90 minutes after Jobs concluded his keynote, AT&T held its own press conference to announce some major changes in the way iPhones are sold. You now must immediately agree to a two-year contract with AT&T whether you buy the iPhone in one of Apple’s stores or one of AT&T’s stores, and there will be no online ordering. AT&T and Apple have ended their revenue-sharing agreement, and Apple also said that the “vast majority” of its new carrier agreements overseas do not involve revenue sharing. To top it off, iPhone data plans are now $10 more expensive. -Link-

I thought this was interesting reading, it’s amazing we can notice a clip trailing in space.

(CNN) — The debris spotted floating away from space shuttle Discovery has been preliminarily identified as a thermal clip from the shuttle’s brake system, NASA said Friday.

The shuttle’s heat shield has been given a preliminary thumbs up for the return trip to Earth.

Also, lighting conditions tricked astronauts into thinking there was a “bump” along the edge of the shuttle’s rudder, agency officials added.

It is not immediately clear why the thermal clip fell off the shuttle.

The clip — one of three on the rudder speed brake — protects the brake during launch and ascent.

The problem will not affect Saturday’s planned landing, NASA spokesman Rob Navias said.

Discovery is expected to land at 11:15 a.m. Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Meanwhile, NASA imagery experts said what astronauts had described as a “bump” along the edge of the shuttle’s rudder was just a trick of lighting.   -Link-