Tech Status Quo

As the world drills deeper and deeper for black gold, StatoilHydro is taking a different approach. Partnered with MIT researchers and Technip, StatoilHydro plans on constructing a 65 meter tall turbine with 40 meter long blades.

The turbine will sit on a type of concrete that floats, and will be attached to the sea floor in three places - called anchor points - that will hold it to a certain section of the sea.

Compared to normal wind turbines, the new HyWind turbine will produce consistent electricity due to a constant strong wind rather than the intermittent wind that occurs inland.

Once finished, the HyWind will be shipped 6.2 miles off the coast of Norway.

“If we succeed, then we will have taken a major step in moving the wind power industry offshore. Floating wind turbines can make a major contribution to providing the world with clean power, but there are major technical and commercial challenges that need to be resolved. If we are to succeed, we will need to cooperate closely with the authorities. As with other technologies for renewable energy, floating wind power will be dependent on incentive schemes to be viable,” says Alexandra Bech Gjørv.

Tag this at Technorati: alternative energy, black gold, floating concrete, MIT, oil, turbine, wind power

Update: Check this story out on Slashdot!

A few days ago I talked about Twing, a new search engine that crawls the internet looking for forum posts and spits them back in relevant order. After doing a bit more searching, an even better “forum search engine” popped up, Omgili.

Now Omgili does make some powerful claims, namely to be the best search engine in the known universe. I don’t know if I agree with that, but so far it seems damn good. A description of Omgili from the about page:

Omgili is your way to find “subjective information”. As opposed to traditional search engines, which search for sites and pages, Omgili finds consumer opinions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, answers and solutions. Most of the questions have already been answered - find the answers through Omgili. Most of the technical problems have been solved - find the solutions through Omgili. Most of the experiences have already been described - Find these descriptions through Omgili.

Omgili claims to crawl over 100,000 forums on a regular basis, cataloging millions of forum posts in their search database.

Probably the coolest thing about Omgili is the Buzz Graph that shows up on every search page denoting how frequently that search term is talked about on the internet. Below is an example of a Buzz Graph with Google and Microsoft on it:

Overall, Omgili is a good resource for finding opinions and extremely obscure facts. For general knowledge searches, turn to one of the big three.

Tag this at Technorati: Buzz Graph, Google, microsoft, omgili, search engine, twitter

The ultimate wallet for you little-bit-nerdy people out there, the Qwerty Wallet. The Qwerty Wallet comes in both bi-fold and tri-fold design and features a vinyl keyboard on the front with green and navy interior.

The first section of the wallet has a spot for your papermoney behind a vinyl pocket with a clear pocket for you to insert business cards,IDs, or pictures. It also features a sturdy zippered change pocket!

The second section has five slots for cards/IDs (with a pocket behind it) and a place to keep your checkbook, more money, more pictures, more IDs, more cards or … just, more. Except your PDA.

The Qwerty Wallet won’t set you back very far compared to leather wallets, coming in at only $28.

Also at Etsy are the Legend of Zelda HAND-PAINTED shoes. These things are absolutely beautiful (if you like Zelda), and are only $42 for a completely custom pair.

Relive Link’s adventures when you wear these wonderful shoes. Styled after Legend of Zelda from the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Each order is hand drawn with permanent ink and Scotch guarded for extra protection. Who knows, maybe wearing these shows will help you beat the original NES Zelda. Man that game was hard.

Tag this at Technorati: cool toys, gadget, hand painted, nerdy, pda, qwerty wallet, zelda shoes

How does Evernote work?

Tag this at Technorati: beta, computer, evermote, Mac, mobile phone, never forget, new .com, organize and tag, remember everything, Windows

In the search world, competition is fierce. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo pour millions of dollars into advertising their search engines to gain every last user on the internet. There is a new player in the business now thought, and it looks like Twing is going to hit the ball out of the park.

Twing is an “alternative search engine” that I found while perusing the farthest corners of the internet (yes, the internet is square). By alternative, Twing is just “not one of the big 5″. That’s catchy. But the important question to ask any new search engine is, “Does your search work?”

I was pretty skeptical about Twing when I first arrived at their homepage. Supposedly, it searches forums and forum posts, rather than searching plain old static pages. Interesting, haven’t ever seen that before. This is what Twing has to say about itself:

We’re dedicated to the world of online communities and forums. Our intent is to enable you to quickly find highly relevant communities and discussions pertaining to your interests, as well as keep you informed on the latest trends influencing communities. Members of Twing also can track activity on their favorite forums and stay informed on updates via custom alerts.

Again, you can promise the world, but can you deliver?  Let’s see what Twing can find for me…

Me: Simpsons Bartender
Twing: 255 results, first one included ‘Moe’
Not bad….

Me: 1980 Olympics
Twing: 2100 results, second one was about the USA hockey team - exactly what I was looking for
Very nice

Me: Tetris creator
Twing: 312 results, first one including Alexey Pajitnov.
I am extremely impressed

Overall, Twing did a great job handling search requests and providing an easy way to find information without following deep link trees.  The user interface is also very nice and easy to use.  Twing is definitely going to make an impact in the search engine world, watch out Google.

Tag this at Technorati: 1980 Olympics, Alexey Pajitnov, forum, Google, google rival, microsoft, new .com, search engine, SEO, Simpsons, Tetris creator, twing, Yahoo