Hasta La Gadget!

So you have brought your family for a holiday across all six continents on the earth, and are wondering just where would your next vacation be. Well, I guess it would make sense if you were to literally aim for the moon (stars would be a wee bit too far fetched now, would it not?), as a new company headed by former NASA executives announced earlier today that they intend to deliver moon holiday packages by the time 2020 rolls around. Of course, this is not going to be cheap at all, and if you are a millionaire, you might want to forget about it unless you have a fair number of billions sitting in the bank. Each round-trip for two will set you back by a whopping $1.5 billion, of which the CEO has called it a relative bargain (!).

Alan Stern, also president of Golden Spike Company, said, “We’re selling to nations, corporations and individuals. Get in line — and I think it’s going to be a long one.” Up next, holiday to Mars in 2050, where taking into account inflation and the costs of transportation, we are picking a figure from thin air, looking at $10 billion for a round trip for two.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon Appstore Hits 500% More Downloads, Google Stops Offering Free Version Of Google Apps For Businesses,

Watching our wonderful planet Earth from afar never looked this good. Behold! You are looking at an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. The scientists at NASA recently published these beautiful cloud-free night images of Earth taken from the new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite. The images, which forms a composite image, reveals the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across our planet in deeper detail. NASA’s NOAA satellite utilizes a new sensor that can observe the Earth’s surface and atmosphere during nighttime, something that was not possible before.

Most satellites are designed to observe Earth during the day – a time when they can observe our planet fully illuminated by the sun. NASA says that its new sensor, a Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite or (VIIRS), is sensitive enough to detect the nocturnal glow produced by Earth’s atmosphere and the light from a single ship in the sea. Judging from the images in the gallery, you will observe that they were taken gradually over the course of the year. You’ll even see a night image of a gas drilling activity in North Dakota as well as the illuminating waters of the great Nile river. Click on the images in the gallery to enjoy these one-of-a-kind photos of our beloved planet Earth. Cheers!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon Appstore Hits 500% More Downloads, Enjoy A Moon Holiday By 2020,

Ever wondered why Apple seems to have gone against all of Google’s Android partners, but not Google themselves? After all heading straight to the source makes the most sense, right? Perhaps Google might be too big for Apple to take on, or perhaps there are aspects of the stock Android that Apple can’t sue Google over, but whatever the case, it seems that Google’s Eric Schmidt is wondering about that himself. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt was quoted as saying, “It’s extremely curious that Apple has chosen to sue Google’s partners and not Google itself.”

Schmidt also goes on to state the he expects the legal battle between Apple and their partners to continue for a while, and that the ongoing legal battle is more damaging to small start-ups rather than huge established businesses, such as Samsung or HTC. In an example he gave, “There’s a young [Android and Danger co-founder] Andy Rubin trying to form a new version of Danger […] How is he or she going to be able to get the patent coverage necessary to offer version one of their product? That’s the real consequence of this.”

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In an attempt to prove that life can exist in the harshest environments, British researchers are drilling 3 kilometers deep below a glacier in Lake Ellsworth, Antarctic. The team from U.K. will start the mission on the 12th this month. They will utilize a sterile hot water drill to dig through the subglacial Lake Ellsworth.

There are over 3670 subglacial lakes in Antarctica, and Lake Ellsworth is just one of them. The main goal of the mission is to uncover organisms lurking within the deep, organisms that may have existed and evolved for a million years. If successful, the samples could help scientists understand how life evolves on Earth, and in other planets.

“Extreme environments tell you what constraints there are on life,” says Mike Bentley, a geologist joining the team. “If we find a particular set of environments where life can’t exist, that creates some bookends: it tells you about the limits of life.” The researchers are expected to remain in Antarctica until January.

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If you see someone with a smartphone, there is a good chance that they might have WhatsApp installed. After all while the app itself might be a paid app (for iOS it requires an upfront payment), it allows users to send messages to friends and family all over the world for free, hold group conversations and exchange various media as long as an internet connection is available. Plus with a report by WhatsApp back in October of 2011 that they are serving 1 billion messages a day, it just seems like a recipe for monetization, and with Facebook having acquired Instagram not too long ago, could WhatsApp be next on their list? (more…)

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