Trio electric complete round the world

February 25, 2011, Last updated at 14: 19 GMT An Australian three was among the runners a trio of emission-free electric vehicles have pulled up silently in Geneva, completing a journey around the world to promote green energy.

A three Australian German, a scooter and a Swiss moto Monotracer arrived at the UN European headquarters in Switzerland.

Had taken 188 days to cover 27,000 km (16,800 miles), 80 days that were actually spent.

The main obstacle they faced was charging in remote areas.

"It was very difficult in some places, certainly for our team members in Russia and China," said Alexandra James, one of 12 volunteers who took their turn to guide the two-seater Australian bright green, dubbed Travolta.

"They were straight in the sheet feeder cable in certain situations, because he was the only way to get a reliable energy source-it was a challenge," he told AFP news agency.

Sylvie Motard, the United Nations Environment Programme, said the "race to Zero" had shown that might be self powered by clean, renewable energy "as effective as gasoline vehicles, but without emissions".

Motorola Xoom: Complete FAQ

By JR Raphael

Has been months in the making, but it's finally here: the Motorola Xoom, inaugural Tablet of honeycomb Google Android.

Launching today, the Xoom will be the first in a flood of Android tablets set to hit the market this year. Google is essentially, kickstarting the flagship device category and setting a golden standard for all products of honeycomb high-end on the road. Android engineers actually used Xoom to test and develop the operating system of honeycomb, and is considered a product of "pure Google"--meaning that you get what Google created, with no producer-added skins or interfaces that are always in the way.

As I've covered the Xoom and Honeycomb these past several weeks, I've heard many questions--questions about everything from the nitty-gritty technical for the truth about those plans Verizon data irksome. It's time for some answers simple, straight forward. Here's a Q&A style guide to everything you need to know.

What is the Motorola Xoom?

Come on--which is just too easy. The Motorola Xoom is an Android-based Tablet that runs on a new platform from Google honeycomb.

As the Motorola Xoom is different from previous Android tablets, similarly to the Galaxy?

Aside from the differences in shape, Honeycomb--debuting on Xoom operating system--is the first version of Android that Google actually built with tablet in mind. The software was written from the ground up to optimize the Android experience for larger screen devices.

With honeycombs, hardware devices, buttons are gone and replaced with screen buttons that change location based on your orientation. There is a whole new notification system that puts desktop-style warnings at the bottom of the screen. Multitasking the Android system is revamped to make it easier to switch between running applications. And speaking of apps, honeycomb allows developers to divide their programs into several panes--as in the Gmail app of honeycomb, where you can scroll through actively through the your Inbox while simultaneously viewing (and scrolling) individual messages.

Put simply, is a very different--and if you ask me, a drastically improved. Check out my honeycomb Android impressions for a deep dive experience Xoom.

How ' bout specific hardware--that plays this bad boy have?

The Xoom has a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 screen. Works on Nvidia Tegra processor dual core 2 1 GHz with 1 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal memory and support for SD card for extra storage. Now, the Xoom supports 3 G and Wi-Fi connections; Verizon promises, however, that you will be able to get a free hardware upgrade that you can enable access 4 G from this spring.

The Xoom comes with a 5MP camera and a 2MP camera facing to the front for video chat (which Honeycomb natively using Google Talk Google system). The Tablet records 720 p HD video and supports playback of 1080p. It has HDMI ports and USB 2.0. And according to Motorola, Android battery life can give you 10 hours of video playback on a single charge.

How can I buy this Xoom, and how?

The Xoom is on sale in the United States as of today, February 24. Is available for $ 800 on Verizon Wireless or Best Buy stores. Verizon also offers the Xoom for $ 600, signing a two-year contract for data services; those you do a minimum of $ 20 per month.

I have to get a data plan?

Verizon is required to sign up for one when you buy a Xoom--annoying, I know--but you can cancel immediately after. So basically, you will have to pay $ 20 for a month, plus an activation fee of $ 35 (sigh). But there is no obligation to continue paying for data beyond that point; Once the first month is up, you can use only your Xoom via Wi-Fi and Verizon never pay another nickel.

So what happens if I cancel my data after the first month, then decide I want to re-enable it? You will get charged everytime turn data?

I've been wondering what very me (as a coincidence!). Yesterday I checked with Verizon Wireless. The answer annoying is that Yes, they will charge you $ 35 every time you reactivate the service data--even if you only for casual here and there. So you can turn on your data plan as you need, but you must pay this fee each time.

Go ahead and take a moment to give a single finger salute. I'll wait.

There should be a Xoom Wi-Fi-only, too?

Yes--but not yet here. Motorola CEO Sanjay JHA mobility said that a Wi-Fi-only Xoom will sell for about $ 600; He did not say, but when it starts. So if you want the Xoom now you spring for the full 3 G/4 G, even if you're planning to use it only on Wi-Fi; otherwise, you can expect, but is anyone's guess, the wait time might be.

Can I use my data plan only mobile phone to get my Xoom online?

Perhaps. Wire standard Android--where you use a program like PdaNet to connect your phone to another device via USB or Bluetooth--no will do the trick, as those connections require a Windows-based client or Mac at work.

If you are able to create a wireless hotspot from your phone, though--or by subscribing your hotspot option or Manager going underground path and rooting phone--then Yes, you can use that connection to get the Xoom online. It is no different than Xoom's connection to any other wireless hotspots.

What is with all this talk about Flash? Flash will support Xoom or not?

The Xoom will support Flash, but not immediately; Adobe is still putting the finishing touches on his software Flash Player 10.3, who needs the Xoom to play Flash-based content. Adobe promises, however, that the software will be sent to Xoom, as updating over-the-air "within weeks" today's launch.

I have to get the Xoom or wait for one of the other upcoming tablets?

My friend, who is a sensitive issue; I take a stab at answering here.

Okay, Mr. Smartypants, tell me this: you can eat the Motorola Xoom?

Technically, Yes, but it is not recommended.

You can drop by a 40-story building?

Of course, but you probably don't want.

Can you legally marry in the State of California?

Right--I think we're done here.

JR Raphael writes on Smartphones and other technologies. You can find it on Facebook, Twitter or on eSarcasm, his escape geek-humor.

Article copyright 2011 JR Raphael. All rights reserved.

Amazon S3 offers complete Website Hosting

Since Amazon launched its storage service simple storage service (S3) cloud in 2006, people are using it to support Web sites hosted with other service providers.

S3 was initially used to host large files like movies, in which case the S3 is both cheaper and faster than most Web hosting providers. Other files, such as hosting images was initially challenging due to latency problems (i.e. a delay between when a browser requests a file that receives it). This has been addressed when S3 introduced additional datacenters throughout the world and better load balancing.

However, until now has been impossible to host entire Web sites to S3, because there was no way to define the root and the error documents within an S3 "bucket" (a bucket is the name given to individual storage configurations).

In other words, there was no way to configure S3 to serve index.HTML when visitors were directed to an S3 bucket and no way to serve something like error .html, if something went wrong.

This has now changed. Error documents and root can be defined for each segment, although there are a handful of important notices.

First, since S3 storage is just stupid, hosts a whole site is possible only for static content entirely--i.e. nothing more than an HTML file, images and so on. Someone who wants to use PHP or similar will be required to use Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) or a standard hosting provider. This means that couldn't fit something like a WordPress blog to S3, for example.

Secondly, you cannot host a domain root to S3 because S3 is accessible only via redirection CNAME DNS record (S3 has no IP address static endpoint, so that it cannot be configured for the record-). In other words, host www.example.com is possible, but not example.com. A separate hosting service configured for DNS-records would direct visitors arriving at example.com to www.example.com. (Incidentally, many experts consider adding www as a CNAME record to be bad practice, although it works fine.)

Setting up full website hosting with S3 is easy. Start visiting the S3 Control Panel and create a new bucket in your AWS, named the Web address that will direct us. For example, should I hope visitors www.keirthomas.com to be redirected to a bucket, name it www.keirthomas.com.

Then upload all files of your website using the Upload button on the console or via S3, a separate client application, if you use one. Don't forget to set all files as accessible to the public, you can perform from the Upload window.

Next, right click the new bucket, listed to the left of the console and select Properties. In the new Panel at the bottom of the window, click the Web site tab and make sure that Enabled is checked, first type the filename of your documents and the index. Note that you cannot specify 4xx specific documents, such as 404, 403, and so on; all errors should be directed to the error page. Click the Save button when done.

Configuring S3 to host an entire Web site is as easy as clicking a checkbox. (Click for full image).Note the address that is listed next to the Endpoint, which is under the names of document index and the error in the Panel itself. Now head over to the configuration of your domain registrar (s) of the Panel and configures a new CNAME record for www, specifying the endpoint address of S3 (remove the http://prefix from the endpoint address, and any trailing slash at the end).

How it's done configuring CNAME varies from vendor to vendor. You will probably need to delete the record-for www, too.

And you're done! Once the DNS changes have propagated, which could take a couple of hours, your visitors will be directed straight to the S3 bucket containing your site and you will see the file index.html.

As a further step, it's a good idea to choose the address for a-records (i.e. the address without the www prefix) a simple Web hosting service where you can set an automatic redirection to www.

If yours is a high traffic site, might also make sense to use Amazon's CloudFront service to ensure traffic is directed to the nearest server, that will avoid any latency problems. This will add to the cost, though.

As well as using S3 compares in terms of costs for a standard provider? I use Dreamhost Web hosting basic package for sites that I run, which costs $ 119 per year and offers storage and unlimited bandwidth (while sharing a server with others, that may limit the speed at which my site is served).

However, unlike S3, the price of Dreamhost also includes PHP, databases, and various useful extras such as one-click installs of popular software site.

A static site that runs by Dreamhost sees about 300 visitors a day and offers a 2 MB file for download. From the configuration panel of Dreamhost, I see that the site burns through about 350 MB of bandwidth per day, including weekends.

Using a quick rough calculation, I see that is 10.65 GB per month, that if served via S3 would cost me nothing if I signed up for the free use of Amazon Web Services. This allows up to 15 GB of data transfer per month, although I might run into a couple of dollars throughout the year due to GET requests. Free usage level allows you to GET 20,000 requests per month, and my 300 daily visitors typically visit many pages and download many images, each of which involves a GET separated.

While a comparison with Dreamhost is simply unfair because Dreamhost offers much more than simple storage to S3, the price is very interesting if you are paying a fee for each GB or TB with your existing provider. Plus, S3 will be always fast and will never run out of storage space.

Keir Thomas has made known his opinion on matters of calculation from the last century and more recently has written several best-selling books. You can read more about him at http://keirthomas.com. His Twitter feed is @ keirthomas.

Leaked: complete the game Crysis 2, with multiplayer and master key

According to a thread on the forum Facepunch, titled "Crysis 2, leaked 49 days in advance," has been leaked Crysis 2. The download contains the full game (playable reported your campaign from beginning to end) and multiplayer support (the master key to authenticate online is presumably included).

The game will still a multi-platform release on March 22, 2011 in the United States and 25 March 2011 in Europe. Since there are as close to the release of the game, build leaked may be almost over. Crytek has said that the game has the best graphics you've ever seen, but that will graphically superior on PC. The company will undoubtedly be less inclined to support the platform PC after a fiasco like this. Game developers are trying to save face by saying that the loss is still a generation of development.

"Crytek was warned that an incomplete, unfinished early build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent Sites," said a spokesman for EA in a statement. "Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team in waiting and buying the final, polished game on 22 March. Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the end action blockbusters like signature series Nanosuit allows you to be the weapon as she defends NYC from an alien invasion. Piracy continues to harm the market for packaged goods of PC and PC development community. "

Crysis 2 has been announced for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 this way back in June 2009. Since then, we have seen the teaser trailer, screenshots, gameplay footage and delays. This, however, takes the cake. The news is a Crysis 2 demo for PC are now almost redundant.