Communications Technology

April 17, 2009 For most of us, the world deep below the ocean’s surface remains a place we have only had the pleasure to experience vicariously, primarily through watching nature documentaries. It’s not as if we can just hop in a submarine and go take a look. Well, perhaps we can, if a Russian company’s plan to market a two-seater submarine driven by pedal power to the tourist industry is successful. The new underwater vehicle (UV) from Marine Innovation Technologies (MIT) will not only be cheaper to buy and run than existing submersibles, it will be simpler to operate, requiring no special training or expertise.

According to MIT, its underwater craft differs from comparable small tourist submarines in overcoming some of the difficulties associated with the use of traditional screw propulsion and accumulator batteries to generate motion. These kinds of submarine tend to be complex to control and service and require specialized training to operate.

Generally, submarines require a propulsion capacity of about 2.5–5 kW to maintain an underwater speed of 2-3 knots. The average person riding a bicycle struggles to generate a propulsion capacity greater than 0.2-0.4 kW over a one to three-hour time period. This means a pair of furiously pedaling tourists couldn’t muster enough power to propel an underwater vehicle.

But MIT has overcome the mathematical impossibility through both its innovative design as well as something called the Coanda effect. With both these elements in play, an average person, with the help of pedals, can generate the necessary underwater speed of between two and three knots, for two to four hours, to propel the company’s two-passenger UV.

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Company in Brazil (Suite Vollard) constructed a building in which each floor can rotate 360 degrees. Each building has 11 apartments and each apartment can spin individually in any direction. One rotation takes a full hour, but apartment owner can set rotation speed through apartment control panel. Facades are made of three different types of glass which give wonderful effects when building spins during the sunset. Cost of each apartment is $US 300,000.00.

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Large companies and government departments are employing a new Sydney-based company to dig up dirt on staff by spying on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube posts.

SR7 specialises in “online risk and reputation management” and claims to be the only company in Australia that actively monitors social networking sites on behalf of companies.

It was formed about eight months ago in response to the growing trend for people to take conversations they would have traditionally had with mates at the pub on to their social network profiles.

Few people realise these seemingly private sites are still public spaces. If controversial posts leak to the media, it can lead to brands suffering immense damage to their reputations.

SR7 director James Griffin said business was booming following recent public relations disasters sparked by the stupid social network behaviour of a few rogue employees. The firm’s clients included “a number of blue-chip companies in a variety of industries” and “government departments and agencies”.

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