Arguably, most of you reading this have never heard of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), however, believe it or not, it’s concept was first thought of in 1881, by a French engineer named Jacques D’Arsonval. That’s a long time, but to this day The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii contains the only operational OTEC plant in the world. It is an experimental plant. The biggest obstacle concerning OTEC exploration and possible implementation is its high costs.

Research indicates that thermal energy from the ocean would be significantly clean burning without adding pollutants into the environment. Unfortunately, another problem with OTEC is that with the technologies currently available, OTEC plants would be able to disrupt and possibly cause harm to local environments.

OTEC plants are capable of being utilized to pump up deep cold sea water which can subsequently used in refrigeration as well as air conditioning. Also, using sea water in an enclosed area, can be used for mariculture and aquaculture projects such as fish farming. There is certainly various uses for this alternative energy source.

5 Hollywood studios have signed an agreement to pay more than $1 billion for offering digital movie technology to approximately 20,000 cinemas within North America. The investment will be a precursor to 3-D technology implementation, set to take place subsequently. This takes care of approximately half the screens in the US and Canada and is set to start in the new year.

More than 20 3-D films are scheduled for debut by 2010, but only 1,264 movie theaters are available currently to show such films. 3-D movies have traditionally attracted many movie goers and at a higher ticket price than 2-D movies.

The studios included in the agreement are: The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. Additional studios are also targeted to be added to the agreement.

The technology will use a certain type of filter which will be placed on top of the digital projector in order to polarize specific images for the right and left eyes. The viewers will need special glasses to see the movies clearly.

Most of you will have heard of companies such as Symantec, Mcafee, and Trend Micro, as all of these businesses have a large market presence in the United States. Microsoft, another household name, also has plans to join the AntiVirus market. As you may be aware, Microsoft had, in recent years, acquired the intellectual property rights and technology from GeCad software, Pelican’s a behavior-based security software as well as Giant Company’s anti-spyware and Sybari’s Software.

There has been a lot of speculaton on whether Microsoft will gain a dominant position within the antivirus market by combining its technologies with its own operating systems for free. This is a technique they have also used in regards to word processing software and Internet browsers.

Of course, there are many companies with great market presence in other countries that are beginning to expand. Some of these include GriSoft from the Czech Republic, Sophos from UK, and Panda Software out of Spain, among others.

It unclear exactly where industry is heading and all of the players face a continued and rapidly evolving landscape. The amount of manpower and effort involved in finding fixes for viruses is extensive. Furthermore, malicious programs are increasing in both complexity and numbers, with some virus companies receiving hundreds of new virus reports daily. Unfortunately, new viruses are often able to change and hide themselves y renaming themselves in an effort to make it harder to locate and remove them.

Anyway you look at it, all of the players will have their work cut out for them going forward.