You now can virtually travel around the world without leaving your home. There are several sites offering web surfers the opportunity to become a virtual tourist. The latest one offers a tour of Beijing’s 178-acre Forbidden City, the exclusive home of China’s emperors for centuries. You can also watch the emperor feast at the dinner table, practice archery with the help of a courtesan, play a board game called Weiqi, train fighting crickets, and feed them mosquitoes. Maybe the last one is a little too real. Virtual tours can also be narrowed down by topic, including: symbolic animals, Imperial Garden, and dragons.

When a virtual tourist enters the Forbidden City, they are offered a choice of their own avatar character with 9 historical costumes for a sense of history and decorum. Running (and flying) isn’t allowed but you can interact with other virtual visitors.

The website development was created by IBM and is based on 3-D immersive gaming software. The project took 3 years and at a cost of $3 million. To fully view the journey, a user would require a 204MB download for Windows owners and Linux/Mac users are offered their own versions.

IBM offers additional “cultural heritage projects” such as the Vatican Library, Eternal Egypt, the Hermitage Museum, and the Pieta.

Technologies relating to geothermal energy present a mostly untapped source of significant alternative power potential, naturally produced by the planet. Large quantities of energy are found below the earth’s crust. Tapping into this power, could help to change the way we power our lives, in turn protecting the planet.

The planet’s core temperature is as high as sixty times higher than water reaching boiling level. The tremendous heat causes pressure that are harboring energy just a couple of miles below us. Superheated liquids in the form of fluid magma, a power that is evident by volcanic eruptions, which we could tap. These liquids additionally trickle up to the surface, emerge from vents, often appearing as steams. Using technology, we can create our own vents as well as our own containment chambers for the magma, subsequently converting the energy into electric power for lighting as well as heating our homes. When building of a geothermal plant, a well would be excavated above an established magma source. Pipes would be moved down into the geothermal source, artificially causing the fluids to move to the surface to produce the required steam. The steam would turn a turbine, which would inturn generate the coveted electric power.

There is current criticism of geothermal extraction of energy which creates an obstacle to its implementation on a large scale. Critics state that conducting research to find the right areas for geothermal plants are too costly as well as taking too much time. On top of that, there is additional high expenses for building power plants, and there is no guarantees that the plant would be profitable. Some geothermal sites, once explore, could be able to only produce small amounts of steam for the power plant to be reliable and viable. Additionally, environmentalists worry that moving magma up can also move up potentially harmful materials along with it.

Nonetheless, the substantial advantages of geothermal energy are likely to exceed the criticism if only we would research it more. Geothermal energy is very efficient, with the requirements needed to tap it are small after a site is found and a power plant is erected. Additionally, geothermal plants need not be as large as electrical power plants, atomic energy facilities, or large dams, and the environment would therefore be less affected. Notably, this is an alternative form of energy—which would indicate a lesser dependent on oil and coal. Arguably most important of all, geothermal energy will last for a very long time, and therefore isn’t a commodity that would continuously become expensive, due to its ubiquity. Geothermal energy would eventually be very cheap, after appropriate research investment and power plant building costs are recovered.

Online Media has certainly become more convenient over the last few years, with many of the files formats available for media files these days able to be read immediately online - instead of waiting to download a large file, like in timespast. There are many various online streaming media formats to pick from throughout the internet. Some of these include online streaming media formats for audio files, as well as videos that can be seen immediately over the internet. Of course, different formats will operate better on varying types of computers and connections.

One format is that of Windows Media. Established by Microsoft (obviously), this format is able to be read by Microsoft Media Player programs. Windows Media Audio is most commonly used for audio programs, while Windows Media Video is used for streaming video.

Apple’s QuickTime is another one of the other popular formats for online streaming media. Files that can be read on QuickTime are able to be easily streamed online. While it can take a bit of time to load an average file under this format, the advantage here is that there will be no interruptions in stream under this format. Also, data will not be saved onto the hard drive unless chosen to by the user.

The MPEG file format, is one of the most popular internet streaming media formats available for video files. The three different formats in the MPEG system are as follows: MPEG-1 is a standard compression format for video files, MPEG-2 (which can be used for ATSC, ISDB and digital satellite/cable transmission), and MPEG-4 which is known to be the highest quality format and it is used to support three dimensional features.

Real Media files are also popular among web streaming media formats. They are read easily by a Real Media Player. 64Kb and 256Kb files are available in this format with the 256Kb format being of higher quality.

Of course, MP3 files can be streamed online. This is quite popular among websites that use larger levels of information. The number of kilobits per second is often used in streaming MP3 formats. As an example, a 56kbps file would work best for a 56K modem. A 128kbps file will be better-suited for DSL connections, however would be a larger file to download for streaming.

Well, there’s a quick peek at the online streaming media formats available. Of course, some will have more data to download and will have varying quality levels, so one shoud always consider the speed of their connection when choosing the online media format that will be read.

Arguably the main reason why so many people purchase the iPhone is because it permits people to stay connected to the outside world in a varied number of ways. Instead of just using the phone to talk to your friends, you can just as conveniently do so by using text messaging or e-mail. However, one of the best ways to maintain your online life while you’re on the go, is through the use of social networking sites with the iPhone.

Many of the popular social networking sites allow users to access their site using a cell phone, however, the quality of Internet browsing on a typical cell phone isn’t always good. One of the popular social networking sites that you can browse when you are on the move is Twitter.

Twitter is based off of a concept to keep friends and family in touch, without having to use extensive steps of communication. When you use an iPhone, there are several tips to follow when using Twitter. One of the easiest ways to stay connected with Twitter on the iPhone is by using SMS, or through text messaging. This is a convenient way to keep updates about what you’re doing to all of your family and friends, and all it takes is typing a short message and sending it to a specific number. It is very easy to set this up on your iPhone, basically all you have to do is make sure to verify your phone number on the Twitter website, and then you can start sending updates to the people wherever they are.

Another great way to keep your Twitter website updated is through visiting their mobile portal. When you have an iPhone, you are probably going to be on the Internet more than you currently intend. Whether you are in a waiting room, sitting on a bus, etc’ you will be checking your e-mail and other popular websites. Of course, if you have a Twitter account, then you will want to update your status while passing time.

The greatest aspect of the iPhone is the fact that it streamlines all forms of communication, whether it be through twitting on an online browser, text messaging or with e-mailing, the iPhone will take any hassle out of communicating with the world around you.