YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Following months and months of work, last Wednesday saw the YouTube Symphony Orchestra finally arrive. Including over 90 musicians from around the world, the event at Carnegie Halls a truely historic performance.

Check out Tan Dun's composition "Internet Symphony, Eroica" - a mash up of nearly 3,000 video submissions.

Spam Could Power 2.4 Million Homes

Following on from my earlier post (in a general environmental theme) I wanted to share this article that I spotted on [Geeks Are Sexy].

A report by McAfee has outlined that the total energy wasted by spam emails could power 2.4 million homes a year. The report, which was produced with environmental consultants ICF International, indicates that spam emails are responsible for 33 billion kilowatt hours of energy used each year. Surprisingly (to me at least) the report shows that the actual development and mailing of the emails only accounts for 7% of that energy, the vast majority of the energy is used to filter the unwanted messages.

The report also shows that the total energy usage produces 17 million tons of CO2, the same amount as 3 million cars.

A 100% Solar Powered City

Florida is set to create the world's first 100% solar powered city, Babcock Ranch, which will be powered by the world’s largest photovoltaic plant. In a joint venture between a housing developer, Kitson & Partners, and the Florida Power & Light company, the new development will be built close to Fort Myers. Babcock Ranch plans to create just under 20,000 houses with another 2 million square meters of shopping, commercial and semi-industrial development. The city will also be layed out with city-wide Wi-Fi and electric car charging stations.

The city will generate 100% of its power through solar means during the day, and then at night switch to an excess of electricity produced during the day that is exported to the grid. Construction of the $400 million solar plant is due to begin this year, with develoment of Babcock Ranch to commence during the summer of 2010. The whole project is estimated to cost $2 billion and to create 20,000 jobs.

Pirate Bay Founders Send To Jail

News has just broken that a Swedish court has found guilty and jailed the four founders of Pirate Bay, the world's most prolific torrent / file-sharing site. The men; Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde, have all been found guilty of copyright infringemnent and have been sentenced to 1 year in jail. On top of this they have been ordered to pay €2.7m in damages.

Via Twitter, Mr Sunde said: "Nothing will happen to TPB, this is just theatre for the media."

The biggest point that this case can possibly make is that these men have been sentanced and fined even thopugh there is no copyright content hosted on Pirate Bay. All they do is provide a directory service of torrent files.

Kutcher Beats CNN to 1 Million Follower

I posted yesterday about Ashton Kutchers challenge to CNN to get to the 1 million Follower mark, and guess what - he did it. Perhaps not surprising - seriously, who was going to try and get CNN there?

Anyways, here is the video he made as the 1 million mark drew in...



cheers to Kieran for throwing this at me