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Scaling the heights of the Eiffel Tower

Since its construction in 1889, more than 250 million people have visited Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower. The highest monument in the world for more than 40 years (today that title is held by Burj Khalifa in Dubai), the Eiffel Tower remains the most visited monument globally. But not everyone has been or can hope to go—until now. If you’ve ever wondered what the view is like from above the City of Light or wanted to learn more about the Tower’s history, now’s your chance to find out.



The Google Cultural Institute and the Eiffel Tower Operating Company have teamed up to create three immersive online exhibitions which blend fascinating historical material with a sprinkling of technological magic. In order to capture the imagery, the Street View team followed in the footsteps of 7 million annual visitors and ascended multiple floors of the Tower. Using the Street View Trolley (designed especially for monuments and museums) they filmed 360-degree views of the monument’s architecture and its views over Paris.



These modern-day Street View panoramas sit alongside nearly 50 archival images, plans, engravings and photos telling the story of the Eiffel Tower’s development and social impact in the 19th century. Some of the archive material is quite rare and precious such as a recording of Gustave Eiffel’s voice by Thomas Edison.



The first exhibition presents the birth of the Eiffel Tower from the initial idea until its realization. You can then follow the construction of the monument step-by-step through photos and sketches. Details on the inauguration and the first visitors lie in the third exhibition, with photos of people admiring the Paris vista on the opening day leading into today’s Street View imagery from the top floor. Did you know that during the Tower’s inauguration for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the elevators were not yet in service but 12,000 people per day rushed to climb the 1710 steps leading to the top?

As a product manager and designer, it’s been awe-inspiring to get to see the spectacular vision and the detailed architectural capabilities exemplified by the plans more than 100 years ago. It required tremendous knowledge of special planning and physics to ensure that 18,000 separately made pieces would come together as one. So if you’ve never visited the Eiffel Tower before, want to get insider knowledge or simply want to re-discover it in a new way, visit our site and immerse yourself in one of the most well-known attractions on the planet.



Posted by Mark Yoshitake, Head of Product & User Experience, Google Cultural Institute



via The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/scaling-heights-of-eiffel-tower.html

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Superman Memory Crystals Can Store Up to 360TB

Scientists are working on a new type of computer memory which would allow the safe and long-term storage of hundreds of terabytes of data. And by long term, they mean theoretically forever.

Using high speed lasers, they have been able to record and retrieve information from glass, leading to the discovery of what its inventors endearingly call Superman memory crystals.

This impressive data storage system developed by University of Southampton researchers will have practically unlimited lifetime and a storage capacity of up to 360TB of data – the equivalent of 580,000 CDs.

While regular hard drive memory can last a couple of decades and is vulnerable to strong temperature variations, moisture, magnetic fields, this memory crystal is extremely dense and durable, having the potential to last indefinitely. The nanostructured glass crystal used in the research can also withstand temperatures of up to 1,800° F.

How it works

The data is written on the memory crystal, which is about the size of a normal CD, with a femtosecond laser (femtosecond stands for a millionth of a billionth of a second).

The information is encoded in five dimensions – the dimensional position of the glass nanostructures plus intensity and polarization of the laser beam, making for what researchers named 5D data storage.

The process used practically changes the manner in which light travels through glass and thus creates polarized light which can be read with a polarizer and an optical microscope, just like the data in optical fibers.

Researchers have already been able to successfully record and retrieve a 300kb text file. Interestingly enough, the memory crystal would work just like a rewritable disc, meaning that the stored information can be erased and replaced with new data. The current writing speed is 12 Kbit/s, but scientists hope this can rise to about 8 Mbit/s and even several Gbit/s with future research.

This Superman memory crystal can have multiple uses in fields for storage of high capacity important data. Not to mention the obvious use any sci-fi fan has already considered: storing the entire history of humankind for the next generations or for some alien race that may stumble upon our planet long after humans are extinct.

[Image via Inhabitat & Cnet]

The post Superman Memory Crystals Can Store Up to 360TB appeared first on TechBeat.

via TechBeat http://techbeat.com/2013/07/superman-memory-crystals-can-store-up-to-360tb/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=superman-memory-crystals-can-store-up-to-360tb