The Great Blue Hole of Belize

If you ever come by near the coast of Belize, you shouldn’t miss an opportunity to visit the Great Blue Hole, one of the world’s most recognizable natural wonders. The Great Blue Hole is located in Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, about 60 miles away from Belize City. It is believed that this hole is the world’s largest sea-hole. It is about 125 meters deep and its diameter is about 300 meters wide. It has been created as a cause of sea level increase about 65,000 years ago.

Its almost perfect circular shape made it very popular amongst tourists who often visit this place. This place is most attractive for scuba divers who are exploring the depths of this hole. It is known that there are a plenty of cave networks in this place. Divers are also attracted with plenty of rare animal species and forms of life which can be found only in this place.

Top 10 rugged cases for your iPhone 4

With smartphones being more valuable nowadays, due to how we use them and the various types of information we place in them, protecting them is something we cannot neglect. For today, let’s focus on the aspect of physical protection. You wouldn’t want to find out that someone has sat on your phone and made a whole deal of damage because of it. Thus, here’s a list of 10 rugged cases that you can put your smartphone into, specifically the iPhone 4. Criteria in selection include how good it looks on your phone, yet still offers ample physical protection. The full list after the jump.

1. Ballistic HC

From the guys at Ballistic, they say that their HC Case, with “HC” being Hard Core, offers four layers of protection for your Apple hardware than the two from the nearest competition. Features include the usual screen cover with a holster/belt-clip for more screen protection. Apparently, this has been popular enough that the company is having a hard time keeping it in stock.

Priced @ $49.99

2. Case-mate Tough Case

The Touch Case provides a right mix for being not too bulky although it also means that it’s not as tough as you may want for your iPhone. It’s available in different colors for your choosing.

Priced @ $34.99 / $21.95 at Amazon.com

3. Cygnett WorkMate

If the sheer looks of this case won’t give you a sense of protection, then we don’t know what will. The WorkMate is a rubberized case featuring “double strength” of protection. Screen protector isn’t integreated though.

Priced @ $24.95

4. iSkin Revo 4

The Revo 4 from iSkin speaks about color and they have lots of it. The protector comes with a removable hard plastic cover that can be attached to the back of the case when the phone is in use.

Priced @ $24.95 / $18.23 at Amazon.com

5. Ivy Skin Quattro 4

From the looks of the image at the right, the people at Ivy Skin have made themselves a favorite with the Quattro 4, now available for the iPhone 4. This sleek and highly protective cover comes with multiple colors and includes a “Touch-Thru” real glass cover for your screen.

Priced @ $44.99

6. Otterbox Defender

If it’s tough iPhone cases that you want, then Otterbox offers one of the best in the market. The Defender Series for iPhone 4 now has a sleeker design with its screen protector integrated to the case, as well as a belt holster you can choose or not to use.

Alternates for the Defender series of Otterbox include the Commuter and Impact Series.

Priced @ $49.95

7. Seidio iPhone 4 Rugged Combo

The iPhone 4 Rugged Combo comes with 3 layers of protection, a screen protector and a holster. Being referred to as a “convertible” case by the guys at Seidio, you can strip the case down to the first layer which is essentially a Innocase Surface Case. Also, ports of the iPhone, as well as the camera, are also covered with flaps that can be removed when needed.

Priced @ $49.95 / $39.00 at Amazon.com

8. Sena Hampton Flip

Sena’s leather products are known for their style and as for their rugged/tough ones, there’s the Hampton Flip. It enables full protection of the iPhone’s screen with its flip-down cover. Although it doesn’t offer that great drop-protection you might need, it’s alright for those short falls without any problems.

Priced @ $59.99

9. Trident Cyclops

Here’s the Cyclops from Trident, a slim and quite durable protector for your iPhone. Although it doesn’t offer the same level of protection as the next item would, it still gets the job done. Comes in multiple colors as well.

Priced @ $29.95 / $19.95 at Amazon.com

10. Trident Kraken

Well, it’s named “Kraken” so we would expect that the name would live up to the kind of protection that this case offers. From the same makers as the previous item in this list, it’s on par with the Otterbox Defender. Although you don’t get a holster, you still have a belt clip. The screen protector is also integrated to the case as well. Comes in multiple colors.

Priced @ $29.95

10 Most Amazing Google Earth Finds

Google Earth, it’s fair to say, has revolutionised our generation. Anyone with an internet connection is now able to easily scour the globe from the comfort of their own home. Entire online communities have been formed online that have devoted their time and energies into discovering some of the most bizarre, most unique, and of course undiscovered locations around the world. Not only has their been discoveries of some pretty cool sights which no-one would have realised had it not been for the birds-eye view technology but Google Earth has helped scientists, archaeologists and the police with its power. Here are 10 of Google Earth’s most amazing finds.

1. Iraq’s Bloody Lake

Image source - webecoist

This blood-red lake in Iraq has led to scary rumours that it has been caused by a nearby slaughterhouse that is responsible for an insane amount of bloodshed. An official explanation has never actually been offered but sceptics believe that it is most likely the cause of sewage in the water that has turned it into this polluted colour. The jury’s still out on this one.

2. Face in the Clay

Image source - zmescience

This amazing shot was taken over Alberta, Canada. Quite clearly a face can be seen in what appears to be Native American headdress. The face has since been nicknamed the “Badlands Guardian”. The face is made up eroded clay in a valley. Some people have said that it looks like the head is wearing earphones. That sight is actually a road and an oil well.

3. Heart-Shaped Island

Image source - techdigest

Not surprisingly this heart-shaped island discovered on Google Earth became a huge hit on Valentine’s Day. It’s located in the Adriatic off the Croatian coast and is currently uninhabited. It’s 130,000 square yards in size and has been named Galesnjak. The owner of the island was not even aware of its shape until he was inundated with requests from romantic couples who wanted to rent the island!

4. Lost Ship At Sea

Image source - theshitiputupwith

The S.S. Jassim was a Bolivian cargo ferry that ran aground and sunk on the Wingate Reef off the coast of Sudan in 2003. Google Earth captured a shot of it though and it has now become one of the most searched for Google Earth images as well as becoming one of the largest shipwrecks captured by the programme.

5. Swastika

Image source - techblog.aidan

The Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in San Diego was built back in 1967. Little did the architect and builders know though that an aerial shot taken by Google Earth in 2007 would unfortunately reveal that the four unconnected buildings form the shape of a swastika. Horrified by the revelation the Navy are now spending $600,000 to disguise the shape.

6. Oprah Maze

Image source - techpaparazzi

Dubbed the most powerful celebrity by Forbes and with her iconic show and popular magazine, Oprah Winfrey is, without doubt, the most influential celeb in America. One fan decided to pay tribute to Oprah’s status by designing her own personalised corn maze in 2004. How touching, but seriously how much time did this person have on their hands? Still, at least their effort hasn’t gone unnoticed and has made it into the top ten of Google Earth finds.

7. Firefox Crop Circle

Image source - gearthblog

In 2006 the Oregon State University Linux Users group designed this giant Firefox logo crop circle in a cornfield in Oregon. The huge crop circle spans 45,000 sq. ft. and was created in celebration of the Web browser’s 50 millionth download. Nice work!

8. Atlantis?

Image source - crunchgear

After this Google Earth find people began wondering if it was the lost city of Atlantis. Excited explorers certainly thought so (or hoped so). The grid was found off the coast of Africa and the markings are believed to be streets. The area is said to be the size of Wales. Google Earth engineers quashed the hype by announcing that the grid was actually a digital artifact created by the sonar boats collecting mapping data, but some people still believe otherwise…

9. Santa

Image source - freakitude

Remember those online Google Earth communities I mentioned back in the intro? Well one of those members found this beauty. Going by the name of ‘ear1grey’ they posted this discovery of a giant Santa, proudly standing at an incredible 36 miles tall! Santa was found inconspicuously hiding in Finland.

10. Fighter Jet in Car Park

Image source - oddee

5 World’s Youngest…

5. World’s Youngest Granny (25yr)

A 25-year-old Romanian housewife could be getting a grand old honor: She’s believed to be the world’s youngest grandmother. The British tabloid The Sun reports that Rifca Stanescu had her first child, a daughter named Maria, at the age of 12. Although she urged the girl not to follow her example, Maria got in the family way when she was only 11 and gave birth to a son, Ion. Stanescu was only 23 when she became a grandmother. Ion’s now 2, and Stanescu has mixed feelings about being a grandmother at such a young age. “I am happy to be a grandmother but wished more for Maria,’ she said.

4. World’s Youngest Yoga Teacher (6yr)

At just six, Shruti Pandey is the youngest yoga trainer in the world. The bendy youngster has been teaching adults at an ashram, in northern India, for the last two years. Her trainer, Hari Chetan, 67, set up the ashram 35 years ago and as soon as little Shruti became one of his students, as a tiny four-year old, he spotted her talents. Now she starts her classes at 5.30 am every morning, at Brahmanand Saraswati Dham, in the Jhunsi town, dressed in white leggings and a red t-shirt surrounded by 30 eager pupils ranging from businessmen, teachers, housewives to pensioners. Shruti said: “It feels good when people follow my instructions, I feel like a real teacher.”

3. World’s Youngest Transsexual to have Surgery (16 yr)

German teenager Kim Petras has become the world’s youngest operated transsexual after undergoing a surgery at the age of just 16. The procedure – carried out in secret and paid for by the German health service – was authorised after psychologists confirmed that she was “without doubt a girl in a boy’s body”. It is the world’s youngest ever full sex change operation and Kim had been undergoing hormone therapy since the age of 12.

Kim overcame years of taunts and bullying to achieve her dream of becoming a girl and has begun a modelling career and launched a CD.

Kim, who is now studying fashion design, began calling herself a girl when she was just two years old.

2. World’s Youngest Wall Of Death Motorbike Rider (17yr)

A 17-year-old girl left school to land her first job as the world’s youngest female Wall of Death rider – without a motorbike license. Jaimi Tyrrell joined a troupe of stunt riders after completing her GCSEs and now tours the UK and Europe. The daredevil teen hits speeds of up to 45mph on the vertical 20ft high wall as she rides horizontally around the 32ft wide cylinder.

Performing under the name Jaimi Starr, she cannot wear a helmet as this would affect the drag and she must keep a constant speed to beat the gravity that would otherwise pull her down. Jaimi insisted she had no regrets about her career choice and said she was attracted by the ‘exciting’ lifestyle of a stunt bike rider.The teenager was introduced to the motorbike world by family friend Ken Fox who runs the Ken Fox Troupe stunt riding show.

1. World’s Youngest CEO (14yr)

Sindhuja Rajaraman, a 14-year old girl has become the world’s youngest Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The ninth standard student became the head of Seppan Company, an animation firm, in October 2010, set up by her father.

She was adjudged the fastest 2D and 3D animator by software lobby NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) at the Gaming and Animation Conclave 2010 held in Hyderabad. Rajaraman said: “I am just proud to be an animator. The CEO is just a post given in this company. I am learning animation for this CEO post to make myself worthy for the CEO post. There is no age bar or age limit for animation. Everybody can do animation”. “The scope for animation in India is growing every day. There is going to be a big boom in India and all industries are into the animation, they need animation and multimedia. I am enjoying work and I am also getting challenging works” she added. The company has 160 employees.

Top 10 Coolest Facts About Google

Today if you want to know anything on internet, what ‘ll you do? 95% people ‘ll open the Google and type their required thing’s name in the bar and search. Google is the highly recommended search engine by most of the people. But there are many things which probably you don’t know about.

Here is a list of such Cool facts which are lesser known to the common Google user. I am sharing with you.

• “Google” name actually was just an accidently spelling mistake by the Founders of it. They were going for the “Googol”.
• The Real fact that why the Google page is so simple and bare because the founders had have no knowledge about the HTML. They ‘re simply trying to create a quick search interface.
• A thing which really boost up the traffic for Google was the launch of their spell checking tool. Which named as “Did you mean…..”. This thing really doubled the overall traffic quite instantly.
• “Orkut” is an awesome application built by a genius Google engineer. He was told to do whatever he wanted to do. That’s why from nowhere “Orkut” looks like an App of Google.
• In the Google office, there are no dress codes. So you can wear whatever you like. i.e ugly looking dresses or even a super hero costume.
• “Gmail” was just an internal program to communicate and share things. There ‘re 6 different types of users in that E-mailing program. Gmail is the mixture of all those 6.
• The Employees are allowed to consume 20% of their duty time to spend on their own innovative projects.Orkut and Google News are examples of such projects.
• There are different 117 languages in which Google Products appear. These numbers also include 5languages which have no existence like Elmer Fudd and Swedish Chef.
• Google started its first operation in 1998 from a rented garage as their workplace.
• In 1999, When Google shifted its workplace to their Paolo Alto office, there ‘re just 19 employees and Today it has 2,700 Googlers.

10 Incredible Inventions By The British

The British are very inventive people, but when it comes to marketing inventions and products Americans beat them up. The Americans believe in marketing and making money out of their inventions and products.

Elastic Fabric

It was Thomas Hancock who invented elastic fabric by mastication. Mastication is shredding of rubber scraps to allow it to be formed into sheets. Hancock invented elastic fabric for his use of fastening things like suspenders, stockings etc. Ignorantly he also invented the rubber masticator along the way.

Viagra

If you suffer from erectile dysfunction, then you have the British to thank. Andrew Bell, David Brown and Nicholas Terrett were the people who filed a patent in 1991 after investigating drugs for heart conditions.

Greeting Card

Christmas card and greeting card was invented by Henry Cole in 1846. He was the one who got bored with the idea of writing letters to dear ones, therefore he hired an artist to create a pleasant scene, fixed up the lithographic printer he had in the back room and manually coloured in the picture. It proved instant time saver. And he quickly figured out the financial potential of the item and put a thousand on sale.

But about who put the kitten on a card, is still a mystery.

Matches

John Walker invented the first match in 1827. He placed chemicals at the end of a stick which when rubbed against a rough surface burst into flames. He called them “congreves” and didn’t bother much about patenting them. The matches contained antimony sulfide, gum, potassium chlorate and starch. But, unfortunately sales never caught fire like that matches and he died in poverty.

Electric Toaster

It was the British Company ‘Crompton and Co’ which invented the Electric toaster in 1893. But the main problem with the electric toaster was to find a suitable metal. Then, an alloy of nickel and chromium was patented to allow the current to pass and a dissipation of heat to occur without melting of the element. After that a refinement was introduced in 1918 which allowed doors to turn the toast over allowing toasting of both sides.

Afterwards, in 1926 the Americans thought to get in on the act and invented the Toastmaster, which allowed the toast to be popped up automatically when done. And then an American, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, invented sliced bread in 1928.

Flush Toilet

Flush toilet was invented by godson of Elizabeth I – Sir John Harrington in 1567 and not by Thomas Crapper as popular myth promotes. Crapper was a 19th century plumber who promoted bathroom fitting and patented a few of his own, but he didn’t invent the flush toilet. The S bend, an important part of the modern flush toilet was invented by Alexander Cummings in 1775.

Sunglasses

In 1752 the British James Ayscough invented the hinged spectacles along with tinted glasses. These were tinted in blue and green. He also made microscopes.

The 18th century seems as cool and hip as today inventing so many things.

Stereophonic Recording

Alan Blumlein was the one who invented a single-groove system for stereophonic recording and then patented the basics of stereophonic recording and reproduction in 1931.

The ipod just wouldn’t have been so exciting today without stereophone.

Carbonated Soft Drinks

In 1767, Englishmen Dr. Joseph Priestley created the first drinkable man-made glass of carbonated water.

These carbonated soft drinks were frequently flavoured with lemon, making them the forerunner of Lemonade.

The Englishman also discovered Oxygen, nitrous oxide (laughing gas), hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and also identified plant respiration and photosynthesis.

Rubber Band

The first rubber band was manufactured in 1845 by Stephen Perry of the rubber manufacturing company Messers Perry and Co., in London. This rubber band was made up of vulcanized rubber. Perry invented the rubber band to hold papers and envelopes together.