Skype Delivers Free Holiday Wifi to Fifty US Airports

The folks over at Skype are providing a welcome gift to weary travelers this holiday season. Unwrap an hour of free wifi access in more than fifty airports across the US. 

According to this announcement:

"From December 21st thru December 27th, travelers passing through or delayed in over 50 airports across the country will be able to access third-party hotspots using Skype WiFi and connect with loved ones via a Skype video or voice call for free."

To take advantage of this offer, you need to have the most recent version of the Skype client installed on your PC or Mac. After you sign into your Skype account, just check your wireless connection to verify you are in a supported location.

Grab your copy of Skype for Windows here, for Mac here and for Linux here.

Skype will brighten the holidays for travelers in major airports in New York, Chicago, Miami, Denver, Burbank and San Francisico, among many others.

Skype Wifi customers can also take advantage of this special holiday gift. Skype Wifi is a service which offers paid access to over a million wifi hotspots worldwide. 

After your trip, you can share your free holiday wifi experience at #freeskypewifi on Twitter. 

Article first published as Skype Delivers Free Holiday Wifi to 50 US Airports on Technorati.

Android Powered Smart Watches Coming Soon

I'm Watch

First published as "Android Powered Smart Watches Coming Soon" on Technorati

A new generation of smart watches is ready to hit the market. Sporting Android OS, these watches do much more than tell time, they provide quick access to email, text, social networking sites, videos and even take phone calls.

Two start up companies are poised to enter the market. The "I'm Watch" from Italy does not support wifi, but will tether via bluetooth to your smartphone and provide web access using your existing data plan. Download music, videos and apps from the new "I'm Market", which is the I'm Watch online store.

The I'm Watch sports a curved 1.5 inch, 240 x 240 pixel multi-touch screen and weighs about 70 grams or about 2.5 ounces. It comes in a rainbow of colors and styles and is powered by a Freescale IMX233 CPU (454MHz) and 64 MB of memory. Its 450mAh battery can run for about 24 hours on standby and about four hours when running apps. Speaker and mic are included.  (specs are here: .pdf)

The I'm Watch starts at 299 euros or about 423 dollars. With 50% up front, delivery is expected in about 90 days.  It currently runs Android Donut 1.6 for its' lower memory consumption, but backports for Froyo and Gingerbread are available.

WiMM Labs is offering up a platform for a variety of small, Android powered devices which provide wifi and bluetooth connectivity, an accelerometer, magnetometer and vibrate alerts.

They envision a range of smart gadgets including wearable watches, pendants and belt clips. Other useful WiMM powered devices might include clip on bike models and usb powered mini-computers.

The WiMM powered watch features a 1.4 inch color, touch screen display. It supports up to 32 MB of memory, its water resistant and only weighs 22 grams or less than one ounce.

Use it to screen calls, texts and social media. It will come loaded with custom watch faces and handy apps for caller ID, Calendar, Weather and more.

No more digging through a cluttered purse or fumbling for a smartphone in your pocket. Get ready for a new generation of android powered mini devices which will make information, networking and social media even more accessible and useful than ever before.

images: I'm Watch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shisho_1975/5880583450/sizes/o/in/photostream/
WiMM Watch: wimmwatch: http://www.wimm.com/  

Massive Study Proves Climate Change is No Hoax

 First published as, "Massive Study Proves Climate Change is No Hoax" on Technorati

An independent review of more than one and a half billion temperature records from fifteen sources over more than a century  clearly shows that the planet is warming. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have confirmed previous reports that global temperatures have risen by 1 degree Celsius or nearly two degrees Fahrenheit overall.


The team included a 2011 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Saul Perlmutter and various climatologists and statisticians. Compiling a huge open database of temperature records, researchers found a striking correlation with earlier American and British studies and the data clearly supports the conclusions that warming is occurring.

This study is the most comprehensive and thorough to date and focused on some nagging questions about the debate. According to this statement:

" The most important indicator of global warming, by far, is the land and sea surface temperature record. This has been criticized in several ways, including the choice of stations and the methods for correcting systematic errors. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study sets out to to do a new analysis of the surface temperature record in a rigorous manner that addresses this criticism. We are using over 39,000 unique stations, which is more than five times the 7,280 stations found in the Global Historical Climatology Network Monthly data set (GHCN-M) that has served as the focus of many climate studies."

Skeptics have long criticized the use of data sources considered of 'poor' reliability. However, the results remained surprisingly consistent regardless of the perceived accuracy of some reporting stations. Despite local variations, the overall trend remained the same as stations considered 'reliable'.
Researchers found that there is an 'urban heat effect' which is significant to the local area. However, as less than 1% of the global land area is urban, these 'heat islands' were not deemed significant to the planet's overall climate.

Confusing the issue is data that shows one third of stations, many in the US and northern Europe, reported cooling over the last seventy years.

These cooler readings could be due to local variations and expected background 'noise' in the data. It may also be evidence of uneven warming of the planet.
Changes in ocean currents, wind and storm patterns will undoubtedly cause some areas to experience colder, wetter winters and more severe storms. 

It also shows that in those areas experiencing warming, temperatures may have risen much higher than the global average of 1 degree Celsius.

In fact recent studies show temperatures at the poles continue to rise faster than other areas of the globe. Disproportional heating at the poles has contributed to the rapid disappearance of sea ice and thawing of permafrost, releasing even more CO2.

You can review the data here  and draw your own conclusions. The evidence seems overwhelming but a vocal minority of skeptics and a lack of political courage continue to thwart any action as temperatures rise and we move ever closer to a possible climate 'tipping point'.