Tuesday, March 10, 2009


TIDAL POWER
Tidal power traditionally involves erecting a dam across the opening to a tidal basin. The dam includes a sluice that is opened to allow the tide to flow into the basin; the sluice is then closed, and as the sea level drops, traditional hydropower technologies can be used to generate electricity from the elevated water in the basin. Some researchers are also trying to extract energy directly from tidal flow streams.
The energy potential of tidal basins is large — the largest facility, the La Rance station in France, generates 240 megawatts of power. Currently, France is the only country that successfully uses this power source. French engineers have noted that if the use of tidal power on a global level was brought to high enough levels, the Earth would slow its rotation by 24 hours every 2,000 years.
Tidal energy systems can have environmental impacts on tidal basins because of reduced tidal flow and silt buildup.
3 Ways of Using the Tidal Power of the OceanThere are three basic ways to tap the ocean for its energy. We can use the ocean's waves, we can use the ocean's high and low tides, or we can use temperature differences in the water.



How it works: Tidal Barrages
These work rather like a hydro-electric scheme, except that the dam is much bigger.
A huge dam (called a "barrage") is built across a river estuary. When the tide goes in and out, the water flows through tunnels in the dam.
The ebb and flow of the tides can be used to turn a turbine, or it can be used to push air through a pipe, which then turns a turbine. Large lock gates, like the ones used on canals, allow ships to pass.
If one was built across the Severn Estuary, the tides at Weston-super-Mare would not go out nearly as far - there'd be water to play in for most of the time.
But the Severn Estuary carries sewage and other wastes from many places (e.g. Bristol & Gloucester) out to sea. A tidal barrage would mean that this stuff would hang around Weston-super-Mare an awful lot longer!
Also, if you're one of the 80,000+ birds that feeds on the exposed mud flats when the tide goes out, then you have a problem, because the tide won't be going out properly any more.



Pimp-My-Profile.com - Build a Slideshow

Monday, March 9, 2009




PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (officially marketed PLAYSTATION 3,commonly abbreviated PS3) is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment, and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.
A major feature that distinguishes the PlayStation 3 from its predecessors is its unified online gaming service, the PlayStation Network,which contrasts with Sony's former policy of relying on game developers for online play.Other major features of the console include its robust multimedia capabilities,connectivity with the PlayStation Portable,and its use of a high-definition optical disc format, Blu-ray Disc, as its primary storage medium.The PS3 was also the first Blu-ray 2.0-compliant Blu-ray player on the market.
The PlayStation 3 was first released on November 11, 2006 in Japan,November 17, 2006 in North America,and March 23, 2007 in Europe and Oceania.Two SKUs were available at launch: a basic model with a 20 GB hard drive (HDD), and a premium model with a 60 GB hard drive and several additional features (the 20 GB model was not released in Europe or Oceania).Since then, several revisions have been made to the console's available models.

Sunday, March 8, 2009



PlayStation Portable connectivity

The PlayStation Portable can connect with the PlayStation 3 in many ways, including in-game connectivity. For example, Formula One: Championship Edition, a racing game, was shown at E3 2006 using a PSP Tas a real-time rear-view mirror.In addition, it is possible to download PlayStation games to the PlayStation 3 from the PlayStation Store. These games were not originally playable on the PS3. They could only be sent to a PSP, and played using the PSP's PlayStation Emulator. Sony added support for playing downloaded PlayStation titles on PS3 on April 18, 2007, with the update to firmware revision 1.70.

 

Sony has also demonstrated the PSP playing back video content from the PlayStation 3 hard disk across an ad-hoc wireless network. This feature is referred to as Remote Play located under the browser icon on both the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable. Remote play has since expanded to allow remote access to the PS3 via PSP from any wireless access point in the world.