The greenest buildings of 2011

(CNN) -- Some house important corporate meetings; others are family homes. Some are gearing up to welcome top athletes while others open their doors to school children each day.

But all these buildings have one thing in common: This year they have won coveted architecture awards for innovative design and construction methods and for promoting sustainability.

CNN puts the global spotlight on a handful of buildings that have been recognized not only for their good looks but for their green credentials too.

Casa Locarno -- Locarno, Switzerland

Overlooking Lago Maggiore in Switzerland, Casa Locarno was designed by Designyougo and insulated to low energy standards. Instead of using conventional heating, solar collectors on the roof provide energy for the low temperature under-floor heating, as well as for hot water during most months of the year.Located on the eastern shore of the Lake Zurich in Switzerland, the transparent building houses some 500 staff of crystal manufacturer Swarovski. The low-energy, horseshoe-shaped structure uses water from the nearby lake for heating and cooling.

Award: Green Good Design 2011

OS House -- Racine, Wisconsin, United States

This LEED Platinum-certified family house, located in the town of Racine on the edge of Lake Michigan, was built by Johnsen Schmaling Architects to achieve maximum natural cross-ventilation and make the most of its solar exposure. It features a compact structured plumbing system with low-flow fixtures on taps and shower heads and an on-demand hot water circulating pump.

Award: AIA 2011 COTE Top Ten Green Projects

Velodrome -- London, United Kingdom

Sitting at the north of London's Olympic Park, the Velodrome will open its doors this summer to welcome thousands of track cycling fans during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Designed by Hopkins Architects and built to be lightweight and efficient to reflect the design of a bicycle, it is is one of the most sustainable Olympic Park venues. Strategically positioned roof lights allow the use of abundant daylight, while openings in the venue's external timber cladding help to achieve natural ventilation.

My opinion:

I think that good to save the planet, and conserve de ozone layer. But that house can be expensive, an d that houses could be so dificult to find, they need to get advertising.

Apple: School should center on the Ipad

Apple wants schools to center on iPad

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Apple announces digital textbook publishing app
• The free app is called iBook Author
• The company says anyone can make a digital textbook in five minutes
• Moves are part of Apple's largey to remake the textbook industryr strateg(CNN) -- Apple on Thursday lifted the veil on its plans to remake the educational landscape in a way that centers on its best-selling tablet computer, the iPad.

"Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement.
At a press conference in New York, the company announced three products that aim to get students and teachers to use the iPad's touch-screen interface to read, write, plan classes and communicate with each other.
First, a free app called iBooks Author lets anyone create a digital, interactive textbook.
In a demo at the event, an Apple employee created an e-book with the app in about five minutes, according to live blogs.
Second, an update to a piece of software called iTunes U lets teachers plan their curriculum and communicate with their students over the iPad.
The new iTunes U, which also is free and available on Thursday, will "allow anyone, anywhere, at any time to take courses for free," Schiller said, according to Fortune.com's Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who was live blogging from the event. Fortune is a partner site of CNN.com.
"If you're an educator at a university, college, or K-12 school, now you have an easy way to design and distribute complete courses featuring audio, video, books, and other content," Apple's website said Thursday. "And students and lifelong learners can experience your courses for free through a powerful new app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch."
Finally, a new textbook store called iBooks 2, also a free app, will feature digital e-books for schools.
Apple said it is partnering with several major textbook companies -- including Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who will make e-books for the store, according to Fortune.
High school textbooks start at $14.99, the company said.
In another demo, Apple's Roger Rosner showed off textbooks for the iPad that allow students to zoom in on pictures of cells, dissect digital frogs and make notes and highlights on the e-book pages.
"I don't think there's ever been a textbook that made it this easy to be a good student," Rosner said, according to Fortune.
All of these moves are part of Apple's larger strategy to remake the textbook industry. The company reportedly has been courting schools to make use of its popular tablet computer.
At the press conference, Schiller mocked paper textbooks, saying, "They're not portable, not durable, not interactive, not searchable." Books on the iPad are all of those things, he said, according to live blogs covering the event.
Some educators seem to be excited about the changes.
"Apple has recognized that learning for students is not a one-way street," Jed Macosko, an associate professor at Wake Forest University, said in a statement.
"Until now, most traditional e-textbooks have focused on linear content delivery, which is not the way people learn. Research shows that we learn by asking questions," said Macosko, the author of an interactive biology textbook.
Others questioned whether the move could give Apple too much control over educational content.
"(It's) not clear so far whether Apple's new textbooks will be open formats (ePub etc.) or only in Apple format," Mathew Ingram, a senior writer for the blog GigaOm, posted on Twitter after the event.
Or they mocked the fact that Apple is trying to take such a big role in education.
"For a small upcharge, Apple will put a huge logo on your school and tattoo an Apple on each (student's) forearm," user @irasocol wrote on Twitter.

I think that the ipad is a great tool for users in a way that help you to be more organized. Also with the deals that apple made with the editorials it would be easier to carry just an ipad than a lot of huge books. But one disadvantage is that the ipad is to expensive so schools that doesnt have to much money cant buy the ipad. It should be only for the teachers because the need to organize more and need a lot of stuff, and they are more responsible because imagine the teacher leaves and the students could play with apps or pass the answers. So the ipad is a great tool but to expensive is my conclusion.

Google says social network has 90m

Google's infant social network experienced a recent growth spurt.
Google+ has more than 90 million registered users, Google CEO Larry Page said during the company's earnings presentation on Thursday. That more than doubles the 40 million that Google reported in October.
"We're very excited about the growth we've had, and we've certainly seen a tremendous number of people added every day," Page said. "That notion of identity is a deep part of what we're doing."
Google launched its social network last June. Since then, it has added toolbars and other buttons on its websites to aggressively promote the service. Google stirred up controversy last week when it began giving prominent placement to Google+ pages in results delivered by its search engine.
On average, Google engineers have introduced a new feature related to Google+ every day since its launch, Page said.
It took Facebook about four years to reach 90 million users, according to Facebook's public statements. After starting as a students-only service, Facebook now has 800 million people checking their accounts at least once a month, about 10 times that of Google+.


Analysts say Google+ was built specifically to challenge Facebook's growing dominance on the Web. Google and Facebook generally do not collaborate. Another rival social network, Twitter, complained that the recent changes to Google search favor Google+ and harm Twitter's ranking on results pages.

 I think that facebook and google+ are really good social networks but facebook is better!!

Apple: School should center on the iPad

(CNN) -- Apple on Thursday lifted the veil on its plans to remake the educational landscape in a way that centers on its best-selling tablet computer, the iPad.
"Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, said in a statement.
At a press conference in New York, the company announced three products that aim to get students and teachers to use the iPad's touch-screen interface to read, write, plan classes and communicate with each other.
First, a free app called iBooks Author lets anyone create a digital, interactive textbook.
In a demo at the event, an Apple employee created an e-book with the app in about five minutes, according to live blogs.
Second, an update to a piece of software called iTunes U lets teachers plan their curriculum and communicate with their students over the iPad.
The new iTunes U, which also is free and available on Thursday, will "allow anyone, anywhere, at any time to take courses for free," Schiller said, according to Fortune.com's Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who was live blogging from the event. Fortune is a partner site of CNN.com.
"If you're an educator at a university, college, or K-12 school, now you have an easy way to design and distribute complete courses featuring audio, video, books, and other content," Apple's website said Thursday. "And students and lifelong learners can experience your courses for free through a powerful new app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch."
Finally, a new textbook store called iBooks 2, also a free app, will feature digital e-books for schools.
Apple said it is partnering with several major textbook companies -- including Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who will make e-books for the store, according to Fortune.
High school textbooks start at $14.99, the company said.
In another demo, Apple's Roger Rosner showed off textbooks for the iPad that allow students to zoom in on pictures of cells, dissect digital frogs and make notes and highlights on the e-book pages.
"I don't think there's ever been a textbook that made it this easy to be a good student," Rosner said, according to Fortune.
All of these moves are part of Apple's larger strategy to remake the textbook industry. The company reportedly has been courting schools to make use of its popular tablet computer.
At the press conference, Schiller mocked paper textbooks, saying, "They're not portable, not durable, not interactive, not searchable." Books on the iPad are all of those things, he said, according to live blogs covering the event.
Some educators seem to be excited about the changes.
"Apple has recognized that learning for students is not a one-way street," Jed Macosko, an associate professor at Wake Forest University, said in a statement.
"Until now, most traditional e-textbooks have focused on linear content delivery, which is not the way people learn. Research shows that we learn by asking questions," said Macosko, the author of an interactive biology textbook.
Others questioned whether the move could give Apple too much control over educational content.
"(It's) not clear so far whether Apple's new textbooks will be open formats (ePub etc.) or only in Apple format," Mathew Ingram, a senior writer for the blog GigaOm, posted on Twitter after the event.
Or they mocked the fact that Apple is trying to take such a big role in education.
"For a small upcharge, Apple will put a huge logo on your school and tattoo an Apple on each (student's) forearm," user @irasocol wrote on Twitter.

Commentary:
I think using iPads instead of book and notebooks is a great idea. I will be good because first you wont have to carry a lot of books and notebooks. You wont need to spend money on backpacks and pens. Maybe it will be great for us. But for the companies that make notebook, pens backpacks, etc will be sad because they wont have money and they will close. I think we are not ready to use those kinds of technology.

Jose Gonzalez

Wikipedia, other websites back after anti-piracy bill protest

By the CNN Wire Staff January 19, 2012 -- Updated 0737 GMT (1537 HKT) |

Explain it to me: SOPA

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The protest is in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act legislation
• "We're not done yet," website said
• The legislation is working its way through Congress

(CNN) -- Wikipedia was back Thursday, a day after shutting down the website to protest anti-piracy bills now in Congress.
On the website early Thursday morning was the cryptic message: "Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. We're not done yet."
Clicking on that message takes a Wikipedia viewer to a thank you letter and instructions on how to continue fighting against anti-piracy bills that critics say could amount to censorship.
"Your voice was loud and strong," the message said. "Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet."
Wikipedia was among several websites to shut down Wednesday in protest of the bills.
Instead of the usual encyclopedia articles, visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site were greeted by a message about the decision to black out its Web page for an entire day.
Why Wikipedia went down at midnight
However, users were able to access Wikipedia on some smartphones.
The site and several others went dark at midnight Tuesday; others followed suit later in the day.
The protest is in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act bill, a piece of proposed legislation that is working its way through the Congress. A Senate committee approved a similar bill in May called the Protect IP Act, which is now pending before the full Senate.
The controversy over SOPA and PIPA has turned into an all-out war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Media companies have united in favor of the bills, while tech's power players are throwing their might into opposing them.
"Both SOPA and PIPA are threats not just to the U.S. economy, and not just to all the jobs that this tech sector creates, but if they had existed, Steve Huffman and I could have never founded Reddit," said Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded the site. Millions visit Reddit to submit interesting links from websites, discuss them and vote on them, he said, calling it "sort of a democratic front page of the web." Reddit also went dark Wednesday morning and was back Thursday.
One member of Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, who opposes the bills, said the unprecedented blackouts had "turned the tide against a backroom lobbying effort by interests that aren't used to being told no."
Issa is pushing for consideration of his own plan, the OPEN act, addressing the matter.

Because of the SOPA there is a risk that the social hubs will dissapear, people are going to be unhappy if this happens. In a few years we will say "do you remember when fecabook was free?".

swatch watches:

Swatch is a brand name for a line of wrist watches from the Swatch Group , a Swiss conglomerate with vertical control of the production of ...

Swatch is Swatch Group's namesake brand of watches. swatch Swatch may also refer to: The Swatch Group , a Swiss company and watch ...

Smart (automobile) (redirect from Swatch Mercedes ART)

In the late 1980s, SMH (makers of the Swatch brand of watches) CEO Nicolas Hayek began developing an idea for a new car using the same.Katherine Bernhardt

2009"supermodels and Swatch Watches", Galeria Marta Cervera, Madrid Spain. 2008"Wonder Women", CArbon12 Dubai, UAE. Kate, Giselle, Agyness.

i think that the best watch is the swatch becouse te mechanic and all the good thing that the people  like about a watch the swatch have alot of good things

swatch is working alot of time ago .

Inter Milan passes to quarterfinals of the italian cup, defeating Genoa 2-1 at the San Siro stadium. Goalkeeper Julio Cesar, defenders Lucio and Walter Samuel and striker Diego Milito and Giampaolo Pazzini were playing as holders.
Inter Milan took the lead when Maicon took a 25- yard shot leaving Genoa´s goalkeeper no choice at the goal. Inter Milan doubled their lead five minutes after the brake when Joel Obi vollys he`s first goal for the club.
Genoa pulls his first nd only goal at injury time when Lucas Pratto shoots and hits the crossbar and Valter Brisa reacts and reshoots scoring from close range.
But Inter held on the victory and know faces a match against Napoli.
Meanwhile in Spain, Valencia passes to semifinals after defeating Levante 4-1 in the Quarterfinals. Goals from Jonas, Roberto Soldado, Pablo Piatti, and Tino Costa