One of today’s biggest stories is the fact that India and the Middle East had about 75% of their digital connection to Europe cut off when two cables on the floor of the Mediterranean snapped under mysterious circumstances. Cables get damaged all the time, but never have two gone out simultaneously. It will take days, or even a week to repair the cables. No one knows the cause—or do they? See update below.
newVideoPlayer("fullbars_gawker.flv", 475, 286);Last weekend we spent some time driving buggies in the middle of the Arabian desert, 40 miles out of Dubai. After an hour of sliding up and down impossible dunes, we stopped to rest. I took out my cellphone to see if it had survived the craziness, which it had, and was surprised to see that I had service available. And not just one bar, but absolutely perfect coverage: the full five bars, EDGE and all. And, according to our friends James and Lu, it gets even better:
For those of you who haven’t heard of The World, it’s an enormous project going on in Dubai. Where they will construct islands, that as a whole will resemble the different parts of our planet.
And today they announced that the design of their first continent is complete. The official name of the area is OQYANA (what?), however you and I would know it better as Australasia. It will be composed of 20 islands spanning 1.8m square feet, and will be the closest to Dubai’s mainland, giving it the best views and easiest access to the real world.
We seem to say this every time Dubai announces a crazy engineering endeavor, but as soon as we’re done learning Arabic we are so moving there. It’s like they ask the coolest 5-year-old what kind of buildings they like, and then build them.– Benjamin Longo
Concept design finalized for Australasian continent on The World, Dubai [GoWealthy.com]
