The plane will travel at an average speed of 43.5 mph and has a 262.5 foot wingspan.  The pilot will be Bertrand Piccard who flew around the world non-stop in a balloon with Brian Jones in 1999. [Computer Weekly]

While you are sipping on a McCafe Latte you can charge your electric vehicle.  McDonald’s is opening the first “green” restaurant in Cary, North Carolina on July 14th.  The restaurant is made of eco-friendly building materials and will include ChargePoint Network Charging Stations for electric vehicles.

According to NovaCharge these ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations will provide:

•    A secure, safe, reliable way for consumers to charge their electric vehicles anywhere they work and play.
•    The ability for EV drivers to find, and navigate to, available open stations.
•    Secure, authorized access charging, while eliminating energy theft and cord theft.
•    An infrastructure that enables rapid growth of the market for plug-in electric vehicles of all types.
•    Administrative monitoring and control services to allow utilities to optimize grid use.

“McDonald’s is an industry leader in environmental conservation and they are continually launching new initiatives to create a sustainable world” said Helda Rodriguez, president of NovaCharge. “We are pleased to be able to partner with them to deliver the ChargePoint Network system, and to provide safe, convenient, grid-friendly, charging stations for
electric vehicles.”

[NovaCharge]

Yes it is true.  Starting today, Gmail, Google Talk, Calendar and Docs are no longer in beta.  You want find any major new updates with this announcement.  Certainly this is a marketing move that will help business customers feel more comfortable deploying these applications in their organization. [Google]

The residents of Venice, Italy now have access to free Wi-Fi.  The city laid ten thousand kilometers (6,250 miles) of fiber optic cable.  The project provides Wi-Fi over the entire city.  The residents will have speeds anywhere from 20MB/sec – 100MB/sec.  The project cost the city fifteen million dollars.  Tourists will have to pay seven dollars a day to use the network.

Hulu today now offers content from ABC.  The first show Hulu will offer from ABC is episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.  Hulu promises to offer other popular ABC shows later on this year.

[Hulu Blog]

Gmail user will see a change in their attachment limit.  Gmail quietly announced the change from 20MB to 25MB.  The extra 5MB will be a nice addition for a lot of users.

Facebook for iPhone 3.0 will be released soon.  Push notification is not planned to make it in this update.  Facebook said to look for push notification in 3.1 update later this summer.  Here is the list of updates:

1. The “new” News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

[Facebook iPhone]

Motor Development International latest creation is the AIRPod.  The vehicle does not produce any emissions, capable of reaching 50mph and has a range of 90 miles.  The engine runs off of high-pressure air tanks.

According to MDI “The standard version is designed for the transport of persons. It has four seats (3 adults and one child) and has space for luggage. It is dedicated to multiple uses as in the private and public sectors. Airports, train stations and municipalities also need a cheap, non-polluting car with high mobility.”

Nick Kurczewski of Inside Line got to test out a prototype, hit the read link below for his impressions.

[Inside Line]

The open-source operating system design for the OLPC XO is now available for download.  The OS can be loaded onto a USB stick to run on PCs and Macs.  The OS has a new interface and custom educational software.

“What we are doing is taking a bunch of old machines that barely run Windows 2000, and turning them into something interesting and useful for essentially zero cost,” says Walter Bender, former president of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. “It becomes a whole new computer running off the USB key; we can breathe new life into millions of decrepit old machines.”

The free version of Sugar on a Stick is available in a 383MB ISO file.  So if you have an old PC or Mac lying around give it a try.

[Sugar Labs]

Online retailers have always had a few shortcomings when competing against physical retailing. People often like to check out the real physical object before purchasing. Online retailers have come up with several ways to deal with the issue – from long-term return policies to Amazon’s “search inside” feature. Zugara is giving a shot at using virtual reality to help people shop for clothes. The shopper stands in front of their home camera and can “try on” different clothes. The problem here is that while you may get an idea of what the clothes would look like on you, it would not tell you what you would actually look like with the item on – after it conforms to your particular fit. I can see this working a little better with eyeglass frames or other items that don’t change shape as much. On the other hand, this may be a good start and may increase sales because it may really give you a better idea of what the colors, etc would look like on you. Check it out for yourself.

Here is the video of their system in action: