ocean

Ten years ago during a visit to Philadelphia, I passed a large ship docked at a pier on the Delaware River. The ship looked like an ocean liner and though I sped by in a car, I noticed the faded name "United States" on the bow. I wondered, could it be the same revolutionary passenger liner that still holds an Atlantic speed record a half a century after its speedy voyage? As it turns out, it was.

The SS United States has been moored in Philadelphia since 1994, but now it appears that its days could finally be numbered. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that the ship's owner, Norwegian Cruise Lines, is seeking to sell the United States for scrap. Norwegian bought the liner in 2003 with the intention of refurbishing and returning it to service in Hawaii as part of NCL America. But as the Hawaii cruise market began to lose money, NCL kept the ship in Pennsylvania.

If the United States ends up in the scrap yard, it will be a sad end to a short, but spectacular, career. When the liner was launched in 1952, it was a technological breakthrough of its time. Thanks to a sharp-edged stern, a bulbous prow, powerful engines, and unique propellers--the design of which was kept secret for many years--the United States was very fast. Its top speed was 43 knots (49.5 miles per hour), but even its typical voyage speed of 34 knots (39.1 miles per hour) was enough to win it attention. … Read more

Titanic Rescue is a simple, cartoonish, quick-to-play arcade game in which you rescue dapper little gentlemen from a sinking ship.

The touch-based interface is both fun and challenging: you can touch and "flick" passengers off the ship (hopefully in a helpful trajectory) and you rescue the passengers by sliding a row of lifeboats (and, later, life preservers) underneath the falling passengers. The gameplay is quick, intuitive, and challenging, as you switch back and forth between flicking dudes and maneuvering boats. Passengers will bounce off of boats and full life preservers (although more than three will sink a boat), … Read more

In a week where the PS3 got its very own white-knuckle suspense thriller, Nintendo quietly released a game whose mission is very nearly the complete opposite. Endless Ocean: Blue World, a sequel to a game that debuted on the Wii back in early 2008, is about the ocean--ocean exploration, scuba diving, cataloging aquatic life, and, for the most part, being serene.

Here in New York, amid a series of snowstorms and clogged storm drains, a virtual trip to South Pacific and Aegean locales never seemed more appealing.

Scott: The original Endless Ocean was more a virtual aquarium visit than a game, focused on lazy swims through surprisingly beautiful undersea ecosystems. Blue World operates the same way, but a number of miniquests and side missions written down in journals offer more structure and tighter chapters of game play. You're basically taking miniature dives in a variety of locales for a few minutes at a time, or as long as your air tanks last.

Though accomplishing mission goals like healing fish or finding treasure are part of the game, it's equally compelling to just slowly paddle around and discover new fish species. Like many recent Wii games, Endless Ocean ditches the nunchuck part of the Wii controller and operates off very simple controls, aiming at the screen for direction and squeezing the Wii remote's trigger button to swim.

The game's characters and soundtrack feel very Japanese, with some of the old-fashioned awkwardness that we either love or hate in old-school RPGs. All the game's aquatic species are real, as are the general locales, so the game also operates as a kind of educational title--although the weird bits of mythological lore that pop up in the unfolding story certainly veer off from fact.

One of the greatest disappointments we felt in Endless Ocean: Blue World was the Wii's lack of advanced HD hardware.… Read more

Science buffs got an early Christmas present when rare video was released showing a spectacular undersea volcanic eruption deep in the Pacific Ocean.

The West Mata volcano sits nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific in an area bordered by Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. It was discovered in May by scientists with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. Lucky researchers managed to catch high-definition video of the eruption with the help of a remotely-operated underwater robot named Jason.

Jason's cameras captured masses of lava bubbling up into the cold … Read more

Screen savers these days tend to give users a lot of options: adjust the speed of one element, change the quantity or color of something else, add your own music, and so on. Coral Reef screen saver downplays customization in favor of really, really good graphics, and we can't say it's a bad trade-off.

The screen saver doesn't do a whole lot. As the name would suggest, it's an underwater scene, with fish leisurely swimming past a shipwreck. Sunlight streams through the water, creating a ripple effect on the sea creatures in the foreground. Users can … Read more

Wave energy got a boost with the connection of the Oyster hydro-electric device to the electricity grid in Scotland last Friday.

Aquamarine Power activated the connection of the Oyster in the waters off Orkney, marking one of the few ocean power devices to be producing electricity.

The device is a hydraulic pump operated by a "hinged flap," where a large metal piece moves back and forth from the motion of the waves. The movement moves a hydraulic piston that pumps water underground to a hydro-electric turbine that drives a generator to make electricity.

The peak power output of … Read more

So, Twitter has had a hard time staying up today because of a denial of service attack. But we think we have the answer. And it's available in many spam e-mails for order. We also get in a big, fat argument about whether News Corp. will win or lose by charging for all its news sites. But we can all agree on Whisky.

Twitter DOS outage today is really becoming a big one. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10304633-36.htm http://status.twitter.com/… Read more

A new approach to harnessing the ocean's power for energy is getting some positive attention.

The Oyster, a giant oscillating device developed by Aquamarine Power that uses hydraulic technology to convert wave power into electricity, won the "Innovator of 2009" award from Britain's Renewable Energy Association in June.

Then on July 15 the Edinburgh, Scotland-based company was awarded 60 million pounds (over $101 million) by the U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change to further develop its device.

Now comes the that the Oyster is set to be installed and working at a test … Read more

A new study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has found that Greenland's melting ice may have a greater effect on sea level rise on the northeastern coasts of the U.S. and Canada than previously hypothesized.

"If Greenland's ice melts at moderate to high rates, ocean circulation by 2100 may shift and cause sea levels off the northeast coast of North America to rise by about 12 to 20 inches (about 30 to 50 centimeters) more than in other coastal areas. The research builds on recent reports that have found that sea level rise … Read more