The Republic of Estonia just got a high-tech new way to vote. The Estonian government has agreed to a resolution that allows their people the ability to cast votes via mobile phone. Pretty amazing, and making voting so convenient pretty much takes away any excuse to not participate in the electoral process. The new cellphone balloting option will be available to Estonians starting in 2011.

Estonia has been on the cutting-edge of voting technology for quite some time now. In fact, a few years past, they became the very first nation to allow their citizens to vote via the internet. While that was a newsworthy venture, unfortunately only one percent of voters chose the internet balloting option. I would expect it to become more mainstream in the future as younger, more tech savvy Estonians become of legal voting age.

Now, voting via wireless phone will take a little bit of extra work, as users will need to have their mobile equipped with a special chip available from the Estonian Governmental offices. The chip is necessary in order to confirm the voter’s identity, and prevent fraud.

Who would think that with a sluggish economy, video game sales would still be rising? I guess they are somewhat cheaper than constant nights on the town?

Despite the economic down-turn, the gaming sector has come out with strong sales numbers in October, continuing its trend for the year. In fact, with a monthly total of $1.31 billion, even during these tough times, the sector has seen an 18 percent increase from last year at this time.

And guess who’s in the lead? If you follow console trends closely (or at all) it should come as no surprise to you that the Nintendo Wii continues to lead the pack in sales. Nintendo Wii outsold both PS3s and Xbox 360s, even after a strong price cut on Xbox.

Personally, I’m not surprised. But then again, I just bought a Wii last month, and own neither of the others.

                                                    
The folks at Nasa sure are resourceful. More resourceful than I’d personally care to be, but then again, I’m also not brave enough to be blasting into space at a rocketship’s pace.

Anyhow, word on the web is that astronauts will no longer be limited to the exponential joy of exploring the solar system, they will now also be exploring the taste of urine.

Excuse me? I know, it sounds a little well… disgusting at first, but the whole idea is actually quite ingenious. The International Space Station is getting a vital new machine that will turn urine into safe (and needed) drinking water. Before you run out to get one for your home (heh, kidding) be aware that the device comes at the tune of $250 million dollars.

But why? Come 2010, NASA is set to suspend its shuttle program, which makes the new urine-to-water device necessary, as previously the shuttle’s electric systems had been providing much of the space station’s drinking water. So, well, cheers!

…and it comes with a big price tag! I’ll let you decide if the onslaught of features being released with Nokia’s N96 is worth the $895.00 price tag, but I will tell you this: she sure is pretty.

Nokia has gone the extra mile to make an all inclusive device that includes every option a wireless enthusiast could ask for. The Nokia N96’s wrap sheet includes: the ability to hold over 20,000 images and 18,000 songs, a 5 megapixel camera including video capability, 2.8 inch QVGA display, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and by the way of microSD – expandable memory. If I missed something, don’t worry, this device almost certainly has it. Really, its aim seems to be “one device to do it all.”

Where can you find it? Well the device had already been unleasehed in both India and the UK, as well as in limited quanities in the US. If you gotta have it, look to the Noka flagship stores in NY as well as Chicago — or of course, online.

Well, IBM employees best be careful before they turn their backs on the big-name tech company, as they could find themselves involved in a lawsuit. A former high-ranking executive who left the company for Apple, is finding that out now.

The executive in question was suppose to begin employment with Apple in only a few weeks time, but as he was a tenured employee with deep knowledge of IBM’s secrets and strategy, he may be barred from working for Apple, an obvious IBM competitor.

As someone who has worked in the technology sector, and been subject to a variety of non-compete agreements, I can certainly see IBM’s point, as is the basis of the lawsuit. IBM claims that according to a contractual agreement, their former-exec must wait one years time before working for a competing business. This is particularly important, as in this case, the employee was a key part in the team that produced IBM’s System X and BladeCenter of which Apple has competing products.

I certainly remember my first 3-D flick, well not the flick itself so much, but more so the overall 3-D experience. I clearly recall being opposed the funny glasses, you know, for hygiene reasons rather than vanity, as they had just been used by another person! I really do hope they’re making them disposable and recyclable these days. Anyhow, as someone who found the whole 3.D thing a little underwhelming, I had mostly left it in my 1990’s memory bank. Next to the New Kids On The Block CD collection and a pile of neon clothing, no doubt.

Anyhow, please bear with me, I am going somewhere with this. Today I was surprised to learn that five Hollywood film companies have signed on to provide over a billion dollars worth of 3-d film technology to 20,000 plus theatres in America.

Apparently, 3-D has not disappeared, but instead mostly been limited as few theatres are equipped to propery show movies containing the technology. This new deal is supposed to change that, and in effect we should start to see more and more movies being released to theatres in 3-D. Oh, and yes, the glasses are still required.

Settle down, it’s not quite here yet – but at least Mac users are finally on Netflix’s radar. The company says it will  begin providing support for Mac users in a few months time. The news was recently broken by Netflix representative “Brent” on the company’s official blog,

“We’ve been busy working getting a solution that will allow you to watch instantly on your Mac. So hang in there – we’ll have something for you by the end of the year,”

Encouraging words, however long overdue. It’s always astounding how businesses can completely ignore a large and growing segment consumers. Oh well, better late than never?

In other Netflix news, the company has parterned with Starz Play in a deal that will add 1,000 titles to its “Watch Instantly” selection, and is planning to add a further 1,500 by years end. Hits such as “Spider-Man 3,” “No Country for Old Men” and “Superbad” will be part of the new package of titles.

Researchers from the University of Toronto recently discovered a vast filtering system located in China that was being used to track and and hold records of text messages containing politically important keywords sent through Skype China’s internet messaging system. These records were being held on computers that could be accessed by anybody, including China’s government. Voice calls made by the program were not included in the stored information.

Tom-Skype, a joint venture of Tom Online and Skype, is effectively Skype’s arm in China, and admitted on Thursday that they had engaged in monitoring and storing some of its users’ text messages, apologizing for the incident.

A spokeswoman for Skype, an eBay company, has now come forward, admitting to the privacy invasion of their servers, and insisting that the breach has now be corrected.

I saw this heated walkway and had to post. If you live in California, Australia or someplace with hot and sunny weather 365 days a year, you might want to skip over this post. However, if you live up North, you need to check it out. I almost want to buy the mat just for the novelty factor and the look on my neighbor’s faces. Imagine how great this would be for that little old lady who can’t rightly shovel her walkway. Basically, it’s a heated traction mat that stays out all winter long and you would turn it on when it starts to snow – heating up and melting the snow.

Specs? Of course. The mat can melt up to 2” of snow per hour, and plugs into any standard 120V outlet. Price wise it comes in a little over a grand, for a 15′ long x 24” size. Larger versions are available but will cost more.

My particular corner of the world doesn’t receive quite enough snowfall to warrant such a purchase, but I can imagine those living farther east finding it very useful.

As a webmaster, there are few things more frustrating than logging on to do some work, only to notice that one of my sites is down. Or, being involved in another project, only to be interrupted by customer emails telling me that they’re unable to access a website. Down time can mean a loss of readership, customers, and confidence in a business’ viability. It’s the online equivalent of a “closed” sign.

A lot of webmasters may not even be aware of how much downtime their website experiences, having a false sense of security by host company’s promises of up-time. We simply can’t all be at our computers twenty four seven (nor would we want to be), or afford to hire a team of people in order to enjoy around the clock coverage.

In that regard, I would recommend signing up for a free account with Internet Uptime Monitoring Server Software, as they will actively monitor your website at regular intervals and provide notification if the website is unavailable. The service is able to notify the user via text message, to ensure you’re alerted no matter where you are.

Besides the obvious advantage of knowing when your website is down, a benefit to using this software, is that you can get a better idea of how reliable your web host is, and if necessary, make the switch to a hosting company that will better deliver on their promises. Personally, I have several websites, both blogs and static sites, and need to know if they are off-line, so I use the service as a necessity.