Most expensive football transfers

 

• Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid look to have blown the current transfer record for a footballer out of the water after having an £80m bid for Cristiano Ronaldo accepted by Man United. We look back at the ten mega-deals the Portuguese wizard's apparent move to Spain will put in the shadows.

• Kaka £59m - from AC Milan to Real Madrid               

Until Real came in for Ronaldo, their reported £59m bid for Kaka looked like it was going to be the new world record benchmark for a transfer fee. Kaka said he was moving 'for AC Milan'. Course he is.

Zinedine Zidane£46.7million - from Juventus to Real Madrid in 2001

Following the controversial arrival of Luis Figo in the Spanish capital a year before, Real president Florentino Perez continued his now infamous Galacticos project with the capture of the then FIFA World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane from Italian giants Juventus for a fee that stood as the world record until Kaka's deal.

   Luis Figo £37million - from Barca to Real in 2000

Perez was elected Real president in the summer of 2000 on the back of his promise to do the unthinkable and bring the star player from arch-rivals Barcelona to the Bernabeu. Upon appointment he was true to his word, breaking the world transfer record by signing Luis Figo for £37million.

  

 

 Hernan Crespo £35.7million - from Parma to Lazio in 2000 

         

In the summer of 2000 Sven-Goran Eriksson's Lazio were Serie A champions and flush with cash following the sale of Christian Vieri to Inter Milan a year before for a then world-record fee. They spent £35.7million of their money on Parma's Hernan Crespo, who finished top scorer in the league in his first season in Rome but was unable to help the club defend their Scudetto and also left for Inter in 2002.

  

Robinho £32.5million - Real Madrid to Manchester City in 2008  

                               


Having been taken over by the super-rich Abu Dhabi investment group on the final day of the 2008 summer transfer window, the new owners of Manchester City made a signal of their intent by beating Chelsea to the signing of unsettled Brazilian star Robinho from Real Madrid in a Premier League record deal worth £32.5million

Sony Ericsson Satio another 12.1MP

Sony Ericsson has announced another 12.1 megapixel phone, the Sony Ericsson Satio. It is a full 640 x 350 3.5-inch touchscreen phone comes with 12.1 megapixel camera, dual-band HSPA, microSD expansion (forget about the expensive memory stick), xenon flash and will be available in three colors black, silver and Bordeaux. Will be out in October.

 Sony Ericsson Satio specs:


• 12.1 megapixel camera, video light, xenon flash, auto focus, face detection, bestpic, geotagging, image stabilizer.
• red-eye reduction, smile detection, touch focus
• Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)
• WebKit web browser
• On-screen QWERTY keyboard
• Auto rotate• Gesture control
• S60 5th edition Symbian OS
• HD and 3D games
• FM radio with RDS
• Java
• TV out
• In-built WiFi
• A-GPS
• Size: 112 x 55 x 13.3 mm
• Weight: 126 grams
• Main screen: 16,777,216 colour nHD TFT
• 16:9 widescreen
• Resolution: 640 x 360 pixels
• Size: 3.5 inches
• Phone memory: 128 MB
• Memory Card Support: SanDisk microSD

N Board - Regular stand for iPad

Fresh from the streets of Korea comes the N-Board, a new gadget which lets you convert your iPad into an (almost) full-fledged netbook computer.

The handy N-Board acts as an easel to prop up your iPad, but also sports a hub with 4 USB ports, and what I thought was an unnecessary cooling fan.

Upon scrolling further down the product page, I came to discover that the N-Board was actually designed as a cooling station for everyday netbooks, but happens to make the perfect prop for your iPad too. That said, if you have both an iPad and a netbook, it’s nice to know that it’ll work with both.

Either way, you’re probably not going to be buying an N-Board any time soon, unless you happen to live in Korea, where it sells for 35,000 KRW (appx. $29 USD).

The world's largest dam is located in China

Flooding in central China feels the strength of the world's largest dam - Three Gorges. It is reported that it now to the limit - resets 70,000 cubic meters of water per second. This is a record. However, the water level every hour only grows. The consequences, according to the engineers, can be disastrous, especially considering that the flooding in the area have already left homeless tens of thousands of people and caused material damage to millions of yuan. Evacuate had about a million people.

Nokia Kinetic -Concept Phone

The Nokia Kinetic isn't just a sleek concept phone. It's a sleek concept phone that raises itself up into a standing position when a call comes in. Huh?  Inside the Kinetic is an electromagnet that can shift weights in the curved base, causing the phone to tilt upright on cue, that cue being an incoming call. Telemarketer again? Tap the phone to decline the call and it'll fall back down. It's intended to be a playful feature, though I can see it being useful in a quiet office where even vibrating phones are sometimes an irritant to others.

The Kinetic's pretty clever, though designer Jeremy Innes-Hopkins will have to do some serious convincing if anyone's going to go for the bulbous form factor of this thing.

iPhone Device 4

As expected, the conference was held Apple WWDC announcement of a new iPhone device 4. According to Steve Jobs, the new model - is the biggest breakthrough since the release of first-generation iPhone in 2007.

Indeed, the news quite a lot of differences compared to its predecessor. So what's the main advantages of 4 before iPhone iPhone 3GS? First, the model is running a new version of the operating system and is built on the processor Apple A4, whereas the iPhone 3GS uses 600 MHz Cortex-A8. Diagonal display iPhone 4 is 3.5 inches, similar to iPhone 3GS. But the resolution - in the whole 4 times higher: 960x640 pixels.

In addition, the iPhone 4 a 5 megapixel camera with flash and video recording 720p, as well as the front camera. Then, like iPhone 3GS possible photo and video were much more modest: 3.2 megapixel camera without flash, VGA video recording. A front camera in iPhone 3GS and was not at all. In addition, the new iPhone 4 supports not only HSDPA, but HSUPA, a wireless standard, Wi-Fi add a range 802.11n. New also received not only the accelerometer and digital compass as iPhone 3GS, and gyroscope. It uses a Micro SIM card instead of the usual SIM, and her body - noticeably thinner. The thickness of the iPhone 4 does not exceed 9.3 mm, making it perhaps the most subtle communicator in the industry. Overall dimensions iPhone 4 is 115,2 x58, 6x9, 3 mm, and iPhone 3GS - 115,5 x62, 1x12, 3 mm. Weight - 137 and 135 grams respectively (new slightly heavier). And, finally, the iPhone 4 more battery life on almost all indicators: 7 hours (3G) and up to 14 hours (2G) of talk time, up to 10 hours when transferring data from Wi-Fi, up to 40 hours of audio. Recall issue of a new device on 24 June in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Japan.

HONDA V4

Honda has just pulled the covers off a radical new concept motorcycle at the Intermot show in Cologne, Germany. Technically, there isn't much here that's real, but there's still plenty to dissect. Honda is obviously feverishly working on a new V4 engine and that will soon show up in a production bike. Rumor has it that the Japanese company is taking another look at oval pistons, which would allow for more valves and larger combustion chambers. Could this powerplant show up in a new Interceptor? While this is currently nothing more than a sculpture, so was the new VMax when Yamaha first showed that concept. Studying the lines a bit, we can tell that this wouldn't likely be a race bike, but more likely a new street-going model. We also see hubless wheels, which would be an extremely far-out bit of tech if they were to make it into production. Is that possible? According to Honda, yes. Big Red is saying this design is a "new beginning" for the company and the direction that it's headed, and that sounds awfully exciting.

[Source: Honda]

RESS RELEASE:
Cologne, Germany, October 7, 2008-- Honda Motor Europe Ltd. exhibited the World Premiere V4 Concept Model at Intermot Cologne. The V4 Concept Model proposes a new, sensual design direction based on Honda's trademark 4-cylinder V- engine.
This year Honda celebrates its 60th anniversary as a company and next year the 50th anniversary of its participation in road racing, as well as the 30th anniversary of racing with an innovative 4-cylinder V-engine with oval pistons. Considering these milestones, Honda chose "The New Beginning" as its exhibition theme leading into 2009 and exhibited the V4 Concept Model which signifies the beginning of a new era.
For Intermot, Honda collected and exhibited successive V4 race machines as well as mass-market motorcycle products which were developed by feeding back the technologies cultivated through participation in challenging race competition, enabling visitors to review the lineage of 30 years of V4 engine technologies and see how Honda will take motorcycling somewhere it has not been before. The exhibition also offers an easy-to-understand introduction to various challenges Honda has undertaken in order to create joy for its customers, by utilizing its technologies that have been continuously advanced through Honda's 60-year history and by its participation in motorsports.
Honda understands the global trend today that motorcycle users see increasing value in more emotional and sensual performance during the real world riding experience rather than absolute performance measured in numeric specifications. On another front, user friendly features that meet with human sensibilities are also becoming important along with safety and environmental features, especially in mature markets.
Honda believes that the challenge to create attractive products with an increased focus on sensual performance will be the key for the future. At the same time, safety and environmental technologies as well as future energy technologies will continue to become an important theme for the development of motorcycle products. Moreover, in order to offer a comfortable life with motorcycles for a larger number of customers, Honda will put increased focus on the human-fitting match of rider and machine. Conceived around the trademark 4-cylinder V-engine, the V4 Concept Model expresses functional beauty as well as a more sensual image to appeal more to the emotions of people. Embodying Honda's passion for motorcycle development, the V4 Concept Model expresses the unique characteristics of Honda for a new era.
The V4 Concept Model mobilizes the driving forces of Honda - dreams, challenges, and creating new value. Honda positions this model as "the new beginning" of Honda's motorcycles.

 

 

Biggest Aircraft

Designed by World War I aviator Konstantin Kalinin with a wingspan greater than a B-52's and a much greater wing area, the K-7 was one of the biggest aircraft built before the jet age. It was only one engine short of the B-52 as well, having the curious arrangement of six pulling on the wing leading edge and one pushing at the rear.
The K-7's very brief first flight showed up instability and serious vibration caused by the airframe resonating with the engine frequency. The solution to this 'flutter' was thought to be to shorten and strengthen the tail booms, little being known then about the natural frequencies of structures and their response to vibration. On the 11th flight, during a speed test, the port tailboom vibrated, fractured, jammed the elevator and caused the giant aircraft to plough into the ground, killing 15.
Undaunted by this disaster, Kalinin's team began construction of two further K-7s in a new factory, but the vicissitudes of Stalin's Russia saw the project abandoned, and in 1938 the arrest and execution of Kalinin on trumped up espionage and sabotage charges.