Dubai 2014 firework display breaks world record: Guinness

DUBAI: Dubai shattered the world record for the largest ever pyrotechnic display on New Year’s Eve with a show involving more than half a million fireworks, Guinness World Records said Wednesday.

“Ten months in planning, over 500,000 fireworks were used during the  display which lasted around six minutes, with Guinness World Records  adjudicators on hand to confirm that a new record had been set,” the Guinness  website said.

The display spanned 94 kilometres (58.4 miles) of the Dubai coast, which  boasts an archipelago of man-made islands and Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest  tower, Guinness said.

Enough fireworks were launched in the first minute of the display to break  the previous record, set by Kuwait in 2011 with an hour-long show of 77,282  fireworks.

The main displays took place at Burj Khalifa and the luxurious Atlantis  hotel located in Palm Jumeirah, one of three palm-shaped islands.

US firm Fireworks by Grucci designed the display, Guinness said, using 100  computers and 200 technicians to synchronise the pyrotechnics at a reported  cost of around $6 million (4.3 million euros).

Dubai boasts the world’s tallest tower, its largest man-made island and one  of the world’s busiest airports. 

It set its latest record in May last year with Dubai, Princess Tower,  recorded by Guinness as the world’s tallest residential building.

Dubai has been vying to become a permanent fixture on the world map of New  Year celebrations, staging spectacular shows since the opening of the 828-metre  (2,716-foot) Burj Khalifa tower in 2010. AFP

Fireworks explode from the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, in Dubai on January 1, 2014 to celebrate the new year. Dubai kicked off New Year with a dazzling bid for a new world record to cap those the Gulf city state already holds for its mammoth property developments. The glittering fireworks display that lasted around six minutes spanned over 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the Dubai coast, which boasts an archipelago of man-made islands and Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower. 

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa , known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).

Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010,and is part of the new 2 km²  development called Downtown Dubai at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district.

In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²).He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion.

The project's completion coincided with the global financial crisis of 2007–2012, and with vast overbuilding in the country; this led to high vacancies and foreclosures.With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multibillion dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi. Subsequently, in a surprise move at its opening ceremony, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa, said to honor the UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support.

Records

• Tallest existing structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m/2,063 ft)
• Tallest structure ever built: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m/2,121 ft)
• Tallest freestanding structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m/1,815 ft)
• Tallest skyscraper (to top of spire): 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m/1,671 ft)
• Tallest skyscraper to top of antenna: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower – 527 m/1,729 ft)
• Building with most floors: 163 (previously Willis (formerly Sears) Tower – 108)
• Building with world's highest occupied floor
• World's highest elevator installation (situated inside a rod at the very top of the building)
• World's longest travel distance elevators
• Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft)
• First world's tallest structure to include residential space
• World's second highest outdoor observation deck: 124th floor at 452 m (1,483 ft) When it first opened, the observation deck was the highest outdoor observation deck in the World, but it has since been surpassed by Cloud Top 488 on top of Canton Tower.
• World's highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade: 512 m (1,680 ft)
• World's highest nightclub: 144th floor
• World's highest restaurant (At.mosphere): 122nd floor at 442 m (1,450 ft) (previously 360, at a height of 350 m/1,148 ft in CN Tower)
• World's highest New Year display of fireworks.
• World's second highest swimming pool: 76th floor (world's highest swimming pool is located on 118th floor of Ritz-Carlton Hotel at International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong).

  Facts
  Official Name	Burj Khalifa
  Former / Other Name	Burj Dubai
  Type	building
  Status	Completed
  Country	United Arab Emirates
  City	Dubai
  Proposed	2003
  Start of Construction	2004
  Completion	2010
  Global Ranking	#1 tallest in the World
  Regional Ranking	#1 tallest in Middle East
  National Ranking	#1 tallest in UAE
  City Ranking	#1 tallest in Dubai Figures Height: Architectural 828.0 meter / 2717 feet Height: Occupied 584.5 meter / 1918 feet Height: To Tip 829.8 meter / 2723 feet Height: Observatory 452.1 meter / 1483 feet Floors Above Ground 163 Floors Below Ground 1 # of Elevators 58 Top Elevator Speed 10 m/s Tower GFA 309,473 m² / 3,331,140 ft² # of Apartments 900 # of Hotel Rooms 304 # of Parking Spaces 2957

  The below image is the picture taken from Burj Khalifa..

Eiffel Tower construction..

 The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located in Paris, named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; 7.1 million people ascended it in 2011. The third level observatory's upper platform is at 279.11 m the highest accessible to public in the European Union and the highest in Europe as long as the platform of the Ostankino Tower, at 360 m, remains closed as a result of the fire of August 2000. The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010.

The tower stands 320 metres (1,050 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930. However, because of the addition, in 1957, of the antenna atop the Eiffel Tower, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building. 

The tower has three levels for visitors. Tickets can be purchased to ascend, by stairs or lift(elevator), to the first and second levels. The walk from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. The third and highest level is accessible only by lift - stairs exist but they are not usually open for public use. Both the first and second levels feature restaurants.

Construction

No more than three hundred workers were employed on site, and because Eiffel took safety precautions, including the use of movable stagings, guard-rails and screens, only one man died during construction.At first the legs were constructed as cantilevers but about halfway to the first level construction was paused in order to construct a substantial timber scaffold. This caused a renewal of the concerns about the structural soundness of the project, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel has gone mad: he has been confined in an Asylum" appeared in the popular press. At this stage a small "creeper" crane was installed in each leg, designed to move up the tower as construction progressed and making use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in each leg. The critical stage of joining the four legs at the first level was complete by March 1888. Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost precision, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments in order to precisely align the legs: hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, each capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and in addition the legs had been intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold.Work on the foundations started in January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg but the other two, being closer to the river Seine were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft) to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block built of limestone each with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork. Each shoe was anchored into the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were complete by 30 June and the erection of the ironwork began. The very visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that was entailed: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed. The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 0.1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc. The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from the factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, the bolts being replaced by rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all there were 18,038 pieces joined by two and a half million rivets.

DESIGN OF THE TOWER

Material

The puddled iron (wrought iron) structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes, while the entire structure, including non-metal components, is approximately 10,000 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of the metal structure were melted down it would fill the 125-meter-square base to a depth of only 6 cm (2.36 in), assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic meter  Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7.1 in) because of thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.

Straddling Bus

 A company in the southern Chinese town of Shenzhen has done Tried designing a vehicle that takes up no road space. And make it partly solar powered.  To address the country’s problems with traffic and air quality, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment has developed a decidedly odd-looking, extra-wide and extra-tall vehicle that can carry up to 1,200 passengers.

Though it is called the “straddling bus,” Huashi’s invention resembles a train in many respects — but it requires neither elevated tracks nor extensive tunneling. Its passenger compartment spans the width of two traffic lanes and sits high above the road surface, on a pair of fence like stilts that leave the road clear for ordinary cars to pass underneath. It runs along a fixed route.

Huashi Future Parking’s outsize invention — six meters, or about 20 feet, wide — is to be powered by a combination of municipal electricity and solar power derived from panels mounted on the roofs of the vehicles and at bus stops.

A pilot project for the vehicle is in the works in Beijing, and several other Chinese cities have shown interest.

The company says the vehicle — which will travel at an average speed of 40 kilometers an hour, or about 25 m.p.h. — could reduce traffic jams by 25 to 30 percent on main routes.

The straddling bus could replace up to 40 conventional buses, potentially saving the 860 tons of fuel that 40 buses would consume annually, and preventing 2,640 tons of carbon emissions, said Youzhou Song, the vehicle’s designer.

The cost of construction — 50 million renminbi, or $7.4 million, for one bus and about 25 miles of route facilities — is roughly one-tenth what it costs to build a subway of the same length, he said.

World's first bionic man worth $1 mn

 The world's first bionic man Rex, created using nearly $1 million-worth of state-of-the-art limbs and organs - synthetic blood from Sheffield University, prosthetic legs and ankle from MIT, retinas from Oxford University, artificial kidneys, pancreas and spleensfrom University College London and artificial lungs from Swansea was unveiled at London's Science Museum on Thursday.

'Rex', a two metre tall artificial human, is displayed at the Science Museum in central London on February 5, 2013. The British robotics designers claim it is the world's first completebionic man, featuring artificial organs as well as fully functioning limbs. It will be on public display until March 11.

Rex is a mixture of Robocop and Frankenstein, Rex - who has the face of a man is 6.5-feet tall with striking brown eyes.

He was jointly built with the help of over 18 companies and universities and for the first time gives tangible hope that replacing body parts with man-made alternatives can finally be possible.

The 640,000 GBP (1 million US dollars) humanoid has a distinctly human shape and boasts prosthetic limbs, a functional artificial blood circulatory system complete with artificial blood, as well as an artificial pancreas, kidney, spleen and trachea. Rex has a distinctly human shape and boasts prosthetic limbs.

In the two centuries since Mary Shelley's Dr Frankenstein brought a 'monster' to life, the subject has fascinated science fiction in books, comics, film and TV. Now research on advanced prosthetic arms and legs, as well as artificial eyes, hearts, lungs - and even hybrids between computer chips and living brains - means that scientists are finally able to replace body parts and even improve on human abilities.

The project involves Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist from Switzerland who has a bionic hand himself. He met scientists working at the cutting edge of research to find out just how far this new technology can go.

Bertolt has had prosthetic hands since he was a child. His new £30,000 bionic hand, which can grasp and twist, is the most advanced on the market. But technology is moving so fast that Bertolt's bionic hand could soon be obsolete.

A far more advanced arm is being developed, the product of more than $100 million-worth of research into bionic limbs, funded by the US military. Bertolt visited Michael McLoughlin at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory to try out the latest prototype - the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL).

Dubai is one of those cities that are home to some of the most amazing skyscrapers. It had been constructing a number of iconic towers throughout the city. These extraordinary buildings have made Dubai an interesting place in the Middle East. It has become one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the region.

Dubai Crescent Moon Tower

 The number of extraordinary buildings in Dubai are increasing every year. And, most probably, the city is going to present another exclusive structure within a few years. This crazy structure is supposed to be a crescent shaped tower - The Crescent Moon Tower.

America based design company Transparent House has presented this exclusive design for the structure. The Crescent Moon Tower is supposed to be erected in Za'abeel Park in Dubai. This Tall Emblem Structure will be a unique structure in the world. - The Crescent Moon Tower is an architectural design project submitted to the 11th ThyssenKrup Elevator Architecture Award by Transparence House, a California-based firm . This idea was developed and rendered because of the challenge to design a tall emblem structure for Za’abeel Park, a park that is located in the north-east of the Dubai World Trade Centre. This unbelievable building is designed not only to symbolize the Dubai as part of the Islamic world, but also shows the technology and economic development in Dubai.This Crescent Moon Tower boasts a 33-storey down-turned half moon on the banks of the Caspian Sea. It is designed to accommodate a children’s library, a conference facility, a restaurant, multiple cafes, and an open-air observation platform. Though it was just a proposal, there’s a big possibility that it will be built immediately. It is said to be completed by the year 2015 along with its sister project called the Full Moon Hotel – resembling the Death Star from Star Wars which was been proposed. It can accommodate a 220-hectare site that was formerly a storage hub for the industry. This place now has been cleaned up and prepared for offices, hotels, homes and services for 50,000 Baku residents and 48,000 workers.

 According to the design company, this unique structure will identify Dubai as belonging to the Islamic world and will also be a manifestation of the modern level of technical and economic development of Dubai. It will signify the new face of the city and promote its tourism, recreational, scientific and cultural activities.

The Crescent Moon Tower is proposed to boasts 33-storey down-turned half moon on the banks of the Caspian Sea. It will accommodate a children’s library, a conference facility, a restaurant, multiple cafes, and an open-air observation platform. Everything is intended to make the building a multipurpose destination, popular among the locals and tourists alike 

Crescent Moon tower in Dubai is only a proposal. However, keeping Dubai's madness towards iconic buildings one can expect to see the building in reality in the coming years. If it is erected in real, this amazig tower will bring Dubai to a new phase, that's for sure.