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One of the places that gadgets are becoming increasingly popular is in the great outdoors. It used to be that people flocked to the wilderness in an effort to escape man made things and a lot of the luxuries and nuisances associated with more advanced technology. Now though many technological gadgets have become so light weight and useful that many hikers, boaters, mountain bikers, backpackers, skiers, snow shoers, and mountaineers see no reason not to bring a lot of compact luxuries along into the back country.

Some types of technologies lend themselves especially well to being used in the woods because of their light weight and their ability to function without the support of other types of technologies. For example, many people do not go into the wilderness without a mobile phone for safety reasons. In this case, the fact that mobile phones are so light weight that they make sense to carry even though they don't necessarily work in places where tall, steep mountains would get in the way of finding a tower signal. Fortunately most people don't go very deep into the wilderness, so a mobile phone still makes sense to carry.

For people whose adventures take them farther afield, satellite technology offers a good way to stay connected. For instance, if one wants to have a way of contacting the outside world in case of emergency, a satellite phone is a much better choice than a mobile phone because a satellite phone will still work in places where there are too many miles or mountains in the way of getting a tower signal.

Perhaps even more popular than satellite phones is GPS technology. GPS, which stands for Global Positioning System allows users to determine where they are, often within a dozen feet or so, instantly without having to use a compass and make complicated calculations. This system is based on signals that come from satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, so the signals are available just about anywhere.

Now there are GPS devices that combine navigation features with other information available from satellite signals. A great new example of a device that bundles satellite technology features together is the Bushnell Weather Tracker ONIX 400. This device not only has the navigation capabilities of a typical GPS (the ability to determine position, speed, number of miles traveled, etc.), but it also comes with access to XM satellite radio channels and satellite based weather information. This unit is so advanced that it will even layer weather data over the map that's displayed on the screen of the device so that you can see where a new weather system is coming from. In many ways, the advanced warning that the Weather Tracker ONIX 400 can provide for outdoors people is a much better safety device than any mobile phone because it allows them to avoid trouble to begin with- which is preferable to having to contact someone for rescue after getting into trouble.

For times when an excursion doesn't involve emergencies, the XM satellite radio feature will provide an ever varying soundtrack for adventure. This GPS/satellite radio/weather forecasting device is a good example of how different features can be combined into a truly superior and useful gadget.

A pioneer in technology reporting, Julia Hall has published articles about the latest digital devices and gadgets for over ten years. After graduating from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering, Julia turned down huge salaries from some of the most recognized fortune 500 companies in the world to pursue her dream of becoming a leading consumer advocate. Julia uses her expertise to cut through the too good to be true deals offered by high tech companies to reveal the real steals and the real duds that we're bombarded with daily. If you enjoy staying on the cutting edge of technology about newest gadgets whether for business or pleasure, but find yourself occasionally confused by the overwhelming and convoluted information out there let Julia show you the way.

AP - A series of powerful earthquakes in remote eastern Indonesia cut power lines, damaged buldings and sent panicked residents running out of their homes Sunday, officials and witnesses said.

Now we see thousands of people playing online games such as tetris, ping pong, mario bros, super mario etc for free but despite its history dating back to 1970s, for most people online gaming began with the explosion of Internet in 1993 and with the advent of Doom and Warcraft sometime in 1994 or 1995. This got further boost with publishers starting to add Internet connectivity to computer games in 1994-95.

The media, in fact, have themselves been ignorant about online games history. As far as they are concerned, online gaming just coincidentally happened when their advertisers started producing Internet-capable games. But it isn't so...

Early Years of development

In early 1950's a college student created a game much like Tic-Tac-Toe for a class project to be played on dinosaur computers of those days complete with cathode ray tubes for the screen display. The 1960's had MIT students programming a game called "Space war" that could be played with two people over a primitive network. The late 1960's brought the first "real" video games like table tennis and shooter games.

The 70s - the game begins

Serious online gaming began with the first interactive online game called ADVENT. In fact networked gaming got conceptualized with ADVENT. Networked gaming had users playing against each other within an online fantasy world. The first networked game was called Mazewar, a game which involved networked players traveling through a maze and attempting to kill one another.

Next came the interpersonal interaction in a multi-player environment. The first such game was called DUNGEN. DUNGEN had players competing against one another to complete a series of quests. DUNGEN provided with new settings and players each time the user logged on.

The late 1970's saw the start of video game craze with more and more households getting computer savvy. As a natural corollary, people started writing their own games for the home computers. These programming hobbyists traded and sold these home-grown games in local markets.

Other changes in the 1970's were home gaming consoles which used game cartridges. That meant the people could collect games cartridges for one base unit instead of having bulky game console systems.

The 80s - some pause before the storm

1980's saw growing craze for the video and computer game craze, but online gaming wasn't on the horizon yet. New games with better sound and graphics were introduced and gained popularity. Pole Position and Pac-man were two that achieved big popularity. It was during 1980's when Nintendo introduced its first gaming system.

The 90s - revolution begins

The 1990's saw the phenomenal growth in both popularity and technology mostly because of the rise of 3-D and multimedia.

Myst, the intellectual adventure game introduced gaming on the CD-ROM format. Fancier 3-D graphics hardware made FPS (first person shooter) games such as Quake possible.

The late 1990's saw the exponential growth of the Internet, MUDs (multi-user dungeons) which made online games wildly popular. New and improved graphical interfaces had people all over the world playing against each other not only in FPS games but also in real time strategy games (RTS games) as well as third person games like Grand Theft Auto.

This was also the period when websites started offering online games such as tetris, ping pong, mario bros, super Mario, and other free online flash games and non-flash based games free for playing after registering with them. This really pushed online gaming into the popular psyche.

The 21st Century - world is just a playground

Early years of the 21st century were dominated by the DVD-CD-ROM. It has changed the way online games are played. The latest gaming systems such as Sony's play station and Microsoft's X-box have networking capabilities to enable people play with each other in real time from all over the world. Exponentially growing broadband internet services have made playing these online games possible in true sense of the word.

The only drawback to the constantly evolving technology for online games is that what you buy today might become obsolete by the next year. Luckily, for the serious gamers, the resale industry for these online games is huge. This resale industry is just another element to the ever-changing history of online game.

Susie is a game developer advocating to play online games free. Visit http://www.Play-Online-Games-Free.com to play tetris online for free.

AP - President George W. Bush says any cease-fire in the Mideast must be fully respected, Hamas rocket attacks on Israel stopped and the flow of smuggled weapons into Gaza cut off.