You can't describe Royal Caribbean's new flagship without splashing on the superlatives. The Oasis of the Seas is the longest (1,187 feet), tallest (240 feet), widest (208 feet), heaviest (225,000 gross registered tons), and most expen-sive ($1.4 billion) passenger ship ever launched. As its 6,296 guests (that's 40% more than the next biggest boat) cruise the Caribbean, they can entertain themselves with a glut of floating firsts, from the outdoor, tree-lined park to a cocktail bar in an elevator to performances of Hairspray in the 1,350-seat theater. The only thing this pleasure ark lacks? Animals, two of each. -- THEUNIS BATES
Tue, December 01 Float Oasis of the Seas Sets Sail Fort Lauderdale, Florida
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This year's theme is "Universal Access and Human Rights," but maybe it should be "Donate Now -- or Else." Of the 9.7 million HIV/AIDS sufferers in developing countries who need antiretroviral therapy, less than a third are getting it. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria intends to put 2.7 million people on the treatment in the next year, but the recession has hurt its chances of doing so -- the organization is facing a $4 billion budget short-fall. A glimmer of hope from the supply side: In August, Bill Clinton announced an agreement with drugmakers Pfizer and Mylan's Matrix Labs to lower prices on key meds by as much as 60% in developing countries. -- ANNE C. LEE
Tue, December 01 Save World Aids Day
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Six high-rise towers by eight renowned architects. Sixty-seven acres on the Vegas strip. Casinos, hotels, condos, theaters, galleries, and a shopping mall. It sounds worthy of once-booming Dubai, and for good reason: Dubai World, the firm behind enormous, egregious bubble-era projects like the Palm Islands, owns a 50% stake in City-Center. (MGM Mirage has the other half.) The $8.5 billion complex, touted by its builders as the most expensive commercial development in U.S. history, begins its rollout of openings with the Vdara Hotel & Spa. We hope it'll fare better than similar developments in Dubai like, well, the whole emirate, but things aren't looking sparkly -- condo prices at CityCenter were slashed by 30% in October, and travel to Vegas is down 6% in 2009. -- ZACHARY WILSON
Tue, December 01 Expand CityCenter opens Las Vegas
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Last year, Verizon became a green pioneer in the telecom world. It
publicly pledged to purchase more energy-efficient telecom equipment
and launched a pilot project to turn off idle computers and monitors.
That may sound modest, but the savings in energy will be enough to power 88,000 homes for a year.
Such initiatives will be a major topic of discussion at this annual
symposium, especially since going green can help companies save a whole
lot of that other kind of green. A recent study from Insight Research
shows that if businesses embraced green telecom solutions, they would
cut their power consumption costs by up to 30%. -- SS
Black Friday and Cyber Monday may steal the spotlight, but how about
some love for the day before the really big day? Thanksgiving eve is
the second-biggest sales day for many grocery chains; travel volume is
high, although the Sunday after Thanksgiving has surpassed it as the
year's busiest; and the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line racks up the second
highest-number of calls (9,000 last year, versus 11,000 on
Thanksgiving). Maybe we should call this economic bridesmaid Runner-up Wednesday. -- DL
WED, NOVEMBER 25 Be Thankful
The Day before Thanksgiving
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The Princess and the Frog is Disney's first traditionally animated
feature film since 2004's Home on the Range, which eked out just $50
million at the domestic box-office; the first fairy tale we've heard of
in which a princess (voiced by Dreamgirls' Anika Noni Rose) kisses a
frog, then becomes one; and features a Disney cartoon's first black leading lady.
Is this departure as risky as it sounds? "No," says Jeff Block, a
box-office analyst with the movie-tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.
"Disney pushed the envelope even further with Up, a kids' movie
centered around an 80-year-old, and got its biggest hit since Finding
Nemo." -- DM
wed, november 25 Watch
The Princess and the Frog Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker
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For its 50th anniversary, the International Council of Societies of
Industrial Design is going cross-disciplinary, inviting experts in
fields as varied as architecture, technology, and global energy to
delve into areas that you might not imagine to be typical design
fodder, including entertainment, health, and transportation. They've
been prepping for the meet by redesigning the way we think
in all these fields. So, for instance, MIT Media Lab professor Bill
Mitchell is heading up the "studio" on electric vehicles, "Reinventing
the Automobile 2050." Drawing ideas from team members in various
industries, they've come up with the stylish two-seater CityCar, a
collapsible, stackable car designed to be deployed much like cycles in
a bike-sharing program. Which is great, except that we hope we don't
really have to wait until 2050. -- ACL
When selecting a site for the WCD's 10th annual conference,
accessibility was an obvious issue. Of the hundreds of convention
centers in the U.S., "there are only about 14 exhibit halls where the
meeting space and the show floor are on the same level," says WCD
president Bill Schwaninger. So all credit to Jacksonville,
which, he notes, also has a monorail system that gives disabled riders
an 80% discount off its usual 50-cent-a-ride fare. "What they have done
in this city," he says, "just makes sense." -- ZW
Firms spent $5.5 billion on firewalls, virus scanners, and biometric
ID checkers last year, but one vital business asset remains woefully
hackable: employees. "Humans are the weakest link in the security chain,"
says Sharon Conheady, director of the U.K.'s First Defense Information
Security, who'll teach corporate geeks at this summit how to deflect
"social engineering" swindles. These low-tech, highly effective scams
take advantage of people's naturally trusting (read: gullible) behavior
to access sensitive data. So a trickster might call an employee
pretending to be an IT engineer and ask for passwords and user names,
or befriend smokers outside a building and follow them to their
offices. The take-home message? The paranoiacs (see November 6) are
right: Never talk to strangers. -- TB
