Chris German, Chief Scientist for Deep Submergence at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution here in Massachusetts, has been busy finding undersea volcanoes with the help of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

With more than half the planet’s water exceeding depths of two miles, mapping the sea floor is no easy task. What’s more, technology being developed and used at Woods Hole may eventually make its way to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, in order to collect data from the ocean that’s thought to be buried beneath two kilometers of ice.

Up until about 15 years ago, human occupied vehicles were used for deep sea exploration. Despite the inherent limitations of cramming one or two people into a tiny submarine like the one pictured above, it remains true that humans are still far better than robots at things like decision-making and situational awareness.

While the recent trend in undersea exploration has been a shift to ROVs, a new class of autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, has begun to emerge and aims to bridge the gap between all-human and all-robotic exploration.

In order to map an area of the sea floor, scientists previously had to deploy an ROV attached to a long length of cable and drag it back and forth over a target zone at a rate of 1.5 miles an hour – roughly half the speed of walking. Needless to say, mapping a large area took a long, long time. Newly-developed AUV’s, though, are able to greatly expedite the process.

Take “ABE” – the Autonomous Benthic Explorer (photo, left) — an AUV that was in service at Woods Hole until last year. It was built like an underwater helicopter, with propellers in the back and on top to allow it to maneuver easily.

Much cheaper than towing an ROV manually, ABE was able dive down to five meters off the sea floor, photograph it, then work its way back and forth along a specified region from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. ABE completed 202 dives between 1995-2008.

ABE is being replaced by a robot called Sentry, which will enter service this year. Compared to ABE, Sentry has a longer working range and can travel faster. It also has angled thrusters, allowing it to move up and down and side to side like ABE, but also at various angles too.

Along with Sentry, Woods Hole is developing a vehicle called “Nereus” – a hybrid ROV/AUV named after the Greek God of shape-shifting. Nereus will be able to autonomously dive to depths of up to 11,000 meters and can also be remotely controlled via a single fiber-optic wire while powered by an eight-hour battery. Nereus will complete its first mission in June and will be featured on the Discovery Channel.

NASA’s Galileo Project aims to explore two of the four main moons of Jupiter in the next 20 years. Io is the most volcanically active moon in our solar system with eruptions reaching above two kilometers from the surface, and Europa is thought to contain a vast ocean underneath a two-kilometer-thick layer of ice.

NASA plans to build a vehicle to explore Europa’s ocean and has contacted Woods Hole in the hopes of basing the design off of Nereus. As mentioned, Nereus will complete its first mission in June, followed by a mission in the fall to Cayman Trough, the world’s deepest ocean trench (just south of Cuba), and then eventually to arctic regions in order to simulate conditions on Europa — like how to drill through two kilometers of ice.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [whoi.edu]

Since the day the original Helio Ocean hit the shelves, rumors were abound that a followup was in the works. 2 years have since passed, countless rumors and leaks have come and gone, and the company that birthed the original has since been acquired – but it’s finally here. Has the wait been worth it?

Available starting today is the Pantech Matrix for AT&T. It features the same dual sliding keyboard from their Helio Ocean design in a much better looking form factor. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the pill design, but this new QWERTY keyboard looks a lot easier to use. It features a 1.3-megapixel camera, XM radio, Bluetooth and an MP3 player. Get it now in blue, green and red for $80.

For the immediate future, VM isn’t deviating from its pay-as-you-go business model. Just last month they announced their new Totally Unlimited plan with no annual contract or roaming charges starting from $79.99 per month.

One thing we’ve been hearing a lot about is the new navigation pad. We hear alternately that it’s touch sensitive and non-touch, meaning you gesture above the pad and it reads your movements, which would one-up multitouch as a new technology.

This is apparently what the OZ2 looks like, very much like the current Ocean, which we’d heard, but we’re not totally convinced that’s the final form the phone handset will take. If all of these features are included, the OZ2 just might give the iPhone a run for its money.

If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on a Helio Ocean — we know you’re out there — have we got a CrunchDeal for you.

Helio’s got a special offer right now. A $199 Ocean with a $100 mail-in rebate with any qualifying plan. That’s the best deal we’ev ever seen on the Ocean, one of the CrunchGear staff’s favorite phones. We’ve blogged the shit out of it, and we keep finding new reasons to do so.

If your current plan is up and you’re looking for a serious upgrade, snatch it up now.

Helio today updated the YouTube client for its popular flagship phone, the Ocean. The update uses the same general interface, which is pretty good, and is rumored to be based on the new overall interface.

The new client is faster, noticeably so, and it’s not just the interface; loading and buffering times are zippy indeed.

It’s a free download for all Ocean users, and it the bandwidth is included in monthly all-in packages.

According to PC Pro,

“The MV Hounslow and MT Ann have both been detained by the Dubai Port Trust, although reports from authorities suggest that one of the ships has now been released after paying ‘huge’ damages.

The ships were caught after the owner of the affected cables, Reliance Globalcom, tracked down satellite images from the time of the damage to check for suspects. These were then passed on to authorities.

Conspiracy theories abounded on the internet in the weeks following the incidents, with bloggers blaming the cuts on everything from various governments, terrorist groups and sea-monsters.”

Oh sure, throw bloggers under the bus. It’s not like we here at CrunchGear said there were five cables that may or may not have been part of some conspiracy involving either abandoned anchors or sharks, but definitely not ships. Puh-lease.

Helio today updated the YouTube client for its popular flagship phone, the Ocean. The update uses the same general interface, which is pretty good, and is rumored to be based on the new overall interface.

The new client is faster, noticeably so, and it’s not just the interface; loading and buffering times are zippy indeed.

It’s a free download for all Ocean users, and it the bandwidth is included in monthly all-in packages.

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the Ocean 2 and its rumored navigation technique that some say will rival the iPhone without copying it. And now we know (sort of) what it looks like, thanks to a filing that Heliocity found on the FCC database.

It looks something like the Ocean.

I love the Helio Ocean, and I love Opera Mini. When some shadow devs used their fancy footwork to make the two work together, I was a very happy boy. Helio was impressed too, and today announced that the alternative browser would be officially supported on the Helio flagship handset.

This is notable for a few reasons. This is a user-driven initiative; the vibrant Ocean community more or less said “we’re going to use Opera Mini on the Ocean, like it or not”. Helio then said, “Well, OK. We’ll help.” This is not the response most carriers would give, and it rather shows how into its users Helio is. It trusts their judgment.

The free upgrade is also the first time any carrier has ever said, “Here, use Opera Mini.” It’s always been a third-party download.

We’ve also heard that this could be the first of many deals between Helio and Opera. While the new browser doesn’t replace the built-in browser at this time, it might in the future. Those of you with the un-official version might want to upgrade to the official one, as it was made custom or the Ocean and runs a little smoother, or so we hear.

Kudos the Helio and Opera for innovating for the users where most carriers and developers would be stingy.

Helio has once again dropped the price of their unlimited plan down to $99 from $145. You know the drill. Now drop on by your nearest store and take advantage while you can. The Ocean and Mysto are great choices in case you needed some advice on a handset.

Helio

What would a week of “Smartphones Now” be without a review of a smartphone? A terrible one, I’m sure. So what are we going to look at today? The Duo from Pantech for AT&T. Not exactly the hottest smartphone on the market, but it does have a few qualities that are quite endearing. I’m also jaded and hate all phones to begin with. Heh. That’s not entirely true. I just hate the iPhone. That one’s for you, dwalk.

The most significant feature of the Duo is its dual slider design, which it borrows from its bigger brother over at Helio, the Ocean. The main difference and unfortunately the biggest pitfall for the Duo is the lack of spring assist for the QWERTY. You see, the Ocean has spring assist in both directions. You may not think it’s necessary but it is. Sliding the Duo to get to the QWERTY is painful and gritty. Of course, if you’ve never touched the Ocean then you wouldn’t know any different. It’s something you can get used to, though.

The keyboard itself has its pros and cons. The overall size of the Duo is rather small so the keyboard is a bit condensed. The numbers are like that of a BB. You have to hit function button, which is tedious but as I said, the Duo is small and if you want a small device then you’ll just have to deal with it. I’m not a fan of the keyboard itself, though. It’s entirely too flush for me. You don’t know what keys you’re hitting unless you’re looking at it and even then it’s a chore. The dividers are entirely way too thick and the buttons are way too small. It may be better suited for a lady with dainty hands then a big burly guy and his meat hooks.

The 1.3-megapixel camera with 4x zoom is ok, but you won’t really be getting any shots worth framing. The video cam is so so, but it does that weird vibration when you move it around too fast. Check the video and picture for yourself.

The music player was fine and it has stereo Bluetooth, but you’re using AT&T’s music services so it kind of blows. As does the video service. It supports Telenav maps and navigator, which is a nice touch in case you’re prone to getting lost.

Being a 3G/HSDPA handset is in and of itself a big seller, but the overall design of the Duo is bit low budget for my taste. It has a cheap-y plastic feel to it. Call quality was superb, though. Download speeds were wicked fast. It runs WinMo 6 so you love it or hate it. Talk time was actually pretty good edging over the rated 3 hours at over 4 hours. If you want a smartphone running WinMo that’s small and on AT&T then the Duo isn’t a bad choice. It’s available now for $200.

Oil prices are getting out of hand. Wind and solar power are somewhat unpredictable and apparently they ‘cost too much’. A few weeks back I saw Southland Tales and the movie was about the end of the world and all this other crazy stuff. What was intriguing about the film other than Sarah Michelle Geller being a porn star was the fact that alternative energy was being pumped from the ocean. It’s not rocket science (or maybe something close to it), but I’d imagine building a huge turbine of some sort would produce massive amounts of free energy, right?

Well, Finavera Renewables has this thing called the Aquabuoy that’s a buoy connected to an underwater piston. Can you figure out how it works? No? Ok, fine. As swells roll through, the buoy goes with the flow and goes up and down. This in turn gets the piston running, which pressurizes a chamber that’s inhabited by seawater. Said pressure gets the turbine running, which if you haven’t figured it out by now produces electricity. That’s cool but so what?

Well, Finavera just scored a deal with PG&E in Nor*Cal. The power purchase is for a wave farm that will produce 2 megawatts of juice and said wave farm will be built 2.5 miles off the coast of Humboldt County. It won’t actually be up and running until 2012, but it will offset 245 tons of carbon dioxide each year and if all goes well, Finavera hopes to build the wave farm into a 100 megawatt producing rig.

But all is not well with this glorious idea. It’s more expensive to run than coal and natural gas, but it’s cheaper than offshore wind turbines and solar. A recent test run off the coast of Oregon was a bust when the buoy sank when it took on water. My alma mater has been working on this for quite some time and the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab is a world class facility where they study tsunamis and anything else going on in the ocean. Someone told me the head of the center surfs in the wave pool after hours, which is rad. Anyway, things are looking up for renewables, but we’re a long ways away from seeing anything actually happen on this front.

Wave power to go commercial in California [news.com]

I love YouTube. I mean I love it. I like unhinged videos of Mexican UFOs, crazy Japanese gameshows, and Lohan falling down. It’s unlimited entertainment, because there are more hours of content uploaded per day that there are hours in the day, meaning you could never possibly watch it all. And it’s all free.

Sadly, the world of online video is restricted to, for the most part, unwieldy computers. Helio made waves with its Ocean (ha!) by including a YouTube client, and later Apple did the same thing with the iPhone. Truth be told, iPhone’s YouTube viewer was better than the Ocean’s, but not anymore.

As of this morning, Ocean users can download a brand new YouTube app for the Ocean, and it’s not just better than the current Ocean viewer, it outguns the iPhone’s.

It’s a great way to search for your videos and your favorites as well, but that’s only half the fun.

The Ocean is known for having a good, easy to use camera for both photos and video; Helio’s HelioUP feature has allowed you to upload vids on your camera directly to your YouTube account, though it was janky.

The new YouTube app allows you to upload from within the app itself; click the “upload” button, and you’re prompted to select an existing video from your Ocean’s memory or recording a new one. For video bloggers, this is a godsend.

And it’s free. You can download it now from your Ocean’s “download app” menu, and it won’t cost you anything. So to recap, you get a free app giving you tons of free content, and Helio’s plans include free data. What’s to lose? We keep saying the Ocean, with Helio’s service, is the device to watch, and every time an improvement like this hits the hardware, we’re proven a little bit more correct.

After a dreadful day of sitting on the couch, sleeping on the couch and playing Assassin’s Creed from the couch since I was under the weather yesterday, I return to the CrunchGear/TechCrunch office to find a UPS box waiting for me. What could it be?! Yeah, I know you already know since it’s blatantly obvious in the headlines but bear with me.

So what I have here is the Duo, which is Pantech’s take on the Helio Ocean. They did a pretty decent job, too. The QWERTY and 12-key are reversed on the Duo and it’s considerably smaller than the Ocean. My initial impressions are of the Duo are good so far. Each QWERTY keyboard is unique so I won’t be commenting on that just yet. I’m transitioning from the Sidekick Slide back to the BlackBerry keyboard so I’m all sorts of confused. Add to that my Ocean addiction and you may know what my mind and fingers are going through. It’s WinMo 6 so I already want to throw it against the wall, but we’ll see what I say next week with my full review. In the mean time, enjoy the pics.

As if I need another reason to not leave the couch this winter other than it being cold. Helio has gone and added a TV Guide app and I feel myself getting squishier. A 30-day rental is $2.99 and you can even forward TV listings to a friend in case you think they’re interested in watching ___________ (Some dumb show only you like. Heh.). A few more screen shots after the jump. Thanks, Helio. Will you pay for my Weight Watchers in the Spring?

Image ganked from Heliocity because I’m too lazy to get screen caps from my Ocean.

As if the refreshed Oceans and $99 all-in-one plan weren’t enough, the MVNO of choice has slashed $50 off all handsets for new members. That means a brand new Ocean is $199, the thinnest flip on the market, Fin, is $79 and the Heat is FREE. Need I say more?

Helio

I love my Ocean. Matt lives and dies by the Ocean. It’s a great phone and does everything one needs. Well, not everything. It doesn’t get Matt laid or anything, but I think you know where I’m going. Maybe you’re already with Helio and you want some friends to migrate over because you’re a greedy bastard and want the free months of service. I wouldn’t blame you. Their plans are cheap and Sprint has great coverage (from my experience) so what more could you ask for? The newly refreshed Ocean’s are a mere $99 and unlimited minutes and data is currently $99. That’s cheap. Way cheap and you know it. It makes for a perfect gift for the holidays, parental units. Your kids will love you for it and they’ll certainly use it more than they will that ugly sweater you have hidden in the closet, which they’ve already found.

Helio Refreshed [via Heliocity]