In the past five years, Mashable has grown with an incredible community of readers who are thoughtful and influential, and leaders in their respective communities. We believe it is important to connect with our community around the ideas and innovations that we cover every day.
This is why we are hosting the Mashable Connect 2011 conference from May 12-14, 2011 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Walt Disney World © Florida.
Mashable Connect 2011 will be an intimate experience that brings together digital leaders and influencers for a weekend away to share and connect offline in a unique setting, away from the distractions of traditional conferences.
Participants will hear from esteemed, provocative speakers and spend time with influential members of the digital community, including executives, founders, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, brand managers, marketers, designers, developers, members of the media, and of course, the Mashable team.
To keep this as intimate as possible, we are hosting just 300 participants. We are accepting applications and encourage you to apply here: http://mashable.com/connect
Speakers will be announced shortly.
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posted Mar 27th 2011 3:17AM 
When Qatar, an insanely wealthy Arab emirate roughly the size of Connecticut, won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, one of the stipulations was that its newly constructed open-air soccer stadiums would be air conditioned. Of course, this is Qatar we're talkin' about here, so the solution would have to be as extravagant as its insanely wealthy Arab emirate status implies. That's why it was no huge shock when The Peninsula reported plans to cool at least some of the nine stadiums by using a fleet of solar powered "clouds," designed and constructed by a certain Dr. Saud Abdul Ghani and his team. Dr. Ghani, the head of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Qatar University, said that the aircraft (more accurately described as really, really slow drones) will be operated by remote control, made of 100 percent light carbonic materials, and will initially cost half a million dollars each. But, really, what's a few million dollars when it's for a good cause?
