Olympic games always inspire architectural feats that capture the imagination, but the 2012 London Olympics are getting a monument like nothing the world has ever seen. It’s called the Cloud, and it’s envisioned as a symbol of the digital age.

The Cloud tower is made up of inflatable, light-emitting spheres floating above lightweight, slender columns, which together create a three-dimensional display you can go inside, that feeds real-time information to London’s skies. Citizens and visitors all over London will be able to see the information displayed by LEDs embedded into the spheres that make up the top of the structure.

Though it’s only one of several proposed monuments that may be selected to grace the 2012 Olympic Park, the worldwide consortium of designers behind the project — who are contributing to its design and funding in a very grassroots way — are committed to building the tower somewhere in London, even if doesn’t get selected for Olympic Park. The size and dimensions of the Cloud are not set in stone, for example, and can be easily altered based on the amount of money raised to build it. Efforts to “raise the Cloud” have gone social, with Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube already put to use to spread the word about it, and hopefully, find the needed sponsors to make it a reality.

The Cloud will also be one of the greenest structures ever built, since it will create all of its own electricity. Visitors will ascend the tower either on foot or on bicycle using a spiral ramp, but descending is to be handled via elevators that use “regenerative breaking,” which collect the power used by the elevators and recycle it. Solar panels will also be heavily utilized.

So what will it be like to step inside the Cloud? Imagine being a 360 degree digital display that’s constantly showing things like Olympic stats, news updates, Internet traffic reports, mobile phone activity, decibel levels, and much more.

Architecturally or scientifically speaking, I have absolutely no idea how something like this would work. And I don’t care. All I know is that it looks absolutely amazing.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of Spotify but if you consider yourself a techie, a geek, or whatever name you want to call it, then you probably have at least got wind of this new service.  Spotify seems to be a promising music service – it offers FREE music streaming anywhere in the UK. More than being free, Spotify is now accepting sign ups without the need for invites!  This could very well be your ticket to endless hours of music without having to spend a single penny!

So what’s the catch? (I know that you were thinking of that once you spotted the word FREE up there…)  Well, for the free service, you have to endure the occasional ad.  If you are that particular about your listening experience and you do not want to  be interrupted even for a minute or less, then you might want to sign up for the premium service, which gets rid of the ads.  The premium service will cost you €9.99 a month, which is actually not that bad.  Personally, though, I think I would not mind enduring an ad here and there and NOT spend anything.

Another thing, the official Spotify blog has announced that while they are accepting sign ups without invites, they will have to see how the service grows.  The team has stated:

However, we want to make sure that everyone who uses Spotify gets the same fast, uninterrupted experience so providing a stable service is our priority. If growth happens too fast and it starts affecting quality we may have to re-instate the invitation system, hopefully this won’t happen.

Sounds reasonable to me.  After all, it is FREE. So why not check this out?  They are accepting registrations  in the Spotify web site.