Not releated at all with Nomadcom (just in case some might have a doubt) ,

Skype has selected Rebecca, a 26 y/o Australian girl, to take up the "Skype Nomad Challenge" which is to travel non-stop around the Globe and demonstrates that Skype is now mobile.

Over 33 days, Rebecca "The Nomad" will be using as many different forms of transport possible for a girl - from jumbo jets to dog sleds, canoes to camels, sky diving to revolving restaurants.

Her non-stop journey started on May 5th from London (UK) to Singapore, China, Australia (current location) Alaska, USA an back to Europe.

To keep in touch, Rebecca uses SkypePhones as well as a Nokia N810 (the Internet Tablet) loaded with, indeed, Skype software. 

All related links which also gives a good overview of what Web 2.0 is offering:

• Twitter
• Skype: theskypenomad
• Flickr
• You Tube
• Blog
• My space
• Facebook
  

All this perpetual motion is also for a good cause - to create some noise about an awesome charity called Motivation. Basically, they help disabled people in poor countries get mobile.

I may propose to Skype the Challenge #2 as I have an extended list of countries and locations which cannot be so called "Internet/mobile phone" friendly… interested ?

Found two interesting posts about how Twitter becomes a real-time news media and how it contributes to spread news all over the World despite telecommunication networks breakdown and/or government censorship.

Smart Mobs author Mark A.M Kramer asks if Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could make humanity morally accountable ? Today, even with a very limited presence of the International community (politics, journalists as well as Aid workers) we continue to receive near real-time information from Myanmar through various multi-plateforms communication media such Twitter, SMS, RSS etc.

Ten days later, in China, an powerful earthquake shook the Sichuan province, information that Technology blogger Robert Scoble claimed that Twitter had the breaking news even before the United States Geological Survey, which provides early warnings of seismic events.

Is Twitter's slogan "What are you doing" should be now replaced by "What's going on" ?

Sources: SmartMobs, BBC

HTC launched earlier this week in London the "Touch Diamond" the lastest smartphone of their TOUCH series.

The Touch Diamond is a stainless steel frame based of only 11.5mm thick, comes with a 2.8 inch touch-sensitive TFT 640×480 VGA screen. An integrated GPS system as well as a 3.2 megapixel camera and a second VGA CMOS one are also available.

This "iPhone-like" smartphone will be available in Europe and Asia in June 08 for about 770 USD.

Surprisingly, there is apparently no Mini-SD card slot to extend the 4 GB internal storage memory.

Highlights:

• 2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the pixels of most phones.

• Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
• HTC Weather - providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
• Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity.
• 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
• 4GB of internal storage to preserve more photos, music, files and exchanged data than ever before.
• Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience.

Technical Specifications:

• Processor
  Qualcomm® MSM7201A' 528 MHz

• Operating System
  Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
• Memory
  ROM: 256 MB
  RAM: 192 MB DDR SDRAM
  Internal storage: 4 GB
• Dimensions
  102 mm (L) X 51 mm (W) X 11.5 mm (T)
• Weight
  110 g (with battery)
• Display
  2.8-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with VGA resolution
• Network
  HSDPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
  Up to 384 kbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

  Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
  Europe/Asia: 900/1800/1900 MHz
  (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)

• Device Control
  TouchFLO' 3D
  Touch-sensitive navigation control
• GPS
  GPS and A-GPS ready
• Connectivity
  Bluetooth® 2.0 with EDR
  Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
  HTC ExtUSB' (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
• Camera
  Main camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
  Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera
• Audio
  Built-in microphone, speaker and FM radio with RDS
• Ring tone supported formats:
  MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and AMR-NB
  40 polyphonic and Standard MIDI format 0 and 1 (SMF)/SP MIDI
• Battery
  Rechargeable Lithium-ion or Lithium-ion polymer battery
  Capacity: 900 mAh
• Talk time:
  Up to 270 minutes for WCDMA
  Up to 330 minutes for GSM
• Standby time:
  Up to 396 hours for WCDMA
  Up to 285 hours for GSM
• Video call time: Up to 145 minutes for WCDMA
  (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
• AC Adapter
  Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
  DC output: 5V and 1A

All informations on HTC site