How did we get what we call today “The Internet”.

This 8 minutes movie relates a journey started in 1957

More about this great work made by Melih Bilgil.

Once upon a time…

No comment !

“Did you know ?” 2008 version.
A 5 minutes movie about pace of innovation, information technologies and globalization.
A broad idea of what is coming next and impressive figures.

Did you know ?

During the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, Kevin Kelly, co-founders of Wired magazine explained simply the History of the Web and sketched what could be the next 6500 days.

3 chronological phases brought the Web to what we have today:

1. Computers are connected together. The Net is used to share “packets”. (No intimacy, nothing personal).
2. Documents are linked together. We start to share links. (a bit more intimate and personal as they are documents).
3. Today, we share data. We establish links among information which are inside the pages. We share our data and information.It’s where we are today.

So, what next ? How the Web will continue to evolve ?

Kelly says that the Web will be quite different than what we know today. It may look like a big machine with clouds which will contain all data. The Web will be tomorrow’s Operating System which will catch everything. We will access to it though lots of different kind terminals (computer, phone, fridge, TV, car’s GPS, etc..).

Kelly characterizes three elements which are already on the way :

1. A broad trend inclines to move everything to clouds.
2. At the same time, a broad displacement of all documents to databases which become the foundations on which the whole system relies on.
3. Then to make it works, to create a dataflow and to give signification to all these data: sharing is the key element which makes the machine to work.

According Kelly, in 6500 days our life will always been connected. We will be totally dependent of the network connectivity. New values will have to be invented to collectively managed the rules related to the sharing of these data which will be the essence of our tomorrow’s lives and collectives values.

Scary ? Unavoidable ? Already on its way ? or just a vision from a Silicon Valley geek  ?

Watch Kevin Kelly’s speech during Web Summit 2.0 last week in San Francisco.

Sources: Transnets

Careful, watching to many spy movies and TV cartoons may give you strange ideas.

Neatorama has published the Top 10 strangest anti-terrorism patents. Here they are:

• The Anti-Terrorist Truck
  and its hidden machine gun turret made to surprise terrorists passing by
• The Face Protector Against Poisonous Gas
  certainly made in Gotham city but I have seen some in Pyongyang.
• Biohazard Suit with Built-In Toilet
  to protect these who wear it, or these around ?
• Railroad Missile System
  this one also inspired by North-Korean leader or some 007′s foes
• The Doggie Earphone
  “His Master’s Voice”
• The Airplane Trap Door
  is an option with crocodiles available ?
• Passenger Control System During Flight
  Be all nice, wear the armband has requested… it’s for your own safety !
• Airplane Sleeping Gas System
  Is the cockpit’s door air locked ?
• Explosion Containment Net
  Gladiators ! Gladiators !
• Mobile Crematorium
  “Nice” but what about CO2 footprint ??

Anyone else with such “brilliant” ideas ?

Source: Neatorama via Schneier on Security

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

Making fun of someone else product is not an Apple monopoly. Lenovo can also do it.

After 133 years of service, the Bang Rak Post office in Bangkok sent its last telegram on Wednesday.

Introduced by Samuel Morse in 1835, the telegraph came into Thailand in 1875. However, the service only came within the reach of the ordinary person in 1883.

Its heyday was between the 1980s and early 1990s – before the widespread use of telefaxes and mobile phones.

Telegraphy reached its peak in 1985, with 8.32 million telegrams sent each year. There were 987,984 telegrams sent in March 1995.

The complete article is in Bangkok "The Nation" newspapers.

Only one thing comes to my mind : 

- …. .- -. -.- … / .- -. -.. / –. — — -.. -… -.– .

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