Toshiba will soon start production of 2 new interesting products which may find their way into future mobile/portable devices.

First are the new SATA SSD (Solid State Drive) drives on 1.8' and 2.5' formats. According Engadget 32, 64 and 128 GB will be available. Speed announced is read 100 MB/s while reading and 40 MB/sec writting.

With such capacity, traditional mechanical hard disk will slowly disappear from portable devices. With no moving parts, a solid state drive largely eliminates seek time, latency and other electro-mechanical delays and failures associated with a conventional hard disk drive.

The second interesting product announced by Toshiba is the so called "Super Charge ion Battery" (SCiB) which is at this stage not intended for portable devices but for industrial systems and electric vehicles.

SCiB Major Characteristics

• Safety : SCiB adopts a new negative-electrode material that offers a high level of thermal stability and a high flash point electrolyte. Its structure is resistant to internal short circuiting and thermal runaway

• Long-life cycle : Capacity loss after 3,000 cycles of rapid charge and discharge is less than 10%. SCiB batteries are able to repeat the charge-discharge cycle over 5,000 times which is equivalent to more than 10 years with a once-a-day recharge-discharge cycle.
• Rapidly rechargeable : Safety characteristics of SCiB allow recharge with a current as large as 50 amperes (A), allowing the SCiB Cell and SCiB Standard Module to recharge to 90% of full capacity in only five minutes.
• High power (practical capacity) : The SCiB has an input-output performance equivalent to that of an electric double layer capacitor.
• Temperature : Extreme temperatures supported with sufficient discharge at temperatures as low as -30°C.

SCiB batteries will first be available on the market in March 2008 with the following specifications:

• Nominal voltage  : 24VDC
• Nominal capacity : 4.2 Ah
• Size : 10x30x5 cm
• Weight : 2 kg

Perhaps these batteries will also find other field of application,  but for portable devices they will need to become lighter and slimmer..but batteries that get charges in  five minutes are definitively very attractive for mobile users. 

What do you think ?  

Sources: Engadget Toshiba 

Tags: 2007, 2008, 24, api, arc, art, ATT, batteries, blog, capacity, ces, CTU, delay, failure, fast charge, find, flash, fon, hard disk, hdd, ia, im, lan, laptop, LED, light, minutes, mobile, nomadcom.net, portable, power, rechargeable, safe, safety, SCiB, Solid State Drive, SSD, technology, toshiba, user, vehicles, wp, www

Hilarious, "you have to trust me on this"!

Try to imagine CTU's agent, Jack Bauer (24H) saving the world, using hi-tech solutions of the moment…in 1994.

http://5.content.collegehumor.com/d1/ch6/9/4/collegehumor.728e46a9be4b8772dafbec9427e36dad.flv

A Collegehumor production. Great job! 

Tags: 1994, 2007, 24, 24H, air, blog, collegehumor, CTU, humor, ia, im, jack bauer, lan, nomadcom.net, space, unaired pilot, video, world, wp, www

People affected by California wildfires get and send firsthand information using micro-blogging service Twitter. Usually during emergencies, all telecommunications networks get overloaded due to huge communication flow increase in all affected areas.

2004 Tsunami taught us that when telephone landlines do not work anymore, mobile network is overloaded, short-messages (SMS) were still going through, but often with up to a hour delivery delay (better than no communication).

One of the most critical problem to solve during emergencies is how to spread information on both directions (from affected people to emergency services and from helpers to victims). In addition, affected people and their relatives are in need to get in touch.

In California, the American Red Cross, among others, have open 2 Twitters threads. One is made to push information out (e.g evacuation routes) and the 2nd one is "Safe and Well" which provides a way for affected people to register as “safe and well.” using a list of standard messages.

Concerned relatives can search the list of those who have registered themselves as “safe and well.” directly on American Red Cross website.

Among many sources: Stephenson Strategies, Wired, KPBS and Occam Razr.

Tags: 2007, 24, american red cross, arc, blog, california, cellular, ces, communication, delay, emergency, how to, ia, ict, im, lan, list, live, micro-blogging, mobile, Mobile Communications, network, nomadcom.net, phone, red cross, safe, search, services, sms, sun, telecom, Telecommunications, touch, twit, Twitter, user, web, website, wildfire, wp, www

The attacks on Swiss financial institutes with the aim of unjustified enrichment and the threat of the targeted industrial espionage via the internet are the main topics of the fifth semi-annual report of the Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance.

The report assesses the situation of the first half of the year 2007 in Switzerland and is now available online and clearly shows that the human factor remains the weakest point of ICT security.

Focus areas of issue 2007/I

• Attacks on Swiss financial services
  "Classic" phishing attacks by e-mail with password requests have decreased substantially in Switzerland. Moreover, all such attacks have been unsuccessful. On the other hand, successful attacks with malware have increased. Two-factor authentication systems (e.g. transaction authentication numbers, SecurID, etc.) do not afford protection against such attacks and must be viewed as insecure once the computer of the customer has been infected with malware.

• Industrial espionage and data theft
  The threat posed by targeted state or private industrial espionage continues. Not only the operators of critical infrastructures, the armament industry, or public authorities are threatened. Medium-sized industrial companies as well as manufacturers of luxury articles and fashion are also being targeted. The attacks are carried out by sending targeted e-mails to individual employees which contain malware in their attachments or links to bogus websites.
• Attacks on web servers:
  malware distribution, phishing, data theft Compromising of web servers has increased. The purpose is to use web servers to distribute malware, such as by drive-by infection, to steal data (especially on commercially used servers), to carry out (interim) storage of data (e.g. in connection with phishing), or to distribute messages that are generally political in nature.
• Malware / attack vectors
  Malware is still usually distributed through e-mail attachments or e-mails with links to bogus websites. Using clever social engineering techniques, the victim is deceived into opening the attachment or clicking on the link. Websites installing malware on the computer without any action by the user (drive-by infections) have heavily increased as an infection vector. Vulnerabilities in the operating system, the browser, or other applications are exploited. For a long time now, this no longer only happens on dubious sites, but also on (compromised) serious and well-known sites. Rates of recognition of malware by anti-virus software remain low.

The complete report is available on Melani website in italian, german, french and english.

A complete and useful list of all Internet risks and related protection measures is also available.

Tags: 2007, 24, aim, analysis, Annual, art, ATT, attack, blog, ces, computer, connection, CTU, customer, engine, espionage, human, ia, ict, ICT Security, im, industry, install, internet, IT World, ITU, King, lan, list, malware, melani, nomadcom.net, online, password, phishing, public, risk, security, services, social, storage, swiss, switzerland, theme, threat, user, web, web server, website, wp, www, XP

Cory Doctorow wrote this Creative Commons-licensed fiction story for Radar Online magazine.

  Une version française est disponible ici

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” –Cardinal Richelieu

“We don’t know enough about you.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

“The marvels of modern technology,” said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration–Powered by Google.

“I thought that didn’t start until next month?” The man was alternately wearing and holding a large sombrero.

Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options and “taking some me time"–which turned out to be less rewarding than he’d expected. What he mostly did over the five months that followed was fix his friends’ PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds, which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn’t caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2007, 24, access, account, air, airport, analysis, arc, arms, art, ATT, batteries, blog, book, brown, bt, camera, card, cars, ces, columbia, communication, computer, CTU, design, digital, dress, engine, explain, Festival, fiction, find, flash, free, Fun, google, google maps, History, HP, ia, ict, identify, im, International, internet, ipod, ITU, keyboard, King, lan, laptop, launch, law, LED, LG, light, live, map, MIT, money, network, nomadcom.net, nyt, officer, online, organize, pair, personal data, pet, photo, picture, police, politics, post, power, press, privacy, project, public, raw, release, science, sco, screen, scroogled, search, security, simple, social, soviet, storm, story, suspect, technology, term, terror, theme, touch, upgrade, USA, usage, user, violation, web, webcam, wifi, wonders, world, wp, www, XP, yahoo

Free and universal Wi-Fi community builder "FON Movimiento" is spreading fast across Europe. In September an agreement was signed with Cegetel, France 2nd largest ISP to introduce the free "Neuf Wifi FON" service. This service offers Neuf Cegetel's subscribers to share some of their Internet bandwidth through their "Wifi Neuf Box" and to become part of the FON community. Cegetel estimates that by end of 2007, 1 million of "Neuf Box 4" will be ready to support this new service. 

Members of the FON community get free and secured Internet access through any "FON Spots" Wifi Access Point around the globe. 

Earlier this month in United Kingdom, BT also joined forces with FON and offer to 3 million BT's broadband customers to share their Internet access and join the FON community.

Now it is the Geneva city council to sign a convention with FON to consolidate the small existing wireless network available in some key locations of the city. The city council envisages to distribute up to 500 FON routers to its citizens who may wish to share their Internet Access via the FON community (complete story, in French, on TSR telecom blog).

Non-member of the FON community will be able to get access to the Internet through FON Wifi networks using a 3 USD/day fee "FON Access Pass".

Let's hope this solution will be more successful than previous attempts as most of them were sunk by politicians and endless administrative discussions.

" Post Tenebras Lux" ? 

Tags: 2007, 24, access, agreement, art, ATT, blog, bt, ces, citizen, community, customer, europe, fon, fon movimiento, free, geneva, geneve, HP, ia, im, internet, internet access, King, lan, location, map, Mobile Communications, network, neuf cegetel, nomadcom.net, post, share, story, sun, telecom, Telecommunications, uk, wifi, wireless, world, worldwide, wp, www

Few weeks ago we went to Sangklaburi, a small city near the border with Myanmar on western Thailand, about 240 kilometers from Kanchanaburi. A perfect place for photography with friendly inhabitants, great landscape and a superb wooden bride.

More photos on my Flickr dedicated set.

svgallery=sanglaburi

Tags: 24, bridge, Flickr, ia, kanchanaburi, lan, mini gallery, myanmar, photo, Photography, sangklaburi, sun, Thailand, www

A report from Burton Group suggests that new emerging standard of wireless network (WLAN / WiFi) 802.11n (Mimo) will start replacing wired Ethernet 802.3 networks within the next 2-3 years as it improves throughput and range compared to actual 802.11 b/g.

IT senior analyst Paul DeBasi goes even further and says "IT professionals should start thinking now about how they will deploy, maintain and benefit from an all-wireless LAN."

This is a joke isn't it ? Even if I'm a fervent of wireless technology, I simply cannot imagine how wireless networks will replace actual wired networks. Here are the main reasons:

• Bandwidth: With 802.11n the maximum theoretical throughput (using 2 steams) will be 248 Mbps meanwhile Ethernet 802.3an (2006) already provides 10Gbps and next IEEE study group target is 802.3ba with both 40 and 100Gbps. I don't even speak about signal attenuation releated to distance and obstacles.

• Frequency spectum 2.4 GHz & 5GHz are very narrow and number of available channels are limited. So maintaining high speed links, large number of clients without facing frequency overlaps and other electro-magnetic interferences seems very unlikely.
• Electro-smog: With 802.11n the range covered will be larger but this will have undoubtedly have a negative impact on performance and signal strength specially when using ISM 2.4 GHz spectrum in a wireless crowed environment.
• VoWLAN capacity: Several studies have been done to determine, how many simultaneous calls one AP can handle. The number of simultaneous calls is 15 before observed speech quality is lowered via increased delay. (I assume the study also get rid of telephone wires).
• A "wireless only" corporate office means that PBX system also have to rely on wireless network, otherwise it would be complete non-sense to pull wire only for telephone and use wireless connectivity for computers.

Is this report a hoax or do they, at the Burton Group, have some enlighten prophets?

Source: ZDNet
Full report is available here (sign-in required)

Tags: 2007, 24, 802.11, art, ATT, blog, bt, capacity, ces, computer, computers, connectivity, CTU, delay, distance, ethernet, HP, ia, im, Impact, King, lan, light, MIT, network, nomadcom.net, phone, project, prophet, space, study, technology, Telecommunications, term, white paper, wifi, wireless, wlan, wp, www

Just finished to watch Hugo Ortega's video presenting HTC Shift and I must admit I like the HTC idea of bringing to us an UMPC (Ultra-mobile computer) which has 2 processors and 2 operating systems working independently on board.

Is the UMPC form factor market ready to take-off soon ?
Is the double O/S option chosen by HTC the winning one ?

A recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• The UMD worldwide forecast is for more than 8 million units in 2011.
• 2008-2010 will be key years for the development of a market inflection point of anytime/anywhere wireless connectivity that is necessary for widespread adoption of the UMD paradigm.

Some specifications: 

• Size: 19 x 13.5 x 3cm
• Weight: 0.9 kg 0.791 kg
• 7 inches display
• Resolution : 800×480 – 1024×600
• Operating Systems : Windows Mobile 6 & Windows Vista Business
• CPU's : Qualcomm 400 MHz for WM6 & Dual Core 800 MHz Intel A110 for Vista
• 7 days battery capacity running on WM6 only. 3 hours on Windows Vista
• Ram Memory : 1 GB
• Hard Drive : 40 GB
• Communication : WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0,
• Phone data : Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE – Tri-Band UMTS/HSPDA
• 1.3 MB built-in camera
• 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 VGA port
• 1 Finger print reader
• 1 SD Card reader
• Slide out Tilt display
• Price tag : 1200 euros (?)
• Availability : Q3 2007

The very interesting concept is the possibility to switch from one environment (e.g WM6) to the second one (Vista Business) and back in just the press of a button. Input can be done either using the QWERTY keyboard or the hand-witting recognition system.

Streaming video is available on Gottatobemobile.com or there is a 250 MB video available for download here.

Shift on HTC website  

Tags: 2007, 2008, 24, 802.11, arc, ATT, availability, blog, camera, capacity, card, card reader, ces, communication, computer, connectivity, development, forecast, gsm, htc, HTC shift, ia, im, IT World, keyboard, King, lan, memory, MIT, mobile, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, nyt, pda, phone, press, reader, resolution, search, shift, space, Telecommunications, ultra-mobile, UMPC, usb, video, vista, web, website, wifi, windows, windows mobile 6, windows vista, wireless, WM6, world, worldwide, wp, www

I haven't post a lots about photo equipments on this blog in the past but the new models of Olympus SW µ [mju] series bring something new, specially for nomads. They are now shockproof, waterproof and operate at low temperature, so more fear about humidity, sand, scratches and they are ready for some underwater pictures.

The SW µ series is composed of 5 different models, all fitted with the following specifications:

• 7.1 mega pixels resolution
• 3x optical zoom (5x digital)
• 2.5 inch LCD screen
• 38-114 mm 35mm equivalent zoom (6.7-20.1mm)
• Digital image stabilization
• etc..
• Colored case   

The 2 new models (790 and 795) are no more "water resistant" but "water proof" 

• 790 SW
  Water Proof 3m
  Shock proof 1.5m
  Operable at – 10° C
  Dust proof
  Face Recognition

• 795 SW
  Water Proof 10m
  Shock proof 1.5m
  Operable at – 10° C
  Dust proof
  TruePic image processor
  Digital zoom x15

 Price : ~300 USD

For me the 795 model is the perfect "point & shoot" camera to carry with to "not DSLR friendly" places.

Tags: 10°C, 2007, 24, asia, blog, camera, ces, CTU, digital, DSLR, face recognition, global, ia, ict, im, lan, low temperature, mju, models, nomadcom.net, olympus, photo, picture, point and shoot, post, resolution, screen, shockproof, space, SW 790, SW 795, underwater, water, waterproof, wp