I found very interesting post on Tom Barrett's "ICT in my Classroom" blog about how Twitter is used as an educational tool.

Tom's post also describes where Twitter is positioned among other communications tools. Twitter is not a synchronous or an asynchronous communication system. It is rather both at once depending how channel's followers use it.

He makes a nice metaphoric comparison between Twitter and a flowing torrent where people can just stand by it and observes the flow. Some prefers to jump into while others simply do not pay much attention to the  stream.

Personally I am amazed to see how many different ways Twitter is used today. There are, indeed, lots of individuals (you and me) but also some politicians (Clinton, Obama, UK Prime Minister), Public Services (LA fire department, AmCross), Airlines, News agencies, etc.. which are increasingly using it, but not necessarily to interact with others but to broadcast content or information.

Is any company using Twitter for internal use only ? 

InfoWorld published the 10 most common security land mines that experts say you need to avoid.

Many companies spend a small fortune and deploy a small army to secure themselves from the many security threats lurking these days. But all those efforts can come to naught when making any of these common mistakes. The results can range from embarrassing to devastating, but security experts say that all are easily avoidable.

And almost all can be done without spending one more dime.

1. A slip of the finger reveals the company secret

2. People give away passwords and other secrets without thinking

3. A trusted partner ends up not being so trustworthy with your data

4. Web-based apps can be portals to leaks and thieves

5. Hoping the worse doesn’t happen only makes it worse

6. Avoiding or diluting response leadership makes breaches worse

7. Handling breach details sloppily tips off the perp

8. Trusting "silver bullet" technology hides real threats

9. Spending unthinkingly wastes resources you might need for important threats

10. Don't save the wrong data

In short, weakest point in ICT technologies is always the same one… guess who ?

The full article is available here on InfoWorld

How do your corporate applications look like ?

Sources : Stuff That Happends via Fred Cavazza

Back online after few days on Chinese Mountains I discovered lots of interesting informations about Internet disruptions which occurred earlier this month and impacted more than 90 millions Internet users. Outages were due to up to cuts on up to 9 submarines cables located, for most of them, around the Arabian Peninsula.

"I Love Bonnie" published on the 12th the excellent "The Submarine Cables – A Complete Guide to the 2008 Internet Outage". The post contains tons of informations and links and provides a detailed review of the events. Media coverage can be found on Renesys site. Steven M. Bellovin professor at Columbia  University analyzed the possible causes of these outages.

Some also speaks, indeed, about conspiracy  

This time iA (Information Architects) have taken almost 300 of the most influential and successful websites and pinned them down to the greater Tokyo-area train map

An A3 printable version is available as well as an online clickable one.

Where your prefered sites are located on this map ? Are you moving by the trend ? 

I haven't review in details all news from the CES 2008 that closed its doors on Thursday but it seems the Global Energy problem contributes to have better ideas regarding the way we can power our IT stuff.

One company, Green Plug, has identified a significant contributor to the high cost of battery-powered consumer electronics products, wasted energy and unnecessary toxic waste. A typical home or office has a dozen or more power transformers that convert between 90V and 254V wall power to device-specific DC power. Every adapter is physically unique and therefore is thrown away every time a device is replaced.

Green Plug comes with a better idea.

Creating a standardize power supply which can be used by all Green Plug^TM compliant devices utilize uniform cables and connectors; so, you never have to worry about finding the right adapter for your laptop, DV camera, cell phone or power tool.

Let's hope they will be able to convinced enough partners to have a real impact on the market and we'll have soon all our electronic devices using a single and unique type of power supply.

Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage beginning January 1, 2008 as new federal safety rules take effect. The new regulation, designed to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires, will continue to allow lithium batteries in checked baggage if they are installed in electronic devices, or in carry-on baggage if stored in plastic bags.

Common consumer electronics such as travel cameras, cell phones, and most laptop computers are still allowed in carry-on and checked luggage.  However, the rule limits individuals to bringing only two extended-life spare rechargeable lithium batteries, such as laptop and professional audio/video/camera equipment lithium batteries in carry-on baggage

The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

• Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.

• You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
• For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
• Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!

Indeed this regulation will first be applicable on US registered aircrafts but as usual we may see this new regulation applicable on all International flights. 

Usually all electrical devices, including batteries, are subject to safety certification so either their are considered to be safe or manufacturer has to review quality and safety of its products. 

I really wonder on which basis these new rules are made from. Did anyone saw any incident statistics, reports etc.. (apart Sony made laptop batteries) or is it just one additional constraints air travel passengers will have to deal with.

After lighters and matches in 06, liquids in 07, 08 will add batteries to the restriction list.

All details are here as well as the complete list of items with air travel restrictions

Not yet sure if it is a good news or not, but Air France has become the first airline in the world to offer an in-flight mobile phone service on international flights.

One Airbus A318 aircraft operating European routes has been fitted with a mini GSM base station to provides 123 passengers the possibility to :

• Send and receive sms and mms messages
• Send and receive emails via all phones with Internet access

During the second half of the trial, passengers will be able to make and receive phone calls, with the service being regulated to maintain passengers’ comfort and well-being.

If passengers kindly turn off ringing traffic data from/to an aircraft should not be a big deal, if not journeys may become quite annoying with uninterrupted flow of incoming messages ringing alert.

Hard to imagine how will be a long haul flight with full mobile phone services (voice and data) "offered" to passengers. 

At the end of the six-month trial, Air France will examine the feedback and comments made by customers to determine whether to launch this service on all its flights.

What is your feeling about the availability of in-flight mobile phone service ? 

For the technical part,
Air France uses Mobile OnAir onboard mobile telephony system, certified by EASA (European Aviation Safety Authority) which does not interfere with the radio-navigation instruments on this Airbus A318 and may only be used at cruising altitude once the new illuminated sign “Switch off your phone” is turned off (recycling the "no smoking" sign ?).  The system is activated at 3,000 metres (10,000 feet).

More about this trial on AirFrance site including a video of the 1st trial flight.

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 

TGV tests Wi-Fi + satellite link in three TGV trains on its Eastern network. If the experiment proves successful the new service should be generalized, from 2009, to all 52 oars network East.

With combines effort of satellite link and wireless network, in locations, such tunnels and train stations, where the satellite link cannot be established, the wi-fi network takes over to maintain the access to the Web without interruption.

French railways company SNCF previously conducted unsuccessful test using GPRS data network before launching a 2 years research and preparation program to implement this dual solution. Among technical difficulties to overcome are these related to 320 km/h TGV trains speed which causes instability and vibrations. 

The project is done in a partnership with Orange(France Telecom mobile operator), Capgemini, Alstom Transport and Eutelsat.

SNCF will put on board of its TGV a dedicated Web portal providing information about destinations, weather forecast, News, traffic information as well as a real time tracking service. From a technical point of view, TGV trains are fitted with a server where all portal content is loaded prior the journey in order to minimize bandwidth consumption due to its high cost. The tested system has been designed to provide simultaneous web connection for 14 per cent (50 users) of the total capacity of each TGV train (350).

The business plan is not defined yet, but the widespread of the system on TGV Eastern Europe network would represent an investment of 120 millions USD over 4 years. First price estimation given by SNCF Passenger service would be a flat 4-5 USD to access the Web portal during the whole journey and a 4-5 USD per hour to access the Internet.

A very interesting project and definitively a real challenge to maintain permanent web connectivity during a train journey at more than 300 km/h where the 16'000 volt power line running over the train may also create some electro-magnetic interferences and without mentioning all micro interruptions of the satellite link each time the train pass under a bridge or when dense foliage is found within the satellite's line of sight.

Any reader who already had the chance to test the reliability of the service ?

More infos (in French): Journal du Net, CNet France.