Just after posting the article about new safety measures on US aircraft I found an interesting post on New York Times "Jet Lagged" blog titled "Airport Security Folies"

Here after a short excerpt of Patrick Smith article

" Six years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, airport security remains a theater of the absurd. The changes put in place following the September 11th catastrophe have been drastic, and largely of two kinds: those practical and effective, and those irrational, wasteful and pointless.

The first variety have taken place almost entirely behind the scenes. Explosives scanning for checked luggage, for instance, was long overdue and is perhaps the most welcome addition. Unfortunately, at concourse checkpoints all across America, the madness of passenger screening continues in plain view. It began with pat-downs and the senseless confiscation of pointy objects. Then came the mandatory shoe removal, followed in the summer of 2006 by the prohibition of liquids and gels. We can only imagine what is next…."

Continue reading it on NYT website 

On my own opinion, Airport security today is a mix between relevant and must have security measures on a side but also theatrical, annoying and ridiculous measures. Some of these measures are time consuming, put passengers and crew on their nerves for no safety added value. What does really justify them?

• Government "zero  political risk" (if something happens they will be able to tell that all possible protection measures were already taken) ?
• Fear factor = better military/law enforcement budget ?
• Security private experts / companies have highly increase their financial income since September 2001. They certainly not ready to give this golden egg away.
• Did I speak about million dollars detectors and scanners manipulated by low trained personnel ?    

but do you think air travels are safer to face well prepared, organized and motivated enemies ?

Tags: 2007, 2008, air, air travel, aircraft, airport, art, ATT, attack, batteries, blog, detector, enforcement, fon, ia, ict, im, jet lagged, lan, law, LED, lithium, MIT, new york times, nomadcom.net, nyt, organize, passengers, post, risk, safe, safety, screen, security, spare, terror, train, Travel, web, website, what is, wp, www, XP

British secret services MI5 warned UK businesses about Chinese hackers.

MI5 director-general wrote to 300 UK firms including Banks and law firms to warn them about "electronic espionage attacks" conducted by "Chinese state organizations".

IT Security company Sophos reports that 30 per cent of malware are "made in China". Trojan horses are designed to rob login credentials of anything including email and games. 

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was already blamed in September 2007 for attacking governments computers of France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and United States, including Pentagon systems.

Trojan horses often target computers with unpatched vulnerabilities and without proper level of security deployed.  

The Chinese government has denied any involvement in the attacks and pointed its finger to unidentified hackers.

The question is now to discover if malware "made in China" are really powerful and smart of if attacked computers were the result of a serious lack of security and preventive protection measures.

Source: The Register 

Tags: 2007, art, ATT, attack, blog, ces, computer, computers, design, espionage, event, game, ia, im, King, lan, law, login, malware, nomadcom.net, nyt, power, sco, security, services, spy, spy cyber china espionage "cyber spy" attack warning MI, the register, uk, wp, www

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

76% of 1200 American consumers who participated to Digital Life America – Holiday 2007 Edition survey have included at least one digital lifestyle product on their wish list.

1. flat screen high definition TV set – 35% (men 37% – women 33%)
2. laptop (windows) – 20% (21% – 19%)
3. digital camera – 17% (16% – 18%)
4. desktop PC – 14% (13% – 15%)
5. GPS navigation unit for the car – 10% (11% – 10%)
6. cell phone – 10% (9% – 12%)
7. digital video camera – 9% (8% – 11%)
8. Nintendo Wii – 9% (8% – 9%)
9. Sony PS3 – 7%
10. Blu-ray or HD-DVD player – 6%

First Apple product (laptop) is on rank 11 (9 among women) buzz maker iPhone is 15. Survey participants clearly prefers laptop to desktop computers.

Unfortunately the survey doesn't reveal details about the type of cell phone ("simple" ones or smartphone) and I'm surprised to not ear anything about MP3 players nor PDA. Not trendy anymore or everybody already has one ?

What your wish list would be made of ?

source: Solutions Research Group. 

Tags: 2007, apple, arc, art, blog, camera, christmas, computer, computers, digital, digital life, im, iphone, lan, laptop, list, nomadcom.net, nyt, pda, phone, screen, search, simple, smartphone, sony, space, survey, trend, video, windows, wishlist, wp, www

According latest news for OLPC (One Laptop per Child) the 100 USD (actually 188 $) laptop will go into mass production in a week time as the final release of the software image will be given to Quanta by the end of this week.

On November 12, OLPC will launched a campaign "Get 1 Give 1" where you can for 400 USD buy 2 XO laptops, one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, the other one sent to your place. Unfortunately this campaign will only be available in North America.

Until we get an opportunity to have the hands-on this already famous greenish computer,  check New-York Time's David Pogues review and the video below.

   

Tags: 100 usd, 2007, blog, computer, CTU, green, ia, im, IT World, lan, laptop, launch, login, negroponte, nomadcom.net, nyt, olpc, one laptop per child, power, release, review, space, technology, video, wp, www, xo laptop, youtube

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

Yet another post about Apple iPhone, even if, as most of people, I haven't seen it yet. However, reading some articles about this "famous" iphone (11'000 print articles and 69 millions hits on Google in the last six months according the New York Times. 

I find very surprising that following support or services (according Presse-Citron review) will not be available on the, soon to be release, first Apple iphone :

Games (ok, perhaps it's a professional tool)

Office document editor (ok it's not a Microsoft product)

Cut-Paste function 

Memory extension slots (is it why there are 2 models of iphone ?)

MP3 ringtones (iTunes don't sell ringtones)

A2DP support for stereo bluetooth headset

Push Mail (ok, perhaps it's not a professional tool)

GPS

Flash & Java support (not sure you can even display Apple website pages)

Instant Messenging

MMS

Voice recognition 

Video capture

Camera zoom and flash

and there is even worst

Audio jack is not a 3.5mm standard. An adapter is needed if you want to use your iPod headphones.

Not 3G network compatible (UMTS, HSDPA, etc..)

Battery cannot be remove (no way to carry a spare one)

No built-in WiFi. (my mistake)
 

Without 3G, Web browsing with the iPhone will be an experience..if you're patient enough and unlucky enough to not find a WiFi hotspot close by!

and last but not least, the antenna is located at the bottom of the phone, right there were your hand holds the phone. This will surely helps a lot when the signal is weak.

Cherry on top of the cake, iPhone will be available only with a 24 months operator's subscription and its price tag is above 500 USD. Even without seeing it live, the so much expected iPhone will not replace my HTC 620.

Sources : Pogue's iPhone Tour & Presse-Citron 

Tags: 2007, 24, antenna, apple, art, ATT, blog, camera, ces, editor, find, flash, fon, Fun, game, google, htc, im, iphone, ipod, ITU, lan, live, memory, microsoft, Mobile Communications, models, network, new york times, nomadcom.net, nyt, phone, phones, post, press, prophet, release, review, S620, services, smartphone, space, spare, technology, Telecommunications, video, web, website, wifi, wp, www, XP

One of my first question was about how to send Twitter updates using Skype instead of anything else as I did not want to install an additional application with a single dedicated purpose.

Apparently I'm not alone in that situation and I found today a "how to" to post updates on Twitter using Skype chat tool

Quote

Here’s a little secret which no one seems to know about. There is a Skype robot which will post to your Twitter account.

1. Add twitter4skype as a contact.
2. Type the following as a chat message (be sure to do a FULL return for each line):
   /account
   yourtwitteraccountname
   yourtwitteraccountpassword
3. The system should return: twitter4skype Registration complete!
4. The next time you write a chat message to twitter4skype, the entry will appear as a Tweet on your account.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

Update: Some have reported they have not been successful on their first try to make this work. The issue usually is identified with the returns. On a Mac, make sure you press alt + return after each line. Also make sure there is a return after the last line. Once this is fixed, everything seems to “automagically” work.

Unquote

Source: PacificIT  

Tags: 2007, account, art, blog, ces, Gadgets, how to, im, install, Internet World, ITU, lan, mobile, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, nyt, password, pda, post, press, skype, skype4twitter, space, tweet, twit, Twitter, twittering, update, wp, www

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.

Article continues in the New-York Times

Questions : 

• May Kim Jong-Il have his new ipod now ?
• Who will complain first when UN resolutions will not be followed and respected by most of its members ?  

Further reading :

• United Nation Resolution 1718 : Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, but barring automatic military enforcement of its demands under the Charter’s Article 41, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 1718 (2006), which prevents a range of goods from entering or leaving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and imposes an asset freeze and travel ban on persons related to the nuclear-weapon programme…continues

• Leading by Example: How We Learn About Leadership, a Paper Presented at the NEIA Annual Conference, Sun Valley, Idaho – June 9-13, 2004. (NEIA = National Executive Institute Associates, Major Cities Chiefs Association, Major County Sheriff's Association).

Tags: 1718, 2007, 24, 914, administration, Annual, arms, art, blog, bush, ces, cities, Coup de Gueule, embargo, enforcement, Ethiopia, event, example, free, hypocrisy, ia, ict, im, International, ipod, ITU, lan, leadership, nomadcom.net, North Korea, nuclear, nyt, Our World, press, public, resolution, space, sun, Travel, united nations, USA, violation, weapons, white house, world, wp, www, XP

 

1. Get on board to a flight to US & A (preferably on national flag carrier)
2. Once on cruising altitude, quietly get you briefcase
3. Pull out your laptop
4. Start it up
5. Check this post
6. Close your eyes, pull your head back watching the sky
7. Click on the thumbnail below (flash required)
   
   

"We can laugh about anything, but not with anyone" Pierre Desproges (1939-88)

Sense of humor: Art of taking oneself and serious things lightly and light things seriously. (author unknown)

Source: Tommy the Monkey

Tags: 2007, arc, art, blog, flash, flight, free, Fun, howto, humor, ia, im, ITU, King, lan, laptop, light, nomadcom.net, nyt, Our World, post, wp