We all know about the most famous Chinese mode of transportation, the bicycle. Indeed with the situation is changing and the bicycle leaves more and more its place to cars & motorbikes. 

I arrived 2 days ago in Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province. The city is growing and its 6 millions inhabitants add 200 cars on the road every single day. However in a city where a liter of petrol costs 0.50 USD and the monthly salary is less than 100 USD I wonder what is the average yearly mileage of this multitude of vehicle.

What surprised me here is that most scooters in town are electric and this idea should inspire Europe. However I have not seen how they recharge them and if the battery can easily be remove and be charged at home. I'll try to have a deeper look in the coming days .

Specifications are the following

Dimension: 1700*555*1170
N weight/ G weight: 115/136KGS
Max speed: <60Km/h
Battery: 48V/38AH Silicone
Motor Power: 1500W
Load capacity: >85Kg
Brake: Disk brak FR, drum brake RR
Mileage for one charge: 80Km
More info here

Who said that in China there are no efforts made to reduce carbon emissions ? 

Tags: 100 usd, 2008, api, ATT, blog, capacity, capital, cars, europe, im, ITU, lan, nomadcom.net, On The Road, pet, power, sco, scooter motorbike electric carbon emission green china, transportation, what is, wp, www

Radar Networks, is releasing a free Web-based tool, called Twine, that it hopes will change the way people organize their information.

Twine website is a place where you can share any kind of information and knowledge such emails, bookmarks, documents, RSS feeds, contacts, photos, videos, product info, data records, and collaborate around common interests, activities and goals with friends, colleagues etc.

Once Twine has some information, it starts to analyze it and automatically sort it into categories that include the people involved, concepts discussed, and places, organizations, and companies.

Twine uses the Semantic Web, natural language processing, and machine learning to make your information and relationships smarter.

It still look unclear how Twine could make a real difference about organizing and sharing information but apparently a public beta version of the site may emerge soon.

Another question, Twine will be able to compete with what Techcrunch calls "the Google lethal social weapon", the project Maka-Maka.

Twine register form is available here.

More about Twine: Technology Review,  Read/Write web.

Tags: 2007, arc, art, blog, book, ces, facebook, find, free, google, HP, ia, im, knowledge, lan, language, LED, network, nomadcom.net, organize, pet, photo, processing, project, public, review, semantic, semantic web, share, sharing, social, technology, twine, video, w3c, web, web 2.0, website, 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

The Gartner Group launched during the IT Security Summit, a book written by Richard Hunter (Gartner vice-president) entitled IT Risk: "Turning Business Threats into Competitive".

The Register published an article highlighting some of Hunter's statement. Extracts:

• IT systems have become so integral to businesses that their failure can have disastrous consequences for an organization.

• IT risk is too important to be left to IT departments
• IT risk is related to IT value. It would be short-sighted not to recognize either value or risk

The complete article in available on The Register site.

More interesting than the article itself are indeed the comments which clearly show how wide is the gap between the theory (or the analysis) and the reality.

Best of :

• So the Bean counters and all the people who have no clue about it should have control? BAD IDEA.
• …This is the reason why an I.T director needs to sit on the board. Not however just some one who did a MBA but barely knows how to turn on their PC.
• …much of the problem can be resolved with a bit of education and common sense – and some money of course
• Ignorance, from middle management to board level, of even simple issues relating to IT risks that can be seriously detrimental to the business as a whole.
• Management, up to board level, simply not listening to IT managers who DO know what they are talking about
• In my experience IT risk auditors are finance types who don't understand IT and thus cannot adequately assess the risk
• Yes, let's take away IT disaster management and network security from the people that have a clue.

All comments are here.

I recognize in most comments highly experienced, realistic and well grounded IT guys. About the, so called, IT Analysts… same consideration than for the Burton Group.

As expressed, common sense would be to have IT director on the board, and the management to wake up and become IT skilled.

What's your opinion ?

Tags: 2007, analysis, art, best of, blog, book, ces, ethernet, failure, fon, gap, gartner group, how to, im, IT risk, King, lan, launch, LED, light, list, Management, MIT, money, network, nomadcom.net, pet, press, risk, security, simple, the register, threat, uk, wp, www, XP

It is impressive to see the quantity of bad news that reached Microsoft's headquarters this week.

Motivation may not be at its highest level in Redmond.

• Only 60 millions licenses (sic!) of Windows Vista have been sold. It is rather low considering that includes OEM and Corporate agreements (companies getting Vista licenses as part of their contract, but with no short-term plan to deploy it).

• Yahoo announced the acquisition of Zimbra, an open source server and client software for messaging and collaboration (email, group calendaring, contacts, and web document management and authoring).
• Google welcomed "Presentation", a new addition to the Google Docs & Spreadsheets family which has now all elements to compete with MS Office.
• IBM released the beta version of Symphony, a web-based open source office suite, based on the open document format (ODF).
• International Standard Organization (ISO) rejected Microsoft Office 2007 file format, called Office Open XML (OOXML), to be recognized as an ISO standard. Critics said the format was flawed and laden with MS-specific features.
• SCO group, a Microsoft ally to seize parts of the Linux market, took step of filing for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Last but not least

Microsoft lost its appeal before the European Court of First Instance regarding 2004 European Commission act that found MS abusing of its near-monopoly position. Final  Microsoft's bill in fines (689 millon USD) and penalties could reach about 2.8 billions USD.

Don't worry Bill, on Monday starts another week!  

Tags: 2007, agreement, api, appeal, art, blog, europe, google, ia, ibm, im, International, iso, IT World, lan, language, law, LED, Management, microsoft, nomadcom.net, odf, pet, press, release, sco, space, symphony, term, vista, web, windows, windows vista, wp, www, yahoo

Hewlett-Packard has presented its new iPAQ handheld devices. Among them the 600 series a two-in-one 3G phone and navigation device and the 900 series which comes with a full QWERTY keyboard.

Both models share the following specifications: 

• O/S : Windows Mobile 6 Professional
• CPU : Marvell PXA270 520 MHz
• Memory : 128 MB SDRAM and 256 MB ROM
• aGPS (assisted navigation)
• Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri Band HSPDA
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth 2.0
• USB 2.0 connector, MicroSD card slot
• 3 Megapixel camera

900 series model only (within brackets, specs of HTC C730)

• Size: 113 x 64 x 16mm (112.5 x 62.5 x 13.5)
• Weight: 146 gr. (120 gr)
• Battery: 1850 mAh (1050 mAh)
• Display: 2.46 in TFT with 65000 colors (2.4 TFT 65000)
• Price Tag: ~800 USD (~520 USD)

Will this model becomes a serious competitor to HTC Cavalier (C730, replacement of S620 Excalibur) which is a 3.5G phone, smaller, lighter and cheaper but does not come with GPS navigation and tactile screen?   

All info about new iPAQ on HP Mobility 2007
Availability: October 2007

Sources : Mobilitysite, Blog de Pierre

Tags: 2007, 802.11, 900 Series, 914, api, asia, ATT, availability, blog, Business Messenger, C720, C720w, C730, camera, card, Cavalier, ces, dopod, excalibur, gap, gsm, handheld, Hewlett Packard, HP, htc, ia, im, iPAQ, keyboard, lan, light, memory, messenger, mobile, Mobile Communications, mobility, models, nomadcom.net, pda, pet, phone, press, public, S620, screen, share, space, Telecommunications, usb, windows, windows mobile 6, WM6, wp, www

At least one third of the population in developing countries has no access to safe drinking water. The lack of adequate water supply and sanitation facilities causes a serious health hazard and exposes many to the risk of water-borne diseases, This situation led to about 4 billion cases of diarrhoea each year, out of which 2.5 million cases end in death. Every day about 6000 children die of dehydration due to diarrhoea.

INDEX 2007 Award winner Solar Bottle created by italian designers Alberto Medo and Francisco Gomez Paz uses the SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection ) process, developed by the Department of Water and Sanitation at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Research. SODIS principle works with the sun to allow UV-A radiation and increased temperature to destroy pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water.The Solar Bottle is made of slim PET, contains 4 liters of water and can be arranged back-to-back for carry. The handle allows balanced transport and is used as stand to provide optimal solar incidence.

Indeed, a less fashionable version of SODIS process using simple ordinary plastic bottles works well too but they are more difficult to carry and the surface exposed to sun radiations is lots smaller.

More about the Solar Bottle on InHabitat
More about SODIS on Eawag.

Sources: Inhabitat & Index

Tags: 2007, access, arc, art, award, awards, blog, ces, design, disinfection, drinking water, health, ia, im, ITU, King, lan, LED, nomadcom.net, pet, population, risk, safe, science, sco, search, simple, sms, sodis, solar bottle, space, sun, supply, swiss, water, wp, www, XP

After receiving an email from Kpjas, an Ipernity member, who informed me that he took a photo of mine to illustrate "50 Places To See Before You Die" selected by BBC viewers in 2003 in his blog, I reviewed the list and noticed that I have already visited more than 50% of these places that BBC viewers dream about (lucky me).

This list raised some interrogation to me about why these places have chosen instead of other famous ones ?  I could not find any relevant explanations except perhaps a majority of places where the spoken language is (was) English (but it makes sense as enquiry took place in UK). One thing is sure, after reading names of these great location, you just feel to escape from your office, pack you stuff and go travel.

Personally I would definitively add some places to this list (Okavango delta, Yunnan mountains, Kalahari desert, Japan, etc..) and perhaps drop some but for sure, I'll not be able to keep it to only 50 locations.

BBC 2008 Viewers "Must See list"

Africa
La Digue, Seychelles

(visited)
The Pyramids, Egypt (1993)
Luxor, Egypt  (1993)
Abu Simbel, Egypt (1993)
Masai Mara, Kenya (1993/2002)
Victoria Falls, Zambia / Zimbabwe (1994)
Cape Town, South Africa – (1994/1998)

Americas
The Grand Canyon, USA
Yosemite National Park, USA
Las Vegas, USA
Hawaii, USA
Alaska, USA
San Francisco, USA
Niagara Falls, Canada / USA
Canadian Rockies, Canada
Chichen Itza, Mexico
Angel Falls, Venezuela
Barbados, Barbados

(visited)
New York, USA (1996/2000)
Florida, USA (2000)
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador (1999)
Machu Picchu, Peru (2001/2004)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1989/2000)
Iguassu Falls, Argentina / Brazil (2001)

Asia
Singapore, Singapore
Golden Temple, India
Taj Mahal, India
Bali, Indonesia
Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka
The Maldives, Maldives
Terracotta Army, China

(visited)
Bangkok, Thailand (1994/2002)
Great Wall, China (2005)
Angkor Wat, Cambodia (1995/2006)
Himalayas, Nepal (2006)
Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2006)

Europe
Rome, Italy

(visited)
Paris, France (1980/2007)
Venice, Italy (1977/1982)
Barcelona, Spain (2001/2007)
Iceland, Iceland (1992)
Zermatt, Switzerland (1992/2005)

Middle-East
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

(visited)
Petra, Jordan (2003)

Oceania
Bora Bora, French Polynesia
South Island, New Zealand
Auckland, New Zealand

(visited)
Sydney, Australia (1996/2005)
Uluru, Australia (1996)
Great Barrier Reef, Australia (1996)   

Some pics are really crap, so good excuse to visit some of these places again  

Tags: 1994, 2003, 2007, 2008, 24, 914, arc, asia, ATT, Bangkok, BBC, before you die, best of, blog, ces, emirates, europe, find, Flickr, gap, himalaya, HP, ia, ict, im, japan, lan, language, list, location, MIT, must see, Nepal, nomadcom.net, paris, pet, photo, review, sco, space, switzerland, Thailand, Travel, uk, USA, viewers, wp, www, XP

Bangkok is already known for its pink taxi, it may soon also be known for its "Hello Kitty" cops.

Yesterday Chief Officer of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok as announced that police officers arriving late, parking in a prohibited area, littering among other petty crimes will be forced to stay in the division office and wear a pinky flashy "Hello Kitty" (the Japanese icon of cute) armband all day as a mark of shame.

Police Colonel Pongpat Chayapan said the idea is part of zero tolerance anti-crime initiatives theory which argues that getting tough on petty crime leads to a reduction in more serious offences.

However, "Hello Kitty officers" will not wear the armband in public. Should the public visit police offices instead to make sure this new guidelines is enforced ? 

photo: AP 

Tags: 2007, 24, anti crime, armband, art, Bangkok, blog, ces, crime, flash, Flickr, hello kitty, ia, im, japan, King, lan, nomadcom.net, officer, pet, photo, pink, police, press, public, shame, space, suppression, tax, Thailand, uk, vision, wp, www

When I saw this list on Bruno Giussani's "Blog over IP" post about Internet prices in Europe I could not resist to add some prices for Internet broadband access in Asia.

I did not add prices paid in most countries of Pacific rim but what they pay in Sweden for a monthly  broadband connection is equivalent to what they pay per minute in Kiribati or Cook islands for a noisy dial-up 14.4 kbps.   

Price comparison for consumer broadband in Europe (average monthly price per 1Mbps, from The Telegraph/MoneySupermarket):

1. Sweden GBP 0.32 (EUR 0.48)
2. France GBP 0.83 (EUR 1.23)
3. Finland GBP 1.41
4. Italy GBP 1.71
5. Norway GBP 2.05
6. Holland GBP 2.19
7. Denmark GBP 2.50 (EUR 3.7)
8. Iceland GBP 2.54
9. Germany GBP 2.64 (EUR 3.9)
10. Austria GBP 3.04
11. Belgium GBP 3.40
12. UK GBP 5.60 (EUR 8.3)
13. Portugal GBP 5.84
14. Spain GBP 6.33
15. Poland GBP 6.60
16. Ireland GBP 7.02
17. Luxembourg GBP 9.39
18. Switzerland GBP 11.03 (EUR 16.8)
19. Czech Republic GBP 12.25
20. Greece GBP 16.86
21. Hungary GBP 24.48
22. Slovakia GBP 25.48 (EUR 37.8)
23. Turkey GBP 58.82 (EUR 87.3)

Spectacular differences. Some of the them can be explained by technical reasons (fiber optic vs copper wires etc), some by the overall living costs in a given country. Most of the high prices however are tied to lack of  competition and of innovation in a specific market.

On this part of the World, the gap is definitively lots wider:

1. South Korea KRW 300 (EUR 0.25)
2. Japan JPY 400 (EUR 0.51)
3. China CNY 175 (EUR 17)
4. Singapore SGD 43 (EUR 21)
5. Thailand (BKK) THB 952 (EUR 22.27)
6. Sri Lanka LKR 4500 (EUR 30)
7. Philippines PHP 1995 (EUR 32)
8. Australia AUD 53 (EUR 33.25)
9. Pakistan PKR  4800 (EUR  59)
10. Malaysia MYR 300 (EUR 65)
11. India INR 3600 (EUR 65)
12. Myanmar USD 260 (EUR 192)
13. Fiji FJD 560 (EUR 260)
14. Indonesia USD 2440 (EUR 1800)

nota: On prices above there is no details about the carrier (ADSL, Wireless Local Loop, Fiber, Wimax, etc..) nor specifications about monthly download limits which are usually ridiculous low for a xDSL subscriber (e.g 2 GB) and still applicable in most countries (particularly on the second part of the list).

Internet for everyone at an affordable price is still far from reality.

Tags: 2007, 24, access, art, asia, blog, cable, ces, connection, europe, explain, gap, HP, ia, im, internet, iso, japan, lan, LG, list, MIT, money, myanmar, nomadcom.net, paris, pet, Philippines, post, public, space, switzerland, Telecommunications, Thailand, uk, wireless, world, wp, www, XP