Saturday, September 25, 2010

Encourage the USPTO to stop issuing software patents; deadline September 27 — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Bilski v. Kappos, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) plans to release new guidance as to which patent applications will be accepted, and which will not. As part of this process, they are seeking input from the public about how that guidance should be structured...

Friday, September 24, 2010

podcast: TED's Transition from Conference to Platform
IT Conversations | Web 2.0 Conference | June Cohen

"June Cohen, Media Director for TED media, runs through the history of TED. It has grown from a conference, to a media company, to a platform for spreading ideas globally. She has been involved with TED in one way or another since its start in 1984. In 2006 the new owner Chris Anderson, felt the talks deserved a wider audience. He was able to take TED to the internet and offer these talks for free.

The goal was to spread ideas, not to make a brand and sell more tickets. To June's surprise there are now 700 talks on TED. She answers the question "What's causing this viral spread?". Her analysis is most instructive for those wishing to understand how viral messaging works.

Ms. Cohen believes in embracing open models. She shows how this philosophy is working at TED. The struggle with loss of control has led to unintended consequences. The dynamic growth experienced by TED, explains June, is managed through smart scaling.

TED's strategic plan is centered on listening to what people want. June Cohen, a dynamic speaker with a keen mind, shows that the volunteer translation team at TED and their standard of professionalism has encouraged a variety of new programs called TEDx and TED open TV projects. When we stopped imagining ourselves narrowly as a conference, and started aligning ourselves with the spread of ideas, we could remake our audience as team members."
podcast: Day to Day Quantum Theory
IT Conversations | Tech Nation | Michael Fayer

"Dr. Moira Gunn sits down with Stanford University professor and author, Michael Fayer to learn how Quantum Theory relates to everyday life, from the pages of his new book, Absolutely Small: How Quantum Theory Explains Our Everyday World."
podcast interview withMuhammad Yunus
Audio lectures from Social Innovation Conversations

Today, international development frequently involves offering microcredit to the poor to help lift themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurship. In this audio interview, conducted by Ashkon Jafari, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent, Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, talks about how his enterprise in Bangladesh makes tiny loans for self-employment to some of the poorest people in that country. He discusses how he started Grameen Bank, partnerships between Grameen companies and Fortune 500 companies, challenges and lessons learned, and directions for the future. He also offers a glimpse of his new book, Building Social Business, and reflects on what keeps him inspired in his work.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Book Server

"web for books"

podcast: A Future for Books: BookServer
IT Conversations | O'Reilly Media Tools of Change Conference | Brewster Kahle, from Archive.org

Sunday, September 19, 2010

YouTube video:
The new Newsday app (on iPad) is better than the newspaper in all kinds of ways... except for one

(iPad can not be used to kill a fly instead of paper newspaper :)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

podcast Stephen Hawking’s Grand Design | WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook

"In “A Brief History of Time”, Hawking laid out what we knew of the universe in compelling imagery and metaphor.

Now he’s back, with physicist Leonard Mlodinow, for a cosmic update. Not one universe out there, but many, they say. And no need now for God to explain the origin of everything. Science, they say, will do it."

Saturday, September 11, 2010

HP's Bid to Block Hurd's Oracle Move Is Long Shot, Lawyers Say - Bloomberg

Mark Hurd, former CEO of HP has joined Oracle as co-president. HP is very unhappy about that, trying to get some money back.

At the same time Oracle is suing Google for using Java language, but not Java VM and platform in Android for mobile phones and other devices.
A Brief Introduction to the Java and .NET Patent Issues

There is many former Java people now working in Google, and Java is heavily used in Google, so Oracle has a chance to get some money this way...

Oracle could even get some money from HP for their implementation of Java VM called Chai, that is used in many HP devices...

The flow of money would be : web => Google => Oracle => HP :)

Friday, September 10, 2010

Statement by Apple on App Store Review Guidelines:

"In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need. "

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Aruba Wildlife Photography

A nice collection of birds photos is presented on Aruba airport, with clever descriptions resembling airplanes, such as: take-off, refueling, maintenance, etc...

The quality of photos is very good, and it is very appropriate for airport environment. The photos are taken by a local amateur photographer, and displayed to benefit Red Cross.
New iPod touch: The reviews are in - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech

"The iPod Touch is the best iPod yet, offering all the fun of the iPhone experience without a carrier contract or monthly bill."

specs