Finger Food (20)

It is strangely warmish in Milan today, I wanted to have the first glimpse of some Christmas atmosphere, but I guess I may have to postpone … so, instead of pulling out from the wardrobe my snowboarding gear, hit some slopes and look for early reindeers, here we are, Friday Finger Food!!! Gosh, we are turning our Twenties, getting older!!!!!

• From Russia with love may actually be the next switch off screen of Microsoft powered PCs???!?!? Redmond giant goes into Siberia to build up a (supposedly) massive data centre! US capitalist icon into the Russian territory?? Utterly wild thinking, and yet it seems already on the go… nice..
• China goes virtual… which actually means what for the entire economy??? Is that something like “me-too” approach to evolution or, rather worrying thought, there is some beef here?!?
• Mobility is a social and business de facto.. at the Palo Alto Research Center the “gotha” of mobile OS players is in talk about the future, and particularly the overall systemic relationship with the rest of the mobile pack (manufacturers and network providers). The future looks smart and mobile…
• And full of power, since Bic (yep, that Bic that made 100 billion of pens, and lighters and disposable razors…) treasured up its skills in designing a disposable life, and now is hinting at producing disposable fuel cell to replenish our cell phones and Heaven knows what else… nice move, though, call it experience curve…
• In the meanwhile, the EU launched its Nuclear Energy Forum, as to coordinate and streamline the whole nuclear issue across Europe (and particularly for the new member countries…).. and “somewhat green” is on the Toshiba’s agenda as well…
• On top of that, Google has just announced its “MyLocation” kind of service, a GPS-enabled Google map to allow the user to spot the “You Are Here” blue dot (nice change from the overused red one..) over mobile or any other device with a GPS app on it, apart from the iPhone (there is a war here)… now you mash that one up!!!
• I have been pinpointing in the past at foreign investments in Africa, a stream of cash from China, from Dubai and other Arab countries, now the debate is whether this money inflow will do much better for Africa than the perhaps thin and somewhat erratic official governative aid…still, we should always remember that globalisation and economic improvement has a systemic nature, and African countries are very much oligarchic, particularly when the matter of wealth distribution is at stake..
• However, it is not always going to plans even in Africa and with a money-loaded market strategy.. as it seems, Vodafone cannot get the full grab of a larger stake in Vodacom, the South African mobile operator.. play it again, Vodie..
• Be careful whom you talk to.. Word of Mouth is worth an hefty billion dollar.. or, at least, US$ 1billion is the actual investment in WOM companies did … that is a brand new meaning of “talk show”… and beware of managing expectations, WOM may boost your results, but if you fail to meet the hype… nothing new in “Web 2.0″ terms!!
• And, along those lines, Google Reader seems to be able now to compare your browsing (and interests….) Web history with those more similar to yours, and GR will derive a set of feeds you may be interested about… do I like this??? mmmmm.. not sure…
• Meanwhile, Europe will have (seemingly) its satellite navigation system since the Galileo project has been awarded the “green light” status by all member states but Spain..this will be a €3.4 billion project to keep Europe abreast of the World.. right, yes.
• The first Italian bank on Second Life, Banca D’Italia, is sort of suspended by operating in SL (or at least they are in dare troubles..) due to some fraudolent activity; Linden Lad fined the institution and the whole thing blasted.. now, are we, Italians, not happy enough to mess up the Real Life financial system with a stack of scandals we should all be ashamed about?? Too bad, this is really too bad!!!!
• Finally, the time spent on-line, World-wide, is growing by a nice 24.3%, according to Compete…is it because of the wintery weather??? Once there was a rise in new born babies…. life is really changing deeply!!!!

And also, how hard it is today to be a Chief Marketing Officer??? Tough call, this one… as a sample, check the Zune 2.0 market cycle.. anyone is using that nice player already??

Dell is swinging back, with a nice +27% in profit (34c a share) this third quarter, BUT, since this was one cent shorter that the Street expectations, the stock was smashed…..

And here we are, with the first xMas must-have in tech.. or else the winners and losers in 2007 consumer technology World.. or, even better, a “To Do list for 2008″ in personal tech… or, my dear top fliers, these hints may make the very start of your shopping frenzy some sort of a killing for the dollop of credit cards you have! But beware…

The UAE is ready to drop the peg with the Dollar, whilst the Fed is sort of preparing for the xMas rally, cutting down the interest rate of another 25 basis points, an expected event (11th December..) or a rumor but confirmed here.. China is looking at MiddleEast on how to run a fund… I can see a newly born and subtle alliance building, watch out…

Whilst heading for the well-deserved weekend break, fancy a nice book??? Head for the Carnagie Mellon, then, 1.5 million eText already.. I will leave you with this, have to attend a lunch meeting and head off to the coast..badly need some rest, it has been an hectic and long week..

Enjoy the break, catch you on Tuesday, I will be in Turin on Monday to present at the “Scuola di Amministrazione Aziendale” (aka business school) about social networks and impact on business strategies… nice one!!!

Google..MyStuff, RE<C, maps… the Fantastic Duo wants to save our lives!?!?!

In Mountain View it seems that saving the World is currently taking a whole new meaning and a boost.. Google declares its intention to launch a “green” initiative, called RE<C or “Renewable Energies cheaper than Coal”, which should be supported by spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” to hire engineers and experts to study the issue and find a likely solution, first and foremost to cut down the company internal energy bill and, how kind, to distribute the amassed knowledge to the rest of the “common people”..

Furthermore, it is today’s news that the company is planning to launch a service called My Stuff (courtesy of Corriere della Sera and Wall Street Journal), which basically is a remote archiving capability, pretty much like the Yahoo service, but with easier access dynamics and, arguably, a significant amount of free space. Access to My Stuff should be allowed to any user terminal, from desktop to mobile phones and PDA, provided there is an Internet connection at hand, whether this will be supported by Wi Fi, cellular 3G networks (UMTS or HSDPA) is not further specified. Clearly, the service itself is a nice add, there may be issues on how to handle data privacy and compliance to different country regulations, also the Web connectivity is a plus and a drawback (poor coverage in some areas, connection that may go down, no connection at all – e.g. on airplanes – but I trust those issues have been or will be tackled accordingly. Personally, if I want to have infos always with me, I may want to use a multi gigabyte pen-drive, or a SD card, again it depends on the planned usage of the data…

Are those Google chaps going a bit too far, or really we may end up having a small, real small bunch of ICT players, a sort of super power-houses to serve us all???

I still have a Moleskine in my drawer with the most sensitive infos…

Vista, XP and that Apple over there…

As it seems, there are these days plenty of research, papers, articles and talks, a seamless flow of words about Vista and its inadequacy for the enterprise environment…

ComputerWorld US, leveraging an ad-hoc research (here), suggested that 90% of research participants are sort of worried about migrating to Vista, and 53% has no intention whatsoever to do so in the short time… the interesting bits are about 44% considering an alternative OS to Vista, and 28% quite keen in having an Apple environment around, which is a stunning statement considering Cupertino has never made such a great entry into the corporate environment..

Quite nicely added by someone else, Microsoft is releasing the Service Pack 3 for XP, which is supposed to boost performance for the old and stable (I thought it was already messy, but heck..) OS by a nice 10%. Apart from detailing what is all about this 10%, the argument is: why on Earth I have then to change over to Vista!?!?!? The panel, despite being 900+ strong, may not be significant in statistical terms as to pinpoint a flex in OS adoption trend, nevertheless, it is worthwhile considering it.

As for the home environment… I have searched the Vista-to-XP downgrade guide and it is now in my possession…

Finger Food (19)

Friday, and have to add “finally”…. unfortunately the weather is really awful, it rains in Milan and there is little hope it may stop in the next couple of days, and to add to the disaster my flat is plagued with flu.. bad, too bad… Nevertheless, we do not want to leave our Finger Food on the table, do we?!!?

• Since it may be the case that, due to some scarcity in oil supply, someone could begin mumbling about exporting a fair bit of democracy in some other sultanate, OPEC decided it is the case to invest in a greener Earth and explore some add-on to the oil… nice move, chaps, nice move, you never know…
• Meanwhile, the shaky oil market hit also China, whose demand went a bit down the drain recently… but expect some more wavy goings with a spike in demand, since Beijing is forcing the economy year-end rally (typical on stock exchange….check it out..) and boost production..
• Is free-trade a forbidden topic in Western countries??? Nevermind, then, Asia is free-trading on its own… and since there is something like a 3.5billion people marketplace there, and high growth economies, that sounds like a nice deal, also if considering some of the results NAFTA produced.. on the other hand, a due criticism is pointing out as these sort of agreements are not “free trade” but adding another bureaucratic layer to the lot.. now, it could be the case someone might learn from others’ mistakes…
• A nice gathering of top companies acquisition frenzy, which could suggest there is already a campaign to set up the openings for the massive chess game called 3.0… or something along the line, you know…
• In UAE, the more you dig the more you find oil… now it seems you may find used SIMs and mobile phones, since the cell penetration is around 170%… so, more or less two SIMs per inhabitant, all included, elderly people and new born babies… I heard that story already for Italy, some years ago..
• And more.. I thought, long after coming back from Japan, that I have been quite lucky for such a trip eastward, now Tokyo seems to prop up everywhere, also as the top destination for a decent meal!! Meanwhile, in Rome, a couple of chaps have got something to do with a cyber-graduation on digital puppetry (ok, that’s the fancy part of a more decent graduation in advanced architecture… still it is great!!! Text in Italian…)
• Nordic counties are generally speaking at the European forefront in using information technology with a significant social flair added to it, so it doesn’t come as a surprise the fact that the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affair is interested in maximising the impact of virtual worlds.. if you consider that seemingly 30% of top 100 Dutch companies are somewhat involved in Second Life, orange may become the next fashion color in metaverse!!!
• And virtual worlds make the ranking in top 100 disruptive companies on the annual Red Herring contest..nice, considering that, as pointed out, previous winners were the likes of Google, Skype, YouTube…. let’s wait until December 3rd to know better..
• You never know, the above winners may well be Europeans, since despite the Old Continent has not a Silicon Valley, yet there is a wealth of creativity that foster “Web 2.0″ start ups allover the continent!! Nice… may start something myself..
• About Web 2.0…. as it seems, LinkedIn is in serious conversation with News Corp. for an alleged buyout in early 2008… which would combine under the same umbrella (and owner..) the social network iconic MySpace with the biz-related LinkedIn.. something like “from the craddle to the grave”???!?!?!?!? Horrible thought of mine..apologies…
• Is life getting expensive??? The subprime crises smashed your finances?? The rising oil prices are hammering your expenses??? Worry not!! The Web is a treasure cave full of freebies…
• Keep an eye at the Gulf Countries meeting in Doha, this December.. plenty of items on the agenda, from finance and the rise of the Gulf exchanges to the recent westward investments opportunities, the oil debate and global cooperation.. the area is no longer a massive oil field, it resembles more of a global rudder..
• India and China are the two Big Guns fighting in the East, both in economic terms and as country social systems, and India stroke one point with Mittal buying into Chinese steel.. nicely done, really..

Furthermore, Putin seems to start considering infrastructure as a mandatory advance for the Great Mother Russia, Europe may become the emerging markets’ darling as to offset the US decline, Brazil may become the next big oil exporter thanks to a humongous field (will Chinese cash head for some samba shopping??!?!?), UK asks for abolishing the DRM stuff to boost sales before the xMas frenzy. Google seems to back up with some $10m the “genetics” company 23andMe (the wife of Sergey is amongst the founders..), a sort of DNA-based social network (pay $999 and you get the experience)…comments welcome…

Arab comms leader, Etisalat, is going to move some few dollars (about $5.5 billion..) in African investments.. China and UAE looking at Africa together??? We may be witnessing something disruptive here, meanwhile the EU productivity grows some points ahead of US (1.5% vs. 0,9%), with the exceptions of Spain and Italy (is it by chance that the two local airlines are potential acquisition targets!?!?)..gosh..

Sometimes the Web goes back to show you how a powerful tool it could be, if it is used properly and with a well determined scope.. that is why I like to link the new Amnesty International campaign against torture and violation of human rights: Unsubscribe. Viral can be good.

Now is about time to kick off one long and hopefully not so tedious internal company meeting, will cover most of this Friday so.. have a nice week end you all, and back on Monday!!

Call me six feet under!!!! Milan tube network cellular coverage is starting, just in time for the Expo 2015??

Mobile comms are such a great stuff, ever-changing, sooooo cooooool.. you can be connected with the rest of the World, either yours or the outer one, anytime, anywhere… hang on a sec… up until today, there was a place where you could have been safe from being pestered, a place that was able to act as the perfect excuse for all your pressing people and their calls: the tube!!! Six feet under got a new, beautiful meaning, an oasis of peace and tranquility..

Today, busy-bee Milan town centre boasts the first cellular coverage of its tube network, albeit between two fairly trafficked station, but a nice starting point for the coverage of the entire system, just in time to boast that achievement as a “must have” looking forward to the Expo 2015 candidature (Smirne won’t have it, I bet!!!!!!!!!!!).

As stated, today it is possible to call, text message and browse the Web using up to UMTS connectivity, whilst HSDPA should be available by the end of December at 1.8Mbps to rise up to 3.6Mbps within the first few months of 2008.

Pretty nice, huh????!??! Now I believe there should be some public courses on “using your mobile in the Tube” etiquette… by the way, in Tokyo it is clearly marked not to bother other passengers with your silly calls..so, most Japanese tube commuters go for mobile Internet at full blast!!! Or, in case of pretty impolite fellow travelers, you may want to use a portable cell jammer (sample here!!!!!)…

You never know..

Definitely, US are a massive shopping centre!!!

Or, at least, that’s what Arab investors currently see when  facing westward…Haven’t we said this already??? Thing is, will the still-virtual money fund an energy flow into US companies, or will that be sort of an unnecessary overtreatment?

Please, would you Kindle drop down that book??

Technology is, clearly, a never-ending race or, as someone put it nicely, “Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born” (yep, Alan Kay, to be precise..), so it seems unavoidable that someone will try (again) to invent, re-invent or envision a bit-and-byte device to substitute all those heavy, environmental unfriendly, space-wasting and, heck, dust collectors called books!!!!! When that innovation-evolution-revolution comes from the very company that made the book itself one of the most rewarding business items on the Planet, an appropriate and bias-free thought is due. Bezos and his Amazon announces the creation and launch of Kindle, the ultimate reading machine..

First, a reading on Newsweek for the “Bezos’ pensiero“, aka his philosophy and the fundamentals behind this tech launch.. I let you go over the detail and the tech specification of the object (notably a sleek, whitish piece of tech… anyone??!?!?), whilst I would like to focus on a couple of remarks.

It has been made a comparison between the digitisation of other media, such as music and video, and for argument’ sake I may question that music went from a vinyl-based experience, enhanced through the years via superior playing and sound amplification capability, to a CD-based reproduction and lately to the full digital mp3 (and Bros..). Vinyl and CD has got roughly the same “playing liturgy”, whilst the mp3 family goes back to replicate and enhance the “walkman” style (a walkable substitute of vinyl via cassettes..), gaining in music storage space / handling and output quality. Bottom line: the acts, the experience of the user was similar to the ol’ days, gains were mainly in space, music library “management”, and quality of output. Then, if in a rainy and cold day you put on a vinyl of Nina Simone or the digitalised version of it, pretty much the same (someone would argue vinyls were more “alive” than the perfection of CDs..). Video goes pretty much along the same lines, better picture, easy storage and management, and the rest.. experience is again fairly similar in its inner procedures, the actual liturgy!

Now, the book… could we say it is an entirely different matter??? You do your thinking, but I believe there are more “senses” involved to make the experience invaluable, the liturgy about reading a book and using an eBook is to me entirely different. One point to the book to this one.

On the other hand, as posted in other occasions, it is not a matter of being a “systematic” user of the new Kindle, but rather finding the own critical way of putting it into our personal technology mix. Do you love to read your Chatwin novels but simply browse and use business books??? Is it great for you to have all those quantum mechanics reference texts in the backpack but you are not the size of a Canadian lumberjack?? There you go.. Kindle does the trick!!

Let me put it in a different way… today Milan has got a wintery set up, sky is grey and kind of rainy, it is cold.. I would love to sit in a comfy armchair, a superb cup of coffee to sip and a nice BOOK to read… now, incidentally I am at work, I have to prepare a presentation to deliver with my speech at the School of Business Administration in Turin, it is about Digital Ecosystems and Professional Networks, I may want to read a few things and would love to go and SEARCH on my Kindle about, say, “metaverse” and “business”… I can browse and access to knowledge, I could potentially link together the power of Internet (reference, information..) with the batch-approach to info-digestion a “kindle” would provide: I find, buy and read when needed, off-line.. cool..

Experience is something complex and multifaceted, we live multi-experience lifestyles, and it would be utterly restrictive to believe there won’t be differences anymore in one’s daily activities… there will be a time for a book, there will be also a time for Kindle, for some those will converge and melt into something new, for others there will always be two separate and rewarding experience nonetheless.

Difference and divergence still make the difference, after all, every innovation stems out from someone diverging from status quo…

UPDATE: you may want to browse through this “live performance”… and do not forget to click and jump to the Amazon site, there is the new born baby in all its glory!!!!

The US are becoming a business venture reservoir??? AMD gives a stake to Abu Dhabi..

Some time ago, the unthinkable.. a Chinese company bought the PC business of IBM (with I guess mutual satisfaction and different luck..), today the even-more unthinkable actually happens: a company from Abu Dhabi, Mubadala Development (owned by the Abu Dhabi government….) bought a stake in AMD, the US-based chip manufacturer, who clearly does not give a damn about the geo whereabouts of the investor, and happily goes with its new inflow of cash (“Pecunia non olet” used to say the Latins, aka “the money does not stink”…).

Globalisation is a factor, here, and funnily enough US government tries to control the oil business with the Army, and the oil business might eventually control the US “jewel of the Crown”, the Valley, with the dollars it gets from selling oil… who will be the fastest?!??!?!

PS… a short note on the go, before leaving!!! Report on the Banking Forum due on Monday!! Zopa was there, and a bunch of other interesting people…

Finger Food (18)

I know, I said I would have always and forever be in the office until Friday, ready to capture any glimpse of interesting stuff for you.. unfortunately my unsurpassed skills in presenting and running a conference (ego talk, forgive me!!!!!!) forced my presence tomorrow and Friday at the IDC IT Banking Forum in Milan.. I will chair a session on tech evolution and Web 2.0 impacts (…..), I dare say I have got high expectations… Ok, seriously, I may have very little time in checking the Web and updating the Finger Food, so I have decided to gather as much as possible today and provide you with an earlier-than-usual, but saucy, portion of Finger Food!!!

• Oracle, and an array of friends, are giving us the vision over the next evolution in IT, social networks and the rest of the pack, the Open World event is held in San Francisco..
• Whilst Google is playing with Android(s), Yahoo builds up its Asian network to distribute its mobile search features, Yahoo oneSearch, over handsets in the region …. a merciless fight is building ahead?!?!?
• It could possibly be, but interestingly enough, Google will open up new fighting fronts, since its interest in Simon Fuller, the mind behind American Idol and seemingly the Spice Girls manager, as a potential Head of Development of a new Web TV venture (courtesy of the Spanish diary El Mundo) should put the Fab Duo facing some other Web TV wannabe behemoths (quoted in this post of mine)!! Considering Simon’s top achievements, I may get slightly worried about my evenings in….
• We pointed out that there was a Chinese flow of cash into African financial sector, and as it seems Africa is an alluring opportunity for the cash-loaded, and forward looking I dare say, companies and countries.. Dubai World, via its Istithmar World Aviation (IWA) Holdings, buys into Djibuti.. a small step perhaps….(mind you, all this excitement after Dubai Aviation Show, again one of the Dubaiest – it means larger than Steve Jobs ego.. – aviation event in the world..)
• Arguments over the sustainability of growth rate in Dubai and the Gulf region as a whole…it is rather difficult to keep rising pharaonic building projects whilst your working population lives out of $150 and expect everybody to be happy about cracking the back in wealthy DubaiCity.. an unsustainable systemic mistake or a transient hiccup??? I go for the mistake..
• The weather is turning real cold, and Russia is back on the agenda.. nice post here about the “divide et impera” strategy the Kremlin seems to pursue with EU countries (thanks to the Economist).. and even nicer the notion about having a double measure when facing gains of some sort or losses (the former are mine, the latter are ours..), an issue I may want to have a look at here in Italy, I trust we may have some improvements to suggest to the guys on the Red Square since we made it into an art-form!!!
• And you believed your over-priced golf club admission was the ultimate career step into the corporate ladder??? Revise, please, your ultimate would be winning the SecondLife contest.. here!!! Conquer the Rock and will be a star!!! Meanwhile, some of the European funds to EU countries have been used to pamper some 18 holes courses … I see, but I believe that is to counterattack the growing appeal of UAE and such, yes yes, there is a method here… weird one…
• You mention “China” and Apple itself gets all wobbly and panting in expectation.. and the stock rises to significant height for just mentioning a potential interest of China Mobile in that thing, the telephoning apple..

On top of the above, French rampant iconic Pres. Sarkozy keeps on discussing about European growth and culture (whilst enjoying a standing ovation, I am waiting to see the same occurrence when the EU Parliament French presidency will be running the discussion over the agricultural EU policies…), and despite his will to protect Europe, IT managers in UK believes a stronger outsourcing will help speed and efficiency (and India would happily oblige..), and if you thought Web 2.0 was long gone, here it is, jobs that branded are on demand, and whilst at IT, Gore is getting greener in the Valley… . And if you are on the well-off side, you may want to have a look at flights over Abu Dhabi, just in time for this diamond bonanza, also knowing that your favorite fund manager is holding his nerves despite being faced by a Gorgon-like stack of disasters!!!!!!! Enjoy!!!!

As I said before, tomorrow and Friday I will be at IDC European Banking Forum in Milan, about which I would hopefully blog a few lines on Monday!!!

Have a great week end!!

Google Android won’t land in Italy

It may be just marketing, as someone said, it may be a strange and more appealing form of crowdsourcing, nevertheless Google has launched a massive, global and rich contest for the best apps developed over (for???) Android. It will be a stunning (for me, at least!!) $10 million … Great!!! The best developers, the most edgy geniuses worldwide will squeeze their brains and type like hell to deliver the most incredible array of mobile applications (sort of, say..). Everybody apart from the beautiful minds of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Myanmar. That is the club of the thug nations, as it seems. PLUS ITALY AND QUEBEC!!!!!!!!!

It is not the case that “pizzaioli” and lumberjacks are on the list of public enemies, but the two countries are out of the contest for some local legal boundaries… the Italian case here is about

• prizes that must be assigned in presence of notary public and representatives from consumer associations;
• prizes that are not delivered for any reason must be donated to non profit organisations, pre-listed on the contest rules;
• the contest has to be registered, via a truck-load of papers, to a couple of different Ministries in Italy and the State Monopoly….

which, ultimately, build up a nice barrier to an initiative that cannot (I assume) cope with “State” but it is geared, tailored, designed and aimed at speeding up a business issue and create innovation of some sort…  so, Italians are out.. apart from the opportunity someone would have had to gain some money and popularity, the entire Italian IT community and the country itself would somewhat benefit (in terms of “innovative” brand, so to speak) from a local developer in the winner list for such an appealing forward-looking project in a fast paced tech environment… and now I would like to read again that Italy is one of the most advanced mobile communication markets worldwide, maybe after Japan and Korea…

Sky, customer care and Web TV!!!

The weather is turning cold… this morning for the first time I wore gloves and the air was clear and crisp.. fine, another season, other things to do!! And, forecasting frosty evenings and no intention whatsoever to go out in Milan (apart the odd concerts or exhibitions..), me and my girlfriend finally decided to go and get that “satellite” thing once and for all… Sky, the (in)famous satellite broadcaster, was out with a nice offer, a full blown trial at €15 until February ‘08, after which you have to decide the bouquet of your likings.. perfect!!!

As soon as we called in, stating that yes, that was of some interest to us, the nice operator from the Sky call-centre promptly charged our credit card for a €69 one-off charge or something along this line… WHAT???!?!?! We haven’t seen a mere glimpse of a set top box, a smart card, a satellite dish, a technician, let alone the buzz of hundreds of channels and you charge me already??!?!?!!?

A deep breath and some zen exercise after, my other half called in… an half-hour of operators’ bowing and apologies… we end up with an appointment, a hefty helping of “I am sorry, cannot make the reason behind that occurrence…” and there we were, all happy about “Extreme Makeover Home Edition”, “Gray’s Anatomy”, “The incredible sex life of the Southern Pole penguins” and such amenities… I took a couple of hours off work this morning to welcome the chap with the dish, I have pestered the landlord to give us access to the roof, I sat on the sofa and stared to an already old, aged, paleolithic TV show on my LCD, anticipating the time it could finally manifest its glory with a decent program from the National Geographic.. and the cold shower hit!!!! Nobody at the door, no long awaited “ring ring”, nothing at all, deep space silence!!! The matter was???? They (call centre operators I believe..) cancelled the contract, for an unspecified reason.. I am closing the options to utter incompetence, total inaccuracy, lack of professionality, inability to digit, plain stupidity…. (I am often involved in speaking at IDC conferences and the magic words “client”, “centric”, “customer”, “care” are amongst the most uttered.. how this is translated into “facts” is hard to fathom, sometimes…)

I began to steam with indignation, then I realised that there was something I entirely forgot!! Web TV!!!!!! Which, on top of everything else, is a nice excuse to go and buy another laptop…

So, the choice may not be exactly the same, but heck, if I try and put together Joost, Miro, try on Babelgum, I should be pretty much sorted out, also considering that there is always YouTube, at least nine others terrestrial TV channels, DVDs aplenty, eMule (ehm, ehm..), plus anything else you may want to go and search on the Web. I will have a nice HDMI/sVideo/blahblah-enabled PC, and my digital vision will be up and running in a matter of minutes… I am wandering if all of the above will suffice my lust for TV shows (?!?!?!?!?!?!) or whether I really have to pay someone so incredibly customer-unfriendly to define my eves entertainment?!?!?!

Someone of you could also add “C’mon, get a life!!”, comment that I take with the utmost consideration and, as such, this eve I will go and enjoy the MAD in Milan, then will hit the gym for a kickboxing session … life is brighter than the Sky, sometimes!!!!!!!!!!!

Finger Food (17)

It is finally Friday, I am at my desk as promised!! I have to admit I thought about leaving early, got something to do this weekend, but unfortunately Italy is under a strike bonanza: tube, trains, airports and a bunch of other socially fundamental services are on hold.. so have to wait until late afternoon to go and catch a train.. and so why “waiting in vain”???? There we are, Finger Food again..!!!!

• The myth is here!! UK goes crazy for the iPhone, or at least is expected to..
• Again, sub prime aftermath… it is quite interesting Northern Rock seeks advice from Blackstone (a mortgage lender is taking a mortgage out?!?!!?? lol ), but more ironic the panel of advisors include Citigroup… is that the bank that lost 6% in a day early this week, the bank which CEO Charles Prince resigned due to the sub-prime shock??? Just thinking…
• A European President???!?!? Quite an intriguing thought, as much as me becoming the next Branson..
• Your being online, your cyber-identity or simply put all those silly photos of last summer’s hot parties in Ibiza may hinder the professional climber you are?!??! No worries, mate, go over to Wink and sanitise whatever you don’t like (Google may absorb the changes, hopefully..).. and tell that friends of yours to stop taking those shots..
• In the meanwhile, with the oil at $100 a barrel, China and India eager for energy, pollution at unprecedented level, global warming and the rest, everybody’s looking at contributing to the debate.. Al Gore got a Nobel, Bill Clinton is hoping to get.. you know.. anyway, green architecture is on the agenda… really, everybody, including Brad Pitt.. what a wonderful duo, Clinton and Pitt… still, buildings are supposed to post a nice 38% contribution to total carbon emissions..
• By the way, the day oil hits the record-high, UAE stock markets went seriously down.. ok, need to clear up the steep growth and consolidate, and still that strangely sounds like a slap in the face…
• Global economy is supported by the largest, booming Eastern markets?!?!? Partially wrong! The WEF stated it is US and Europe that have the most solid and reliable economic systems (yep, systems, as I mentioned here), and what is more interesting is the fact (know already, by the way) that European Nordic countries (Scandinavian…) are leading the pack of the Old Continent charge, Germany and UK are there. Despite some hiccups, all top 10 countries (including Japan and Singapore) have got a series of commonalities, or otherwise put business environments. I see an attitude here, about how to do things properly…
• And Europe is somewhat closing the doors to Turkey.. which was a pretty much awaited move since the latest development on the Kurdish front.. still, in my idea of a strong and multicultural Europe, Turkey is an important piece and a bridge we should try to have with Eastern countries…
• And, finally, there is some arguments also on whether Second Life is an economy per-se, or otherwise a complex product as Gene Yoon, Linden Labs’ VP of Business Affairs, did put it (tks to Nobody’s Fugazi for the link)… Are we back at discussing the issue on SL being simply a massive game someone took a bit too seriously, or SL being a social experiment with elaborated bells&whistles, or another high-tech venture as any other, but rather successful? Monopoly meets the Sims?? Guess someone got really worried about, as nicely stated, having to “micro-manage” what avatars (people, for God’s sake, people!!!!) do… in the meanwhile, virtual worlds mash up with social networks, a virtual super-entity is born??

Also.. BEA is back to $17+ a share, hope is still there then, Apple Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1 is in beta testing for fixes in firewall and few other glitches, Cisco declared it could end up investing in China a staggering $7,5 billion during the coming year (and starting with the Alibaba IPO, check on FingerFood (15).. $17,5 million), and who’s going to buy Digg (if anyone…) has to pay $16,30 a user (a bargain..), nevermind Wall Street’s analysts fear an “earning recession” for US companies, and Microsoft is in “turmoil” after firing its CIO due to a violation of corporate policies whilst, on a lighter note, in Spain the Jane Godall Institute launched an initiative to make aware of the urban biodiversity..you should see Milan high streets on sales period… I would also like to quote an article I found in “L’espresso” about the rise and fame of the “virtual assistant”, that is to say an “artificial intelligence” based software with an interface pretty much like the calamitous avatars, and able to gather all the available information and provide you with an emotionally moving, spot on, chatty like answer. Customer services at its best!!! It is a market in steep growth, the report stated a €500 million forecast (by 2012) and, surprisingly enough, Italy seems to be at the forefront of development. For once something we can be proud of!!

Ah, yep, since Milan high-streets are setting up the usual xMas lights, why not beginning to look at sorting out that list of presents, beginning with some nice game, maybe????? Spny docet… Or, should you really be so utterly well-off, here there are, the new motor-bikes from EICMA Motorcycle Show in Milan (btw, a friend of mine is also at the show with his electric bicycle company, Bixy, say you read this blog and a discount is in order)!!!

Right.. and if you happen to get lost into Information Tech jungle jargons, here is some qualified help.. you never know, we are all going to be “humanly enhanced” by the Web, one of these days… have to go now, sort out few end-of-week clutters, and there should be a nice weekend waiting, sunshine, motorbike, brother, friends and a boat..

Have a nice week-end you all!!!

Silicon Valley, the dollar and innovation capability

Whilst browsing I bashed into this article/post on the current and future role of Silicon Valley as a centerpiece for evolution, innovation and new companies venture, given the present macro-economic and financial scenario.

Interesting reading, punchy comments too… there are few arguments here that would nicely make for discussion, yet there is a point here: culture.

Quite understandably, the appeal of a lowering dollar as the entry door into the Valley wealth of experience is on the shiny side, and yet it is like playing a game with someone else’s rules. The present measure for business speed, rise and fall, success and failure, and the ability to resurge from ashes into a new flaming phoenix is something you cannot buy at all with money.. my point is each and every country economy is a systemic balance of severely complicated variables, the product of which is the most visible part, the icing on the cake or the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Roughly speaking, China has got a dominant position in labor cost (up until today at least..) particularly when considering the manufacturing industry and some sectors within it, India is the World service provider, main US wealth is the business culture of the “frontier”, the hazard, sort of “danger management”, which is function of the necessity to be at leading edge, in a dominant position, in constant quest for the “strategic power” of waiting for enemies on top of a hill. You don’ get that simply by moving around the Valley.

Moreover, innovation in this context is taking the acceptation of Web-related advance, and this is another systemic variable to consider: not all countries are Web-centric as US are, most of the developed Western systems are Web-dependent, the hot growing economies are Web-prone (at best), but very few countries are centered on the Web. If they are, social canvass, religious heritage and cultural imprint are different, and thus most of those systems use massively the Web, but are not rotating around it.

You may be able to buy a strong mathematician or an engineer at lower price in Bangalore, who will be able to transfer knowledge.. but how would you transfer attitude? And at the speed required to be in a sustainable business strategic frame?

Creative Zen: an usage update!!

It seems that the Creative topics yield a certain interest to some of you, thus here we are, after something like a month or so intensive usage…

First and foremost, I bought the screen protection, since the player goes into my messenger bag, coat pockets, on the beach and whilst doing my gym sessions… pretty cool stuff, it looks a bit “foggy” when inactive, whilst the screen performs perfectly well when browsing around the menu or watching a movie.

Movies… I had “This is England” (pretty cool movie, by the way..) on the player, and was forced to watch it in three instances… the visual experience is better than expected, albeit the screen has got some “pixel shading” problem, but heck, you do not want to use the Creative to have a superior movie machine but to waste some time in a more than decent way!! Job done, then. Easy to manage thanks to an “in application” menu (top right button), you may want to stretch the image to “full screen” to enjoy the entire width of the LCD..bit of image distortion, but I guess it is function to the original format the movie was encoded. Sound is perfect, I have changed the original Creative earphones with a Sennheiser OMX 50 VC, due to an useful (whilst gym training) ear clip, but the sound quality was full and rewarding with the Creative set as well, partially due to the customisable equalisation.

The movie upload was straightforward, and codec conversion was handled by the player: open the Media Explorer, fetch the movie, the player communicates it needs to be converted, you click and go minding your business, in a not-too-short while the movie is ready to be uploaded. Done. Enjoy.

Easier than this is the actual songs and playlist management. Not a worry, not a problem, apart from building up the playlist when uploading different songs of the same author from a downloaded collection: you may want to “playlist” the entire collection as to have it played as a whole, which would not be if left into the normal storage of songs: by author, album, genre and so forth.

Playback is perfect, there is an automatic album cover function that will display the cover next to title, author, time left (also supported by a nice progress bar underneath) should you have the embedded info into the download. Whilst listening to mp3 you are able to switch back into other menus without loosing the actual track, something you cannot do whilst listening to the FM radio. With the top-right menu button you play with the song, see artist details, set the track into a playlist, delete if it is absolutely abysmal..  Switching through menus and functions is as fast as a blink, really, nevermind the player is packed full with stuff or almost empty.

The FM is a straightforward affair. The Creative has got some  32 preset stations, which you can clearly change at your liking: press firmly the right part of the central button and the player will go into a granular airways selection, find your favourite FM, top right menu and set it as preference, choose the station number and there you are! Signal clearness is a touch better than the old Creative Zen V Plus I have got.

Whilst listening to your favourite tunes, either in FM or mp3, you may want to browse or slideshow your photos, which you have downloaded in the usual, dead easy way: browse via Media Explorer, choose your “victims” and there you go, upload into the Creative.

Since I have used the 4Gb almost in full, I will play a bit with an SD card to see how the entire thing actually work, but given the icon “Memory Card” into the main menu, I trust the ease of use will be respected!!! Also, if you plan to upload songs and similar from other than the PC you installed the Creative first, you better take care of creating a partition of the flash memory to be used as external drive memory.. otherwise any PC will see the Creative, but won’t be able to use it at all.. this is as far as I went, some amongst you may have further infos or a totally different indication, most welcome to add to the post!!!

By the way, you may want to customise the appearance of your Creative… “System” icon, customise the display.. I personally have chosen the black skin, which comes with a nice orange progress bar and a little purple line at the top… your call anyway!!

Battery life is pretty good. After a full charge, I managed to listen to music and play FM radio for, say, four days of pretty decent usage, four or five hours.. I still have not reached the 25 hours exhaustion (I charged the player before it shut down) as stated into Creative’s website, but admittingly you do not have to worry much when playing music. Same thing apply when watching a movie.. no problem with a full charge.. I started to watch the movie I had with, say, half of battery life displayed and the movie (1h35′ roughly..) missed the last 5′ (bummer!!!)..

Altogether, despite not being able to head-on compare the Creative with an iPod Nano or similar, I must say the experience is rewarding, the ease of use is really one strong plus (I am a fairly skilled tech user, not real geek but not all that dork either… ), it impresses me the fact that the Creative slides immediately into your lifestyle as if you have ever had it.

A nice companion, which I will stick to for a while, I believe!! Recommended?? Most definitely, and the 4Gb is a steal for the retail price tag it has!!

An Android and Google meets the market (with an Asimov flair!)

Here it is.. the long awaited move Google was expected to make to enter the mobile communication industry is clear on the chessboard… albeit somewhat odder than forecast..

Android will land on Earth, and everyone may benefit from meeting the creature… So far, the Open Handset Alliance, the other outer-space creation to build up the perfect landing spot for Android (check here) has signed up companies such as KDDI and NTT DoCoMo, Telecom Italia and Telefonica, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel. The masterplan is focusing on development, or how to spread the software development kit to anyone interested as to increase the apps production and, basically, the service level required to appeal to already-in-the-know 21st Century customers, which are the less loyal bunch of buyers in the World ever! Yep, ’cause Android is a software platform to build apps upon and not the longed handset the market was murmuring about!!

Mind you, the entire operation resounded of ol’ skool iMode market entry… I give you (developer) the technology, you develop, we share some of the revenue, I own the network and the billing process.. a fairly simple business model aimed at expanding the user base, and it led companies to sign up in 2002 millions of users in a matter of a quarter.. a win-win position…

However, open means.. open, and there are already a number of OS environments in the mobile space Android has to fight for market share and yet are necessary to create a community-based approach: nobody in my peer group, regardless of handset/software/OS has to be cut off from experiencing “me”. So, superior applications, nice features, potentially new handsets and an “ecosystemic” compatibility to ensure global communication capability… Hopefully the Android will follow the Three Laws..

Becoming a “de facto” standard, the most wanted, the sought-after will fit the bill only partially.. there is still the carrier side and the tariffing issue to sort out.. nobody apart from some tech enthusiasts will jump on using Androids apps if the experience is too costly and it reprises some “already seen” features or capability.. beware of the “communication overload” after the “information overload”.. never outguess the market, never..

On the other hand, having the “imprimatur” of carriers and handset manufactures could do a great deal towards positioning Android and its application portfolio into users’ habits set.. the issue is whether maximising the return in the short term or bet on a longer lifecycle and thus aim at permeating the marketplace.

Google generally wants to change the World and make money in the process, I would expect a “farming” strategy to start with.. Steve docet, Apple’s everywhere, you have to face it in any possible digital space, sometime you win, other times you loose, but the battle is against a set enemy.. Google would possibly follow suit, and move from solving a problem to provide an experience.

Whether you like it or not is up to you.

China hottest IPO??? Nope, World’s largest IPO!!

China got its financial champion!!! It is largest than Exxon and General Electric, the two biggest companies in the World and symbols of a certain economic and corporate power, it grew 160+% on its first trading day, to reach the stunning level of £1,000bn, you put down all the necessary “zeros” .. PetroChina blasted the financial community!

So, the Celestial Empire has got its necessary muscles, there should be plenty of cash (the IPO raised $9bn, another record..) to foster and support further “deals” across the World, and we should expect some subtle geopolitical imbalances.. China, as already mentioned, represents for part of the World a substantial threat, a problem, an economic conundrum to some, a natural hazard, a menace.. mainly, it is rather a physical formula that makes China something to watch out for, kinetic energy

OK, the physicists amongst you will immediately surge in disgust for my using this formula in such an improper context, but bear with me, the idea is about a great mass taking up unprecedented speed… it will be difficult to stop, as it will be to direct it to a spectacular and sustainable growth path. There are some structural variables of the Chinese phenomena which are not yet displaying their full potential (either supportive or destructive, it depends) but, considering the size, those variables will play a massive role in setting the pace and the faith of the Asian giant and furthermore the destiny of the geopolitical balance of the area (if not considering it could be a global influence we are talking here..). Wealth imbalances, working conditions, energy supply, environmental hazards, financial stability, coherence with social standard at global level, and above and beyond civil rights and freedom, those are aspects that the Chinese bridge commanders have or will have to analyse pretty thoroughly.. and sort out properly.

According to Friedman’s theory of the Golden Arches

No two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s

China and US should be going along if not nicely, at least in a bearable fashion, but as already pointed out there is an issue here about the notion of war… economic, cyber, political, social… are all new forms or permutation of the old mankind sin????

My argument is about the viral destructive power wealth unbalances may have in an unprepared social system, particularly when supported by an increase in communication and permeability to “inputs” on “how it should be” (aka knowledge).. to sustain growth a system has to increase the level of preparedness and thus approach the “capitalist” factors (including productivity, innovation, financial strength) and leverage on those.. but the more you dig into being a capital fortress, the more you older system values crumble down to be replaced by the newest.. if transition is not perfectly driven by the “governors”, an uneven social fabric may be the breeding ground for system instability. This seems to be the case of China, as of today.

From a Western standpoint, the PetroChina IPO is a stunning event, from a geopolitical observation, this is a potential new nail into some unspecified coffin… but the slamming of the hammerhead is quite distinct. And it is unclear who’s working it.