Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Roger Federer, Rachel Weisz, Julie Andrews and Abigail Breslin

What do they have in common? Well, they are part of the photographs taken by Annie Leibovitz as part of a campaign for Disney "Year of a Million Dreams".
Here a little taste of them...




You can get some of these pictures in their original format here:

New Series of Photography from Annie Leibovitz...

Thanks for reading/viewing.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Portable phone's inventors didn't foresee its popularity

This note appeared in the Chicago Tribune web edition a few days ago. The thing is that the celular phone were not popular until 20 years after it was invented the first version: Motorola DynaTAC.

"It was 10 years after we built the first phone that it became a commercial product, and 10 years after that when it really started to become popular with consumers," Donald Linder, a retired Motorola engineer who led the mobile phone research team, said.


Working long hours and drawing on Motorola's widespread resources, Linder's team produced the DynaTAC, also known as the "brick phone." It was 9 inches long, not counting the antenna, and weighed more than 2 pounds, but you could carry it, and it worked.

Thanks for reading.

The best dancing/singing bird... ever!

I bet Britney Spears would like to be as gracious as this little bird...


Funniest Dancing Bird Ever!!! - For more amazing video clips, click here

Thanks for reading/viewing.

Monday, October 22, 2007

The Death of the Midsize Tech Company in Telecom

"Like software, another industry that is crying for (a similar) consolidation is telecom. There have been few deals such as Ericsson’s $2 billion purchase of Redback Networks, or Nokia teaming up with Siemens to form Nokia-Siemens Networks (NSN), but those are not enough.

While the number of carriers, a.k.a. customers, has gone down drastically, the number of hardware vendors hasn’t changed much. The power is now in the hands of incumbent carriers, who can afford to play off increasingly desperate telecom equipment makers. A few senior executives have acknowledged this in private conversations."

"Maybe telecom needs its own Larry Ellison! Anyone?"

Very interesting topic, specially for people involved (somehow) in the telecom world. Based on this I jumped into Larry Ellison bio in wikipedia together with the history of Oracle.

Keep in mind, if we can see what is coming, then we can react on time... specially if a future lay off is on its way ;-)

The source for this post can be found here:

What does the end of the mid sized tech company mean for telecoms

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Downloading Award: $222,000... do you want to pay it?

I am sure your answer will be NO!. But there is a woman who will pay it, not because she wants to. She lost her case in a court a few days ago, the reason: downloading music and allowing others to download music from her computer.

So, I guess it is better if you stop downloading music without paying for it. Otherwise, now you know what might happen to you.

BTW, the original story can be found here: "Woman to Pay Downloading Award Herself"



Your welcome! Jammie.

Thanks for reading.

The need for more Bandwidth (FTTH Conference)

Probably you already read the original article "FTTH Conference considers what's next", but I think the following comments are interesting…

  • "Today, YouTube accounts for about 7% of all U.S. Internet traffic, consuming 50 Petabytes per month or 600 Petabytes a year--which is greater that the entire Internet in the year 2000."
  • "Today, the U.S. generates about 20 Exabytes of voice traffic per year. But the move to videophones would generate about 200 Exabytes at least or about ten times the size of the existing world Internet."
  • "FTTH may be the key industry for the health of the overall U.S. economy in the next five to ten years."
  • "David Spence, staff product manager at Tellabs, noted that service providers, by and large, are looking to leverage what they've already deployed (e.g., GPON), but they also want more bandwidth, longer reach, improved economics, and more intelligence."
  • "Ronald Herron, director of network technology and strategy at Alcatel-Lucent, noted that GPON will be sufficient through 2011--if service providers changed split ratios from the currently favored 1 x 32 to 1 x 8."
  • "This week's FTTH Conference underscored one undeniable fact: bandwidth requirements will continue to increase."
Who did say "there is not need for more bandwidth"?

Would you like to read an article about the FTTX market in Europe? I am sure it won't hurt you.

"European FTTH debates GPON vs. Ethernet"

Thanks for reading.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Hot Skills Employers Want!

"Anyone who can write term papers, cram for exams, survive the roommate from hell, run a campus club, participate in sports or tackle other college challenges deserves a job & has demonstrated the ability to hold one. You are likely to develop these qualities in college:

1. Critical thinking: seeing the big picture and being analytical; comprehending what you read
2. Communication: getting your point across effectively when writing and speaking
3. Visionary qualities: brainstorming, looking into the future, and setting goals
4. Self-motivation: showing willingness to take the initiative
5. Proficiency with information: being inquisitive and resourceful, knowing how to conduct research
6. Globally-minded: understanding of other cultures
7. Teamwork: working together to achieve goals

Chances are, you possess a number of these key competencies. Once you realize you are very skilled, you'll be better able to sell yourself to employers as exactly the type of candidate they want."

This is basically what Michelle Tullier is telling us in her article "The skills you have and the skills they want". But, are we really aware of these skills? I mean, do we know we have these skills? In what amount do we have them? how can we be so sure about having them and showing them to our potential manager in an interview? These are the remaining questions to be answered.

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Joost, Recycled Gadgets and Proprietary Software vs. Open Source

Hello!
It has been a while since I posted anything here... well, I am back with more news... here we go.

Do you know what is Joost? Have you ever heard the term IPTV? Do you have a fast Internet connection? If you want to know what I am talking about just click on the link to check interesting news about them... your idea of TV/Cable service will change... I promise!
http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/joost/

How many old phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players do you have that still work but are sitting useless in a drawer? Or, will you consider to buy a used phone, camera or MP3 player? Check the following link to find out the answers to these questions.
Recycle Your Used Gadgets For Cash at SecondRotation

Barracuda talked to 228 enterprise customers and asked what advantages open source has over proprietary software, and vice versa. The answers were a bit surprising. Here the complete "story"...
Why choose proprietary software over open source? Survey says!

Thanks for reading.