kerkko.fi

http://vitaminsdesign.com/projects/out-of-the-box-for-samsung/

There is growing interest surrounding the Raspberry Pi Foundation and their promise of a PC that will cost just $25. We have seen how the OLPC has struggled to deliver a $100 laptop for developing countries, and yet Raspberry Pi is confident in delivering the $25 PC by November 2011. Eben Upton, director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, explained that the $25 price point was decided upon because it is the cost of a textbook so it made sense.

The foundation has also realized that the $35 PC with more RAM and a network port is going to be the most popular device by a significant margin. Something we did not realize is that Raspberry Pi not only intend to make this PC work through a HDMI and DVI connection, they also want it plugged into old analog TVs just like kids managed with in the 80s. It also means you do not need an up-to-date display in order to start playing with this device.

In a bid to quash a popular rebellion, the Syrian government has shut down pretty much all electronic communications inside the country and to overseas. Cut off from the internet, protestors, journalists, and human rights activists have resorted to communications networks from another era.

To get the news out, activists have been smuggling videos to Jordan through the desert and across a nearly 80-kilometer border Jordan shares with Syria. Desperate Syrians have been using a helping hand from smugglers to cross the border, either by walking or on the backs of donkeys.

Some risk approaching the border with Jordanian cellphones to report to the outside world and send clips. It is a dangerous task because the Syrian and Jordanian armies traditionally have the area under heavy surveillance to prevent the smuggling of drugs and weapons into the kingdom or further.

Game developer David Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC, Raspberry Pi, that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? USD 25.

It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0 allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. Storage is catered for by an SD card slot. It also looks as though modules can be attached such as the 12MP camera seen in the image above.

We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it is plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain.

Most people's understanding of what can actually be done with the data provided by our mobile phones is theoretical; there were few real-world examples. That is why Malte Spitz from the German Green party decided to publish his own data collected from August 2009 to February 2010. However, to even access the information, he had to file a suit against telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom.

The data were contained in a massive Excel document. Each of the 35,831 rows of the spreadsheet represents an instance when Spitz's mobile phone transferred information over a half-year period. Seen individually, the pieces of data are mostly inconsequential. But taken together, they provide what investigators call a profile -– a clear picture of a person's habits and preferences, and of his or her life.

The profile reveals when Spitz walked down the street, when he took a train, when he was in an airplane. It shows when he worked and when he slept, when he could be reached by phone and when was unavailable. It shows when he preferred to talk on his phone and when he preferred to send a text message. It shows which beer gardens he liked to visit in his free time. All in all, it reveals an entire life.

When Adam Greenfield, Nokia’s former head of design direction for user interfaces and services, quit the company in 2010 to set up his own design practice in New York, he made no secret of his frustrations with Nokia. In a long post on his blog, he outlines what problems Nokia faces.

He says "there is nobody with any taste in the decision-making echelons at Nokia”, something which he notes is particularly ironic considering Finland’s wider reputation for style and innovative design culture. Coming from somebody who left the company last year, it carries weight.

Forget iPhones and Droids, the Nokia 1100 is the most important cell phone on the planet. For most of humanity, smart phones are an impractical luxury. Thanks largely to exploding cell-phone markets in Africa and South Asia, the world's most popular phone -- by far -- is the humble Nokia 1100.

Introduced in 2003, the 1100 does not do much more than make calls and text. Until networks in the developing world can handle the bandwidth requirements of smart phones, the Nokia 1100 will remain the telecommunications version of the AK-47 -- humanity's most rugged, efficient calling machine.

The 1100 has 250 million users worldwide (compare with 73.5 million iPhones) and is destined to see the greatest growth in the market. Something to keep in mind when designing the next revolutionary mobile technology: for true impact on a global scale, it is definitely not going to be an app.

British mobile operator T-Mobile has revealed a new fair use policy, cutting caps from 1GB and 3GB to 500MB, saying mobile browsing does not include videos or large downloads: "If you want to download, stream and watch video clips, save that stuff for your home broadband."

All those people who have bought smartphones with the aim of doing such things on the go may not agree with the mobile operator, however. Any user that goes over the new limit will not be charged, but will be blocked from downloading or streaming for the rest of the month.

Estonia is investing in technology that will allow people to vote in elections using their mobile phones. Mobile identification has been used in Estonia for all of the same services as passports except voting since 2007. As of 2011, however, Estonians can vote in national elections using their computers or smartphones with internet access. Police and Border Guard will assign electronic signatures needed to vote through an online application form.

http://news.err.ee/f3dd5939-dbed-462c-8627-d56272317872