Europe Archive

  • nokia.phones-big

    Nokia: Four new handsets for developing world, bike charger

    So it’s a holiday here in Germany, it’s a beautiful day outside and I’m still in my PJs, scrolling through my RSS reader, and two Reuters headlines scream out at me: “Nokia unveils 4 cheap phones” and “Nokia unveils bicycle mobile charger“. Sadly, Reuters doesn’t...

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  • DW English: iPad combines American panache with Euro technology

    DW English: iPad combines American panache with Euro technology

    by Cyrus Farivar After seemingly endless weeks of rumors, Apple finally released its tablet computer, calling it the iPad. The device, which will sell worldwide at a starting price of $499 (€356.65) later this year, represents something in between the company’s extraordinarily popular iPhones and...

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  • July 15: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

    July 15: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

    Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the rise of the Pirate Party in Europe (including France, Switzerland, and yes, Estonia) is airing today. It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams): NYC – 3 pm Eastern...

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  • EU: Mobile use up, consumer prices down: Europe’s telecoms sector weathering economic downturn, says Commission report

    EU: Mobile use up, consumer prices down: Europe’s telecoms sector weathering economic downturn, says Commission report

    Europe’s Information Society: Europe leads the world in mobile phone services with the number of subscriptions in 2008 at 119% of the EU population (up 7 percentage points from 2007), well ahead of the US (87%) and Japan (84%). This is a finding of today’s...

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  • AdaLovelaceDay09: Viviane Reding (#ALD09)

    AdaLovelaceDay09: Viviane Reding (#ALD09)

    Today is the first annual Ada Lovelace Day, a day where we honor women in technology. I pledged in January that if 1,000 other people agreed to blog about a woman that they admire in technology that I would do the same. Ada Lovelace was...

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  • The Baguette Theory of Europe

    The Baguette Theory of Europe

    It’s a quiet, early Sunday morning in Lyon. I probably should head down to the baker, buy a couple of perfectly balanced crust and crumb baguettes and get my day started. I looked outside my window and all I see is fog. I didn’t even...

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  • AFP: Estonia fears English too dominant in its schools

    AFP: Estonia fears English too dominant in its schools

    Agence France Presse: TALLINN (AFP) — Education authorities in Estonia Thursday warned that the hands-down dominance of English in its schools is depriving the Baltic state of the language specialists it will need in the future. A hefty 84 percent of pupils in this country...

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  • NYT: Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia

    NYT: Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia

    So Kosovo is independent now. The last two lines in this NYT story make no sense to me: European Union officials said Britain, France, and Germany were expected to recognize Kosovo 24 hours after the declaration, to try to stop prevent Moscow and Belgrade from...

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  • Slate: How To Steal a European Painting

    Slate: How To Steal a European Painting

    By Cyrus Farivar Posted Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, at 12:57 PM ET Last Sunday, an art museum in Zurich, Switzerland, was robbed of four paintings worth $160 million. The crooks managed to overpower the staff at gunpoint shortly before closing time and make off with...

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  • As Earth Warms, Virus From Tropics Moves to Italy

    As Earth Warms, Virus From Tropics Moves to Italy

    NYT: After a month of investigation, Italian public health officials discovered that the people of Castiglione di Cervia were, in fact, suffering from a tropical disease, chikungunya, a relative of dengue fever normally found in the Indian Ocean region. But the immigrants spreading the disease...

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