2005

Yesterday, I was perusing the site of IDG, the parent company of my employer, Macworld and I found this line: From our name to our presence today in 85 countries and on all 7 continents, IDG is truly a global company. 7 continents? Does IDG have an Antarctica bureau that I’m not aware of? I posed the question to my co-workers and Paul Boutin. He and my boss’ boss, Jason Snell, came up with the same answer: ComputerWorld Antarctica Except…

Indian Economist Atanu Dey: I know that one should not ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained as stupidity. Not everyone involved in the “laptop for every child” is motivated by greed; some are motivated by a zeal that comes from an inability to figure out what the problem is and how it can be most effectively solved. The operative word is “effectively.” You can always use a cannon where a fly-swatter is sufficient. But for the cost of…

A thought in response to your Slate article and the more practical Inveneo stuff. The latter relies on 12V DC for the good reasons that it’s been made ubiquitous by the car and truck industry, the gear is simple and tough, and big economies of scale have already been made. Why then does every new DC gadget call for a different voltage and its own transformer? Big purchasers like the Pentagon or the Indian government could push the industry towards…

The New York Times is currently running a great series on the modernization of India, looking particularly at highways and automobiles so far. This section pretty much encapsulates the same dilemma that is going through the rest of the developing world: India’s state-run rail network may have been built by the British, but it came to represent a certain egalitarianism. Powerful and voiceless, rich and poor – all navigated the same chaotic, crowded stations and rode the same jam-packed trains,…

This one came in before the one this morning: Hello, My name is Samir Raiyani and I am a Senior Scientist at SAP Research in Palo Alto. I really liked your article on Slate about Negroponte’s $100 computer idea. I had written exactly along the same lines on my blog – even pointing to the silly Simputer idea. My angle was slightly different and would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks, Samir > Samir, > > Thanks so much for…

A reader named Trent Krupp left this comment on my blog this morning: I read your article on Slate today and felt that it was poorly researched with a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the $100 laptop is meant to do. While there are numerous errors of reasoning, a few that you should personnally look into are the real purposes of the WIFI adapter (hint: Ad-hoc networks are what is envisioned, not infrastructural networks). Also the mention of…

Head over to Wanderlustgeek.com for the skinny, or download it directly here.

Michael Rice (a buddy of mine from J-School) points to the fact that Columbia has renamed their email system: I’m flattered. 😉

DigiTimes (via Lee Thorn of the Jhai Foundation) : Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, and Inventec, which are reportedly bidding to manufacture the world’s cheapest notebook distributed to schools directly through large government initiatives, consider that meeting the volume shipment schedule for the US$100 notebook would be “unlikely” given the current technical hurdles that need to be overcome.

Wired News by Cyrus Farivar 02:00 AM Dec. 02, 2005 PT Mad scientist Doc Brown powers his time machine by feeding coffee grounds and other biowaste into the DeLorean in Back to the Future. While time travel is still in the realm of science-fiction, carbon-based fuel cells are about to become science fact — rendering a similar scenario all the more possible. SRI announced in November that it has developed direct carbon fuel-cell technology. The process is 70 percent efficient,…