080930Bulgarije wandeling bos

Het weer is prachtig en vanuit het hotel zijn wij een gemarkeerde route gaan lopen door een Nationaal park.

De Krooder girls hebben al eerder geprobeerd hun weg te vinden, maar slaagden daar toen niet in. Dus een extra uitdaging!
Het blijkt niet zo moeilijk: Eerst de wit gele, die uiteindelijk na een uurtje en een hoogteverschil van 200 meter uitkomt bij het klooster waar wij al eerder waren. Hele mooie route waar je niemand tegenkomt.

Onderweg komen wij wat verbodsborden tegen (zie foto). Niet alle borden zijn duidelijk: 1 geeft aan dat je je eieren beter in de winkel kunt kopen, een ander geeft aan dat je beestjes niet moet doodtrappen (lijkt mij trouwens nogal moeilijk en vereist nogal een nauwkeurig lopen om dat voor elkaar te krijgen) en dan nog een ander bord (boven) waar wij niet uitkomen (Ontvangen suggesties: Geen plantjes plukken).

Bij het klooster blijkt dat er nu inderdaad entree geheven wordt (5 Leva). Maar aangezien wij het klooster al bekeken hebben, keren wij terug en lopen de blauw witte route. deze route daalt wat sneller af en heeft mooie vergezichten. Hier komen wij meer wandelaars tegen.
Al met al een hele mooie wandeling. Rustig en mooi bos.
Voor de verandering in het hotel maar weer wat gegeten en gedronken voordat wij de middag door gaan brengen op de boulevard.

En zoals altijd Klik op de titel voor de foto's

's Avonds eens buiten uit gaan eten om de lokale sfeer op te snuiven. Het toerisme loopt op zijn eind en het is niet druk op de boulevard. Wij eten bij een heel groot restaurant, bij het haardvuur waar 8 kippen op een stok ronddraaien. Voor de rest geen gasten. Een vrouw achter een orgel die probeert haar best te doen er iets van te maken, besluit om 09:00 maar te stoppen. Eten lekker en weer terug naar het hotel. Daar is het feesten vanwege de verjaardag van Bert volop aan de gang. Het bier is om 22:15 op! Nou ja, niemand komt iets te kort.

080930Melia Grand Hermitage

Op verzoek: op deze website staat ons hotel beschreven.

080929Balchik en Kaap Kaliakra

De zon staat stralend aan de hemel en het beloofd een goede dag te gaan worden.
Vandaag staat de excursie naar Balchik en Kaap Kaliakra op het programma.
Informatie
Balchik wordt vooral bezocht vanwege zijn botanische tuinen, die rondom het paleis liggen. Dat paleis was vroeger de zomerresidentie van koningin Mary van Roemenie. Het paleis zelf is zeker een bezoekje waard; ook de verschillende nevengebouwen. De tuin zelf is echter het interessants. In totaal zijn er 3000 soorten bloemen, planten en bomen. Vooral het aantal rozen en coniferen valt onmiddellijk op. De fraaie cactustuin (met 250 verschillende soorten) is een bezoek meer dan waard. Het is de op 1 na grootste verzameling in Europa.

Na Balchik gaan wij naar Kaap Kaliakra. Vanaf de parkeerplaats is het 1 kilometer lopen naar de Kaap. Bij helder weer hebben wij een mooi uitzicht op de Zwarte Zee en de kust. Misschien zien wij dolfijnen.

Om 09:00 uur vertrokken met 2 bussen. eerst naar de Balchik en daar de botanische tuinen van koningin Mary bezocht. Er is veel verteld over deze (blijkbaar) bijzonder koningin. Zij kwam op tragische wijze om toen haar 2 zoons bij een ruzie over 1 vrouw tussenbeide kwam en in de baan van een schot kwam. 8 maanden in coma en toen dood.

Mooi tuin en mooie residentie met prachtige verblijven.

De lucht trekt open en de zon begint lekker te schijnen.
Toen naar een huis van 100 jaar oud in Kavarna. Ontvangen door een vrouw met brood en kruiden en vervolgens een indruk gekregen hoe men hier 100 jaar geleden woonden en leefden.
Daarna na Kaap Kaliakra om daar de opgravingen en de kaap te bekijken.
Geen dolfijnen gezien wel mooi uitzicht.

Dan weer de bus in en naar een restaurant om te genieten van de lunch aangeboden door Krooder. Vooraf kaas met sla en komkommer. Dat heet tjopska en is in de kleuren van de Bulgaarse vlag. Daarna kip en nog een gebakje toe.

Nu om 16:30 weer terug in het hotel. 

Klik op de titel voor de foto's van de dag.

Vanavond onder het zingen "Houdoe en bedankt ole, ole" hebben de Krooder girls afscheid genomen en worden ze morgenochtend afgewisseld door de nieuwe crew.

080929Zon! en Nesebar

07:15 Begin van de dag. De Zon!!!!!!!
09:00 Op weg naar Nesabar.
De dag begon goed en de rest van de dag hebben wij ook geen regen gehad. Maar warm was iets anders.
Vandaag stond dus de excursie naar Nesebar op het programma. 
Algemene informatie: Nesabar bestaat uit een oud en een nieuw gedeelte. Het nieuwe ligt op het vasteland en bestaat voornamelijk uit hotels. Het oude ligt op een schiereiland, dat 850 m lang en 300 m breed is.

De oude stad heeft momenteel ongeveer 3000 inwoners.

Nesebar was al in de griekse en Romeinse tijd een bolwerk van betekenis en ook later bleef de stad belangrijk. Door de ligging was de stad goed verdedigbaar. Er is veel overgebleven uit de oude tijd en het aantal kerken dat bekeken kan worden, is bijzonder groot (40), gezien de omvang van de stad. Sommige zijn nog redelijk in tact, andere zijn vervallen tot ruines. Alle kerken zijn geopend en de toegang is meestal gratis.

Met 2 bussen gingen wij op weg. onze gids was een Bulgaarse die goed Nederlands sprak en de nodige informatie over Bulgarije vertelde. Het gemiddeld inkomen van een Bulgaar is ongeveer 400 Leva per maand (in Sofia 600 Leva) en het pensioen is 150 leva. Niet veel dus. Onderweg was er een halteplaats waar men gelegenheid had om zijn sanitaire behoefte te doen (a 0,50 Leva). Veel bussen stoppen daar.

Hum .... 800 (?) mensen per dag voor een plasje, betekent een dagomzet gelijk aan een maandsalaris ???

Aangekomen in Nesebar eerst een rondleiding door de gids en een 12/13 eeuwse kerk bezocht (waar men niet mocht fotograferen (zie foto)). Daarna losgelaten in het plaatje om dit te gaan bekijken. Tja, wat moet je er van zeggen? Het is zo'n beetje de Bulgaarse variant op Volendam. Heel veel toeristen en heel veel winkels, waar je Rolexen voor 10 Leva kunt kopen.
Omdat mijn optimisme over het weer toch wel ongegrond was, een trui gekocht voor 25 Leva's en zodoende was het qua temperatuur goed te doen. Het middageten viel (voor mij) in het water. Volgens het menu zou het schol zijn, maar wat er opgediend werd waren gefrituurde graten (rog ?). Afijn, ober mompelde nog zoiets als foutje op de kaart, maar voor de rest werd er niet veel aan gedaan.

Op de terugweg weer langs de sanitaire stopplaats (goed voor de dagomzet) en daar een heuse Leffe blond gescoord (het is vakantie nietwaar?).

Om 18:00 weer terug in hotel.

Krooder groep doet goed zijn best: Op het einde van de avond Ammaretto op en Baileys op.

Klik op titel voor de foto's

080927Zaterdag bezoek aan Aladzha klooster

Vandaag is het weer iets beter (dwz geen regen) en zijn wij vanuit het hotel naar het Aladzha klooster gelopen. Afstand is ongeveer 4 a 5 kilometer.
Het klooster is uitgehouwen in de rotsen. Trappen en looppaden leiden naar een hoogte van 40 meter. Je kunt verschillende ruimtes bezoeken (klik op titel om de foto's te zien). Vanwege een of ander Europees iets was het gratis entree (zelfs de toiletten, die normaal 0,50 Leva kosten).
Verder is er nog een winkeltje en een expositie.

Via een modderig en glibberig voetpad van 600 meter kun je nog naar catacomben lopen.

Meer informatie over het klooster: Het klooster is een middeleeuws klooster, gelegen in de bergen. Al in de 13 en 14de eeuw was dit eiland bewoond door de toenmalige inwoners, de hermits. De monniken vonden dit een doeltreffende wijze om zich te beschermen tegen de overheersende Turken. De naam van het klooster Aladzha is van origine een Turkse term en betekent “voorbeeld of toonbeeld”. Het klooster is gelegen in een uitgehakte 40 meter hoge rots, maar is in de loop der tijd aardig beschadigd geraakt. Allen de kerk is nog in goede staat. 

Bij terugkomst gegeten bij een eettent. Om een idee van de prijzen hier te krijgen:
3 bier, 1 gevulde wijnbladeren (250 gr), en stewed mosselen (300 gr) kosten 22 Leva (11 euro). De gevulde wijnbladeren en ook de mosselen worden VOORGERECHTEN genoemd.

080926Vrijdag Goudkust regen

Het is triest weer hier. De hele dag regent het al en gelukkig hebben wij mooie boeken om de dag door te brengen. Het geeft ons ook de gelegenheid om (in de regen) de boulevard af te lopen om te kijken wat er hier allemaal is. Veel winkels en de prijzen vallen mee. Zojuist een regenjas gekocht voor 39 Leva's. De leva is ongeveer evenveel waard als onze oude gulden (dus ongeveer een 1/2 euro).

Om de lokale sfeer te proeven ook eens even in een plaatselijk barretje het bier geproefd. Prijs voor 2 grote glazen bier is 4 Leva's. 

Aanvulling gisteravond: All inclusive betekent dat je kunt drinken zonder dat je afrekent. Mits .... er nog drank voorradig is. Gisteravond was de rode wijn op. Goeie groep zullen wij maar zeggen!

Alle foto's van de Bulgarije vakantie heb ik op Flickr gezet en als je hier klikt dan zie je de verschillende sets, waar je de foto's kunt bekijken.

080925 Aankomst Goudkust Bulgarije

Een snelheidsrecord! De eerste berichten al zo snel.
Vannacht om 00:30 vertrokken met de bus naar Schiphol. Alles ging heel soepel en snel. Alleen het vinden van een plek om de vakantie te beginnen met een pilsje viel niet mee. Toen wij het niet konden vinden zijn wij maar achter Piet aangelopen en jawel! Je moet je netwerk kennen om iets te bereiken.

De vlucht duurt 2 1/2 uur. We landden om 08:30. Weer bus in en op weg naar hotel.
Regen en vergelijkbaar weer zoals in Nederland.
Het geheel maakt een armmoedige indruk.
Het is toch een hele groep (80 man), als ze allemaal in het mooie hotel aan de balie staan.
Onze voorkeur voor een kamer met frontaal zeezicht is gehonoreerd. Mooie grote kamer.
Internetverbinding, Archos verbinding gemaakt, inrichting gereed, we kunnen aan de slag.
Tot het volgend nieuws, nu eerst eens wat scoren.

's Middags lopend buffet. Goed voorzien en de wijn geproefd.
Toch wel behoorlijk kapot van zo'n doorgeleefde nacht. Het voelen van het bed 's middags was voldoende om een paar uur te slapen.
En voor de afwisseling weer gegeten (buffet) en gedronken.

De Krooders girls doen hun best om met iedereen een praatje te maken en vragen (als die er al zijn) te beantwoorden.

Omdat wij ook wel iets van de omgeving willen zien, na het eten een stukje op de boulevard gelopen. Veel hotels, eettentjes, toeristenwinkels. Omdat het slecht weer is zijn er niet veel mensen op straat. Uiteindelijk weer all-in gedronken en bij het sluiten van de bar (22:30) naar bed. Op naar morgen.

T-Mobile Unveils the T-Mobile G1

T-Mobile Phone Boasts an Intuitive Touch Screen and QWERTY Keyboard,Plus Popular Google Products and Fresh, New Applications

NEW YORK – Sept. 23, 2008 – T-Mobile today announced the international launch of the world’s first Android™-powered mobile phone in partnership with Google. Available soon only for T-Mobile customers spanning two continents, the T-Mobile G1 combines full touch-screen functionality and a QWERTY keyboard with a mobile Web experience that includes the popular Google products that millions have enjoyed on the desktop, including Google Maps Street View™, Gmail™, YouTube™and others.
"We are proud that T-Mobile is the first operator in the world to launch an Android-powered mobile device," said Christopher Schläffer, group product and innovation officer of Deutsche Telekom. "Since 2005, Google has been an established partner in T-Mobile’s groundbreaking approach to bringing the open mobile Internet to the mass market. With the T-Mobile G1, we are continuing our strong tradition of being pioneers in the world of the open Internet."

New generation E-readers

Eindhoven, 22 September 2008 - The world’s leading provider of e-reading solutions, Netherlands based iRex Technologies, has opened a new chapter in professional digital reading with the launch of the iRex 1000 series Digital Reader.

Publication iRex:

The iRex Digital Reader series are the world's largest e-readers and pack all the incredible features you've come to expect in an iRex e-reader - amazingly paper-like display, a Wacom

® Penabled touch screen (1000S / 1000SW) and wireless connectivity (1000SW).

Featuring an extra large 10.2-inch display, a sleek and lightweight design, the iRex Digital Reader is the largest, yet thinnest e-reader ever and it's packed with features.

Amazingly Paper-like
Thanks to the electronic paper display, reading from the screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen.

Learn more >>

Building a Self-Assembling Stomach-Bot

Technology Review, Monday Sept 22, 2008
Modules that self-assemble inside the stomach could perform more-sophisticated diagnosis and treatment.
Doctors have long sought better ways to examine the workings of the human body without having to cut their patients open. A swallowable camera, little bigger than a normal pill, can already snap pictures as it floats through the stomach and intestine, offering a less invasive way to perform diagnosis than an endoscope or surgery. Now a consortium of European researchers is testing a way to connect several swallowable devices to create a surgical "robot" that would self-assemble inside the stomach.
The Israeli company that developed the first pill cameras, Given Imaging, is currently working on a way to control the movement of its camera capsule from outside the body. Several academic research groups are also looking at ways to let swallowable capsules maneuver themselves by rolling, crawling, or sticking to tissue. With greater control, doctors should be able to better diagnose and possibly even treat illness. But the capabilities of such intestinal devices will still be limited because a capsule must remain small enough to be comfortably swallowed.
A collaboration of researchers from Italy, France, Switzerland, and Spain, called ARES, is testing a way for multiple capsules to automatically snap together. Each would be swallowed individually before assembling into a more complex device once safely in the stomach.
The ultimate goal is for each capsule to perform a different task: one for imaging, one for power, one to take samples, and so on. Once inside the stomach, the capsules would link together, creating a snake-like device that could slide through the intestines, performing more-complex tasks than those performed by a single capsule or several free-floating ones.
Read the whole story >>

Multimedia
Click here to see how researchers conducted the self-assembling modular experiment.
Click here to see a proof of concept of the swallowable modules in action.

080921 De torentjes van Steyl

Ontrack wandeling

Als op een van de foto's klikt of op de titel dan zie je de foto's van de tocht.

De Torentjes van Steyl 14km
Torentjes van Steyl is een heerlijke doorstapwandeling. Er valt tijdens deze route, met een vleugje cultuur, genoeg te beleven.

Na de start bij Den Herberg in Belfeld passeert u het mooie Raadhoes en de Mariahoef en loopt u door eeuwenoude hellingbossen waar de natuur nog vrij spel krijgt. U komt door het schilderachtige dorpje Steyl, bekend van zijn kloosters.

De afgelopen eeuw telde het vier congregaties met alle vier een eigen onderkomen. In de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw stroomde de Maas tot tweemaal over met desastreuze gevolgen voor het kloostersdorp. De nieuwe Maaswerken moeten toekomstige overstromingen voorkomen. Langs deze in toom gehouden rivier keert u terug naar Belfeld.

Google Gaudi

DragonFlyeEye.Net publication
Google has revealed it’s latest offering in its information indexing services, Google Gaudi. Gaudi’s purpose is to utilize voice recognition software and search for words and phrases inside of Google Video and YouTube videos just like Google ordinarily would search HTML text.
This is actually a smaller piece of a larger technology, as anyone who has ever released a video with copyrighted music in it probably knows by now. YouTube (owned, remember, by Google) scans it’s video library with audio recognition software to find audio that indicates the video might be in violation of copyright law and alerts copyright holders of the issue. I know this because back when I was still doing video blogs (which I miss), I did a blog that was partially in tribute to James Brown shortly after his death. I was informed last week that my video, which included a few clips of James, was potentially in violation of copyright. Happily, the copyright holder had no interest in persuing the removal of my content.
So, those of us interested in SEO (Search Engine Optimization, basically making your webpage as friendly to search engines as possible) have been hearing rumors forever that Google would eventually be developing sound and video search capabilities. It appears we are seeing the dawn of that new era of search capability. It wil be interesting going forward to see what this new technologies bring to light, from advanced new uses and benefits for end users to brand new “Black Hat” attacks.

Wine in restaurants

Club Torres wine advise

In recent years many restaurants have improved not only their wine lists but also how they keep, present and serve wine (for example, ice buckets are now used more regularly and it's more normal for the waiter to open the wine in front of the client). Similarly, the restaurant wine expert, although not necessarily a sommelier, is becoming increasingly important. Much more advice is now required to choose a wine that goes well with the food ordered, that is reliable and good value for money...

These tips will help you to avoid any unpleasant surprises:

• Don't order very old wines unless you know that the restaurant has a place or system suitable for laying wine down.
  Good wine brands are synonymous with quality. Choose restaurants that have renowned brands on their wine lists. A list with a lot of choice may be a discovery or a way to dissimulate high prices as the consumer has nothing to compare them with. Fortunately this practice is increasingly rare as consumers are becoming more familiar with wines and don't succumb so easily to such ploys.


• The D.O. (Denominación de Origen or appellation) provides you with a location but does not guarantee homogeneity between producers, as different styles do exist. If there are brands within the D.O. that can be trusted and you don't want to take risks, order them.


• Ask the restaurant to cool red wines in summer, as the ambient temperature will be too high. It's easy to lower the temperature from around 25ºC to 18ºC by just preparing an ice bucket with around 8 ice cubes in it.


• It's advisable for you to serve the wine yourself during the lunch or dinner if there is no wine waiter on hand. If you're having a white or rosé, it's better to pour out small quantities of wine so that it doesn't get too warm in the glass.


• If you don't finish a bottle, ask to take it home.

Lastly, you have 2 alternatives if you're driving:

• Ask for just a glass: it's increasingly more usual to be offered wine by the glass.


• Ask for Natureo, the first de-alcoholised wine in Spain. It won't be as perfect as a regular wine but is infinitely better than a soft drink to accompany a good fish dish...

To learn more about the world of wine, consult Club Torres Online.

Rebuilding a Legacy

Reddevnews publication Sept 2008, by Mary Jo Foley
How can developers prepare as Microsoft's "Midori" and other projects target a post-Windows future?
For a project that no one at Microsoft is talking about, there's a lot of noise circling around Redmond about "Midori." That's not too surprising given that Midori, if it ever makes it out of the incubator, could end up being the successor to the Windows operating system.
According to source tips and industry reports, Microsoft researchers are developing Midori as a microkernel-based OS that will work across distributed parallel and multi-core systems. And (in the words of Microsoft nemesis Steve Jobs) there's one more thing: Midori will likely be a managed-code OS from the ground up, meaning it won't necessarily be backward-compatible with Windows.
.....

Rockford Lhotka, Principal Technology Evangelist,Magenic Technologies Inc.:

"First we had DOS. Then we had Windows, which ran on DOS. Then we had Windows, with DOS emulated inside. Now we have .NET, which runs on Windows. It's only a matter of time before we have .NET, with Windows emulated inside," says Rockford Lhotka, principal technology evangelist with Magenic Technologies Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that is focused on application development and consulting with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minn. "People look at me funny, like I'm crazy, when I say this, but I really think it's just a matter of time. Whether Midori is really a movement in this direction, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest."

Read the whole story >>

Taking computer chat to a whole new level

ICT Results publication

Natural spoken dialogue technology has long been a dream for many. Advances by European researchers are making this a reality.

The results of their work could soon be used to allow us to verbally interact with technology in our everyday lives, from the music systems in our cars to functions in the homes of wheelchair users.

Interactions between human and computer are currently inefficient, particularly when we try talking. Previously, users have had to rely on specific commands making natural interactions in everyday language impossible.

Motivated by the idea of allowing people to say what they want to say, in the way they want to say it, the EU-funded TALK (Talk and Look, Tools for Ambient Linguistic Knowledge) project set about developing technology that would also allow for the systems to learn from the process.

“We developed methods for designing better, more natural, flexible, and adaptive spoken dialogue systems that learn from their interactions with users,” says Oliver Lemon from Edinburgh University and project coordinator. “We showed for the first time that machine learning techniques in Information State Update systems can lead to better human-computer interaction.”

And show it they did, at the IST 2006 conference in Helsinki, where project partners BMW, Bosch, and DFKI showcased some of the fruits of the project with SAMMIE, an in-car dialogue system for an MP3 player.

Sammie was installed in a BMW car. The system operates in German and English. This multilingual system is a first in human-computer interactions.

“This in-car system was extensively tested by BMW and Bosch, with real drivers, and was assessed to be less distracting and more comfortable than two competing systems,” says Lemon.

Read the whole story >>

Nanoflowers Improve Ultracapacitors

Technology Review, Sept 16, 2008

A novel design could boost energy storage.
Imagine a cell-phone battery that recharges in a few seconds and that you would never have to replace. That's the promise of energy-storage devices known as ultracapacitors, but at present, they can store only about 5 percent as much energy as lithium-ion batteries. An advance by researchers at the Research Institute of Chemical Defense, in China, could boost ultracapacitors' ability to store energy.
A capacitor consists of two electrodes with opposite charges, often separated by an insulator that keeps electrons from jumping directly between them. The researchers have developed an electrode that can store twice as much charge as the activated-carbon electrodes used in current ultracapacitors. The new electrode contains flower-shaped manganese oxide nanoparticles deposited on vertically grown carbon nanotubes.
The electrode design promises to deliver more power, says Hao Zhang, lead author of the Nano Letters paper describing the new work. The electrode's longevity also compares with that of activated-carbon electrodes, Zhang says: discharging and recharging the electrodes 20,000 times reduced the capacitor's energy-storage capacity by only 3 percent.

Read the whole story >>

Plastic E-Reader Debut

Note Ary: This a product I surely want to have

Technology review, September 15, 2008

Plastic Logic will make flexible polymer displays and launch its product in January.

This Wednesday, Cambridge University startup Plastic Logic, which is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, will open a factory in Dresden, Germany, that will produce about 11 million large, flexible electronic-paper display units a year. The displays will be used in an electronic reader that the company showed at the Demo conference in San Diego last week. The product, which is scheduled to be commercially launched in January, uses display technology from E Ink and backplane technologies that employ polymer electronics developed by Plastic Logic's founders at Cambridge University.

Plastic Logic is banking that there's room on the market for another e-book, this one targeted at businesspeople who want to read documents and newspapers on a lightweight, robust device with a large display. Several portable electronic readers already on the market also employ the E Ink display technology and enable users to take thousands of pages of documents on the road. Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader have six-inch screens--about the size of a paperback book. The Readius, made by Polymer Vision--a spinout from Philips Electronics--is the size of a cell phone and has a rollable display that stows away.

The Plastic Logic reader's screen is larger, the size of a standard sheet of paper--8.5 by 11 inches--but it doesn't weigh much more than the other readers. It weighs 13 ounces--compared with 10.3 ounces for the smaller Kindle. And it has a display on a plastic substrate, unlike the glass screen used for the Kindle and Sony Reader, which means that it is rugged. (At Demo, Plastic Logic's CEO, Richard Archuleta, showed a video of the display being whacked with a shoe and continuing to operate.)

Read rest of the story >>

The 'satellite navigation' in our brains

PhysOrg.com, Sep. 11, 2008
Our brains contain their own navigation system much like satellite navigation ("sat-nav"), with in-built maps, grids and compasses, neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers told the BA Festival of Science at the University of Liverpool today.
The brain's navigation mechanism resides in an area know as the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory and famously shown to be different in London taxi drivers in a Wellcome Trust-funded study carried out by Professor Eleanor Maguire at UCL (University College London).

The study showed that a region of the hippocampus was enlarged in London taxi drivers compared to the general population. Even bus drivers do not have the same enlarged area, and general skill at navigating is not related to hippocampus size, suggesting that the difference is linked to 'The Knowledge' of the city's 250,000 streets built up by taxi drivers over many years.

In a follow-up study, Dr Spiers and Professor Maguire used the Playstation2 video game "The Getaway" to examine how taxi drivers use their hippocampus and other brain areas when they navigate. Taxi drivers used the virtual reality simulation to navigate the streets of London whilst lying in an fMRI brain scanner. The researchers found that the hippocampus is most active when the drivers first think about their route and plan ahead. By contrast, activity in a diverse network of other brain areas increases as they encounter road blocks, spot expected landmarks, look at the view and worry about the thoughts of their customers and other drivers.

"The hippocampus is crucial for navigation and we use it like a 'sat nav'," says Dr Spiers from the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL. "London taxi drivers, who have to know their way around hundreds of thousands of winding streets, have the most refined and powerful innate sat navs, strengthened over years of experience."

In their study, Dr Spiers and Professor Maguire found that a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex increased its activity the closer the taxi drivers came to their destination. However, it is still unclear how the brain knows which way we need to go to reach our destination, and it is this question which is the subject of Dr Spiers's ongoing research, also funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Read the whole story>>

DEMOgod Award: Plastic Logic

Last week it was the DEMO 08 event.
Click on the DEMO08 logo to see more of it.

During DEM08 10 God Awards were given to 10 promissing start-ups.

One of them was Plastic Logic.
They not only got the DEMOgod Award but also the Public Price.

They demonstrated Plastic Logic.
Product Description
Plastic Logic is using proprietary plastic electronics technology to create products that enable information access, organization and consumption. Its first product, due in the market early in 2009, provides a portable digital reading experience for work, education and recreation that is better than paper. The Plastic Logic product is based on its plastic electronic display, distinguished by its large display size, thin depth, low weight, long battery life, and robustness.

The video is the impressive demonstration of Plastic Logic

DEMOgod Award: Fushion IO

Last week it was the DEMO 08 event.
Click on the DEMO08 logo to see more of it.

During DEM08 10 God Awards were given to 10 promissing start-ups.

One of them was Fushion IO.
They presented ioSAN
Product Description
The ioSAN is the worlds first high-performance silicon-based SAN/NAS solution that combines the best of enterprise Flash, high-speed networking and hard disk-based storage, all on a single PCIe card that is easily deployed in any server, unleashing the power to innovate the next-generation of data centers. Now both the performance and power of a SAN fits in the palm of your hand!

In the video they present ioSAN

DEMOgod Award: Microstaq

Last week it was the DEMO 08 event.
Click on the DEMO08 logo to see more of it.

During DEM08 10 God Awards were given to 10 promissing start-ups.

One of them was MICROSTAQ.
They presented the SEV (Silicon Expansion Valve).
Product Description
The Microstaq SEV uses MEMS technology to provide systems the ability to be significantly more energy and cost efficient in the commercial and residential HVAC industry, the automotive air-conditioning and transmission field, as well as various applications in the medial industry. The SEV facilitates electronic control capability, increased system durability and reliability, faster response to operating condition (temperature) changes, as well as lower maintenance and raw material costs.

In this video they explain what it saves:

PICNIC 08

From 24 to 26 September 2008, thousands of creative minds from all over the world will come together in Amsterdam for the third PICNIC.

Google makes waves and may have solved the data center conundrum

ZDNet News, Sept 8, 2008
Google is pondering a floating data center that could be powered and cooled by the ocean. These offshore data centers could sit 3 to 7 miles offshore and reside in about 50 to 70 meters of water.
The search giant filed for a patent in February that was approved Aug. 28. The patent outlines a concept that would not only be savvy engineering, but deliver great returns. Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge called Google’s patent a “startling new take on data center engineering.” I’d call it brilliant engineering, but the financial engineering could be even more impressive.
To wit:

• Google could power these data center pontoons with wind potentially and cool them with water. You could argue that these ocean data centers could be self sustaining.
• Property taxes? There’s no property.
• State negotiations and building rights? Launching these data centers may require a lot less red tape.

Read the whole story >>

Opening Search to Semantic Upstarts

Technoly Review, September 8, 2008
Yahoo's new open-search platform is giving semantic search a helping hand.
Even if you have a great idea for a new search engine, it's far from easy to get it off the ground. For one thing, the best engineering talent resides at big-name companies. Even more significantly, according to some estimates, it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to buy and maintain the servers needed to index the Web in its entirety.

However, Yahoo recently released a resource that may offer hope to search innovators and entrepreneurs. Called Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS), it allows programmers to make use of Yahoo's index of the Web--billions of pages that are continually updated--thereby removing perhaps the biggest barrier to search innovation. By opening its index to thousands of independent programmers and entrepreneurs, Yahoo hopes that BOSS will kick-start projects that it lacks the time, money, and resources to invent itself. Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Research and a consulting professor at Stanford University, says this might include better ways of searching videos or images, tools that use social networks to rank search results, or a semantic search engine that tries to understand the contents of Web pages, rather than just a collection of keywords and links.

"We're trying to break down the barriers to innovation," says Raghavan, although he admits that BOSS is far from an altruistic venture.

Read the whole story>>

Sept 7, 2008 :: Google 10 years

It all began in the summer of 1995, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University (Brin showed Page around the school). The two students founded Google - named after googol, the term for 1 followed by 100 zeros - a year later in a suburban garage. It was incorporated on September 7 1998 - which became Google's birthday.

History of Google in Google Milestones
Google timeline: a 10 year anniversary
Google: 10 years in Pictures
More early days photo's at http://www.cnbc.com/id/26560669?dl=headlineclick

cbsnews movie

Archos The Travel Companion

If have already my second Archos device: I love it. Whenever I am away my Archos goes with me. The problem with such devices is, that before you know it, it is already old-fashioned. I bought my AV500 and traded in my old device.
Now they announced another new MACHINE The Internet Media Tablet Archos 7.



ARCHOS, award-winning for its constant technology innovation and leadership in portable media players now introduces a new concept: the Internet Media Tablet. The ARCHOS 7 is the jewel of this new range, redefining media on the move and offering customer uncompromised access to the Internet, Media content and TV…in a handheld device..


Uncompromised Web surfing in the palm of your hand

With its built-in capabilities, your Internet Media Tablet becomes the ultimate way to surf the web. The amazingly sharp and high-resolution screen lets you navigate effortlessly through the web just like you would on a PC.
Browsing becomes almost seamless with the ARM® Cortex™ processor and the Adobe Flash™ 9 video support. Surfing on a handheld device has never been so fast and smooth.
The full email application lets you read, write, download and send attachments, and manage your contacts.

Click on title to go to the product page.

IFA 2008 Highlights

The IFA in Berlin is the world’s leading trade show for the general public and the CE industry’s number one venue for doing business. All of the major Consumer Electronics brands present themselves at this unique business event. A showcase for innovation and the technology of tomorrow – coupled with a spectacular programme of entertainment events –IFA fascinates yearly thousands of visitors from around the world.

The highlights are shown in this movie from United Pictures TV

A Gene Map of Europe

Technology Review, September 3, 2008
Note Ary: Why is this something that scares me? Is it the tracing of individuals as being part of something you don't want to be part of ?

Researchers create a picture of Europe by mapping genetic variation among Europeans.
Scientists have shown that they can use genomic analysis to pinpoint a person's geographical origins to within just a few hundred kilometers. Besides offering possibilities for the testing of genetic ancestry, the research could also have important implications for understanding the role of genes in complex diseases and other genomic-based health studies.
By plotting the differences between genetic variations of 3,000 Europeans in a two-dimensional grid, the researchers were able to reveal a pattern that looks remarkably like Europe. The scientists included researchers from Cornell University; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); the University of Chicago; and the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland. The findings appear in this week's issue of Nature.
Others have recently published similar research, in Current Biology, says John Novembre, a coauthor of the Nature paper and an assistant professor at UCLA. But the latest study goes further, by using algorithms to try to predict a person's geographical origin based purely on his or her genetic variations, with a high degree of accuracy. The scientists were even able to reveal patterns of origin distinguishing French-, German-, and Italian-speaking groups within Switzerland.
Read the whole story>>

Ary as Google Chrome user

I downloaded Google Chrome.
Installation in a few seconds (1 minute?).
Start and work with it.

I am still exploring it (where are my favorites?). But what impresses me is the striking speed of this browser. My first 5 minute experience makes me almost immediate love it, impression is very good.
As you can see in the screenshot: All tabs are located at the top (which basically is the biggest architectural change, as each tab is an own process, which can be run side by side instead of all tabs in one big proces (as in all other browsers))).
Ok, I continue exploring this.

Sept 3, update:
Problems discovered:
- Play a movie from Youtube stopped after 2 seconds. Other movie tried, same problem
Close browser, try again never had the problem anymore
- Java scripts. This seems to be the area with the most troubles. Some applets don't work.

Things I like (or should I say love):
- Opening screen with the most recently opened webpages
I never realized that this is so effective
- Speed, speed, speed, nice, nice, nice

Some more evaluations:
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes First look at Google Chrome
Ryan Naraine & Dancho Danchev Google Chrome vulnerable to carpet-bombing flaw
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes Google Chrome is insanely fast … faster than Firefox 3.0
Ryan Naraine & Dancho Danchev Security-wise, Google Chrome is (potentially very) Good

Google Chrome now live

9/02/2008 12:02:00 PM Google announcement

In yesterday's post on Google Chrome, we promised to let you know when it would be available for everyone to try -- and that time is now. Click here to download and start exploring. (For the moment, it's available only for Windows users, but you can sign up on the download page to learn when the Mac and Linux versions are available.)

Google Chrome Download supposed to start in about 1 hour

Google is holding a press-conference at 11am PDT in their Mountain View head quarters. The download of the Google Chrome Browser should begin around that time.

Google to launch browser to battle IE

From the official Google Blog:
Also read the comic book telling the story in 38 pages
9/01/2008 02:10:00 PM (so today it will be launched)
A Fresh Take On The Browser
At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it here. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others -- and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We'll post an update here as soon as it's ready.

BMW GINA Light Visionary Model

With the development of the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model the BMW Group presents trendsetting solutions. Chris Bangle gives us a first impression of the ideas behind the process of sculpturing an experimental study. This is the story behind this innovation!

The next 5000 days

The web exists 5000 days, what will the next 5000 days bring.
The firsth lesson of the web: "Have to get better in believing the impossible"
Watch this fascinating 19 minutes talk of Kevin Kelly.

SimplicityLabs

SimplicityLabs is created by Philips Research as a testing ground for upcoming technologies and applications. It is a means to get your feedback early on, and allows us to improve our applications to suit your needs, well before they hit the market.
So please go ahead, take a look and tell us what you think... at http://www.simplicitylabs.net/

What If He Had Gone on Vacation

This month the first IC exists 50 years

Jack Kilby describes how he developed the world's first integrated circuits.
"After several interviews, I was hired by Willis Adcock of Texas Instruments. My duties were not precisely defined, but it was understood that I would work in the general area of microminiaturization. Soon after starting at TI in May 1958, I realized that since the company made transistors, resistors, and capacitors, a repackaging effort might provide an effective alternative to the Micro-Module. I therefore designed an IF amplifier using components in a tubular format and built a prototype. We also performed a detailed cost analysis, which was completed just a few days before the plant shut down for a mass vacation.

"As a new employee, I had no vacation time coming and was left alone to ponder the results of the IF amplifier exercise. The cost analysis gave me my first insight into the cost structure of a semiconductor house. The numbers were high — very high — and I felt it likely that I would be assigned to work on a proposal for the Micro-Module program when vacation was over unless I came up with a good idea very quickly. In my discouraged mood, I began to feel that the only thing a semiconductor house could make in a cost-effective way was a semiconductor. Further thought led me to the conclusion that semiconductors were all that were really required — that resistors and capacitors, in particular, could be made from the same material as the active devices.

"I also realized that, since all of the components could be made of a single material, they could also be made in situ, interconnected to form a complete circuit. I then quickly sketched a proposed design for a flip-flop using these components. Resistors were provided by bulk effect in the silicon, and capacitors by p-n junctions.

"These sketches were quickly completed, and I showed them to Adcock upon his return from vacation. He was enthused but skeptical and asked for some proof that circuits made entirely of semiconductors would work. I therefore built up a circuit using discrete silicon elements. Packaged grown-junction transistors were used. Resistors were formed by cutting small bars of silicon and etching to value. Capacitors were cut from diffused silicon power transistor wafers, metallized on both sides. This unit was assembled and demonstrated to Adcock on August 28, 1958.

"Although this test showed that circuits could be built with all semiconductor elements, it was not integrated. I immediately attempted to build an integrated structure as initially planned. I obtained several wafers, diffused and with contacts in place. By choosing the circuit, I was able to lay out two structures that would use the existing contacts on the wafers. The first circuit attempted was a phase-shift oscillator, a favorite demonstration vehicle for linear circuits at that time.

"On September 12, 1958, the first three oscillators of this type were completed. When power was applied, the first unit oscillated at about 1.3 megacycles.

"The concept was publicly announced at a press conference in New York on March 6, 1959. Mark Shepherd said, "I consider this to be the most significant development by Texas Instruments since we divulged the commercial availability of the silicon transistor." Pat Haggerty predicted the circuits first would be applied to the further miniaturization of electronic computers, missiles, and space vehicles and said that any application to consumer goods such as radio and television receivers would be several years away."

A television program in 1997 said about the integrated circuit and Jack Kilby, "One invention we can say is one of the most significant in history -- the microchip, which has made possible endless numbers of other inventions. For the past 40 years, Kilby has watched his invention change the world. Jack Kilby — one of the few people who can look around the globe and say to himself 'I changed how the world functions.'"