31 maio 2010

Quadricóptero de ataque


Autonomous quadrocopter flies through windows, straight into our hearts

Como se nasce em Crestuma ou Alhos Vedros e se morre no Afeganistão

CNN Home & Away: Comparing How the Lives of Soldiers Began and Ended: impressive interactive data visualization that allows users to learn about and pay tribute to more than 6,000 fallen troops from more than 20 countries

Ainda as agências de rating

How Fitch, Moody's and S&P rate each country's credit rating

Excelente: Johanna Blakley em "Lessons from fashion's free culture"


Copyright law's grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry... and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley.

30 maio 2010

Philippe Ramette

"Avatar Days" em Dublin


Avatar Days is a portrait of four online gamers in Dublin whose daily lives contrast with their virtual identities. Advanced 3D technologies and Motion Capture animation were used to insert the players' in-game characters in place of their real selves against the backdrop of the banal urban landscape which they inhabit.

15 maio 2010

Michael Kutsche

l’un des illustrateurs des personnages du dernier film de Tim Burton "Alice in Wonderland"

Eyjafjallajökull a 1 e 2 de Maio

13 maio 2010

Twitter art

Dont Tell Ashton: The worlds first Twitter artwork

Ilusão de óptica, certamente


Best Visual Illusion Of 2010 Defies Gravity: Japanese scientist Kokichi Sugihara claimed to have discovered a technology that every sixth grader knows to be impossible: a magnet that attracts wood. In front of a crowd of hundreds, he played a video showing four wooden balls rolling up four ramps, supposedly pulled uphill by his new super-magnet.

11 maio 2010

A crise grega, com vista de satélite para a piscina

Greek Wealth Is Everywhere but Tax Forms: ATHENS — In the wealthy, northern suburbs of this city, where summer temperatures often hit the high 90s, just 324 residents checked the box on their tax returns admitting that they owned pools.

So tax investigators studied satellite photos of the area — a sprawling collection of expensive villas tucked behind tall gates — and came back with a decidedly different number: 16,974 pools.

Andar sobre a água no Gerês


by Liquid Mountaineering

10 maio 2010

08 maio 2010

Television is a drug


Beth Fulton: The inspiration of this video comes from Todd Alcott's poem, Television. I own no rights to his reading of the poem and intend only to share my own personal interpretation.

O que acontece a quem come gelados numa montanha-russa?


The Cadbury Flake 99 Challenge

07 maio 2010

Tweets

How much we will be tweeting by January 2011
How much more do we tweet each month?

The number of tweets that pass through Twitter has been growing rapidly for a long time now. Twitter’s month-by-month growth in tweets the last six months looks like this:

* Nov 2009: 16.8%
* Dec 2009: 16.6%
* Jan 2010: 16.9%
* Feb 2010: 15.6%
* Mar 2010: 16.3%
* Apr 2010: 15.4%

For the record, it’s now May 2010.

Como a Microsoft assusta as pessoas...

Social Media Revolution 2 (based on book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman)

O novo assento da KLM (pub da boa)

Get Out Of There!

Vamos lá falar da crise, a sério

CGD: A CGD lucrou 100 milhões de euros no primeiro trimestre do ano, o que representa uma redução homóloga de 19,4%.

EDP: EDP bate estimativas com lucro de 309 milhões, mais 17% que em igual período de 2009. Este resultado saiu acima das estimativas dos analistas. EDP revelou um aumento de 17% dos lucros para 309 milhões de euros, no primeiro trimestre do ano, num período em que a margem bruta avançou 11%.

GALP: Lucro da Galp sobe 31,6% no trimestre e bate estimativas: A Galp fechou o primeiro trimestre do ano com lucros 65 milhões de euros, mais 31,6% face ao mesmo período de 2009.

PT: A Portugal Telecom apresentou um conjunto de resultado "positivos", com os lucros a superarem a média das estimativas.

SONAECOM: Lucro da Sonaecom terá disparado para 3,6 milhões no trimestre, superando os 200 mil euros de igual período de 2009. Os resultados líquidos da Sonaecom aumentaram, no primeiro trimestre, para os 8,2 milhões de euros, um valor que compara com os 200 mil euros de lucros registados no período homólogo

Entretanto,
Governo pretende poupar 289 milhões de euros em apoios sociais até 2011: A definição de novos critérios de acesso às prestações de solidariedade vai implicar uma redução da despesa de 90 milhões de euros este ano e de 199 milhões de euros em 2011.

Autorização para emprestar na AR: O Governo vai hoje pedir autorização ao Parlamento para emprestar até nove mil milhões a Estados da Zona Euro que enfrentem dificuldades financeiras que ponham em causa a estabilidade da moeda única, como solicitado recentemente pela Grécia.

Governo trava saídas voluntárias do Estado e acelera novas admissões: O Governo vai acelerar o recrutamento de novos trabalhadores do Estado, devido à falta de pessoal motivada pela corrida às reformas. Além disso, vai dificultar as saídas de trabalhadores por opção voluntária, para mobilidade especial.

Sem esquecer a incompetência, claro...
In one of the most dizzying half-hours in stock market history, the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points before paring those losses—all apparently due to a trader error.

TED e modelo de negócio

How TED Gave Away Content - and Won

How to help spread TED > TEDTalks on TV > For broadcasters > Open-Source TV Pilot Project

06 maio 2010

03 maio 2010

Noite de cinema com making of...



Nuit Blanche por Arev Manoukian

Irlanda e Grécia devem-nos mas...

Europe's Web of Debt: Banks and governments in these five shaky economies owe each other many billions of euros — converted here to dollars — and have even larger debts to Britain, France and Germany.

Mr. Burton. Tim Burton.

Adrian Tranquilli

01 maio 2010

Mariano Gago, um ministro tímido nas declarações sobre a pirataria?

Os Representantes das indústrias culturais indignados com Mariano Gago por ele ter afirmado que "a pirataria tem sido desde sempre uma fonte de progresso e uma fonte de globalização", deviam ter em atenção uma estratégia de negócio protagonizada pela Microsoft.

Em 2007, dizia Bill Gates: We Love Microsoft Software Piracy in China:
Gates argued at the time that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody's software he'd certainly prefer it be Microsoft's.

Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs.
Como é que a empresa então desafiou a pirataria? Entre outras medidas, "To combat the piracy of Windows Vista in China, Microsoft has announced that it is cutting the cost of Windows Vista by almost two-thirds (...) Lowering prices to combat piracy? Who'da thunk it? (...) The price cuts are aimed at enticing users into buying legal retail software, while making it slightly less profitable to sell pirated software."

Mas porque é que a "Microsoft Should Welcome Piracy in India and China"?
In this context, applying Western IP enforcement policies to stem the flood of illegal copies of Windows in China and India risks winning the battle (to deter and punish IP infringement) while losing the war (to become the dominant standard operating system on the desktop). As long as Linux remains a serious rival in China and India, Microsoft should welcome pirated copies of its software. Illegal versions of Windows are free, which helps Microsoft offset the initial cost advantage of "free" open-source software.

Every pirated copy installed on a Chinese or Indian computer brings one more person into the Microsoft ecosystem. This strengthens Microsoft's market for third-party developers of applications, tools, and other complementary products. Equally important, it denies Linux that next new customer who would strengthen the open-source ecosystem against Windows.

Muito bem, mas onde se obtém lucro neste "ecossistema"? Um esclarecedor parágrafo neste artigo "Piracy From China: How Microsoft, Ralph Lauren, Nike And Others Can Cope":

investors should realize that while piracy has been a problem in China for luxury product companies and brands like Polo Ralph Lauren, Nike, Pfizer’s Viagra, and Callaway, the situation will get better because Chinese consumers want the real products when they can afford them and when there is a material benefit to having a genuine article. With increasing disposable incomes, the future is bright for purveyors of real products.

Ah, e a Microsoft, ganhou entretanto algo com a pirataria? Um exemplo de Abril passado: A local court in Shanghai ruled that Dazhong Insurance must pay nearly 2.2 million yuan (around 320,000 U.S. dollars) in damages to the Microsoft Corporation for software piracy. (...) Dazhong Insurance used at least 450 copies of pirated software and violated software piracy laws in nine categories".

Ficou claro como é que a pirataria pode ser fonte de progresso e de globalização?

Fonte de informação em rede social

Why Twitter Is the Future of News: An unprecedented analysis reveals that the micro-blogging service is remarkably effective at spreading "important" information.

Rapariga com brinco de pérola, rapaz com Bic


Vermeer with a BiC

Som visual (Gravité by Renaud Hallée)