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This is the Oresund Bridge which connects Sweden & Denmark… (And we Kenyans are wowed by the Thika Superhighway!)

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Alexander Oswald is a Senior Marketing Manager with 13 years Management experience in telecommunication and consumer electronics industry. He has worked for global brands in fast changing business environments, whilst having a focus on Central & South East Europe. At the present time he is Head of Marketing at Nokia, covering several countries, including Switzerland, Cyprus, Israel and of course Austria. Adding to his durable career path, Alexander is also co-author of the first handbook for mobile marketing and mobile campaigns in German language, “Mobile Marketing”

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I reckon it’s built using LEGO Mindstorms and a Samsung Galaxy S…

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Last year, Chinese scientists showed off some new old-school tech, transmitting data with blue LEDs that flicker faster than the human eye can perceive. This throwback to the good ol’ days of IR receivers was able to hit speeds of 2Mbps but leave it to the fine folks at the Heinrich Hertz Institute to push the light bulb networking tech to the extremes! Earlier this year researchers hit 500Mbps with white LEDs; now, using a combination of white, green, blue & red, the team ramped that up to 800Mbps, officially putting Ethernet on notice. The line-of-sight networking won’t actually replace your standard Cat 5 line or WiFi router but it could find a home in places like hospitals where radio-based wireless technology can cause problems for sensitive equipment. With any luck, we’ll soon be bathing our homes in HD-streaming illumination.

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This is the only Batmobile created that makes fiction reality! It is powered by a military spec Boeing turbo shaft engine driving the rear wheels through a semi automatic gearbox. It features a custom tube frame with fully independent suspension, disc brakes & a sequential shifter. It runs on kerosene, diesel or jet fuel & has a power to weight ratio comparable to a Dodge Viper. The car is registered & insured for the road in the United States. Built in 2011 by Casey Putsch of Putsch Racing.

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Thirty years ago, memory expansion for a VIC-20 was 8 KB. (On the right) Currently, memory expansion for an MP3 player is 16 Gb.  (On the left) That is two million times as much memory! We’re living in the future!

Just have a look at this instrument…

The Apple iPad...

A type of mini-computer in form of a slate with a very sleek Graphical User Interface (G.U.I.). It’s Steve Jobs (C.E.O. of Apple) dream device.

I’d like to share some of the iPad’s features:

Safari...

The large multi-touch screen on iPad lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen one whole page at a time. With vibrant colour & sharp text. So, whether you’re looking at  a page in portrait or landscape, you can see everything at a size that’s actually readable. Navigating the web has never been easier or more intuitive because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger. You can scroll through a page just by flicking your finger up or down the screen, pinch to zoom in or out on a photo etc. There’s also a thumbnail view that shows all your open pages in a grid to let you quickly move from one page to the next.

Photos...

With its crisp, vibrant display & its unique software features, the iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy & share your photos. For example, the new Photos App displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap or pinch to open the stack & the whole album opens up then you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, watch a slideshow etc. You can even use your iPad as a beautiful digital photo frame while your iPad is docked or charging. There are lots of ways to import photos: you can sync them from your computer, download them from an e-mail or import them directly from your camera using the Apple Camera Connection Kit.

Video...

The large high resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching any kind of video: from HD movies & TV shows, to podcasts & music videos. You can also easily move between wide-screen & full screen with a double tap. Because it’s essentially one big screen, with no buttons or anything to distract you, the picture fills your line of sight. So you feel completely immersed in what you’re watching.

YouTube...

The YouTube App organizes videos so they’re really easy to see & navigate. To watch one, you just tap it. When you’re watching in landscape, the video will automatically play in fullscreen & with its high-resolution display, the latest YouTube HD videos will look amazing on iPad.

iPod...

With the iPod App, all your music is literally at your fingertips. You can browse by album, song, artist or genre with a simple flick. To play a song, just tap it & the now playing screen will show the album art at full size then you can listen to your music with either the powerful built-in speaker or with wired or bluetooth wireless headphones.

iTunes...

Just tap on the iTunes Store icon & you can browse & buy music, TV shows, podcasts – or buy & rent movies – wirelessly, right from your iPad. There are thousands of movies & TV shows (in both standard & high definition), along with thousands of podcasts & millions of songs to choose from. You can even preview songs before you buy them & sync the iPad with the content you already have in your iTunes library on your Mac or PC.

App Store...

iPad will run almost 140,000 apps for the App Store. Everything from games to business apps & more. New apps that have been designed just for iPad are highlighted so you can easily find the ones that take full advantage of its features. Just tap the App Store icon on the screen & you’ll be able to browse, buy & download apps wirelessly, right to the iPad.

Books...

The iBooks app is a great, new way to read & buy books. Just download the app for free from the App Store & you’ll be able to buy everything from classics to bestsellers from built-in iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your bookshelf. To read it, all you have to do is tap on it & it opens up. The high-resolution LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich colour so it’s easy to read, even in low light.

Maps...

See more of the world with high-resolution satellite & street view images. You can even see topography with the new terrain view. You can also search for a nearby business type (for example, “Restaurant”) & then tap on that business to see the route & directions from your current location.

Notes...

With its extensive display & large, on-screen keyboard, iPad makes jotting down notes easy. In landscape mode, you get not only a note-taking page but a list of all your notes. It even circles the current note in red so you can see where you are at a glance.

Calendar...

iPad makes it easy to keep on schedule by displaying Day, Week, Month or List views of your calendar. That way, you can see an overview of a whole month or the details of a single day. iPad will even show multiple calendars at once, so you can manage work & family calendars at the same time.

Contacts...

The Contacts App on iPad makes finding names, numbers & other important information quicker & easier than before. A new view lets you see both your complete contact list & a single contact simultaneously. Need directions? Just tap on an address inside a contact & it’ll open Maps.

Home Screen...

The Home Screen gives you one-tap access to everything on iPad. You can also customize your Home Screen by adding your favourite Apps & websites or using your own photos for the background. You can move Apps around to arrange them in any order you want.

Spotlight Search...

Spotlight Search allows you to search across iPad & all of its built-in Apps including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, iPod & Notes. It’ll even search Apps you’ve downloaded from the App Store. So, no matter what you’re looking for, it’s never more than a few taps away.

Smart Internet search will be done with a mobile device in the near future. A mobile device with a touch screen, built-in-camera, scanner, WiFi, Google Maps (hopefully Google Earth), Google Search, Image Search etc…

When you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result on the spot...

Choose a building, touch a floor & it tells you more details of the building. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant & how much, who built a bridge etc...

It's got a scanner built in...

So you can use it way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine etc. (It would be much easier to read a real book) You can use the dictionary, wikipedia, thesaurus & anything else available on the web... What do you think?

Indoor guide: Works in a building, airport, station, hospital etc...

Automatic simultaneous translation: Here, from Latin to English...

Search keyword: Helpful when you want to find out a word from a lot of text in a newspaper/book...

Nutrition: This kind of function would be helpful for health freaks...

In 2009, Taiwan finished construction on a solar-powered stadium that will generate 100% of its electricity from photovoltaic technology. Designed by Toyo Ito, the 50,000-seat arena opened to welcome the 2009 World Games which features many sports not included in the Olympics such as parachuting, tenpin bowling & rugby sevens…

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

I’ve come across some nice infographics from Samuel Degremont on information flows before the Twitter era & after Twitter. I am copying these graphics below.

Before Twitter...

After Twitter...

As you can see from the graphs, Twitter has changed the flow of information & news quite drastically. What do you think?