An update on China

Google, 6/28/2010 10:45:00 PM

Ever since we launched Google.cn, our search engine for mainland Chinese users, we have done our best to increase access to information while abiding by Chinese law. This has not always been an easy balance to strike, especially since our January announcement that we were no longer willing to censor results on Google.cn.

We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable—and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it’s up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China.

That’s a prospect dreaded by many of our Chinese users, who have been vocal about their desire to keep Google.cn alive. We have therefore been looking at possible alternatives, and instead of automatically redirecting all our users, we have started taking a small percentage of them to a landing page on Google.cn that links to Google.com.hk—where users can conduct web search or continue to use Google.cn services like music and text translate, which we can provide locally without filtering. This approach ensures we stay true to our commitment not to censor our results on Google.cn and gives users access to all of our services from one page.

Over the next few days we’ll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP license renewal application based on this approach.

As a company we aspire to make information available to users everywhere, including China. It’s why we have worked so hard to keep Google.cn alive, as well as to continue our research and development work in China. This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self censor and, we believe, with local law. We are therefore hopeful that our license will be renewed on this basis so we can continue to offer our Chinese users services via Google.cn.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

The new landing page offers a link to unfiltered results

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Why Can't My CIO Be More Like Me?

Bloomberg, By Susan Cramm - Jun 24, 2010

Every profession has its stereotype. Operations guys are risk adverse. Marketing types are emotional. 

Finance wonks are narrow-minded. CIOs are interpersonally awkward and out of step with the business.

Stereotypes persist because, at some level, they contain some truth. People gravitate to professions that fit their motivators and abilities. Operations guys are disciplined. Marketing types are creative. Finance wonks are detailed oriented. CIOs are systems thinkers who are fascinated by how things work.

Our differences are important and define our unique contributions. But differences are also inconvenient. And many companies are incapable of effectively managing the differences and try instead to manage out the differences.

In the last 15 years, companies have wanted CIOs to act less like CIOs and more like general business leaders. Problem is, when you try to have it all, sometimes you don't get what you really need. In thinking about what you need out of your CIO, consider the following:

The CIO job is really, really hard. Imagine trying to deliver complex products and services to technically unsophisticated and, for the most part, patently uninterested business "partners." Factor in the difficulty of ensuring security and operational stability while delivering new capabilities. Consider the difficulty of doing so while incorporating disruptive technologies and constraining funding. And do all of the above while convincing your internal team to stay focused and motivated. The CIO job is hard and it makes many good CIOs look bad.

CIOs, in their heart and soul, should love technology. You need a CIO who knows how can technology can be applied, what technology is ready for prime time, and how to make sure that it works, rather than hurts, the business. Consider AT&T's iPhone incident. The company's technical infrastructure failed to process orders and keep information secure. There are myriad possible root causes — forecasting, financing, staffing, and technical. If options were considered, risks assessed, and decisions were made that ended up being wrong, that's understandable. But if any of the executives in charge (sales, finance, operations, and IT) didn't know what they didn't know, that's inexcusable.

Great CIOs are technologists who have mastered the art of leadership. They are leaders who possess technical acumen, but also understand how to improve and grow the business, influence others, deliver results, and drive strategic change. Unfortunately, most leaders, and CIOs, are good, but not great. Research shows that only 10% of leaders possess strong capabilities across the five critical attributes: character, interpersonal skills, professional acumen, results orientation and strategy change.

If you're lucky, you'll have a great CIO. More likely, you'll have a good one. Generalists don't make good CIOs. If your company spends a lot on IT or is interested in doing something remotely interesting with technology, don't trade off technical skills for general leadership skills. It's okay that the CEO of BP isn't a drilling expert, but let's hope (for BP's sake and ours) that he has one sitting in his staff meetings. As long as your CIO is technically savvy and able to deliver results in a high integrity manner, cut her some slack and lend her a hand. Help her define how technology can drive your business. Partner with her to sell in a strategic initiative. Coach her on how to present the IT spend in a way that woos the CFO. Take the lead on driving strategic business change.

It's our differences that make us special and underlie our unique contribution. Since your CIO will never be like you, or you like him, it's much more productive to focus on perfecting the relationship and forgo trying to perfect the person.

Obama Says Twitter May Replace Kremlin Red Phones

Obama jokes that Twitter may eliminate need for red phones between White House and Kremlin

ABC News, The Associated Press, WASHINGTON June 24, 2010 (AP)

President Barack Obama and Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev arrive for their joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, June 24, 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(AP)

President Barack Obama says Twitter accounts might eliminate the need for dedicated phone lines between Russian and U.S. leaders.

In a lighthearted moment Thursday, Obama said that both he and visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev use the popular social networking program.

Obama said "we may be able to finally throw away those red phones" that were designed to allow immediate contact between the Kremlin and the White House during the cold war.

Obama made the remarks at the start of a joint news conference with Medvedev at the White House.

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Kiss the Grid Goodbye: Power Your Home with a Bloom Box!

Greenopolis

Fuel cells have been a tantilizing technolgy for decades - powering space vehicles, but always a little out of reach for domestic or commercial use. I worked with Greenopolis Partner Plug Power for years - working to provide clean on site energy from hydrogen powered fuel cells. Now there’s the Bloom Box.

That’s not a typo for a new carry-on-your shoulder stereo system. The Bloom Box is a refrigerator-sized box that can power your whole house, store or business.

Bloom Energy is a venture capital funded firm that builds the “Bloom Box”- an appliance sized unit that houses fuel cells running on natural gas, landfill gas, bio-gas or solar power. Fuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen and emit only heat, electricity and distilled water.

Google has been powering a datacenter with 4 Bloom Boxes running on natural gas for the past year and a half. eBay has 5 of them in San Jose, which they claim have saved them $100,000 in energy costs over the past 9 months.

The Bloom Box debuted on CBS’ 60 Minutes last night.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Is the fuel cell promise finally coming true? Is there a box in your future? Stay tuned, and keep your ear glued to the Bloom Box.

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Google's new search index Caffeine goes live

CNET News, by Tom Krazit

Google's new Caffeine search index will crawl the Web more frequently and in smaller bites in hopes of amassing Web content more quickly and comprehensively than before. (Credit: Google)

Google has finally released the awaited update to its search indexing technology, providing a jolt of Caffeine to the search industry.

The company announced the release of its Caffeine indexing technology--which it has been testing for almost a year--in a blog post late Tuesday evening. "Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before," the company said in a blog post.

Google started testing Caffeine in August 2009, and search guru Matt Cutts said in November to expect the new system to go live "after the holidays," although it didn't sound like he had meant Memorial Day. At the time, Google said the new index would be the most significant change it has made to the basic technology that crawls the Internet and ranks Web pages since 2006.

Speed and comprehensiveness were the goals of the new project. Google said a new system was required to keep up with an explosion in Web content over the last couple of years with the advent of blogs, videos, and social-media technologies coming online. Google will update its index more frequently with Caffeine than it did with the old system and will bite off smaller portions of the Web at a time rather than re-indexing the entire Web to refresh the index.

"We've built Caffeine with the future in mind. Not only is it fresher, it's a robust foundation that makes it possible for us to build an even faster and comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online, and delivers even more relevant search results to you," software engineer Carrie Grimes said in the post.

Please let us know if you notice any significant difference in your search results over the next several weeks. It's not clear whether Google simply flipped a switch and brought the entire system online Tuesday evening or plans to roll it out gradually as it usually does with major changes.

China defends internet censorship

BBC News, By Michael Bristow, Beijing, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 10:21 UK

Google pulled out of mainland China in March over censorship rules

China has defended its right to censor the internet in a document laying out the government's attitude towards the web.

It says the country has the right to govern the internet according to its own rules inside its borders.

The white paper also reveals just how fast the internet has developed in China in the 16 years since it was first connected.

By the end of last year the country had 384m internet users.

'Freedom of speech'

The white paper, released on Tuesday, called the internet "a crystallisation of human wisdom".

But in the document the government lays out some of the reasons why its citizens cannot get access to all of that wisdom.

It says it wants to curb the harmful effects of illegal information on state security, public interests and children.

"Laws and regulations clearly prohibit the spread of information that contains content subverting state power, undermining national unity [or] infringing upon national honour and interests," it says.

Websites, blogs and information deemed sensitive by the Chinese government is routinely blocked using a range of technological tools, dubbed the Great Firewall of China.

The country's state secrets law has just been amended in a way that makes internet and telecommunications firms now responsible for helping the government police the web.

Despite that, China still maintains that its people have unfettered access to the internet. "Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the internet," says the white paper.

In another section, China reaffirms its determination to govern the internet within its borders according to its own rules.

"Within Chinese territory the internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. The internet sovereignty of China should be respected and protected," it says.

It adds that foreign individuals and firms can use the internet in China, but they must abide by the country's laws.

Google recently pulled out of mainland China, saying it was no longer willing to accept government censorship. Its Chinese-language services are now based in Hong Kong.

The document also reveals just how fast the internet is developing in China. The government hopes that nearly half the population will have access to the internet within five years.

That figure is nearly 30% at the moment.

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As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

NASA Science

June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Many technologies of the 21st century are vulnerable to solar storms. [more]

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. "NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what's happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment."

Click on the image to play a 39 MB movie about space weather and NASA's heliophysics fleet. [more]

Among dozens of NASA spacecraft, he notes three of special significance: STEREO, SDO and ACE.

STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is a pair of spacecraft stationed on opposite sides of the sun with a combined view of 90% of the stellar surface. In the past, active sunspots could hide out on the sun's farside, invisible from Earth, and then suddenly emerge over the limb spitting flares and CMEs. STEREO makes such surprise attacks impossible.

SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory) is the newest addition to NASA's fleet. Just launched in February, it is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Researchers can now study eruptions in exquisite detail, raising hopes that they will learn how flares work and how to predict them. SDO also monitors the sun's extreme UV output, which controls the response of Earth's atmosphere to solar variability.

On April 19, 2010, SDO observed one of the most massive eruptions in years. Earth was not in the line of fire ... this time. [full story]

Bogdan's favorite NASA satellite, however, is an old one: the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) launched in 1997. "Where would we be without it?" he wonders. ACE is a solar wind monitor. It sits upstream between the sun and Earth, detecting solar wind gusts, billion-ton CMEs, and radiation storms as much as 30 minutes before they hit our planet.

"ACE is our best early warning system," says Bogdan. "It allows us to notify utility and satellite operators when a storm is about to hit.”

NASA spacecraft were not originally intended for operational forecasting—"but it turns out that our data have practical economic and civil uses," notes Fisher. "This is a good example of space science supporting modern society."

2010 marks the 4th year in a row that policymakers, researchers, legislators and reporters have gathered in Washington DC to share ideas about space weather. This year, forum organizers plan to sharpen the focus on critical infrastructure protection. The ultimate goal is to improve the nation’s ability to prepare, mitigate, and respond to potentially devastating space weather events.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher concludes. "We take this very seriously indeed."

For more information about the meeting, please visit the Space Weather Enterprise Forum home page at http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2010.html.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

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Bangladesh lifts facebook ban

Antara News, Sunday, June 6, 2010 14:58 WIB

Dhaka (ANTARA News/Reuters) - Bangladesh has lifted a ban on social networking site Facebook after it removed "objectionable" content about the Prophet Mohammad and the country`s political leaders, the telecoms regulatory agency said on Sunday.

Facebook was blocked last week after publication of caricatures of the Prophet that hurt the religious sentiments of the country`s majority Muslim population.

"The ban on Facebook has been lifted late on Saturday after the authorities removed the objectionable contents from the sites," said a senior official of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

Facebook was barred by a court in Pakistan, also overwhelmingly Muslim, because of an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad, but was unblocked last week.

Hundreds of protesters marched through Dhaka demanding action against Facebook while users said the government should have blocked specific links instead of blocking the whole website.

A man was arrested in Dhaka for posting "obnoxious" images of the country`s political leaders, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia.

Facebook has become hugely popular among Bangladeshis, especially educated young people.

The publication of cartoons of the Prophet in Danish newspapers in 2005 sparked deadly protests in Muslim countries.

Around 50 people were killed in 2006 demonstrations over the cartoons.

Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous by Muslims.

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Smart clothes offer emotional aid

BBC News, Friday, 4 June 2010 10:50 UK

The clothes have pockets to hold gadgets that connect them to the web

Smart clothes could soon be helping their wearers cope with the stresses of modern life.

The prototype garments monitor physiological states including temperature and heart rate.

The clothes are connected to a database that analyses the data to work out a person's emotional state.

Media, including songs, words and images, are then piped to the display and speakers in the clothes to calm a wearer or offer support.

Created as part of an artistic project called Wearable Absence the clothes are made from textiles woven with different sorts of wireless sensors. These can track a wide variety of tell-tale biological markers including temperature, heart rate, breathing and galvanic skin response.

Data is gathered passively and used to trigger a response from a web-based database previously created by the wearer. The clothes connect to the web via a smartphone.

When the wearer is detected as being in a particular emotional state, the database will send media to the clothes to help try to change a person's mood

To accomplish this, the clothes are fitted with display made of LEDs and have speakers built in to the hood. The display can show scrolling text or simple images and the speakers can replay music, sounds or pre-recorded messages from friends or family.

Developed by Barbara Layne from Concordia University in Canada and Janis Jefferies from Goldsmiths College's Digital Studios, the prototype garments were shown at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held in Montreal from 28 May - 3 June.

Earlier work by Professor Layne created jackets that knew when their owners were touching and changed the messages being displayed on the LED displays sewn into them.

Hewlett-Packard to cut 9,000 jobs worldwide

BBC News, Tuesday, 1 June 2010 13:40 UK

Hewlett-Packard cut 6,700 jobs last year to make savings

Hewlett-Packard (HP) says it plans to spend $1bn (£686m) and shed 9,000 jobs over three years as it creates fully-automated commercial data centres.

HP, the world's largest technology company by sales, says the job cuts will be the result of productivity gains and automation.

HP said the resulting "next-generation services" would benefit clients.

The firm said it would record a $1bn financial cost charge in the course of its 2013 financial year.

"As a result of productivity gains and automation, HP expects to eliminate roughly 9,000 positions over a multi-year period to reinvest for further growth and to increase shareholder value," it said.

It said the shake-up would make it annual gross savings of about $1bn and net savings "after reinvestment in a range between $500m and $700m".

HP added that it would replace about 6,000 of the jobs that were lost, adding that the changes to the workforce would be made over time and would vary by country.

And it said the commercial data centres would help its corporate clients run their businesses faster and more efficiently.

The latest job losses come after 6,700 posts were shed last year to make savings.

Indonesian Is Number One Asian Language on Facebook

Jakarta Globe, June 01, 2010

An Indonesian man checks his Facebook page at an Internet cafe in Jakarta. A new study shows that Indonesian is the top Asian language used on Facebook and the fifth most popular in the world. (AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah)

Indonesian is the top Asian language used on Facebook and the fifth most popular in the world, according to a new study of languages used on the social networking site.

More than 20 million Indonesian speakers are now Facebook members, the survey by research company Inside Network found.

English is the most common language, with over half of Facebook’s 400 million-plus users — followed by Spanish, French and Turkish.

But Indonesians are way ahead of the Asian pack, despite patchy communications infrastructure and little computer access for many of the country’s 234 million people.

And it could lead to money-making opportunities, according to the California-based research company’s Inside Facebook site, which tracks the social networking giant’s rapid spread across the planet.

“As Facebook continues to grow around the world, and add the bulk of its new users in countries outside of the United States, users’ language may become an increasingly important factor for marketers and developers,” the report said.

It underlined the importance of tailoring the site to different cultures and localities.

Last month, online tracking firm comScore said Facebook delivered 176.3 billion display ads to US users alone in the first three months of the year.

But as Facebook expands, so has criticism of the company’s privacy settings and allegations of blasphemy.

The site was blocked in Pakistan for almost two weeks until Monday following a storm of controversy over a contest organised by an anonymous Facebook user calling on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed.

And Facebook is no stranger to religious controversy in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Last May hundreds of clerics from Java and Bali islands urged top religious authorities to issue a fatwa, or edict, banning Facebook for Muslims.

The clerics argued the site enables unregulated chatting between the sexes, opening the door for “obscenity,” pornography, premarital sex and adultery.

Discussion groups ranging in topics from politics to Japanese animation and homosexuality in the national language dot the Web site.

“Facebook is like a magnet that attracts people to join,” the cleric who headed the meeting, Abdul Muid Sohib, said.

“We all know that some Facebook users use it to offer themselves for prostitution.”

Tens of thousands of Indonesians signed up to Facebook groups condemning the clerics’ call.

Agence France-Presse