Kaizen Bits

I have been very kindly invited for a research staying at University of Kjeller, in Norway, by Prof. Dr. Josef Noll.  I am very happy to be joining their group for a while and learn about what they are doing there.

 UniK was established as a non-profit educational and research foundation in 1987 by the University of Oslo (UiO) and the three major Kjeller research institutes: the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) and Telenor R&D (now located at Fornebu). In 1995 the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) also became a member of the foundation.

 They have close contact with industry, particularly with Telenor, the biggest Norwegian telco. Simply a great chance to enhance cooperation and boost sinergies.

Top ten dot-com flops:

1. Webvan (1999-2001); Supermarket products on the Web
2. Pets.com (1998-2000); Pets products. Ads are not enough to sustain a business on the Web.
3. Kozmo.com (1998-2001); Food and products directly to your home. Not enough.
4. Flooz.com (1998-2001); Paypal, but reckless.
5. eToys.com (1997-2001); Toy selling… again not enough.
6. Boo.com (1998-2000); No comments. They were not selling anything.
7. MVP.com (1999-2000); Names of famous sporstmen. No big deal.
8. Go.com (1998-2001); Disney trying to make a search engine.
   
9. Kibu.com (1999-2000); teenage girls…
10. GovWorks.com (1999-2000); Citizen source, Start.com.

Lessons of Web 1.0, be aware for Web 2.0 (thanks, El Blog Salmón).

And yet another promising reading, The Undercover Economist is the perfect example of how a “serious” book, actually an essay can turn into the outmost amenity and interest. Tim Harford, a well-known economist knocks the dust off with the very simple question of “Why do we pay so much for a coffe at Starbucks?”.

From then on, a tour on the XIX century theory of David Ricardo about “the economy of shortage” or the truth that lies in the perfect market systems (hey, I am still reading there) are a promising trip all over the world with the glasses of the economist that underlies all of us.

Usually I don´t talk in this blog about what I am currently reading but with manga comic Ryugetsusho from acclaimed manga author Ryoichi Ikegami, let´s make an exception. Basically, I started loving Japanese culture long ago: food, literature, movies.. there are few countries in the world I want to know as much as Japan. But this manga is particularly interesting because it is focused on violence and erotism, two rare ingredients of the manga recipe (at least manga based on samurais tales).

In this tale, the hero is a samurai who belongs to a non-human race, the Saishi, a race of warriors that were used by the Shôgun, The General, at the end of the Edo time. The end of the Shôgun era is approaching and the convulse history of Japan is the perfect background for these stories.

I am pondering the issue of changing this blog from English to Spanish. After having a look at the stats of the weblog Spain visits are leading by far, so I was wondering if it would make sense to change the language.

Actually, when I came back from Ireland, end of exile , I decided to write in English because I knew that most of Spanish people reading my blog could understand it and the other way round was not true. However, now I do not feel like the cultural link with outer space that tight, so I am not sure…

What should I do?

Our paper BIRD has been finally accepted at the IWINAC2007, which will be celebrated at La Manga (South east of Spain) on June, 18th-21st. The location is very convenient because I can reach it by train and I am looking fwd to seeing a bit more of the Bio-research community.

You always wanted to know how the YouTube pipe looks like, uhhh…Well,Vidmeter just released a first report on how videos are removed from YouTube as requested by “the big ones”, namely: Viacom, TimeWaner, NBC, BBC, NBA, SONY, Disney, News Corp, y Disney…

That is depicted in the figure.

However, here is the punchline: copyright videos are scarcely 5% of YouTube views.

Oh, boy, that is user generated content, as it stands…

(Via Denken Úber)

After using Windows Vista a couple of days, I am not sure if I fully understood the whole buzz of the new Microsoft bang. Firstly, there was the woooed Vista DRM that was cracked the very same day it was released (also in Slashdot).  Then there was buzz about how unsafe it was and the thousand security patches that would flow by.

Fair enough. However, from a user perspective, I don´t see it so terrible. The interface and look is cool, images and music gained momentum (as it was expected) and Internet Explorer (an app I used to hate, loathe and detest) got this Mozilla touch (even tabs!!) that makes it… usable, at least.

So what is all the noise about? Microsoft. The simple idea that the Redmond company imposed, imposes and will impose  a de-facto standard is not bearable by the community. Again fair enough, but I would need to see real stuff to complain heavily (I will hold my breath till new drivers get installed ).

From the Guardian: “This summer, Britain’s teenagers will be able to stop badgering their parents to pay off their mobile phone bills, with the launch of a new service that offers free calls and texts provided users are willing to receive adverts on their phones.

Blyk, a start-up run by the former president of the Finnish mobile firm Nokia, will today announce it has signed deals with advertisers including Coca-Cola, L’Oréal and Buena Vista, part of the Disney media empire, as it works up to a summer launch in the UK.”

Not a bad idea. The business model is quite clear and you can definitely make money out of it. Also, the customer target is quite accurate, since teens are mostly early-adopters (they won´t bother about this while adults might), big spenders and have low income rates. Let´s see if Blyk makes it happen… would a similar offer make sense in Spain? Perhaps from an upcoming VMO?

Thanks, Marcos!!