Kaizen Bits

I was very much asked about the mess Spain is going through regarding Intellectual Property Rights, SGAE and so on and so forth. I am just talking about this privately because I am still in the process of taking decisions, choosing side and understand the whole thing.

Hence, I was very surprised when I could see and proof first hand the absolutely amazing efficiency of Spotify. Why didn´t we have this app before? A simple app that makes possible you listening to the Passenger (Iggy Pop), Je ne regrette rien (Edith Piaf) or the whole Trainspotting soundtrack. Why was it not before? Technical means? No way, there were there for a while.

Then what? And that question helps you to choose side.

It´s everywhere on the web now, Amazon just announced the release of its Kindle Development Kit, major features include:

– Multi- Platform
– Three kind of apps:

* Free – Active content applications that are smaller than 1MB and use less than 100KB/user/month of wireless data may be offered at no charge to customers. Amazon will pay the wireless costs associated with delivery and maintenance.
* One-time Purchase – Customers will be charged once when purchasing active content. Content must have nominal (less than 100KB/user/month) ongoing wireless usage.
* Monthly Subscription – Customers will be charged once per month for active content.

- User revenue will be split 70% to the developer and 30% to Amazon net of delivery fees of $0.15 / MB. Remember that unlike smart phones, the Kindle user does not pay a monthly wireless fee or enter into an annual wireless contract. Kindle active content must be priced to cover the costs of downloads and on-going usage.

Interesting stuff and Apple right about releasing its iSlate or whatever the name is, but it´s a tablet…

The fact that songs like Sour Times have been there for a while and I think I have heard them everywhere in the last years, for example, at the Tonka Club last week in Bucharest, does not mean that some of the songs are way too calm or at least, slow for me and I wanna get up the beats.

In general terms, nice album, but I would try harder. After listening Third last year, I definitely think the Bristol trio is getting much better.

I am just back from Bucharest where I attended a (really boring) EU project meeting (no offence intended for any of the participants, I think we would all agree). My impression of the city was very bad. Apart from old Communist style buildings, the center was quite dirty and dodgy. Services were way behind EU standards but at least, the food was good, beer is cold and people are nice.

A couple of colleagues from Greek institutions mentioned that there were Greek companies taking over in Romania, since it became the land of opportunities after Ceaucescu´s fall in 1989. Particularly, they talked about Cosmote, a subsidiary of Cosmote Greece, the largest mobile network operator in Greece, member of the OTE group. I was surprised to see that Cosmote also bought Germanos Group, a famous chain of stores mostly devoted the electrical devices, a kind of Mediamarkt. They also pointed at Everest, a fast-food chain from Greece.

That pointed out my total ignorance about companies and economic relationships in Eastern Europe, especially in South-Eastern Europe. A year and a half ago, when I was in Athens for a conference, I did not research or event think about most of these companies. However, they are now a good field to show up in future exams in my courses

Found it quite funny and quite true. Btw, those salaries must be US-based, I don´t see too much a correspondance with the EU (Spain, particularly) side.

Oh, and btw, Happy New Year 2010!!