Petras dotmobi - Technology, science and nature in harmony

Next up: Mobile Brain Bank London, April 13

2010-03-12T14:41:00Z

If you happen to be in London on April 13, 2o10, you are cordially invited for drinks and mobile start-up pitches with the Mobile Brain Bank. The MoBB London synapse is sponsored by Grow VC, a crowdfunding initiative.

We convene at the Clachan Pub in SoHo at 6 pm. Registration and sign-up to pitch your start-up via here.

Best selling touch screen in Finland: Samsung's pink ribbon fighting breast cancer

2010-03-09T07:21:00Z

You didn't see this one coming, did you. While us tech people think that people go crazy over this and that technological hype, purchase decisions are done by what really matters.

Samsung's pink ribbon campaign made their S5230 the best selling touch screen device in Finland at the end of 2009. During the campaign, Samsung sold over 20 000 pink ribbon devices (S5600 ja S5230). Five euros of each devices went directly to the Finnish Cancer Foundation, adding up to 110 000 euros.

To spell it out, if Samsung's pink ribbon phone was the best selling touch screen device over the 2009 Christmas holidays, it was selling more than iPhone, or any Nokia or Android touch screen phone. Something to think about. And if people were bying pink touch screen devices, they most likely were bought by women and for women. Something else to think about.

And to get this result with a phone that has probably the most difficult color, is quite amazing. To spell this one out, pink is NOT every girls favorite color.

Link to Samsung press release in Finnish.

Developing countries drowning in e-waste

2010-02-24T09:19:00Z

This is shameful to us working in the electronic industry. Although some companies are behaving quite nicely and implementing take-back and recycling programs, the amount of abandonded electonic equipment is massive.

United Nations Environment Programme issued a report called "Recycling - From E-waste to Resources", which reveals for example that for example China produced about 2.3 million tons of e-waste domestically a year, second only to the United States with 3 million tons.

By 2020, e-waste from old computers in South Africa and China is predicted to jump by 200 and 400 percent respectively from 2007 levels, and by 500 percent in India. By the same year in China, e-waste from discarded mobile phones will be about seven times higher than 2007 levels, and 18 time higher in India, the report says.

More e-waste is expected to be dumped in developing countries in the wake of rocketing sales and aggressive marketing of cell phones and other electronic appliances.

Read full story e.g. here

Funding Squeeze Sends Finland’s Alcohol-Loving Rats to the US

2010-02-22T19:18:00Z

Oh, the things recession forces us to do. Now Finland is starting to ship our alcoholics away. US, please take good care of our rats.

The story and pic from YLE:

Spending cuts at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) are halving the number of alcohol researchers at the organisation. The institute is also forced to relinquish its special strain of alcohol-preferring rats, which Finnish researchers have used to study alcoholism since the 1960s.

Critics say the cuts will cause Finland to lose its standing in the field of alcohol research. Scientists say they're in the midst of experiments that provide clues to what triggers dependence in the brain.

“We are researching medications aimed at suppressing drinking urges and improving stress management among alcoholics,” says Kalervo Kiianmaa, a professor at the institute.

THL's Director General Pekka Puska points out that the research organisations that merged to form the THL last year—STAKES (National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health) and the KTL (National Public Health Institute)—had produced a fair amount of alcohol research over the years.

“Public spending is tight and that's unfortunate as we’re dealing with an enormous problem,” says Puska.

Rats Help Alcohol Studies

THL researchers have studied specially bred rats to help determine how alcohol dependence develops. Rats are bred in two main categories: those in the AA-line are brought up as high-drinkers while the teetotaler ANA rats avoid alcohol.

If an AA rat is faced with a choice of alcohol or water, it always chooses alcohol. Some medications on the market today used to treat alcoholism can be traced back to studies with rats.

Neither universities nor public institutes can afford to house the rat laboratory for continued research. This summer the rodents will be transported to laboratories in the United States, leaving Finnish scientists behind.

So now we just need to figure out how we can send alcoholics of the other species somewhere. Any asylum offerings?

Analog camera boom

2010-02-22T18:52:00Z

This is interesting: All of Europe has run out of film. The beautiful snowy weather has made people want to take exceptionally much pictures this winter, not with their usual digital camera but with their old analog film cameras. This again proves my "Nature 2.0" theory and "everything going to slow".

According to the Finnish news tonight, it's not only the older generation who sticks to their old cameras, but actually skateboarders, graffiti artist and the younger generation who now defines grainy black&white pictures cool. Taking b/w pictures has developed into a new undergound culture. Very retro, I like it.

The news at YLE in Finnish.

Image source (yeah I know it's a digital, but he looks so cool ..)

Crowdfunding with Grow VC

2010-02-21T15:38:00Z

I mentioned this in the previous entry, as a debrief of what was exciting at Mobile World Congress. Grow VC is a crowdfunding service. The idea is to collect enough money in small amounts, from enough people, to be able to provide seed fund for starting mobile and web companies.

I joined the community as a funder yesterday. I'm paying 20 dollars a month. In exchange, I can invest my money in any of the growing number of startups in the system. In exchange, you get a share in the company.

I will be reporting back on the experience. But for now, we need more good startups in the community. If you have a company and you are looking for funding, please log on and give your company details. You are not bound to anything.

MWC debrief

2010-02-20T12:05:00Z

So this years Mobile World Congress week is over. Let's see what I thought was remarkable enough to stick with me all the way back to Finland, and to the weekend.

Monday

Monday was a day with the startups, attending Mobile Premier Awards (MPA). I had also entered Mobile Brain Bank into the the awards on several categories, but unfortunately was not nominated. Nominees and winners for many categories were selected by the Mobile Monday chapters, but none of the Finnish Mobile Mondays participated. I found that surprising and odd. After all, Mobile Monday was founded in Helsinki.

Augmented reality is obviously hot. Layar won the MPA in Entertainment and Marketing, also nominated for MPA in innovation for emerging startups. Other AR firms were Mobilizy, Mobile Acuity, and Flook.

My favorites were Flook, TaxiPal, Voicetap Technologies, and the winner of social change category, Rede Joven. Rede Joven is putting Brazilian slums onto the map. These areas have no streets, no addresses, but these young people created maps by walking around the allies with their gps enabled mobile phones.

Monday night was topped with Nokia party, with much talks around MeeGo. Many people recognize the whole Qt story as one of Nokia's strong points during 2010 and 2011, and not the least with a full Qt UI framework introduced with Symbian^4. Qt also had a very busy stand at the expo hall.

Tuesday

Tuesday's highlight was lunch with the Women in Mobile Data Association. Some tens of women crammed in an upstairs of a cozy Spanish restaurant, enjoying food, drinks, and good company. Thanks Helen, Anna, and HipLogic for making it happen. Impressive new friends made there include Nora Rothrock, who launched her first website in 1993 as the seventh domain in the internet, and Alice Bragg from the World Film Collective. The World Film Collective improves lives of disadvantaged children by introducing them to film making. There were a number of other really interesting people, too, especially developers and entrepreneurs, but unfortunately I didn't have time to talk to everybody.

Tuesday's party was of course the Symbian Foundation get-together. I met some new friends and colleagues, but mostly it was relaxing with the old friends. And by the way if you haven't heard, Symbian source code is now open for anyone to access and deploy. Enjoy.

Wednesday

Wednesday was for touring the expo. If I start closer to home, the Finnish Mobile Association pavilion featured some interesting start-ups. Firstly, Powerkiss, of course. The wireless charging for any device, mounted in a table, or as a separate system. Awesome.

A totally new acquaintance was a company called Xtract. Their idea is to use insights from people's social networks, and not just FB or Twitter, but actual phone use, to commercial benefits. They sell Social Network Analysis (SNA) to operators, so the the operator knows their customer better and can offer products and services that are more likely to appeal. I think that's brilliant for two reasons: First, will reduce the amount of garbage advertisement I get from my operator, and second, finally some good commercial use for all the data that lies in the networks.

Wednesday night I spent with the Swedish Beers talking to many many Symbian developers from Israel, including Ofir Leitner who is not only the founder of Mobile Monday in Tel Aviv, but was also the mastermind behind the brilliant Java application "MWC parties" that guided me in the evenings. Vodafone and the OMTP guys were there and we had interesting talks on BONDI, and the newly launched Wholesale Application Community, and how that compares with for example Symbian's Horizon and Nokia's Ovi Store. (The answer: they all have a distinct role, but covering that to detail would take another full blog entry).

One of the constant talks at the Mobile Brain Bank, a peer network for mobile startups, is how and where to get funding. I was really excited about meeting Jouko Ahvenainen, Chairman of Grow VC. They claim to be the first global crowdfunding tool for web and mobile startups. TechCruch has mentioned Grow VC to be the "Kiva" for tech startups. I'm a member of Kiva, supporter of tech startups, and an investor so how can I refuse such a great opportunity. I will log onto Grow VC right after I finish this entry.

Thursday

Thursday was the day to go home, but I did have hours to make a final round at the expo hall. Mobile Brain Bank is planning an event later this year on mobile business in Africa, and I managed to find some potential participants to that event. As fun as the whole week was, getting home was nice, too. For pictures from the week, go to my MWC folder in Ovi.

Printed phonebooks (!)

2010-02-08T11:32:00Z

I received a printed phone catalog in the mail, and felt like I'd been thrown back some 10 years or so. Why, oh, why would anyone print hundreds of thousands of paper books, distribute them to people who will never open them, but load on their cars and hopefully bring to be recycle, and not to landfill.

The catalog weighed 1,684 kg. According to Conserveatree, which seems to be a reliable and much quoted source for these things, it takes 12 trees to make a ton of this quality paper. 12 divided by 1000, times 1,684 equals 0,020208. So, fifty of these books took down a tree. If 500,000 books were made, it equals ten thousand trees.

I will need to drive 21 km one way to reach the closes paper collection point. My Prius exhales 108 grams of CO2 per km, so 42 times 0,108 equals 4,536 kg of CO2. Four and a half kilos, people.

Helsinki region has some 1 million people, many of which are single households. They don't use printed phonebooks. They use their mobile. This doesn't make any sense. Since the company obviously knows everyones's phone numbers, why don't they send an SMS to everyone and ask to confirme with A or B if we want to receive the book or not.

What madness!

Source

Second coming of peddlers

2010-02-07T10:09:00Z

I've entertained this idea that all of the good things we abandoned in the industrial revolution, is coming back. Tall ships, bicycles, slow food, local produce, passive housing, living partly in caves, water and wind energy etc. It's becoming like Spinning-Jenny never existed. One addition to the list is peddlers.

When I was a kid, our summer house was visited twice a week by a shopping bus. It was a bus sent from the shopkeeper in the city, carrying most everyday necessities. You only needed to go into the city when you needed something extra. This is still used today in remote areas, like Lapland where the picture is from.

Now a Finnish economist Mika Pantzar suggest that we all should go back to this era. According to him, the logistics model where people travel to shops is much more harmful to the environment, than a logistics model where the goods are distributed to people by the shops. It would also make economical sense. He estimates that the Finnish consumers spend 12 billion euros in logistics every year. The container shipping industry completely transferred logistics several decades ago, but the chain still ends at the store. Why couldn't the logistic chain reach all the way to one's home.

Id est, second coming of the shopping bus.

Image source

The modern version of this is of course linked to technology. People can either actively pre-order what they need, or allow the shopkeeper to track their normal usage and contents of their fridge, and staff shelves accordingly. The route of the bus would be predefined. A real peddler could of course plan his/her route on a mobile map, either based on pre-orders, or based on data generated by cross-examining geographical, social and demographical data. Pack either diapers, sausage, music, alcohol or construction equipment, depending on the area.

When this becomes the norm way of getting food and other goods to your house, it's bound to create competition. Individual peddlers will be able to create online accounts for people with zero cost, so also special items can be distributed this way.

All this is of course speeded up with the aging population, people will not only want to go food shopping every day, they also can't.

Image from Laos

Nuclear threats and opportunities

2010-02-07T08:49:00Z

Influental men and women (and hopefully not just Ms. Merkel alone) in the Munich Security Conference are worried about nuclear power, and what it can do in wrong hands. Whose hands are the right hands, and whose hands are the wrong hands, is of cours a matter of opinion. "The general opinion" is that an issue so dangerous should be agreed together with everyone involved. Easy to say...

Before the official talks at Hotel Bayerischer Hof began, there has been speculations over a possible announcement made by Iran in the discourse on the country’s nuclear program. Delegates and observers had been hoping to get more detailed information of the program, assurance that it is for peaceful purposes only, and even an announcement of de-escalation. Süddeutsche Zeitung had already claimed that Iran had developed a nuclear warhead for their intermediate-range ballistic missle. "A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable for us" said the German foreign minister outright.

Iran's keynote was a disappointment in this regard. Irans foreign minister Mr. Mottaki said, that despite the fact that in principle there was agreement on the exchange of fuel rods with subsequent uranium enrichment abroad, his country felt that there was still some need for negotiation as to quantities and timeframes. Mr. Mottaki underlined that Iran only wanted to exercise her rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty and that his country harbored no further ambitions.

Rights vs. responsibilites

Exercising rights is ok, but as Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt noticed, rights come with obligations. It's not ok to just claim rights but not follow the rules with corresponding obligations. Iran is not fulfilling their commitment to IAEA and the UN Security Council, and is keeping the whole world on its toes.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the reality with nuclear power, and the relation of states today. It's like a group of kids playing football with a hand grenade, knowing that the whole game should be called off, but no one is brave enough to step aside and stop the game. We all want to be part of the gang.

What would it take for the politicians to act? 32 Nobel laureats, 53 parliamentarians, and 237 organizations published a plea in 2005 to put an end to this madness. Their point was exactly what we are seeing today: while the old nuclear states are slowly learning to play by the rules, there are new entrants coming along who don't give a toss about rules. And I don't mean Iran, they don't follow all the rules but at least they come to the negotiation table. I mean, and the Nobel laureats mean hidden terrorist groups.

At the same time, some of us think that nuclear power is a silver bullet for global warming. That. by building more nuclear power plants, we can continue our lifestyles like nothing happened. That would mean more uranium, more nuclear rods, more nuclear waste being transferred around the world (raw material from poor countries to the plants in rich countries who then dump the waste to poor countires again). The risk of accidents already is huge, not to mention a direct access to terrorists and other rogue groups to hijack and sell these transports.

Is this what we really want?

I was happy to read this article titled "Nuclear renaissance could stall". A Canadian Think Tank has concluded that new reactor construction can be held back due to the economy, issues with waste and security. In their report, they say that nuclear energy as a percentage of global energy production has actually declined since 2001. The World Nuclear Association has estimated capacity to rise 50% by 2030, but the Canadian report, based on 3,5 year study says:

"Standing in the way of new construction are costs that can run up to $10 billion per new reactor, competition from other, cheaper, energy sources, the problem of safely disposing of nuclear waste, and concern about the spread of nuclear weapons".

I am very inclided to believe the Canadians. Our home-grown Finnish disaster with Olkiluoto 3 construction is getting worse by month. Anything you can possibly imagine going wrong, has gone wrong. It is delayed by several years, costing around 50% over budget, introducing horrible security flaws, and not providig any jobs for the Finns as all workers are brough from cheaper countries.

Some of the East-European construction workers who had left the site gave an interview at Helsingin Sanomat, citing that it was the worst construction site they've ever worked at. Security flaws were covered up, there were not always proper documentation, concrete was poured in before steel constructions were made, and command chain didn't work because the Portuguese managers couldn't speak English. There had even been a manager who could not write.

The plant is sold by the French Areva, and bought by the Finnish TVO. I have written about it earlier here and here. A nice coverage on issues also here (but lacking the latest updates).

The opportunities

The only opportunity I see is the opportunity to gradually start replacing nuclear power with energy forms that are really sustainable, not greenwashed to look that way.

Battle of the giants (Who's Who)

2010-01-30T07:23:00Z

I'm not one of those "the bigger the better" type of people. "Less is more" is a more accurate description of how I see the world. However, recently the "facts over hype" side of me is gaining strength. You know what I'm talking about. Mr. Jobs claiming that Apple is the "largest mobile device company in the world".

I spent a few hours pulling together this chart below. I left out Samsung and other important device manufacturs out of the picture, because it is widely recognized that Nokia is a bigger mobile company than they are. The interesting area lies with Apple and the two mobile OS providers, Google and Microsoft. (although I suppose we can now claim that Google is a device vendor, too).

*) Figures from Apple are from 12 months ended December 26, 2009
**) Figures from Microsoft are from 12 months ended December 31, 2009
***) From Gartner's Q3 mobile OS market share report
Other notes: Nokia numbers non-IFRS, others GAAP. Currency in USD, exchange rate Dec 31, 2009, 1 EUR=1.4406 USD. Apple's device market shares are calculated by comparing their device sales (8.7M) to Nokia's estimate of the overall industry market for converged devices in Q4 (52.4M) and to all mobile devices (329M). Calculations CAN include mistakes. If you're unsure, check the numbers. They are all from public sources.

What do these numbers tell us?

First, that Nokia is not some small player from some foreign country, but in revenue bigger than all of these other companies (ok, with Msft this could be a close call). In net income, Nokia is suffering from its network business so it's less relevant in this comparison.

Second, Nokia has a 40% market share in smartphones, converged devices, or whatever you want to call them. They are the devices that analysts call phones that are like the iPhone, you know, for web browsing, email, video and other fun stuff. Apple's market share in this category is 17%. Our American friends may find this difficult to believe, because these Nokia devices are not visible in your market. But they are in other markets, and we are now talking about global figures.

Even if we would count the 21 million iPod's that Apple sold during Q4 in as "mobile devices" (which is not what any analyst has ever done before), Apple's "mobile device" market share would be (21+8.7)/329x100=9%. I mean, surely you wouldn't say that the iPod should be counted in the converged devices category and use 52.4M as a nominator instead of 329M, would you? The iPod doesn't even make phone calls, whereas Nokia's S40 phones do have a web browser, they play music and do all kinds of nifty things. Throw in the 2,1 million Macbooks, and Apple's market share goes to 9.67%

How is this the "largest mobile device company in the world"? Toyota sold nearly 10 million "mobile devices" in 2008. Why don't we include them in the comparison? What about frisbees, remote-controlled toys and vacuum cleaners? All devices, all mobile.... I mean really, get real Mr. Jobs.

PS. Feel free to correct errors you find the chart. Also, feel free to disagree the use of non-IFRS numbers as better comparison to GAAP than the IFRS numbers. I value facts.

Sources:
http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/financials/quarterly-and-annual-information/q4-2009
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/
http://investor.google.com/releases/2009Q4_google_earnings.html
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/default.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Financial_Reporting_Standards

Slime mold doing network engineering - HUH?

2010-01-28T09:48:00Z

This is supercool! One of the most 'wow' things I've seen in a long time.

Japanese and British researchers used yellow slime mold Physarum polycephalum to remodel the railway network on Tokyo's map. They used oat flakes to represent cities around Tokyo, and the slime grew a network of threads that model the rail system almost identically to how it's built in real life.

The fun part is that the original rail network was designed by the world's top engineers, those japanese super-brainiacs. So in the future, network engineering can be left for fungi? Engineers can all retire, or take up fungus cultivation. I can already see this as part of the global "slow" and "cocooning" trends. No more busy salarymen in the morning trains, but happy gardeners enjoying home-grown food with the family.

Image from Science/AAAS

But really, what's the point with this research?

According to Mark Fricker of the University of Oxford, "such a malleable system may be useful for creating networks that need to change over time, such as short-range wireless systems of sensors that would provide early warnings of fire or flood. Because these sensors are destroyed when disaster strikes, the network needs to efficiently re-route information quickly. Decentralized, adaptable networks would also be important for soldiers in battlefields or swarms of robots exploring hazardous environments, Fricker says.

The new model may also help researchers answer biological questions,such as how blood vessels grow to support tumors, Fricker says."

Quoted text from Wired

Kiva loans

2010-01-28T09:26:00Z

Admitted my first Kiva loan to a Cambodian village vegetable company. Kiva is a microloan service that works a social network. Local field partners look for targets to fund, such as small village shops or agricultural enterprises run by women. The targets are then advertised on Kiva's website, and anyone can lend a small amount of money to the target.

My target is Nakry Heang Village Bank Group, a group of 16 women running a fruit and vegatable company. They needed to raise 2,350 USD for buying more vegatables to sell. I lent them 25 dollars, plus I donated some extra dollars for the Kiva group to cover operational expenses.

What surprised me most was how fast these loans are raised. They even added a FAQ to explain the situation:

"Kiva is constantly receiving new loans for funding from our microfinance Field Partners all around the world. Due to press, new features, or outreach efforts, at times we have more lenders visiting Kiva than we have loans available to fund. At these times there may be only a small number of fundraising loans on this page. However, this is always a temporary situation, as our Field Partners post new loans in need of funding on an hourly basis. So, if there are only a few loans available, please check back soon! Kiva's volunteers are working hard to translate new loan requests as fast as possible, and our Field Partners are always excited to see loans funded so quickly! "

In Finnish, "kiva" means nice, neat, swell, so this has a specially positive clang to Finns.

Mobile Brain Bank's facelift

2010-01-17T11:50:00Z

Mobile Brain Bank is evolving. The original story on how it got started is stored here, so I won't repeat it. The three main buckets that I envisioned back then remain:

- exhange of entrepreneurial ideas
- networking opportunity for job seekers and providers
- a think tank and problem solving community

Our events and online discussion groups are working well, reaching the goals of first and second objective. The online based problem solving idea is one that requires some funding, which we currently don't have. If you happen to have some spare cash to invest in this project, feel free to contact ;)

But the real news today is the facelift.

Our old visual mark was created in a hurry by a couple of non-professionals. The old logo idea was done by Petri Allekotte, and I made some tweaks and edited colors. The pressing need for a logo came from LinkedIn group profile: the tool forces you to upload a logo file, and we couldn't open a group without one. We've been looking for a designer for some time, and now we found one.

Thanks to Pasi Lehtinen, a MoBB activist from Oulu, Interactive Art Director and a Freelance designer, we have a full-blown facelift with a stylish logo mark, fonts and a visual theme.

Says Pasi: "I saw the huge potential in Mobile Brain Bank, but it wasn’t reflected in the visual identity. I wanted to change that. I wanted people tp see that there is something new and exciting going on and you should get involved. RIGHT NOW! Mobile Brain Bank is all about getting connected.

Conversation is the key. The new logo speaks for itself. It wants you to speak, interact and exchange ideas. Speak, and speak loud! A speech bubble logo is simple, but unique. It´s funny, but elegant. I hope it will create some additional conversation also :D

I have worked with corporate identities for over a decade. These projects range from huge multi-million technology brands to small one man art projects. Making new and fresh identities is an obsession to me. I love it, it´s hard but rewarding work.

Other parts of my work are on various fields of design from print blueprints to prototypes of mobile touch user interfaces. I just can´t sit and do nothing, I have to be on the move all the time.”

Pasi’s philosophy is not to advertise his work on the web, instead, he relies on good results bringing more work by itself. His own website, www.designsapiens.com, shows mostly his photography work which he is doing in between design projects. Check out Pasi’s website for inspiring photos, or follow his crazy life on Twitter.

Welcome to Finland, Google III

2010-01-17T10:56:00Z

Google is setting up a server farm in an old paper mill in the city of Hamina, Finland. I've been writing about the story since February 2009 when the rumors first came out, with a follow-up in March 2009 as Google themselves announced their intention. At that time Google was very secretive about their plans, but last week they arranged a walk-tour for Finnish media in the factory halls.

The data center will be operational at the end of this year, or latest beginning of next year. Once up and running, it will employ some 50 people. However, according to Invest in Finland the positive impact to Finland is not in the number of jobs that Google themselves are creating, but the positive image for the country, and the city of Hamina. Interest and international customer numbers have already increased, they comment.

Watch a Helsingin Sanomat interview video from the factory visit.

The deal between Google and Stora Enso, the paper mill selling these facilities, include an intersting side-contract. The size of land area that Google purchased was 125 hectares, but from this they will actually donate 47 hectares to the city of Hamina. This 47 hectares will be used for building an industrial park, including four wind power plants.

Google plans not to use the wind energy in their operations. It would be interesting to know why not. Instead, they do intend to build a unique cooling system utilizing the nearby sea. Seawater is directed into the building where is circulates cooling down the servers. The warm water is drained back to the sea. Google's intention is to cool the warm water to "quite close to the original temperature" before it hits the sea. I have no doubt that the company understands how important it is not to warm the Baltic Sea, an area that is already suffering a great deal from too much nutrients.

Google's own Hamina Data Center pages here.

"Petra wants her own planet"

2010-01-05T14:35:00Z

If your name is Petra, you are bound to stop when you see this kind of a headline in newspaper (Kauppalehti 5.1.2010). The subtitle "Web based Petra game combines ideology with business" was even more interesting. I did not know of these Petra children books before, but now that I found them I am enchanted.

"Petra is a sprightly girl who finds her way into adventures in books of the Petra series. Her adventures are tales about respecting other cultures. At the same time the books help parents to form deep, meaningful interaction with their children."

The author and creator of Petra books, Eevamaria Halttunen, got the idea for these books when reading bedtime stories to her children. She was concerned over the one-sided image that news portray of other cultures, so she came up with Petra, a girl who introduces other cultures to children in a fun way. There are currently four Petra books

Image from Dramaforum

Now Petra is expanding her adventures into a browser based game. In the beginning, Petra's planet will include four countries, Sami land (Lapland), Senegal, Jordania and Sri Lanka. In each country, children will be playing local games both alone and with others.

The game is developed by an Oulu based compnany Ludocraft. Their manager has a nice comment in the newspaper: "Usually, in computer games conflicts are solved by using violence. With Petra's Planet, we need to come up with completely different problem solving methods".

Top Innovations 2009

2009-12-27T12:12:00Z

A year ago I listed some favorite top innovations from 2008. They included a global seed vault, retail DNA test kit, and of course the LHC particle accelerator at Cern which was switched on during that year.

This year the science magazines again treat us to an insight of what took place during 2009.

Although medical science is one of the less fascinating ones to me personally, I have to say that both the "wooden bones" and "JaipurKnee" presented by CNN catch my attention. Italian scientists discovered a way to utilize wood in helping the body to regrow broken bones. The woods texture resembles bones own texture, and helps blood vessels to attach themselves while the real bone is growing. The JaipurKnee is the cheapest replacement knee mimics natural joint movements and costs only around 20 USD. Inexpensive limbs make a world of difference to millions of children mutilated in wars.

Solé Power Tile. Image from Popsci

Popsci is again publishing their top 100

One thought comes to mind while flipping through this list: How the human kind is still operating on a rather narrow-minded, inward focused, incremental improvement sort of way. We tend to celebrate new gagdets, new tools, new security features, new cars, or new defense technologies that are only slightly better than their previous versions. Only few of these 100 are attempts to break old habits and totally re-engineer the way things are done. My favorites:

#12: Powergenix 1.6-Volt Nickel-Zinc AA Rechargeable. A rechargeable battery that delivers as much juice as disposables.
#34: Biobased Composites. Synthetic wood (bacteria-derived biodegradable plastic resin bound to hemp fibers) to build a house frame and pliable enough to carve.
#35: Diverging Diamond Interchange. A new traffic design to do away with risky left turns can reduce clogging by as much as 60 percent.
#58: CamelBak All Clear UV Microbiological Water Purifier. Cleaning water using ultraviolet light removes 99.99 percent of viruses, protozoa and other microscopic beasties on the go.
#61:Ecovative Design EcoCradle. A treeless, biodegradable shipping material that can be molded into as many shapes as polystyrene, a.k.a. Styrofoam, so it can protect objects of any size or weight.
#62: ECO2 Plastics Environmental System. Recycling processing plants use up to 100,000 gallons of water a day, mostly to wash crusty food and chemicals off containers before they can be ground up. ECO2 is the first waterless recycling process, employing a corn-based, biodegradable liquid solvent that dissolves buildup and is then distilled so it can be reused.
#83: Wolfram Research WolframAlpha. A new generation search engine, it runs a series of algorithms that use context and probability to interpret what you’re asking, scours more than 10 trillion pieces of data, compiles a series of answers by culling the information, and then presents the answers in text, graphs, tables, charts or maps.
#92: TLD100 Thermal Leak Detector. A handheld heat detector lets homeowners check for thermal leaks by translating the complicated readouts common in pro devices into three simple colored beams.
#95: K-Tect Sustainable Building Systems. Homebuilders can ditch the lumber and the expensive labor costs that go with it. These prefabricated, custom-made insulating panels are easier to assemble than conventional wood frames, and more energy-efficient.
#96: Solé Power Tile. The first curved photovoltaic roofing product replaces add-on solar panels with a new flexible solar laminate bonded to a polymer base that gives tiles the curved shape of regular terra-cotta.

Finally, the Scientist has their own Top 10 list. This year they concentrate on tools in life sciences. As this is an area not familiar to me, I will just pick one example, #3 on that list for how to manipulate cells using light.

I am picking this partly because of the neat video on the Scientist website, and partly because of watching the most endearing documentary last night of Dr. Eric Kandel, a Nobel prize winner who also utilized cell light manipulation to study brain molecules and demonstrate synapse. If you have a chance to watch this documentary, I warmly recommend. It is full of intelligence, warmth and optimism. These are the things world needs 2009 and beyond.

Dr. Kandel. Image from YLE

Does mobile phone improve equality?

2009-12-01T18:49:00Z

This is a question to be answered by Laura Stark, a professor in the Jyväskylä University, Finland. (link in Finnish). She has received 450,000 euros for a four year research project that wil take her to Camroon, Kenya, Tansania, South-Africa, Ghana, Bangladesh and India.

This is a topic that I have studied a bit myself with our nanovalo project. I interviewed close to 100 people from Cameroon, Finland, and elsewhere in Europe. The results are still to be published *), but I have a strong feeling that having a mobile phone in the family in developing countries is bringing a lot of good to the women. The benefits are many:

- better access to healthcare, information on AIDS etc
- better access to education, internet enabling new study methods
- keeping in touch with family members abroad (often more valued by mothers)
- daughter to be able to keep contact to family while away working
- mobile enabled microloans have made women into entrepreneurs

Let's hope we don't need to wait for four years to hear from Laura again.

*) I handed in the paper to Helsinki University of Technology in July 2009. It was not accepted as a strategy paper (as it reads on the front page now), but the professor proposed it to be modified into a marketing paper instead. In the process of re-writing it from marketing point-of-view, I thought it may be useful for someone to make the original paper available here.

Hiding in plain daylight

NSN goes into energy

2009-12-01T18:19:00Z

A problem common to mobile operators in areas with poor infrastructure is the availability of energy. The power grid may not exist at all, or the electricity feed may not be consistent. Nokia Siemens Networks has developed a lot of know-how and products to support the mobile operators in managing, measuring and billing networks under difficult conditions.

Now, NSN is turning the disadvantage into an advantage, by using their existing business and R&D capabilities for helping the energy companies. As the problems with mobile networks and energy networks are similar, so are solutions.

Nokia Siemens Networks Energy Solutions consists of six elements that combine both products and services. They are:

Nokia Siemens Networks Energy Modernization
Nokia Siemens Networks Off-Grid Site Solution
Nokia Siemens Networks Bad-Grid Site Solution
Nokia Siemens Networks Energy Efficiency Consulting
Nokia Siemens Networks Green Energy Control
Nokia Siemens Networks Energy OPEX Management

NSN is hoping to get multiple benefits from this new approach: Increasing energy efficiency means more OPEX for the owner and manager of the network, areas with poor or non-existing grids need the network functinality, too, and finally, CO2 emissions are reduced by reducing energy spills.

Clever thinking.

Bookabooka rent case

2009-11-28T17:31:00Z

I've written about trade marks, patents and copyright, and usually I've been on the creator's side. I have opposed the Pirate Party's objectives, for example, because I think that the right to protect your creation or invention from commercial exploitation, is a value that drives new creativity. If I had to choose between creating new, or circulating old, I choose the new.

Now I've come to a case where I can't help but feel empathy towards the "exploiter". A few guys wanted to help students recycle study books, and put up a service called Bookabooka. The service allowed students to rent their books to other students. What happened next, was an intervention from the antipiracy lawyers. The students forgot that if they are making money from books, there's an author somewhere who is missing out sales revenue. It's a violation.

Bookabooka had to stop their book renting activity. The case got a lot of publicity, and it's even been to the parliament. The minister of culture and sports is saying that Bookabooka's activity per se is very good, but they need to share revenue with the authors. This is now happening, and the renting service will probably continue after all the legal stuff has been cleared.

If you read Finnish, the whole case is here.