Tuesday, June 5, 2012
IPv6 about to launch
05:54:43
THIS TIME IT IS FOR REAL
JUNE 6, 2012
Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012.
Organized by the Internet Society, and building on the successful one-day World IPv6 Day event held on 8 June 2011, World IPv6 Launch represents a major milestone in the global deployment of IPv6. As the successor to the current Internet Protocol, IPv4, IPv6 is critical to the Internet's continued growth as a platform for innovation and economic development.
PARTICIPANTS
THIS TIME IT IS FOR REAL
Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012.
Ferrari blog A great story
HOME
PEOPLE
RACES
CARS
PLACES
STYLE
A MAN CALLED MR FERRARI
Back in 1992, Li Xiaohua was the first man in china to buy a Ferrari. A potent symbol of success, Li quickly became associated with the vivid, magical, red of the prancing horse. so much so, that people soon dubbed him “Mr Ferrari”. His global fame saw a succession of visiting dignitaries, including American presidents bush (father and son) and Clinton, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, all signing his 348 TS
Growing up in the egalitarian scarcity of the Mao era, owning a car was beyond a dream for Li Xiaohua, now a successful tycoon and philanthropist, and China’s first Ferrari owner. ‘All of China was very poor, and I could not even afford a bike. It cost 100 to 200 RMB [Chinese Yuan Renminbi], which was then an unimaginable, enormous figure,’ Li recalls. ‘If we could just get enough to eat, we were doing well. A car was never even a goal, it was too far away.’ Reminiscing from one of his lavish mansions, a marble gilded palace in a villa compound near Beijing’s airport, Li explains how his precocious younger self was still fascinated by the machines. ‘I liked cars a lot in my childhood,’ he laughs. ‘China was not open, and there were very few cars, and all of them were Soviet imports. I loved to look at them; there were cars like Volga, Zim, [short for the Zavod Imeni Molotova from the Lenin Car Factory], and the Zis from the Moscow Stalin Car Factory. As China developed, there were a few domestic brands like Red Flag and Shanghai, which I also really liked. Sometimes I followed new cars and would even be late for class.’ Born in Beijing in 1951, Li endured some of the greatest privations of Chinese Communism, including eight years of hard labour imposed on his generation of urban youths who were sent out to the countryside to learn from the peasants. However, he came of age during the late ’70s, a crucial moment, just as China was beginning its excitingly transformative gaige kaifang, or reform and opening. Li was one of the first brave wave of etihu, or private entrepreneurs, who dared to go into business for themselves at a time when most Chinese feared that the economic opening up would, like prior liberalisations, prove temporary, and be followed by a crackdown on those who supported it. State-owned enterprises provided all of society with the security but also invasive control of a lifelong work unit, or danwei. Only a few initially left the housing allotments and stability of their work units to xiahai, or jump into the uncertain sea, of private endeavour.
In 1980, Li became one of those daring groundbreakers. His story is so well known in China that it’s now almost the stuff of legend: how he started off selling electric watches, then a luxurious novelty, on the street. Then he invested everything into another exotic device, a cold drinks vending machine, which was installed in the cadre resort town of Beidaihe and made him a fortune. His subsequent endeavours included opening a video game arcade, selling hair tonic in Japan and building highways in Malaysia. Being wealthy in China in the ’80s and ’90s was a different creature than it is today, Li muses. ‘In that era, it was all just starting, with the policies encouraging some people to “get rich first” for reform, as Deng Xiaoping famously suggested. There was not the hatred of the rich, or the flaunting of wealth, like today. Now, this society is starting to be very divided, with a wider gap between the rich and the poor. ‘It was not like it is now, where there is no such sensation of freshness and curiosity. China had not yet gone out and interacted with the world. Not like it is now that it has broken out, and everything is here. We used to be excited just to be able to eat pork, but now we want good Italian food. The level of demand and desire has improved a lot.’ The fascination with exotic imported gadgetry (watches, vending machines, video game consoles) was also its motivation. ‘As soon as I made some money, I wanted to fulfil my childhood dream of owning a car.’ He bought his first in 1980, for 2,000 RMB. ‘At the time there were only 10 privately owned cars in China, I was one of the first to own one. It was a small Toyota, which was acquired secondhand from an embassy, as China had no such things available commercially at that time.’
As the money came in over the subsequent years, Li changed his cars many times. Then, in 1993, he became China’s Mr Ferrari. Luxury foreign sports cars were the ultimate in exotic imports, a complete novelty previously unheard of in China. That year, Ferrari sent a bright red 348 TS to be exhibited at the Beijing International Conference Center in support of the city’s 2000 Olympics bid.
‘It was a fast, curious car, and a style statement, and so I bought it’
‘No one knew what it was. People only knew a little about Ferraris from newspapers and magazines, but had never seen one of them in the flesh,’ Li remembers. ‘People thought, “It’s too short, it only holds two people!” It was very stylish for the time, for the Chinese – so few people could buy something like that, few had even been abroad. It was a fast, curious car, and a style statement, and so I bought it.’ Li was attracted by the car’s ‘passionate red, its design, and its speed’, and its purchase realised his childhood dream and fascination. It became big news, reported in major media around the world. China had its first Ferrari. Li and his 348 TS, with its bold Beijing “A00001” number plate, became an international symbol and sensation. For Li, it represented how ‘China had gone from poverty to become so rich and civilised that young Chinese could buy Ferraris. It made me the captain of the new self-made class. It was a symbol of China’s reform and openness: people were getting rich, Ferraris were becoming affordable for the average people.’ Dubbed “Mr Ferrari” in the press, and frequently photographed next to the 348 TS in places like the Forbidden City, Li jokes that the media appointed him as Ferrari’s free spokesman, giving him a public voice as the face of China’s success: ‘In those times, Ferrari was associated with me, a successful young man who had come from nothing. Ferrari represented a dream that I had realised and I represented China’s Reform and Opening, three corners of a triangle.’ International leaders and celebrities visiting China, including Bill Clinton, both Presidents Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Vladimir Putin and Yasser Arafat, sought out meetings with Li and signed his famous car. ‘Ferrari was very lucky, as it was the first importedluxury car and was the big boss at that time,’ claims Li. His association with the brand made it the go-to car for successful businessmen in China. ‘For a lot of people, it became a symbol of wealth, of success.
‘Everybody wanted to jump into the famous car to feel what it was like’
I think people recognised Ferrari because of me and I contributed to making it more popular in China.’ Beyond the public eye, Li smiles, his friends were ‘all very excited. Everybody wanted to jump into the famous car to feel what it was like. Beijing’s traffic was better then; actually it was very good at the time and there were no cars on the airport road. It allowed you to experience what you should experience as a young man. It is the most beloved of a man’s best toys. I mostly just drove it myself, apart from ceding the wheel to a few close friends desperate to try it.’ Now, though, Li does not have as many chances to drive it. ‘It is not my main means of transport: it is not a car for getting around. It is more for a track than daily use, a car you drive to drive. The manual gearbox is not suited for Beijing’s current traffic. It is a collector’s item, not for daily use. But I still drive it to events.’ Along with being China’s Mr Ferrari, Li is also renowned for being one of the country’s leading philanthropists. In particular, he has donated extensively to fund the establishment of schools in poor regions, the education of disadvantaged groups and the daily supplies for areas hit by natural disasters. ‘I have a lot of stories,’ Li recounts proudly. ‘For example, in the place where I founded the Xiao Hua School, the local farmers were mostly uneducated and a lot of young people would not have had the chance to study before. After the school was opened, the people were able to access learning and culture for the first time and that led to knowledge, which changed the situation in the countryside and opened up new possibilities. Some of them even have doctorates now.’ He also helps the mentally and physically disabled to lead normal lives, and tells the stories of individualswho have gone from total dependence to living flourishing lives due to his programmes. ‘I started doing charity work as soon as I had money. The wealthy should have that concern, and business people should look after people and return the wealth back to the society,’ Li insists. ‘It is a spirit and challenge of how much you can do and, while in China the development of the country and the society cannot rely upon charity, it is the spirit of mutual assistance.’ In China, ‘charity is not an easy path, and it faces challenges. People have to have loving hearts, and that power cannot be obliterated; without goodness, society won’t change.’ While too few of his peers have similarly given back, ‘Chinese people have a tradition of caring and giving: and more and more that tradition is returning these days.’
Li’s dedication to charity has been recognised with honorary chairmanships of the China Charity Association and the China Red Cross, and membership in the Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He was a torch-bearer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a representative at the handovers of Hong Kong and Macau. In 1996 he received a more astronomical tribute when his support of astrology research prompted the International Minor Planet Center to name Asteroid Number 3556 the Li Xiaohua Star. ‘It is an encouragement, since all star names have been given to such influential people, while I am just a regular businessman,’ he says. ‘It is a bit too big for me and is inspiring and encouraging, but humbling. It reminds me that I have to do my best.’
Li retains a certain humility, which is remarkable given his well known affluence. His showcase villa is an aggressive statement of success, with its basement pool, its floor-to-ceiling marble, its mink bedspreads, its collection of Italian furniture in lush purple velvet and gold trim, and its painted Italian frescoes. Li expresses a broader appreciation of Italian artistry and workmanship beyond his Ferrari 348 TS. ‘Italian industry is very advanced: it has the best brands for cars, furniture, clothing, and daily commodities. Italian brands have good strategies to make their goods highly covetable and value-added. They are well made, so their prices are high. ‘China also has that rich cultural history, but with such different results. Italy is at the pinnacle of Western culture and that cultural content is evident and in everything it produces, from industrial technology, to top-end brands and everyday goods. That is something China can learn from.’ Li believes that China can, should and will learn from other countries and cultures, and the ability to absorb everything is precisely the reason why it has adapted to such transformations in society and economy. No other society has changed so overwhelmingly, so fast, going from too poor for bicycles to owning Ferraris in two decades. ‘So much in China has changed, and it is completely connected to culture,’ he explains. ‘China is very open to external influences. We want a better life and to change ourselves, so we find out what is good abroad, chase it down and study it. Now parts of China are even more modern than abroad. Chinese people like to study and learn, and a lot of things are happening here because of that.’
Sean Parker and Airtime launch
THE NEXT WEB
Sean Parker’s Airtime launches to create shared experiences with people you know & don’t know
June 5, 2012 - Harrison Weber
The much hyped, yet highly secretive Airtime, founded by Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, has finally revealed itself to be a browser-based video chatting application to help you create shared experiences with people you know and people you’ve never met before. The app lets you connect with existing Facebook friends, but most importantly, it connects you anonymously with strangers, finding them in relation to your location and interests.
Essentially, it’s like Chat Roulette, but not nearly as creepy, and with little to zero nudity.
From Jimmy Fallon, who opened the event presentation (Joel Mchale, Ed Helms, Jim Carrey and Snoop Dogg also took part):
“Airtime is going to change the whole way we connect on the Internet.” It allows you to “make new friends based on interests. It will blow your pants off.”
We first heard wind of the startup back in September, where we only knew it was operating in the live video space. At the time, Parker hoped his company would, and we quote, “eliminate loneliness.”
Since then, the company announced a new round of funding of $25M and the acquisition of Erly, which described itself as “a new social platform for organizing and sharing your personal content.” Most recently, MTV founder Bob Pittman joined the Board of Directors for the company — hyping up curiosity and suspense over Airtime. According to our sources, investors include the likes of Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian.
Upon login, after connecting with Facebook and approving the use of your webcam, you’re presented with the chatting page. You could search through your own Facebook friends, but the giant “Talk to Someone” button is much more enticing.
That button connects you with someone else on the site, showing you your shared interests and traits in the middle of the screen. From there, you can click the star button to randomly connect with someone else (if the conversation proves sour).
From the release:
What is Airtime? The best and fastest way to video chat with your friends on any platform. No download required, just login with Facebook and begin video chatting with your friends immediately, right in your browser.
Live content sharing with friends. Everyone on Airtime is both participant and performer. Play YouTube videos for your friends and see their reactions live.
Discover people like you. Break outside your social graph and find people like you based on shared interests.
What do I need?
Web camera
Chrome, Firefox 3+, IE 8+
1.5Ghz or faster
512MB of RAM
Broadband internet connection
(1.5+ Mbps connection)
According to Parker, Airtime allows you to break outside your social graph, and make connections beyond the physical world. Parker says “Facebook isn’t helping you build new connections.”
As far as your real identity goes, connecting with strangers brings inherent risks and that’s why connecting through Facebook is so important. Parker emphasized safety in his presentation, saying that Airtime has the ability to detect “bad actors” and hold them responsible.
Parker talked a lot about the rise of the “real-time Web” in his presentation, which featured numerous technical issues that were balmed by comedic relief — that there are not enough services out there that provide truly synchronous interaction.
As world has becomes a much smaller, and more connected place, Parker believes that we need the ability to enable conversations and connections, and that seems to be Airtime’s goal, tapping the interest graph that Facebook has created.
➤ Airtime
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+
Sean Parker’s Airtime launches to create shared experiences with people you know & don’t know
June 5, 2012 - Harrison Weber
The much hyped, yet highly secretive Airtime, founded by Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, has finally revealed itself to be a browser-based video chatting application to help you create shared experiences with people you know and people you’ve never met before. The app lets you connect with existing Facebook friends, but most importantly, it connects you anonymously with strangers, finding them in relation to your location and interests.
Essentially, it’s like Chat Roulette, but not nearly as creepy, and with little to zero nudity.
From Jimmy Fallon, who opened the event presentation (Joel Mchale, Ed Helms, Jim Carrey and Snoop Dogg also took part):
“Airtime is going to change the whole way we connect on the Internet.” It allows you to “make new friends based on interests. It will blow your pants off.”
We first heard wind of the startup back in September, where we only knew it was operating in the live video space. At the time, Parker hoped his company would, and we quote, “eliminate loneliness.”
Since then, the company announced a new round of funding of $25M and the acquisition of Erly, which described itself as “a new social platform for organizing and sharing your personal content.” Most recently, MTV founder Bob Pittman joined the Board of Directors for the company — hyping up curiosity and suspense over Airtime. According to our sources, investors include the likes of Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian.
Upon login, after connecting with Facebook and approving the use of your webcam, you’re presented with the chatting page. You could search through your own Facebook friends, but the giant “Talk to Someone” button is much more enticing.
That button connects you with someone else on the site, showing you your shared interests and traits in the middle of the screen. From there, you can click the star button to randomly connect with someone else (if the conversation proves sour).
From the release:
What is Airtime? The best and fastest way to video chat with your friends on any platform. No download required, just login with Facebook and begin video chatting with your friends immediately, right in your browser.
Live content sharing with friends. Everyone on Airtime is both participant and performer. Play YouTube videos for your friends and see their reactions live.
Discover people like you. Break outside your social graph and find people like you based on shared interests.
What do I need?
Web camera
Chrome, Firefox 3+, IE 8+
1.5Ghz or faster
512MB of RAM
Broadband internet connection
(1.5+ Mbps connection)
According to Parker, Airtime allows you to break outside your social graph, and make connections beyond the physical world. Parker says “Facebook isn’t helping you build new connections.”
As far as your real identity goes, connecting with strangers brings inherent risks and that’s why connecting through Facebook is so important. Parker emphasized safety in his presentation, saying that Airtime has the ability to detect “bad actors” and hold them responsible.
Parker talked a lot about the rise of the “real-time Web” in his presentation, which featured numerous technical issues that were balmed by comedic relief — that there are not enough services out there that provide truly synchronous interaction.
As world has becomes a much smaller, and more connected place, Parker believes that we need the ability to enable conversations and connections, and that seems to be Airtime’s goal, tapping the interest graph that Facebook has created.
➤ Airtime
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+
An interesting viewpoint from Richard Branson
RICHARD'S BLOG
Prison in America
By Richard Branson - Jun 05, 2012
A New York Times op-ed drew our attention to a remarkable piece of journalism from the Times-Picayune, the big paper in the American state of Louisiana. The eight-part series chronicles how Louisiana became the prison capital of America, and therefore of the world.
Prison in America has shockingly come to echo the days of slave plantations. Like cotton and sugarcane operations, prisons now make profits by taking away people’s liberty. In Louisiana, the series says, three drug convictions can land someone in prison for life, two car robberies can earn 24 years. Each of those prisoners is a long-term cash cow for the owners of private prisons (many of whom are also local sheriffs according to the series). Rehabilitation leading to release would just take away the per-prisoner revenue. So “inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens.”
No wonder “Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's” - in most societies, locking people up is costly. In America, it’s profitable. It is perverse, dehumanising and devastating communities. If we want to do some good through privatisation, why not privatise rehabilitation with bonuses for successful reintegration of inmates who don’t re-offend? Then private sector creativity would be channeled to help rather than bleed society.
Prison in America
By Richard Branson - Jun 05, 2012
A New York Times op-ed drew our attention to a remarkable piece of journalism from the Times-Picayune, the big paper in the American state of Louisiana. The eight-part series chronicles how Louisiana became the prison capital of America, and therefore of the world.
Prison in America has shockingly come to echo the days of slave plantations. Like cotton and sugarcane operations, prisons now make profits by taking away people’s liberty. In Louisiana, the series says, three drug convictions can land someone in prison for life, two car robberies can earn 24 years. Each of those prisoners is a long-term cash cow for the owners of private prisons (many of whom are also local sheriffs according to the series). Rehabilitation leading to release would just take away the per-prisoner revenue. So “inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens.”
No wonder “Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's” - in most societies, locking people up is costly. In America, it’s profitable. It is perverse, dehumanising and devastating communities. If we want to do some good through privatisation, why not privatise rehabilitation with bonuses for successful reintegration of inmates who don’t re-offend? Then private sector creativity would be channeled to help rather than bleed society.
A new Firefox release and this...Check it out
The Mozilla
BLOG
News, notes and ramblings from the Mozilla project
Introducing “Mozilla Webmaker:” helping the world make the web
May 22nd, 2012 · Press Releases, Uncategorized
Today, we’re proud to launch “Mozilla Webmaker,” a new program to help people everywhere make, learn and play using the open building blocks of the web.
The goal: help millions of people move from using the web to making the web. With new tools to use, projects to create, and events to join, we want to help the world increase their understanding of the web and take greater control of their online lives.
And we’d like you to join us.
Building a generation of webmakers
Concretely, Mozilla Webmaker will offer:
1) Tools. Authoring tools and software, designed and built with our community. From supercharging web video with Popcorn, to remixing with Hackasaurus, to making your own web pages with Thimble.
2) Projects. Practical starter projects, how-tos and recipes, designed to help people at all levels make something amazing with the web. From tweaking your blog template to building apps that change the world.
3) Community. Bringing people with diverse skills and backgrounds together. Teachers, filmmakers, journalists, youth. From web ninjas to newbies. All making and learning together at events, meet-ups and hack jams everywhere.
A global invitation to make and learn this summer
We’re kicking off Mozilla Webmaker with something special: a massive summer learning campaign. It’s called the Summer Code Party, will run all summer long, and kicks off June 23.
We’re inviting everyone to join or volunteer at free local events and teach-ins around the world. With new Webmaker tools, event kits and starter projects designed to make it easy, social and fun. We’ll end with a big wrap-up September 23.
We’re not doing this alone. We want to build a big tent for everyone who shares our goal of a more web literate planet. Amazing partners are joining the party, from Tumblr, Creative Commons and Code for America to SoundCloud, the San Francisco Public Library, the London Zoo, and dozens of others. Plus special events with Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow, OK GO’s Damian Kulash, and more.
What types of programs can participate? Summer camps, day camps, summer schools, public libraries, recreation centers, neighborhood groups, your kitchen table — anyone with a willingness to make, learn and engage using the open building blocks of the web.
Creating a web literate planet
Mozilla’s Executive Director, Mark Surman, says Webmaker is the product of Mozilla’s growing commitment to learning, and the culmination of experiments it began with the Mozilla Drumbeat project.
“The web is becoming the world’s second language, and a vital 21st century skill — as important as reading, writing and arithmetic,” says Surman. “It’s crucial that we give people the skills they need to understand, shape and actively participate in that world, instead of just passively consuming it. That maker spirit and open ethos is vital to Mozilla, our partners, and the web.”
The new Mozilla Webmaker web site launches June 6. In the mean time, check out the new Summer Code Party site to find an event near you, sign up for updates, and get a sneak peek at Mozilla Webmaker tools and projects.
Get involved:
Learn more about Mozilla Webmaker.
Find a Summer Code Party event near you.
Create your own Summer Code Party event. This handy starter kit has everything you need to get started.
Stay in touch. Sign up for Summer Code Party updates. Or tweet using the Summer Code Party hashtag: #mozparty.
Help spread the word. Share the new Mozilla Webmaker video through You Tube or other formats. Find suggested copy for use in blog posts and tweets. Or download a poster and postcard kit to promote your event.
Apple to use Liquidmetal on their products
RPON
Upcoming Apple Products Will Use Liquidmetal Technology, Confirms CEO [VIDEO]
By Ben Reid | June 5th, 2012
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Exciting news for those who like their gadgets to be as sturdy as technology will allow; Liquidmetal Technologies CEO Tom Steipp has come out and confirmed that Apple has licensed the metallic glass composition for future use in its range of devices, and although he hasn’t stated the Cupertino company is yet working on a product specific product featuring Liquidmetal, the comments certainly suggest Liquidmetal Apple products could be making their way to market in the not-so-distant future.
It’s good to see Steipp making such comments, for we’d be pretty hard pushed to see Apple making any such revelations, and he stated Apple took a license on Liquidmetal back in August 2010, adding “Apple along with us are commercializing Liquidmetal in the consumer electronic space.”
The SIM ejector tool, which is extremely thin yet surprisingly robust, is the only Apple product to feature Liquidmetal, although once it begins to take a more significant role in the iDevice spectrum, expect to see some very exciting results.
The iPhone, for example, could be engineered to continue Apple’s thinner and lighter ethos, yet also be stronger than any of its predecessors thanks to the metallic glass substance. It consists of differing levels of zirconium, titanium, nickel and copper among others, and its slick, smooth finish is where the “liquid” moniker is born. Twice the strength of titanium – often considered to be a premium metal when it comes to product design, it would certainly change the game, and with Apple having exclusivity over it, the iPhone, iPad et al would have a significant advantage over rivals.
There were reports that the next iPhone would feature Liquidmetal, which have since been quashed, and with Atakan Peker, a Liquidmetal inventor, stating commercial shipments of Apple products based on metallic glass area few years away due to lack of maturity in the technology.
Still, with immense strength, glass-esque finish and the moldability of plastic, Liquidmetal is certainly something to be excited about, and it is thought Apple will initially begin using the technology for casings before heading down more complex routes.
Steipp also added that when Apple uses the technology to bring a truly innovative, unique product to market, it will be extremely difficult to imitate or replicate due to the nature of Liquidmetal, which is just as well, given Apple often accuses Samsung and others of flagrantly stealing ideas.
Upcoming Apple Products Will Use Liquidmetal Technology, Confirms CEO [VIDEO]
By Ben Reid | June 5th, 2012
Advertisements
Exciting news for those who like their gadgets to be as sturdy as technology will allow; Liquidmetal Technologies CEO Tom Steipp has come out and confirmed that Apple has licensed the metallic glass composition for future use in its range of devices, and although he hasn’t stated the Cupertino company is yet working on a product specific product featuring Liquidmetal, the comments certainly suggest Liquidmetal Apple products could be making their way to market in the not-so-distant future.
It’s good to see Steipp making such comments, for we’d be pretty hard pushed to see Apple making any such revelations, and he stated Apple took a license on Liquidmetal back in August 2010, adding “Apple along with us are commercializing Liquidmetal in the consumer electronic space.”
The SIM ejector tool, which is extremely thin yet surprisingly robust, is the only Apple product to feature Liquidmetal, although once it begins to take a more significant role in the iDevice spectrum, expect to see some very exciting results.
The iPhone, for example, could be engineered to continue Apple’s thinner and lighter ethos, yet also be stronger than any of its predecessors thanks to the metallic glass substance. It consists of differing levels of zirconium, titanium, nickel and copper among others, and its slick, smooth finish is where the “liquid” moniker is born. Twice the strength of titanium – often considered to be a premium metal when it comes to product design, it would certainly change the game, and with Apple having exclusivity over it, the iPhone, iPad et al would have a significant advantage over rivals.
There were reports that the next iPhone would feature Liquidmetal, which have since been quashed, and with Atakan Peker, a Liquidmetal inventor, stating commercial shipments of Apple products based on metallic glass area few years away due to lack of maturity in the technology.
Still, with immense strength, glass-esque finish and the moldability of plastic, Liquidmetal is certainly something to be excited about, and it is thought Apple will initially begin using the technology for casings before heading down more complex routes.
Steipp also added that when Apple uses the technology to bring a truly innovative, unique product to market, it will be extremely difficult to imitate or replicate due to the nature of Liquidmetal, which is just as well, given Apple often accuses Samsung and others of flagrantly stealing ideas.
Google purchases Quick office
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology and the Google culture
Google + Quickoffice = get more done anytime, anywhere
June 5, 2012 at 9:00 AM
We're happy to announce that we have acquired Quickoffice, a leader in office productivity solutions.
Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we'll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.
Quickoffice has a strong base of users, and we look forward to supporting them while we work on an even more seamless, intuitive and integrated experience.
We're excited to welcome the Quickoffice team and their users to Google.
Posted by Alan Warren, Engineering Director, Google
Labels: acquisition apps
Google + Quickoffice = get more done anytime, anywhere
June 5, 2012 at 9:00 AM
We're happy to announce that we have acquired Quickoffice, a leader in office productivity solutions.
Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we'll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.
Quickoffice has a strong base of users, and we look forward to supporting them while we work on an even more seamless, intuitive and integrated experience.
We're excited to welcome the Quickoffice team and their users to Google.
Posted by Alan Warren, Engineering Director, Google
Labels: acquisition apps
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