Ordinary Cubans will soon have the luxury of owning a cell phone, according to a story by the Associated Press.
President Raul Castro's government said Friday that it will allow anyone in the country to get cell phone service, a right previously limited to executives working for foreign companies or high communist party officials.
This is the first announcement that a major government policy or restriction has been changed since the 76-year-old Castro took over as leader of the island nation from his older brother Fidel Castro.
The AP said there has been a kind of black market for cell phones in Cuba where people who were ineligible were able to get phones and service by having foreigners sign contracts in their names. But for the most part, mobile phones are not common in Cuba.
The small wireless market in Cuba is a monopoly controlled by Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., or ETECSA. The company has said it will soon offer prepaid contracts to the general public now that the ban has been lifted.
But because most Cubans only make about 408 Cuban pesos, or a little less than $20, a month according to the AP, it's hard to imagine that many Cubans will be able to afford a cell phone. Still, even the poorest of the poor have managed to afford cell phones in other countries. I was amazed on my a recent trip to the Philippines that everyone I encountered, from housemaids to Bangka boat captains to street vendors, all had cell phones. The Philippines also happens to be considered the texting capital of the world.
It's also very hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that people in Cuba have simply not been allowed to own cell phones while the rest of the world has seen an explosion in cell phone usage and technology. In the U.S., more than 80 percent of the population owns a cell phone. And close to 3 billion people around the globe have cell phones.
Cuba isn't the only country loosening its cell phone ban. In North Korea, where people had been publicly executed for carrying a cell phone, the ban is also being lifted, according to Web reports.
The North Korean government imposed the cell phone ban after a 2004 explosion in the city of Ryongchon that was believed to be an assassination attempt on the communist country's leader, Kim Jong-Il.
North Korea's ban is somewhat ironic considering that its southern neighbor South Korea is one of the most sophisticated mobile phone markets in the world.
But for governments that are intent on keeping a tight lid on information coming in or going out of the their country, cell phones are a major threat.
After all, it has been through photographs and video taken on cell phones and circulated on the Internet that the world has seen the disturbing images of the riots in Tibet: the clouds of tear gas, burning buildings, monks in purple robes, and riot police. Cell phones were the primary way that news was leaked to the outside world during the crackdown in Burma last year. And in many places, cell phones have been used to gather protesters and distribute antigovernment messages.
Someday soon, you might be able to figure out where you are in the world by staring.
Researchers from South Korea's Yonsei University will present a paper at the International Solid State Circuits Conference next week on a system that spits out two-dimensional coordinates for the object or place that a person is focusing on. The same group has worked on several eye interfaces in the past, mostly for people with disabilities. By integrating eye interfaces with GPS information, users can apparently get geographic information. The group presents its paper on Monday, February 3.
ISSCC is one of the premier events in the chip design world. Every year, large companies and universities gather to show off products or concepts that will come to the market in the next few months or years. ISSCC firsts include the first papers on Cell processors (2005); digital signal processors or DSPs (Bell Labs, 1980); RISC chips (UC Berkeley, Stanford, 1984); 100MHz processors (Intel, 1991); and 1GHz processors (Digital; Intel, 2000).
Although sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, the conference takes place in San Francisco. (The computer business was centered in Philadelphia when ISSCC got started.) Other conference highlights for next week include:
IBM will discuss a version of the Cell processor made on the 45-nanometer process that consumes 40 percent less power and 36 percent less space than current versions. IBM, along with Toshiba and Sony, is trying to percolate the Cell into the market. Right now, the vast majority of Cell chips are used in the PlayStation 3.
Jeff Hawkins, of Palm fame, will show up Monday morning to talk about Hierarchical Temporal Memory, or storing memories in computers the way brains do. His start-up, Numenta, focuses on this.
Intel will describe a low-power chip that uses an in-order execution pipeline, a design concept that Intel hasn't used in its mainstream chips for years. It will also show off an Itanium with 2 billion--count 'em, 2 billion--transistors.
NTT, the Japanese telecom giant, will show off a fingerprint reader that can differentiate between a real and a fake finger.
Future Waves from the U.K. will describe a wireless body network for monitoring vital signs. It's a disposable system for the last meter problem in body sensor networks, the company says. Right afterward, Massachusetts General Hospital will describe a portable MRI machine. (Other health sessions include updates on brain implant research from Brown University and an artificial pancreas from Medtronic.)
Infineon has a paper titled "UMB Fast Hopping Frequency Generation Based on Sub Harmonic Injection Locking" that will come out during the "UWB Potpourri" session on Monday, while the University of Freiberg will present a paper on "A Continuous Time Hexagonal Field Programmable Analog Array."
Just in case you were wondering.
Add a black light and the cat glows red.
(Credit: Gyeongsang National University)This may be the fluffiest, freakiest thing since Alba, the green fluorescent bunny from artist Eduardo Kac.
South Korean scientists tinkering with fluorescence protein genes say they have bred white Turkish Angora cats to glow red under ultraviolet light.
The pair of cats cloned from a mother's altered skin cell are nearly a year old. The researchers told the AFP that their work could help unravel mysteries of some 250 genetic diseases suffered by both humans and cats. The findings also could be used to clone endangered tigers, leopards, and other animals, the report said.
However, it's unlikely that such psychedelic-looking cats would come to pet stores anytime soon. Debates about the ethics and safety of concocting cloned and transgenic animals continue to rage.
Genetic Savings & Clone, which charged between $32,000 to $50,000 for cloning cats, shut shop last year. But Spot's or Mittens' genes can be banked in a cryogenic chamber for $1,500, and hypoallergenic kittens cost between $6,000 and $28,000.
GloFish glow, too.
(Credit: GloFish)California officials in 2004 banned the sale of GloFish, the world's first transgenic pet.
British scientists injected jellyfish genes into chickens and pigs to make them glow several years ago. Last year, Taiwanese scientists said they also spawned glow-in-the-dark pigs.
The cat experiment took place at Gyeongsang National University with funding from the Korean government.
Perhaps the biggest cloning story to hail from South Korea was the revelation in 2005 that a prominent doctor had faked a breakthrough in cloning humans.
(Via miguel23)
This case has CSI written all over it.
Earlier this week the TelecomsKorea News Service and other news agencies reported that a man in South Korea (known as Seo) was presumably killed in a mobile phone explosion while working in a quarry. Then authorities said his injuries were too severe to have been caused by an exploding handset battery, though it was reportedly on fire in the victim's shirt pocket.
Now police say they suspect that the co-worker who first reported the incident (known as Kwon) was actually the one behind the victim's death, according to Digital Chosunilbo and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Kwon had apparently run over Seo accidentally while backing up a hydraulic drill rig, police say, but then told authorities that the phone battery had exploded and killed his co-worker. At that time, a preliminary examination found major injuries to Seo's heart, lungs, ribs, and spine. It is now not known how the phone caught fire.
Meanwhile, LG has issued a press statement saying that the lithium-polymer battery used in most mobile phones has been tested as safe for consumer use. A representative also added that lithium-polymer batteries, unlike lithium-ion batteries, cannot suddenly explode.
While research scientists are still grappling with the possibility of harmful effects from cellular handset use on the human body, a fatal accident involving a mobile phone occurred recently in South Korea. The TelecomsKorea News Service reported that a 33-year-old man was found dead, presumably killed by an explosion of a mobile phone battery identified to be from LG, though no specific model was cited.
It was reported that the man was found lying beside an electronic shovel at a quarry where he worked. A co-worker described him as bleeding from the nose and having a phone with a melted battery in his left shirt pocket. A professor from the Chungbuk National University examined the body and speculated that a phone battery explosion, which punctured his heart and lungs, was the main cause of death. He added that the victim's ribs and spine were broken.
This is the first time a cell phone battery explosion is believed to have taken a life in South Korea. Earlier this year, a man in China was reportedly killed by a mobile phone explosion.
(Source: Crave Asia)
The planes are stacking up on the tarmac.
Investigators for the Korea Fair Trade Commission notified Intel last week they believe the chip giant violated the country's antitrust regulations, Intel confirmed Wednesday.
And with the 18-month probe completed, which included an early morning raid on Intel offices early last year, the allegations raised by the South Korea FTC investigators will be reviewed by the full FTC Commission.
The commission will issue a ruling on whether the chip giant violated the Korean Fair Trade and Monopoly Regulation Act and whether sanctions are warranted. No specific date or schedule has been established for when the commission will issue a decision.
Intel is facing a similar situation in Europe, where the European Commission's Bureau of Competition in July issued a "statement of objections," regarding Intel's business practices. The competition bureau's "statement of objections" alleged the chip giant abused its dominant market position to squeeze out its arch rival Advanced Micro Devices from the x86 chip market. Intel has up to 10 weeks to respond to those objections.
And in Japan, Intel agreed to abide by the Japan Fair Trade Commission's recommendations, stemming from its antitrust case. The Japan FTC took issue with the marketing rebates Intel offered to customers who did not use AMD's chips.
In the latest development with Korean antitrust officials, the allegations are similar to those of the other two regions at the "highest" level, in that Intel is alleged to have violated antitrust laws, said Chuck Mulloy, Intel spokesman. He declined to provide further details, noting the document sent by Korean FTC officials was confidential.
But one report in Bloomberg cited a Korean FTC official and noted the chip giant could face a fine as much as 3 percent of its annual revenues if ultimately found it broke antitrust laws.
Intel, however, hopes to convince the Korean FTC commissioners that the microprocessor market is functioning normally and is extremely competitive, Mulloy said, adding that Intel's business practices are lawful.
Intel will be given a chance to respond to the FTC's allegations. And should the commission rule against the company, Intel could then take its case to Korea's high court in Seoul, Mulloy said.
(Credit:
GameSpot)
The wait is over. No more speculation and no more rumors. Just a few hours ago, Blizzard announced Starcraft 2 at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul. This will be the first sequel to one of the most popular PC strategy games ever. The Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg are all coming back, each with their own unique style of play. The game's trailer was already up on Youtube by midnight and got almost 27,000 views in just over four hours.
Starcraft 2's release date hasn't yet been announced, but it won't be alone when it hits stores. Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars have been out for a few months already, and both are very hot strategy games in their own rights. By the time Starcraft 2 comes around, these other two games might be getting stale, or they might be getting even more popular, perhaps with new expansions. Considering how long the original Starcraft stayed at the top of the charts, I wouldn't discount either option. Blizzard has a lot of work to do if it wants to reclaim the title as king of the real-time strategy game. We'll just have to watch what happens as the screenshots and preview videos come pouring in.
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