Olav's world

- When Robots Rule the World

2004-10-20T19:20:00.000+02:00

From Wired News.
The use of robots around the home to mow lawns, vacuum floors and manage other chores will increase sevenfold by 2007 as more consumers snap up smart machines, the United Nations said.

That boom coincides with record orders for industrial robots, said the U.N.'s annual World Robotics Survey, released Wednesday.

The report, issued by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, said that 607,000 automated domestic helpers were in use at the end of 2003, two-thirds of them purchased that year.

...By the end of 2007, some 4.1 million domestic robots will likely be in use, the study said. Lawnmowers will still make up the majority, but sales of window-washing and pool-cleaning robots are also set to take off, it predicted.

...By the end of the decade, the study said, robots will "not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs."

US: Adopting Linux

2004-10-16T17:20:00.000+02:00

From Linux News.
In a survey of 500 top companies in the IT industry, 89 companies said that they are migrating from Unix to Linux while 112 are migrating from Windows to Linux. In addition, 94 companies said their new applications will be on Linux; 114 are deploying Linux on their desktops; and 60 companies are deploying Linux on their mainframes.

Gr�nn Hverdag

2004-10-13T23:52:00.000+02:00

Gr�nn Hverdag (tidligere Milj�heimevernet) er et nettverk av enkeltpersoner, grupper og organisasjoner. Ved � informere om milj�vennlige l�sninger i hverdagen, bidrar de til en mer b�rekraftig utvikling i Norge og internasjonalt.

Gr�nn Hverdag har et bredt tilbud til folk som vil ta milj�hensyn i dagliglivet og tilbyr hundrevis av milj�tips. Med over 100.000 individuelle deltakere er de landets st�rste nettverk av og for milj�bevisste forbrukere.

Du kan f� tips til hvordan du kan bidra til � l�se milj�problemene, steg for steg. Til nytte for kloden og v�re etterkommere og til glede for oss selv. En kan dele de store milj�problemene opp i sm� oppgaver. S� sm� at alle kan bidra, men samtidig store nok til at det monner n�r mange gj�r sin innsats. Ingen kan gj�re alt, men alle kan gj�re sitt.

- Climate fear as carbon levels soar

2004-10-11T16:32:00.000+02:00

The Guardian.
Scientists bewildered by sharp rise of CO2 in atmosphere for second year running
An unexplained and unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere two years running has raised fears that the world may be on the brink of runaway global warming.

Scientists are baffled why the quantity of the main greenhouse gas has leapt in a two-year period and are concerned that the Earth's natural systems are no longer able to absorb as much as in the past.
...When the Pacific warms up during El Ni�o - a disruptive weather pattern caused by weakening trade winds - the amount of carbon dioxide rises dramatically because warm oceans emit CO2 rather than absorb it. But scientists are puzzled because over the past two years, when the increases have been 2.08 ppm and 2.54 ppm respectively, there has been no El Ni�o.

... "The rise in the annual rate to above two parts per million for two consecutive years is a real phenomenon. "It is possible that this is merely a reflection of natural events like previous peaks in the rate, but it is also possible that it is the beginning of a natural process unprecedented in the record."...

Is Bush wired?

2004-10-09T20:30:00.000+02:00

Is it so that Bush can't speak in public without covert assistance?
Check out the latest at isbushwired.com.

The lab of the OS movement

2004-10-09T13:40:00.000+02:00

SourceForge.net is the world's largest Open Source (OS) software development web site, providing free hosting to tens of thousands of projects. The site is enriches the OS community by providing a centralized place for OS developers to control and manage OS software development.

Let's not forget...

2004-10-06T17:23:00.000+02:00

Cageprisoners.com is a web-site that works to raise awareness of the plight of the cage prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It has pictures of many of the prisoners, stories from those released and background information.

Amsterdam, here I come!

2004-09-28T14:56:00.000+02:00

Pic-link.

Declaration on the Future of WIPO

2004-09-28T14:34:00.000+02:00

A battle has erupted within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the most fundamental questions of its mission. A number of developing countries, lead by Argentina and Brazil, have tabled a proposal for a "development agenda," which involves stopping work on new treaties that hike intellectual property protections, and redirecting the agency to a range of initiatives more responsive to development and concerns of WIPO critics. Officially, this is debated on September 30, 2004.

You can read about the debate in WIPO on the development agenda, and review relevant WIPO documents here.

More related information at CPTech

Student igjen

2004-09-26T15:42:00.000+02:00

Har tilbrakt helgen med � sette meg inn i pensumet til mitt nye studium, Menneskerettighetsobservasjon ved universitetet i Bergen. Kult � v�re student igjen!

Ta for�vrig en titt i Amnestys �rbok (engelsk) over menneskerettighetsbrudd - ogs� kalt verdens verste karakterbok...

Vitamin E restores hearing & stops cancer

2004-09-25T14:54:00.000+02:00

From BBC news.
Vitamin E can help restore hearing in people who become deaf suddenly for no known reason, research suggests. This natural antioxidant has already been hailed as a potential cancer therapy by preventing or slowing damage caused by certain oxygen compounds...

Pop that pill folks!

EU skrur tiden tilbake

2004-09-24T21:29:00.000+02:00

Fra Klassekampen.
For over hundre �r siden kjempet europeiske arbeidere for kortere arbeidsuke. N� m� de gj�re det igjen.

I 1890 marsjerte europeiske arbeidere i 1. mai-tog for � f� innf�rt 48 timers arbeidsuke. Over hundre �r senere fikk de den - riktignok bare formelt - gjennom EUs s�kalte arbeidstidsdirektiv.

N� har kommisjonen kommet med sitt forslag til revidering av direktivet, der det blant annet �pnes for lengre arbeidsuke.

- Dette forslaget tar for seg mangler i det n�v�rende systemet, uttalte EU-kommis�r Stavros Dimas etter at Kommisjonen i g�r presenterte sitt forslag.
- Det er en balansert pakke med tiltak som beskytter helsen og sikkerheten til arbeidere samtidig som det introduserer st�rre fleksibilitet og opprettholder konkurransedyktighet, heter det i en uttalelse p� EU-kommisjonens hjemmeside.

Den omtalen vil neppe europeisk fagbevegelse skrive under p�.

�Pervers�
Fagbevegelsen har tvert imot karakterisert offensiven fra kommisjonens side for �opportunistisk� og �pervers�...

- Beijing University's website closed by the Chinese government

2004-09-22T23:36:00.001+02:00

From The Epoch Times.
The Chinese government has closed Beijing University's "Yi ta hu tu" Bulletin Board System, one of the most democratic BBSs in China.

According to a student from Beijing University who visits the site every day, YTHT BBS, www.ytht.net, it is seen as the only place in China where people can speak the truth. Its Web site is particularly popular. It is seen a place to learn about the lives of thousands of Chinese and read stories about government corruption, without running through the filter of the state-run media.

According to Weijibaike network, on Sept. 13, Beijing Telecommunications Management Bureau announced the closing of YTHT. Following that, all major BBSs in China issued the notices that forbade discussion of YTHT. Some even deleted all posts that referred to YTHT. In addition, China's search engine company Baidu removed YTHT and related key words from Internet search...

Mozilla takes on Microsoft

2004-09-21T23:10:00.000+02:00

CNET News.com
Open-source browsers Mozilla and Firefox have won over a significant number of defectors from Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the past nine months, Web site metrics suggest.

The gains for Firefox, which was released in a version 1.0 preview on Tuesday, and for Mozilla are most noticeable at Web sites popular by geek-chic early adopters. For example, W3Schools.com, a Web development tutorial site found that Mozilla-based browsers were used by 18 percent of its visitors in September, up from 8 percent in January. Internet Explorer use dropped to 75 percent from 84 percent in the same period.

...The Mozilla Foundation, which develops both the Mozilla and Firefox browsers and their underlying Gecko browsing engine, has noted that downloads of the Firefox browser have doubled from 3 million for version 0.8 to 6 million for version 0.9. The group said that almost 160,000 people have downloaded the latest version of Firefox, the 1.0 release candidate.

"Obviously, there was a big spike in interest back in July when there were concerns with Internet Explorer security," Mozilla spokesman Bart Decrem said. "You worry that such things are just a blip, but that momentum has seemed to continue for us."...

- ANts P2P2P: A New Approach to File-Sharing

2004-09-14T21:18:00.000+02:00

From Slyck.
With traditional P2P, file sharers make a direct connection to the computer that is hosting the file they demand. Both parties in the transaction know what file is being transferred, and each other's IP addresses. This provides users of the network with no privacy and ultimately makes them vulnerable to lawsuits in many countries.

But now there has been increasing interest in anonymising networks. These use clever mathematics to route data through the network in such a way that nobody knows who released the file onto the network, or who wants it, only what direction it needs to travel to get there. Although users on the network know the IP addresses of their neighbors, when those neighbors receive a file, users do not know if the sender is the file seed, or just a proxy from another user. This is oversimplified in comparison to the complexities of these networks, more details of which can be found on the MUTE website.

The first of these anonymising networks to attract attention was MUTE, but now another developer has given us a second, called ANts.

Slyck decided to investigate the features and power of MUTE and ANts...

Fahrenheit 9/11

2004-09-12T13:15:00.000+02:00

Jeg s� Michael Moores sv�rt Bushkritiske dokumentar Fahrenheit 9/11 i g�r. Utrolig bra - et stykke dokumentarhistorie! F�rte for�vrig bloggen hans opp under Cool Blogs.

Project Censored Exposed

2004-09-11T11:48:00.000+02:00

The Mission of Project Censored is to educate people about the role of independent journalism in a democratic society and to tell The News That Didn't Make the News and why.

Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of that 25 news stories (Cencored: 2005) that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media.

Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. With the help of more than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members, Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance. The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Norman Solomon, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are featured in the yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn't Make the News.

Optical illusion

2004-09-08T19:11:00.000+02:00

Click the pic for the full effect.
From Boing Boing.

Amnesty International about Chechnya

2004-09-07T21:24:00.000+02:00

The terrorist act in Beslan was a terrible crime.
How can people do such horrendous things?
Maybe one part of the answer may be found here:

"The conflict in Chechnya has been characterized by serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Independent verification of violations has frequently been gravely hampered by the security situation in the region, and obstacles to access imposed by the Russian authorities on international human rights monitors, as well as domestic and foreign journalists, seeking to operate in Chechnya. However, Amnesty International has actively researched numerous, consistent and credible reports that Russian forces have been responsible for widespread human rights violations such as "disappearances", extrajudicial executions and torture, including rape"...

Read the full Amnesty International report (2002) "The Russian Federation - Denial of justice".

- F�r st�tte i IKEA-kritikk

2004-09-07T17:36:00.000+02:00

Fra Norges Naturvernforbund.
I en reklamekampanje pr�ver IKEA � undergrave milj�bevegelsens ti �r lange kamp for folks rett til � reservere seg mot uadressert reklame. Forbrukerombudet gir Norges Naturvernforbund medhold i sin kritikk av IKEA.

Hvert �r sparer vi flere millioner kilo s�ppel ved � si nei takk til reklame. Naturvernforbundet arbeider for � f� flere til � reservere seg ved � sette klistremerker p� postkassen. I sin siste reklamekampanje advarer IKEA om at de som henger opp slike klistremerker ikke vil f� IKEA-katalogen i posten.

- IKEA undergraver et arbeid som vi har brukt sv�rt mye tid og krefter p�. Porto og trykk har kostet oss minst en million kroner, sier Tom S. Tomren, leder i Naturvernforbundet Hordaland. IKEAs reklamekampanje er direkte sabotasje av et viktig milj�arbeid. Dette vitner om manglede folkeskikk og gangsyn.
Naturvernforbundet har klaget IKEA inn for � drive med s�kalt �negativ reklame�. Det vil si at selskapet i stedet for � markedsf�re sitt eget produkt, bruker reklame for � sverte en konkurrent. Forbrukerombudet stiller seg bak denne kritikken.

Reklame-nei-takk-klistremerker kan skaffes hos Naturvernforbundet Hordaland, eller hos Gr�nn Hverdag.

Global atmospheric concentration of CO2

2004-09-05T10:39:00.000+02:00

Click the pic for a bigger image.
From GRID.

Atmospheric CO2 has increased from a pre-industrial concentration of about 280 ppmv to about 367 ppmv at present (ppmv= parts per million by volume). CO2 concentration data from before 1958 are from ice core measurements taken in Antarctica and from 1958 onwards are from the Mauna Loa measurement site. The smooth curve is based on a hundred year running mean. It is evident that the rapid increase in CO2 concentrations has been occurring since the onset of industrialization. The increase has closely followed the increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

- P2P Population Grows Substantially

2004-09-04T14:43:00.000+02:00

From ITIC.
Worldwide P2P population (active users) grew up from 15% since July 2004.

The FastTrack Network (KaZaA) is still number one, its population grew up significantly right after the landmark P2P ruling of August 19th in the favor of peer-to-peer software makers and operators. The end of the holyday season might be also accountable for this increase. eDonkey progressed "normally", now imposing itself as a serious competitor of KaZaA. Small emerging platforms (mainly those relying on anonymous and encrypted networks) are also accountable for such a strong growth; they recently reached an overall population of more than 1M active users. The "More secure networks" trend is still to be watched seriously. Curiously, we observed that several users migrated to BitTorrent, the most reliable but also the less secure P2P platform among those at the TOP of the charts... BitTorrent seems to be the current platform of choice for movie piracy and software piracy.

- Frykter mer konflikt

2004-09-02T20:51:00.000+02:00

Tekst og bilde fra Klassekampen.

Flertallet tror at globaliseringen kommer til � f�re til flere arbeidskonflikter. Fire av ti tror globaliseringen vil svekke det norske velferdsniv�et.

52 prosent av de spurte tror det blir flere arbeidskonflikter i framtida og over 42 prosent tror globaliseringen kommer til � svekke det norske velferdsniv�et. Under syv prosent tror det motsatte. Dette kommer frem i en statistikk som ble publisert i ukemagasinet Mandagmorgen sist mandag...

- More Norwegians opposed to joining the EU

2004-09-01T22:19:00.002+02:00

By EUobserver.
For the first time since August 2002, a clear majority of Norwegians have declared their opposition towards membership of the European Union.

A poll conducted by Sentio-Norstat on behalf of three Norwegian newspapers (Dagen, Nationen and Klassekampen), showed that 45 percent of people in Norway are opposed to EU membership, while only 42.2 percent are in favour. 12.7 percent did not take a stand.

Commenting on the result, leader of the Norwegian No-movement, Sigbj�rn Gjelsvik, said the EU question should now be shelved.

"This is my best advice to the yes-politicians", he said according to Nationen adding that a new EU referendum would only be divisive and steal the attention from other more important international questions.

The swing towards the no has been attributed to the new EU Constitution...

A rainy day in Oslo...

2004-08-31T17:12:00.000+02:00

Pic link