2006 5
Silicon Valley vs Silicon Alley
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I am in NYC right now. Today I met with my friend Jack Hidary and we had a conversation as to why NYC, a city that is so successful in so many fields, has failed to produce dominant technology companies. Silicon Alley never really took off while Silicon Valley continues to dominate the American and global Internet. My answer? Mobility. In America people just move to where the jobs are. If we went through the ranks of the most successful technology companies in the Valley we would probably find a lot of uprooted New Yorkers contributing to their success. In Europe however, people tend to stay where they grew up. As a result there are less clusters and all industries are more scattered.
2006 2
Murder Maps
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
While we at FON use this technology to show where foneros are, others use it to map murders. I guess google maps can be used for anything!
2006 2
Barrio FON
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Ejovi and I are working on a project at FON that we both care very much about and that is the idea of bridging the digital divide in Harlem. As opposed to the municipal wifi network projects which are great but expensive FON´s approach is to get donors including my foundation who started Educ.ar and Educar Chile, to contribute free routers for the people of Harlem who will place them by their windows and make Harlem a wifi neighborhood . In order to make the project sustainable Harlem residents would get free wifi username and passwords but visitors would pay for WiFi access. We have been studying the availabilty of broadband in Harlem and even though there are not as many internet connections in Harlem than further downtown there are enough to build a wifi neighborhood. FON installs only need 2 to 4 foneros per block to give good coverage.
2006 2
Christiane Zu Salm leads Fon in Germany
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Ok, she is gorgeous. But this posting is not about that.
This posting is about how lucky we are at FON, to have Christiane turning Germany into a WiFi nation.
Christiane is the first Fonera Leader who does not strictly come from the internet. She comes from the world of television where she broke all the rules and came out ahead. Christiane to me symbolizes the true entrepreneur who combines original thinking with a strong strategic instinct and great comunication skills. We are SUPER happy and proud to have Christiane with us.
2006 2
Carlos Manuel Varsavsky
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Carlos Manuel Varsavsky, my father, was a great man. Yes I know, everyone thinks his dad was/is great. But believe me, mine really was. Although I could only enjoy him for 22 years this astrophysicist from Harvard taught me more about life and science than anybody else ever will. My father died in 1983, way before the birth of the web. Lately however, he keeps showing up on the web, more and more. Why would someone bother digging up scientific articles from the 60s and listing them online? I guess what my father did must be somehow relevant today. I don´t know. I can´t understand his articles except of course the one on the Nine Day Week, a simple, brilliant idea. I have only words of appreciation for the people who are doing that recovery job. The web can bring great thinkers back to life.
2006 1
My Six Blogs
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Some people have one blog. I have 6. Yes 6. It sounds crazy but I do. I basically have this blog in Spanish and English which I use mostly to write about technology and my own experiences building FON. Then I have Safe Democracy in Spanish and English. Safe Democracy is the blog that remained as a result of the March 11th Conference on Democracy and Terrorism. This is a collaborative blog with many different authors. While it´s been dormant for a year this week the Safe Democracy Foundation which I manage has started accepted new contributions by many different authors both in both languages. Lastly I have my political/social blogs. They are the Varsavsky Foundation blogs in Spanish and English and in those blogs I write my political/social views. Interestingly I rarely translate my blogs. I don´t believe in translation. I believe in cultures and I say raise different issues in different languages something that frequently annoys my Spanish readers many of whom believe everything can be translated.
2006 1
Google vs Microsoft
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Why do I have the feeling that Bill Gates is making a “been there done that” T Shirt to send to the people at Google? Been there, been trashed, been there, fought the US government, been there, fought the Chinese, been there done that. At Davos when Eric Schmidt said that Google thought long and hard about its choices and decided to offer most of its search capabilities but not all in China, Bill Gates replied, that´s “do less evil”. He was having a ball. Still my heart is with Google. To me and I think to most, there´s still a huge difference on how Google succeeded vs how Microsoft succeeded.