I was reading about Marin Soljacic and his research at the MIT Physics department on Wireless Energy. I found it fascinating. The key idea is that energy is transferred through magnetism in the same way electric engines are powered but that this magnetism is created say around a room in a way that only objects designed to “tune in” to this magnetism, say a cell phone, receive it and get charged while everything else in the room is impervious to this energy “floating around”. Or at least this is what I think the idea is…..
2007 12
Sansa has Salsa: FON and Zing team up!
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Other Projects with No Comments
They should have called the Sansa, the Salsa… because it has tons of Salsa. Yesterday I was one of the lucky persons to be able to play with a Sansa, because FON and the designers of the Sansa Zing have teamed up.
Zing was founded by Tim Bucher. Tim is the salsero of the Sansa. No wonder since he went all the way from being a DJ in High School to being a top designer at Apple where he was a key developer of the iPhone, another product that is full of salsa and that instead of being called the iPhone, cause Cisco owns the trademark should have been called the iSalsa. After playing with the Sansa I believe that there will be a real fight between the Sansa and the iPod. The only element in which the iPod clearly beats the Sansa is in memory. Other than that, the Sansa experience is Endgaget says “a solid alternative to the iPod” (read all the review as Endgadget is a solid alternative to my blog).
So what are we going to do with Zing? The same thing we are doing with the Skype phone (should I say the Skypefon) and that is to bundle the Skype WiFi phone with the Fonera, so when you have a Sansa you can listen to it not only through your WiFi, but through the WiFi all the other FONeros cause at FON, you scratch my back and I scratch yours….all this while you listen to Salsa, in your Sansa (btw, Sergio Mendes, as reinterpreted by the Black Eyed Peas, also has a lot of Salsa).
2007 10
Want To Lead A Sustainable Life? Move To Uruguay
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
In this video I show examples of sustainable farms and explain how with only $40,000 dollars or 30,000 euros an American, European or citizen from probably any country in the world could immigrate to Uruguay, a country of the size of Spain with Northern California climate and only 3.1 million inhabitants, buy a 10 hectare farm and lead a sustainable life.
2007 10
Can I Be You? Apple and Nokia
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Today Apple Computer launched the iPhone and decided to drop the “computer” out of its name. I guess that as it entered the world of mobile phones computer was not the appropriate way of naming Apple. Nokia however, who kindly invited me for a panel in NYC with Om Malik and Steve Boom, from Yahoo, when they launched the new N Series phones a few months ago, told me that we should not refer to the N Series phones as phones since they were NOT phones but ….computers.
I guess this is what happens when two giants enter each other fields. So what´s next, Nokia Computer and Apple Connecting People?
2007 10
Apple´s iPhone has WiFi!!!
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Here´s Endgaget great coverage of the iPhone. It´s as detailed as it could be made after Steve Jobs launch.
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2007 9
Why Is Bombing Acceptable And Placing Bombs Isn´t?
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I just read the news on Reuters/Yahoo that the USA entered Somalia with an AC 130 plane and bombed the village of Hayo because there was “at least one Al Qaeda suspect”. The result? Reuters sources says: “I understand there are many dead bodies and animals in the village”.
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2007 6
Nancy Pelosi, a Working Mother
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I was reading the bio of Nancy Pelosi and what impressed me was that she is a mother of 5 kids who only really started working when her fifth child became a high school senior which happened in her late 40s and in less than 20 years became the most powerful woman in politics in the States. Yes, I know she had all sorts of connections but so do a lot of other people and frankly I think it is an amazing merit to start a career so late in life and to make it to the very, very top. She is a hope to all those women who are having kids in their 30s and think that their career is destroyed forever.
2007 4
FON Goes Retail In Japan
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Americans and Europeans go to Asia and are generally surprised about the small size of shops that sell electronics. Both Europe and America are now dominated by very few small chains such as CompUSA, Best Buy in the States or Media Markt and Fnac in Europe, but for FON asia is fantastic cause we can get the Foneras into retail in a much easier way in the very competitive world of Asia, as they are a hot product than in the somewhat corrupt and inefficient systems of Europe and USA, in which a few mega chain buyers decide what millions will buy.
2007 4
Jelly Fish “Documentary”
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In this video I show a self propelled jelly fish stranded at the beach in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay.
2007 3
Michael Eisner and Ralph Lauren in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay
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When I first bought my farm in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay, in the late 80s, this place was a fishing/farming village with around 40 homes. Now it´s grown to 400 homes. Jose Ignacio is still pretty undeveloped by Northern Hemisphere standards, but the few who come here seem to be pretty successful people from Europe and the States.
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