Friday, August 29, 2008

The cause of the plane crash in Madrid.



One day before my flight a plane crashed at Barajas Airport in Madrid. Around 150 people died and this was so close. A lot of helicopters and ambulances could be heard in the city. 

The left engine failed during take off and made the airplane crash on the airport. It must have been terrible for the passengers because it was the second try to take off. The plane had a lot of fuel inside, which causes a really big fire. 

A member of the Sin Futuro team 'Boris' didn't think this was just an accident. In a conversation with him he told me that 3 months before the crash Barajas airport had fired 25 % of the employees. "including 68 mechanics". They did this because they couldn't pay them anymore. 

What happened was that there was a shortage of mechanics on the airport which meant the Pilots had to dubbelcheck their planes themselves. These people were not trained for this but had to do it because they had the best knowledge about the plane. 

I was glad the next day the atmosphere on the airport was really relaxed so I could have a relaxing flight..

What I also found Interesting is how Twitter was used to inform other people about the crash. Within 10 minutes I got 58 tweets which informed me about what happened, how many deaths, flight details etc. Also people used twitpic to show the world of twitter what it looked like from the Highway.

I think Twitter is becoming a very up to date social newsroom...


The only thing that keeps me warm..

Is work! 

Heya guys, back again since the 21th. I know I haven't posted much lately, however this didn't come because of a lack of exciting stuff that I had gone through. Not at all.

I have done so much stuff that I need to find a way not to post another 100 posts. 

I'll brief you guys again from now on ;). check this video by The Onion. Really funny how they can change the context. 

Monday, August 11, 2008

We are going to get the James Bond Cloaked car!!


I found this topic through the newsroom of Mobuzz TV "ENG". I guess we are getting close to rebuild James Bond cars! 

"Poof! Scientists closer to invisibility cloak

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.

The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.

People can see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Cloaking uses materials, known as metamaterials, to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.

Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don't. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don't create reflections or shadows.

It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

The research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center.

"

This was my 100th post , first person who comments will get a post just about his/her website =)..

Great price, no ;-) ?

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Classic, What if a Ad agency created the Stop Sign..

I found this video on the blog of Jim Cutler..

I thought it was brilliant!

Tentacul.us






At twittmad last Tuesday I met an interesting young man who calls himself Gafeman. I remembered he had a great application working on his Ipod Touch. Which allowed him to listen to music. Just like Last.fm. He had a "special version", on which he gave me a demo. 

He went to http://tentacul.us/m/. There he saw the tentacul.us interface. He could click on one of the songs on the homepage but he did a search for "fall out boy".

The application suggested a band while he was typing in the name which helped him for a quick search,
and result. He clicked on the song which he wanted to play
and Voila! The song started to stream ( very fast) in his browser and provided him a High quality version of the song.
Because of his "special" Ipod he was also able to download the song to his ipod. 
I was amazed by this, especially how fast it went and checked it out on the web.

Tentacul.us doesn't stop with the Iphone. Tentacul.us has a application for the: Playstation 3, Twitter, Mozilla Add-on, Iphone and an special jukebox which does random search in the database.

At the moment the Database is not big. They added a lot of music from different artists. However the full albums aren't available, the most Hits of the artists are.
As I saw for the votes and the clicks on the songs, I'm guessing the website just started. I think it has great potential with their easy and very simple interface.

I think especially the Playstation 3 app. is good. At the moment the music player in the Playstation is very bad. If I plug in my Ipod the songs aren't well categorized. The Categorize the songs on dates it was added and the names of the albums 
are impossible combinations of numbers and letters. 
If you browse to http://tentacul.us/ps3/ with your playstation you will see the special tentacul.us playstation website. Here you can search the database for the song which you want to listen.
If you click on the song, it will stream just like the web version of Tentacul.us however if you click 2, you will download the song to your ps3 Harddrive.

This is like a combination of Limewire and Last.fm on your ps3!


The twitter app. doesn't answer the question: " What are you doing?" but "What are you listening?" Your twitter will be updated every time you will listen a song. And people will not only know what you are doing during the day, but also what you listen!


Go check it out for yourself, I will be waiting for the N95 App!

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Good times at TwittMad





Same time, same place, same day. Yesterday I have attended the TwittMad in Madrid. 

What exactly is Twittmad?  

TwittMad is the first meeting organised by Twitters for Twitters. Marilin Gonzalo ( one of the founders of TwittMad)  used twitter for quite some time. She has been following people, but she wanted more. She and here Argentinean fellow Twitters decided to meet up one time. And they organised this through twitter. 

They had a dinner somewhere and had a great time. They decided to do it more often. Maybe once a month? Because they met up using twitter, people who followed them noticed that they were meeting up, and they also wanted to know who the real people behind these Nicknames are. 

TwittMad was born.

Yesterday the 11th meeting of TwittMad was being held in the Irish Pub at Calle de Brasil in the heart of Madrid. They have loads of space there to manage up to 100 people. The strength of Twittmad is that they don't want to make money out of it. It is just for meeting up with twitterfriends!

At the moment people are also organizing Twittmad in Barcelona, Lisbon and there was even one in Tokio. The idea of the meeting is to Network, have fun, talk about blogs/twitter/mobile phones/your addiction to chocolate/plurk/Apple/music/Laptops/your favorite colour and the rest. 

So why is this meeting different?

There wasn't really a goal or a presentation or anything that HAS to be done around here. And for once it has really been relieving that you don't have to sell your blog..

I think the idea of meeting people there, getting introduced by others and drinking some nice beers was a great way of discovering who these guys you follow look like.

I finally met some people which I knew for a long time. And it was a really nice experience to meet these people in person. Personally I would really love an event just like this in Holland,
Of course you have meet ups. Such like twitterborrel. But I'm not sure it will be the same. 

I would love to see a meeting just like Beers & Blogs, and Twittmad organised in The Netherlands.

Anybody feeling like organizing it with me?!




check my flickr for all the photo's I made.

Or other the other photo stream of Marilin



Friday, August 01, 2008

What is Oozzl trying to do?!




I signed up for Oozzl a while ago, and I must admit...I never looked back to it again. I just wanted to see what it was, and I thought it was just another Social Network. However the thing I do know, is that  Oozzl needs to make up their mind. I received this email on June 17th:

Oozzl Networking
Hi,

This email is to let you know we're changing the theme of Oozzl.

Oozzl will become a social networking website for celebrity fans, and we're hoping you want to be part of our renewed website.

Theo, Martin
Oozzl Networking
"


I thought ok, the plan didn't work, another general social network, Let's try something else...

This is what I received today:
"

Oozzl, Social Networking
Hi..

This is to let you know Oozzl is stepping away from the celebrities theme.

We are again a general social networking website.

If you have ideas to make Oozzl a better and nice website, please let us know.

ps,
You're welcome to invite all your friends to become members of Oozzl..

Best regards,
Theo, Martin
Oozzl, Social Networking

OOzzl Seriously, make up your mind! 


Campus Party video, Impression by Chris and Marilin.

 
Yesterday Marilin Gonzalo and I went filming at the Campus party, I edited a short movie so you guys can see what it's like around here. It is a week long event in Valencia (I was here for 3 days) and I have had a blast just wandering round. Here's a walking tour that includes the Actroid (she's the closest to a human I've seen), the campus party, liquid cooled computers and (in the interview) we examine a device which helps your wrist to relax after a long day typing..