The fact that the New York Times is interested shows just how international Ibiza's property market has become. As somebody who lives on the island I can tell you there are clear signs we haven't been as badly hit as the mainland by the downturn. There's still plenty of construction going on.
You can see my villa which is for sale if you visit: http://ibizavilla4sale.moonfruit.com/
Otherwise click above to see the full story in the New York Times.
The original crew of the Starship Enterprise look back at the launch of the iPad. (You can see one in Uhuru's hand.) My article in the Wall Street Journal Europe examines how Apple has made tablet computers sexy and what their future might bring.
Click the llnk to the Wall Street Journal Europe for the full story. (I write regularly for the WSJE but usually you have to pay to see the articles.)
October 11, 2010 by Nick Clayton · Leave a Comment
Social media enthusiasts over-estimate the power of services such as Twitter and Facebook have as drivers of social change. Twitter's decision to delay outages to its service which would have accompanied updates did not enable protesters to bring down the Iranian government after disputed elections. for instance.
Does that mean social media will never evolve to the point where they may be central to movements for social change? Click the links to read my full article in the Caledonian Mercury.
The National Geographic carries a pretty full breakdown of this year's Ig Nobel awards. Some of the winners really deserve a prize for getting a grant to have fun. How else would you describe using remote-controlled helicopters to hover above whales' blow holes to connect snot samples in petri dishes? And the Mexican researchers were really doing that, not just playing a video game. (But give the developers time.)
Click the link under the picture to see the rest of the winners.
One of the award winners in this year's Ig Nobel awards. (Although it's not totally cear from the header, the video shows fruit bat on fruit bat action. The researchers weren't that perverted.)
This is my attempt to introduce the rather dry sounding subject of "net neutrality" and the way the British government communications watchdog Ofcom seems to be ready to ditch it. As with so many civil liberties, the initial threats seem banal and unimportant, but once a principal has been overturned it's almost impossible to recover.
My concern is in the long term the loss of net neutrality will make it harder for newer, cash-poor media outlets to compete with the broadcasting giants.
Thanks to @neilmcintosh for pointing out this classic which appears to have come from a pulp science fiction magazine of the 1950s. In fact it comes from the Daily Mail in 2010.
The actual story's been going round for a while that a massive solar flare could generate an electromagnetic pulse that would knock out all or some of the world's telecommunications. Quit how that info is revealed in this graphic is unclear.
(Click via dailymail.co.uk for full story)
India is apparently ready to start shipping a tablet computer for about €27 or £23. All we know is it will run Google's mobile phone Android operating system and have a seven-inch screen.
It's designed exclusively for the education market which might ease the fears of other tablet manufacturers. However, the first of what have become known as "netbooks" were developed by Asus just to be used in schools. Then everybody wanted one.
The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) championed by MIT's Nicholas Negroponte was sold in pairs for a while, one for a wealthy Western consumer, one donated to a child from a developing country. Plenty of people would pay £50 or €60 for a tablet to browse the web, watch YouTube videos on and read documents.
Of course it won't have Apple quaking in its boots. But this dirt-cheap tablet could have a deeper impact than the over-priced iPad.
(Click on the picture for the original story)
Could Hollywood and Bollywood be breaking the law to stop pirates breaking the law? Hmmm...
This is the weirdest tech story I've come across for a while. Who knew that North Korea had a software industry? Why was it creating tie-in games for old(ish) Hollywood movies? Why are they being published by a subsidiary of News Corp?
The only unsurprising thing about this story is its source, Bloomberg. the arch-rival of parts of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Of course we shouldn't use Pirate Bay, but... And it's hard to suppress a little smile when an organisation waves two fingers at the authorities and gets away with it.
Interesting article on Ibiza Spotlight suggesting that the Ibiza and Balearic governments are on the verge of a deal with Monarch which will mean direct flights from Ibiza to Gatwick this winter. That would be good news.
Hopefully, if it happens, Monarch's departure times will be a bit less anti-social than they are in the summer. Gatwick at 5am is not the nicest place in the world. Mind you, Ryanair used to get you to Stansted at 11pm which wasn't that useful either, especially if London wasn't your final destination.
There's also a link to an article which perhaps explains why Ryanair's dropped its winter flights to the UK. The British government has added an £11 departure tax which makes low-fare routes less profitable. So perhaps it's not the Ibiza and Balearic governments screwing things up this time.
At last an "emperor has no clothes" article on 3D TV. The quality of all systems is poor, even the ones where you have to wear special glasses and the exercise is pointless.
(Admission: I can't see anything in three dimensions as I suffer from strabismus or "lazy eye" which means I can't focus simultaneously on a single object. So I have to rely on somebody else to confirm my suspicions that 3D TV is crap.)
