The Tata Nano is advertised as the “people’s car” and was launched this week in Mumbai amid a lot of controversy. Many have claimed the arrival of the world’s cheapest car as an “eco-disaster,” refereing to the hundreds of millions of potential new owners that the Nano’s affordable price tag will generate, resulting in a explosion in carbon emissions. Proponents argue that the Tata has the potential to replace many of the dangerous scooters that dominate Indian roadways, and also produce a large share of the transportation polution and danger. Is the Western commentary full of hypocrisy? 70% of all passenger and commercial motor vehicles in the world belong to Western countries, this accounts for only 15 percent of the world’s population. Maybe in stead of criticizing Indian consumers for pursuing more secure modes of transportation, we should focus on developing public transportation systems that are safe, reliable, and sustainable in both industrial and developing countries alike?

Ofcourse we know commodity-cruves like oil and commodity prices have peaked nearly every 30 years, as in 1920, 1951, 1980 — and next likely around late 2009 to mid-2010? But are we also aware that we have seen long-term peaks in our stock market and economy very close to every 40 years due to generational spending trends: as in 1929, 1968, and next around 2009?  The three massive bubbles that have been booming for the last few decades — stocks, real estate, and commodities — have all reached their peak and are deflating simultaneously. Economic forecaster Harry S. Dent, Jr.: “The year 2009 will be the beginning of the next long-term winter season and the initial end of prosperity in almost every market, ushering in a downturn like most of us have not experienced before. Conventional investment wisdom will no longer apply, and investors on every level must drastically reevaluate their policies in order to survive. But despite the dire news and dark predictions, there are real opportunities to come from the greatest fire sale on financial assets since the early 1930s. With the right knowledge and preparation, you can take advantage of new wealth opportunities rather than get caught in a downward spiral. Our lives are about to change for reasons outside of our control, but you can’t change the direction of the winds, but you can reset your sails!”

The coming five years will be the major switch from analog television to digital broadcasting. This will also be the end of the famous TV aerial. Last weekend around 400 local TV stations in Orlando had a première, they turned off their analog signal while most TV watchers were asleep.Will this be a historic moment in time? Are we now most definitely in the digital era or network age?

Recently I have been on the barracades against the negative bias towards newspapers. TV is dead and now newspapers? Sorry I don’t belief that they will disappear anywhere soon. A downfall in subscriptions? Might be… but when mobile handsets sales drop 5% do we than also proclaim that Mobiel telephony is dead? Newspapers like any other traditional medium will have to adjust and that mighthurt but newspapers have both a generation effect as well as an intrinsic social value that will keep them floating for quite a while BUT… after hours of debate recently I received the Volkskrant today… it stated on the frontpage a scientific research breaktrough: Drink like Yakult actually do have effect (the brand name wasn’t mentioned). Interesting article until I finished the paper and closed the back-end… a GIAGANTIC add from Yakult… A(*!^&@^ that totally diminishes both the brand-value of Yakult and the journalistic integrity of the paper… WHO DID THIS? Than just now the NRC dropped in my mailbox… front-page news is the online trend of de-friending (you onliners know the Facebook BurgerKing campaign where you had to defriend 10 buddies to receive a new bruger)… great, original campaign… four weeks ago… If this time-lag and prioritizing news is exemplary for NRC than oooh my god!

Hardhit US news publishers are flirting with the idea of getting their content in front of TV-watching couch potatoes, instantly booming their audience-share and the reach of ads.  Yahoo recently announced deals with Samsung, LG, Sony and Vizio to carry its Widget channel web platform built into future flat-screen TVs. Those widgets can be built by any developer who wants his application to run below any kind of TV content — with users being able to flip through them with a TV remote. MySpace announced it would have one of the widgets that would run on Yahoo’s service, letting people send messages to friends. So will people go for this new web-TV combo, the NetTV?

The New Gulf - How Modern Arabia is Changing the World for Good
by Edmund O’Sullivan
1 customers reviewed this article averaging 4.0

Isbn-13: 9781860632297

A new Gulf is rising one that will be radically different to the one we know. This book is about the economic, social and political transformation sweeping the 6 Gulf states of the GCC… Now the fastest growing part of the world economy. This absorbing new publication provides a concise but complete description of the Arabian countries benefiting most from the affluence sweeping the Middle East in the 21st century. The New Gulf How Modern Arabia is Changing the World for Good focuses on the economic,…

by Adam Greenfield
9 customers reviewed this article averaging 4.5

Isbn-13: 9780321384010

Ubiquitous computing–almost imperceptible, but everywhere around us–is rapidly becoming a reality. How will it change us? how can we shape its emergence?Smart buildings, smart furniture, smart clothing… even smart bathtubs. networked street signs and self-describing soda cans. Gestural interfaces like those seen in Minority Report. The RFID tags now embedded in everything from credit cards to the family pet.All of these are facets of the ubiquitous computing author Adam Greenfield calls “everyware.”…

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (Vintage)

by Walter Russell Mead
17 customers reviewed this article averaging 4.5

Isbn-13: 9780375713736

A stunningly insightful account of the global political and economic system, sustained first by Britain and now by America, that has created the modern world. The key to the two countries’ predominance, Mead argues, lies in the individualistic ideology inherent in the Anglo-American religion. Over the years Britain and America’s liberal democratic system has been repeatedly challeged—by Catholic Spain and Louis XIV, the Nazis, communists, and Al Qaeda—and for the most part, it has prevailed….