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Read moreApple is one of the company’s iSuppli has identified as being vulnerable to shortages in components for its latest iPad. Such components as the tablet’s touch screen-overlay glass, electronic compass, and battery are unique to the device and can’t be easily replaced if the Japanese suppliers are unable to resume full production.
Japanese components are used in smartphones and other high-end mobile devices because of the quality of the parts. If factories in Japan are unable to resume normal operations over the next few weeks, then mobile phone makers may find it difficult to find replacement parts of similar quality. “There’s a lot of hand wringing going on right now with some of the leaders in the handset market,” Pierson says.
Adam Greenfield’s Cognitive Cities keynote: On Public Objects
Here’s Adam Greenfield‘s excellent, thought-provoking keynote at the recent Cognitive Cities conference in Berlin – On Public Objects: Connected Things And Civic Responsibilities In…
Adam Greenfield’s Cognitive Cities keynote: On Public Objects
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Read more“Promoting Internet cafe chains allows the government to have more control,” said Yu Yi, an analyst with Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. “The Internet cafe chains all adhere to the same standards on service and security.”
Around a third of China’s Internet population surfs the Web from Internet cafes. The Ministry of Culture said the number of Internet cafe users in China reached 163 million in 2010. The country’s total Internet population stands at 457 million users.
There are currently 144,000 Internet cafes in China, according to the ministry, and close to 30 percent of them are operated by chain businesses.
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Despite efforts aimed at closing down Internet cafes, the number of people using Internet cafes to access the Web increased by 28 million people in 2010, according to the ministry. The rising total appears to be at odds with the closures, but over the past six years more legal Internet cafes have entered the market, Yu said. The ministry’s report also does not say if some of the illegal cafes that were closed later reopened.
About half of the people who use Internet cafes in China are 18 to 25 years old, according to Analysys International. Nine percent of the users are under the age of 18. At the same time, 60 percent of the users have monthly incomes at 3000 yuan (US$456) and under.
China has the world’s largest Internet cafe market, said Yu. “The leadership has been trying to regulate it for some time now,” he said. China is actively closing down Internet cafes that don’t meet regulations in an effort to standardize the way they operate, he added.
Read more7 hours and 118 aftershocks later, the store was still open. Why? Because with the phone and train lines down, taxis stopped, and millions of people stuck in the Tokyo shopping district scared, with no access to television, hundreds of people were swarming into Apple stores to watch the news on USTREAM and contact their families via Twitter, Facebook, and email. The young did it on their mobile devices, while the old clustered around the macs. There were even some Android users there. (There are almost no free wifi spots in Japan besides Apple stores, so even Android users often come to the stores.)
You know how in disaster movies, people on the street gather around electronic shops that have TVs in the display windows so they can stay informed with what is going on? In this digital age, that’s what the Tokyo Apple stores became. Staff brought out surge protectors and extension cords with 10s of iOS device adapters so people could charge their phones & pads and contact their loved ones. Even after we finally had to close 10pm, crowds of people huddled in front of our stores to use the wifi into the night, as it was still the only way to get access to the outside world.
“My Body, My Laboratory” in TIME
One of a rare breed of scientists willing to volunteer their own bodies in the service of science, professor Warwick let British surgeons place a silicon chip with 100 spiked electrodes…
“My Body, My Laboratory” in TIME
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“My life”, says Rice, “is a testament to the idea that you can achieve whatever the hell you want if you possess a modicum of creativity, and a certain amount of naïveté concerning what is and isn’t possible in this world. I’ve had one-man shows of my paintings in New York, but I’m not a painter. I’ve authored several books, but I’m not a writer. I’ve made a living as a recording artist for the last 30 years, but I can’t read a note of music or play any instrument. I’ve somehow managed to make a career out of doing a great number of things I’m in no way qualified to do”.
(via seanbonner)
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The Committee to Nuke Elysium 