On the 24th of this month, Emblaze Mobile announced their new smartphone running on the relatively unknown Access Linux Platform (ALP). Developed from scratch in close cooperation with OS developers, the First ELSE have taken them two years to develop but the end result has turned out quite attractive.

Powered by the TI OMAP 3430 platform the First Else will share the same CPU and graphics accelerator with devices such as the iPhone 3GS, Nokia N900 and Samsung i8910 Omnia HD. The handset packs an impressive 3.5″ capacitive LCD touchscreen display with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels.

The 5-megapixel camera of the First Else is able to capture 480p (which could either mean VGA or WVGA) video at 30fps. Network connectivity is perfectly covered, with both HSDPA and EDGE onboard.

The First ELSE has the Access Linux Platform (ALP) 3 in its core, which is LiMo compliant and has support for classic Palm OS and Java apps. But on top of ALP, ELSE Mobile have put a new UI called ELSE Intuition.

Here’s how it works in action. You can see they’ve revamped the “old-school idea” of a Main Menu and all you need to select an item is a single thumb Touch, Slide & Release action. They’ve called that concept sPlay.

The new UI is task-oriented and is supposed to deliver an unmatched user experience. Yet it seems that the whole press event was dedicated to it being able to outdo the iPhone and Android devices. However looking at those first screenshots we are almost willing to believe that the First Else will, in fact, try to push the envelope, rather than be content with beating the old dogs at their own game.

Else are also working on a self-branded media store to facilitate the distribution of multimedia content for the platform. Of course there will also be an App store (you can’t do without one these days) and the SDK will be made available at launch in Q2 of 2010. There’s no word however on how much it would cost.

A little backgrounder is definitely due when so many new names are involved. Access is the company developing the Access Linux Platform (ALP) for several years now.

ELSE Mobile is an independent company (previously known as Emblaze Mobile) that has been involved into developing a new smartphone based on the ALP. So far, they’ve had two concurrent projects – Edelweiss and Monolith (the second one in cooperation with Sharp). Edelweis has even been close to launch in Russia last year and it was detailed in various news sources.

Anyways, since then, both projects have been remapped to produce smartphones some time in 2009 and since their results have not been actively advertised, we guess they’ve either been dumped or one of them has become the First ELSE.

Watch the commercials of First Else

[GSMArena]

Sometimes you come across a piece of news for deaf children and young people so good that it takes a while for it to sink in. That was the case for me when I found out that Google has developed speech recognition software that has the potential to ensure more online videos on most of its websites will now be subtitled. Including Youtube videos.

Personally, if you’d asked me a week ago about universal online subtitles, I would have said it’s a great idea, but probably technologically impossible. Well, thanks to deaf leadership at Google, I’ve pretty much been shown to be a complete Luddite.

The importance for deaf children and young people? Well, to give one example, listen into a playground conversation and I bet many children will be talking about the latest youtube craze or embarassment. Now deaf children and young people can be involved in those playground chats.

Hopefully, everyone who uploads videos will make use of the new software. And that all other providers of online subtitles will take note and follow suit quickly. I am particularly thinking of BBC news online and their continuing abject failure to caption stories featuring deaf children, despite assurances to the contrary…

As it uses speech recognition software, there are bound to be some painful (and amusing) typos. But it still a massive step forward. If there was an award for most promising and exciting technological development for deaf people in 2009, this would have to be one of the contenders. Maybe the 21st century is about to arrive for deaf children and young people after all?

In an article titled “What Happened to Trust?” (Medical Post, July 2007), a family physician voiced his dismay that people trusted their neighbours’ opinions over that of their physician, and that doctor-patient confidence had been lost. He blamed 1960 activists for starting the trend of challenging everything and trusting no one. The author’s description exemplifies the current state of Western society: we are living in a Healthtopia, a society where health is seen as the saviour of the masses. Health products are readily available at mega-markets; the Internet is an unprecedented source of health-related information; and neighbours are swapping supplements with each other on poker night. At the fringes, this can lead society dangerously close to medical anarchy and unabashed self-medicating. But within limits, a Healthtopia can potentially expand treatment standards.

The way an individual (and society) treats the body directly challenges the status quo. Recall the sterilization of the mentally handicapped in the 1930’s; abortion and women’s rights over their bodies in the 1960s. Healthtopia followers are not a group of 1960s anarchist hippies, declaring peace, love and all things psychadelic. They are individuals trying to be proactive about their personal health, and standards of treatment will be forced to meet their demands if they act as a collective unit. The change may be slow to come, but the shift would happen.

Both examples of abortion and forced sterilization also illustrate how our bodies are more than individual units. The body is a social, biological, and most significantly, a political vehicle. Healthtopia followers have inadvertently converted their bodies into a war zone of choice and their arsenal includes a slew of complimentary medicines.

The battle for individual health is also a feud over our dollars. As a group, consumers can exert pressure through their growing purchasing power. Big business has of course responded swiftly to the demands of the health conscious masses. The vitamin-as-prevention paradigm may live on in the halls of the great medical schools, but the vitamin-as-treatment concept operates de facto in the minds of health consumers as they purchase their supplements. The economic demands will add increased pressure to change standards of disease prevention. There simply needs to be a greater number of supporters – and their dollars.

A utopia is idealistic in nature and rarely obtained, especially when it is one based on the health not wealth of its citizens. And yet, healthy societies can evolve. They need to be built from the ground up and based on social responsibility and accountability. As a Healthtopia, we are slowly getting there.

Talya

Nu börjar konturerna kring nya Årskort Guld med länstrafik som säljs from den 7 december att klarna.

De som köper nya Årskort Guld kan använda detta i SL:s Accesster-minaler på bussar/spårvagnar och stationer till tunnelbana/pendeltåg.

De – som jag – som får ett befintligt Årskort Guld utbytt kommer inte att kunna använda det i Accessterminalerna utan får visa upp det för chaufför/spärrvakt.

Sedan får man hoppas att dessa förstår vad det är för kort – men det är en annan fråga.

Hur det blir i andra län vet jag inte men Västtrafik och en del andra län lär ha samma tekniska lösning som Stockholms län?

Bond Trader Powercell è il software che ho ideato per dare supporto operativo e decisionale al mio trading sui bond.
Basato su MS Excel, MS Access e la tecnologia DDE di Fineco, permette di gestire in tempo reale fino a 100 titoli nella Trading Room e di archiviare i dati di tutti i titoli del mercato TLX e MOT così da implementare delle analisi basate sui dati storici.
Questo mi ha permesso di creare degli algoritmi che possano fornire dei livelli vantaggiosi di entrata e uscita da un trade e soprattutto di mettere in evidenza le mutate condizioni di mercato che richiedono un adattamento dei suddetti algoritmi.

Il programma non è attualmente in vendita in quanto parte integrante del mio trading system, sto però valutando l’opportunità di commercializzare una versione light.

Aparte de las cláusulas especificas de cada base de datos, la clave esta en utilizar ORDER BY ASC (ordenación de menor a mayor) para los primeros resultados y ORDER BY DESC (ordenación de mayor a menor) para los últimos resultados de la consulta.

Sea la consulta:

select primera_columna,
       segunda_columna
  from mitabla

En los ejemplos estamos recuperando los últimos 10 resultados de la consulta.

Para MS SQL Server ó MS Access, utiliza la cláusula TOP:

select TOP 10
       primera_columna,
       segunda_columna
  from mitabla
 order
    by primera_columna desc

Para MySQL ó PostgreSQL, utiliza la cláusula LIMIT:

select primera_columna,
       segunda_columna
  from mitabla
 order
    by primera_columna desc
 limit 10

Para Oracle, utiliza la cláusula ROWNUM:

select *
  from ( select primera_columna,
                segunda_columna
           from mitabla
          order
             by primera_columna desc )
 where rownum <= 10

Para DB2, utiliza la cláusula FETCH FIRST:

select primera_columna,
       segunda_columna
  from mitabla
 order
    by primera_columna descending
fetch first 10 rows only

Mobile phone maker Emblaze Mobile, an Israeli start-up, unveiled their contender for the smartphone market yesterday, the First Else. Featuring a brand new Linux-based operating system called Else Intuition, which they developed jointly with ACCESS; the handset aims to put applications on the centre-stage rather than the phone itself.

The video above provides an overview of the look and feel of the new handset and some of the applications which all looks extremely impressive, but I also feel this may prove to be the Achilles heel of this handset.

Two years ago, the Apple iPhone first hit our shelves and has since revolutionised the way people use their mobile handsets. Despite its hi-tech prowess however, the winning formula of the phone has relied heavily on Apple’s iTunes store that offered a range of third-party content, most importantly applications.

Despite a range of native applications already available on Else Intuition and the established ACCESS developer network, will third parties be tempted to invest time, money and marketing budgets on this unknown platform? The level of investment may also be a barrier to entry for some developers, with first looks at the operating system signalling significant levels of design and integration required.

Also, how will the handset itself meet the demands of developers looking to maximise market penetration with only a handful of applications compared to the tens of thousands on the Android, Symbian and Apple operating systems. With operators also looking to boost their developer friendly credentials, such as Orange with the launch of a new forum, Emblaze Mobile faces a challenge if they truly want to change the way we think about smartphones.

I wish them the best of luck in solving this and can’t wait to get my hands on the handset.

Founded in 1995, pioneer of the digital inclusion movement in Latin America, CDI (Center for Digital Inclusion) is one of the leading social enterprises in the world with a unique socio-educational approach. CDI Founder and Ashoka Fellow Rodrigo Baggio and our work at CDI have been recognized with more than 60 international awards. Today, we are a network of 753 self-managed and self-sustaining CDI Community Centers throughout Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay – monitored and coordinated by our 31 regional offices.

In addition to low-income communities, our schools are also present in indigenous communities, psychiatric clinics, hospitals for the mentally and physically disabled, as well as youth & adult detention facilities.  CDI is an international NGO with US 501c3 status, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. CDI has operations in the USA, UK, and and Latin America.  With the support of James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank and the Wolfensohn Institute, CDI is in the process of expanding to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, to be followed by India and other parts of Africa. (CDI Global)

THE PROBLEM

“Computers and computer-based communications and information systems are opening up new opportunities in virtually every field of human endeavor. Distances of many kinds are being erased, and the “global village” is becoming more of a reality with each passing day. In education, in the workplace, and in many leisure pursuits, the computer embodies the fundamental difference between yesterday and today.

Unfortunately, however, the benefits of this remarkable tool are not being evenly shared. In countries like Brazil, where poverty is widespread and public education systems are extremely deficient, both the high cost of computer hardware and limited opportunities for training in computer skills deny access to those benefits to most people of modest economic means. As a result, in several important respects the gulf between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is widening, and with that widening, the opportunities open to economically disadvantaged groups are correspondingly curtailed.

The essence of the challenge that Rodrigo and his colleagues are addressing, therefore, is the urgent need to broaden access to computer and information science skills and, through those skills, to improve economic opportunities and more fruitful participation in virtually every dimension of modern life. The campaign in which Rodrigo and his associates are engaged is at the forefront of the continuing battle for social justice. It is also of central relevance for the future of democratic governance in Brazil.” (Ashoka.org)

THE SOLUTION

“We use knowledge to stimulate local economic development and job creation.  Technology is one of the most powerful catalysts of change at hand today. But technology, in itself, is just a tool. The true challenge is making technology relevant and useful in the context of marginalized populations. For 14 years CDI has empowered disadvantaged groups to use Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) as tools to exercise their full capacities as citizens and tackle the issues that affect their communities. CDI Community Centers are technology and learning centers in impoverished communities. Each CDI Community Center is a partnership with an existing leading grassroots organization.  The community based organizations provide the infrastructure and CDI provides free computers and software, implements educational methods, trains instructors and monitors the schools.” (Ashoka)

THE RELEVANCE

“The Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, founded by Baggio, was chosen as one of the world’s top three Principal Voices in the field of Economic Development. (Ashoka Fellow)

THE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR

“The Brazilian social entrepreneur, 40, has worked tirelessly to overcome what he calls “digital apartheid”, explaining that “79 per cent of the population of our planet is excluded from accessing technical development.” (Digg)

THE RESULTS