TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Vietnam Raids Restaurants Selling Exotic Meats The crackdown by Vietnamese forestry officials is part of a broader effort to halt the illegal international trade in the meat of threatened species. feeds.nytimes.com |
In a parallel universe known as Nokia world, the future's bright | John Naughton The mobile giant is a master of hardware. But software is more important nowIt's not often that a newspaper column can resolve a dispute that has troubled the finest minds of an abstruse academic discipline, but hey, what else is the New Review for? The field is cosmology, and the dispute concerns the issue of whether there exist parallel universes that together include "everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them."Today we can reveal that at least one such parallel universe exists. It is usually found in Finland, but last week alighted on the ExCel Centre in London, where it was visited by several observers known to this columnist. It is called the Nokiaverse (though some call it Nokia World) and it is populated by people who believe that it is possible to go backwards into the future.The London manifestation of the Nokiaverse was opened by a stirring speech by an important Nokia person named Niklas Savander in which he declared that Nokia was a Very Big Company. Then there was a presentation by Anssi Vanjoki who explained why Nokia's new phone, codenamed N8, would blow the opposition out of the water. The hardware was better, he burbled, the software was "superb" and something called "the Ovi services" outshone anything that the likes of Google's Android could offer. "The message was clear," reported the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones, "the fightback has begun". Spoilsport that he is, Cellan-Jones then went on the web and discovered that "Mr Vanjoki had made the same claim in a blog back in July".One characteristic of the Nokiaverse is that its reality distortion field is even more powerful than the one that dominates the Appleverse, another parallel universe centred on Cupertino, California. An innocent space traveller who had wandered into the London manifestation would not have guessed that this was a company in deep trouble: its market cap is down 75% over the last three years; it is losing senior executives like the government loses personal data; and it's been forced to make a hurried appointment of a new CEO, Stephen Elop from Microsoft, to replace his expelled predecessor. But if our space traveller really wanted to know what's wrong, then all s/he needed to know is that this is a company that thinks the N8 will be a world-beater because it has a 12 megapixel camera with a Xenon flash.Nokia's problem, you see, is that it's fundamentally a hardware company. In the early days of the mobile phone industry, that was a good thing to be, because then it was all about handsets, and Nokia was very good at designing and making them. It was also astute in spotting the strategic importance of the GSM standard, and pushing hard for its adoption – which is what enabled Europe to leapfrog the fragmented US mobile phone market. So for a long time, Nokia flourished – as a hardware manufacturer. Of course its phones had software, but in those days it was very much a secondary concern because it wasn't expected to do very much.This ethos was brilliantly captured in an email sent by a former Nokia engineer to John Gruber, a well-known tech blogger. "Here's the problem," the Nokia guy wrote. "Hardware rules at Nokia. The software is written by the software groups inside of Nokia, and it is then given to the hardware group, which gets to decide what software goes on the device, and the environment in which it runs. All schedules are driven by the hardware timelines. It was not uncommon for us to give them code that ran perfectly by their own test, only to have them do things like reduce the available memory for the software to 25% the specified allocation, and then point the finger back at software when things failed in the field."But there came a moment in the evolution of the mobile phone when suddenly the software was more important than the hardware. That moment was the arrival of the iPhone. And Nokia missed its significance for two reasons: its senior people – being hardware-focused – didn't see it; and the company lacked the software capability to compete. It didn't, for example, have a mobile operating system that was up to the job. In fact, it still doesn't, which is why it will eventually be forced to buy one in from outside. The only available options are Windows Phone 7 and Google's Android. So, in the end, it looks as though Nokia's future will be as an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) of handsets running someone else's operating system.And the moral of the story? Simple: software rules OK.NokiaMobile phonesJohn Naughtonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Discarded plastic strangles croc The Environment Department says a crocodile found dead on the banks of the Fitzroy River in central Queensland died after becoming tangled in plastic. abc.net.au |
John Huchra Dies at 61; Maps Altered Ideas on Universe John Huchra, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was part of a team whose maps suggested the existence of great clusters of galaxies. feeds.nytimes.com |
This week's science and medical blog carnivals A list of all the recent blog carnivals in the sciences and medicine that have been recently publishedDiamond Light Source Synchrotron, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.Image: GrrlScientist, 2 September 2010 [Galacticize]In addition to showing you one of the photographs I snapped whilst visiting the Diamond Synchrotron this past summer, I wanted to provide a list of blog carnivals that have been recently published. Not too long ago, I shared some of my thoughts about about blog carnivals. In that essay, I told you that blog carnivals are online electronic magazines that are administered and published on a regular basis by blog writers themselves. I also mentioned that blog carnivals played a significant role in the evolution of blog communities. The hosting blogs are an interesting combination of new writers who are seeking to establish themselves in particular topic areas, and long-time writers who remain active members of the blog carnival scene. Below the fold, I've linked to all of the recent blog carnivals that have been published in the sciences and medicine so you can explore those that might interest you. There's quite a few listed that focus on a wide variety of topics, so there should be something here for everyone. ScienceScientia Pro Publica: a rotating biweekly blog carnival devoted to promoting the best writing in the blogosphere about science, environment, medicine and nature.The 43rd edition, 25 October, was published by Traversing the Razor. The 44th edition, 8 November, will be hosted by BioFortified. Carnival of Evolution: A rotating collection of blog essays about all aspects of evolution. The 28th edition, was published at the Carnival of Evolution's index page. The 29th edition, will be hosted by Byte Size Biology. MolBio Carnival: A monthly rotating collection of blog essays discussing peer-review articles, techniques, books and related topics molecular and cellular biology. The 3rd edition, October, was published by Alles was lebt. The 4th edition, November, will be hosted by Skeptic Wonder. Carnival of the Blue: A monthly rotating compilation of the "best of" ocean blog writing. The 41st edition, October, was published by CephalopodCast. The 42nd edition, November, will be hosted by The Beacon. The Accretionary Wedge: A monthy rotating carnival that celebrates the best writing in the blogosphere about the geosciences. The 27th edition, October, was published by Outside The Interzone. The 28th edition, November, will be hosted by Research at a snail's pace . The Carnival of Space: A weekly rotating collection of blog writing about astronomy and space. The 174th edition, 18 October, was published by Beyond Apollo. Scientiae: A monthly rotating carnival that collects stories about and by women in science, engineering, technology and math.The 46th edition, October, was published by PodBlack Cat. The 47th edition, November, will be hosted by The Happy Scientist. Diversity in Science: a rotating monthly blog carnival about minority scientists. The 3rd edition, October, was published at DrugMonkey Blog. This blog carnival is currently seeking hosts.The Giant's Shoulders: a monthly rotating blog carnival that promotes writing about classic science papers. The 28th edition, October, was published at From the Hands of Quacks. The 29th edition, November, will be hosted by Heterodoxology. The Carnival of Mathematics: A monthly rotating carnival about maths and statistics. The 70th edition, October, was published at General Musings. The 71st edition, November, will be hosted by Theorem of the Day. AnimalsCircus of the Spineless: A monthly rotating blog carnival that celebrates insects, arachnids, molluscs, crustaceans, worms and most anything else that lacks a spine (except politicians). The 55th edition, October, was published at Wild About Ants. The 56th edition, November, will be hosted by CephalopodCast. An Inordinate Fondness: a monthly rotating blog carnival devoted to all things beetle-y.The 9th edition, October, was published by Beetles in the Bush. The 10th edition, November, will be hosted by Coleopterist's Corner. House of Herps, a monthly rotating blog carnival devoted exclusively to reptiles and amphibians. The 11th Edition, October, is published at Mainly Mongoose. The 12th edition, November, will be hosted by A Natural Evolution. Four Stone Hearth: is a rotating biweekly blog carnival that focuses on the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focusing primarily on archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, bio-physical anthropology and linguistic anthropology. The 103rd edition, was published by The Prancing Papio. The 104th edition, will be hosted by Sorting out science. I and the Bird: a biweekly rotating blog carnival that celebrates the interaction of people and birds, and is an ongoing exploration of the endless fascination with birdlife all around the world.The 136th edition, 14 October, was published by The BirdChaser. The 137th edition, 28 October, will be hosted by The Greenbelt. PlantsBerry Go Round: A monthly rotating blog carnival devoted to highlighting recent blog entries about any aspect of plant life. The 31st edition, September, was published at A Blog Around The Clock. The 32nd edition, October, will be hosted by 10,000 Birds. Festival of the Trees: A monthly rotating blog carnival for all things arboreal. The 52nd edition, October, was published by Kind of Curious. The 53rd edition, November, will be hosted by Trees, Plants & more. MedicineGrand Rounds: one of the grand dames on the internets, this blog carnival has been ongoing for many years. It is a weekly rotating carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere. Volume 7, Number 4, 19 October, was published at A Medical Resident's Journey. Volume 7, Number 5, 26 October, will be hosted by Notes from Spice Island. Change of Shift: is a biweekly rotating blog carnival about nurses and for nurses. Volume 5, Number 7, 30 September, was published by EmergiBlog. Cancer Research Blog Carnival: is a monthly rotating discussion of what's new in cancer research. The 38th edition, October, was published by Highlight Health. This carnival is currently seeking hosts. GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |