Renaissance

In 2054, Paris is a labyrinth where all movement is monitored and recorded. Casting a shadow over everything is the city’s largest company, Avalon, which insinuates itself into every aspect of contemporary life to sell its primary export — youth and beauty. In this world of stark contrasts and rigid laws the populace is kept in line and accounted for.  Live forever… or die trying.

Site – http://www.imdb.com

VMware “Miles Ahead” of Microsoft Virtual Server

“Between Microsoft Virtual Server and [VMware] ESX, there’s no comparison,” said Chris Wolf, an independent consultant and author of Virtualization: From the Desktop to the Enterprise. “Bells and whistles-wise, ESX is still miles ahead of Virtual Server,” he said.

Site – http://it.slashdot.org

All you need is ubuntu

Bill Clinton told the Labour conference to get into ubuntu. Eh? Ubuntu. That was what Bill Clinton told the Labour party conference it needed to remember this week. “Society is important because of Ubuntu.” But what is it? Left-leaning sudoku? U2’s latest album? Fish-friendly sushi? No, it’s a word describing an African worldview, which translates as “I am because you are,” and which means that individuals need other people to be fulfilled.

Site – http://news.bbc.co.uk

No Longer No. 1, and No Wonder

On the surface, two studies out this week seem to raise warning flags about the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. One, the annual ranking from the World Economic Forum — the elite business organization that runs the annual winter schmooze-fest in Davos, Switzerland — finds that the United States has fallen from No. 1, a position it shared with Finland for most of a decade, to an unsettling sixth place.

Site – http://www.washingtonpost.com

Bush dismisses Clinton critique as “finger-pointing”

President Bush on Tuesday dismissed as “finger-pointing” criticism from his predecessor Bill Clinton of his counter-terrorism efforts in the months leading up to the September 11 attacks. Clinton, angrily defending his own administration’s attempts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, had accused the Bush administration of doing far less to stop the al Qaeda leader before the 2001 hijack plane attacks.

Site – http://today.reuters.com

Video – http://www.youtube.com

What war with Iran would look like

The first message was routine enough: a “Prepare to Deploy Order” sent through Naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two minehunters. The orders didn’t actually command the ships out of port; they just said be ready to move by October 1. A deployment of minesweepers to the east coast of Iran would seem to suggest that a much discussed, but until now largely theoretical, prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.

Site – http://www.cnn.com

Internet’s future in 2020 debated

The internet will be a thriving, low-cost network of billions of devices by 2020, says a major survey of leading technology thinkers.  The Pew report on the future internet surveyed 742 experts in the fields of computing, politics and business.  More than half of respondents had a positive vision of the net’s future but 46% had serious reservations.

Site – http://news.bbc.co.uk

What if Bionics Were Better?

Garner is part of a tiny population of early adopters eager to test bionics by choice rather than out of need. Any company that comes out with, say, a bio implant for Wi-Fi connectivity or devices that interact directly with the brain, can put Garner on the waiting list, she said. Such desire for radical body transformation remains very much on the fringe, and represents behavior that many if not most people would consider taboo.

Site – http://wired.com

GITS: Solid State Society

A.D. 2034. It has been two years since Motoko Kusanagi left Section 9. Togusa is now the new leader of the team, that has considerably increased its appointed personnel. The expanded new Section 9 confronts a rash of complicated incidents, and investigations reveal that an ultra-wizard hacker named the Puppeteer is behind the entire series of events.

In the midst of all, Batou, who was stalking the case on a separate track, encounters Motoko. She goes away after saying, “Stay away from the Solid State Society.” Batou is left with a doubt in his mind. Could Motoko be the the Puppeteer?

Site – http://en.wikipedia.org

Ergo Proxy

Set in the future. A group of robots become infected with something called the Cogito virus, and become aware of their own existence. So these robots, which had been tools of humans, decide to go on an adventure to search for themselves. They have to decide whether the virus that infected them created their identity, or whether they gained their identity through their travels. This question is meant to represent our own debate over whether we become who we are because of our environment, or because of things that are inherent in us.

Site – http://www.ergoproxy.com

Living online: I’ll have to ask my friends

Is social networking changing the way people relate to each other? For some people, things move from “I have a feeling, I want to call a friend” to “I want to feel something, I need to make a call”. In either case, what is not being cultivated is the ability to be alone and to manage and contain one’s emotions. When technology brings us to the point where we’re used to sharing our thoughts and feelings instantaneously, it can lead to a new dependence, sometimes to the extent that we need others in order to feel our feelings in the first place.

Site – http://www.newscientisttech.com

DJ Krush

DJ Krush (real name Hideaki Ishii) was born in 1962 in Tokyo. At an early age, Ishii dropped out of school, and joined a local gang, and a few years later, Yakuza. One day in the early 1980s, after watching the film “Wild Style”, he was inspired, bought some turntables, and started to learn the art of turntablism. In 1987, he formed the Krush Posse, which made numerous appearances as a group in late 1992 and gained him recognition by becoming the first DJ in Japan to perform with live musicians. He released his first album “Krush,” which stated his presence in the scene, and he has since released eight more. He has had recording contracts with Chance Records, Ninety Nine Records, Mo-Wax (he was the first Japanese artist to join them), Apollo and Sony/Columbia. He works internationally as a producer, re-mixer, DJ and recording artist, bringing the unique flavour of Japanese hip hop to the world.

Site – www.mmjp.or.jp/sus/krush