BPN 1444 The close of Scienar (3)

The seminar was held in the monumental building of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science in Amsterdam. It was a small group of consortium partners and invited people from Italy, France, Slovakia, UK and The Netherlands. The seminar delegates received in their documentation The Scienar DVD, produced by Nicholas Mee of Virtual Image Publishing Ltd, with all the documentation and presentations of the two year Scienar project.

The presentations went according to schedule. It was a varied program ranging from an survey of science and art to a presentation about the essence of the Romanian sculptor Brancusi, a presentation of digital photography and two scientific presentations on mathematics and arts. A surprise presentation was one on the Baptisterium of Pisa. The seminar was closed with a digital music performance.

The historical overview of Dr Mauro Francaviglia can be reduced to three scenarios:
- Scenario 1: The Birth of Geometry at the time of Greeks: the role of proportions, the music of Kosmos, Platonic Solids, the Golden Mean.
- Scenario 2: The Role of Symmetry and Prospective in Renaissance: the birth of Perspective and Projective Geometry, Simmetry in Art, the beauty canons in Painting, Architecture and Music.
- Scenario 3: The New Mathematics and Art of XX Century: Curvature, Impressionism, Cubism, Fractalism, Motion and Fourth Dimension, Digital Art.

The presentation on digital photography was by Marcella Lorenzi. Her digital photography had started with a mistake she made making a photograph. These days she exhibits het photographs in Paris at a UNESCO exhibit and at Toronto. She consciously paint with her camera. Her statement about “Photography, and Digital Photography in particular, is uniquely capable of recording a space/time image. Yet to photograph a space/time image is quite complex. For example, the correct shutter speed to depict motion varies considerably depending on the motion of the subject and the artistic intentions of the photographer. In addition there are many other variables to movement. And to record this kind of imagery successfully, the photographer must have a tool that allows instant display of the imagery just taken so that adjustments can be made based on that feedback - which is the very powerful capability provided by Digital Photography.”

The digital music performance shook the Academy offices for half an hour as their floors are wooden floors. However it was an interesting performance. Leonello Tarabella had brought his own installation and connected this to an movie theatre amplifier. But standing between a type of beamer and a screen, on which for example a piano was projected. Then Mr Tarabella started to play the piano without touching a physical piano.

The whole seminar has been taped and filmed for a DVD production. Eventually the presentations in powerpoint and pdf as well as the filmed presentations will go online. One of the participants, Peter Heijens made his movie summary of the day and put it on YouTube.


Also Carek Kuitenbrouwer produced a movie on the Amsterdam SCIENAR seminar and specifically on the music performance by Leonello Tarabella.



BPN 1444

BPN 1443 The close of Scienar (2)

For the public meeting on Friday we had set up a program for the day.

9:30h Registration

9:45h Welcome by Dr Mauro Francaviglia, chairman
10:00h Dr Mauro Francaviglia, Universities of Calabria and Torino (Italy): Overview project SCIENAR
10.45h Gheorghe Samoila, ITC (Romania): Brancusi-A life quest for the essence

11:15h – 11:45h Coffee

11:45h – 12:30h Dr Marcella Lorenzi, University of Calabria: Mathematics, arts and photography

12:30h Lunch

14:00h – 14:30h Monika Kovacova, Slovak Technical University (Slovakia): webMathematica - on the border between Science and Art
14:30h – 15:00h Daniela Richtarikova Slovak Technical University (Slovakia): Captivating Symmetry
15:00h- 15:30h Leonello Tarabella, computerART Lab of Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dell'Informazione Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy): The Baptisterium of Pisa

15:30 -15:45h Tea

15:45h – 16:15h Jak Boumans, Electronic Media Reporting (The Netherlands): Will the computer become the artist of the future
16:15h – 16:45h Leonello Tarabella, IST/CNR (Italy): Informatics and Music
16:45 – 17:00h formal closing of the project by Dr Mauro Francaviglia, chairman

17:00h Drinks

BPN 1443

BPN 1442 The close of Scienar (1)

The EU project Scienar is about to end. By the November 2, 2010 the two-year project will come to a legal and administrative stop. For the occasion Amsterdam has been chosen to have the final consortium meeting. And as the consortium members will be there, it looked a good idea to tell the world about the results of the project.

Scienar was started up as an EU project in 2008. The project has been divised by dr Mauro Francaviglia for the scientific side and dr. Marcella Lorenzi for the artistic side. The project takes into account the links existing between Science and Art; it has used the innovative possibilities that new media and ICT offer for a better Visualization and Communication. Visualizing and Communicating theoretical achievements of present Culture is by no means simple; moreover, presenting them in an innovative way is a fascinating challenge dictated by new trends of Society. ICT allow us to explore and represent these fruitful relationships in a way unthinkable before.

All the consortium members were present. There were two representatives of the University of Calabria in Italy, two representatives of the Slovak Technical University in Slovakia, a representative of ITC in Romenia and a representative of the UK company Virtual Image and myself on behalf Electronic Media Reporting from the Netherlands. Today we have a closed meeting to talk through the last details of project administration, a look back at the project achievements and the future of the project. Project administration is dull, but it has to be done, filling out forms and excel sheets and account for the costs.

Looking back at the results is more interesting. The project started during November 2008. Since that time happenings have passed: the conference for mathematician, Aplimat 2009 and 2010 in Bratislava, where every year a special session was held on science and art. An exhibition was held in Bucharest (Romenia). And also an exhibition and conference was held in Cambridge (UK). Next week an exhibition will be held at the university of Calabria in Consenza/Rende (Italy). But in Amsterdam seminar, consortium members will report on their contribution in the project.

With this Amsterdam meeting the project is closed. But in principle the project Scienar is dead, long live Science and Art. So we discussed about the future and how the consortium would continue their co-operation. Easy points of reference are of course the Aplimat conferences in Bratislava (Slovakia). But on the other hand the consortium should be seen as a movement which promotes the study of science and art. So participation should not be limited to a few people, but open to other interested people, as we believe the study of science and art is interesting for teachers and students, artists and interested people. So the consortium will continue after the project to co-operate. An open site is foreseen.

BPN 1442

BPN 1441 Dutch pension funds in FttH

Three Dutch pension funds (ABP, PGGM and PvVervoer) have set up the Communications Infrastructure Fund (CIF) in which they have invested some €1 billion. The purpose of the fund is to develop, over the next ten years or so, a national fibre network through a range of mergers and acquisitions of existing networks as well as new builds and network expansion commitments. This network will be made available to all players including the incumbent KPN and the principal cableco UPC and Ziggo.

CIF also aims to invest in antennae to be used by mobile network operators for their mobile broadband offers based on HSPA+ and LTE technologies. The move is astute, given recent developments in both the fixed-line and mobile markets.

A report from the Task Force Next Generation Networks to the government in mid-2010 recommended that 90% of Dutch homes and businesses have access to NGN broadband services by 2020. The report covered proposals for rolling out faster networks, and assessed ways by which average download speeds could be increased to between 75Mb/s and 400Mb/s by 2020, compared to 5Mb/s to 14 Mb/s currently.

Mobile broadband will have a more substantial role to play in pushing high-end data services to rural areas: the April 2010 auction for licences in the 2.6GHz band saw four licences awarded to the joint venture between Ziggo and UPC, Ziggo 4 (set up in December 2009 to deploy and run telecom and broadcast networks). This will allow the cablecos, which together have near national geographic coverage, to complement their existing bundled services (based on fixed-line access) with mobile voice and broadband offers.

KPN’s HSPA network is currently being upgraded to provide up to 21.6Mb/s, while Vodafone in July 2010 doubled download speeds on its HSPA network to 28.8Mb/s in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague. Tele2 NL in the same month announced plans to trial LTE in Diemen and Amsterdam (Tele2 also received four licences in the 2.6GHz frequency auction). All of these players would be able to make use of CIFs fibre-based mobile antennae as backhaul.

A main consideration for CIF is to provide a healthy return on investment for its clients. Real estate and most stocks have proved very volatile since late 2008, and there remain few safe havens for investors. The final cost of the project may reach up to €10 billion.

For more info see: Budde Blog

BTW In June the fibre connection was brought to the cupbord of our Almere apartment. But there is still no live connection. All this FttH effort has been going on in our neighbourhood since 2009.

BPN 1441

BPN 1440 Finland trip 2010 (7)

On Friday night a farewell dinner was organised by Media Update. We sat around a fine dinner and looked back over the week. The organisers of the trip, Hans and Jak, were thanked and received Groninger gingerbread as a present. They had brought together a group of interesting Dutch multimedia lecturers. They all are working in multimedia education and come from Groningen (Noorderpoort College and Hanze Hogeschool), Utrecht (Hogeschool Utrecht, CMD) Amsterdam (Hogeschool Amsterdam, Interactive Media) and Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam. They also mixed with one another. And they also played jokes on one another like the guy offering to get coats for his colleagues from their hotel rooms as he was going upstairs. The next day the colleagues found out that their suits had been exchanged.

The weather was also beautiful for the whole week. For the lucky ones in the hotel who had a room with a view, they looked over the lake and part of the wood and had a view in the morning like the photograph. The hotel is built against a rock which is overgrown with trees, who were already showing their autumn colours. It was also remarkable that this solicited a lot of walks in the woods by the participants before and after the program. But they also walked to the city to shop for beautiful, but expensive Finnish goods, such as a winter coat and lady’s bags (no photographs shown!).

Interesting was the behaviour of some of the young lecturers. They were the whole day busy with their mobiles picking up messages and writing tweets. I had expected to see many iPads like I saw last time in New York, where every other youngster of the WSYA event had such a tablet. But sometimes the lecturers were in a meditative mood.

The program consisted of three parts: two days visits to educational institutes, one day academic lectures and a two conference. An evaluation will have to tell what the general feelings were about these three parts of the trip. But the delegates were also enterprising as they went amongst others to a presentation of Electronic Arts at the other side of town. There they were informed about all the new stuff in games and especially about the Wii and the micro strokes. And one of the lecturers got completely excited by the Galaxy tablet by Samsung. He said: Forget the iPad. The only real drawback was the price of 900+ euro in Finland and 750+ euro in The Netherlands. Some lecturers also went out to visit other schools outside Tampere such as in Turku for contact, students and lecturers exchange.

The social agenda wasnot filled but a number of parties were attended. On Wednesday night the Cloud Computing people had drinks together. On Thursday there was a reception at the Old Town hall in the center of Tampere. It is a beautiful old building with a great chandelier in the reception hall. Some of the lecturers extended the invitation of the Electronic Arts people and had a good time at their party.

On Saturday morning most of the group flew back to Holland. Some stayed behind in order to visit Helsinki or have talks with Finnish colleagues. Some went early to Helsinki to look around or do some shopping. Once back in Holland the Amsterdam people were home soon, but the Groninger people had still a long way to go by train.

Links:

http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/


BPN 1440

BPN 1439 Finland trip 2010 (6)

The second day of Mindtrek started with a view of the future. Latif Latid, the president of the IPv6 Forum, spoke in the plenary on the need to change the IP address from version 4 to version 6. He urged the Fins in the audience to press the politician to have IPv6 introduced.
His presentation was larded with historical details. IPv4 originated in 1983 and resulted in 1992 in The Web. In the meantime, from 1986-1995, the US Government and the US military pursued the OSI telecom standard. It was in 1992 that the US Congress approved the use of NSFNET (National Science Foundation) for commercial traffic. In 1993 the US Government moved to IPv6.
His conclusion is that Internet is loosing its original design and needs to change over to IPv6 fast. IPv4 is good to connect a quarter of the world to internet. Google scans only 17 percent of the present Internet. IPv6 can do the whole internet. IPv6 can connect the whole world. Besides, more than 50 billion of devices will be connected to the internet in the next 10 years.

After the plenary a choice could be made out of four tracks: social moving pictures; social machines; war stories and a workshop on designing social network games with soPlay heuristics. I chose for the social moving pictures. Tommi Pelkonen of Frantic Media in Helsinki has been in interactive marketing for years and has worked in The Netherlands and Hungary. He introduced the subject and the speakers. It is all about story telling. It is the oldest media format, while video is fairly new.

Tommi introduced Christian Fonnesbech an interactive media producer from Denmark. He has been in this trade since 10 years and has made interactive, cross-media productions for banks and other companies. I met him some 10 years ago when he had just left the movie industry for the interactive industry. Now he is creating big production. As promo for Mindtrek he wrote:

"Facebook is wonderful on a good day. Most of the time, however, the experience is like inviting your friends over to watch TV and discovering that there is nothing on. You sit around, trying to start conversations, chitchatting about the weather and making jokes.
But what if this is just the beginning? What if the Internet is destined to become a dramatic, narrative medium – just like other media? Books, Films, TV, and Console Games have all become storytelling media.
My presentation will show some of the cases and methods that have led us to the development of our online, storytelling format, including our global breakthrough from 2009, The Climate Mystery."

Christian Fonnesbech is a new kind of director. In over 30 different online projects, he has explored the Internet’s potential as a storytelling medium. Through various combinations of dramatic fiction and games, social networks, search, e-mails, mobile phones, webisodes, websites, teaching materials and more, Christian has gained unique insights into how to engage online audiences emotionally and interactively. He has worked with many different audiences, purposes and media formats. The Climate Mystery (2009) was a global breakthrough, developed in collaboration with partners such as Microsof and Discovery Channel.
Christian is Creative Director at the newly started The Quantum Room (TQR), a Copenhagen-based digital content studio, which has just become the first team in Denmark to receive Film financing for online fiction. Christian is a master of Film and Media Science. He has worked as a consultant for the Danish EU chairmanship, for a variety of film and TV companies, as well as for the MEDIA and IST programmes.

After the presentation of Christan Fonnesbech, Korash Sanjideh, managing director of chew tv network, took the floor and presented TELL US TV, connecting the UK's young people through social movie making.

In summer of 2010, The Chew TV Network was commissioned by the UK’s leading youth development agency, Creativity Culture in Education, to develop a nationwide social moviemaking experience that would see thousands of young people from all over the county be given the chance to let the UK government know what they thought about Culture and how it affected them.
The TELL US project is based on the premise that exposure to the arts and culture can transform the aspirations, attainment, skills and life chances of young people and over the course of 3 months, Chew TV developed a unique approach to capture the imaginations of thousands of young people through in a fun and exciting way.
From the development of the core brand messaging to the production of positioning movies to be used on the national tour, The Chew TV Network involved young people in every step of the production process to ensure that the content remained current and connected with young people on a level they understand and enjoy.

Links:
http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/

BPN 1439

BPN 1438 Finland trip 2010 (5)

It is Thursday and the conference Mindtrek starts. It is the largest multimedia conference in Finland and draws a lot of people. Looking into the halls I estimate that there are some 450 visitors. The conference starts with two plenary sessions, followed by four tracks. The conference day will be closed with another plenary session. In the evening there is a social program with a reception at the old town hall, followed by the Mindtrek party and the awards ceremony.

The first plenary sessions dealt with cloud computing and Yle, the Finnish broadcast company. The cloud computing presentation was a good presentation. At the end of the presentation I understood the breadth and the with of cloud computing and the potential effect. I understood that Amazon is the example of cloud computing. Around Christmas time they have to scale up in order to process all the orders; so they buy capacity and not servers. Dave Nielsen of Cloud Camp had a nice oneliner saying that data are like oil now. And he predicted that healthcare was a typical area for cloud computing.

The second plenary was an interesting subject, be it presented too slowly by Lauri Kivinen, the CEO of Yle. He started presenting the basic stats of Yle. It is a broadcasting company, which started in 1926, now serving 5.5 million Fins with 4 TV channels, 6 radio channels and the Yle.fi portal, but also with events, mobile and big screens. The company now also has on demand television and radio, but this is not very popular yet. Presently the company is restructuring itself and aiming at cross-media programs. On November 1 it launches a children’s series, using all the media available. Around that same time the company will launch a series with ten instalments on Rock ‘n Roll, presenting it on TV and radio and drawing heavily on archives. The objectives for the coming months are:
- few services, but richer content;
- network journalism;
- ubiquity;
- unlimited mobility;
- services for young adults are growing fast.
New to the broadcast business is the top of the broadcast pyramid. On the bottem are the direct broadcasts, in the middle the on demand programs and on top the social media with which the audience can share, link, mesh and participate.

The tracks were concerned with: new mobile ecosystem; cloud computing; Mindtrek launchpad and more academic sessions. I joined the new mobile ecosystem. Not that I could do much with the information, but you can hear what the companies are going to do next month. In the presentations the systems Android by Google, Symbian 1.3. by Nokia and the iOS by Apple. Google gives Android away for free in order to grab the market. Google gets 30,5 pct of the mobile world. As far as the future, the bet is on Symbian and Anadroid. The iPhone, also called Jezus’ phone, has less of than a Nokia. Real potential will have the Bada operating system. Remarkable was the presentation of Tomi Ahonen, an excentrix Fin, who proves that less iPOD has been sold. He states that Apple works with perception of market share rather than the actual figures.

In the evening there was the traditional reception in the monumental town hall in the center of Tampere. In the reception room there is a beautiful chandelier. After a speech the glasses were filled and finger food served. After the reception we negotiated the corner to the right and got to the disco Brix. There was the Mindtrek party: music, drinks and dancing till late in the night. There was also a reward ceremony of several contest. I was asked to be the representative for the World Summit Award Finland 2010 and the World Summit Award Mobile Media Finland 2010 and hand the certificates to the winners.

Links:
http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/

BPN 1438

BPN 1437 Finland trip 2010 (4)

, TAMKToday we do not have to rise so early as the Pre-Mindtrek activities start in the hotel. So no hastening in order to catch the Telitaksi. We can slowly take breakfast and go to pick up the Mindtrek badge.

The Pre-Mindtrek activities consist of two major tracks: Academic and Cloud Computing. The Cloud Computing stream is a full day session. The Academic track has five major streams: gaming, social media, open source, ambient media and user experience. I have chosen for social media. I would almost say of course, as we are in the country were social media was embodied first. Finland was in my book the first country to develop social media with the Habba-hotel, a social media site for kids. In 1999 it received a Europrix award and has had lots of success with licensing the concept.

The Academic sessions were really academic sessions: some presentations were very obligatory and just an excuse to come to Finland, but I also heard some interesting stuff. Early in the morning I was confronted with social media and public transport. Not exactly a line of research I would have thought about. Yet one of the first slides I remembered. It was about a metro exit where the staircase had been decorated with the keyboard of a piano. When piano music was played more people took the staircase than the escalators. But when I saw it first I did not see this as an exercise in social media. Now the researcher demonstrates with examples that public transport can do with an experience by using screens and mobile applications. It looks promising, but I guess that first many transport systems, like the Dutch smart card system, will have to be made more efficient before people experience public transport as a joy.

This presentation was followed by a presentation with a high igNobel Award level. The subject was users as sensors. It was a filmed presentation as the researchers were now based in Stanford temporarily. The long paper has as subject creating shared experiences in co-creational spaces by collective heart rate. That was really a mouthful for an experiment whereby members of the audience of an ice hockey event all received a device with which the heartbeat could be collected and totalled. Conclusion: whenever a goal is in the making the collective heart beat rate goes up. Of course.

In the afternoon I sat in on a session named In the face (book) of daily routine. Greek researchers had studied the use of Facebook by 60 students. Their conclusion: the students only use Facebook as a waste of their time. They want to be busy with Facebook, for then they do not have to be busy with something else. I have my doubts about this research. First of all the group is very onesided, only students. But I think that this group is online and using Facebook just in order to present themselves to peers and claim a place in the community. As such it is not a waste of time. Secondly the choice of a single group like students does not deliver interesting results. No attention was paid to Facebook and business. The researchers thought that LinkedIn was more apt for that. That is not my experience. LinkedIn is too restrictive with its premium messaging and putting up events. More can be done with Facebook. I hope that the Greek researchers can do another research project on Facebook.

Links

http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/

BPN 1437.

BPN 1436 Finland trip 2010 (3)

The second day of the Finland trip was a heavy one. We will move to Hervanta, a new town with a smart industry such as Nokia Lab, just half an hour outside Tampere. We went there with two small coaches.
9:00 – 10:00 Nokia Research Centre/Nokia Innovation Centre
http://research.nokia.com/locations/tampere
The session at Nokia Innovation Centre concentrated on the way the company works on innovation. Political issues like the future of the mobile operating system Symbian and the new CEO are friendly avoided.
Nokia started research in electronics in 1977 and presented its first computers in 1992 with Mikko and Mikromikko. In 1991 the first digital GSM was launched. In 1992 the first portable phone Mobra Cityman was launched. Since 2007 Nokia looks at innovation as managing complexity. Since then research concentrated on four areas:
- Sensing & Data Intelligence;
- New User Interfaces;
- High performance mobileplatforms;
- Cognitive Radio.
In these areas research should deliver breakthroughs, cutting edge technologies and provide alternatives in unchartered territories such as 3D or mixed reality.
In order to reach innovation by co-creation. Nokia works together with universities in joint projects. It also receives public funding from the innovation agency Tekes and the European Union. In Tampere Nokia has a contract with local universities (TUT, UTA and TAMK). In this framework there are 16 professors involved and some 50 PhD researchers. Nokia offers collaborative meetings, discusses topics and uses the open call for proposals and grants. The lifecycle should have 5P’s as results:
- Publications
- Patent
- Publicity
- Prototypes
- Products

10:30 – 11:30 Tampere College, Hervanta: Qualification in Publishing and Printing (Hervanta)
- Study Programme in Layout Design
- Study Programme in Printing Technology
This department of Tampere College teaches students printing and lay-out design. It was for me like going back in time. Printing machines and even lead fonts! It was an ink sniffing occassion. In the same building the students have digital design using high tech computers; of course Apple, the symbol of the typographic community.

11:30-13:00 Lunch at Tampere College (in Finland lunched is served early). For the afternoon program we got into the small buses to go back to Finlayson in the center of Tampere.

14:00 New Factory: The collaborative innovation engine room
http://www.demola.fi/
In Finlayson we went to Demola, the demo factory. Here students design solutions for products and services on request of companies. Presently it has delivered 30 products. The time from idetion till evaluation and follow-up lasts 3-8 months. This year a summercamp was held in which 9 problems were posed to teams to be solved. One product was a game, the Super Awesome Fighters, created with tools from Nokia. The licenses to the game stay with the originator and will deliver some money.

14:30 University of Tampere Department of Information Studies and Interactive Media (at Demola)
http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/infim/english/index.html
This year Tampere has a new university institute, named INFIM. It is a merger of Hypermedia Lab, the baby of Jarmo Vittelli from 1998, and the Department of Information Studies. It now has 70 employees and 6 professors. The new institute teaches Information Studies and Interactive studies.

15:00 Creative Tampere and HUB Tampere
http://www.luovatampere.fi/eng
http://hubtampere.wordpress.com/in-english/

Tampere has been an active municipality in the digital world. It has had a program e-Tampere, I guess since 1998 or perhaps even earlier. Now the program is named Creative Tampere. It is oriented towards attracting creative industry. The municipality puts 7,4 million euro in the program. Support from Tampere institutions and companies should bring the total to 40 million euro, while the total revenue out of this effort should be 100 million euro. One of the activities supported by Creative Tampere is the HUB. This is a community which wants to be the center of social innovation. The HUB has 2 to 3 events a week such as salad events, speeddating by companies and dinners. The visit to the HUB started with changing shoes for houseshoes, sold by one of the HUB members.

Late in the evening a group of Dutch delegates went for dinner and climbed over the rocky hill, against which Scandic Hotel Rosendahl has been built. It was a good choice of restaurant.

Links:

http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/

BPN 1436

BPN 1435 Finland trip 2010 (2)

The Media Update delegation started the first leg of the program on Monday morning. First visit on the program:
9:00 – 10:00 Tampere College, Pyynikki, vocational Qualification in Audiovisual Communication
- Study Programme in Audiovisual Communication.
http://www.tao.tampere.fi/tao/TAOWWWTAO/briefly_in_english.html

This vocational college train boys and girls for the audio-visual industry. The training lasts 3 years and has 20 students in every year, in total 60 students. They follow 32 lessons a week and have 8 hours of homework. A normal college day lasts from 8 till 4 o’clock. The gender balance is 50/50 per cent. The students becomes mostly all round AV assistants.The college exists 14 years and has produced amongst others in 2005 the World Skills games in Helsinki.
We noted, that the college was well equiped with AV material and has a strict selection procedure. The initial applications of 80 candidates has to wittled down to 20. The diploma’s are checked, there are tests bringing the number down to 40 and by new tests and an admission interview the 20 students are selected.

10:30 – 12:00 Proacademy and Voimala, Finlayson
http://www.proakatemia.fi/en; http://www.voimalaan.fi/

The visit to the Proacademy was fascinating. I have been at the Proacademy in 2007 when it still cohabitated with the TAMK School of Arts, Media and Music. Now the Proacademy has a floor of its own in a factory building in Finlayson. The Proacademinas study for a BBA degree in entrepreneurship. The story about its origin sounds biblical:
“The story of the Proacademians began over ten years ago. Some restless nomads in tampere had a nose for business but there didn’t seem to be any place where they could test their ideas in practice. They sent scouts around in Finland to look for new radical solutions. Many scouts returned without nothing. However, one scout returned from a little town called Jyvaskyla telling stories about a tribe that learned via action and dialogue. These Teamacademicians had an elder with vision of taking the tribe around the world and learning in the process. The scout’s stories inspired two elders in tampere to change their ways of teaching the young and Proacademian tribe was born.”
One of the students presented the working of the Postacademy. At the Proacademy university students work 2,5 years in a team and learns business and marketing. They are evaluated ny their fellow team members and by coaches. All the teams aim at getting a turnover; but the Proacademy is not money oriented.

12:00h Lunch in Ziberia

13:00 – 15:00 Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), School of Art Media and Music
http://www.tamk.fi/en;%20http://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com

After lunch we went to the Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), School of Art Media and Music (new name). This is the school of our guides Sohvi and Cai. Funny enough they did not take the floor to tell about the school itself. But they had a student present a students initiative: Score. It is a community of students interested in game development and gamers. The community is student oriented; teachers cooperate.Score started three years ago with 20 members and has today 80 members. They arrange lectures, workshops and trips. TAMK offers space and resources such as licenses for game projects. So far they have developed their own games such as Overboard, Number game, Poltergeist and Overtower. Some rights have been sold amongst others to Microsoft. Since the summer 2010 the community organized itself into a co-operative with 20 members.
Sohvi showed also one of their famous movies: The Electrician (http://www.electrician.fi/). This is a surrealistic movies about an electrician, who loses his job as the electrician of the electric chair.
A guided tour through the building from the ground to the fifth floor drew quite some oh's and ah's about the equipment and the space available.

Links

http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/

BPN 1435

BPN 1434 Finland trip 2010 (1)

Today we are off with a group of 16 people in total, people working in education. My business mate Hans Sleurink of Media Update and I have organised this trip with the help of Cai Melakoski, the international contact person of the Tampere University of Applied Science school of Art, Media and Music. We will stay in Tampere for a week.

The flight to Tampere did not go without problems. Hans had problems to reach Schiphol Airport in time as the Dutch railways had an electricity problem. He barely could drop off his luggage in time. One of the delegates had problems with his passport and had to take a later flight. Having arrived in Tampere the luggage of Hans had not come with our flight. So a form had to be filled out. Later that night, though, the luggage was delivered to the hotel by Finnair Airlines.

We booked rooms in the Scandic Hotel Rosendahl, a conference hotel in the middle of the woods and on the border of a big lake. It is great to have a room with a lake view.

The first two days the group will visit educational institutes, while the last three days the group will attend the multimedia conference Mindtrek. There are a lot of themes in the conference, in fact too much to take in. But it is nice to pick up trends here. In the next days I will report on the visits and the conference lectures and I understand that the instructors of the Noorderpoort College have promised to blog on this trip also.

Links
http://twitter.com/MindTrek
http://www.mindtrek.org/
http://npsvk.blogspot.com/

BPN 1434

BPN1433: New York: here is the WSYA! (4)

On Tuesday it was back to the City for a meeting with the ad agency Wundermann. The meeting had been arranged by Anya, the Russian representative in the network of Wundermann. She arranged it in her capacity as representative on the board of World Summit Award. And she had done a good job in instructing her colleagues. Besides a well filled breakfast table, the WSYA delegation found that her colleagues had prepared themselves very well.
The idea was to present 6 WSYA projects and have them reviewed by three experts of Wundermann. They started out with the observation, that times were changing. The change from analog to digital covered the period of 1960 to 1995, but now they saw something new coming, something they could not give a name. Yet they felt something new coming up: the post-digital period. And the examples delivered by the WSYA winners, gave them a glance of the future. Of course this was a great compliment for all the six presenters. After each presentation a review by the three experts were given and they also gave hints about expansion or improvement. Some WSYA winners got advice where large companies would pay for dearly.

The session at Wundermann’s offices made me realise that this year’s group of winners were special and of a very professional level. It was not only enthusiasm that was driving them, but they had skills and a professional level of approach. They knew quite clearly what they were doing and what they wanted. They will also be heard in social media in the future.

It was also clear that this type of sessions with committed experts are going to help the WSYA winners. Besides experts from an ad agency they should also be brought into contact with venture capital/seed people. This combination should give them new inspiration for their projects.

BPN 1431

BPN 1432: New York: Here is the WSYA (4)

For many of the winners the Monday was the focal point of their trip to New York: the award ceremony. The ceremony was held in the center of New York. And it looked like NYC was prepared for it, for there was police on every corner around the Roger Smith Hotel. But with so many government heads around such as the Iranian Ahmadinijad, New York had another traffic infarct. But the Roger Smith Hotel is a fountain of inspiration among this crazy city. Outside and inside there are statues.
The ceremony itself was attended by a number of dignitaries. There was the minister of Information Society in Macedonia. From the mobile world there was the president of Mobile Communication. From Bahrain was there the CEO of Alnadeem Information Technology. A long-time supporter of the WSYA is ISOC. Also present was the representative of the Knight Foundation, a sponsor for the WSYA. New in the group of sponsors and friends of WSYA was Telfree from South Africa. And it was a pleasure to see Ramon Alberto Garza Garcia, the president and CEO Indigo Brainmedia in Monterrey (Mexico), a winner of World Summit Award in 2007 and the host of the WSA Gala in Monterrey in 2009.

The award consisted of a certificate, a statue of liberty and a pin of the WSA. There is no prize money as there is a lack of prize money. In this competition money is not the objective. It is recognition of the efforts made by the winners. Part of the recognition is the publication of all winning projects in a brochure and on online.

In the afternoon the WSYA winners were treated to a visit to Bloomberg, the financial data and news company. The visit started with a registration at the entrance desk. Identifications were copied and checked and photographs taken for the tag. Then the tour through the Bloomburg started. It is a very open building with glass. In this way you could see the radio and television stations and a lot of desks, where people collect financial data and aggregate news from several countries. Bloomberg has come up fast since 1981 pushing old organisations such as Reuters aside. Bloomberg uses all media possible like a cloud: radio, tv, mobile and internet. Having bought Business Week it is now also a print publisher.

BPN 1432

BPN 1431: New York: here is the WSYA (3)

This Sunday many of the teams will get their first dive into New York. For many team members it is the first time that they are in the big Apple. And as the world leaders gather at the United nations for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Review Summit in New York, people will stand up and ask attention for the goals. In New York this happens at Lincoln Center.

The members of the winning team start working on placards and T shirts to make known the MDG they ask attention for. And then they go up to Lincoln Center: metro in and metro out, through Central Park. After taking photographs the winner team members start to look around and listen to the speakers. There is an information market with some 20 booth. A music band plays in between speakers who stand up. There are some ten TV crews. However the public attention is very disappointing.

Being in New York for the first time and then immediately standing up and speaking out for your MDG, requests some courage. But some of the WSYA winners do. A winner from Pakistan was standing and listening to people talking about Pakistan. He concluded that those people had good intention, but had never been in Pakistan and experience the poverty, increased by the floods, and social situations. So he got up the stage and took the microphone to tell from daily experience.

In the evening the WSYA winners went to the Hard Rock Café on Times Square for dinner, offered by one of the sponsors. Before getting food the winner would have to tell about their project. It had an estranging effect to talk about poverty in the environment of abundance of the artefacts donated by popstars such as beautiful guitars. After the meal, the group had to find its way back to the hotel in Long Island City.

BPN: 1431

BPN 1430: New York: here is the WSYA (2)

This year the following projects were selected:

Category 1: Fight Poverty, Hunger & Disease!

Winner ANTI HIVIRUS
Leung Chun San (28), China
http://www.vir.us/

Winner The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu (28), Nigeria
http://www.smallholdersfoundation.org/


Winner Nahrani.com - Improve your vocabulary and provide food
to people in need
Nikolay Staney (27), Bulgaria
http://www.nahrani.com/

Runners-Up:
Village Home Tourism, Ashis Himali (26), Nepal
Donativa, Ilyas Bakouch (22), Morocco


Category 2: Education for all!

Winner Youth Ki Awaaz: Mouthpiece for the Youth
Anshul Tewari (19), India
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/

Winner Clo’s Ship (La nave di Clo)
Silvia Carbotti (30), Italy
http://www.navediclo.it/

Winner KSNA (Knowledge & Science News Agency) Scientific
magazine - Founder of OpenScience in IRAN & Middle East
Mohammad Rashidi-Kochi (22), Iran
http://www.ksna.ir/

Runners-Up
SME-Challenge, Santiago Peyré (27), Argentina
Sexual Maturation and menstrual hygiene management practices associated with school girls in Ghana,
Philip Kwesi Agyei (28), Ghana


Category 3: Power 2 Women!

Winner Women’s Forum
Corobco Natalia (26), Azerbaijan
http://www.women-forum.net/

Winner We are all Laila
Eman Abd El-Rahman (25), Egypt
www.kolenalaila.com/en

Winner We are not inferior to anybody
Samina Khushi (28), Pakistan
http://www.owopakistan.org/

Runners-Up
Effemine Blog - For Making Change, Petra Gönczi (19), Hungary
Mother Nature, Dotun Adewunmi (28), Nigeria

Category 4: Create Your Culture!

Winner artur.org.hu - online guide on contemporary architecture
Daniel Kovacs (27), Hungary
http://www.artur.org/.

Winner WupY “What’s up Youth”
Abdullah Mosaad (22), Egypt
http://www.wupy.org/

Winner Afrique in Visu
Jeanne Mercier (27), France
http://www.afriqueinvisu.org/

Runners-Up
Nuok, Alice Avallone (25), Italy
Lemon24.com, Suny Md. Ashraf Khan (27), Bangladesh


Category 5: Go Green!

Winner VERDEate.com, Challenge your Green Side!
Sebastián Bustamante (27), Spain
http://www.verdaete.com/

Winner Colour Me Green Campaign
Liew Yao Ren (18), Malaysia
http://www.colourmegreencampaign.com/

Winner Climate Change Virtual school for Youths
Verengai Mabika (30), Zimbabwe
http://www.driafrica.org/virtualschool.html

Runners-Up
Eco Options Egypt, Omnia Abbas (22), Egypt
Green Brigade, Tewari Chitranshu (18), India


Category 6: Pursue Truth!

Winner Social MDGs
Baxter Stapleton (19), USA
http://www.socialmdgs.com/

Winner Forgotten Diaries
Biffi Selene (27), Italy
http://www.forgottendiaries.org/

Winner JOIN Informed Youngsters.
Juan Rafael Rivera-Sanchez (22), Mexico
http://join.org.mx/

Runners-Up
Urban Journeys, Salman Siddiqui (27), Pakistan
Pamir Times, Noor Muhammad (26), Pakistan

BPN: 1430

BPN 1429: New York: here is the WSYA (1)

New York was the destination on Saturday for the award ceremony of the World Summit Youth Awards 2010, it is the second sibling on the World Summit Award (WSA).

The World Summit Youth Awards concentrate on content with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in mind. Young people are asked to use internet and mobile media to act themselves, but also get action on the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals:
- Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme hunger and poverty;
- Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education;
- Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- Goal 4: Reduce child mortality;
- Goal 5: Improve maternal health;
- Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases;
- Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability;
- Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.
The year of review has been set on 2015, when the eladers of countries will gather again in order to discuss the progress.

These goals have been translated in six categories:
- Category 1: Fight poverty, hunger and disease;
- Category 2: Education for all;
- Category 3: Power 2 Women;
- Category 4: Create your own culture;
- Category 5: Go green;
- Category 6: Pursue truth!

The WSYA are not just the result of projects picked ad random, but they are the result of a global competition. National experts have put forward projects, produced by young people under thirty. The projects are considered as representative for the MDGs and of content and technology excellence. They should demonstrate the consequence of inter-action and counter-action. The projects are evaluated by a jury of 17 young experts in two rounds.

WSYA does two things;
- showcasing the contribution of the young designers, technologists and digital content creators;
- contributing to addressing poverty, protecting the environment, sharing knowledge and empowering young people.
The WSYA is promoted in the UN member states through the networks of the World Summit Award (WSA), the UN Global Alliance for ICT, the Internet Society and its local chapters, participating UN organisations and agencies, governments and NGOs as well as youth organisations.

The winning WSYA projects have been selected from 630 applicants coming from 102 UN member states. Of these 630 applicants 245 completed the online registration, of which 142 products were evaluated in the end. Many applicants make known that they will enter a project. But by the time of the official online registration, many are not ready or simply did not register. It is interesting to see where the evaluated projects come from:
- Africa: 27;
- Arab countries & Middle East: 30;
- Asia: 40;
- Europe: 29;
- Latin America and Caribbean: 8;
- North America and Oceania: 8;
Interesting is to see the variance between the number of entries from the various regions. North America and Oceania only sent in 8 projects. You almost would question whether the MDGs are there alive. No looks to be the answer. Asia is the top region with 40 projects entered. Africa, the Arab Countries and the Middle East as well as Europe are following.

What do the 40 winners and runners-up aged 18 to 30 years from 21 countries get out of being an award winner. They get offered, thanks to the sponsorship of the Knight Foundation, a long weekend with an interesting program in New York.

The World Summit Youth Award is part of the World Summit Award, a multimedia competition, started at the occassion of the UN World Summit on the Information Society in 2003. From 2008 the World Summit Youth Award was started. The latest member of the WSA family is the World Summit Award Mobile Media (WSA mm), which kicks off next month with an international jury in Abu DHabi and a gala also in Abu Dhabi in December 2010.

BPN 1428 Four million domain names with nl-extension

This month the 4 millionth Dutch country domain name has been registered. On the list of country domains The Netherlands ranks fourth behind Germany, UK and China. SIDN, the bureau responsible for the registration of the nl-domain, receives daily 2800 registrations a day.

Worldwide there are 250 country domains. The Netherlands is ranking fourth on the list of domain registrations behind Germany (13,7 million domain names), UK (8,6 million domain names) and China (6,8 million domain names). Combined with demographic data of 16 million Dutch people every fourth Dutchman has a domain name, giving the Netherlands the highest domain density in the world. In the Netherlands 93 per cent of the Dutch population has access to internet.

With such a high number of domain names inventiveness is essential in designing new unique domain names. The length of domain names is 63 characters long. Part of the number of domain names is just being used for personal e-mail addresses. Part of the raise of the number of domain names, 25 per cent, can be ascribed to this phenomenon.

Registrations are being made by SIDN and almost 2000 registrars. SIDN will celebrate its 15th year jubilee next year. In the same year the 25th year of the nl-domain will be celebrated.

Facts & figures
• In totally 5,1 million unique domain names with nl-extension have been registered.
• Of the 5,1 million domain names with nl-extension 1,1 million have been discontinued.
• The nl-domain name has a markets hare of 72 per cent, followed by .the com-extension with 14 per cent and eu-extension with 8 per cent.
• 38 households of the 100 Dutch households have a broadband connection, which makes Holland the worldwide frontrunner
• Most of the domain names with a nl-extension are located in Amsterdam; also in large university cities there are many domain holders.
• The average length of a domain name counts 13 characters, while most domains have a length of 11 characters.

BPN 1428

Tags: domain name

BPN 1427 Dutch fiber connections doubled

No less than 1,2 million glass fiber connections will linked in The Netherlands by 2012. In the past year the connections already doubled, but the execution of future plans is delayed. In 20 years time every household will have a fiber connection. Those are the conclusions of Stratix Consulting in their annual inventory and analysis of glass fiber in The Netherlands.

On 1 April 2009 218.000 households were linked up to the glass fiber network. One year later there were 451.000 link ups, a raise of 108 per cent. The statistics indicate the availability of glass fiber to the house holds. It does not mean that all house holds have subscribed. In the Netherlands the glass fiber link is laid up to the meter cupboard, but only connected when an application for a subscription has been made. In 2009 there were 139.000 subscribers and in 2010 only 217.000; only a raise of 56 percent.

Differences show up geographically. The roll out of glass fiber networks takes place under the free market system and makes the networks primarily available in strong social-economic areas. Money of market parties is invested mainly outside the big cities and in municipalities with a strong social cohesion, growth municipalities and new communities.

Top of the list is the province Flevoland, where almost half of the households (50,7 per cent) have a glass fiber link in their meter cupboard. The province of Brabant where the first commercial glass fiber network was introduced, has the highest number of subscribers.

Despite the raise of glass fiber house holds, Stratix notice a delay in the fiber plans, especially in Amsterdam. There the explosive growth has slowed down to a more gradual execution. In Amsterdam 47.000 households have glass fiber to the door; 15.000 households have been linked to the meter cupboard. Only 8676 households have taken out a subscription for fast internet, telecom and television.

In Almere almost 80 pct of the households have been provided with glass fiber to the door. But sofar only 7500 households have taken out subscription. In Almere KPN has technical and administrative problems, delaying the subscription conversion.

Recently the Australian research bureau Budde Comm critisized the Dutch incumbent telco KPN for the slow implementation of glass fiber. In Almere almost 80 pct of the households have been provided with glass fiber to the door. But sofar only 7500 households have taken out subscription. In Almere KPN has technical and administrative problems, delaying the subscription conversion. And people start noticing it and getting less enthusiastic to take out a subscription. Last year, March 2009, fiber was laid in Almere’s neighbourhood Tussen de Vaarten. Only in June 2010 the glass fiber was in the meter cupboards of the people. So the hunt for subscriptions started, but not for the apartment buildings. The households still have to wait for the fiber to be operational, before a subscription can be entertained. With the glass fiber already in the ground for more than a year, the investment is not turned into subscriptions yet.

BPN 1427

BPN 1426 iREX compacts to IRX

The bankrupt e-reader manufacturer iRex, a spin-off of Philips electronics, based in Eindhoven (The Netherlands) will restructure and be operational again from September 1. From September 1 the company will continue as IRX Innovations.
Besides a new name the company will have a smaller scope. It will forego the consumer market and concentrate on the business market. Geographically the company will serve the European market. The company will also sell licenses to its technological solutions.

iRex Technologies went bankrupt after an adventure on the US market. The company attempted to conquer the consumer market in association with Barnes & Noble, but it could not deliver the electronic reading tablets in time. Besides the tablets were too expensive.

Part of the 10 million euro debt has been paid off. Mr Brons will remain the CEO and the 24 employees will be re-employed. Parts of the company will sold, most likely to an Asian company. IRX Innovations will take over the goods of iRex Technologies and will use the existing e-reader modls and technology to kick start the marketing in Europe.

In a radio interview Mr. Brons indicated that the European business market will be interesting and cost less than attempting to serve the US and EU and business and consumer markets all at once.

BPN 1426

BPN 1425 KPN responds to poor FTTH uptake

KPN is one of the few incumbents to pursue FttH, though the decision to go full-steam for FttH rather than the cheaper solution of upgrading its copper network (FttC with VDSL2 in the last mile) took some time. The company initially considered that VDSL could compete effectively with DOCSIS3.0, and its latest data release shows that it still believes that copper at least in the medium term is still sufficient for most customers.


Nevertheless, at the end of 2009 the company announced that FttH was indubitably the superior technology, and that it would invest some €1.3 billion to expand the number of FttH-connected homes, essentially concentrating on FttH instead of expanding FttC. Despite this appropriate emphasis on FttH, the company is still struggling to convince most customers to sign up.

This is partly due to poor marketing, but also – and ironically – due to the success of its VDSL roll-out. VDSL serves the last mile, and large-scale roll-outs began in earnest from January 2008. The VDSL network is capable of providing up to 30Mb/s, and delivers IPTV to 80% of households and HDTV to 70%. The company plans to expand the VDSL footprint to ‘outer suburbs’ (completing this job by the end of 2011) and so increase IPTV coverage to 88% of households, but otherwise there will be no further roll-out of FttC.

In poorly marketing FttH, KPN targeted what it refers to as ‘sub-optima’ customers in its roll-out areas, or a demographic less interested in services delivered or less able to afford them. The pricing for bundled packages was also set too high, which has dissuaded many consumers from switching from their existing DSL service (considered by many to be acceptable for their needs). In reality, only about 9% of customers capable of receiving FttH sign up for the service, though this is an improvement on the 2.7% sign-up of the first quarter of 2009.

To address these poor figures, KPN has set in train a number of measures to reduce its pricing and improve the way it targets and sells to customers. It aims to reach a 60% sign-up rate of activated homes and at least 250,000 customers by 2012. Prices for its FttH tiers (from this month) have fallen by €10 per month. Yet the difference between VDSL and FttH offers, if anything, is less pronounced than before. In the pre-July pricing structure there was a €5 difference between a 20Mb/s Premium VDSL offer and a 50Mb/s Silver FttH offer. There is still a €5 difference between these two in the new pricing structure, but VDSL has been ramped up to 40Mb/s. The inclusion with FttH of an additional TV receiver, HD recording capability and more IPTV channels may be enough to tempt some customers, but KPN’s experience thus far is that the majority of customers, if they are happy enough with their service, will not switch. To address this, the company aims to improve it fibre delivery mechanism, shortening delivery times and improving its ‘first time right’ ratio. The company at least needs to convince customers that switching from copper to fibre is seamless, that there are real benefits for households’ use of IP-delivered services, and that it will not cost them more.

http://www.budde.com.au/

BPN 1424

BPN 1424 Netherlands - Telecoms, IP Networks and Digital Media

BuddeComm’s annual publication, Netherlands - Telecoms, IP Networks and Digital Media, provides a comprehensive overview of the trends and developments in the telecommunications and digital media sectors in this leading market.


The Dutch telecom market has one of the most developed infrastructures in Europe, providing a solid foundation for emerging bundled services offerings. The vast majority of the population uses the Internet, while broadband uptake – among the highest in the world – has benefited from government support as well as competing cable and DSL platforms. FttH networks are also a significant feature of the country’s broadband landscape, with an effective collaboration between national, regional and municipal governments working with industry and academic institutions to ensure that the country maintains its broadband lead into the fibre age. Although the majority of fibred homes lie in a small number of major towns, the sector has been stimulated by consumer demand for fast Internet connections as well as the recognition that such infrastructure is paramount for socio-economic prosperity and development. As such, dozens of smaller networks as expected to be developed by the end of the decade.

The government has hitherto maintained that the market is primarily responsible for the development of broadband infrastructure, though it has focussed on stimulating competition and new service development as well as on public/private partnerships. While the regulator favours an infrastructure facilities-based regulatory regime between telcos and cablecos to stimulate competition, this will need adjustment in relation to the development of FttH infrastructure since there remains insufficient economic viability for multiple fibre networks outside the major cities. As such FttH penetration has not progressed beyond about 15%, since most consumers do not perceive the extra value of higher-cost fibre against the existing excellent cable and upgraded DSL offerings. Stimulating fibre infrastructure is thus a continuing concern as the country moves forward.

Mobile penetration stood at about 130% in early 2010. The success in this sector in coming years will largely rest on strong competition among the network operators and the range of MVNOs which has kept consumer prices low. Operators have shifted their focus on migrating prepaid subscribers to contract plans, and while SMS is the most popular mobile data service the main players have invested in software upgrades to stimulate high-end data services.

The auction of 2.6GHz spectrum licences in mid-2010 saw the introduction of a new player in the mobile market – Ziggo 4 – which will allow the main cablecos Ziggo and UPC to deploy and run telecom and broadcast networks and so complement their existing bundled services (based on fixed-line access) with mobile voice and broadband offers. This is a welcome re-entry for the cablecos in the Dutch mobile market, for both of them had operated MVNO services until scrapping them due to low customer take-up.

Netherlands – key telecom parameters – 2009, 2011

Sector 2009/2011 (e)
Broadband
Fixed broadband subscribers (million) 6.01/6.84
Fixed broadband penetration rate 37%/47%
Subscribers to telecoms services
Fixed-line telephony (million) 7.27/7.55
SIM cards in service (million) 20.5/23.8
SIM penetration (population) 123%/133%
(Source: BuddeComm)

Market highlights

- The excellent cross-platform infrastructure in the Netherlands has helped to propel the country to the top of the international league tables for broadband penetration. KPN’s DSL network reaches 99% of all homes while cable networks reach 95%. DSL commands about 56% of broadband connections and cable 40%. The DSL base is set to fall in coming years, as the numerous municipal fibre networks increase their geographic reach, and lead to increased customer churn.
- Fibre infrastructure is the country’s strong card, acting as a foundation and stimulus for the country’s budding transactor developments and serving as a model for strategies in other European countries. The regulator was among the first in the world to institute an effective wholesale regime, guaranteeing other telcos with non-discriminatory access to the incumbent’s network at fixed rates. Similar regulation which opened the cable networks to access to third parties will further stimulate competition in coming years.
- Mobile data revenues are comparatively low in the Netherlands, representing only about 5% of total mobile revenue. About half the subscriber bases spend next to nothing on mobile data services, usually because of the cost involved. To address this reticence among consumers mobile operators have introduced flat-fee offers. Stimulated by the plethora of paid applications made available through competing mobile operating platforms, operators expect mobile data to breach 30% of total revenue by the end of 2011.
- Mobile TV was launched in late 2009 by MTVNL, competing directly with KPN’s Mobiel TV service which uses the DVB-H standard. The Netherlands remains one of the few countries where DMB and DVB-H compete with each other. National coverage should be reached by 2015. Although the uptake has been slow, events such as the football world cup and the 2012 Olympics may stimulate mobile TV use and push it as a mainstream rather than frivolous activity.

More info: http://www.budde.com.au/

BPN 1424

BPN 1423 Our company EMR celebrates 20 years of existence

Today it is 20 years ago that Electronic Media Reporting, often shortened to EMR, was registered in the Chambers of Commerce database as a company. Having worked for publishing companies like VNU and Kluwer, I had joined a Dutch software group MID, a spin-off of the VNU computer department. This company was going to be a leader in publishing software, introducing the make-up language SGML (Standard Generalised Mark-up language), a precursor of HTML and producing CD-ROMs with textual databases. However the publishing arm of the company failed and in 1990 people were asked to leave the company. So was I.


As I had been building up a trade in writing articles and had been a consultant in electronic publishing, I saw opportunities to start a business with my partner. So I had to find a name and make a profile. Eventually the name Electronic Media Reporting was selected, indicating the core business of the company: reporting about electronic media in consultancy and in publications (these days electronic media reporting is used in the US in order to indicate the process of reporting data electronically). A profile was written, but it projected basically the most ideal business. However over the years the business grew into four areas:
a. strategic advice: positioning content firms, development of content strategies;
b. studies: market studies, forecasting and scenario studies;
c. evaluation and auditing: evaluating proposals and auditing projects on maters of technology, organisation and finances;
d. publicity: editing newsletters, setting up conferences, writing books, blogs.

Over the years the services of Electronic Media Reporting have been requested by:
- The Dutch magazine publisher Broadcast Press Hilversum to be editor in chief of a biweekly newsletter on new media;
- Dutch the news agency ANP and a Dutch consortium of newspaper publishers to advise on the business plan for a selective news service, VNU and Wolters Kluwer for developing CD-ROMs and training for Internet;
- GOC for marketing research into the multimedia industry in The Netherlands;
- TNO to assist in the European Commission’s Midas program;
- The Dutch newspaper publisher Wegener to set up digital archives;
- The Dutch branch organisation of graphical entrepreneurs KVGO to assist with a strategic study;
- Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs for a report on the online business;
- European Commission for a monitor report on CD-media and several project reviews;
- Partner in several EU sponsored projects such as Docdel, INFORM, ACTEN, X-Melina, INYOP and lately Scienar.
- Secretariat for the European Academy of Digital Media (EADiM).

Presently also activities in the Middle East in the field of e-government are undertaken, e.g. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

The company has had its ups and downs. But it has three networks; one in the Netherlands, one in Europe and one worldwide. Through these networks the company has been in touch and co-operating with very interesting people over the years.
With the blog Buziaulane, the company has been reporting on electronic media for over 5 years now. Lately the blog has been underused, as a book is being produced about the pre-internet period in the polder, electronic media in The Netherlands from 1967-1997. The book is planned for publication in October 2010. After the publication the reporting on electronic media on the blog will be taken up again. Besides Buziaulane there are specialised blogs:
- Of ebooks and digital papers;
-Weblog museum;
- Fiber to my Almere home (FTMH);
- World Summit Award (WSA).

As for today, we will raise a glass with bubbles and start working on the next 5 years.

BPN 1422 iRex Technologies bancrupt

Earlier this month the Dutch e-reader developer and manufacturer iRex Technologies requested for protection under chapter 11. Since 29 June the company has gone in receivership with a debt of 10 million euro. Martijn Kemps, the lawyer treating the bancruptcyexpectes that iRex will be able to make a new start as many parties have shown interest in the IPR and operational knowledge of the company.

iRex Technologies has been a pioneer in the digital page display technology. It started out as a Philips company which brought the e-Ink display technology from the laboratory to the factory. While e-Ink had debvveloped the principle of the digital page technology, iRex Technologies used the substrate technology of Philips to make a workable ereader. iRex Technology was also the first company to bring a usuable ereader to market, the Iliad.

iRex Technology nested itself in the top of the market, striving after quality and pricing its ereaders high. Competition by manufacturers of cheaper ereaders and marketing setbacks made it not easy for iRex Technologies to conquer a fair market share. Amazon.com talked to iRex Technologies about the production of the Kindle, but did not get to an agreement in the end. Last year iRex Technologies missed the Christmas season sales for which it had teamed up with Barnes & Noble.

Last month the company went into chapter 11 and looked for 2 million euro to bridge the financial gap. However when a regional development banker and the Deutsche Bank broke off talks, the bancruptcy was inevitable.

Tags: ereader, ebook

BPN 1558 WSA Mobile on the fast track (3)

This a is the list of the winners of the World Summit Mobile

Category: m-Business and Commerce
EKO
Mobile vending
Railnavigator
Consumer Reports Mobile Shopper
Mark & Spencers mobile commerce

Category: m-Government and Participation
German Government/ Deutsche Bundestag
Boston Connect
M-Post
e-Gov Mobile Portal
Many to One SMS

m-Learning ad Education
Grace
Drona
BBC Jalana
Tickle Taps App
Hesabi (My Maths)

m-Entertainment and Lifestyle
Angry Birds
Hidden Park
Sekai Camera
African Digital
Omlet.ru

m-Tourism and Culture
Wikitude – Mobilizy
WI-BIKE
Ligo Ligo
Hungarian Tourism
Smartmuseum

m-Media ad News
You are Reporter
m.guardian.co.uk and the Guardian iPhone App
ABC iPhone/iPad application
Need4Feed
Apontador Traffic/Apontador Transito

m-Environment and Health
Welldoc Diabetes Manager System
mGovernance
excellent mobile medical application – E.M.M.A
Mobile Te-Tol/Mobilne portal Te-Tol
Medica

m-Inclusion and Empowerment
Emergency Chain for Guatamala/ CADENA DE EMERGENCIA de Guatamala
Dialog Tradenet
Mobile Voices/Voz Mob
Mobile Link Services
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BPN 1421 Digital paper pioneer iRex in chapter 11

The Eindhoven (The Netherlands) based ereader manufacturer iRex Technologies has gone into a comparable situation as chapter 11 last Tuesday. The company has cash problems as US sales have been delayed.

Last year iRex Technologies announced a deal with the bookstore chain Barnes & Noble and the online shop Best Buy. The ereader DR800SG customised for the US market with 3G functionality and a touch screen was supposed to reach the stores by the Christmas season. However, the Federal an inspection Communications Commission (FCC) took more time for inspection of the device than hoped for and iRex Technologies missed the season sales. As a replacement Barnes & Noble launched the Nook at the end of October 2009. In the end also the Best Buy deal did not work out as foreseen.

The CEO of iREX Technologies, a Philips spin-off, incorporated in Luxembourg, claims that the position of the company is not hopeless. The company has a problem with cash flow and banks are not really accommodating. However, the CEO Mr Brons still hopes that the situation will be solved.

iRex Technologies was the first manufacturer to appear on the market with an ereader based on the e-Ink display technology in 2006. The US has been the target market for iRex Technologies from the beginning. In comparison to the multilingual Europe, the US is a homogeneous market with many nationals reading the languages English and Spanish. However, the company was unable to sell its ereader with the Mobypocket reader to Amazon and had to settle for Barnes & Noble.

In Europe iRex Technologies has not made many inroads. In its home country The Netherlands, the company was unable to organise a marketing action with the book and newspaper publishers. It has had sporadic projects. The national quality paper NRC Handelsblad started cooperation, but no other paper followed due to the high price and technical problems. A project with the bookstore chain Selexyz was not a success; having been selling more brands of ereaders, Selexyz now has signed with Samsung for the E60 ereader. The company missed the Dutch market completely when the Dutch bookpublishers adopted the EPUB standard instead of Amazon’s Mobypocket and Sony with a cheaper ereader made a deal with the online bookstore Bol.com.

Tags: ereader, ebook

BPN 1420 eBook becomes political item

At last, the issue of Value Added Tax on eBooks is taken serious. Throughout Europe there is a difference between the VAT on printed books and eBooks. The printed books have the low tariff and buyers pay the high tariff for eBooks. Recently in Spain the discussion was started up; now Dutch EU parliamentarians Sophie in 't Veld and Marietje Schaake request the EC to take action, as is clear from their written questions.

On 16 December Spain’s culture ministry announced plans to slash VAT on electronic books to the same low level as traditional paper editions. In a statement the ministry said to lower the tax from 16 percent to 4 percent on the electronic devices. The move was initiated by the publishing industry.

Now also the Dutch EU parliamentarians thinks it unexplainable that for a printed version in The Netherlands 6 percent VAT has to be paid, while for an electronic book 19 percent. This also defeats the EU objective to promote innovation and sustainability. The move would also stimulate the European eBook industry and subsequently the hardware industry such as iRex Technologies, Bookeen and Plastic Logic.

Besides the VAT the fixed book price is also being discussed for electronic books. The Dutch ministry of Culuture is reviewing the fixed book price law, which has been in effect for 5 years now. In the review a fixed price will be considered for eBooks. Presently the price of eBooks can be set by the publisher. So far eBooks have been cheaper 20 procent cheaper than printed books. A working party of the Dutch booksellers association with members as Bol.com has already recommended to the association to have a fixed price for ebooks.

Blog Posting Number: 1420

Tags: ebook, eReader