"Internet Access is a Human Right" - Mark Zuckerberg

I was about to write my blog this morning when I turned on the television to listen to CNN’s New Day Anchor Chris Cuomo as he interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, founder and Chairman of Facebook.

After listening to them, I decided to write about the internet instead.  First, Zuckerberg claims that most of us have been taking the Internet for granted.  He asks us to think what internet access would mean to 5 billion people who still do not have it.

Informing the viewers about the new campaign, internet.org that he is leading, he says, "We want to make it so that anyone, anywhere -- a child growing up in rural India who never had a computer -- can go to a store, get a phone, get online, and get access to all of the same things that you and I appreciate about the Internet,

"They're going to use it to decide what kind of government they want, get access to healthcare for the first time ever, connect with family hundreds of miles away that they haven't seen in decades.

“More than 4.5 billion of the 7 billion people on Earth don't have Internet access, according to the World Bank. The biggest gaps are in Eritrea (just 0.8% have access), Timor-Leste (0.9%) and Myanmar (1.1%). Even in the United States, 19% don't have Internet access.

“About 1 billion people are already using Facebook.”

Zuckerberg imagines having a “world in which everyone has the same ability to share their opinions and speak freely -- I think that would be a much better place."

"Connectivity is a human right," he added.  Knowing that connecting everybody is a tall order, he signed up big tech companies to join the effort.  These companies are Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Media Tek, and Opera who will be  founding partners with Facebook.

This is indeed good news for all of us who had been advocating for the 3 A’s (Accessibility, Availability, and Affordability) of the Internet.  This would universalize local knowledge and information as well as localize universal data and knowledge.

In this mission, Zuckerberg claims that he has already invested more than $1 billion and hopes to do a lot more.  According to him the key to the effort will be mobile – a big part of Facebook’s growth strategy.  This explains his signing up of  the big mobile companies.

Others are aiming to achieve similar goals.  Google is reported to be sending balloons with radio antennas into the stratosphere as part of a project called “Loon” aimed at connecting people without internet access.

The same report claims that Alcatel-Lucent is bringing its inexpensive lightradio technology to small villages without cell towers.  Phone manufacturers are now racing to develop smartphones that will cost less than $15.

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INTERNATIONAL CES, Las Vegas, Nevada (January 7-10, 2014)

Registration for the event that generates at least 150,000 people yearly has been going on.  But anyone who plans to go with a free registration has to register immediately.  The deadline is August 31, 2013.

Here is the complete registration schedule:

Through August 31

Free registration

September 1

$100 advance registration fee begins at Midnight.

October 1

Conference Program registration opens.

December 27

No refunds on cancellations after this date.

January 2

$200 on-site registration fee begins.

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) organizes the event.  CEA is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $209 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA also owns and produces the International CES – The Global Stage for Innovation. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services.  Follow CES online at www.CESweb.org and through social media:                         

How About Them APPLES?

On July 1, 2013, APPLE’s stock price opened at $402.69 per share.  Today, (at 1:09 p.m. Wednesday) as I write this article, it is going for $501.14.

As an APPLE shareholder, I could not be happier.  There are several reasons why the upward trend of APPLE’s stock is happening.  The first one is attributed to the tweet of major stock investor Carl Icahn that APPLE stock is undervalued.  In fact, he announced that he established a position in the Mac maker with a hefty $1.5 billion as tallied by The Wall Street Journal.  Putting money where his mouth is, his action propelled the stock quickly making APPLE more valuable by $17 billion.  He believes that the stock is worth at least $625.

Icahn also advised a buyback by APPLE of its own stock.  It turns out that APPLE is already on a buyback program allotting as high as $60 billion for it.

When the stock price was going down, I thought having a relatively high dividend was a good consolation.  The return on investment is relatively high and the profit margins are quite satisfactory.  In short, the numbers were still looking good.

Added to other important reasons, I did not go to the MacWorld/iWorld expo this year because I knew that nothing exciting was going to happen.

Attending the CES Mid-Year Conference in New York, however, I noticed that many of the exhibitors were offering several accessories for APPLE products – a display of confidence not only of APPLE today but in the immediate future.

Soon enough, the New MacBook Air was launched and it is definitely a hit.  Publications like STUFF call it the “Greatest laptop ever made.”  Bloomberg says, “The Air takes battery life to places it’s never been on a lightweight laptop computer.”  Slash Gear writes, “There’s something undeniably liberating about being able to effectively ignore the battery gauge.”  WIRED on the other hand thinks that “The 13-inch MacBook Air is close to perfection as a computer notebook gets.”  And Computer World reviews it as “Mind-Blown!”

The recent announcement that a new IPhone will be unveiled on September 10, 2013 is another big reason for the rising APPLE stock price.  The speculation is that the company will offer a cheaper iPhone along with its newest model.  The new ones could have bigger screens, better cameras and special features like the fingerprint sensor technology.  They will also be available in different colors.

SCANSTIK SK 600: A SCANNER IN YOUR POCKET

Whenever I traveled to Asia, I used to bring back home gadgets for my children.  One that they liked and which became popular in their “show and tell” classes was a multi-“something” device containing different gadgets within.  It was like a Swiss Knife for the school or office.  It had a pen, pencil, stapler, staples, scotch tape, scissors, paper clips, screwdriver and two others.

Since, the device could fit into my pocket, I called it “office in my pocket.”  It was the analogue version of what PlanOn is now promoting in this digital age.

I consider SCANSTIK a “little miracle”.  If you do not believe in miracles, this one is a magic wand.  If you do not believe in magic, then, it’s a mind-boggling, amazing technology.

Consistent with its business model of bringing “Office-in-a-Pocket” solutions for business, home, and school, PlanOn recently came out with the world’s smallest full-page scanner.

Named SCANSTIK, the pen-sized scanner scans a full page in 4 seconds and stores thousands of images up to 600 dpi.  Small, fast and easy to use, SCANSTIK is compact and very sleek compared to my current portable scanner and others that I have seen in the market.

Testing the sample product that I got through noted PR agent on consumer electronics Karen Thomas, I can say that indeed, SCANSTIK has amazing and useful features.  Unlike my other portable scanner that only scans a line at a time, this one actually scans a whole page once just like a flatbed scanner.  It also has PlanOn’s CLC (Crystal Line Contact) image technology that has been proven to produce superior image quality.

It also features a Micro SD memory slot, which means it can hold thousands of images.  Although my sample came with only 2GB of memory, I understand that it can service up to 32 GB.  Having a built-in rechargeable lithium polymer battery is definitely a plus.

Plugging my SCANSTIK to my computer after scanning, I am able to transfer, recognize, organize, and edit scans.  Why?  Because included are ABBY FineReader SE and PaperPort OCR Software.

I can see the usefulness of SCANSTIK for a Mobile Professional, one who goes to office or works at home.  Of course, it is very useful for students too.

We now have eReaders, computers and smartphones in our pocket.  In them are “libraries in our pocket”.  We also have earphones, memory cards, and many more mobile accessories and gadgets that can all fit in our pockets.

In fact, in my travels attending conferences and expos, I always wear a vest that has more than 20 pockets.  In this age of digital and mobile devices, I see it as a necessity.  It also proved beneficial and convenient when passing through security at the airports.

SCANSTIK will be added to and put in one of my pockets.  Together with all my mobile devices, their accessories and their apps, they form what I call “Office on the Go” or as PlanOn calls it, “Office in a Pocket”.

As my barber would say, "If you don't have IT, you just don't have IT!"

littleBits of Miracles in the Big Apple

In looking for little miracles in the Big Apple, I came across people and companies who are not only creating “little miracles” but are helping others create or make them.

In a forum of the CES Mid-Year Conference, I met and listened to Ayah Bdeir.  She is the founder and CEO of littleBits, an award-winning library of Electronics dubbed “LEGOS for the iPad generation.”   She is an engineer, interactive artist and one of the leaders of the open source hardware movement.  She is a strong advocate for the advancement of open source hardware to make education and innovation more accessible to people around the world.

Bdeir is a co-founder of the Open Hardware Summit, a TED Senior Fellow and an alumna of the MIT Media Lab.   FastCompany has named her one of the Most Creative People in Business for 2013.  CNN named her company, littleBits as one of the top Emerging Startups to watch.  She is now a resident of New York City having come from Lebanon and Canada.

littleBits

As described in its website, littleBits is an open source library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnets for prototyping, learning, and fun.

littleBits (spelled lower case L, upper case B, all one word) consists of tiny circuit-boards with specific functions engineered to snap together with magnets. No soldering, no wiring, no programming, just snap together for prototyping, learning and fun. Each bit has a specific function (light, sound, sensors, buttons, thresholds, pulse, motors, etc), and modules snap to make larger circuits. Just as LEGO™ allows you to create complex structures with very little engineering knowledge, littleBits are small, simple, intuitive, blocks that make creating with sophisticated electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together.

I was not surprised that she was chosen to speak about New York City as the place “to make things”.

In her presentation, she made a case for “Why Make in New York”.  She said that there are 6 trends in the New York Maker Ecosystem, namely:

1. SOLVING COMPLEX PROBLEMS

2. INNOVATING AT THE INTERSECTIONS

3. FOSTERING COMMUNITIES

4. CREATING PLATFORMS FOR INNOVATION

5. CURATING

6. MISSION-DRIVEN MAKING

She cited sample companies located in various parts of New York City that fit each of the six trends.

All were of great interest to me.  In fact, I intend to learn more about them in the immediate future.  But the trend that caught my attention was Trend No. 4 – Creating Platforms for Innovation.

Let me describe three of the companies that she mentioned showing the trend:

MAKERBOT

Founded in 2009, Brooklyn-based MakerBot (www.makerbot.com) has grown to be the global leader in desktop 3D printing.  It currently has 25% share of the overall 3D printer market.

At MakerBot’s Thingiverse website (www.thingiverse.com), MakerBot owners can access and contribute to a “universe of things.”  More than 35,000 projects, models, and things are available that can be downloaded and made for free, and more than 10 million items have, in fact, been downloaded from the site.

QUIRKY

It is a company that makes invention accessible.  It believes that the best ideas in the world aren’t actually in the world.  They are locked inside people’s heads.  Quirky supposedly exists to solve that problem.

This is how it works: (From their website)

1.     Submit your idea.  It does not matter if it’s a little doodle, a crazy chemical formula, or a “wouldn’t it be cool if…”, sharing your idea is the first step toward bringing your idea to life.

2.     Help us decide.  You are encouraged to vote on the best ideas.

3.     Influence and learn. You play a role in every single decision we make. Help us decide something as simple as what color we should make a product, or as complicated as how to solve an engineering issue. Clicking buttons on Quirky makes you money.

4.     Making it real. We've invented something. Unfortunately, it's still just a picture, but before long it'll be a product, in a box, at a store, that earns you cash. Quirky uses some of the most state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques to make high quality products.

5.     The world prospers.  In the end, the world has access to an invention that wouldn’t have existed without your help, and you have access to more cash to spend on new shoes or college or booze or.. you know whatever you want.

SHAPEWAYS

Shapeways is the source for limitless personal production

Shapeways.com is the world's leading 3D Printing marketplace and community. We harness 3D Printing to help everyone make and share designs with the world, making product design more accessible, personal, and inspiring.

On Shapeways, individuals can make, buy and sell their own products. By providing a platform for our community members to share ideas and gain access to cutting edge technology, we're bringing personalized production to everyone, whether you're already designing in 3D or are looking to find something just right. We 3D Print everything on-demand, which means that every order is customized and personalized.

Headquartered in New York, Shapeways is a spin-out of the lifestyle incubator of Royal Philips Electronics.

What this means is that if you are looking for a little miracle or wanting to make one, New York City or the Big Apple is the place.  You may not, however, be able to sleep.