Triplesourced

Living in a comfortable Western country and being constantly immersed in new technology can give you a pretty skewed view of the world – so it’s good to remind yourself sometimes of the privileges we enjoy.

A report.
from Save the Children this week makes for sobering reading. Indian tech companies may have benefited from the country’s meteoric rise to become one of the key IT outsourcing destinations for US and Europe but the benefits have yet to reach many of the country’s poor.

Out of the ten countries with the highest number of children dying in 2006, India had the highest number of child deaths per year – nearly two million - and accounts for 25 percent of the world’s newborn deaths, according to the report, Saving Children’s Lives, Why Equity Matters.

India has made some improvements however. The country’s GNI (Gross National Income) per capita increased by over 81 percent from US$450 in 2000 to US$450 in 2006 while child mortality dropped from 94 per 1000 births to 76 per 1000.

However , in the same period, Bangladesh saw a much smaller 23 percent increase in GNI but its child mortality rate dropped from 92 to 69 percent – showing that it is much more effective at fighting child poverty according to Save the Children.

A closer read of the press release for Plantronics new rugged Bluetooth headset throws up an interesting choice on the part of the company's marketing department. The release claims that Neil Armstong's first words on the moon were carried using a Plantronics head-set (not clear if he was wearing one or it was at mission control?)

Unfortunately the version of that line that Plantronics have included on its press release is believed to be the wrong one in some circles.

Space geeks will tell you that the oft-repeated line of “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” (quoted by Plantronics) is not what he said, as if you stop to think about it, man and mankind are the same thing. The line makes sense with an ‘a’ inserted: “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”.

There has been a lot of hullabaloo about this, with even Armstrong seemingly unsure what he might have said, but this sentence from Wikipedia makes it clear that Armstrong’s quote might not be the best one for a company looking to show off the ability of their technology to transmit clearly and cleanly (although I guess we should cut them some slack as it was the Moon rather than say Oxford Street).

“It has since been claimed that acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing "a" A digital audio analysis conducted by Peter Shann Ford, an Australia-based computer programmer, claims that Armstrong did, in fact, say "a man", but the "a" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time.”

Are you fed-up with your Bluetooth headset falling off mid sky-dive? Well worry no more. Plantronics has introduced what it claims is a Bluetooth earpiece designed for “the adventurer in us all”.



“Everyday life can be rough on electronics, so Plantronics developed a headset that can be work as hard as you; it can be dropped repeatedly, worn in the rain and still work properly,” says Eric Extier, Plantronics’s consumer division head. “The Explorer 370 delivers a quality headset in a durable package that can withstand tough environments, including windy and dusty work conditions, rugged outdoor adventures or anything life throws at you.”

Durability tested to meet IP54 military-grade specifications apparently, the Explorer 370 retails for around £29. Not sure how much the military grade head to go with it costs though? Somehow the idea of Bruce Willis or Jason Bourne sporting the frankly daft looking Bluetooth ear-mounted technology doesn’t ring true but you never know.

After Apple confounded popular opinion that high-street retail just wasn’t cost efficient, Nokia amongst others has decided to follow suit. The Fins opened up what they claim is another flag-ship store in London’s Regent Street this weekend to join the seven others world-wide.



We have to say that the store looks great (as the pic above shows) but the press release describing is erm not quite so elegant. Nokia please, please, please don’t use this overblown marketing speak anymore -- it just makes the soul die.

Designed to set the benchmark in technology retailing practice, through the creation of an upscale, high-energy environment, Nokia Regent Street promises the ultimate shopping experience for Nokia’s wide portfolio of mobile devices.

My god – I have read some overblown marketing hyperbole in my time but this takes the biscuit. It’s a shop, not a cure for cancer. Enough already.

Marketing aside, its interesting that Nokia is throwing so much cash at pushing its handsets as some kind of luxury item – Gucci handbag, diamond tiara, Nokia 6110 etc – I guess as a way to combat the increasing commoditisation in this sector. Linux as a mobile OS is threatening to cut a swathe through even top-end smartphone design and hopefully cost.

Friends and family will be joined by three of the biggest organisations dedicated to the advancement of computer science to pay tribute to Jim Gray - credited with helping to make possible such technologies as the "cash machine, ecommerce, online ticketing, and deep databases like Google."

The event will be held at Berkeley on May 31. Gray was lost at sea in Jan 2007 while on a solo trip to the Farallon Islands close to San Francisco.