Zee My Blog !

The wraps have been taken off the new version of the XO laptop designed for schoolchildren in developing countries.

The revamped machine created by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project looks like an e-book and has had its price slashed to $75 per device.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte gave a glimpse of the "book like" device at an unveiling event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first XO2 machines should be ready to deliver to children in 2010.

Mr Negroponte said he hoped the design would also be used by other manufacturers.

Dual use

"This laptop comes from a different point of view," he said.

The new version loses the green rubbery keyboard, sporting instead a single square display hinged at its centre.

This allows the device to be split into two touch screens that can either mimic a laptop with keyboard or the pages of a book.

"Over the last couple of years we've learned the book experience is key," he said.

The idea is for several children to use the device at once, combining the functions of a laptop, electronic book and electronic board.

"It is a totally new concept for learning devices," said Prof Negroponte.

The new machine will also be more energy efficient, half the size of the first generation device and lighter to carry.

It will continue to sport the XO logo in a multitude of colours so that children can personalise them.

"The XO2 will be a bit of a Trojan horse," said Prof Negroponte. Initially it will be promoted as an e-book reader with the capacity to store more than 500 e-books.

"Currently developing nations such as China and Brazil are spending $19 per student per year on books," he said.

Dual boot

The launch of the XO2 is being seen as an effort by OLPC to revitalise adoption of its machines. Initially, Prof Negroponte set a target of selling 100 million machines by 2008.

So far OLPC has only sold about 600,000 machines. Prof Negroponte said he expected a further 400,000 orders in the next "60 to 90 days".

Many countries have been reluctant to buy the machines because they did not run Microsoft's Windows operating system.

In mid-May OLPC announced a deal with Microsoft to make Windows available on the XO machine.

Previously the machines used a version of open source Linux operating system.

"There is no question that demand goes up when you offer dual boot," said Professor Negroponte.

The laptops which originally had a target price of $100 now cost $188 each.

The OLPC project believes the price tag for the new devices will be achieved thanks to falling prices for flat panel screens, the most costly of all laptop components.

At the MIT event, Prof Negroponte announced the resumption of the Get-One-Give-One programme to allow people in wealthy nations to buy two XO laptops and donate one to a child in a developing country.

The programme will be open to people in North America and Europe and start in August or September.

Prof Negroponte said the previous programme enabled OLPC to distribute 30,000 additional laptops to children in Rwanda, Mongolia and Haiti.

(taken from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7411904.stm)

For years, Microsoft has been trying to beat Google in the search engine business. The software company has tried various strategies -- redesigning its search engine, pouring boatloads into search engineering, offering to buy Yahoo, and now, according to reports, it's discussing a deal to purchase only Yahoo's search engine. Nothing's worked; Google now conducts two out of every three Web searches, and its share is growing, while Microsoft's is declining.

But today Microsoft is launching a new search initiative that's sure to prompt you to think twice about sending your search Google's way. That's because Microsoft is finally deploying the one asset it has in spades, a thing no sane-thinking person can turn down: Microsoft will give you money to use its search engine.

No, I'm not kidding. This is the real deal. Microsoft's new slogan is, "The Search That Pays You Back!" And even if it sounds a tad desperate, it is also kind of brilliant. I've already saved money with it, and you can too.

Microsoft's new search engine, called Live Search Cashback, is similar to Google's Product Search engine. You use it primarily to search for the best price on something you're looking to buy.

When you type your query -- "toaster," "iPod," "Wii Fit" or whatever else -- into Google's version, you get back a list of online stores that carry the thing, organized by price.

Microsoft's new search engine does one better: It tells you which stores carry the product and each store's price, plus any additional charges (shipping, taxes). And on top of that, the search engine offers a discount of 2 or 3 or 5 percent, depending on the store you choose. If you decide to buy the item from one of the listed stores, Microsoft will deposit the discount into your account.

Think of it like a credit-card rewards program, one that pits online retailers against each other in a fight to give you the biggest reward. If it takes off, it could be a boon for customers, not to mention MS, which takes a cut of the transaction.

I've tested this thing out for a less than an hour, but already, I've found discounts here that I wouldn't have found through Google.

Take, for instance, a search for the 16GB iPod Touch. When I do that search at Google, I'm presented with this list of online stores that sell the Touch. The lowest price is at a shop called Blue Bay Electronics -- $325.95.

Trouble is, Google doesn't tell me either the shipping price or taxes at Blue Bay. I've got to click the link to see that info -- and when I do, I find that actually, Google's search was wrong. Blue Bay's 16GB iPod Touch goes for $334, not $325.95, plus it wants $2.49 more for shipping. Bottom line: $336.49.

Microsoft's Live Search Cashback makes the same search far easier. Here's Microsoft's results page for the 16GB iPod Touch. The lowest price here is at B&H Photo, $339.

But Live Search Cashback also tells me that B&H Photo will charge me nothing extra for shipping and taxes. There's one more thing: Microsoft will give me a reward of 2.5 percent, or $8.47, if I buy the Touch from B&H. Live Search Cashback combines all these figures into a single "Bottomline Price": $330.52 for the iPod touch. I save $6 over Google.

Will you save money on every product? It's hard to know. For a given search, Live Search Cashback lists far fewer online stores than does Google Product Search, so it's possible Google may have lower prices on some products.

But because Microsoft lists extra charges and gives you a discount, Live Search Cashback is certainly worth checking out first every time you're looking for something to buy online. If people take to it, the engine could become quite lucrative for Microsoft.

I'll confess, when I first heard that Microsoft wanted to give people money in return for searching at its site, the idea sounded too gimmicky by half.

Instead of beating Google on the quality of its product, Microsoft seemed to want to out-market Google -- I couldn't help recalling that dot-com era portal iWon, which made using a search engine something like gambling.

But Live Search Cashback isn't a gimmick at all. By giving me more information, and by passing money from retailers to me, Microsoft is fighting Google on very Googly terrain: usability, and the quality of search results.

It's a smart strategy, and, at least for you and me, it's very rewarding.

(taken from : http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/05/21/microsoft_cashback_search/index.html?source=rss&aim=/tech/machinist/blog)

In an airplane hanger on MIT’s campus in Cambridge last week, a team of engineering students and researchers put the finishing touches on Talos, a Land Rover that drives itself. Talos is MIT’s entry in the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) robotic car race, which will take place on November 3, in Victorville, CA.

Known as the Urban Challenge, the race will test the ability of robotic cars from 35 different teams to obey traffic laws and drive safely in a city-like environment without human assistance. The vehicles will need to find their way to a preprogrammed destination while paying attention to lane markers, other cars, and unexpected obstacles, such as potholes in the road. (See video.)

The Urban Challenge is a follow-up to DARPA’s Grand Challenge race, held in 2004 and 2005, in which cars navigated an empty desert road. The new, more complex racing environment reflects the rapid progress being made in robotic cars: while none of the teams finished the first Grand Challenge race, 5 out of 23 cars finished the second one. Stanford University’s team, which won the latter race, will enter the Urban Challenge with Junior, an upgraded version of its winning car. (See “Stanford’s New Driverless Car.”)

In order to “see” its environment, MIT’s Talos is equipped with numerous laser range finders, radar units, Global Positioning Systems, and video cameras, explains Emilio Frazzoli, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and one of the team leaders. The researchers developed novel software–which runs on 10 quad-core computers in the Land Rover’s trunk–to make sense of the incoming data and to calculate the car’s next move. The 40 processors produce so much heat that the team added an air-conditioning unit to the roof of the car. (See slide show.)

Many of the robotic cars at the Urban Challenge will be outfitted with similar collections of off-the-shelf sensors, so it’s nuances in each car’s software that will likely distinguish winners from losers. MIT’s software consists of algorithms that work with the sensors to build a picture of the environment, and algorithms that determine what the car should do with that picture, explains Frazzoli. Every second, the algorithms use data from the sensors to generate more than a thousand possible paths that the car could take. Talos then drives along the path with the highest probability of producing the most direct and safest route for a given situation.

For the MIT team, which started developing Talos about a year ago, the challenge is to make sure that the car is reliable in as many different locations as possible. “We’re testing almost every day,” says Frazzoli. When the car arrives in Victorville, the team will continue to test for about a month before the preliminary trials begin. “It’s not too hard to build a robotic car,” Frazzoli says. “But it is hard to build one that’s robust and safe in many different environments.”

(taken away from : http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19471/?a=f)

Majapahit Travel Fair (MTF) has successfully become the most excellent platform for networking and establishing business contacts in the province. It is annually held with the main objective of providing business opportunities for the travel and tourism industry to market East Java's tourist attractions, hotels, natural surroundings and culture to both domestic and international tour operators. The major activities of this event include a "Table-Top Business Meeting" between the buyers and sellers (Travex), a half-day Workshop, tourism photo exhibition and the actual Exhibition itself where the sellers display their products and services. MTF this year coincides with the Indonesian Government promotion "Visit Indonesia Year 2008" expecting the target of 7 million foreign visitors to Indonesia. MTF is not only the an international tourism business forum but also becomes a significant promotion event as the government invites international visitors to enjoy a hundred attractive events all year round to celebrate 100 years of National Awakening. This will give all delegates a chance to not only discover the exciting tourism destinations, but also truly experience the atmosphere and hospitality, East Java has to offer. MTF 2008 will be held on May 21 -25 2008, at the Exhibition Hall, Gramedia Expo Surabaya, and the Ballroom of Sheraton Hotel Surabaya with the theme "Experiencing Festive Celebrations of The Year".

This will be our 9th Annual MTF and promise to be the most interactive than ever. MTF always achieves a great success. Last year's participants amounted to 82 buyers (domestic and overseas) and 59 sellers participating in the Table-Top Business Meeting. The buyers were mainly from Malaysia, China, Singapore, Siingapore and Hongkong.

The Travel Exchange is a closed business meeting with a Table-Top format between Buyers and Sellers of the travel and tourism industry. This one-day program is based on the appointment schedule arranged by the MTF Organizing Committee. The buyers taking part in this meeting are international and national tour operators who are currently marketing East Java or Indonesia and those who would like to obtain more information on our region to start promoting our market. The sellers are mostly delegates from East Java's tourism related industries with some delegates also attending from other destinations in Indonesia.

The Exhibitors are travel operators and tourism destination representatives from East Java and other destinations in Indonesia. It is open for the public from May 21 - 25, 2008. The Expo venue will be located at the Gramedia Expo, the newest exhibition hall in the city.

At the Workshop, reputable tourism professionals from Indonesia will share their experience and expertise with an interactive audience. The Sellers, Exhibitors, Managers of Tourist Attractions, Government Tourist Officials, dance companies, conservators university students and the public will attend this workshop. The workshop will feature qualified speakers on current issues in tourism in the global era.

Artis, sutradara dan politikus Indonesia, Sophan Sophiaan telah meninggal dunia pada tanggal 17 Mei 2008.
Kecelakaan yang dialami pria kelahiran Makassar ini disebabkan karena terkena lubang di jalan, perbatasan Ngawi (Jawa Timur) dan Sragen (Jawa Tengah), saat mengendarai sepeda motor (moge). Saat di bawa ke RSUD Sragen, beliau sudah meniggal dunia.

Zee My Blog Group turut berduka cita.
Selamat Jalan Sophan Sophiaan.
Semoga di kehidupan berikutnya mendapat tempat yang layak di sisi Allah SWT.

Surabaya Shopping Festival (SSF) is an event of town promotion in the form of party discounted in commercial sector & service. Performed in order to greeting & toning up cay commemoration become the town Surabaya 715th. SSF continue & improving the quality of activity “ Surabaya Big Sale” previous have been done, so that its existence progressively can be felt by Surabaya people and also outside Surabaya.

Opening SSF will be performed in public square Tunjungan, 1 May 2008. As opener events, marked with the fireworks by each Mall / public square concurrently. Party discount this cover the commercial sector and service of during May month 2008.

SSF supported by a number of Tenant Mall / public square, Hotel & Restaurant, Beauty Salon & SPA, Hospital. Toned up by various present withdraw from various participant and also especial present equal to 500 Million Rupiah dedicated by Bank Mandiri.

Let us enliven the SSF 2008, exploiting party discounted by during one month full... There's only in Surabaya...

Visit The Heart Of Surabaya

Julia Perez atau Jupe, bikin sensasi heboh lagi di tanah air Indonesia. Kali ini si Jupe yang punya nama asli Yuli Rachmawati ini membuat album musik perdana berjudul "Kamasutra". Album yang dijual di pasaran telah banyak mengundang kontroversi. Bagaimana tidak kalo album perdananya dijual dengan diberi iming-iming kondom gratis.

Menurut Mbak Jupe yang lahir di Jakarta, 15 Juli 1980 ini mengatakan bahwa kondom tersebut diberikan untuk keselamatan pengguna agar tidak terjangkit virus HIV/AIDS saat berhubungan intim. Trus mana kontroversinya, Mbak Jupe kan peduli akan anti AIDS?

Kondomnya itu yang jadi kontroversi. Kenapa? Karena ada yang berpendapat bahwa kondom gratis itu akan menjadi maraknya budaya free sex di Indonesia. Betul gak sih? Namanya juga pendapat, dan tiap orang pasti punya pendapat yang berbeda pula.

Akan tetapi nampaknya masyarakat banyak yang pro terhadap album perdana Jupe, terbukti bahwa album perdananya yang baru dijual di pasaran minggu lalu selama 3 hari penjualan sudah terjual 15 ribu keping (WoW...dahsyat seperti Mbak Jupe memamerkan tubuh seksinya). Nggak mesti pro tuh, bisa jadi pembeli album perdana Mbak Jupe hanya untuk mendapatkan lagunya aja. Trus buat apa dong kondomnya kalo hanya menikmati lagunya aja?

Bagaimana dengan Anda, setujukah kondom gratis dibagikan melalui album perdana Jupe?

Kemarin searching hard disk yang telah lama tidak dipakai dan komputer yang power-supply-nya rusak untuk keperluan memposting blog, akhirnya ketemu deh gambar yang membuat aku kagum atas kebesaran Allah SWT.

Maha Suci Allah atas kebesaran dan kekuatan yang dapat kita lihat dan kita rasakan nikmatnnya sampai saat ini. Gambar yang bertuliskan Allah ini di ambil dengan kamera HP oleh seorang teman saya ketika dia hendak pulang ke kos Saat itu dia berada di jalan kertajaya, mau masuk bunderan kampus ITS. Foto ini di ambil pada pagi hari pada tanggal 1 Januari 2008 (pagi setelah pergantian malam tahun baru) di atas kampus Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember - Surabaya (ITS - Surabaya). Mungkinkah ada maksud di balik semua ini? Semua itu hanya Allah Yang Maha Mengetahui semua rahasia alam ini.