Thursday, December 28, 2006

 

The mobile phone, one more enemy for Earth

ecology

The mobile phone, one more enemy for EarthIn our mind, the mobile phone's not associated yet with the environmental, social or economic problems that it leads to. However, some figures are scary: nearly 30 kg of raw materials are necessary to manufacturate a device of about 100 grams! And in the world, one estimates that a billion devices are living!

In Belgium (and that must be about the same thing in the neighbor countries), the average lifetime of a mobile phone is around 18 months. Briefly, a belgian mobile is abolished every 10 seconds! In one year, that represents 3 million devices. Among them, only 2% will be recycled.


The WWF's belgian website mentions other unimaginables consequences: wars for the precious substances in Congo, forced child work and doubtful working conditions, poaching, deforestation, resources' exploitation and destruction, accumulation of waste. The website also claims health risks for the people in contact with the raw materials and of course, there are problems with the transport: 5 to 6% of the mobile's ecological footprint are allotted to the transport.

Conclusion: at the end of your mobile's lifetime, the WWF advises to not simply give it up in a drawer, nor to throw it away, but rather to give it to a friend or a company of social economy. You can also exchange it while you purchase the new one, with the guarantee that it will be reconditioned for one second life. If it can be used never, abandon it in a park of selective collection or to a distributor that collect old mobile phones for free.

Source: WWF.be

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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

 

Belgium, two parts

anecdote

Belgium, two partsWednesday, the 13th of December 2006, Ve is watching TV. She lives in Belgium so she just watched the news on RTBF and the next TV program starts, while Ve lies on the sofa, thinking to something else. The next program is "Questions à la une". Allright. Good enough.

The show is soon interrupted by a special announcement, yadi yadi yada, everybody knows the story now. Video.

Ve wakes up and opens wide the eyes. She listens all the words of François De Brigode, she can't stop listening. She is told that the motorway is paralysed in Brussel, that the trains are stopped at the linguistic border, that Antwerp became crazy. Vi sends SMS to her friends. She is told that the King escaped to Kinshasa, that the planes are deviated to Liege and that the Ministers of Brussel Government are lockep up in the Atonium. Ve calls a friend.

Well, it was a joke, we all know it now. A really well done joke, we can guess that. But 6% of the belgian viewers believed the information until the end. Like Ve did (80% stopped believing when they saw "fiction" on the screen or sooner). This portion of Wallonia is said outraged, scandalized. And politician with them. Investigation, etc.

So what ? Should we conclude that 6% of the Walloon viewers are stupid to eat oats by bags of 100 kgs? It's hard because Ve is a friend. And we'd like to heard that Ve would switch to another channel (she receives more than 20), switch on her radio (the FM range is 87.5 to 107.9) or surf on a news website. But Ve staid tuned to the RTBF, and now she promises not to watch it anymore. It's like a non sense.

We want to say bravo to the RTBF as we would do to Orson Welles ...

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Friday, December 08, 2006

 

My wall is a graphics tablet

exploits

Researchers from Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France and the UK have developed a system that can turn walls, tables, and other surfaces ... into virtual touchpads or keyboards.

The Tai-Chi system(Tangible Acoustic Interfaces for Computer-Human Interaction) uses acoustic sensors connected to the edge of a surface that are able to track the vibrations of another object touching it. Tiny piezoelectric sensors allow to distinguish two objects touching it at the same time. There is also an identification method: each contact point can be identified thanks to a database of "vibration fingerprints".

"One advantage of the system is that for little cost you can have a much larger touch-sensitive area. The whole surface of your desk could become your keyboard and mouse-pad."




Source: NewsScientistTech, last week.
Pour ceux qui ne savent pas: Piezoelectricity is the ability of crystals to generate a voltage in response to applied mechanical stress. The word is derived from the Greek piezein, which means to squeeze or press. The piezoelectric effect is reversible in that piezoelectric crystals, when subjected to an externally applied voltage, can change shape by a small amount. (For instance, the deformation is about 0.1% of the original dimension in PZT.) The effect finds useful applications such as the production and detection of sound, generation of high voltages, electronic frequency generation, microbalance, and ultra fine focusing of optical assemblies.

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