Facebook knows your Face!

Everyday, more than 100 million photos are tagged on Facebook. It works like this: Users can mark people they know on photos. Then, Facebook connects these marked pictures with the fitting profile.

A Drop of Innovation Please…

When I was looking for new innovations and news in the field of Green Business – I use the GreenBiz.com homepage for those purposes – I came across this article: 10 Perspectives on the Future of Water.

One of the links the article provided was the homepage of the ‘The Future we Create’ with the current virtual conference of the future of water.

The talk which caught my eyes the most was the statement of Guy Horowitz of TaKaDu who talks about the ‘innovation or investment gap’ in the water industry.

He talks about the urgent requirement of investments and innovation in the water infrastructure, because spending on water is not visible and not perceived as important yet and revenues are spent for other projects.

Life and how development changed it

Wow. This is going to be my last post. I can´t believe how fast 9 weeks of personal development went by. I say personal development because I learned a lot about my interests and the opportunities in our fast changing world. I introduced you to several inventions on the web and tried to evaluate them: facebook, Second Life, Fiverr and lots of other interesting things I  learned about, too.

By introducing you to all these little tools of our everyday life I tried to point out that our life is full of opportunities and definitely different to that from previous generations. We are the generation Internet.

Last weekend I have been to a really amazing festival. We had lots of fun, listened to great music and lived without any connection to the outside world. Well, I enjoyed that for three days, but after that I could not wait to get connected to the Internet again and check my facebook. It is part of my life and will always be. I have to admit.

Dark Clouds are gathering

Technology which works perfectly – what a dream. But, unfortunatly, it is JUST a dream. And like all (technical) things, there is always at least one lack which sucks. Cloud Computing does not spare us its lacks.

In general, small business are not enough qualified for Cloud Computing than big companies are.  They even do not know what it is (71%)! The others whoch have already heard about it, can’t usually describe it (26%). Those who use it are mainly unsatisfied: Firstly, businesses complain that their data is not backed up off-site.

Secondly, if companies do not really have a business plan how to reach Cloud Computing successfully, costs will dramatically increases. This will lead to unsatisfaction within the company and may rise debt possibilities.

Furthermore, there is defintitely a lack in security. Before buying a cloud from a provider you should get information about the privileged user access. Because your provider then controls your data and you should be sure this logical, personnel and physical control you hand in. Your provider should be also a kind of certificated, so that regularly compliance is given. Sometimes providers do not bespeak where your data exactely is. But this information should be available for customers. It is also usual that your specific space in the cloud is shared with other companies. But it is important that you know in detail how your data is segregated and not mixed with information of other businesses. As with all technological things, a disaster can happen which makes your data gone. In this case, providers should give a recovery strategy, means what will happen to your data, if there is an accident.

All my data above is from the following website on which you should also not hesitate to have a look: http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2011/02/22/cloud-computing-security-staff-lack-right-skills-39747021/

 

You see, there are lots of lacks which should be resolved as fast as possible, because Cloud      Computing seems to be a real effiecient future IT-trend as it saves IT costs and increases    flexibility.

For the future all the best and take Cloud Computing as a chance!

 

Yours, Lisa

Intelligence in Buildings

In my last post I wrote about Masdar – a very intelligent and sustainable city with a sophisticated energy system without CO2 emissions. Very smart thing.
The imagination every city in this world would take Masdar as a prototype and would develop a similar system, would be really awesome, but we have to admit – as amazing it seems, as unrealistic it is.
But let’s start in a smaller portion. Many firms like IBM specialized in the field of Intelligent Building Management and construct skyscraper with an integrated IT systems to “Improve facilities & real estate asset reliability & performance to reduce energy, lower maintenance & management costs & extend asset life to help create a smarter building.”

But it isn’t that easy, to write down a certain definition of what smart buildings are about. So the Greenbang blog published a very informative article about how different organizations define it and what it makes so smart.

If David and Goliath wear business suits…

Around 1000 years BC the Israelites were at war with the Philistines. In one decisive battle Goliath the Giant stepped out of the Philistine rows and challenged the Israelite soldiers: If anybody was able to defeat him the Philistines would knuckle down and serve the Israelites ever after. However, if Goliath should turn out as the victor of the duel, the Israelites will be the slaves of the Philistines henceforth.

After an hour of silence the young shepherd David finally accepted the offer and agreed to dedicate his life to the glory of Israel. Knowing that Goliath is practically invincible when it comes to a duel, David decided to leave sword and shield behind. Carrying nothing but a pack of stones and a slingshot he stepped before Goliath and killed him with one single shot at his forehead.

According to the biblical myth neither David nor Goliath wore business suits. But nowadays there are a lot of pinstripe-suited Davids and Goliaths running around, all camouflaging their real nature.

With Amazon on Cloud Nine

Every baby needs a mum, every student needs a teacher and every cloud needs a provider.

You cannot use your own cloud, because it has a specific infrastructure which must have been developed before. So, you have to use offers made by certain providers. Those providers – usually companies – built up a cloud in the course of their development and IT performance.

Having followed my last posts, you probably have seen that AMAZON was mentionend very often.

The Company

AMAZON  is a social-commerce mail order company founded Jeff Bezos in the United States of America in 1994. It sells alomost everything – from books and clothers to car accessory and foodstuffs. Since summer 2002 AMAZON has offered its AMAZON WEB SERVICE. Using AWS can be a huge advantage for developing companies, because you can use AMAZON’s already installed programs, applications and systems. One of their services is the CLOUD COMPUTING system.

Elements of the Cloud 

AMAZON offers different types of cloud:

>> Amazon EC2: called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud; basis for all elements

>> Amazon SimpleDB: you have access to well structured data; API (application programming interface) included

>> Amazon S3: called Amazon Simple Storage Service;  huge database

Masdar?!?

Since the temperatures in Germany climb higher and higher, everybody digs out its old bicycle from the dark corners of the basement.
As soon as you can avoid the stinky surrounding of the s- and u-bahn (because people tend to sweat in summer) you’re even up to suffer some sportive activity.
But in the area where I come from, it’s not always possible to take your bike for all occasions, because driving 30 km per day isn’t that unusual. Since public transportation isn’t that common there, I was wondering, where it is actually more sustainable to live? City or rural area? Flat or house?

While I read a lot of very intelligent essays and reports concerning this topic, I figured out, enough other people think and argue about it.
So there’s sufficient material to read about it out there in the endless spheres of the web.
But I still wanted to keep this track and came across MASDAR.

The Technical Revolution: from the Sumerian Abacus to the world-changing Computer

It is quite stunning how a little machine has evolved over a few years and is now able to accomplish almost every action. The computer has a long history of success. Nowadays, most people could not imagine living without a computer and frankly speaking, it is impossible! The humanity has created a complex technique, which is powerful and irreversible. However, the development of new technologies is still in process and improvements are made wherever they seem possible.

The age of the modern computer was initiated by two separate technologies: automated calculation and programmability. Using calculation devices has a long tradition in humanity. Some of them were very successful and survived for a long time, e.g. the Sumerian abacus, which was created 2500 BC.

Around the end of the tenth century, there were drawings of a machine that answered Yes or No to the questions it was asked (binary arithmetic). The year 1642 marks the invention of a mechanical calculator, which was able to perform all four arithmetic operations without relying on human intelligence; a real big step towards modern technologies. Mathematicians and engineers try constantly to improve it in order to make it more flexible and powerful. Charles Babbage was the person who first theorized the computer. Taking his approach in consideration, the first mainframe computers were developed in the 1960s.

McDonald….fast food for the world

Eating. One of my favorite hobbies. Who doesn´t like food? What do you think about a really greasy Döner or having a burger at McDonald after spending a night clubbing in our favorite city Berlin? Is there anything better? I doubt that.

People love the possibility to grab some fast food when hurrying to work, meeting up with a friend or  going by train. Our society eats on the road, there is no time in our fast changing world to sit down and spend more than a half an hour in order to eat. McDonald has around 2.9 million people visiting a day only in Germany. In the year 2010 Subway had a profit of 15,2 billion US dollar worldwide. These fast food companies are everywhere and they make everyone realize what globalization means.While I spent a year abroad  I ate the exact same Burger at McDonald in America as I did in Berlin, even the restaurants themselves looked alike. The same food all around the world. Fast food companies give you a feeling of home, you know what you get when you go inside and there will be no disappointment most of the times.

Globalization makes the whole world a home thanks to worldwide operating companies like McDonald, Burger King and Subway!

At the same time there are more and more people suffering from obesity in the world. According to Spiegel online 25% of all Americans are heavily overweight. People consume without considering what they eat, often they