(graphic: Phil Welch, Herald on Sunday)
Since it was launched in 1990, the Hubble has made 800,000 observations and taken 500,000 photographs of some 25,000 celestial objects.
The launching ceremony of Stop Export Piracy campaign (Dec 14, 2007)
One of the officer checking one of the replicating machine (Jan 16, 2007) 
The mould were tampered to produce discs which looks like being produce by licensed factory with erased SID codes (Jan 16, 2007)
PVC pipes which were used as a container to store pirated discs (Jan 27, 2007)
Inside view of the PVC pipes (Jan 27, 2007) 
Some of the pirated DVDs found in one of the room (Dec 5, 2007) 
Wellington playwright Gavin McGibbon's second play, Stand Up Love premieres at Bat's Theatre on Friday the 27th at 6.30pm. It'll be worth a look. His first play, After Service which featured as part of the Fringe festival last year, was a real breath of fresh air for Wellington theatre."Why would you name your kid Apple? Shouldn’t porn stars promote fitness equipment? And what’s with garden gnomes? You looked at 'em? They're the paedophiles of ceramics.
"All this and more is answered as the relationship between a stand-up comedian and his infomercial loving girlfriend gets put under the spotlight.
"Chapman Tripp winner Erin Banks (I.D., Hamlet) and nominee Robert Lloyd (Fool for Love) are directed by Larry Rew (Kikia te Poa) in a new work from the writer of After Service ("striking" - Capital Times, "must see" - Dominion Post).
When is love just another four-lettered word
All eyes are on the stop-start Louis Vuitton sailing action in Valencia at the moment, but the epic Earthrace round the world record attempt may turn out to provide much more excitement, all up.
The figures for US video game market sales for March just came through and show that Nintendo's Wii has outsold the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 for the third month running. Sales of hardware and software are booming in the US, up 33 per cent as the new consoles on the market and the games that go with them are snapped up.
Nintendo, which doesn't have a local presence, hasn't done much marketing of the Wii, compared to Sony's push with the PS3. There have been some Wii-related TV adverts of late and a bit of newspaper and circular advertising but marketing budget constraints seem to have hamstrung the Wii. If Nintendo is serious about the New Zealand market it needs to set up an office here. Sony and Microsoft both have the benefit of having in house people looking after their gaming interests and external PR companies to push their wares. The Wii just can't compete with that sort of marketing muscle.
The HP coffee tablet which has a display built into its surface and an inductive charging bay so you can simply pop your tablet into the tray to recharge it.
It doesn't get more minimalist than this. A light-based keyboard allows you to gently tap on the notebook's surface rather than punch the keys.
The HP media mat, which presumably one day with be flexible and foldable, so you can hold it on your knee like a page from a newspaper. It uses UWB communication to update the displayed information.
The Watch that sits are the centre of the future HP digital environment. With UWB built-in, it communicates wirelessly with other devices in the home, acting as a control, communications device and personal media player.
The problem with paid-for security suites is that they feel the need to prove their value by constantly popping up in your face. The sharp, metallic alarm sound that McAfee uses to alert you to the fact it needs attention is particularly annoying, especially as it goes off a couple of times a day. What a hideous thing to set as a default on some software.
Norton 360 is a positive step forward, I hope this singles a step up for an industry that perhaps is worried about losing disillusioned customers to Vista users employing the enhanced security of the new operating system and some supplementary stand alone packages to do the job of a McAfee or Symantec.
Did you know that your name is the same as the Dad off the popular "Family Guy"? But im sure you probably already know that.
Must be awesome to be Peter Griffin!
From familyguy
i luv teh family guy
From Barnaby
Keep up the good work Peter,
Regards,
Barnaby
frustration at the lack of vision when it comes to Government initiatives in the IT sector and his hopes and plans for Cadmus, the Eftpos terminals maker he has become chairman of.THE BUSINESS | editorial:
Satellite navigation company Navman was our only truly global consumer electronics brand, one you could see prominently on display in electronics stores in cities throughout the world.
With the vision its founder Peter Maire had for the company, even after he sold it to US conglomerate
But globalization isn’t a one way street. The forces that brought
When
But while the remnants of Navman have been sold to Norwegian and Taiwanese companies, there’s much to be salvaged from the whole experience.
As a country we’re building a huge resource in these wealthy entrepreneurs who have sold their businesses offshore and now have a pot of money to invest in new ventures. Very few of them retire to the beach never to be seen in business circles again. Driven by the innate need to succeed and in many cases, a heart-warming desire to give something back to their country, they start over, creating more intellectual property, more jobs, more opportunities for New Zealanders.
That’s why we’re lucky to have people like Peter Maire, Rod Drury, Sam Morgan and Neville Jordan. In the technology sector in particular, we now have a group of individuals who have been to the cut-throat North American market and survived, are respected in the Silicon Valley venture capital clique and have learnt how to take Kiwi companies global – often from their own mistakes.
As a result, our fragile IT industry is finally starting to show signs of solid, coordinated development.
Peter Jackson’s success in the film industry shows what can be achieved when even a small group of individuals and companies in a particular industry make it overseas. There’s a domino effect back home, opportunities open up for everyone, the world comes calling.
And while we invite our successful entrepreneurs to take seats on Government boards and lead well-meaning think tanks, too often their ideas are ignored and, frustrated by bureaucracy, they lose interest.
We need some visionary thinking at a Government policy level to capitalize on the successes our technology sector has made in the last few years. No longer can we afford to tinker and fiddle, as Maire puts it.
Traditionally, we’ve managed to pick up some of the crumbs because we have a skilled, English-speaking labour force. But faced with a crippling shortage of highly skilled and experienced workers, one getting so bad it will probably force more technology development offshore, we can’t afford to be complacent in trying to attract global attention. We need to get more multinationals here, undertake better quality R&D and do more to attract quality VC investment. We need to get the infrastructure in shape so we can take advantage of the revolution in internet services that is underway. Our tech sector luminaries aren’t reticent in spelling this out. The question now is who will take the lead and make some visionary changes?
JUST HOW GOOD WAS NAVMAN?
If Peter Maire’s vision for Navman diverged with those of its American owners, there was consensus when it came to the devices that made up Navman’s most consumer-centric business, that of personal and in-car navigation.
Maire says Navman’s product development didn’t suffer despite the turmoil in Brunswick New Technologies and that the existing line-up is “as good as anything else” on the market.
Yet despite generating in excess of US$300 million in revenue last year, Navman’s personal navigation division was bleeding cash when it was sold to Taiwanese electronics maker Mitac last month.
Satellite navigation expert and editor of the popular website Pocketgpsworld.com, Darren Griffin, says Navman shook up the industry with a product that converted handheld computers into navigation devices.
Ironically, Pocketgpsworld emerged four years ago out of
“Although revolutionary they were very problematic and a group of us formed a Yahoo group to discuss the product and solutions,” he says.
The website was born and its forums now host hundreds of users who visit to read in-depth reviews of GPS devices and seek advice on navigational issues.
Navman led the industry with its SmartST navigation software, says
But somewhere along the way, Navman “lost the race” for first place in the GPS market.
“They were very well placed at the start, developed the first true consumer mapping solution and should have been the market leaders as a result,” he says.
A key failing, according to
“Competitors who did have built-in support, particularly for speed cameras, took a huge lead. At that time I thought Navman were very blinkered in the path they were intending to take. They were not open or receptive to advice and even now although they have support for custom points of interest, it is poor,” he says.
“With the exception of their SmartPix solution, their products lacked any other features which stood out and indeed in some areas such as custom points of interest, they had very poor support.”
There were many things weighing in Navman’s favour - products compared well on price, and the Navman brand was well-liked.
“I hope that Mitac do retain Navman as a wholly separate brand but I fear they may eventually subsume them and use the Navman name for their own product lines,” he said.
While Mitac had a good existing product line in the Mio,
“TomTom have reached something of a plateau this year and we all wish someone would produce a product that could give them a real run for their money.”
My Herald on Sunday story looking at where mobile phone technology is going.THE BEST
Nokia 6275 (Telecom)
A fairly plain looking Nokia, but about as good as they come for Telecom customers – the Consumers Institute agrees, it’s their top pick in CDMA handsets. The 6275 packs the features in – mp3 player, FM radio, two megapixel camera, which actually takes decent photos, an expansion slot for loading up with music. There’s no mobile broadband and it’s a tad on the expensive side but Nokias are built to last. It’s also got a cool GPS feature that lets you measure your location and find out what direction you are going in.
Price: $699
Motorola RAZR V3 (Vodafone)
An absolute classic. It’s the iPod of the mobile phone world, changed Motorola’s fortunes and launched a line of phones with similarly bizarre names. It’s all in the looks with the RAZR, which is a little anaemic when it comes to features. The camera isn’t up to much, but it handles calling and texting well. A nice metallic keyboard and large, bright screen are revealed when the slim-line clamshell is opened up.
Price: $299
Samsung W531 (Telecom)
Samsung’s dual-mode phone wins instant credit for incorporating at such a reasonable price, chips that allow access to both GSM and CDMA networks. The W531 is the phone Telecom customers who are traveling abroad can use for roaming in countries where there is no CDMA network. The handset is also of compact, lightweight design and has good battery life and calling quality.
Price: $299
Vodafone 1210 (Vodafone)
The cheapest smartphone to support the Windows Mobile platform, the 1210 is ideal for those who want to sync their Outlook address book and view Microsoft Office documents on their phone. A fairly conservative design masks the rich functionality of this candy bar smartphone which is ideal for email and has expandable memory and Windows Media Player built in, so it can be used as a music phone too.
Price: $599
Nokia N73
The N73, as nice as it is, would be far too expensive where it not for the fact that a 1GB miniSD card is currently being bundled with it. Don’t buy a N73 unnless you get the memory card thrown in as well. The addition 1GB card makes the N73 a suitable music phone and gives you enough capacity to make good use of the surprisingly good 3.2 megapixel camera built into it.
Price: $999
THE WORST
Motorola V3XX (Vodafone)
It packs more punch than its predecessor, the V3, but not enough to justify its massive price premium. The V3XX is basically aimed at the same target market – people who want a good-looking phone for calling and texting. In that respect, the high-speed data access is of marginal value.
Price: $799
Sharp GX29 (Vodafone)
Ugly, ugly, ugly. It resembles the first generation of 3G phones we saw two years ago – too big, too chunky and it doesn’t even offer 3G services. The camera isn’t up to much and there’s virtually no onboard memory to store photos anyway. Even at its low-end price there are much better models on the market.
Price: $299
LG KU800 (Vodafone)
A good phone spoiled by its touch-sensitive menu keys which cause no end of frustrated fiddling around. The KU800 is the updated version of the LG Chocolate, which was hugely successful in the
Price: $799
SANYO PINKILICIOUS (Telecom)
It may be popular with teenage girls but with the horrible grill on the front and that pink protruding aerial, the Pinkilicous is a design disaster. The external display is monochrome giving it a distinctly retro feel and meaning picture caller ID is out. It’s worth stumping up the extra $100 for the Sanyo Diva clamshell which is better featured and wins points for its styling.
Price: $249
Nokia 6165 (Telecom)
A strange fixture in the Nokia line-up, the 6165 is a mid-range phone that tries to do many things, but does nothing very well. The one megapixel camera is a write-off. There’s Bluetooth and infra-red connectivity but not supporting high-speed data, it’s not ideal for use as an external modem. Its design is symptomatic of the CDMA phones that carry the Nokia brand – uninspired.
Price: $399
FEEDBACK:From Ross
Hi Peter, I really enjoy reading your stuff, and I also enjoy your blog as well. I just got a new N95 here in Australia (for AU$1200). I have only had it for a couple days, but it that time I have been unable to connect it to any wifi networks, after a long support call with Nokia they blamed my home and work networks for not accepting the device. They are going to get a tech to call me back. But after googling the problem I see many other N-series users have similar problems connecting to wifi networks- one of the best features of the phone.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse -Five
Lance's little travel companion... there's plenty more where this one came from...
Look at the head on that thing!!
I hope the trip to Hawaii is uneventful after the series of mishaps Earthrace has already experienced. The team deserve some smooth sailing. The problem is that there's still a fleeting chance of the boat beating the 60 day, round the world speed boat record. So they have to act as though it's still attainable, but push harder than they would have had to if things had gone smoothly. The conditions aren't ideal and they've a lot of ocean yet to cover. You can keep an eye on their progress at the Earthrace website
Anyway, the yanks have vetoed such a plan with the FCC keeping its ban on mobile phone use on planes. I saw the pico cell technology at the 3GSM expo in Barcelona and its rather impressive. The mobile companies have made good use of pico cells to fill out coverage in confined areas that have high demand for access. They may for example put a pico cell outside the entrance of an airport terminal so when everyone walks off the plane and turns on their phones, they get their text messages and can make calls instantly - no over-loading of the network.My Herald on Sunday column... a pile of space junk...
The passengers on the LAN Chile flight from Santiago to Auckland last week should know just how close they came to calamity when a number of mysterious burning objects roared past during their journey over the Pacific last week.
If the burning objects had hit the plane, causing it to crash, they'd have been very unlucky indeed.
Experts are still arguing about whether the objects were pieces of Russian space junk or a meteorite, but the incident has highlighted the often-overlooked fact that we have made a dumping ground of not only our planet, but also of the heavens above.
Scientists estimate the chance of being hit by a piece of space junk that has re-entered the Earth's atmosphere is less than one in a trillion.
Like the Everest climbers who leave their trash, discarded equipment and the bodies of their unfortunate companions on the mountain, the explorers of space have thought little of discarding spent fuel tanks, rocket boosters and nuclear reactor cores and leaving their ageing satellites and space stations to fall apart.
The result is that millions of pieces of debris, some the size of a grain of sand, others the size of a bus, form a cloud around the earth.
Nasa can easily detect the larger pieces of junk, but the smaller fragments of flaking paint or frozen satellite coolant are too numerous to avoid and can be as lethal as a speeding bullet as they hurtle around the earth, posing a risk to the many satellites and space craft that are still functional.
Some 8000 satellites orbit the planet, and with private companies and countries alike seeking to put more satellites into space - in the name of exploration, Star Wars-like defence and to aid satellite communications - the clutter is only going to increase.
The Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies estimates that 5400 tons of equipment has re-entered the earth's atmosphere in the past 40 years, the largest item of which was the Russian Mir space station, which weighed 135 tons and burned up on re-entry over the South Pacific - where most of the space junk is directed when its owners take the proactive step of "de-orbiting" - sending it back to earth.
Most space junk is conveniently vaporised when it is drawn into the earth's atmosphere, but some particularly solid bits, generally stainless steel, titanium and glass, survive burning in the massive heat created by the friction of metal against the atmosphere, and these actually splash down.
Or crash down, as the case may be. Spare a thought for the Ugandan family whose home in the city of Kasambya was hit in March 2002 by a titanium pressure sphere from the re-entering Ariane 3 rocket booster. Luckily, no one was home at the time.
While raining space junk isn't causing too many headaches for Nasa, and while the threat of meteors to humans is much greater than that of space junk, the space organisation does keep a close eye on re-entering debris and tries to pinpoint the time of re-entry and therefore the likely locations at which any surviving debris might land.
Scientists have also being working on ways to clean up space, and the Terminator Tether is one of their more intriguing proposals.
It consists of a 5km electrodynamic tether, a sort of lightweight wire that's wound up tightly and bolted to the side of a satellite.
At the end of the satellite's life, the tether is unwound, and it is charged with a current from the earth's magnetic field that drags the satellite back to earth, where it burns up - or provides a stunning light show for some terrified airline passengers.
Xbox elitism
Microsoft will this month release the Elite version of its Xbox 360 console, which includes a HDMI connector to connect to high definition TV screens. A 120GB hard drive will also be offered as an optional extra for US$180 (NZ$250). The Elite will have a black case, and while the inclusion of HDMI puts it on an even footing with the PS3 in terms of HD connection options, the Elite will not feature a HD-DVD drive for playing high-definition discs. Microsoft has yet to reveal local pricing, saying the Elite will be available this winter in limited supply.
Price: US$480 (NZ$670)
