[via Jeremy & New York Times]

It seems that there is a “scientific” justification to buy big screens.

The results? On the bigger screen, people completed the tasks at least 10 percent more quickly – and some as much as 44 percent more quickly. They were also more likely to remember the seven-digit number, which showed that the multitasking was clearly less taxing on their brains. Some of the volunteers were so enthralled with the huge screen that they begged to take it home. In two decades of research, Czerwinski had never seen a single tweak to a computer system so significantly improve a user’s productivity. The clearer your screen, she found, the calmer your mind.

I totally agree :-) I am using for a while now (some months) an HP L2035 20.1-inch LCD at home and in my office. Quite a great LCD, nice quality, excellent contrast, sharp rendering, with an interesting smooth landscape-portrait pivot system.
The HP L2035 is coming with DVI-D, DVI-A, VGA and S-Video inputs. Resolution is 1600×1200, 16ms pixel-response time, contrast ratio 500:1, max. vertical and horizontal view angle: 170°, 3-years guarantee.

Have a look at the cnet review.

[via Matt Cutts]

From a post on October 17, 2005:

Just to give you a heads-up, I think a new set of backlinks (and possibly PageRank) will probably be visible relatively soon; I’m guessing within the next few days. I still expect some flux after that though, just to let you know.

[via Seth]

I like this one very much: Optimism is hard. But it’s usually worth it.
Seth gives us some precise examples. Hard to believe but simply the “brutal facts”.

Today’s Globe & Mail reports that over teh last 12 years, the number of armed conflicts in the world has gone down by 40% and the number of extremely deadly conflicts (more than 1,000 battle-related deaths) is down by more than 80%.

A different source reports that New York is the safest large city in the US, with serious crime continuing to drop.

And it’s much harder to get sick from bad sushi, too. (has to do with aggressive refrigeration.)

[via Jeff]

Forget the innovator’s dilemna principle in the Web 2.0 world: established players (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft & al) are bringing in talents by hiring them away or acquiring their companies, and are playing catch up on new features and services at an unprecedented pace. The initial versions of what they produce are not always great and don’t really match startup products or services, but in a relatively short order, they get closer and closer. And since the “elephants in the room” know one thing – scale, they can intercept startups when these start facing scalability issues and their initial architecture can’t cope with their success.

I have participated to a pilot-phase by Helvetia Patria since about 4 weeks with 20 other colleagues, to be able to test and to validate the usage of Blackberry within the company.

I got (and still have ;-) a Blackberry 7100v.

Features

• Complete functionality including:

• Phone
• Email
• SMS
• Wireless Data Access
• Address book
• Browser
• Calendar
• Memo Pad
• Tasks

Architecture

After one month…

+ clear screen
+ very user-friendly
+ online synchro with emails and agenda
+ data compression
+ access to the enterprise contacts (fix, mobile, mail, etc)
+ mobile size (no “pizza-box”)
– keys confusing at the beginning
– battery! for chance, yu can use the USB connector to solve this issue

Overview

Email

Agenda

Internet Browser

[via BetaNews]

That could be interesting :-) It is the first time I read somewhere that an On-line music download service wants to deliver real high-quality sound files to “audiophiles”, that means for people who can make a difference between 192kbps and 256kbps MP3 encoding.

Ask many an audiophile what their number one complaint about digital music is, and you’d likely get the same answer from just about everyone: quality.

The door has been left wide open for a high-fidelity music download service, and with the further ubiquity of broadband and larger capacity digital music players, file size is no longer an issue.

Enter MusicGiants. The Nevada-based company quietly launched its self-titled service September 29, but if my first look is any indication, the service may be about to make a big splash in the world of digital music. For a $50 annual fee, users are given access to a catalog of music from EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music.

While the current music selection obviously pales in comparison to that of iTunes or Napster, the company says that it is in the process of securing deals with the other major labels to expand the catalog.

MusicGiants users can download each track for $1.29, which initially would be “free” through a $50 song credit given for joining the service. However, unlike competing services that encode their songs at 128 kbps, all tracks from MusicGiants are in Microsoft’s Windows Media Lossless format, which encodes songs between 470 and 1100 kbps.

[via Netcraft]

In the October 2005 survey we received responses from 74,409,971 sites, an increase of 2.68 million sites from the September survey. The large gain makes 2005 the strongest year ever for Internet growth, as the web has added 17.5 million sites, easily surpassing the previous annual mark of 16 million during the height of the dot-com boom in 2000.

[…] With this month’s growth, Apache now powers more than 50 million sites.

Have a look at the new Bugatti’s Veyron. What for a car :-) The Veyron is produced at Molsheim – France, at about 80km from where I am living. This is a “back-to-the-roots” process because Molsheim is the historical place of Bugatti since 1910.

Specifications

• Engine: W16 (two W8 engines mated together), 4 turbochargers, 8.0l
• Power: 1’001 metric horsepower
• Torque: 1’250 Nm
• Transmission: DSG with 7 gear ratios, all wheel drive
• Weight: 1’888 kg
• Time 0-100 km/h: 2.5s (!!)
• Time 0-200 km/h: 7.3s
• Time 0-300 km/h: 16.7s
• Average top speed: 407 km/h
• City driving: 40.4 l/100km
• Combined cycle: 24.1 l/100km
• Price: about 1.1 million euros

Some articles

Great Wikipedia’s article about the history of Bugatti and the Veyron itself.

Some pictures

[via BetaNews]

Microsoft and Yahoo announced on Wednesday a blockbuster interoperability deal that will reshape the landscape of the fragmented instant messaging market. The companies will connect their IM networks so users on each can communicate with one another using text and voice chat free of charge.

Starting in the second quarter of 2006, customers of both services will be able to see their friends’ online presence, share emoticons, and add new contacts from either Yahoo! Messenger or MSN Messenger to their buddy list.

Yesterday evening, I was invited by Dominique Freymond, who is Partner of Management & Advisory Services and, among others, Member of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Post at a conference of Etienne Jornod – CEO and Chairman of the Galenica Group (pharma industry). This conference was organized by an informal Executive French-speaking club called “Les Quatre Saisons” in Zürich, Switzerland. Very interesting discussion about the role of the pharma industry in Switzerland, which is homebase of a lot of huge companies as Roche, Novartis, Serono, Galenica. For the size of this country, this is great :-) About 1 million people are working directly and indirectly for the pharma sector (there are 7 million inhabitants in Switzerland!).

Some other great discussions with Jean-Pierre Klumpp, the CEO of one of the oldest Swiss Private Bank – Ehinger & Armand von Ernst, which will be integrated in a bigger one – Julius Baer in the coming time.

Plus, some good exchange about culture and international projects & HR frameworks with Garry Wagner, Chief Human Resources Officer of Siemens Building Technology.

And, last but not least, with Marina de Senarclens, Chairman of the communicatiojn company Leu+Partner.

I was there with Manu, the CEO of Boomerang. A picture of Manu about 10′ before the start of the conference:

The Lake of Zürich is marvelous at the end of the day:

[click]

Great business evening, thank you Mr. Freymond!