Title: Lift Conference: Inspiring and connecting pioneers, Geneva
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Lift is a series of events built around a community of doers and thinkers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social consequences of new technologies.
Each conference is a chance to turn changes into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meeting the people who drive them.
Start Date: 25 Feb 2009
End Date: 27 Feb 2009
Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland and Fremont, California, US (GenevaLunch) - Logitech International SA is announcing below forecast quaterly net profits and slashing its outlook for 2009.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A report by Swiss authorities confirms and warns about what many already know: the Internet is not always a safe place to navigate.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The second and final beam synchronization test for the LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, ended successfully Monday.
Photo, copyright 2008, Cern: Particle tracks seen in the LHCb vertex detector (VELO) and triggered
by the experiment’s calorimeter during synchronization tests last
weekend
Particles have now been sent clockwise and counter-clockwise. "Both the counter-clockwise and clockwise tests are part of the
preparations to ready the LHC, the world’s most powerful particle
accelerator, for the eventual acceleration and collision of two beams
at an energy of 5 TeV per beam," Cern announced. The LHC will produce beams seven times more energetic than any previous accelerator. The event is expected to
take place by end 2008 but a key date in the process is 10 September, when Cern will make its first attempt to circulate a beam around the LHC. It will be available to the public through a Cern webcast and also distributed via Eurovision.
Background, "Cern closes the circle with final seal on LHC," 7 November 2007, GenevaLunch
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cern’s LHC (Large Hadron Collider) will have its first synchronization run this weekend, 9-10 September, a key step in the process to get the world’s most powerful particle accelerator up and running. Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research) announced late Thursday that the first attempt to circulate a beam in the LHC will be made 10 September. According to Cern, "The LHC producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype."
Starting up the machine is a long process that starts that starts with cooling down each of the machine’s eight sectors. This is followed by the electrical testing of the 1600 superconducting magnets and their individual powering to nominal operating current. These steps are followed by the powering together of all the circuits of each sector, and then of the eight independent sectors in unison in order to operate as a single machine.
By the end of July, all eight sectors were at their operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (-271°C). The synchronization phase scheduled for this weekend begins with synchronizing the LHC with the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator, which forms the last link in the LHC’s injector chain. Timing between the two machines has to be accurate to within a fraction of a nanosecond. This weekend’s work involves the clockwise-circulating LHC beam, with the second synchronization to follow in coming weeks. Cern notes that "Tests will continue into September to ensure that the entire machine is ready to accelerate and collide beams at an energy of 5 TeV per beam, the target energy for 2008. Force majeure notwithstanding, the LHC will see its first circulating beam on 10 September at the injection energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV)."
Television coverage of the start-up will be made available through Eurovision..
Lake Geneva region (GenevaLunch) – This week’s business buzz, in the Lake Geneva area:
Le Richemond has new manager
Patrick Mossu has taken up the post of general manager at the five-star Le Richemond hotel in Geneva. The Rocco Forte hotel, built in 1875 across from the Brunswick Gardens, is one of Geneva’s landmark hotels. It was closed for 20 months for a complete renovation before opening again in September 2007.
Mossu has moved from the Kempinski Grand Hotel Geneva, which as general manager he opened in 2007. His move to the Richemond cements his return to the Lake Geneva area, where he grew up, and where he attended the Lausanne Hotel School before working in several leading hotels around the world.
Lift Asia looks at the post-web browser future
Lift Asia is gearing up in Seoul, South Korea and organizer Laurent Haug, who started the very successful Geneva-based Lift conference series, notes that going there from Geneva is surprisingly affordable: CHF2,000-2,500, flight and hotel. The conference raises an important question: what happens after the web browser? At the end of a decade during which the Internet revolutionized our lives and organizations, the network is now moving beyond the computer screen, invading objects, cities, toys, cars or medical devices. Where will the next big changes happen? What are the world’s most innovative people working on right now?
Now I phone, now I don’t
iPhones, the long wait: according to Le Temps, those who ordered but do not yet have their iPhones, either through Swisscom or Orange, will have to wait at least two weeks longer, with neither company giving a precise delivery date, nor are they saying how many they sold.
Put that in your pipe – but don’t smoke it
The Bloomberg Initiative, announced in New York last week by Bill Gates and New York Mayor Bloomberg, is accepting grant applications until 13 August: "proposals must focus on achieving policy change that will lead to substantial reductions in tobacco use. Grants are funded in the amounts of US$10,000 to $500,000." Grants have already been given for a number of projects in Asia and some in Africa.
Olympics fun online
The Olympics have
just become a lot more fun. The staid old site of Lausanne-based IOC
has had a makeover, unveiled Monday evening for the Beijing Summer
Games. It’s far easier to navigate than the old site, but it also offers a wealth of sporty things to do, from playing an official Olympics mini-game against other online players from around the world to getting tips from personal trainers on a variety of subjects. Even the old standbys, such as looking up world records and getting explanations about sports, have been brightened up.
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – Geneva’s Cornavin train station will soon have the latest in ion mobility spectrometers, the drug and explosives technology frequently used at airports to detect even very small traces of chemicals. At a cost of CHF70,000, according to the Tribune, customs officials should be able to use the technology to detect substances in an area, then use sniffer dogs to pick out the culprit(s).
Photo: by the train tracks on arrival at Geneva Cornavin station
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Adrienne Corboud Fumagalli, 50, has been named vice-president for Innovation and technology transfer at EPFL, the federal polytechnic school in Lausanne. She is currently executive vice president of business development for the Kudelski Group, a world leader in encryption technologies and digital systems. Corboud Fumagalli will pursue the projects initiated by Jan-Anders Månson,
says the EPH board press release, focusing particularly on developing EPFL’s Innovation District, the
Science Park and partnerships with industry." She is an economist, specialized in media, and has helped Kudelski develop its mobile phone business. From 1996 to 2000 she worked for Swisscom, where she oversaw the development of its online activities.
Her contract runs from 1 September 2008 to 2012.
Photo, Alain Herzog, courtesy EPFL
Vallée du Joux, Vaud (GenevaLunch) – Vaud police this week have put to work their new Infoprév programme of e-mail message alerts about break-ins, to local households. The programme is designed to encourage people to be on the alert and tighten security when the risk appears to be higher than usual. Police are using the system for a series of home robberies that began 10 July near Brassus, Sentier, Lieu. A first e-mail alerted people 10 July, within hours of six break-ins, and provided security recommendations.
A second was sent 14 July after a second series, with these details: the crimes appear to have been committed by groups of 2-6 men, coming into Switzerland from France, generally of Eastern European origin, driving cars with plates that are French, German, Austrian and Romanian. The robberies are carried out in the evening, for the most part. The public has been invited to look out for cars parked near the French border, particularly on little used roads, and to send police the license plate details: telephone 117.
Police say the pilot project will be evaluated in coming weeks and if it is seen to be effective it will be implemented throughout the canton, but not for some months.
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss technology is now providing customers with an electronic alternative to registered mail. Emails with sensitive information can be encrypted and sent to someone who will need a code to view it, thus avoiding third parties from reading it.
Picture @ Die Schweizerische Post
The Swiss Post uses a web-based alternative linked to your mobile phone number called IncaMail 2.0. The postal agency says the service uses web-based Swiss cryptotechnology that does not require additional software. If required, the Post provides the sender with dispatch time confirmation,
downloading of the electronic letter with a digitally-signed postal
receipt and postal certificate (digital ID and electronic signature
of Swiss Post).
Additional information: World Radio Switzerland carries an interview with the CEO of IncaMail on the new technology.
Photos: no phones, but plenty of croissants left at 08:00 in Sierre, Valais.
Valais and Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Six hundred people at midnight in Zurich, 400 in Geneva and smaller numbers across the country at 06:30 Friday as Swisscom shops opened early: buyers turned out in force to deplete stocks. By 08:00 in Sierre, 20 people were still waiting and sales staff were saying most would have to put their names on a list to wait for the phone. Croissants offered to customers cheered up only a few of those waiting for word on whether they would get a phone. There were still iPhones available in some shops that opened later, such as Interdiscount.
Orange, the other company selling Swiss iPhones, denounced the early openings, reports RSR. Switzerland is the rare country to have more than one carrier, contrary to early reports that Swisscom would likely have exclusive rights. Since employees are not allowed by law to work at night, the Zurich Swisscom shop was able to remain open only because Swisscom top management sold the phones.
The phenomenon was international, with New Zealanders waiting in line for days to be the first in the world to have the new phone.
Those buying the phone are 73% male and 62% are under age 35, according to CNN, although it remains to be seen if these statistics hold up outside the US, with figures not yet available.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swisscom will sell the first new generation Apple iPhones at 12:01 Friday 11 July at its shop on 28 Fuesslistrasse in Zurich, with customers served by members of Swisscom’s executive board, and starting at 22:00 it will offer refreshments to customers who line up to wait for the store to open. Christian Neuhaus, spokesperson, says he can’t recall the company ever having a product that has generated this level of excitement. Another 100 shops throughout Switzerland will open specially at 06:30 Friday morning to sell the iPhone.
Contrary to earlier reports, the iPhone will not be sold through Swisscom’s online shop, only in its own or partner’s stores, Neuhaus confirmed to GenevaLunch.
Background:
"Apple’s iPhone to go on sale 11 July," 1 July 2008, GenevaLunch
"Swisscom and Apple sign iPhone agreement," 14 May 2008, GenevaLunch
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swisscom has announced that the Apple iPhone, for which it is [correction, 10 July: one of two the sole distributors, with Orange,] in Switzerland, will go on sale 11 July.
iPhone to cost CHF99-619
The price ranges from CHF99 for some business contracts to CHF619 for the most expensive private contract, with the lowest price model linked to a CHF45 a month contract that has a CHF10 a month data option that provides up to 250MB a month. The phone comes in black and white, with 8 or 16GB.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - EPFL students, along with students at three other Swiss universities, are hard at work on SwissCube, the satellite they are preparing for an early 2009 launch into space on Europe’s Vega mission. They were informed in early June that their project is one of nine selected from a field of 22 projects by the European Space Agency. The cube uses a design and methodology created in the US, Cubesat, for students around the world, to enable them to participate in real space research. The cube is only 1kg in weight and a 10cm x 3. Its components are not specially designed for space, allowing the students to keep costs down.
The SwissCube project is designed to photograph
airglow phenomena. The airglow is a photoluminescence, or band of light, of the atmosphere
occurring at approximately 100 km altitude. Photos sent to Earth, where they can be analyzed, could help future satellites operate at a lower cost.
In scientific terms, the EPFL team explains airglow: "It is principally due to photodissociation, photo-excitation and
excitation by fast electrons or ion recombination. The origin of
nightglow is oxygen atom recombination, where the oxygen atoms are
created in the daytime by solar photodissociation of O2
Photo: © A Herzog, EPFL
Additional reading, Swissinfo (Fre)
Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The new Apple iPhone could be in Swiss stores 11 July but it will already have a battle for buyers on its hands, with Samsung’s new Omnia smart-phone scheduled to appear around 30 June, significantly stepping up the smart-phone market in Switzerland.
Apple details and discussion, Fre: Xavier Studer, technology blogger at TSR.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss competition commission Comco has approved the purchase by Swisscom, the country’s largest telecommunications company, of The Phone House. Comco put the deal on hold in late April after reviewing whether or not this would undercut competition by giving Swisscom a too-dominant position in the Swiss market.
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Which country, playing at the Euro 2008 cup, was the largest per-capita producer of cheese in Europe: France, Switzerland or Holland? If you said Switzerland, you’re wrong. However if you said, Holland, you might be ready for another question in the new on-line game produced by the Swiss federal statistics office. The game, which can be played in English, is a fun, fact-learning alternative for grown-ups and kids alike. Warning: if you are in the office, you might want to turn the volume down!
Photo reprinted by permission, Euro 2008 SA
Lausanne, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Free wifi in city parks is a growing trend in Switzerland, with Geneva and Lucerne planning to extend their coverage to more areas in 2008. But it’s Lausanne that has the latest trick to bring us all outside with our computers. As part of the My Design District show 5-8 June in the arty Flon district the city is installing four wifi stands to make it easier for laptop users to take advantage of wifi in the area. The stands allow you to take the laptop off your lap and work standing up or on a stool, and a hood for the stand provides some shade to reduce glare. The stand is by Lausanne designer Singal Moesch, one of the designers in the Hors-series urban design group in the city.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Delightfully small and enormously smart, a hot little jumping microrobot at EPFL may be leaving home to save, literally, the world – or at least those in danger.
Photo: Alain Herzog, EPFL, reproduced with permission
The new robot, introduced this week, could be fitted out with tiny sensors to explore rough, inaccessible terrain or to aid in search
and rescue operations. "This biomimetic form of jumping is unique
because it allows micro-robots to travel over many types of rough
terrain where no other walking or wheeled robot could go," explains
EPFL’s Dario Floreano, who heads the research team. The tiny robots "could be
fitted with solar cells to recharge between jumps and deployed in
swarms for extended exploration of remote areas on Earth or on other
planets."
Mirko Kovac at EPFL’s Laboratory of Intelligent Systems this week presented the microrobot to an international robotics conference in Pasadena, California in the US. It is minuscule, at 7 grams, and can jump 1.4 metres, or more than 27 times its body size, a feat that EPFL says takes it 10 times farther than any existing jumping robot can manage.
The official explanation from EPFL of how the flying robot works: small jumping animals such as fleas, locusts, grasshoppers and frogs
use elastic storage mechanisms to slowly charge and quickly release
their jumping energy. In this way, they can achieve very powerful jumps
and very high accelerations. The jumping robot uses the
exact same principle, charging two torsion springs via a small 0.6-gram
pager motor and a cam. In order to be able to optimize the jumping
performance, the legs can be adjusted for jumping force, takeoff angle
and force profile during the acceleration phase. The tiny battery on
board allows it to make up to 320 jumps at intervals of 3 seconds.
This latest model is part of a series of flying robots under developmentat the Swiss polytechnic institute. In addition to the tiny indoor ones, the research team is working on larger outdoor models that will not need GPS.
Kovac will also demonstrate the robot in the "robot zoo" at the 4th
International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines in
Cleveland, Ohio 5 June 2008.
Ed. note: if Kovac and the EPFL team haven’t named the robot yet, my vote goes to Jumpin’ Jack Flash, with a nod to the Rolling Stones.
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs and Seco (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs) were hit at the end of 2007 by hackers based in Africa. Government officials are providing few details but say the hackers were professional. The method they used involved sending personalized e-mails to staff, from a legitimate-sounding internal e-mail address, inviting them to open a link for details on a photography contest. The link opened a replica of a legitimate federal site web page, but it was a copy sitting on a server in Africa that could then access the government employees’ computers.
Los Angeles, California (Le Temps, Fre) – A New Corp subsidiary in the US copied technology but did not hire hackers to break codes, a Los Angeles jury decided Thursday. Their vote ended a five-year industrial spying case in the US, brought against News Corp by Lausanne-based
André Kudelski’s television security company and its client Echostar. The court dismissed three of the six charges and awarded no damages. The Kudelski Group had demanded $1 million in damages. Kudelski is one of the top world companies in digital security systems, widely known for the technology that control access to TV chains.
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Attention consumers: Migros is recalling its "All Connect" electric adaptors, for safety reasons. According to Migros, the adaptor, pictured here, does not meet Swiss safety standards. It works with four types of international electrical plugs, but it might represent a danger for customers.
Only adaptors sold after 12 April are being recalled. Customers can email or call Migros for further information.
Tel: +41 848 84 0848
Photo printed with permission, Migros
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The iPhone – the legal version – will soon arrive in Switzerland, following an announcement by Swisscom that it has just signed an agreement with Apple to format the phones. A spokesman told GenevaLunch that for the moment no further details are available beyond the fact the phones will go on the market "sometime this year." The agreement provides for the phones to operate along lines already established for other countries, he noted.
Related stories:
- "iPhone sold out online in US, UK," 12 May 2008, AP/Google
- "Apple in Asian iPhone deals; device sold out online," 12 May 2008, Guardian/Reuters
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Bertrand Piccard is flying Solar Impulse at 25kph as this is written, with fellow pilot Andre Borschberg waiting his turn.
Photo: Bertrand Piccard the the cockpit , surrounded by five large virtual screens used for testing during the virtual flight of Solar Impulse.
The two are running the first virtual test of the sun-powered plane from 12-16 May in a hangar in Zurich, testing the real-size cockpit and flying for 25 hours straight each. You can follow the flight, in virtual mode over Payerne.
From the most recent logbook entry: "Having just finished a session in the instructor’s seat, I’m beginning
to feel sorry for my friend in the pilot’s seat. We put him through a
series of exercises for mental agility including simple (?) arithmetic
problems like 17 x 123 – it had me scratching my head and reaching for
a calculator! It was very interesting to see his stress levels
increasing and note his perception of rising body temperature." The logbook carries comments on how well he did and what his wife put in the sandwich he is eating. Well-wishers who have sent comments include astronaut Claude Michel.
The Solar Impulse project has set itself what it calls "almost a provocation" in today’s fossil-fuels world. It aims to have an airplane entirely fueled by solar power fly around the world, night and day, without stopping.
Bern, Switzerland (RSR, Fre) – Swissolar, an association of Swiss solar energy professionals, has sent a letter to the government insisting that a roundtable be set up to urgently review renewable energy policies. At issue in particular is the CHF16 million ceiling put on the amount Swissolar will receive from the government to reimburse solar energy users. In theory, users should be able to ask for refunds on some of their costs, starting 1 May, but there is too little money in the fund, says Swissolar, because the bulk of it goes to hydroelectric power, which supplies far more of Switzerland’s electricity.
Swissolar has the backing of the farmers’ union which argues that farmers’ large buildings are the perfect place to set solar panels, thereby reducing farmers’ costs but also the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Zurich, Switzerland (Le Matin, Fre) – The Internet is back up and functioning well for most broadband users throughout Switzerland, reports Swisscom, after a malfunction left many without Internet access starting Monday evening.
Dübendorf, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Solar Impulse pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will each
make a 25-hour flight, one after the other, at the controls of a new
flight simulator from 12-16 May. The simulated flights will be the first for the solar-powered plane project and will take place in the construction hangar of the prototype HB-SIA at the aerodrome of Dübendorf near Zurich.
Photo (click on image to view larger) construction hall – © Solar Impulse/Stéphane Gros
The purpose is to test a life-size model of the cockpit, surrounded by five panoramic screens, "to validate the ergonomics and to verify the functioning of the man-machine interface in conditions as near to real as possible," according to the Solar Impulse team. "The HB-SIA’s flight routines, the decisions, breakdowns and incidents will also serve as training under the control of the mission team.
The mission simulator has been developed by the Altran engineers, which will enable a virtual plane to fly in real meteorological conditions, relying on complex algorithms.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal government has sent out a spam alert for messages coming from "Happy Passion," for now apparently only in German, warning you that photos of you, nude, are circulating on the Internet. Don’t open the messages and definitely do not go to the web site link which will register your computer, warns the federal news release. Stay cool (Ed. tip: and keep your clothes on when there are cameras in the neighbourhood).
Romanel-sur-Morges, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss-based Logitech International SA announced a record fourth quarter net profit up 7% with strong demand for cordless mice and speakers driving growth.
CFO, Mark Hawkins, told Reuters there were no signs of demand for its products is easing despite a slowdown in the US economy. For the full fiscal year that ended 31 March, sales were $2.4 billion, up 15% from $2.1 billion in 2007. This was Logitech’s tenth consecutive record year.
Zermatt, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – And… they’re off! Hundreds of teams dashed off 16 April in the grueling glacier patrol race atop the Swiss Alps. The racers departed on the long, cold journey from Zermatt, canton Valais, at 22:00 local time.
Thanks to electronic bracelets and GPS technology you can follow the race as it unfolds without having to ski along with competitors or hover above the race in a helicopter. Every three minutes a 3D GPRS position of each team is sent to the map server which is displayed on your computer or PDA. It is possible to determine the location of each of the 400 teams carrying this technology and follow the changes in the classification in real-time.
Read more on the Glacier Patrol or patrouille de glaciers
