public transport, Geneva
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss public transport systems do more than simply carry more people for less fuel: they also get relatively high ecology marks for their overall impact on the environment.
A study ordered by the federal government, published in German 9 September, shows that while public transport is far ahead of road traffic at the moment in terms of pollution impact, much more needs to be done to ensure it stays well ahead because of the rapid rate of growth predicted for public transport, while cars are seeing improvements.
Public transport systems do well in terms of energy consumption, CO2 and atmospheric pollution but their good marks are lowered slightly by the increase in their traffic volume, higher speeds and their use of tunnels. The noise from trains, despite significant progress in recent years to reduce this, remains a problem.
The study, which also projected the impact of public transport over the next 20 years, has resulted in a decision by the Federal Council to redouble efforts to reduce noise, carbon emissions and to put a greater emphasis on susbtainable development where public transport is concerned.
VEVEY, SWITZERLAND – Nestlé’s move into nutritional solutions for health problems is being given a boost this week with Nestlé Health Science taking a minority stake in a New Zealand company that specializes in developing kiwi-based products to treat gastrointestinal conditions.
Vital Foods, a 20-year-old firm, has two products for treating constipation that are well established in New Zealand, Phloe and KiwiCrush.
“Both products are based on a natural kiwifruit extract, and have been clinically shown to be effective against constipation,” the Swiss multinational notes in a statement about the deal. “Constipation is a common functional disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, affecting around 1 in 6 people in the general adult population in Oceania, Europe and the US.”
The terms of the agreement are not being disclosed. The Swiss company will have a seat on the board, giving it a voice in the company’s product development and commercialization strategies. Inventages, which manages Nestlé Venture Funds, has been an investor in Vital Foods for several years.
Nestlé Health Science also announced Thursday that it has completed the purchase of Prometheus, a company that specializes in gastroenterology and oncology diagnostics and specialty pharmaceutical products, notably for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
The San Diego, California firm was scheduled for an IPO in the US when it agreed to a buyout by Nestlé in May 2011. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Dow Jones News cited a Vontobel analyst as saying that the Vevey company most likely paid over $1 billion.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Several players met in Bern at the end of last week to hammer out details of how the country can provide citizens with an electronic or “cyber health” system that will include smart health care cards. The goal is to create a nationwide electronic system that provides hospitals and doctors with medical information but that protects the patients’ privacy. Insurance industry, medical profession and high tech company representatives as well as Swiss Post, which has been trialling a card, agreed on a number of steps.
There were strong reservations about including medical data on the card itself, but an experts review of existing cards that was mandated by Bern, such as the Swiss Post and pharmasuisse ones, concluded that all existing cards work very well. Technical differences came to light, however, and the group agreed that card manufacturers will need to create “middleware”, an interface that functions independently of the cards or software, to provide uniformity and allow them to be used more widely.
The group agreed that setting up a pilot project to trial cards in some cantons is a top priority, but there was also widespread agreement that a legal basis for handling data must be created. The Federal Health Office will be responsible for overseeing the development of the legal system needed to ensure that the next generation of cards has the necessary compatibility.
It will take more than a better mousetrap to help Swiss industry, says Bern, banking on innovation to stay a step ahead
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss government is putting its money where the strong franc pain is: innovation is the solution, Bern said Monday 4 July. And to prove it, 10 “vouchers” worth up to CHF350,000 each are being made available to get innovative products that are in the pipeline to market faster.
The dollar to Swiss franc exchange rate was 0.966 at the start of January and has slipped to 0.848 this week. The euro in the past six months has slipped to 1.10 compared to 1.19 in early January.
A key to success for Swiss businesses is to always stay a step ahead, particularly the case for exporters whose profit margins are closely linked to staying in advance of world markets, the Federal Department for the Economy notes in a statement issued Monday 4 July. The FDE says the new vouchers give Swiss business a tool that will significantly reinforce economic drivers.
CTI, the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, presented its new pilot project, brought online in record time according to the DFE, to a group of 40 Swiss businesses Monday. It is designed specifically to help interested companies, startups, and small- and medium-sized businesses to speed up the move from applied research to market.
The project officially kicked off 4 July.
The first 10 vouchers to boost innovation will be distributed in 2011. The experience will then be analyzed and the results of the assessment used for further rounds of funding.
The new project has two important differences compared to CTI’s existing programmes: the application process and administrative requirements to apply are being kept light to allow companies to apply rapidly; and, as with current CTI projects, CTI will double the amount of funding for a project through a grant to the research institution—but, unlike current projects, the company can select its own research institution rather than waiting for the matchmaking process led by CTI.
The new project was announced just two weeks after a decision by parliament to free up federal funds to provide advice and financial assistance at a critical earlier stage for some projects. The goal is to help companies maintain a competitive edge through innovation by helping them overcome pressure from the high Swiss franc.
In a related move, Bern decided, in a shuffle of government departments at the end of June, to regroup all higher education, training and research institutions within the Department for the Economy.
Innovation voucher page, in German and French
Solar Impulse at Le Bourget airport in Paris, during the solar airplane's first European trip
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Solar Impulse, flying with only solar power, is en route to Switzerland from Paris. The plane left Le Bourget airport in France at 07:11 Sunday 3 July and is expected to arrive in Payerne at 19:00 this evening.
You can follow the flight live on www.solarimpulse.com and via the Smartphone app “Solar Impulse Inventing the Future”, available free on Appstore and Androïd Market.
On Twitter: @andreborschberg and @solarimpulse and on Facebook.
Hydroelectric power plant in canton Valais, Switzerland
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s production of energy from renewable sources rose in 2010, new figures from the Federal Energy Office 30 June show.
Electricity from renewable sources, including hydroelectric power (without accumulation pumps consumption), rose by 1.2 percent for a total of 36.4 billion kWh.
Nuclear power plants currently provide 39.3 percent of the country’s energy, hydroelectric and dams 55.8 percent (TSR has several charts on Swiss energy).
Nuclear power is being phased out after the government voted last month to end it use.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss federal government reorganized several departments Wednesday 29 June, notably pulling together under the roof of the Department of the Economy the country’s polytechnic and research institutes, and ongoing professional training and technology programmes.
The move underscores the growing importance Switzerland is giving to technology and innovation by creating a common arena to improve education and research ties in these areas. “The Federal Council has taken notice that training highly qualified people, and research and innovation are important assets for Switzerland in terms of attractiveness, competitivity and growth.
The cantons will have closer ties under the new system to the federal polytechnics in Lausanne (EFPL) and Zurich (ETH), universities and specialized graduate schools.
The change takes effect 1 January 2013 but the run-up period and early months of the new system could spark a tough political fight over budgets, with two strong personalities heading the current research, and training and technology programmes, reports Le Temps (Fr).
Swiss scenery would be improved without power lines, argues HTST, which is considering a popular initiative
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Several groups have fought power lines in Switzerland over the years, arguing against them for esthetic reasons, particularly in tourist areas. Now, as a group in canton Valais is about to present a feasibility study showing that the lines can be effectively buried underground, a popular initiative to require their removal is underway, reports RSR.
A new organization, HTST, is discussing the option of a popular initiative with various partners, according to RSR, which could get underway by the end of 2011 and 2012, to put the issue to a national vote. The group argues that power lines waste energy, are a danger to the population’s health, and ruin the countryside.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The impact of a strong home currency is starting to hurt some Swiss industries, says Swissmem, the mechanical and electrical engineering industries body said Thursday 23 June. “The strong Swiss franc is exerting pressure on export prices – sometimes hugely so – thereby squeezing companies’ margins. Swissmem fears that the negative effects of the strong franc on Switzerland as a centre of industry and research will intensify during the year.”
The Swiss franc was trading at CHF1.00 to $1.19 Thursday and CHF1.00 to euro.84.
Federal gov’t takes steps to ease franc’s impact on R&D for innovative projects
Bern announced Wednesday that additional monies for “particularly promising” R&D (research and development) projects have been approved by parliament, providing a new injection of CHF10 million in 2011 and again in 2012 to encourage innovation at an earlier stage and make it possible to work with top-level research institutions.
A second measure gives CTI (Commission for Technology and Innovation) the flexibility to waive the normal requirement for a startup to provide cash to cover 10 percent of the cost of working with a research institution, if it decides the entrepreneurs are financially unable to do so. Companies are required by law to cover at least 50 percent of the cost of working with a research institution, part of this in cash.
The Lancet article carries a series of short medical videos showing the impact on Summers of epidural stimulation
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Researchers at the University of California have helped a 25-year-old former university baseball player who has been paralyzed since 2006 from a car accident to regain the ability to stand, use a treadmill and move several joints voluntarily.
The experimental treatment developed at UCLA and the University of Louisville has been used with Rob Summers for two years.
The treatment uses electrical stimulation to the spinal cord, a process more generally used to treat chronic pain. It is described in the UK medical journal Lancet, published 20 May.
Two Zurich researchers, Grégoire Courtine and Rubia van den Brand, in editorial published with the research, caution that “activity-based rehabilitation” continues to provide the most help for some recovery for patients with spinal cord injuries, but that the time has come for spinal cord-injured (SCI) patients to move: “Although some of these treatments might be translatable to patients with moderate SCI, and are entering phase 1 or 2 clinical trials, evidence for the efficacy of any intervention designed to repair the injured human spinal cord is still lacking.”
The Los Angeles Times, in a lengthy feature story, quotes a doctor who suggests that the treatment may be able to help 10 to 15 percent of people who are paralyzed.
Summers was injured when he went out to his car to pick up a gym bag and another car jumped the curb and hit him, in a hit-and-run accident. He was 20 years old at the time, in his third year of university studies in Oregon in the US.
The authors, led by Susan Harkema, offer an explanation for the treatment’s success and hope for extending the treatment to other patients: “Task-specific training with epidural stimulation might reactivate previously silent spared neural circuits or promote plasticity. These interventions could be a viable clinical approach for functional recovery after severe paralysis.”
Links to other sites: Los Angeles Times, Science Now
Henry Markram, Human Brain project
Adrian Ionescu, EPFL, Guardian Angels project
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL-led projects are two of the six accepted in the finals of a major research initiative by the European Commission, its FET (future technologies) flagship projects. At least two of the finalists will be funded by the EC to the tune of up to CHF1 billion over 10 years, with the decision about the winners to be announced in 2012.
The final project will make FET one of the largest research initiatives in the world, notes EPFL.
The two Lausanne-led international projects, both of which have already received EC funding to permit them to develop their proposals to date, are the Human Brain project and Guardian Angels.
Each will receive about €1.5 million to refine their proposals in the coming year.
The finalists were announced Wednesday 4 May in Budapest, Hungary, at a FET conference.
The other four finalists, listed by eGov Monitor, are:
- FuturICT Knowledge Accelerator and Crisis-Relief System: ICT can analyse vast amounts of data and complex situations so as to better predict natural disasters, or manage and respond to man-made disasters that cross national borders or continents.
- Graphene Science and technology for ICT and beyond: Graphene is a new substance developed by atomic and molecular scale manipulation that could replace silicon as the wonder material of the 21st century.
- IT Future of Medicine: digital technology has the power to deliver individualised medicine, based on molecular, physiological and anatomical data collected from individual patients and processed on the basis of globally integrated medical knowledge.
- Robot Companions for Citizens: soft skinned and intelligent robots have highly developed perceptive, cognitive and emotional skills, and can help people, radically changing the way humans interact with machines.
The first is the outgrowth of an earlier EPFL project led by Henry Markram, the Blue Brain project, now being developed by an international consortium. Human Brain integrates “everything we know about the brain into computer models and [uses] these models to simulate the actual working of the brain.
Ultimately, it will attempt to simulate the complete human brain,” according to the project’s web site.
Christofer Hierold, ETHZ, Guardian Angels project
GuardianAngels, under the direction of EPFL’s Adrian Ionescu and Christofer Hierold from ETHZ in Zurich is a zero-power project that “takes advantage of these recent developments in low-power electronics, energy harvesting and micro and nano-sensors to propose a new vision of the future: next-generation technology contributing to our wellbeing and our safety with simple, discrete and affordable high-tech accessories that seamlessly integrate into our daily life,” its web site notes.
Background, Human Brain project, GenevaLunch
Basel’s stinky flower, Geneva’s sexiest fingers study, Cern’s rumoured Higgs particles, US women skate to gold in Zurich
Cern's Alice experiment, particle collisions
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A giant stinky flower in Basel, ring fingers that mean true love, thrilling women’s ice hockey world finals – the international population in the Lake Geneva region disappears during the spring holidays, heading off on travels near and far, but the news doesn’t stop.
Here’s a brief roundup of what you might have missed:
Phew! but beautiful to behold, Basel’s corpse flower
Switzerland was on the world news map, with hundreds of articles about the amophophallus titanium, aka the “corpse flower” that pulled in an estimated 25,000 visitors to Basel. Key facts: it is one of the world’s largest flowers (technically: “largest unbranched inflorescence in the world” according to wikipedia), it smells of rotting flesh, and it grows in the wild only in Sumatra, Indonesia. The first cultivated flowering was at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London in 1889 and since then there have been few sightings of the rarely-blooming flower. Basel’s Botanical Gardens‘ two-metre high plant bloomed this weekend, for the first time in its 17 years, and the first such plant to flower in Switzerland in 75 years.
Check out his length, dear
A man’s ring finger length gives clues to his masculinity, researcher Camille Ferdenzi at the University of Geneva in Switzerland shows in her research on 2D:4D, the name for the ratio comparing second and fourth digits. Her work was published 19 April in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biology Letters. For an easier explanation, LiveScience unravels the mysteries of sex and the ring finger.
God or no god particles, Cern is intense
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) over the weekend of 16 and 17 April sent robots into Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant to assess radiation and temperature levels at a safe distance from the hazardous conditions.
“Our unmanned vehicles will provide reliable, effective, first responder technology to help protect the brave men and women who are working to save lives and restore critical services,” said JD Crouch, president of QinetiQ North America Technology Solutions Group. The company has provided Japan with the Robotic Appliqué Kits, and Talon and Dragon Runner robots.
Japan raised the severity level of the disaster to that comparable to Chernobyl’s at its peak after radiation levels in the sea near reactor 2 rose to 6,500 times the legal limit Friday, up from 1,100 times a day earlier. Tepco says it aims to reduce radiation leaks in three months and to cool the reactors within nine months, the BBC reports.
The first radiation measurements showed a “harsh environment but not one that will be impossible for humans to work in” reports Association Press (AP). But the workers will only be able to stay inside the nuclear plant’s reactor buildings for short intervals, says Hidehiko Nishiyama, a nuclear safety agency official.
QinetiQ’s portable robots are used for security, defence and rescue, and to clear explosive devices. The Kits allow Bobcat vehicle attachments to be used remotely, and provide cameras, microphones and radio systems that can be operated from more than one and a half kilometers away.
Links to other sites: AP, BBC, Daily Mirror, QinetiQ North America, The Scotsman
Demonstration of the Dragon Runner, QinetiQ NA on YouTube:
Solar Impulse: the official portrait 2011 (photo, ©2011 Solar Impulse)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Solar Impulse, the Swiss solar plane that aims to be the first to fly night and day without fuel or polluting emissions, has been given a major boost from one of the world’s major elevator/lift and escalator companies, Schindler.
The Lucerne-based manufacturer this week becomes the fourth main partner for the project.
The company, which is the world’s largest supplier of escalators and the second-largest of elevators, is making an engineering and research contribution but it is also supporting the project financially with what Alfred Schindler, charman and chief executive quantified as a “low double digit figure” in millions of francs.
The announcement was made in Payerne, canton Vaud, Monday, where the Solar Impulse team projected its recently completed film, Les Ailes du Soleil, seven years in the making.
World records set, now human and technological limits to be pushed
Solar Impulse’s longer term goal is to attempt a round the world flight in 2014.
The team set three new world records for solar-powered planes 25 July 2010 when pilot and chief executive André Borschberg flew the plane for 24 hours straight:
absolute height: 9235 m
height gain: 8744 m
duration: 26 hours, 10 minutes, 19 seconds.
Swiss air traffic authorities restricted the plane to Swiss air space and air corridors that were free of other traffic initially, but in 2011 the team aims to make its first European solar flights. A major technological but also human challenge will come in 2012, with multi-day mission flights.
André Borschberg, when flying the plane night and day for the first time in 2010 was obliged to stay awake for the 26 hours.
Schindler invests in “clean and sustainable mobility”
Alfred Schindler, possibly more at home on an escalator than on a stepladder, joins Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard at the Solar Impulse cockpit
Schindler’s engineering and technical support are not surprising, insists Alfred Schindler, who says he has been a fan of Solar Impulse from the start.
His company moves more than one billion people a day, he points out, with most of them between Mumbai and Tokyo, so innovation is crucial for the company to remain a top supplier in its industry. He is particularly proud of his company’s latest innovation, the world’s first solar-powered elevator.
Schindler has invested heavily in research and development, out of which have come what the firm labels three industry-benchmarks in innovation: its destination controller, machine roomless elevators, and steel-ropeless traction.
The two groups point out in a statement that “with Schindler coming on board at the outset of the construction of the second prototype HB-SIB, the project is on excellent path to meet its challenge of flying round the world in 2014 with no fuel.”
Borschberg says he sees Schindler’s participation “as an excellent opportunity for know-how exchange and further development. With the success of the first prototype, we acquired much experience. Our technology choices were clearly validated. However to accomplish the round the world, we need to go even further in terms of technology and reliability and we look forward to benefiting from Schindler’s expertise. “
Room for improvement: new label will show which shower heads are hot water savers
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Habitat and Jardin, a popular consumer fair in Lausanne opens Saturday 12 March for 8 days, and one of its hottest stands promises to be run by the SuisseEnergie label programme, which is launching a new hot water saver label at the fair.
The label was developed by the federal government, working with retailer Coop’s DIY home shop, Brico Centre and can be used on products that meet newly defined standards for taps, shower heads and water savers.
Hot water accounts for 50 percent of home energy needs
The rationale behind the new label is simple: hot water needs in the past represented a far smaller proportion of household energy, 10 percent in 1970, well behind home heating energy requirements, but today hot water accounts for 50 percent of home energy needs.
Greater efficiency has been achieved in other energy-consuming areas, but the energy used to heat home water has increased.
Switzerland efforts to develop standards for energy-saving labels dates back to 2000, when the “Energy” label was introduced for hot water. Its greatest successes have come with etiquetteEnergie labels for home appliances, introduced in 2002, and later for cars and lightbulbs.
SuisseEnergie will have four sinks and taps on display as well as several shower heads to demonstrate how hot water can be saved using various solutions and systems: stand 110 in halle 1 at the fair.
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Inside looking out could be the contact lens of the past (photo, wikipedia)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Glaucoma and diabetes patients may soon find they are wearing contact lenses to monitor their health, with a Swiss company leading the way. New Scientist promises that we are about to see contact lenses whose purpose is not to help us look outward, but to aid doctors who want to better see what’s happening inside our bodies.
Glaucoma patients are first in line, already benefitting from a product that Swiss startup Sensimed, a 2003 spinoff from EPFL in Lausanne, commercialized in October 2010. It is, according to New Scientist, the world’s first smart contact lens that transmit information wirelessly: “Highly sensitive platinum strain gauges embedded in Sensimed’s Triggerfish lens record changes in the curvature of the cornea, which correspond directly to the pressure inside the eye,” and this information is transmitted to a recording device worn by the person.
Glaucoma can cause vision loss through damage to the optic nerve, often through too much pressure in the eye.
Sensimed’s technology, or similar smart contact lens technology, could be used to monitor a number of diseases. Researchers in the US, at Washington State University in Seattle are developping a solar-powered lens that can monitor glucose levels in diabetes patients.
Operation Payback is clear about its intentions
Mastercard, which a group of hacker-style activists calling themselves Anonymous said they were targeting, appears to be the latest victim of the group.
Anonymous is disrupting sites that withdrew services to Julian Assange and his whistleblower site WikiLeaks, such as Mastercard, which stopped handling WikiLeaks payments. PostFinance in Switzerland was disrupted Monday evening and Tuesday, although the postal bank said its site was not hacked, simply overloaded.
Mastercard has not confirmed details of disrupted service, which are being reported by a number of media around the world.
Operation Payback, organized by Anonymous, is clear about its intentions on its web site and on Twitter. Wired explains how the group works: “Few who are part of Anonymous are actual “hackers,” and instead join in the attacks by running specialized software provided by more technically adept members. Instruction for what sites to target and when are passed around online chat channels and websites, creating a sort of online insurgency.”
Asacusa experiment, Cern, July 2009 (photo, Cern)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The mystery of what ever happened to antimatter, which has long puzzled scientists, has moved a step closer to being solved. Researchers involved in the Asacusa experiment at Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva have succeeded in producing significant numbers of antihydrogen atoms in flight.
Antimatter is the opposite of matter, which is the material that makes up our world. Cern notes in a statement that “matter and its counterpart are identical except for opposite charge, and they annihilate when they meet. At the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been produced in equal amounts. However, we know that our world is made up of matter: antimatter seems to have disappeared. To find out what has happened to it, scientists employ a range of methods to investigate whether a tiny difference in the properties of matter and antimatter could point towards an explanation.”
One of these is a Cern-developed trap called Cusp that uses a combination of magnetic fields to bring antiprotons and positrons together. They form antihydrogen atoms, referred to by Cern as “this rarest of atoms”.
Swiss farming, Aubonne, canton Vaud, October 2010
Science, technology, agriculture, private and public invited to participate in Milan fair
Update 12:00 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland was present for the official registration of Milan Expo in 2015 at a meeting in Paris Tuesday 23 November, three weeks after the closing of the six-months long Shanghai Expo, and now the race begins to see what the national exhibit in five years will look like. World Expos are held every five years, with “international – specialized” expos held in between. Switzerland is in the planning stages for the international expo at Yeosu, South Korea, in 2012.
World expositions are organized under the aegis of the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions, BIE.
Shanghai Expo was a success for Switzerland
The country’s contribution to the Shanghai Expo during the summer of 2010 was among the most popular pavilions, with China News agency putting it among the top 10.
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Easyjet flight coming into Geneva, Saleve in the background
London, England (GenevaLunch) – EasyJet, one of the airlines hardest hit by ash cloud bans, has come up with a detector that could allow pilots to spot too much ash and change course. Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority says it is “happy an airline appeared to have found a technical solution, and, although it was not endorsing the product, it would do what it could to help certification,” reports the BBC.
The new system, called Avoid, for Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector, is described in a press release issued Friday 4 June by easyJet:
The system, essentially a weather radar for ash, was created by Dr Fred Prata of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU). AVOID is a system that involves placing infrared technology onto an aircraft to supply images to both the pilots and an airline’s flight control centre.
These images will enable pilots to see an ash cloud up to 100 km ahead of the aircraft and at altitudes between 5,000ft and 50,000ft. This will allow pilots to make adjustments to the plane’s flight path to avoid any ash cloud. The concept is very similar to weather radars which are standard on commercial airliners today.
EasyJet is Geneva’s top airline in terms of passenger traffic.
Olivier Glassey
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Our definition of privacy is fast-evolving right now and we don’t control it,” says Olivier Glassey, from the University of Lausanne. But don’t panic.
“I believe privacy is gone for good,” argues Christian Heller, a self-described “futurist” who relishes taking the debate a step further. Heller likes to remind his listeners that privacy was not a common notion in the Middle Ages, when people lived in small, tightly interwoven communities.
The two were part of a presentation on the redefinition of privacy at the Lift 2010 conference in Geneva Wednesday 5 May.
Teenagers understand privacy and they have their own definition, says Glassey, but a dilemma as the Facebook generation grows up and their elders catch up with them, is how to ensure forgetfulness. “One of the main challenges will be the long-term memory of privacy,” he points out.
Christian Heller
People use social networks like Facebook to recreate their lives, to record their biographies, and this role of social networking has not yet been sufficiently studied. “We need to build in social forgiveness.” Criminals but also the rest of us, who routinely commit small sins that we want to forget, and we want others to forget, should be allowed to fade away, but how do we do that digitally?
Heller reminded his audience that we tend to forget: the 20th century was a time when privacy replaced a more openly shared, more public life, and the shift has not always a positive thing: privacy can also mean loneliness and shame.
Ed. note: WRS radio carries an audio interview with Glassey and Anil de Mello
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Lift conference in Geneva is about to kick off and remind us, as it does once a year, how and why our lives are so intertwined with technology and where this will likely take us in the future.
“Known in techno-parlance as users, people ultimately define the success of all technological and entrepreneurial projects,” and with that bow to the huge world of technology users, the Lift conference opens in Geneva 5 May, welcoming 1,000 people.
Lift was born in Geneva and now has an Asian version in South Korea, a French version in Marseilles, as well as mini-spinoffs call Lift at Home.
But the Geneva Lift conference remains at the heart of this conversation on the future of technology, with its sometimes quirky, usually irreverant mix of specialists from many fields. It encourages people from government, academia, and business to mix in a way they rarely do otherwise in Geneva, with a strong dose of entrepreneurial spirit to help them.
Highlights this year include a colourful mix:
- Frederic Kaplan, workshop on reinventing books, magazines and newspapers in the digital age
- main session: “The redefinition of privacy”, with a group of speakers that includes the head of communications at the Salvation Army
- main session: “The old new media”, ending with an independent podiatrist who talks about working with people’s feet
- Rolf von Behrens, “Leapfrogging Facebook, how we can and why we should”
- Aubrey de Grey at a main session on “Generations and technologies”
- a series of speakers who will look at the question of whether we’ve reached the limits of web 2.0 and where we’re headed with social communities.
Editor’s note: A small number of places remained late Tuesday. Online registration (CHF1,250)
GenevaLunch will be covering the conference live Wednesday to Friday.
Title: Expanding your Horizons: nurturing girls’ interest in science, technology, mathematics and science
Link out: Click here
Description: First European conference inviting 400 11-13 year old girls from public and private schools to nurture interest in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and technology
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 14 Nov 2009
End Time: 16:00
Sponsored by the Geneva Women in International Trade (GWIT)
A day of hands-on workshops and speakers with women who excel in the non-traditonal fields for girls who show an interest.
Register on-line on the Expanding your Horizons site, further information on the event at expandingyourhorizons@gwit.ch
Metal glass (top), traditional magnesium alloy (bottom), © 2009 ETH Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A substance that can stabilize broken bones as they heal, then is absorbed by the body when it is no longer needed, has been developed by materials researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (FITZ). The new material, called metal glass, is an alloy of magnesium, zinc and calcium that is cooled extremely rapidly to prevent it from forming the typical crystalline structure of a metal. The team announced the news in the science journal Nature Materials.
China is leaping ahead in solar and wind turbine technology, as well as in the lesser known field of solar water heaters, writes Los Angeles Times reporter David Pierson from Rhizhao in Shandong province, China. Some cities such as Rhizhao have 99 percent coverage, with the mattress-size panels covering virtually every roof in the coastel city of 2.8 million.
New Scientist video on Rhizhao and solar water heaters, 2007
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Forty years ago, as everyone surely knows by now, the first man, who was American, stepped on the moon: July 21 in the early hours, European time. “The first human stepped on a celestial body” was the more elegant phrase used to describe the moment, by Douglas Griffiths at a commemorative event hosted by the US Mission in Geneva Tuesday evening 20 July. Griffiths is the deputy permanent representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva and charge d’affaires, ad interim.
There were two surprises, among the declarations, reminiscenses and information shared with a community of largely sceintific people at the US Mission in Geneva Tuesday evening 20 July:
Sony will keep wages unchanged for this year and cut bonuses from six to four months. The global financial crisis has hit the Japanese technology sector, causing Sony to freeze workers’ salaries in order to recover, reports Reuters. Sony, unlike some of its competitors, does not raise wages automatically based on seniority. Instead, wages increase annually based on role and performance, and rivals may follow suit as the crisis worsens. Reuters
Updated 03 March: links added Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The title of the fourth annual Lift conference, “Where did the future go?” was set long before the current global crisis started making daily headlines. The idea, Lift found Laurent Haug says, came out of a feeling that we have reached a turning point with technology, where we have a need to look back to our ideas about the future as well as forward. The topic has attracted a record attendance of some 800 people to Lift09, which kicked off Thursday morning 26 February.
