Lenovo-Designed Olympic Torch for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing

When everything is going hight-tech, why not the Olympic torch?

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympiad Games of XXIX (BOCOG) in the presence of the International Olympic Committee, unveiled the Lenovo-Designed Olympic Torch for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Lenovo's design, the "Cloud of Promise," was chosen over 300 competitor themes and will be carried by torchbearers around the world in the Olympic Torch Relay preceding the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Lenovo is also the TOP (worldwide) Sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Since its inception in 1936, the Olympic torch has come to represent the history and culture of its host country and city. Lenovo's unique approach for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch incorporates a sleek and modern design with historical Chinese symbolism. The primary theme of the torch’s artwork is clouds, which are intimately associated with Chinese culture, and are often represented in works of Chinese architecture, drawing and painting, furniture and story-telling.

Design of the Torch

The torch, fashioned from a polished aluminum-magnesium alloy, measures 720 millimeters x 50 mm x 40 mm (28.35 inches x 1.97 in x 1.56 in) and is exceptionally lightweight at about 1,000 grams (2.21 pounds).
Additional features of the torch design include:

• Primary coloring of deep red and bright silver, a fusion of traditional Chinese art and contemporary design, blending symbols of Chinese culture, philosophy and art;
• A handle designed not only for comfort, but to emulate the unique sensation of one hand holding another thanks to a coating of rubber-based paint; and
• An embossed pattern of clouds, which represent the ever-developing Chinese culture.

Lenovo's award-winning design team spent more than 10 months on the design of the torch. Altogether, more than 30 Lenovo design specialists were involved in the torch project including the core team of 10. The team was truly multinational, including designers from Germany, Singapore, US, Japan, New Zealand, Italy and China. The experience and specialties of the designers were equally diverse, and included majors in graphic design, chemistry, engineering, materials, anthropology, art and history. For months the teams engaged in intensive brainstorming, including game playing and creativity exercises, to help them look at the torch design from many different perspectives.

And if you enjoy watching videos, here is one for you from Lenovo. » Continue reading

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Nokia sets stage for mobile advertising with Nokia Ad Service

Nokia recently announced the launch of its Nokia Ad Service, a service similar to Google Adwords and Google Adsense, but for mobile advertising and providing an end-to-end solution for advertisers and publishers.

Connecting advertisers to mobile internet publishers

The service will enable advertisers to target and display banner, text link and interstitial advertisements on mobile internet applications and services.

Publishers will be able to generate revenue from the traffic that they generate by placing a piece of code onto the desired location on the mobile web application or service.

Nokia Ad Service will take a cut out of the advertising revenue that the publishers in the network earn.

The service is operational in Europe as of now and will be available globally in the second half of 2007.

For more details on Nokia Ad Service visit http://www.adservice.nokia.com/ » Continue reading

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Cast your ballot in the comfort of your bed

Are you so busy that you don't find time to cast your valuable vote in the election for President, Prime Minister, Chief Minister or the Mayor? Or are you too lazy to go there and wait in the queue for hours before you get your chance to choose your prez?

It might not be long before you could cast your ballot online on the Internet, from the comfort of your home, at a time of your convenience. For citizens of Estonia this dream has already come to reality. This small Baltic country is the first to conduct national elections with internet balloting available to all voters. England, France, Holland and a few other countries have had trial or small scale votes. The state of Hawaii will offer internet voting in local elections later this month.

This would definitely increase the voter turnout and eventually result in better governments. But there seems to be a problem - bigger nations worry that an internet-based balloting system cannot be reliable and secure enough to safeguard democracy's most fundamental processes. Alright, but as Tarvi Martens, project manager for Estonia's e-voting project, puts it "You trust your money with the internet, and you won't trust your vote? I don't think so." » Continue reading

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The British would-be-monarch lives in the past!

Prince Charles on a recent visit to the United Arab Emirates for the launch of a public health campaign at Imperial College London Diabetes Center in Abu Dhabi was quoted as asking one of the nutritionists at the center:

"Have you got anywhere with McDonald's? Have you tried getting it banned? That's the key,".

Well what on earth does he think he is doing? Tommorow he might say that eating beef is unhealthy, get em banned! Why doesn't he get them banned in his own country? We are living in a free world. We may at our discretion decide what's good and what's bad for us. He might be successful in getting them banned in undemocratic countries but not in his own country. It is quite natural of him, having royal blood flowing through his veins, that he thinks about controlling people's diet. » Continue reading

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Apple iPod to replace 'black box' on airplanes

Since the time iPod was first introduced to replace walkmans and discmans, it has evolved from just a digital audio player to a photo viewer to a portable video player and has found various applications besides these like data storage etc. SciFi.com has a list of Top 5 Creative Uses for Your iPod. The iPod has yet again found a path-breaking application in aircrafts.

According to a report by Flight Global, Apple iPods will soon replace the 'black box' with a 'white box'. US light aircraft manufacturer LoPresti SpeedMerchants plans to integrate the iconic 'white box' iPod into its Fury piston aircraft's avionics systems to serve as a digital data recorder.

The iPod along with suitable software works like a hard disk and can record more than 500 hours of flight time data.

Did Steve Jobs ever have an idea about what applications his invention will find? » Continue reading

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