Another Day in the Antz Farm

(AFP)

CIA chief Michael Hayden said in an interview published Friday (local time), Al Qaeda is essentially defeated in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and on the defensive elsewhere, including the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. (ABC News)

BERNO: Only time will tell and validate Mark Hayden’s assessment. Meantime on the topic of bold statement, did you remember one Bush made in 2003? God help us all.

In Mar 08, while I was back in Microsoft Australia office, I noticed a concerted effort by the management to make positive environmental changes. Well done! Some of the awesome changes include:

• Providing a choice of post-consumer printer paper
• Encouraging people to reuse their drinking bottles by providing sturdy high quality reusable attractive water bottles
• Individual recycle trash bins - to faciliate staff to sort out their individual recycleable bits from the main pile
• Introduction of additional instant filtered water in the pantry
• Transport rebate for staff who use public transport to work

Unfortunately, not all staff could particpate fully in these measures. Resourceful contingent staff can always find their own ingenious green contributions at their work area.

Related links

• QUICK FIXES - 10 THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW
• Quiz: Are you a Green-collar worker?
• Green Guru: Green at Work (Q & A for all those typical green office improvement opportunities)

“You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain…”
Exodus 20:7

In recent months, the Singapore property market has slowdowned with Q1 sales numbers plummeted to their lowest level since the 2003 SARS epidemic.

However to celebrate a fully sold commercial development with invocation of God (see the enlarged version linked to the above image) certainly leaves a questionable impression.

Image taken from the Straits Times, 24 May 2008

Singapore Press Holding (SPH) doesn’t understand, respect, or demostrate proper care for reader’s personal information and privacy. Click on the above image for enlarged version.

I encourage everyone in Singapore to get serious about protecting their personal particulars and privacy. The image above is an example of the common unawareness and lack of personal privacy protection around Singapore. Such examples can also be found in many registration forms and marketing peripherals.

As members of the public, we should ask the organisers:

- why organisations are collecting information about us
- who else these organisation might give it to; and
- what recourse on does the public have within these organisations after their information has given away

Team SOAK comprise of David Burela (Microsoft Student Partner, University of Tasmania), Long Zheng (Monash University, blogger extraordinaire of istartedsomething.com), Ed “h00ps” Hooper (Star Microsoft Student Partner, University of Melbourne - I recruited this man into the program!) and Dimaz Pramudya (Swinburne University) are the 2008 Australia Imagine Cup winners! The 03 area code (VIC and TAS) won the day!

Australia is the driest continent on earth and the persistent drought has been hitting the farmers and our wallets hard. Team SOAK put their minds together to develop SOAK and address a real environment challenge for Australia.

SOAK is an integrated software and hardware platform with the aspiration of helping farmers achieve sustainable use of their land. This is achieved through the integrated use of environmental sensing, rich visual front ends to display the information to the farmer, and a subsystem which controls farm equipment such as sprinkler systems

Check out Project SOAK: winning Australian Imagine Cup finals (istartedsomething.com) for more details.

Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment and SOAK is spot on! Well done, boys!

PS: It is a pity, there hasn’t been any pictures nor blog updates mentioned about Thur’s Australian Finals from the AU Imagine Cup web site or local Imagine Cup blog since 12 May.

1235 Update: Long Zheng’s article was updated and mentioned the other members of Team SOAK namely, Ed Hooper and Dimaz Pramudya. Guys, time to pick up that old Year 12 French text book.

Live Search is offering cash rebates when people make purchases after using its search engine.

Web shoppers who sign up for an account and buy items found using Microsoft’s Live Search cashback site will receive a percentage of the purchase price deposited into their account.

When the total reaches $5, the shoppers can redeem their “cold, hard cash.” In a statement, Microsoft said the rebates are paid for with advertising.

Related link: Microsoft to lure search users with cash (Seattle PI)

During the recent years, Asian universities (especially from Singapore, Japan and Korea) received unprecedented level of government support to educate and develop the next generation of engineering and technology talent. But only few institutions can really make the grade to eminent research institutions. One of such institution is KAIST (formerly known as Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology).

During the recent Singapore Management University Distinguished Presidential Lecture (Apr 08), Dr Suh Nam Pyo (President, KAIST) outlined his university’s effort excel as a 21st century research university. Read about his vision for the future of Asias’ research universities.

The following Microsoft Research Asia groups are recruiting interns for the period from Jul - Sep 08:

• User Interface
• Media Communication
• Data Intelligence and Tools
• Machine Learning
• Visual Computing
• Internet Media
• Search Technology Center

Internship program, background information and FAQ are avaliable from http://research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/jobs/internships/about_china.aspx

Interested PhD candidates from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore universities, please contact me () for more information. Please note that I can only respond to relevent AU, NZ and SG enquiries.

Interested applications from other countries may email msraih@microsoft.com.

Today, Microsoft Research announced the availability of the public beta of WorldWide Telescope.

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft.

“By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

I encourage all of you to try it at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org

Related link: Capturing screenshots from Worldwide Telescope (Long Zheng, istartedsomething.com)