FiberGeneration

Just This [09-08]

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Stand With Tibet

Note to all Fiber Generation Readers : this is a call for help. Help the Tibetans to change their world, to change OUR World, to change THE World.

If you are not part of the 924,138 World' Citizens who signed the petition as of today March 25th, 2008, 5:20PM GMT, please read the following :

"After decades of repression, Tibetans are crying out to the world for change. China's leaders are right now making a crucial choice between escalating brutality or dialogue that could determine the future of Tibet, and China.

We can affect this historic choice -- China does care about its international reputation. But it will take an avalanche of global people power to get the government's attention. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has called for restraint and dialogue: he needs the world's people to support him. Fill out the form below to sign the petition--and spread the word."

Petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao:

"As citizens around the world, we call on you to show restraint and respect for human rights in your response to the protests in Tibet, and to address the concerns of all Tibetans by opening meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Only dialogue and reform will bring lasting stability. China's brightest future, and its most positive relationship with the world, lies in harmonious development, dialogue and respect."

You can sign the petition on Avaaz.org website here
[http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/]

On behalf of the Tibetans, and on behalf of your children' s children, thank you.
_Marc

The It-Could-Be-An-Apple-Gadget Edition

See here. The Flip is a brand new camcorder made by Pure Digital Technologies "for the rest of us".
Simple, easy to use, and just enough features for 80% of the population. On top, the Flip is pretty much affordable for most of us (at Agilent, I've learned not to say "cheap" ;-).
Definitely a gadget that could have been designed by Apple. Which, I suppose, has served as a model for the definition and creation of The Flip.

My "About Me" Page Sucks

Luckily enough, more and more people go to the "About Me" section of this blog. Unfortunately, the more I read it myself, the more I think it's not appealing enough. Too much of a light resume.
The fact is, the people who go to the "About Me" page of a blog want to know who's the author, his background for sure, but mainly his current activities, hobbies, passion, or whatever make him write this blog.
Nothing people get when reading my own stuff. At least not in a proper "elevator-pitch" manner...
That's why I'm to rewrite this section sometime over the week-end. Easter is supposed to be a new start, isn't it ?

Just This [08-08]

See this post's geographical context.
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On The Road To Fiber-To-The-Home...

Yesterday morning on my way to the FTTH Forum organized by the French Fiber-Lobbying association CREDO at the Telecom & Management Institute of Evry, 30-km south of Paris, I've lost almost 60 minutes.

The reason ? Watch the photo, and you'll understand : the A104 "La Francilienne" highway is one of the most crowded in the country, thanks to those awful convoys of trucks.
Why that ? Because : a) in this part of the Greater Paris area, the A104 makes the connection between the A4 highway which goes eastbound, and the A6 which goes southbound; b) this very piece of land is occupied by a handful of super-malls and... giant logistics/warehouse/whatsoever-big-chunk-not-producing-any-good hubs; c) just a few miles away, there is a huge road construction on the bridge over the Seine river, which forces drivers to slow down their already slow speed.

That's France, Ladies & Gents. An economy based on Consumerism. No more industries, as per the German terminology. We are a country made of shopping malls and logistics hubs. Commuters do waste hours in traffic jams each day because of some truck on a road somewhere has got a problem. Road constructions takes ages because of nobody cares of the end-user - read : the driver. We all together do send tons of CO2 in the air because of those stupidities. A vicious circle, like this road on the photo.

The irony : I've lost my time on the road to a conference aimed at Fiber-To-The-Home, which, among endless other things, allows teleworking.

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It's about Apple : How To Get Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong (To Certain Extent)

Wired Magazine has published an excellent article on Apple : "How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong". A must read, including the Evil/Genius and Online Extras side articles.

For an Applemaniac, Jobsian Fanatic like myself, those type of readings just confirm what we already presume on the Product Marketing & Industrial Design way at Apple (at least since Jobs' s return in 1997).
It also raises three questions in my mind :

1. when even a pure self-made man like me can understand quite a bit of the underlying long term strategy and the tactics at Apple, why the heck no other company is applying the same methods ? Can you think of another name, in any other industry, with this level of perfection in Industrial Design and Marketing at large ? Maybe Trek ? Or maybe I'm too much Apple-branded that I'm too blind to see outside the Reality Distorsion Field !

2. why can't we French people enjoy the beauty of an AppleStore, whilst the Mac/iPod/iPhone/iLoveIt maker is to open a superstore in rainy Liverpool ? Is there something we Frenchies don't get about Apple and/or Steve Jobs ? Hey, we've bought into the iPhone hype - even restaurants' s maîtres d'hôtel have iPhone now.

3. the last yet most important : when will I get a job at Apple ? ;-)

Fiber-To-The-Home : The Exploding Market

See by yourself...

[UPDATED 03-19-08 2:25PM CET] The video is no longer available on YouTube. That's the beauty of Web 2.0 and Rights Management ;-)

Just This. No Comment.

To end Human Rights abuses in Tibet, go to RaceForTibet.org here.

It's about the iPhone

Back at home after being on the road (and in the air, and on the Southern Alpes slopes), I took a couple of hours this morning to watch the recent introduction of the iPhone SDK by Steve Jobs and his fellow Apple execs.

You'll get a flavor of the impact of the iPhone Software Roadmap by reading those two articles, from David Pogue for The New York Times here, and Mike Elgan for ComputerWorld here.
Quote Master Pogue : " iPhone 2.0 will turn this phone into an engineering tool, a game console, a free-calls Skype phone, a business tool, a dating service, an e-book reader, a chat room, a database, an Etch-a-Sketch…and that’s on Day One."

To better understand why the iPhone 2.0 is THE Revolution many of us were waiting for, just watch Scott Forestall, VP iPhone Software, demonstrating one of the most exciting new features of the platform, based on the built-in 3D-accelerometer : undo a photo edition by... shaking the iPhone (demo starts at 39:30).

After seeing this, you'll get a better picture of Apple' s Hardware roadmap : the next gen iMac will be multi-touch based. Then, you'll agree with Elgan : the iPhone will change the PC world, forever.

Just this from a cybercafé @ 4,800 feet

Dear FiberGeneration Readers : this quick note to confirm that I'm not dead yet, although skiing on icy snow is quite a journey sometimes.
After a tremendous week in the US, it's nice to take a break and think out of the box.
I tell you : the more I think out of the box, the more I think Google is the next big thing in the Telecoms space at large. I keep thinking on Metcalfe' s speech : Google already "owns" the top 2 layers of his 4-layers model (that is : Ethernet > Internet > Web > Google), and Google is already on the bottom one with its switches.
I bet Google will re-invent the Ethernet, hence the Internet as we know it as of today.

Now, time to go for diner. A wonderful tasty "raclette" ;-)