Skype raises funding on NASDAQ

Skype, a Luxembourg-based provider of internet telephony, said it planned to raise $100m through an initial public offering on the NASDAQ stockmarket. The company, which was founded in 2003, was acquired by eBay in 2005. The online auction site sold 70% of its stake for about $2 billion last year, following legal disputes with Skype’s founders.

new US law, takes "blood" cell phones in its sights

In July, US congress approved the new law, that obliges publicly listed companies to disclose use of specific materials like Tantal, Gold, Tungsten and Tin which may come from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Definitely, the raw materials, especially from lands with no state structures or with collapsed state control, like in Somalia, Congo, Liberia etc. Naomi Campbell is an exception which confirms rules, that big money is involved. John de la Carrè was writing about state involvement in supporting rouge groups, in areas like Goma (Congo), Rwanda, Uganda, and even Kenya where Europeans, Americans, and even recently Chinese play in search of more and more scarce resources, for rapidly increasing industrial consumption.

BASF has joined development of batteries for e-cars

Is electro-mobility a term designed to descrobe mobility via electric driven vehcles, Iris Strom is writing in German.

Einige haben sich die Zeit genommen und mir per Email Ihre Meinung zum Thema E-Mobilität zukommen lassen. Zunächst also erst einmal ein herzliches Dankeschön an alle! Natürlich wollte nicht jeder, dass ich seine Meinung auf unserer Website veröffentliche, einem Wunsch, dem ich selbstverständlich nachkomme. Doch ich lege jedem nahe, sich die Zeit zu nehmen und die zur Veröffentlichung freigegebenen Meinungen (Kommentare zum Thema Elektromobilität) zu lesen. Denn mit teils sehr deutlichen Worten fordern die Leserbriefschreiber, der deutschen/europäischen Automobilindustrie keine Fördergelder in den Rachen zu schieben.
Ich möchte aber darauf hinweisen, dass auch die gegenteilige Meinung zu hören war, nämlich, dass es ohne massive Subventionen nicht machbar wäre, Elektroautos in Masse zu produzieren!
Allerdings möchte ich betonen, dass sich die Mehrheit ganz klar gegen eine Subventionierung der OEMs ausspricht - schade eigentlich, dass die Politiker sich selten wirklich für die Meinung ihrer Wähler interessieren.


Iris Stroh

Components shortages drive use of unauthorized copies

Passive and mechanical components vendors suffer from copies, as allocations lists elongate. Distributors are forced to use them to make sure the production lines are running. According to Jean Quecke, of TTI, the problem arose late in 2009 and is going to extend into 2011 when the Supply Chain should return to normality. Distributors use vendors delivery notes as a proof of guarantee for product quality and reliability. Sometimes for the expediency vendors require also use of brokerages, where such documentation is not easily available.

iPhone and Blackberry are on a way out?

It Mr. Thomas de Maiziere (CDU) and Sebastian Edathly (SPD) had their ways, already all iPhones and Blackberrys would be on their way out of the German Bundestag (Parliament).

Recent bans in Saudi Arabia doe not seem so outrageous any more. The news we be getting are such that Blackberry has survived the critical data security test.

Having similar objections many in the parliament view the possible PDF bug in iPhone applications may contribute to the distrust of parliamentarians. Once this PDF bug is activated, the sender could take control of the smart phone.

Organizing a catastrophe-Love parade in Duisburg

Recently organized (or mis-organized) Love Parade in Duisburg cost more than 20 lives. It has to be said that quite a few large events went well, without major tragedies, thus critics should agree that organization rules if properly implemented could provide adequate safety.
Markt & Technik, Heinz Arnold is lamenting on insufficient use to available technologies gered to serve and to protect such as digital police radio, more explicit by-laws, and other ideas.
From where I am standing, I know it is hard to predict human crowd's behavior in a suddenly stressing situations.
Technology might be helpful, certainly. But common sense, a degree of mistrust and a healthy dose of precautions, provisions for expanding spaces, exits, and crowd control in real time, and with macro-management.

We hope such tragedy wont happen again. But as it was said about wars: if you want to avoid a catastrophe, prepare for it.

1 million electric cars before 2020 is not going to happen

This said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer of the University Duisburg-Essen. German government has prepared subsidy package worth €500 millions to make things happen. Instead 10 times is needed to catch up with development in foreign countries, particularly in China. He projected that only 6,200.000 cars are going to be rolling in 2010 worldwide. All battery or hybrid driven vehicles, It is mistaken assumption that by the year 2025 the barrel of oil would cost $350, and electric car would cost less than $40,000 in 2011. In fact a battery driven Nissan Leaf already cost around $33,000 in 2009. He points out that still in 2009, there were only 1588 electric cars running in Germany. The very ambitious plan for 600,000 Plug-in Hybrid is "grossly overambitious". He points out that:
R&D efforts are to be strongly increased especially as comparing to that of States and China
Germany needs a beaker/watch tower type of projects that give direction to industrial ventures, not small mostly "pedestrian" research piece meal efforts.
Urban centers must prepare themselves for making traffic organization more friendly to the electro car. e-cars should allowed to use bus lines in rush hour.

Making car batteries more efficient, and regenerating, manufacturing such batteries would bring additional employment of 100,000 new jobs.
Companies like Bosch, Evonik, SB-LiMotive or Merck invest heavily in such technologies. However Dudenhöffer is not advising to buy e-car any time soon. He warns for so called "write-off premium" on such cars, and this is another down side of the e-car, its depreciation is much more rapid than a classic vehicle.