But Panasonic certainly wins in the 3-D category by producing the positively huge 65 inch TX-P65VT20B Viera 3-D TV. You get the full in-your-face effect of 3-D with a screen that huge, and Panasonic even includes two pairs of 3-D glasses in the box. No other TV offers the clarity, the color response, the sheer 3-D magic of this monster set. This one set alone would seal Panasonic’s reputation in the 3-D department. But they had to go out and make the world’s first full production 3-D camcorder for the masses. Use a binocular-design 3-D camera ( that by the way costs $20,000) in public, and you should simply have all on eyes on you. Certainly, you do need a real steady hand for the right effect to hit you; but of course every new technology needs new skills, and just the fact that you can shoot 3-D on a handheld camcorder is an exciting prospect.

And then we have our Apple iPad, that you need no introduction to – large solid-state hard drive, spectacular multi-touch screen, it’s only been out for less than a year, and already 15 million people own one. The only problem with an iPad is that it is clearly not a laptop replacement. For the most part, it isn’t powerful enough, and there is a lot to complain in the fact that it lacks a proper keyboard. Choose the new MacBook Air with a 11.6 inch high res screen, a great graphics processor, a multi-touch trackpad and all kinds of other tricks, and you begin to wonder if you really need an iPad after all.

It’s difficult to really pick a winner out of all the cool tech gadgets that came online in 2010. Certainly, 3-D camera and a very attractive little tablet computer are cool tech gadgets; but there’s something about the Microsoft Kinect that just is too new to pass over for the prize. When the Nintendo Wii first came on the market, the makers of the PlayStation and the XBOX games couldn’t stop laughing at the way the graphics on the Wii which were quite primitive. It was when it began to overtake the PlayStation in sales that they sat up and took notice. The Microsoft Kinect takes the Wii motion capture concept a step further. You don’t even need to wear a controller on your hand anymore. The Kinect maps the entire room you are in, and maps your whole body, and it knows exactly where you are and how you are. You no longer need a joystick, a keyboard or anything to play XBOX. It’s game over for videogame innovation.

Tags

Related Articles

• The Belkin Conserve 10 Outlet Surge Protector with Wireless Remote – Do Your Bit for the Planet
• Blast from the past: Dress up games
• VICTOR SALVETTI – Fashion Feminism Factories
• Variety of Truck and Car Games to Take Pleasure From
• THE LADEN SHOWROOM – Clambering Around the Confines of Trendy

The concept behind the design of this 10 outlet surge protector is pretty straightforward. While you could indeed have all your electronics go into power saving standby mode themselves, they can all usually add up to something pretty substantial even if they only a sip couple watts at a time. The Conserve 10 outlet surge protector from Belkin lets you completely turn everything off with a button to cut standby mode wastage to zero. Items like your wireless Internet routers, your fax machines, your cordless phones or your DVR’s, are allowed to stay on all of the time.

The 10 outlet model comes with an extra coaxial RF input-output to allow you to connect your satellite feed too. The surge protector itself comes with a 4 foot cord and all sockets come with childproof safety shutters that snap across unused outlets to prevent prying little fingers (babies or pets) from finding them. The best part is, the entire Belkin range of surge protectors comes with a lifetime $100,000 equipment warranty. If you should fry any equipment that’s connected to a Belkin surge protector, you can consider your stuff replaced.

Actually, the real selling point of the Conserve range is that these are devices that come with remote controls. Belkin must know that people don’t really go to the trouble of turning things off if they have to get up and fumble behind a bunch of equipment to get to a switch. The remote can be mounted on the wall where you can easily find it, and it can control more than one Conserve protector. If you have a lot of stuff connected to various Conserve protectors though, this could be a positive or negative, any which way you see it. It’s a powerful remote with a range of 60 feet. You could conceivably end up turning off stuff unintentionally.

So how much do you really save in power costs using the Belkin Conserve 10 outlet surge protector? Modern equipment doesn’t consume much when on standby. An LCD TV will cost you about 50 cents being on standby two full days. An Xbox will cost you a dollar being on standby a whole day. It depends on the kind of stuff you have connected to your surge protector, but it shouldn’t take long for this Belkin unit to pay for itself. It’s a must-have in any home with its plethora of electronic gadgetry.

Tags

Related Articles

• 2010 – The Best Cool Tech Gadgets of the Year
• YAZID FENTAZI – North African Music Fusion
• VISIONS OF UTOPIA – Utopianism & Post-Ideological Art
• VICTOR SALVETTI – Fashion Feminism Factories
• TURNER PRIZE 2005 – Shortlist

“No company likes a consumer backlash and if enough people adopt this tactic it might make energy providers think twice about hiking prices in the future.”

“Customers should vote with their feet and just say ‘No’ if they want to react against the rising tide of prices.”

The independent price comparison website highlighted a little-known Ofgem regulation allowing customers to say “No” when they are notified of an increase to their bills.

Energyhelpline.com said consumers should send a letter or email to their suppliers within 20 days of a receiving a notification of a gas or electricity hike stating they do not accept it and want to leave.

Those objecting then have 15 working days to switch to a new provider but they will stay on their current deals while the switch goes through. This normally takes six weeks.

Mark Todd, director from Energyhelpline.com, says: “Anyone hit with a price rise should get their pen or keyboard out and let their supplier know they will be moving. Then they have 15 days to switch to not be impacted.

“Customers should vote with their feet and just say ‘No’ if they want to react against the rising tide of prices.

Energyhelpline.com highlighted the tactic after three of the Big Six suppliers announced they were raising their prices.

From today, 1st December, Scottish and Southern Energy’s (SSE) gas prices will cost 9.4 per cent more adding an extra £67 on to the average annual standard dual fuel bill, which will increase from £1,159 to £1,226 as a result. SSE runs the Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro, Swalec and Atlantic brands. Last week, ScottishPower hiked electricity prices by 8.9% and gas prices by 2%. Next week, British Gas’s prices will be rising by 7% on gas and 7% on electricity.

ScottishPower also unveiled a £52 dual fuel rise and British Gas customers face a seven per cent rise in gas and electricity bills this winter.

However, Ofgem last week launched a price probe after revealing covered that a net profit margin of £65 per customer in September had jumped to £90 – a 38 per cent increase.

Todd said: “Households can save £200-£300 a year by switching to an online tariff from a standard one. Customers need to shop around for the best deal but it takes no more than 10 minutes to do.

Tags

Related Articles

• You May Be Able To Reduce Your Heating Oil Bills With The Help Of Used Coffee Grains In The Future
• Who Can Use Crowdfunding to Get the Money They Need?
• Dual Mirage – Identifying of the Mirage that Appears and Disappears in Urban Spaces
• ALTERNATIVE FASHION WEEK 2005 – A Fresh Crop of Talent

Here comes the summer! You are planning to travel this summer. In your everyday working life, it is the most fantastic and entrancing moment when you’re biting into your sandwich during your lunchtime and searching for the tourist agents. You haven’t yet decided where to go. You may go for an ancient temple in the east, a gothic castle in the west, an emerald sea in the south or even a beautiful mountain in the north. In front of your computer monitor, you’ve found the right tourist agent, but suddenly the advertisement of the tourist agent is slightly changing. All the words from the advertisement make a billowy wave that starts spinning in your mind.

Dual Mirage Part 2

Tourists Dream

Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream begins by presenting the moment when we are dreaming of travelling somewhere and what the engaging free and enchanting moment interprets in the global society. The place that we want to travel is somewhat in-between idealised and practical space, artificial and natural space. The moment longing for somewhere else other than here is as an instantaneous escape and is done in search of other utopia. It is presented as future and nostalgia. It is a mirage.

Tourists Dream also explores the mirage generated at the point at which the service industry circulates, within the ‘transitional space’. This is achieved by considering industries such as the tourism and hospitality industry, financial sector and real estate business, all of which are highly entangled with each other.

Dual Mirage Part 2  Tourists Dream Contributors: Mora Bendesky, Hyunjoo Byeon, Oksun Kim, Uin Kim, Jungmin Kwon, Eunu Lee, Jeong-Hoo Lee, Sôm Lee, Hyemin Son, Gee Song, Juhee Youn

Part 2 Event

The event of Dual Mirage Part 2 consists of the launch of the book and also the video screening. The launching of the publication of Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream will be introduced by artist Hyemin Son. It is then to be followed by the video screening Tourist’s Dream by the invited curator Hyunjoo Byeon. Both the book and the video screening share and develop the idea of transitional movement in various aspects of global society, reinforcing the theme of tourists’ dream.

Artists: Kyungah Ham, Yang Ah Ham, Stuart Hawkins, Adrian Paci, Lisl Ponger, Jaye Rhee, Hiraki Sawa, Bo Kyung Suh
Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon

Accompanied by the launch of the book Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream, the video screening Tourist’s Dream draws into varied tourists’ dreams and the underlying political, cultural and socio-economical elements that construct the migratory movements in this age of global mobility. Through the artworks by eight international artists, Tourist’s Dream navigates how global mobility transforms the way to perceive the world and expands geographies by positioning oneself in a space away from everyday life; examining also the effects it has on the diverse migratory movements in our time. In addition, it explores mirages which tourism provides by rebranding spaces in a capital-saturated society and interrogates a fantasy to consume a given culture.

The artists emerged from their common interests in the issues surrounding today’s migratory movements such as tourism, the tourist industry, territoriality, cultural identity, mobility, dislocation, migration, and global communication initiate an essential convergence in Tourist’s Dream. Kyungah Ham’s Travel & Journey (2003-05) investigates a fantasy to experience exotic cultures and cultural hierarchies in tourism by exploring the phenomenon of theme parks in Asia which replicate the symbolic monuments and landmarks of Europe and America. In her Tourism in Communism (2005), Yang Ah Ham travels to the only possible tourism area in North Korea, Mount Kumgang, developed by South Korea’s Hyundai Group. The artist depicts that tourism can be only a superficial exploration which is isolated from ordinary life, as the video was also shot on a touristic horse-drawn carriage. Stuart Hawkins playfully illustrates the artificiality of a touristic approach through her journey in search of the anthropologically perfect native CoCoMan in Souvenir (2006).

The journey reveals the pervasiveness of globalisation that is profoundly connected with the media culture, and it has caused a strange reaction in that it seeks out notions of pure cultural authenticity. Lisl Ponger´s déjà vu (1999) captures our desires for distant lands with its documentary sequences. This collective cliché of exotic otherness, combined with a series of narrations in various languages without subtitles, exposes the western-centered mode of perceiving the world and its hidden colonialism, consequently raising the awareness of our limited perception of reality. In Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (2007), which is named after an Italian refugee camp, Adrian Paci transforms an airport, a symbol of global mobility in our time, into a displaced space. A group of people standing on an aircraft boarding staircase represent migrants who are stranded “in between”, yearning for a better life, and thus an inhumane side of our ever-globalising world is revealed. Whilst Paci draws into the harsh reality of migratory movement in this age, the tiny humans and animals wandering around in the artist’s flat in Hiraki Sawa’s Migration (2003) poetically represent a restless journey in our lives and portrait our nostalgias in the global age. In Mediterranean (2009), Jaye Rhee creates her own Mediterranean setting in her studio with objects which embody images of the location of the Mediterranean. Rhee discloses how tourism and its industry construct common desires through distributing a signified image by envisaging the place with objects that can be found in daily life. In the work Citydel (2005), two separate videos parallel the passers-by looking at a girl in a bikini and a girl who enjoys her vacation on the artificial island in the Han River, which is located in the middle of Seoul. By creating a subtle rupture between them, Bo Kyung Suh questions what we dream for through traveling and where mirage exists.

Project Space 2:
Friday 6 August 2010, 6-9pm
Rivington Place
London EC2A 3BA UK

Tags

Related Articles

• Down the Road of Globalisation – Exhibiting Terrorism, Conquest & Expansion Through the Eyes of Seven Artists
• GEORGE GALLOWAY – Dinner with Portillo Excerpt 2003
• FLIGHT 5065 – Live Arts Festival at the London Eye
• BARACK OBAMA – Iowa Speech Excerpt 2007
• Who Can Use Crowdfunding to Get the Money They Need?

In each of these periods parts of the world have tasted the sweetness of the fruits (abundant products and accumulation of wealth), while others have had to endure various forms of exploitation, inequality and depletion of natural resources.

Since World War II,  what is known as ‘Globalisation’ is supposed to be the result of planning by certain world leaders to eliminate borders and facilitate trade, thus creating interdependence and reducing the chances of conflict. Initially triggered through international treaties and regulations, Globalisation is assumed to function as an engine that pursues coexistence and global prosperity through free trade, exchange of technologies, people and ideas, while simultaneously diminishing the imbalance between strong nations and the so called “underdeveloped countries”.

After decades of modern Globalisation, are we on the way to achieving peaceful coexistence and true global prosperity?

Tags

Related Articles

• JAZZ IN THE CITY – Exploration of Jazz & Art
• Dual Mirage – Identifying of the Mirage that Appears and Disappears in Urban Spaces
• TURNER PRIZE 2005 – Shortlist
• THE PLANETARIUM – The Artvaults Project
• VISIONS OF UTOPIA – Utopianism & Post-Ideological Art

This posture stems from the so-called free-rider problem, a cornerstone of rational-choice theory. The problem, as described by Mancur Olson in his classic book, “The Logic of Collective Action,” is that even those who share a presidential candidate’s policy goals will reap no significant material advantage by donating their time or money. After all, with cash donations legally capped at $2,300, even donors who give the maximum have no realistic hope of influencing an election’s outcome. Nor can any individual volunteer — even one whose efforts resulted in hundreds of additional votes for his candidate — realistically hope to tip an election.

Although the logic of the free-rider problem may seem compelling, people’s behavior strikingly contradicts many of its predictions. Die-hard proponents of self-interest models sometimes counter that by becoming involved in campaigns, volunteers reap a variety of personal advantages. They often meet interesting people, for example, or they may learn about attractive employment opportunities. Major donors, for their part, are often rewarded with ambassadorships or other prominent positions when their candidate wins.

Researchers at the intersection of economics, psychology, sociology and other disciplines have had interesting things to say about the anomaly inherent in collective action. Albert O. Hirschman, an economist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, was one of the first to grapple seriously with it. In his 1982 book “Shifting Involvements,” he acknowledges that self-interest indeed appears to be the dominant human motive in some eras. But over time, he argues, many people begin to experience disappointment as they continue to accumulate material goods. When consumption standards escalate, people must work harder just to hold their place. Stress levels rise. People become less willing to devote resources to the public sphere, which begins to deteriorate. Against this backdrop, disenchanted consumers become increasingly receptive to appeals from the organizers of social movements.

Eventually, Mr. Hirschman argues, a tipping point is reached. In growing numbers, people peel away from their private rat race to devote energy to collective goals. The free-rider problem ceases to inhibit them, not only because they now assign less value to private consumption, but also because they find satisfaction in the very act of contributing to the common good. Activities viewed as costs by self-interest models are thus seen as benefits instead.

From an informal survey of 20th-century American social movements, Mr. Hirschman concluded that these cycles have an average duration of about 20 years. But sometimes patterns take much longer to recur.

Self-interest is surely an important human motive, perhaps even the most important motive much of the time. But it is never the only important motive. And during at least some moments in history, narrow self-interest models miss the essential story line completely. This may be one of those moments.

Read the full article at The New York Times.
Robert H. Frank is an economist at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. E-mail: rhfrank@nytimes.com.

Tags

Related Articles

• TATOO RITES – Deviancy to Freedom
• SAYLES TECHNIQUE – A Social, Political & Emotional Travelogue
• YAZID FENTAZI – North African Music Fusion
• Who Can Use Crowdfunding to Get the Money They Need?
• VISIONS OF UTOPIA – Utopianism & Post-Ideological Art

The finance required to fund an election attempt in the 21st century is now of a size that can only be raised in the corporate sector. (It also raises the issue of whether these financial implications inhibit the true application of the democratic process for anyone seeking office, because of onerous financial considerations.)

As far as the leadership of any political party is concerned, raising financial support produces the problem of divided loyalties between sponsors and electors. A solution seems to have been found in the introduction of the “Party Line”, which effectively fudges the issues of local democracy by confining activity to the Party Agenda.

Political parties can demonstrate control over their members through adherence to the Party Line. This in turn provides corporate sponsors with the confidence to invest and support an organisation that can manage its direction and any changes to that direction. In so doing it can deliver on policies which are capable of supporting corporate views and desires.

For business to invest in anything, be it new equipment, staff or sponsorship, it needs to be sure that there is an acceptable level of return on that investment, whatever that might be. That is the nature of business and we should have no problem with that discipline.

However the actual democratic process seems to be under increasing threat from the powerful influences the corporate sector can now wield, further exacerbated by the acceleration of the doctrines of Capitalism across the globe.

The challenge lies in the shift in people power that this process seems to be implementing. We now have a reduction in voters at the ballot boxes because of apathy we are told, but a greater assertion of control over the corporate sector through consumerism.

Companies react to the will of there customers and this in turn causes movement by political reaction to meet corporate need. Somehow the corporate sector has managed to inject itself between the politician and the voter, enabling it to increasingly introduce corporate values and the dictates of profit into our everyday life.

Whilst consumerism operates in a similar fashion to democracy, our ability to influence and change could become restricted to our needs as consumers, rather than our needs as members of society. This new democracy is unhealthy because of the serious imbalance it creates within society, at a time when we need to be able to function as flexibly as possible in coming to terms and dealing with climate change.

Copyright 2008 – John Coombes

Born in 1946 in South London and with a Secondary education, for 35 years John Coombes had a successful career in the City where he built several companies and a £100 million group. In the late 80′s he became disillusioned with “just making money” and in his early 40′s suffered several traumas including ME, Breakdown and Bankruptcy. In the space of 18 months Coombes went from a City boardroom to the paint shop in a small art metal works factory. At the time the Stock market and housing market also collapsed and he lost everything, including his family.

Over the last 20 years he has embarked upon a sabbatical which has resulted in him now coming to view life and its workings from a new, totally different and more meaningful perspective. In his manuscript “What if WE are God”, of which this article is an extract, there are amusing as well as very poignant stories that provide the backdrop to a deeply penetrating observation on the human condition, and how we seem to continually hold ourselves back from realizing our true potential as a species in this thing called life.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Coombes

Tags

Related Articles

• Dual Mirage – Identifying of the Mirage that Appears and Disappears in Urban Spaces
• Who Can Use Crowdfunding to Get the Money They Need?
• SAYLES TECHNIQUE – A Social, Political & Emotional Travelogue
• PUBLIC ENEMY – What Happened to the Music Protests & Rage?
• GEORGE GALLOWAY – Dinner with Portillo Excerpt 2003

In ten tight chapters Jean takes the reader through her principle ideas, from Blood in the High street to Global Compassion, dissecting the representation of major tragedies played out by news corporations for mass consumption and arguing passionately that news is an essential part of a free society.

The frank and often personal accounts of news digestion and analogies to food, especially Jeans sincere and compelling accounts of her own childhood experiences in her Fathers butchers shop make an otherwise complex and often inaccessible subject matter personal, memorable and hugely relevant.

Carnage and the Media: The Making and Breaking of News about Violence is available from all good book shops: priced £19.99
Published by Penguin Books

Tags

Related Articles

• WHAT IF WE ARE GOD – Threat To Democracy In The 21st Century
• GEORGE GALLOWAY – Dinner with Portillo Excerpt 2003
• Dual Mirage – Identifying of the Mirage that Appears and Disappears in Urban Spaces
• BARACK OBAMA – Iowa Speech Excerpt 2007
• Who Can Use Crowdfunding to Get the Money They Need?

Tags

Related Articles

• GEORGE GALLOWAY – Dinner with Portillo Excerpt 2003
• Dual Mirage – Identifying of the Mirage that Appears and Disappears in Urban Spaces
• SLAVERY – 500 YEARS LATER
• FLIGHT 5065 – Live Arts Festival at the London Eye
• THE RISING – Aamir Khan’s Influences & Politics

Robert McGeehan:
“You just don’t know what you’re talking about on this as well as everything else”

George Galloway:
“we’ve already worked out that I’m stupid and the 80,000 people who elect me every 4 years, they must be stupid too. We’re all out of step except Uncle Sam over here, the whole parade ground.”

Tags

Related Articles

• Dual Mirage – Identifying of the Mirage that Appears and Disappears in Urban Spaces
• BARACK OBAMA – Iowa Speech Excerpt 2007
• ISMAIL KADARE – Man Booker International Prize Winner 2005
• Who Can Use Crowdfunding to Get the Money They Need?
• WHAT IF WE ARE GOD – Threat To Democracy In The 21st Century