Category Archives: Hi-tech

Too little too late

May 25, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

What’s five years late these days? Too much for even the German Defense Ministry, it seems.

They’re mad as hell and aren’t going to wait it anymore for an order of 80 EADS/Eurocopter/Tiger helicopters to be delivered – five years behind schedule and counting.

Well, that’s not the whole truth. Eleven have actually arrived already (probably driven in on trucks), but these Tigers weren’t the ones they ordered. Hey, Rome (and the EU) wasn’t built in a day either.

Eurocopter, the world’s largest maker of helicopters by units, is a subsidiary of European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., which also makes Airbus SAS commercial and military planes.

Book ’em if ya got ’em

May 2, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The euros, I mean. And the nerves? Be the first kid on your block to book the maiden Lufthansa Super Airbus A380 flight from Germany to Japan and tell your grandchildren about it later (you could tell them about it beforehand but they probably wouldn’t believe you).

The “Frankfurt am Main” will be taking off from Frankfurt for Tokyo on June 11. Hope the Japanese don’t mistake the thing for Godzilla or Mothra or something.

Personally, I’m not quite “there in my head” just yet. This baby’s just too damned big and “if it’s not a Boeing I’m not going” and all that. Give me a little time though and I’ll be just fine.

Die Maschine ersetzt die bislang eingesetzte Boeing 747-400.

Google wasn’t home that day or something

April 9, 2010 By in Habitudes, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Anti-Facebook feelings in Germany are growing these days because, well, uh, bashing Google day in and day out all day long even gets boring for Germans to do every once in a while.

An organization here called the VZBZ (Very Zesty Bitching Zealots?) said that Facebook should have to ask its users for approval every time personal information is passed on to third parties via an “opt-in” option and not continue with the “opt-out” option it uses now.

Facebook opted-out on the opt-in option, opting for the opt-out option opstead.

Meanwhile, German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner is so pissed off with the company that she says she will delete her Facebook account if it does not straighten up its act sehr pronto already. So there. That’s the end of that company.

Partly for historical reasons, Germany is particularly sensitive about privacy issues, with campaigners bristling at plans by US internet giant Google to launch its Street View service later this year allowing users to view panoramic still photos of city streets.

Tanker tanks

March 10, 2010 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Tank this. Damn. Hurt feeling time again for Europeans with a military industrial complex.

“Airbus and its U.S. partner, Northrop Grumman (NOC), declined to bid on the tanker contract because they didn’t think they could win. That’s because they believed that the Pentagon’s specifications for the deal favored Boeing’s smaller 767 over the larger Airbus A330.”

Erst sah es so aus, als würde EADS Tankflugzeuge für die US-Luftwaffe bauen. Dann hat die US-Regierung die Ausschreibung im Sinne des heimischen Konzerns Boeing geändert. In Europa läuft das bei solchen Projekten nicht anders. Dabei braucht die Rüstungsindustrie dringend mehr Wettbewerb.

Are you sure you want to delete these files y/n?

March 3, 2010 By in Habeas Corpus, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Sicher ist sicher (better safe than sorry). At least when it comes to deleting data saved in Germany to combat terrorism and serious crime. Delete the stuff, in other words – can we delete the Street View stuff while we’re at it?

Germany’s highest court overturned a law that let anti-terror authorities save data on telephone calls and e-mails for a limited time. Now the big delete button has to get pressed – or maybe just the regular delete button, but lots and lots and lots of times.

This law is a “grave intrusion” into personal privacy rights or something and must be revised. Most likely because grave terrorism and serious crime never take place here, right? It’s nice living in Wunderland.

The ruling did not overturn the European Union anti-terrorism directive on which the law is based, but may lead to its reassessment later this year.

No scary Google-mobiles here, please

March 2, 2010 By in Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Despite a recent high-level compromise, the German Street View saga continues.

A new report, and there’s always a new report if you want one, confirms that Google’s Street View is pretty much pure evil and they (whoever they are) have to be stopped at all costs. Stay tuned.

Die Auflagen, für die sich Rechtsprofessor Thomas Dreier und Professorin Indra Spiecker stark machen, gehen teils weit über die bestehenden Absprachen zwischen Google Deutschland und der zuständigen Datenschutzaufsichtsbehörde in Hamburg hinaus.

I`m 18 (not) and just don`t know what I want

February 22, 2010 By in Heconomy, Hi-tech, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“That’s right, and the sexagenarian shock rocker’s got a hammer. He calmly smashes out the Plexiglas face part of the spaceman’s helmet. Fruit juice drains out, problem solved.”

Mr. Cooper’s success as a pitchman is doubly surprising because the stringy-haired 62-year-old takes over as Saturn spokesman from a sexy female cyborg who looked like the kind of adolescent-boy fantasy who turns up so often in Mr. Cooper’s songs.

Iran paranoid about Google now too

February 12, 2010 By in Hi-tech, History, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Not unlike German fears about privacy when it comes to Google’s eerie Street-View technology – while gladly developing and using Street-View-type products of their own – Iran’s freely elected government sort of is also frightened about privacy when it comes to one of Google’s other creepy technologies: eMail (and that’s e for evil). And yeah, of course I know that Google didn’t invent eMail. But still.

The Iranian powers that be (or powers that is, if you prefer) are clearly concerned about privacy matters here; keeping their own damned privacy as private as inhumanly possible, that is. Otherwise, everybody out there knows what the hell they’re up to, get it?

So now following the German example, word is out that the Iranians are actually planning to introduce a new eMail technology of their own. It’s code name is MMail, I think (GMail war gestern). Or Mullah-Mail, if you prefer.

Es ist einer der populärsten E-Mail-Dienste in Iran – doch nun will die Regierung Googles GMail-Service offenbar sperren lassen. Laut einem Bericht des “Wall Street Journal” soll stattdessen ein eigenes Mail-System aufgebaut werden.