Some lunchtime discussion pump primers!

• If you're one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you.


• China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.


• The 25% of India's population with the highest IQ's is greater than the population of the United States.


• The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.


• We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that haven't been invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.


• The US Department of Labor estimates that today's learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38.


• 1 in 4 workers has been with their current employer for less than a year.


• 1 in 2 has been there for less than five years.


• 1 out of 8 couples married in the US last year met online.


• There are over 200 million registered users on MySpace. If MySpace were a country, it would be the fifth largest in the world (between Indonesia and Brazil).


• The number one ranked country in Brodband Internet Penetration is Bermuda. The United States is number 19 and Japan is number 22.


• There are 31 Billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, this number was 2.7 Billion.


• The first commercial text message was sent in December of 1992. Today, the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.


• Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:

Radio - 38 Years, TV - 13 Years, The Internet - 4 Years, iPod - 3 Years, Facebook - 2 Years

• The number of Internet devices in 1984 was 1,000. The number of Internet devices in 1992 was 1,000,000. The number of Internet devices in 2008 is 1,000,000,000.


• There are about 540,000 words in the English language, about five times as many as during Shakespeare's time.


• It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.


• It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4.0x10^19) of unique information will be generated this year. That's more than the previous 5,000 years.


• The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years. For students starting a 4 year technical degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.


• NTT Japan has successfully tested a fiber optic cable that pushes 14 trillion bits per second down a single strand of fiber. That's 2,660 CD's or 210 million phone calls per second. It's currently tripling every six months and is expected to do so for the next 20 years.


• By 2013, a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain. Predictions are that by 2049, a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species.

See here for what I think is the original source

FIELD TRIAL IS ON AIR

The FIRST Response field trial participants have endured a 14-hour bumpy bus ride, equipment glitches and power cuts. Upon arrival in Nagapattinam at 5am today, they quickly set up their equipment (including attaching the antennae to a drain pipe on the roof). The FM station was live on air by 6:30am and they received their first telephone call from a listener about 7:15am, quite surprisingly. (Sat 28 Jun) READ MORE

Also, check out this video clip - more like it here

Blogging Central for Feba India bloggers

Well, our work is done, for this trip at least. Our blogging workship in Bangalore has gone well, and I started a new blog for Feba India bloggers to share, ask questions, collaborate, and interact with Feba UK bloggers and IT people. If you want to you can check it out here: http://indiabloggers.wordpress.com/ where you can also view the 5 live blogs in three different South Indian languages and English, that have been started this week. You will find links to the other blogs in, surprisingly, the LINKS menu in the sidebar.

Bed Rest

Where we have been staying this weekend - in The Richmond Hotel. You can find it in Google or in Google Earth, quite easily. Comfortable. Pity that I am posting this at just after 2am because once again the jeg lag has me bright eyed and busy tailed.

Tiger of Mysore

With our TucTuc driver in the front of the palace of the man who fought the British four times, and beat them the first two of those. Sultan Fateh Ali Tipu, also known as the Tiger of Mysore (November 20, 1750, Devanahalli – May 4, 1799, Srirangapattana), was the first son of Haidar Ali by his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-nissa. He was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore from the time of his father's death in 1782 until his own demise in 1799.

He had a vision and a mission in life. The vision was to make his people enlightened and prosperous, and the mission was to liberate his land from the yoke of the colonials. His short but stormy rule is significant because of his view that the only life worth living was that which would unfold the drama of human freedom, not only political freedom, but also social freedom, economic freedom, cultural freedom, and freedom from want, hunger, apathy, ignorance and superstition. His definition of the State itself was organized energy for freedom.

Tipu Sultan was a learned man and an able soldier. He was reputed to be a good poet. He was a devout Muslim. The majority of his subjects were Hindus and they were his staunch loyalists for he was a benevolent ruler. At the request of the French, he built a church, the first in Mysore.

In alliance with the French in their struggle with the British both Tipu Sultan and Haidar Ali did not hesitate to use their French trained army against the Maharattas, Sira, Malabar, Coorg and Bednur. He was proficient in the languages he spoke. He helped his father Haidar Ali defeat the British in the Second Mysore War, and negotiated the Treaty of Mangalore with them.

However, he was defeated in the Third Anglo-Mysore War and in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War by the combined forces of the English East India Company, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Mahratta Confederacy, and to a lesser extent, Travancore. Tipu Sultan died defending his capital Srirangapattana, on May 4, 1799.

Source: Wikipedia