The First Satellite Made in Ecuador

NEE-01 PEGASO has been totally designed and executed by ecuadorian engineers without any foreign assistance. That is precisely what EXA, the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency, and the Ecuadorian government wanted, and that is also the way it needed to be done in order for the satellite to be officially referred to as Made in Ecuador. In other words, they designed and developed the whole product cycle in the south american country. 

It is a nanosatellite that is classified within the Single-Unit CubeSat class. The satellite was certified to be launched into orbit on board Chinese and Russian rocket propelled vehicles. On April 26, 2013 Pegaso was launched on a Chinese rocket from Pad 2 of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.

In a televised interview with CNN, Ecuador's president Rafael Correa indicated that the cost of the project is around one million US dollars, which represents a substantially low cost approach in terms of budgeting for this kind of projects.

The leader of this project is Commander Ronnie Nader who is

The new Myspace

The efforts made by this social network are substantial, and by launching the new.myspace.com web site version the company seems to be sincerely trying to get in touch with users' needs. Hopefully this strategy will do the job for them; otherwise, the chances of being successful at yet another future version will most likely prove futile if they want to come even close to competing with a giant like Facebook. It is also important to mention that the new Myspace gets high marks in areas such as usability, interactivity, audio visual player experience, user interface and image. 

The new version, compared to the classic one, provides the user with a somewhat limited license to operate the profile of choice which can be retrieved from the classic myspace version, or the user can create a new profile. If the choice is the latter, and creating such a new profile is more appealing, then new terms must be accepted, which will make some authors of original copyrighted music, or any other kind of content, a lot more relaxed.

The not-so-great aspects about the new version could have more to do with the new terms and conditions for users and content creators, and although there might be some understood things in those terms, in this space, on the other hand, I decided to 

Global Mobile Awards at MWC 2013

This year's Global Mobile Awards brought us some surprises. The following list shows the winners. Click on www.globalmobileawards.com/nominees-2013/ for further details.

• Best Mobile Health Product or Service: MIPsoft for BlindSquare
• Best Mobile Education or Learning Product or Service: Mobilink for SMS Based Literacy program
• Best Mobile Product or Service for Automotive: BMW i, MINI, Sixt and Vodafone Group for DriveNow Premium Car Sharing
• Best NFC /Mobile Money Product or Service: Etisalat for Flous – The Etisalat Commerce Programme
• Best Mobile Publishing Product or Service: Ver Se Innovation for NewsHunt
• Best Mobile Innovation for ‘Smart Cities’: Streetline for Parker
• Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device: Samsung Electronics for Samsung GALAXY Camera
• Best Enterprise Mobile Service: Mobilelron for Version 5 Complete Enterprise Persona
• Best Consumer Mobile Service: Comviva for Mahindra Comviva’s

Design Thinking avec BCN's L' Oreal

Designing the "BCN living at night "  ad 

collaboration and crowdsourcing by tld

Walking at night in the Barcelona Gràcia district, my friend and I direct our attention towards the petit vernisage de L' Oreal de Paris at a Carrer near Diagonal, it's impossible to miss the tuxedoed blondes and elegant brunettes showing le sens du bon goût coming in and out from the luminous lights dominating the long room where smiling people were enjoying the soft lounge party music being DJed by another blonde. A tall gentleman invites us to come in and we could not refuse. Or at least that is what we thought.



Copyright Esteban Dobronsky 2013 © All Rights Reserved

Better Google Maps back to iPhone

Having determined that the Apple maps app had done its job and had limitations, the agreement came in to officially replace it with a revamped Google Maps app version for iPhone that can be downloaded for free from Apple's app store.

The optimization includes changes that are important if you can appreciate a clean and precise map that launches with big style to be able to land on a brand that is well known for its design as well as for its value-added product range and launch program.

If at first it seemed that the main beneficiary in this deal was going to be Google, the

Mobile devices closer to the human body

Upcoming mobile designs are trending closer to the human body and could even end up inside it.


With pioneering efforts from some Ivy League Universities like MIT, Harvard or Stanford which are offering edX or free online access worldwide to some of their curricular materials to students with an internet connection, particularly on science and technology, we should see some amazing developments in the near future since the move seems to be aimed at preparing a large pool of technologists for many significant -human affecting- breakthroughs that are going to start taking place. 

At the same time, not only Google but also Microsoft and similar companies are moving rapidly towards defining what will become the next mobile trend that will replace smartphones and tablets as the ultimate device of personal choice for accessing the internet or engaging in social media and other kinds of user interaction. 

From large computers occupying entire facilities, followed by "smaller" mainframes, to 

Towards the finest Smart TV via apps

Leaving aside the otherwise relevant issue of improving TV content, in order to sell more sets, the TV manufacturing industry is imitating the smartphone evolution and is currently undergoing a process of introducing substantial app portfolio options in the form of widgets aimed at considerably improving the much clichéd viewer's experience. 

Sony, Toshiba, LG or Samsung are some of the companies willing to go the extra mile in order to increase their market share. All of them, including other manufacturers, understandably, are trying to establish the standard for the future Smart TV. 

Trying to take a leading role in that game, LG and the Smart TV Alliance initiative are offering answers to involve manufacturers, developers and solution providers by presenting them with a large selection of app options with the purpose of setting a standard for the industry.

Either emulating or not what Google TV, Apple TV and others are doing, the Smart TV Alliance is preparing version 2.0 of their Software Development Kit, which will be readily available to

Self-driving car bill gets signed in California

This is a major step towards having autonomous cars running freely around the streets.

While this achievement constitutes a major stepping stone towards the introduction of self-driven cars, as well as a major disruption in transport habits, a few concerns could arise  regarding the implications of this kind of technology.

Google is developing and testing this amazing driverless car technology and is currently in the process of proactively lobbying in favor of it. Consistent with his job as Director of Special Projects, Co-Founder Sergey Brin had the honor of co-signing the bill together with the people who are sponsoring this initiative. Regarding this event, he stated: "the self-driving car can really dramatically improve the quality of life for everyone"

In terms of autonomous transportation, this idea is not new since it is already being used in commercial and private means such as trains and planes. So, even though the transcendence is huge for something like this to actually become a reality, because of the imminent disruption over  

Amazon to beat Walmart by 2020

Technology for e-commerce is geared to drive some big battles, like the one engaging Amazon and Wallmart for the world´s biggest retailer title.  

Not long ago people were thinking that online commerce would replace the traditional way of shopping. They also thought stores would disappear, and then got all excited about it. That has not happened yet, and it seems will not, completely, at least not in the foreseeable future. Physical stores are not going to disappear because people really enjoy taking walks to the nearest mall just as much as they like window shopping downtown, or being able to touch and feel the quality of the products they are getting. Online stores have not come up with a better alternative to that, so far. 

On the other hand, there is no substitute for efficiency, excellent customer care, logistical speed, and the comfort of being able to purchase something that is only available in far away locations, even if that means across the globe. These are aspects where Amazon started to make a huge difference years ago, and since then many others have tried following, either successfully or otherwise.

As a sign of the times we are living, Walmart has decided to develop Polaris, which is its own e-commerce search engine designed to help it compete at a large scale with online giants like Amazon or Google. The idea is to produce more relevant results for customers' queries on the

Convergence On Demand

The different kinds of integration taking place in the Tech world are more than just branding or attempts to engage in media stunts.

We are witnessing a process which has happened before and that will certainly continue as technology evolves or as people get more used to efficiency, fast access to usable data, and ubiquity. 

In early 2000's we were talking about Convergence, and by that we meant having a platform or device that would put together TV, internet and telephony services. Nowadays, not only are such capabilities already covered by our mobile phones or tablets, but today's Convergence is also looking into having the 'On Demand' label added as a nice bonus to these tree venues: TV, internet and phone. 

One example of this is Youtube's new offering with coverage of the London 2012 Olympics, currently available via streaming, totalling 3500 hours of 10 separate live channels to the United States via NBCOlympics.com, and also accessible from 64 other coutries around the world. For some people, this kind of offer means an opportunity to have a global branding moment, but the idea is to actually go beyond that.  

This Olympics initiative is combined with several others by

Google Docs can be used offline

With the new feature, and like similar office productivity software suites such as LibreOffice and Open Office, if you do not have an internet connection, it is now possible to work with your Google documents and sync them securely to a device that has the offline option enabled.


The great thing is that you can edit your documents offline, and most people will agree that it is quite convenient, not just because you can avoid getting stuck if you loose your internet connection, but also because downloading your work on a computer gives you a sense of having more control over what you do with your documented work or data.


Since this is a beta version, users can try and see if it is for them, but what is probably going to upset people while working with a document is the message at the top indicating that Docs will soon be upgraded to Google Drive, which only gives you 5 Gb of free storage, and beyond that, they will be charged a monthly fee.


Copyright Esteban Dobronsky 2012 © All Rights Reserved

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Rough start for Facebook IPO

It has been called one of the biggest stock market launches in history, and at first, some investors were concerned that the stock might have been overpriced, but others were more trusting and bought it anyway.


This is certainly not the bright beginning expected for an IPO of this kind and even more considering the significance the company has had within the Tech industry; however, when LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) launched, the response from the markets was quite similar in the first few weeks.


On May 31, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) stock went down to $26.83 at noon, but then it started to scale up again to finally close at $29.60, leaving some people surprised at the considerable number and level of fluctuations happening in one single day.

Copyright Esteban Dobronsky 2012 © All Rights Reserved


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IBM acquires Vivísimo

In 2004 while taking a seminar on search engines, which was part of my graduate studies, I learned about Vivísimo through Dr. Jaime Carbonell from Carnegie Mellon University. The things he said regarding its capabilities would let anyone believe that Vivísimo was actually better than Google.

Someone must have been paying attention to Vivísimo's evolution, and consequently, IBM has decided to purchase the enterprise search software company. With this acquisition IBM will boost big data analytics since the "software helps organizations access and analyse big data across the enterprise." According to Big Blue, the software excels in capturing and delivering quality information across the broadest range of data, no matter what format it is, or where it resides.

Back in 04, it seemed hard to believe that anything would come even close to 

Better integration between Google + and Youtube

In an even bolder move by the search giant and within the context of social media, since march 30, 2012, Google + profiles that appear on Youtube channels, will allow your Youtube channel to show on on your Google + profile.


So, now it is going to be easier to do video marketing and many more things on Google related social networks. Among others, it will allow users to upload their videos once, as opposed to several times. Handled correctly,