also usability designer discover nowadays that there ARE users. heard here and guess, the were surprised that someone DID ask them - whisper: the user. others don't ask users, but ask service provider for the log files.

just few quotes of the day: "actually it doesn't work, but it is fun to think about", "to tell you the truth, it doesn't make sense", "technic stands in the way".

one talk about b-logs, where the lady from stanford discoveres that they are not just for journalists and howard dean's. so they set up private blogs for research. a new and amazing shift!

a lot of useless stuff, but i have listened - to be fair - at least to one interesting paper from danah boyd about friendster.

and a paper on

error rate analyses to high key-stroke-per-character entry techniques, such as Multi-Tap.

listening to william soukoreff i have now numbers by hand why using a mobile device makes out of a human an idiot: for a simple four letters word like 'file' one needs 11 keystrokes

33344455533 ¬ keystrokes F I L E ¬ entered letters

the game is going into its next round:

The unusual appeal by the cabinet-level officers, coupled with Intel's announcement that it will not meet China's deadline, signals that the United States government sees the WAPI as just a part of a broad range of trade issues Furthermore, the Chinese wireless standard, if China prevails with it, could start a precedent of China setting exclusive standards in DVD and cellphone technology. (nyt/winer)

china's response: 'calm down' (wifi nw news)

In recognition that WAPI is not ready for prime time, the SAC also announced a grace period for implementation lasting until June 1, 2004. During the grace period, non-compliant products imported or manufactured under “valid” contracts signed before December 1, 2003, may be sold in China. In addition, SAC announced that relevant local authorities “will arrange random inspections” only after June 1 of next this year. (pulseonline)

there is a nice quote from bruce schneier on the topic

If the Chinese government wanted crappy security, they would use what's there now. (eetimes)

i really like the chinese version of the standardization administration and i can understand by the url where the links lead to, but it's a pitty, nada más. the english version doesn't tell a lot

General Administration of Quality Supervision , Inspection and Quarantine approved the following 0 national standards and publicize now. 2004-2-13

y yo no veo nada.

anyhow, looking through older standardization prozesses is interesting. whatever it means: log inspection goes back to 1958. "Industrial screens Designation and nominal sizes of apertures", 1989. what's the use of "Electric power cable paper"??

idc published an article key lessons from 3GSM world congress 2004. i haven't been in cannes, but at "european wireless" that happened to be a marketing free zone. the key sentence i heard there was simple: mobile IPv4 is a hack. well, it can't be anything else, if you take in account the history of ipv4.

idc is funny to read, anyhow. according to them idc, (integrity,accuracy, insight) once reported that

on an average day in 2000, 9.7 billion email messages were sent worldwide. By the year 2005 that number will grow to 35 billion.

i would like to know how they can come up with this number: by asking nsa? (couldn't resist)