The world’s largest lighter than air ship, 240 ft long zeppelin, is now taking tourists over Silicon Valley. The company taking the challenge to bring back zeppelins in the US, is Airship Ventures, founded by Alexandra and Brian Hall.

The airship carries the name Eureka. She was baptised at Moffett Airfield, Mountain View, this morning to honor the 75th year since its predecessor Macon crashed into Pacific. After that, blimps were stationed in Moffett field but no zeppelin.
There are only three zeppelins in the world, one in Germany and another in Japan. Eureka was constructed in Germany. She was flown from Germany to Holland, London, then crossed the Atlantic in a ship and flew from Texas to Mountain View. – More photos.

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There is a cellphone in every kid’s pocket these days and it has the capability for multiple purposes. Schools in northern Finland are testing a NFC based system to see how it would serve the teenager, school, family and friends. MSG Software has developed the system and has been in Silicon Valley this week looking for business opportunities and presenting it among others to the city of San Jose .

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Normally this time of year we prepare for Black Friday queues to find bargains for Christmas presents. Shops have traditionally dropped the prices for the day after Thanksgiving to kick off holiday shopping season. I’ve been there only once, at six o’clock in the morning to enter Best Buy store at 7:30 just to be informed that all the bargains had gone. The store was so full of (irritated and pushy) customers that I decided to retreat and spend my Christmas with what I already had in electronics.
This year I won’t even bother to run after bargains. They almost come to me and I’ll be looking for  netbooks during normal opening hours with the sun up and no big crowds around me.
One cool choice is to pick up a small-sized light but rugged netbook to give to kids or take to car and airplane. With that purchase one can think about kids in developing countries and buy 1 get 1 free from One Laptop Per Child program. It would make one kid (and probably his/her hamily and friends) happy.
Silicon Valley struggles between hope and despair. But everybody is working hard and that is how the dot.com bubble was repaired. As the big companies have quite a lot of cash in their vaults, some smaller companies may now find a nice exit. To keep up with the labor situation, you can check future layoffs at San Francisco Chronicle website.

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Now we have found the explanation to daylight savings time puzzle. It came out of nowhere when it was close to 5 pm and we needed to switch on the lights. This is a building which enjoy sunlight during the day = it has windows.
We are told that we are saving daylight in summer. That is not true. It is now that we are saving daylight. When we want to SAVE daylight, we try to avoid using it too much. Instead, we use artificial lighting. And when we have moved clocks backwards, we are able to switch the lights on earlier! And we successfully save sunlight energy.

Now you might notice this kind of wisdom only can come from very north, from around the polar circle, where the people are born and live in almost total darkness. Only in wintertime, of course!

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Dow Jones index is not all the world, says Silicon Valley hi-tech guru, ex-Apple executive, entrepreneur, angel investor, the guy who has done and seen it all. We agree with him, no more crying but action! Kawasaki is sharing his provocative insights and common sense practices for succeeding during the Commonwealth Club event Nov 17 in Santa Clara.
Silicon Valley (and beyond) venture capitalists get together in Half Moon Bay on Dec 2-3 under the umbrella of AlwaysOn Network. We might be able to attend this online, without taking the very winding road to the seaside town.

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And if you don’t know what is Oulu, maybe it’s time to google it. Icemen cometh and Tomorrow’s Wireless World (hopefully) expands. Craig Barrett is also coming. This cooperation between two (mobile) technology centers might bear beaux fruits in the future.

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Half of engineering students are now foreigners, who don’t get automatically a work permit in the US. Many go reluctantly, others happily back home. But they might be needed here as the new president-elect Barack Obama would like this country to double basic research, and might be willing to keep the door open for those students giving them permanent residence. He might also raise the cap of 80 000 H1B-visas. Something the high-tech companies go to pray for to Washington every year.
All the immigration, legal and illegal will be on the agenda of the new president, sooner rather than later.

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I almost lost hope this country would prove to be worth all the cliches, like the land of promise or the place where everything good is possible. Now we have at least hope.

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Rimes nicely but this is not for fun or joke but for real. The fuel cell technology which has been developed during several decades is finally producing electricity in large installations, like Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Manhattan.

Geothermal energy is another often overlooked source of renewal energy with its pros and cons on what comes to the cost of producing heat or electricity. But I guess now it is time to consider all reasonable, even small scale solutions. The world’s richest men invest now in renewables and they are closer to their money than anybody, I presume.

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Does this help to decide to whom cast the vote? Synovate has analyzed how the two candidates in this year’s US presidential election have built their personal brands. You can agree or disagree with this kind of analysis – when you choose domestic and foreign company you know which one will be chosen – but anyways Californians have been more Obama friendly so far…

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