Crawling through my weekend reads, I found this on my RSS reader.

An innovative new idea to not only reduce carbon emissions and to promote public transportation, but also to save some money along the way.

Designer Chen Chiyu has came up with a system, called Hybrid2, that makes use of commuter’s stored kinetic energy from rented bikes to power electric buses and give transportation rebates to the bikers to encourage them to use the buses.

The core of Hybrid2 is Chen’s regenerative braking system for bikes, dubbed “Hybrake”, which allows riders to generate and store energy from braking and normal biking in an ultracapacitor. In Chen’s vision, the more energy a bicyclist generates, the more monetary credit they are given to use on public transportation.

The designer also proposes a solar-powered bike stand outfitted with an RFID card reader to lock and unlock bikes. Personal ID cards will be used to store credit gained from biking for future bus rides, and the whole thing is tied together with a hookup to transfer energy from bikes to the smart grid. Sounds like an ingenious plan for any city trying to reduce traffic congestion!

PCWorld reports that Motorola will be shutting down their online music store in India and Singapore next month. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be any apparent plans to shutdown their China operations.

Motorola plans to close its Soundbuzz music store in Singapore and its MotoMusic India service next month, according to messages posted on their respective Web sites.

“We regret to inform you that the Soundbuzz music store will be closing down in July 2009,” the message on the Soundbuzz Web site said, adding the store will shut and all user accounts will be closed on July 15. It advised users to download all of their purchased music and burn it to CD-ROM by that date.

A message on the Web site of MotoMusic India also announced plans to close the site on July 15. A similar site in Australia was closed on Feb. 1.

A Soundbuzz representative could not immediately be reached for comment.

Motorola acquired Soundbuzz in January 2008 for an undisclosed amount, hoping to make it the biggest online music store in Asia. The acquisition was meant to complement its MotoMusic service, which was only available in China at that point.

Besides Singapore, Soundbuzz had established operations in Australia and India. While the remaining Singapore and Indian music stores will soon close, the MotoMusic site in China appears to be unaffected.

Looks like the economy is so bad that brand retailers are now looking to sell their products at the lowest common denominated locations. The Pasar Malams. While this is definitely good for the consumer as we no longer need to travel so far to purchase their goods, this might actually be a bad thing for the companies. Not only is the brand value of the product going to be diminished, in order to compete with the other pasar malam store vendors, these retailers have to reduce the prices of their goods, pushing it closer to being an inferior good (in economic terms) that will be subjected to higher price sensitivity in the long run.

From Straits Times

BIG-NAME retailers Popular Holdings and John Little are stomping on new turf – night markets in the heartlands.

Several pasar malam are now hawking their merchandise – items ranging from children’s books from Popular’s distributor companies to toiletries, household items and other daily essentials from the department store giant.

These retailers began putting their goods within strolling distance of the suburban homes of their customers from about a year ago, expanding the variety of wares on sale. Many of these booths are open even in the day.

Came across this article by the YoungUpstarts which seem to point to a distinct failure by MDA to connect with their audience at the recent startup-driven event, Unconference 2009.

Shisha Smoking is subjected to NEA’s smoking regulation, at least that’s what ChannelNewsAsia reports.

According to the article, Shisha operators can only allocate up to 20% of their outdoor space as smoking zone for their customers and that anyone caught flouting the rules, will be fined $200 (operators and customers included).

By enforcing the regulation to businesses whose trade depends on people smoking, isn’t it akin to attempting to kill off this particular industry? How will Shisha chains operate now when only 20% of their retail space can be used for their business. What are they going to do with their other 80%?

Are there any Shisha operators out there whom would like to comment on this? How are you going to be affected by this, and what are you going to do to continue your business despite the obstacles put in front of you.

Shisha, also known as Hookah in other parts of the world, is a single or multi-stemmed (often glass-bottomed) water pipe for smoking herbal fruits, or tobacco. It is extremely popular in Middle-eastern countries.

After the recent failed attempt by IBM to takeover Sun Microsystems, Oracle managed to snag the company for a cool $7.4bn or $9.50/share (at 42% premium).

What does this mean for both companies? In a FAQ released by Oracle, it looks like there will be no drastic change in their software suites.

Hardware Business
Oracle will continue to support and grow Sun’s existing hardware business as well as continue to support existing clients and their investments in Sun’s products.

On Linux
Oracle will continue to support its Linux partnerships despite the acquisition of Sun’s Solaris platform.

On MySQL
MySQL will be added into Oracle’s suites of databases. No word so far on what’s going to happen to the management team and whether development on MySQL will be affected.

On Sun
The FAQ mentioned specifically that Sun will remain as a separate business until the acquisition transaction has been completed and that:

• Sun customers should continue to contact Sun for their professional services and support needs.
• There is no expected impact on existing project and service engagements that existing Sun customers have with the company.

Oracle plans to continue Sun’s education program after acquisition and will provide dedicated personnel from key functional areas to assist in the integration between the two companies.

Here are some snipplets from their official press release:

On Java
There are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry’s best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software. Oracle can now ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

On Potential Future Earnings
“We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,” said Oracle President Safra Catz.

Some additional news stories:
With IBM out, Oracle to buy Sun for $7.4B – Triangle Business Journal
Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems – New York Times

Oracle Releases:
Audio Replay of their conference call with investors

Is Facebook right to not listen to its employees?

Since Facebook’s redesign of its layout, users and employees of the company have been up on arms to protest the new design. Rightfully so. After all, do you really want to know how ‘Hokkien’ your primary school classmate from 4B, who always seem to win you at ‘rubbers’, really is? Or how many kids your ex girlfriend will have (probably without you)?

Facebook appears to be trying too hard to replicate Twitter, with its modified newsfeed that broadcasts everything that your friends are doing, but in the first place, why should they?

Facebook acts like a giant phonebook that keeps you updated about your friends’ lives in a macro ‘big picture’ level while Twitter works on the micro-level, capturing your friends’ daily thoughts. By trying to minimic Twitter and letting users know the most mundane of activities, Facebook seem to have taken the wrong turn and if it doesn’t find its way back, it might never be able to come home.

To compound on that are rumours that 24-year old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in an memo to employees in response to the latest furore over the redesign, that “the most disruptive companies don’t listen to their customer”. This is the kind of stuff that gives nightmares to PR staffs. To users, its like being given a backhand slap to the face. Why would Zuckerberg say such a thing to the very people that collectively made him a billionaire?

I just don’t see how this redesign is ‘disruptive’. If anything, its like Facebook has become a spoiled kid doing everything it can to become the center of attraction again.

What do you guys think? Is Facebook doing the right thing by insisting that its right, despite what 338,848 people think?

Asia One

Just caught this over my twitter feed. Did you know that by paying for goods over the MRT gantry, you will be liable for a $2000 fine? Now this is something new.

The New Paper found out that under SMRT regulations, it is an offence to conduct a business transaction over a fare gate.

On 18 Jan this year, the 43-year-old was waiting for a friend at the Tampines MRT station when he saw a middle-aged man pass some pastries over the fare gate to some people on the other side.

‘The man was carrying a basket with some Chinese New Year pastries inside,’ Mr Gan told to The New Paper.

‘Some people were buying the pastries from him, and they had planned to meet there.’

Mr Gan said the man was inside the paid area of the MRT station, while the buyers were on the other side.

He saw the man hand over a box of pastries to a buyer who then paid him.

At this point, two SMRT employees approached the man. Mr Gan said he overheard them telling the man that he was not allowed to sell items over the fare gate.

So the man tapped his ez-link card and went out into the station’s unpaid area.

There, he continued his dealing with his buyers.

Again, another two SMRT employees approached him, Mr Gan claimed.

‘They looked like they were going to chase him away, so he quickly finished what he was doing and went back into the (paid area of the) MRT station.’

Curious, Mr Gan approached the man to find out more. The man told him he had done transactions over the fare gate before, but that was the first time he had been warned by SMRT staff.

When contacted, an SMRT spokesman confirmed it is indeed against their regulations to conduct business transactions over the fare gate.

The spokesman said the maximum penalty for such an offence is a $2,000 fine.

As someone who occasionally sells used items over forums, this is a very common scene in the local online 2nd hand market. Usually, when meeting a buyer, we don’t travel out just to meet them at the station and then head on home. We usually arrange our meeting timing such that we can just pass the goods over the gantry to the buyer at a MRT stop that is along the way of our destination. That way we don’t have to get out of the gantry, and then walk in again, 30 seconds later.

I’m quite curious though to find out how SMRT plans to enforce this rule and if their own staffs are aware of this rule. If this wasn’t even reported in the news, would you had known about it?

Here’s a question for you, would you still continue to make this kind of transaction, or would you get out of the gantry and pay an extra $0.70 to re-enter?

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Crisisofcredit

Are you still unsure about the current credit crisis and how did it come about? Johnathan Jarvis has created a nicely animated visual explaination of the crisis as part of his thesis work in Media Design.

Even if you’re not interested in the cause behind the current economic crisis, it still makes an entertaining visual feast for the eyes.

Looks like the economy is going nowhere now. Embattled bank, American Insurance Group (AIG) yesterday posted a $62 billion quarterly loss, just after receiving a $30 billion bailout from the U.S Treasury ontop of its $150 billion it has already received.

This pushed the Dow Jones to fall below its 12-year low of 7000 points and KBW financial sector index to fall by 5.4%. The bleak news couldn’t come at a worst time as even legendary Omaha investor, Warren Buffet’s highly conservative Berkshire Hathaway posted a 98% decrease in fourth-quarter net income to $117 million and a 9.6% drop in Book value per share.

The continuous stream of bad news begs the question, “So how far will the rabbit hole go?”