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living
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Technology.
After a week of digital culture
Internet fair closes
||| The twelfth edition
of Campus Party, Spain’s biggest Internet fair, came to
an end on Sunday. ||| This year it attracted thousands
of visitors both from Spain and abroad, making it the
world’s biggest Internet fair. ||| This year’s edition
was opened by Tim Berners-Lee, whose credits include the
creation of the Internet as we know it.
EFE News
Service
Courtesy Photo
Valencia, Spain – The 12th edition of the Campus Party,
the big annual Inter-net, computer and high technology
fair, closed Sunday in this eastern Spanish city after
attracting some 9,000 participants, about 50 percent
more than anticipated.
Bloggers, computer upgrade experts and astronomy, robot
and videogame hobbyists flocked to the huge gathering
between July 28 and Sunday to see assorted firms and
other groups display the latest in computer technology,
online leisure activities and the digital culture.
According to fair organizers, this year's Campus Party
carved out an important presence on the World Wide Web,
on its official blog and on YouTube, the online video-posting
site, and was heavily viewed by interested Web surfers
and media viewers.
This was the most international Campus Party to date,
organizers said.
British scientist Tim Berners-Lee – one of the creators
of the World Wide Web – was the person in charge of
kicking off the fair with an event which he sponsored.
Other invited guests included French astronaut Jean-Francois
Clervoy and Tony Guntharp, the creator of Sourceforge,
the largest compiler of online software in the world.
The fair also featured workshops and competitions in
different areas, as well as demonstrations of the newest
gadgets and even robots in the portion of the event
designated Campus Futuro.
The next such event will run from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 in
El Salvador, where the 600 best computer jockeys from 22
Ibero-American countries will gather to demonstrate the
region's innovative and development potential.
“We
want to get ourselves known. The mission is to support
the industry so that technology moves forward, above all
in the field of aeronautics and space.”
About 6,000 participants had been expected at this
year's event, which intended to "focus on the content"
and confront the challenge of transforming itself into
something more than a venue where Internet material can
be downloaded at a far faster than normal rate or games
can be played online.
"What the Campus is based on has to be superseded ...
The experiences in Brazil and Colombia showed that there
the people go (to this type of event) to learn, to visit
the booths," Fernando Ortuño, one of the coordinators,
told Efe.
In addition to all the high technology booths and
assorted entertainment areas, two pavilions at the fair
were arranged so that fairgoers could pitch their
sleeping tents or place their bedding, and about 150
shower stalls were set up for the convenience of
overnighting fairgoers.
Many companies and institutions connected in one way or
another with technology took advantage of the fair to
showcase their new products, like the National Aerospace
Technology Institute, or INTA, a unit of Spain's Defense
Ministry which set up an exhibit for the first time at
the Campus.
"We want to get ourselves known. The mission is to
support the industry so that technology moves forward,
above all in the field of aeronautics and space," said
INTA official Enrique Gómez. |||
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Literature.
Based on blog posts
Book surprises Peru
EFE News
Service
Lima – A compilation of blog entries in which a young
Peruvian journalist documents his romantic misfortunes
on the streets of the Peruvian capital was the big hit
at this year's Lima international book fair.
The presentation of "Busco novia" (I'm Looking for a
Girlfriend) – the book based on the same-named,
frequently updated blog in which Renato Cisneros, a 32-year-old
journalist and poet, for the past 15 months has told of
the problems he has faced in his pursuit of love –
surpassed all expectations at the fair and became the
publishing phenomenon of the year in Peru.
The blog, located on El Comercio daily's Web page, has
been an enormous success in terms of numbers of visits,
with hundreds of readers writing in to share advice,
criticism, insults or their own stories each time the
page is updated.
In an interview with Efe, Cisneros said the idea of
publishing this "love diary" emerged when a friend of
his, the digital editor of El Comercio, suggested that
he write about "some of the ups and downs" that have
characterized his eventful love life to date.
The disconcerted, innocent, frank, ironic and skeptical
tone of Cisneros' blog caught on immediately among
readers, although the journalist said the reason for its
success is that "everyone is looking for something as
far as love and romance goes, which is a universal topic."
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Language.
One of the most spoken in N.Y.
Mayor learns Spanish
EFE News
Service
New York – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking
Spanish lessons and says he will speak the language of
Cervantes fluently a year from now, The New York Times
reported on Monday.
"I think if you say, 'Are you fluent?', not a chance.
But a year from now I'll be. I can see myself making a
lot of progress," the mayor told The Times.
Bloomberg's tutor is Luis Cardozo, a 46-year-old Colom-bian
lawyer who emigrated to New York in 1999, who throughout
the lesson asks his student questions like "How was your
trip to Washington?" and corrects his verb conjugations
and sentence structure.
Guerra Mundial Primera, the mayor says, according to the
newspaper, which noted that the instructor quickly
corrects him: Primera Guerra Mundial (World War I).
"I correct his mistakes, not his ideas," the tutor told
The Times. |||
Some 2.2 million people, or 27 percent of New York's
population, are of Latin American origin and Spanish is
one of the six languages most spoken in the Big Apple,
where city agencies, on Bloomberg's orders, must provide
services to those needing them in that language. |||
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