Ramzi blog

See what iPhone users are listening to with SongStumblr

When you walk into a cafe and note the numerous iPhone-toting denizens with telltale white earbuds firmly embedded in their ears, do you wonder what they're listening to? If so, 's new music discovery and sharing app for iOS, , could help you find out. Recently updated to 2.0, SongStumblr uses your iPhone's 3G and Bluetooth abilities to let you see what others are listening to around the world as well as around the block.

You begin using SongStumblr by setting up a user profile with basic information about yourself and your location. When you play music either through SongStumblr's built-in player, or with the regular iPhone player with SongStumblr running in the background, your selection is added to your user profile for others to see.

When you feel like discovering new music, you can choose to do so with SongStumblr's global mode, which gives you random music selections from users around the world, or local mode, which uses your device's Bluetooth capabilities to share and receive song information from users within a 70 foot radius of you.

In Global mode, SongStumblr displays a list of ten songs from random users around the globe. The list is refreshed every minute, and each listing includes the name and artist of a song, as well as the username of the person playing the song and a flag representing the country the user is from.

Nearby mode works similarly, but instead of displaying songs from users around the world, you'll see any songs that are being played by users running SongStumblr within range of your iPhone's Bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth sharing occurs automatically and doesn't require pairing your iPhone with the other user's.

From within the app, you can listen to clips of discovered songs, find more information about the songs through Google, Wikipedia, Bing, or Twitter searches, or purchase the song in-app through iTunes. You can also save information about a song, including the date and location of where the song was being played, and the person^aEURTMs username.

SongStumblr is a free app and runs on iOS 4.0 or later.

Mining and oil boom propel investment in Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia – Security gains and capitalist-friendly investment rules are spurring an unprecedented mining and oil boom in Colombia, a pro-business outpost on an increasingly leftist continent.

Investors are deeming Colombia well worth the risk though many parts of the country where reserves are being exploited continue to be plagued by illegal armed groups. Even a car-bombing Thursday in the country's capital just a week into the new administration "won't be a problem for foreign investment," analyst Roberto Melzi of Barclays Capital said.

South America's third-largest oil producer behind Brazil and Venezuela, Colombia is on track to generate more than 1 million barrels of crude a day by 2012 — double its production in 2006 — the government says. State-owned Ecopetrol accounts for nearly 90 percent of today's production.

A full 80 percent of the $7.2 billion in direct foreign investment the country reaped last year went to petroleum and mining — with investment in the latter sector nearly doubling to $3.1 billion.

"Companies are looking for the next big thing — an unexplored market — and Colombia has been popping up on the radar," said analyst Patrick Esteruelas of Eurasia Group.

By contrast, neighboring Ecuador, the continent's No. 5 oil producer behind Argentina, got a total of $312 million in foreign investment in 2009.

Colombia is so bullish on the foreign investment bonanza flourishing under new President Juan Manuel Santos, a former foreign trade, defense and finance minister, that the government is forecasting a healthy jump in gross domestic product this year — 4.5 percent.

Colombia's foreign trade ministry says it expects Colombia to attract $10 billion in foreign investment this year, approaching the record $10.6 billion of 2008. The influx has so flooded Colombia with dollars that the U.S. currency has lost 12 percent of its value this year against the Colombia peso.

While Venezuela and Ecuador have alienated many energy investors by rewriting oil contracts — increasing royalties and taxes so much that many multinationals pulled out — Colombia's outgoing president, Alvaro Uribe, offered strong incentives.

"Colombia is one of the few countries in Latin America essentially that offers ironclad contractual guarantees over periods of 20 years," Esteruelas said.

During Uribe's eight years in office, which ended Aug. 7, Colombia's known oil reserves rose 22 percent to 1.9 billion barrels with production jumping 45 percent.

Colombia also has been the continent's No. 1 coal producer for 39 years running.

It is increasingly competing for mining investment with Peru and Chile, historically safer bets due not just to proven reserves of gold, copper and other minerals but also greater political stability.

Only about 5 million (19,000 square miles) of Colombia's 114 million hectares (440,000 square miles) have been explored, said Mario Ballesteros, the director of its Institute of Geology and Mining, though 40 percent of the country is legally off-limits due to natural reserves and environmentally sensitive regions.

Even before Uribe took office, investors considered the country's gold reserves especially promising. Colombia is Latin America's fifth-largest producer.

"It's only now that you're seeing the product of people's investigation coming through in the form of feasibility studies and project development," said William Tankard, an analyst with GMFS, a London-based precious metals consultancy firm.

Last year, Greystar Resources Ltd., a Canadian mining company, projected it could extract from the Angostura deposit in the northeastern state of Santander a total of 511,000 ounces of gold — worth up to $611 million at today's prices — and 2.3 million ounces of silver. In its 16 years operating in Colombia, Greystar has invested $140 million.

South African miner AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., meanwhile, has invested $159 million in Colombia since 2002 and believes it may have unearthed a monster mine, La Colosa, that could generate 800,000 ounces of gold annually, said Ivan Malaver, a company spokesman.

Both projects have run into regulatory hurdles, however, as people who live near the gold deposits object to the planned use of cyanide in open pit operations in both La Colosa and Angostura. They fear contamination of local water supplies.

"Colombia has to weigh the long term, maintaining the country's biodiversity and vast water resources, with the short term, which is the issue of mining," said Manuel Rodriguez, Colombia's first environment minister from 1994-98.

La Colosa alone would require the removal of 600,000 tons of earth daily to extract the gold fragments dispersed underneath the surface — meaning 90,000 tons of cyanide and 250,000 liters (66,000 gallons) of water per hour to distill the precious metal.

Still, it's never been a better time to be in the gold business. The precious metal's price has reached unprecedented heights, now selling for more than $1,200 an ounce.

What Colombia's investment boosters don't like to dwell on, however, are questions of security.

The country's nearly half-century-old conflict with leftist rebels still simmers and sometimes boils over, especially in rural areas where mining and energy exploration tend to occur.

Historically, Colombia's illegal armed groups have exacted "war taxes" from mining and oil producers. Those that refused were attacked.

In 2001 alone, the 480-mile Cano Limon pipeline was hit by 170 acts of sabotage blamed on rebels. The attacks were curbed beginning in 2002 under Uribe, when Colombian military units began guarding the pipeline, said Mauricio Tellez, spokesman for state-owned Ecopetrol, which operates the pipeline.

But not all the protection is by legally constituted forces.

"The recent mining boom — exploration and exploitation activities — has been accompanied by the arrival of illegal security groups," said Ariel Avila, a researcher at the Nuevo Arco Iris think tank.

Avila said he's found in field studies over the last two years that illegal armed groups linked to far-right militias and leftist rebels are providing security for oil companies in several regions, especially in the southeastern states of Meta and Guaviare.

He would not name the oil companies, for his own security.

Companies operating or exploring in Meta and Guaviare include Canadian-owned Pacific Rubiales, Exxon Mobil Corp., Brazilian-owned Petrobras, and Petrominerales — a Colombian affiliate of Canadian-owned Petrobank.

"Part of the reason why Colombia, unlike many of its neighbors, was forced to provide so many tax incentives and regulatory sweeteners was precisely because they had to deal with that legacy of insecurity," Esteruelas said.

Those incentives helped persuade Pacific Rubiales to begin investing in Colombia in 2004, said the company's vice president, Jose Francisco Arata.

Colombia's second-largest oil company after Ecopetrol, Pacific Rubiales moved into formerly rebel-held areas of Meta and its production is now up to 125,000 barrels a day.

Over the next year, the company plans to invest $235 million in further exploration in the eastern plains, as well as in the lowlands of the southern state of Putumayo — both areas of continued rebel activity.

"In areas that are considered a high risk, like in the border regions with Venezuela and Ecuador, military forces will accompany oil operators," said Armando Zamora, regulator for the National Agency of Hydrocarbons.

Just last year, he said, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, burned some trucks and tried intimidating workers during an oil operation in the southern state of Putumayo, which borders Ecuador. He wouldn't detail the incident.

To Rodriguez, the former environmental minister, the intimidation, violence and extortion are simply the price of doing business in Colombia.

After all, he said, major coal operations began in Colombia during the peak of its conflict.

"Historically, the country's violence hasn't been the biggest difficulty for outside companies," Avila said. "The biggest difficulty was that they didn't know the region. And now that they've done preliminary studies and know, they're investing more."

Sloan Wages Quixotic Campaign Against Norton

Doug Sloan wants the microphone.

The crowd gathered at Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington, D.C., is hundreds deep, and the day's event, a rally celebrating the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, presents a huge opportunity.

Cable news channels have trained their cameras on the stage. The Rev. Al Sharpton, the rally's organizer, is mugging for pictures with fans.

For Sloan, who is running against D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton in the Democratic primary, getting even a few seconds in front of that microphone is crucial.

His campaign manager is pleading with the two impossibly chic women who control the lineup of speakers. For a while, it looks like Sloan might at least get a brief introduction, maybe a chance to wave to the crowd. He climbs a few steps up on the metal riser to the stage, patiently waiting for his moment.

And then he waits. And waits. He dabs at the sweat beading on his forehead on this 90-plus degree day and waits a little more. He edges up to the rear of the stage.

Speakers come and go, including Norton, who gets modest cheers from the crowd when she mentions her civil rights background and her quest for D.C. statehood. And soon Sloan realizes that he isn't getting that moment. He gathers his small group of volunteer staffers and tells them that it's time to move on to the next campaign event.

Such is the plight of the underdog candidate running for a Congressional seat that doesn't even come with voting privileges. To call Sloan a dark horse would be an understatement: His opponent, Norton, has held the seat for 20 years. In the past 14 years, she's never gotten less than 90 percent of the vote, a practically unheard-of majority.

In this cycle, she's raised more than $250,000 to his $21,000, most of which came from his own pocket.

The anti-incumbency mood swirling around districts across the country doesn't seem to have reached D.C.'s streets. Still, Sloan keeps trying. In fact, he wears the fact that he's only the second candidate ever to challenge Norton in a Democratic primary as a badge of courage.

"I meet people on the street, and they say, 'Oh, I love Eleanor. She's doing a great job.' And I'll ask them what she's done, and I'll get blank stares," he says. "The truth is that this seat is being underutilized."

Sloan is running on a campaign of contrasts. Norton, he says, has been too timid in seeking statehood for Washington, content to point to close calls on getting legislation passed. "'Almost' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," he says, echoing a line that has become a stock phrase at campaign events.

Sloan is selling a young and energetic persona. His wife, CNBC producer Karen James, often accompanies him to events pushing a campaign-sticker-encrusted stroller in which the couple's 8-month-old son, Jebasei, gurgles contentedly. Sloan is quick to shake hands and ask point-blank for a vote.

Sloan might be young, but he's not a newbie in Washington politics. His father is longtime Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner and statehood activist Ned Sloan. After living in his parents' basement and finishing graduate school at American University, Doug Sloan moved across Ward 4, bought a home of his own and became an ANC himself.

He took stints in local politics, including as a staffer for several city councilmembers and as outreach coordinator in the city's Office of Community Affairs under former Mayor Anthony Williams. He left city hall to open Sloan Consulting, a public affairs shop whose clients have included Safeway and CVS.

And although he's well behind Norton in the money and name recognition, Sloan has impressed some observers. He got good reviews for h performances debating Norton on two popular local radio shows.

WTOP political analyst Mark Plotkin, who moderated one such debate, says Sloan has exceeded expectations. "He's run a really credible campaign," Plotkin says.

Norton, for her part, takes a politely dismissive tone when talking about her opponent. "I don't really know him," she says. Referring to Sloan's unsuccessful run in 2007 for D.C. Council, she becomes even icier. "He came in, what, 13th out of 18 candidates? I was puzzled why he thought this was the next logical step."

And on the campaign trail, Sloan can't seem to step out of Norton's towering shadow.

After leaving the MLK rally at Dunbar High School, he hops into his car and heads across the river to a much smaller event, a community fair held by a local chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The gathering bears all the hallmarks of a small-town jamboree: There's face painting and hula-hooping for kids, lemonade and hot dogs and a popcorn machine.

Here, Sloan does get the microphone to make brief remarks, sandwiched between a teenage rap act and a step show. "My mother was a Delta!" he tells the curious onlookers who've paused mid-bite to listen to what the guy in the dress shirt and slacks has to say. A lone unicyclist rolls by.

There are a few claps.

But as Sloan leaves the event, heading for yet another chance to shake hands and meet voters, Norton has arrived and taken the microphone herself. A large crowd has gathered.

They are applauding wildly.

Taiwan's HTC: iPhone's `quiet' challenger

BEIJING – East Asia is the world's electronics factory, yet unless they are Japanese, producers are largely anonymous. Now HTC Corp., a Taiwanese maker of smart phones, is moving out of the shadows and trying to establish its own brand name as it competes with Apple's iPhone.

HTC supplies U.S. carriers Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile but says a year ago only one in 10 Americans knew its name. With the help of marketing by cellular carriers and HTC's own television ads during the baseball World Series, HTC says that number is up to 40 percent.

"We want to be one of the leaders," said John Wang, the 13-year-old company's chief marketing officer.

In trying to establish a global brand, HTC is following in the footsteps of another Taiwanese company, Acer Inc., which is battling Dell Inc. for the title of second-largest personal computer maker. Other rising Taiwanese technology names include software producer Trend Micro Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc., a maker of PCs and cell phones.

HTC's path to its own brand has been complicated by U.S. carriers' preference for many years to market its phones under their own brands.

That started to change in 2007, and the "HTC" brand started showing up on phones, as carriers figured that the company had some cachet among early adopters that they could capitalize on. HTC phones on the U.S. market include the Droid Incredible, sold by Verizon Wireless, the HD2, sold by T-Mobile USA, and the Hero, sold by Sprint Nextel Corp.

Even now, HTC is careful to avoid straining ties with carriers by promoting its own identity too aggressively. Such ties are crucial in the United States, Japan and other markets where carriers usually pick which phones to offer. In Europe and elsewhere, customers pick their own phones and buy service separately.

"I don't think it should ever become a 'destination phone,' because that is very arrogant," Wang said.

The company's slogan, "Quietly Brilliant," expresses both modesty and pride.

Apple, of course, is anything but quiet, and HTC sets itself apart from the U.S.-based giant in other ways, too.

In contrast to lookalike iPhones, HTC tries to make handsets for every taste, some with slide-out keyboards, others with touch screens. While Apple has its own online store, HTC focuses on phones while carriers pick which music and applications to offer.

"This is positioning the vendor almost diametrically against the increasing perception of Apple as an egotistical and domineering company," Seth Wallis-Jones, an analyst for IHS Global Insight, said in an e-mail.

"This is a contrast to a company that wants to do one phone only and say, `This is the one and you are going to love it and if you don't, there is something wrong with you,'" Wang said.

In the U.S., HTC made a splash this summer by producing the first phone, the EVO 4G, that's able to use a fourth-generation wireless data network. It's sold by Sprint. HTC also manufactured Google Inc.'s first phone, the Nexus One.

"These really put the brand into the spotlight in the United States," said Wallis-Jones.

Still, Apple has a daunting sales lead and HTC also faces competition from South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., Nokia Corp. and other rivals.

HTC was just behind Apple in the final quarter of 2008, selling 3.7 million phones to its American rival's 4.4 million, according to Wallis-Jones. A year and a half later, Apple has pulled ahead, selling 8.4 million in the second quarter of this year, while HTC sold 5.4 million.

But HTC is seeing its sales jump. It expects to ship 6.5 million phones in the current quarter, more than twice the number it shipped in the same period last year.

HTC cut its teeth on smart phones that used Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile software. But when Google released its Android smart phone software in 2008, HTC was the first manufacturer on board, and that's paid off. Every U.S. carrier except AT&T, the home of the iPhone, is pushing Android phones as the alternative to the iPhone.

HTC is pitted against Apple in the legal arena as well. Apple sued HTC in March in the U.S., accusing it of violating 20 iPhone patents. In May, HTC filed a countersuit accusing Apple of violating five patents.

Among consumers, HTC needs to create a distinctive identity as more than a manufacturer, said Joseph Pai, chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Taiwan.

"They get the technology right, but Apple is considered fun and creative and very bright," said Pai. "HTC is quite serious. Their technology is good. They keep coming out with new products. But they need to find their own personality."

HTC is working on that, trying to build a reputation for anticipating users' needs and inventing appealing solutions, Wang said. The company calls that "HTC Sense" and says it wants to create "moments of delight."

Its innovations include allowing users to group together friends' e-mail, social networking and other contacts under their names, while the iPhone requires separate contact lists for each function. HTC phones can sense when they are in a pocket or purse and ring louder. The EVO has a tiny kickstand to stand upright for video conferencing.

HTC promotes itself as a cross-border brand, with no mention of its Taiwanese roots. The company holds major product launches in London or New York, rather than Asia.

"People don't really think of Sony as Japanese any more. That's what I envision HTC to be," Wang said. "Eventually people will see HTC as a global brand, not necessarily from Taiwan or Europe or the U.S."

___

Online:Locomondo download mp3 albums