Apply this to the ''old'' world

I wonder, what one gets mixing hacker's philosophy , global value chains, and Creative Commons licences .
Things to remind us of productive collaboration via this story about manufacturing Danish beer . The recipe of the beer is free for sharing and modification under CC .

As some bright minds of the world recently discussed about creative explosion not seen since industrial revolution.
Quote>

Just because something is created by anyone with a net connection and some sort of know-how, existing outside of formal, does not make it any less accurate or useful, say the digital thinkers of our times.

"For the first time since the industrial revolution, the most important means and components of core economies are in the hands of the population at large," explains Yale Law professor Yochai Benkler.

Yuan's slow devaluation

The news of the month is that China today ends yuan dollar peg. It's not as broad as some expected but instead very gradual move.
Having in mind political and economical consequences , this is one of the most important events for the global financial markets this year.
Will see how far chinese policy makers will go.
This quote is very telling:

"It's just a gesture. The question now is whether there will be continuing speculation that China may revalue even more," said Ben Kwong, an analyst from KGI Asia in Hong Kong.

Web 2.0 roses

These two sites were unknown to me.

Start.com - Microsoft is experimenting with ''personal web'' concept.

PixelPass.com - Allows hight valuable bloggers to recive micropayments.

Let's talk about Start.com first. Nice ajaxed web app, surprisingly agile team from Microsoft and seems they are onto something. Not completely unseen but could be powerful and nice service in the future.
Search is main component as far as I can tell. Oh, rss reading too.
I am playing only few moments and immediatly write my thoughts here.

After writing search query, Start.com scans web, news and rss places. My first query was '' Croatia''. The response is good and the results are relevant. Now I can choose to look at recent news and rss feeds only with ONE click !

Amazing, the buttons for subscribing to some rss feeds about Croatia is at hand, instantly .
Left pane of the site gives me opportunity to categorize these feeds . Woh ! I got deja vu now ! I't's exactly what I thought about croatian rss feed service ( potential ) for average internet users.

Up to the point.
I can't write any more. I discovered my legos :))

Later more on that.

P.S
When this service comes out in beta , Feedlounge will be somehow obsolet.
I think this is web based rss reader for the masses. Yes, Start.com.
They need to put social bookmarking too. MS team has a blog from the START.com ;))

Read and come

Beautiful article in today's New York Times about Croatia , its islands and tourism in general.
Great to see again such praise for my country in NY Times online edition.
Let the magic roll and words blossom ;)

Nowhere is the tourist board's touted "Magical Croatia" brand more fitting than on Hvar, where they give names to the wind but not the streets, where children are said to fly and the richest man in the world has to wait for his latte during fjaka, when the island tucks in for its afternoon siesta.

True. Must see.

Aerial images and maps

To me, as a non-american, exploring US from above ( satellite and aerial photos, not driving maps) is more useful using Microsoft's partnership Terra Servers then using Google Maps. Far better, faster, simple; just more to the point. Google can have all blog evangelism of the world ( and those APIs , community and buzz ), but I'll stick to Terra Server database when closely watching some streets :)).
It works for me just as many others. Map my words ;)
Or, shall I say, combine those ( Examples for location: Terra Servers and Google Maps ) two services.

Swik- a collaborative space

As a someone who has experience as lecturer for high school students ( law subjects ) and a long time blogger, I find truly fascinating Swik- combinations of user editing which are using concept of wikis, tags, rss and blogs to enable truly collaborative enviroment for groups who may learn with strong emphasis on searching and adding relevant content.
Swik is doing brilliant job.

OK, Swik's content is related to highly geeky themes, but similar concept could be made for any other subject and topic, or community interest.

Electricity ''pipes'' to deliver high speed net

Google has invested ( besides media titan Hearst and bankers at Goldman Sachs ) in broadband-over-powerline company. I wonder why smart money is chasing these technologies ? I heard somewhere that the biggest value of those systems lays in their ability to efficiently manage power grids. Not delivering broadband.
As CNET wrote about the deal for delivering such a service:

Under its relationship with most power companies, Current runs the service, bills the customers and collects 100 percent of the revenue. Power companies, in return for use of their grid, receive payments from Current.

Another broadband-over-powerline partnering project is located in northern Texas.

UPDATE:

IBM enters BPL deal as well. Interesting.