Supermassive Blackhole Detector Ready for Business

banderasnews.com

Ben Gruber - Reuters
go to original
April 6, 2015

After five years of construction, scientists in Mexico say the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Experimentor, in the central Mexican state of Puebla, is operating at full capacity.

Puebla, Mexico - The Sierra Negra volcano in the central Mexican state of Puebla is the site of an ambitious astrophysical project which houses the largest gamma ray observatory ever built on the planet.

After 5 years of construction, scientists in Mexico say the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Experiment or HAWC, is operating at full capacity. The facility has been hunting cosmic rays in a limited fashion since 2013.
Funded by both public and private money from Mexico and the United States, HAWC hopes to trap gamma ray particles coming from space. The particles are considered the most energetic in the universe and scientists want to learn more about their cosmic origin.
The observatory is made up of 300 tanks each holding 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of pure water, as well as detectors capable of sensing and recording Chernakov radiation, a flash of light made up of charged particles produced when they impact the tanks after coming through Earth atmosphere slightly faster than the speed of light.

By measuring the angle and intensity at which these particles hit all 300 sensors over time, the scientists can figure out where the gamma rays originated. The researchers hope that at an elevation of 4,100 meters and sensors arranged over 30 square meters, HAWC will provide the best environment to detect gamma and cosmic rays.

Dr. Jordan Goodman, from the University of Maryland, explained the importance of the observatory. "We've been interested for a long time in gamma rays. They are meant to point back at space differently. Gamma ray points go straight, they're light, but they're highest energy light so they let us understand where the highest energy particles in the universe come from. So our idea is to build this observatory to give us a wide field view of the sky at the highest energy," said Dr. Goodman.

Thanks to the Earth's rotation, HAWC will be able to hunt gamma rays from two thirds of the sky within a 24-hour period. The scientists hope that by determining the origin of the gamma rays, they can learn more about great cosmic events such as supernovas and black holes that produce them.

Along with mapping the highest producers of energy in distant galaxies, HAWC will also help researchers learn more about our solar system by studying the Sun.

"HAWC looks at the whole sky overhead all the time as the earth turns, so right now we're pointing there but later as the earth turns we're going to be pointing over there. So we survey more than half of the sky all the time and this technique is unusual because somebody yesterday at the conference we had said we should look at gamma rays from the sun, very high energy, no one who does not have a telescope can look at the sun but we can look at the sun because we don't use daylight, we use the gamma rays," Doctor Goodman added.

The observatory is also home to the Large Millimetre Telescope (LMT) - the world's largest single-dish steerable millimeter-wavelength telescope.

Sierra Negra, an extinct volcano to the east of the city of Puebla in central Mexico, was chosen because of its height and mild climate. While oblivious to light pollution, millimeter telescopes work best at altitudes where the level of water vapor in the air is low.

The observatory will work for 10 years, a time frame agreed with the environmental authorities at the Peak of Orizaba. Afterwards the observatory will be dismantled at the natural reserve.

Original article

Mexico Government Seeks Statements of Interest in Planned National Mobile Network

laht.com

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s government has published a formal request for expressions of interest, or EOIs, from companies or consortiums interested in taking part in designing, financing, deploying, operating and marketing a wholesale shared mobile telecommunications network.

“This document constitutes the first step” in a project to install a shared network that will boost the population’s access to broadband service and cellular telephony, the Communications and Transportation Secretariat said in a statement Wednesday.

The project, which is aimed at providing an alternative to the network managed by dominant operator America Movil and boosting the competitiveness of rivals such as Spain’s Telefonica and AT&T unit Iusacell, is expected to require an investment outlay of roughly $10 billion.

Potential participants have until April 22 to submit their EOIs, which will be used in preparing the terms of an eventual international public bidding process.

In their EOIs, companies can make suggestions to the secretariat, provide information on lessons learned in similar projects, and convey their ideas regarding potential obstacles and possible solutions.

Mexico’s 2013 telecommunications overhaul establishes that the government, in coordination with the IFT regulator, must guarantee the installation of a public shared mobile network that promotes effective access to broadband communication and telecommunications services.

That network is to be deployed by a company or consortium that will be responsible for its design, financing, rollout, operation and marketing.

The overhaul allows up to 100 percent foreign investment in the shared network, and therefore the EOIs will also be a chance to evaluate the possible participation of domestic and foreign private companies and consortiums in the project.

The DIY Cell Phone Revolution in Mexico

magazine.good.is
by Dana Driskill     
   

San Juan Yaee, Oaxaca is a small town of 500 people in Mexico that, until very recently, did not have access to their own cell phone network, according to a recent article in Wired. Rhizomatica, a telecommunications non-profit based in Oaxaca, is looking to change that by installing a cell phone tower and a network. Yaee will be one of hopefully six more networks installed throughout Oaxaca by the end of the year.

Yaee and other communities pay 120,000 pesos ($8,000 dollars) upfront for the equipment and installation, about one-sixth of what Mexican commercial provider Movistar charges for a similar rural installation. Seventy five percent of the payment covers the cost of hardware, and the remaining portion is for Rhizomatica’s time and expenses. After installation, subscribers to the community network will pay 30 pesos (about $2) per month for local calls and texts. After paying for electricity and maintenance, the leftover profit is for the town.

While many of Yaee’s residents already own cell phones, prior to Rhizomatica’s installation of a tower people were primarily using them as cameras and mp3s. If they wanted to make a call or text, they would either have to drive several hours to the nearest city, or go to the top of a hill and hope to catch a signal from a far away base tower.

The lack of coverage in Yaee and many other towns is not an oversight by major telecom companies; instead, they are being strategically ignored. Cell phones have proven their worth as a great democratizing tool for developing countries, but they are not very useful on their own. The device’s utility lies in the network and that network is provided by a company that wants to make a profit. If there aren’t enough people in a particularly area to pay for network subscriptions, cellular providers simply won’t install their infrastructure there.

According to the International Telecommunication Union, only 55 percent of Mexicans were using cell phones in 2011, due to limited access and high prices, but Mexico is not the only country that struggles to provide rural cell phone access to its citizens. The Global System for Mobile Communications reports that 1.6 billion people in rural parts of developing countries don’t have access to mobile networks. Peter Bloom and his collaborators at Rhizomatica believe that in order to make the benefits of cell phones available to the people who need them most, it’s not enough to democratize the hardware and make the phones themselves cheap. The infrastructure, the network itself, needs to be reformed.

Until then though, Rhizomatica and the rural communities that benefit will stick to the do-it-yourself method.

The Codex Mendoza is a 1542 illustrated report ordered by Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza that details sources of riches, Aztec expansion and territorial tributes, and chronicles daily life and social dynamics.
The new interactive codex lets users page through the virtual document, mouse-over the old Spanish text for translations into English or modern Spanish, click on images for richer explanations and explore maps of the area.
Presented by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, the digital codex is available free both on the Internet and through Apple's App Store as a 1.02-gigabyte app.
"Never before had these tools been used to amplify understanding of a document of these characteristics," said Ernesto Miranda, the institute's director of academic innovation.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-01-aztec-app-historic-mexico-codex.html#jCp

Former Mexican President, Vicente Fox, Pushes Mexico To Become Technology Hub

forbes.com
Peter High

Recently, I was thrilled to be invited to meet with former Mexican President Vicente Fox at his presidential library, the first for a Mexican president.  Among the many opportunities he has pursued is to develop a Charlie Rose-style interview program.  I was a guest on his show, and he agreed to return the favor.

Fox’s story is an extraordinary one.  He rose from delivery route supervisor to President of Coca-Cola KO -1.12% Mexico. He was elected as Governor of Guanajuato after first serving in the federal Chamber of Deputies. As he explained in my interview, he did not grow up dreaming of being President of Mexico.  Rather, he got involved because he had grown so frustrated with corruption.  He won an improbable victory  on his 58th birthday, July 2, 2000. In this interview, we spoke about his major accomplishments as president, the importance of thinking strategically, the transformative power of technology, as well as a variety of other topics.

(To hear an unabridged podcast version of this interview, please visit this link. This is the tenth interview in the IT Influencers series.  To read past interviews in the series with Sal Khan, David Pogue, Walt Mossberg, Jim Goodnight, Sir James Dyson, and Sebastian Thrun (among others), please visit this link. To read future interviews in the series, please click the “Follow” link above.)

Peter High: As we sit here in Centro Fox, the first presidential library in Mexico and a center for education and exploration, I thought we would begin with the objectives of Centro Fox.

Vicente Fox: Our vision is that leaders, persons with a name and a face, are who change and build the world that we live in much more than institutions. So if we believe in leadership and that it can change the fate of Latin America, this can be changed.

We are a Latin American center that is geared around ideas, leadership, and strategies. We do it through, number one, young kids. The middle-upper class and the rest have access to the best universities. But the broader constituency does not receive any messages or aspirations of happiness in life at home. What they get, it seems, is the message to be poor all of their lives or be migrants and move all around the world. That is the core of what we do, academically, as a think thank, and as a social institution committed to the poor. We tackle the issues of education, poverty, health, and housing, which are the main four ingredients that people need to have a better life.

We have a program, for instance, called President for the Day where we bring up to 500 kids a day, 60,000 a year, to give them that message to try and change their minds. We wish we could have a “next experience,” but for the moment it is enough; they go back home saying, “I can be President” or “I can be an architect”. We also do some think tank in relation to public policies that we take to government. Thirdly, we are also concentrated on gender equity, which in Mexico as well as Latin America is a weakness.  It is a passion, so every single one of our programs has an emphasis on women and gender equity.

High: Walking the grounds here, and speaking with you I have been impressed by the role that technology plays. Can you talk a bit about your big vision to make Mexico a hub for technology?
Fox: We ran across a corporation that was in the process of expanding to Latin America and Europe. I had the fortune to speak with the CEO and convince him that he should have a second headquarters – one is in India where they have 14,000 IT people working for them – here, in Mexico in Centro Fox. The plan here is 10,000 jobs, they are celebrating 900 that have been contracted in the last 18 months. We have a very clear agreement here; we are not partners of the corporation. We have an agreement that if I help them, personally, to get into the market and partner with large Latin American corporations, the company will donate a percentage of every dollar income to Centro Fox.

Now that we have gotten into it we are starting to spread the message, working with communities around here, and with the CEO in trying to develop seminars and a master’s program that has a relationship to the company. At the very end we want this place to be the cluster of information technology for the country, including the United States because this service can be provided at much lower cost. Mexico has a very strong competitive advantage as opposed to India, in that it can be speaking at the same time as customers of the United States much faster. I think this project has a very bright future.

Former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox

High: You won a historically significant presidential election and defeated, for the first time in 71 years, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) against incredibly long odds. Can you talk a bit about how you used your marketing experience, as a former Coca-Cola executive, in your Presidential campaign?

Fox: First of all, it was not in my plans to move from private sector to public sector, but I was up to my neck with Mexico’s authoritarian government, lack of transparency and accountability, and corruption controlling the economy. That’s the story all throughout Latin America; the 20^th century was lost because we were in the hands of dictators. We didn’t grow as citizens—we stayed childish.  I wish we could have spread, all throughout Latin America, the profound philosophy of the United States: you go as far as your own work and you build your own future, you just have to grab the opportunities.

 

When I came there, being a private sector executive, I had a plan to use all of those techniques that had brought great results in the private sector. For instance, I hired my Cabinet through headhunters. That is unique, that has never happened in the world. So every single guy who joined my cabinet went through two headhunters. I was criticized, but I think it was a great idea and worked quite well.

In the campaign for state government and the presidency I used a lot of marketing. Doing Coca Cola, fifteen years, that is what you learn. And it worked. Of course, it was in the surface of each Mexican to decide for the change. I just had to scratch a little bit, and people would join me and would be glad to contribute to the change. Through marketing we got there. Also with government plans and strategies, I thought it was very important that we shared and communicated plans with our citizens, which had never happened in the past. I thought it was important that everyone knew where we headed to and what we were doing every day.

High: One of the things that striking to me in reading the Revolution of Hope, your book, was the importance of planning and setting goals. Can you talk a bit about the importance of setting big goals and building that path towards reaching them?

Fox: Two concepts here. One is the business concept of planning, which is so crucial and important. That can be simplified by saying, “this is where I am, and that is where I want to go,” so you have to build a bridge to get to that place.  That is a very basic concept I relate to government. I know all governments have a five-year or ten-year plan that they present, but it is nonsense.

This concept is associated in your question to one profound Jesuit philosophy that I have. That is that we are all leaders, but most of the time we don’t discover our leadership or potential.  The best way to solve that is to have heroic aspirations; the higher you can have your objectives, the more you are going to grow. Many people don’t believe that but it is absolutely true. I use the example of the 90 days in silence that Loyola invites his followers to take. First you start by resolving the questions “who am I, what am I in this life for”. Once you have that, you know where you are going and have a purpose and all of your energy, talent, and physical strength move in that direction.

The first time, when the postils that Loyola had there finished he told them “you, Javier, go to India. Pedro, you go to China,” and none of them asked questions. They just obeyed orders, followed their inner power and force, and they conquered to become successful. So that is something I deeply believe in and was my case when I joined Coca Cola starting as a route supervisor. I started working with that high aspiration. When I decided one night that I was going to move from the private sector to the public sector, I said “I am going to be President” and that is what happened. I had to work my way up, but it happened.

High: You are, in some ways, a citizen of the world as much as you are a citizen of Mexico. I wonder, how much do you draw upon all that you know from around the world?

Fox: Migrants are a very special caste, very special people. The courage, guts, vision, purpose, and commitment they have make them very special people. Like my grandfather, who was the assistant to a butcher in Cincinnati, Ohio. He worked in the backyard butchering birds. He didn’t like so much blood and noise of the birds when being butchered, so he decided to move down south. With the spirit of the American dream, he came down south to find that dream.

This very special caste of people, migrants, has so many abilities and capacities. Look at the way it happened in Ireland when it became problematic because of pests, wars, and unemployment, they said “let’s move up” and went to Strasbourg. Why in Strasbourg? Because the migrant has a very easy way to smell out where the action is. They knew Strasbourg was a crossroads—a point of intense and dynamic development in Europe. Eventually they had to leave and went to the United States. That nation has been built all along by migrants, those who came from Asia and Latin America. That is what has made that nation not only strong but diverse and capable.

 

I think it is a very shortsighted position of migration that building walls, putting minutemen in Arizona, and crossing the border is absolutely wrong. But hopefully, Congress will soon approve that reform that has been sitting there for ten years so that the United States can keep being the leader in the world by solving cultural barriers.

High: In many ways, this is one of the many tragedies of 9/11. Returning to your six years of presidency, I wonder if you can reflect about your time in office and some of your proudest accomplishments.

Fox: There were objectives in mind. One of them was to end up with this map of crises that we were going through in Mexico and Latin America. Mammoth devaluations, huge interest rates, up to 180 percent a year, inflation rates over a 100 percent— all of that had to be stopped. So I looked for the best Finance Minister and he did a great job. We became a very disciplined economy, the goal was to reduce the deficit from 5 percent down to 0; we accomplished that. We also wanted to align the economic fundamentals between the Mexican and U.S. economies; so today we have the same interest and inflation rates.  Our convergence on the fundamentals created very strong support for the Mexican economy.

Number two, I wanted extend the programs on education, health, and housing to be real opportunity for all Mexicans. We grew housing from 250,000, when I came in, homes built to 750,000. The stock exchange moved 350 percent up. Also, we had big problems in a lot of the things we wanted to accomplish. One I am not proud of is bringing more opportunities to the poor. To me, my Jesuit education showed me that the shortcut to happiness is being for others and doing things for others. So I know there are a lot of things that we couldn’t accomplish.

Also, the airport. Unfortunately, at that time, we couldn’t build that airport. Finally the big airport will be built, but we lost eighteen years. If opposition had not opposed that airport we would have had it ten years ago. The same with the energy report I proposed.  This is a big problem with being a minority government.

We tried hard. I think the future is bright for Mexico today. As you know, I changed my support from my own party to the PRI. Many people tell me that I am not consistent, but I think that ideologies and partisan positions are like little boxes that reduce individual freedom. I learned in Asia that ideologies and political parties are not anymore the controllers of political life. Today, a good government is that which creates jobs and makes the economy grow—a very pragmatic government. I see the United States with only two political parties, one side trying to destroy the other, and never reaching agreement, except when you are at war.  I don’t know why the United States has to go to war everyday and everywhere.

There is the same thing going on in Mexico where democracy is not delivering because of conflict in political parties that has delayed strategic decisions for eighteen years. My agreement with Pena was that if he proceeded with reform of education, energy, and telecom, then I would back him up. With that agreement I have worked with him and supported the team.

 

High: You’ve spoken eloquently about the need for reform of economies in Latin America. What is your analysis of where things stand there, are you optimistic?

Fox: We conquered the lack of democracy and freedom, which happened in all of Latin America for the last two decades of last century. So it was not just Mexico, it was all of Latin America getting rid of the pigs. That brought us into a new era with real possibilities of growth and development. It is so true that in the last ten years poverty has been deflated by 18 percent in a region that has over 500 million inhabitants. That is a lot, a great accomplishment. Now we are on our own and have to have our own efforts, not expect anything from other governments.

This result is not only from conquering democracy and freedom, but is also from China. China is drawing so much food, grain, cattle, minerals, and oil from Latin America that has really caused Latin American economies to grow. If you look at that growth, you notice that Mexico did not do as well. Mexico is more of a manufacturing economy, and so deeply linked with the United States that we did not perform well. But the future is Mexico, and the problem is for Latin America because China is not growing more slowly. If that bonanza of those years working with China had been instead invested in education, infrastructure, or manufacturing facilities, then the future would be theirs too. But they didn’t do that.

That has been very fortunate in Mexico, what has given us the possibility to be the strongest manufacturing hub in all of Latin America but also the most competitive worldwide. Today you manufacture at a much better price and quality in Mexico than you can get in China. Many companies left Mexico ten or twelve years ago to produce in China, but most of them are coming back.

Traveling with a Smartphone: Cut Costs Overseas

independenttraveler.com

On a recent trip to the U.K., I turned on my smartphone shortly after clearing customs. Almost as soon as the phone booted up, a text popped up on the screen:

International data rate of $19.97/MB applies. Unlimited domestic data rate plan does NOT apply in this location. Details: att.com/global. AT&T Free Msg

Twenty bucks a meg is a pile of money for a trickle of data. If you are not up to speed on data measurements, consider that the average iPhone camera photo is just under two megabytes in size. So if I take a photo and send it over my cell phone, it will cost me nearly forty bucks -- that had better be one good photo. (At least AT&T's notification text message was free...)

Simple phone call costs aren't much better -- if you can figure out the tortured packages offered by most cell phone carriers, you are way ahead of the game already. As for pricing and plan variations from carrier to carrier, it's a bit like the first line from Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Every carrier offers a very different but also very reliably muddled and expensive plan.

Editor's Note: In October 2013, T-Mobile announced that it will be eliminating roaming charges in more than 100 countries for its customers traveling abroad.

Muddled and Expensive Is Right

One serious problem facing consumers is that the Web sites of these companies are almost impossible to figure out. Even for a simple calling plan, AT&T's "World Traveler" program appears to any reasonable person to cost $5.99/month at this page. But when you keep clicking, you discover that the $5.99 just lowers the per-minute cost for each call, usually by about 20 - 40 cents per minute. In the end, in addition to the $5.99, you are still usually paying $0.99 or more per minute when you make a call while overseas.

It just gets worse for the international data plans; I spent a couple of hours on the AT&T Web site, with multiple browsers open -- and in the end, I had to call them to fill in the gaps in both the information they posted and my understanding of that information.

The truth is, the carriers like it this way. They know they have you by the wallet, and they're not inclined to loosen their squeeze when you go overseas; rather, they see your attachment to your smartphone as a unique profit opportunity. They know no one wants to have a different phone number while overseas, or to spend their trip haunting Carphone Warehouses trying to unlock their phone, buying SIM cards, and losing access to all the contacts, information and apps on their smartphones.

 Focus on the Smartphone

For information on figuring out the basics of making and receiving international mobile phone calls, see our International Cell Phone Guide. From here out I'll focus on smartphones, which folks use for a lot more than phone calls, especially while traveling. Indeed, for many, their smartphone is never so critical than while traveling, as we have replaced paper with data in almost every respect while traveling. Confirmation numbers, flight times and notifications, maps, car service phone numbers, hotel reservations, restaurant searches, coffee shop locations, the length of lines at Disney World -- more of this stuff happens on smartphones than even on computers these days, for many travelers.

But when you go overseas, all of those things that you count on from your smartphone instantly cost $19.95/megabyte as soon as you get off the plane. Assuming that none of us is interested in these predatory prices, here are my suggestions for workarounds and data plans for the smartphone-reliant traveler.

My Recommended Strategy

Before going into all your various options, in hopes of saving you some time and money, I want to share my recommended workaround for all this stuff. One important caveat -- my system depends on occasional to frequent access to Wi-Fi. I almost always travel with my laptop, and need access anyway, so this really works for me.

I will outline this in bullet format, as I think it is simple enough on the face of it. The very short version is: "Get a mobile VOIP phone number, forward everything to that, and then access that number over Wi-Fi."

1. Get a U.S.-based voice over IP (VoIP) phone number of some kind, whether it be Skype, Google Voice, Tango or Line2 (I use Line2 and occasionally Skype; I recommend choosing one that forwards voice mail to e-mail and/or converts to text, merely for another layer of convenience).

2. Forward your "regular" cell phone number to this number; do this while still on your home network, or the system may track you wherever you actually are.

3. Turn off cellular data, 3G and roaming, and even put your cell phone in airplane mode.

4. Investigate Wi-Fi options where you are traveling, whether it be in your hotel room, at an Internet cafe, in a coffee shop, from pay services like Boingo or BT Openzone (I used this in the U.K. last month, as it worked for both my laptop and phone for three pounds/day), or from a MiFi account. Check out JiWire.com for international Wi-Fi spots; searching by your destination makes it really easy to figure out what companies offer Wi-Fi services where you are headed.

5. Consider an international text message package from your carrier if this will be important on your specific trip (although services like Line2 do allow texting over Wi-Fi).

6. Do your calling and texting on your VoIP number over Wi-Fi.

7. Accept that the occasional essential "normal" call will cost some money, but it shouldn't be too much, and will be only about 30 - 40 cents more than if you paid for an international plan.

8. Done.

There can still be some costs involved; for example, if I call a landline in the international country using Line2, the cost is two cents per minute; if I call a cell, it is 38 cents per minute. However, a call to any U.S. number is free so long as I have a Wi-Fi connection, even if that person is physically located outside the U.S. The same applies to text messages; it costs 10 cents per text to international numbers, and no charge for texts to U.S. numbers. Also, there's a monthly fee ($9.95) for Line2, though the company does offer a free trial period that you could use for a short trip.

As I suggest above, a very similar approach can be used with Google Voice; a nice feature of Google Voice is transcribed voice mail, which is even easier to deal with on your computer. Google Voice international calls start at a couple of cents per minute, and go up to approximately $0.25/minute.

Skype is free for computer-to-computer voice and video connections, and has a few different pricing options for other types of connections, starting at 1.2 cents/minute.

If you have a special circumstance that requires you to be accessible (your company needs to contact you, your kids are at home with grandparents, your wife is expecting, etc.), turn your phone on, turn all roaming services off, and use caller ID to let you decide which calls to take and which to ignore. This will let you see if an important call is coming in.

I know this scheme balances entirely atop the potentially wobbly point of reliable Internet access, but if you don't need to be always-on during your trip, batching your calls and contacts at times that you have Internet access works extremely well, and saves you heaps of money. Still, if this is still not convenient enough for you and you need an always-on smartphone plan, read on.


First Off, You Need a GSM Phone

It is important to understand that not all phones are capable of connecting to international cell carrier systems. You specifically need a GSM phone, which is the standard for international cellular networks. Of the two biggest U.S. Carriers, AT&T has the edge here, as most of the Verizon network is on the CDMA system, although Verizon does offer GSM/CDMA dual phones.

If you are on Verizon but have a CDMA phone, look into its Global Travel Program; Verizon will provide a GSM-capable phone that will use your same phone number, just for the charge of shipping, and of course any applicable calling and data charges as well.

Things to Do Right Before Leaving

From experience I know it is very easy to leave off changing your phone settings until you are already abroad -- at which point voice mail, texts and other data that is automatically "pushed" to your phone will start downloading as soon as you have signal. These can cost you a lot of money pretty quickly -- I paid more than $20 for a photo of my nephew playing in a plastic swimming pool a couple of weeks ago. To avoid these instant charges, before turning off your phone stateside, you should do the following:

• Turn off 3G (or 4G)
  
• Turn off cellular data
  
• Turn off data roaming
  
• Reset all your usage statistics

The first three changes will prevent you from running up data charges without even knowing it; the last will allow you to track how many minutes/how much data/how many texts you have used during your trip. You can usually find these in the Settings section of your smartphone.


Dealing with Text Messaging

While traveling so far this summer, I found I did not much miss making regular calls; however, on these particular trips, where a large group of folks had a lot of different and very fun things going on, I did miss texting, as this was the best way to decide on meeting places, find each other in crowds or public spaces, and notify folks of fun activities.

Most companies offer a package that includes a finite number of international texts; AT&T, for example, has a $10/month package that includes sending 50 messages while outside the U.S. That's 20 cents per text; inbound texts are "free," in that they are simply charged against your normal domestic text account. If you text without having purchased a package, each outgoing text is 50 cents, and each incoming text is 20 cents.

On Verizon, the international plan costs 25 cents per text for outgoing messages, and 20 cents for incoming messages.

In most cases, you will need to arrange for these packages to be added to your plan before you leave home; you can provide both a start and end date for your package, but be aware that there may be some billing anomalies that could cost you, as I will explain below.

Big Data Requirements: Web Sites, E-mail, Attachments, Mapping and More
If you want full access to all functions of your smartphone with or without a Wi-Fi connection, you will need an international data plan. On AT&T these typically cost a little more than $1 per gigabyte of data, which is expensive, but still a whole lot less than the $20 per megabyte. Verizon's costs are quite a bit higher, starting at $30 for 25 MB/month.

One challenge is understanding how much data you will actually need. This Data Calculator can help you estimate what you will need based on your typical usage patterns; for a different (and slightly more limited) look, try Verizon's calculator. Even veteran smartphone users will find these to be very handy little applications.

Mapping apps in particular can be essential while traveling, but they are definitely data hogs; you will want to use them sparingly. Some inventive folks are figuring this out; for traveling in major cities, check out Offmaps.com, an offline mapping app that uses a phone's always-on GPS without needing a data connection.



Other Gotchas to Beware

When you make a connection overseas, you are typically not connecting to your own carrier's service, but to a third-party carrier, which then bills your carrier, which bills you. Some of these carriers will not bill your account in an entirely timely manner, such that data connections made in July might show up on your August bill. As such, you will want to make sure the dates for your data package extend long enough after your trip to cover these late-billing companies, and you will want to watch your account to make sure all charges have been applied before turning off your international package.

How likely is this to happen? Well, in the U.K. alone, your iPhone is likely to connect to four different carriers at some point: Hutchison 3G, O2, Orange and Vodafone. Each of those will bill your account on its own schedule.

On the same point, your own carrier will often sell packages according to your monthly billing dates, so if you are traveling in overlapping billing periods, you may be required to purchase part of a plan for part of one month and part of the next. Add to that the straggler carriers billing you well after the fact, and let the invoice juggling begin.

Even at a time when mobile phones and smartphones are booming internationally, and mobile costs are dropping on the whole, no one will argue that phone companies are making this easy, oof. However, if you combine a modest data plan with a small battery of Wi-Fi tactics, you should be able to contain costs and hassles alike.

Nine Things to Do When No One Speaks English

independenttraveler.com

You've always gotten by with your high school French or Spanish overseas, but what if you're in a place so remote no one speaks anything but the local language and you haven't taken the time to learn more than "hello" and "thank you"?

English is a common second language in many countries, particularly those that see lots of tourists or international businesspeople. But go off the beaten track, and English speakers aren't as easy to find. In the jungles of Ecuador you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who spoke anything other than Spanish. What if you're in rural China or Russia, or even a major city in Asia like Tokyo that has very few signs in English?
Below are nine tips that can help.

1. Don't panic.

 

Logic and composure are your best friends. You might fret if it's getting late and you can't find an ATM or your hotel. Don't worry; eventually someone will help. Stay positive.

2. Write it down.

 

Before you leave for the day, ask the front desk or concierge to write down the name of your hotel in the local language, or get a business card with the hotel's details on it. That way if you get lost, anyone can point you in the right direction, and a taxi (your safest bet at night) will return you to the front door in a heartbeat.

3. Get an app.

 

If you'll be using your smartphone abroad, download a translation app. Our favorite is Google Translate, which covers approximately 70 languages. You can have a local speak into the phone or even take a picture of written text, and the app will translate it into English for you. The app will work offline if there's no 4G or Wi-Fi available. It's free for iPhone and Android.

4. Buy a phrasebook.

 

Remember that your smartphone may not work everywhere in the world -- and if your battery dies, you may need a backup plan. If you're headed to a place where power is limited and English speakers are hard to find, it's worth investing in a phrasebook. Even if you can't pronounce the words, you can show a local the page of the book with the phrase you're trying to convey. Many guidebooks also have a list of common words if you don't want to carry a separate phrasebook.

5. Go to a hotel.

 

Wherever you are, look for the nearest lodging, preferably a luxury or business hotel (which will be most accustomed to international guests). Hotels almost always have a person on staff that can speak English or will find someone for you who can. In the worst case, you can rest in the lobby and gather your thoughts.

 

6. Find a tourist office.

 

As with hotels, tourist offices are used to interacting with international visitors and will likely have multilingual people on staff.

7. Look for familiar franchises.

 

IndependentTraveler.com Editor at Large Dori Saltzman offers an unexpected tip: "Go to McDonald's or another chain that you recognize from home. Because these places attract Americans, the staff often will know a little English -- and even if they don't, some of the diners might."

8. Look for young people.

 

IndependentTraveler.com Senior Editor Sarah Schlichter recommends reaching out to younger locals: "I've found that people in their 20s tend to be more likely to remember the English they studied in school than older folks who haven't practiced their second language in a few decades."

9. Draw a picture or sign it out.

 

Hand gestures, sketches or even just pointing to a map can all get your point across if words fail. Be careful, though; seemingly innocent hand gestures in your own culture could prove offensive elsewhere in the world. We recommend reading up on taboos and hand gestures before your trip at CultureCrossing.net.

The main thing to remember is that people worldwide are generally helpful. Remember your charades and try to act out what you need. If nothing else, it will give the locals a good laugh, and when they are laughing they will be more inclined to help.

What strategies have you tried in a situation when no one spoke your language? Post your suggestions in the comments below.

Free Long Distance Telephone Calls within Mexico

by Maureen Dietrich
31 Dec 14
mazmessenger.com
 

Beginning tomorrow, January 1, 2015 at 12:01pm, all landline and cellular long distance phone calls within Mexico are free and will appear on monthly statements as a local call.

 

Cellphone callers will continue to use 045 and 044 when making the call and those with landlines will preface the long distance call with 01 or 02 as previously.

 

Other changes beginning January 1, 2015 according to a mail out from the federal Profeco (Consumer Protection) office, include:

• cell phone users may now change cell phone companies and carry over their present telephone

number and companies can no longer block cell phones when a contract has been terminated

• telephone companies can no longer apply services or packages to your account without your permission

• for cellphone users, checking the amount of time and money on the phone is now a free service and money deposited on a prepaid cell phone lasts one year.

(from Noroeste and Profeco mail out)

Smallest motor will drive new cube-sats

Lozano Tovar speaks at Puebla conference.MILENIO/GABRIEL BOLIO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mexico News Daily | Saturday, November 8, 2014

Piloting an unmanned aircraft, or drone, is now within financial reach for many people. Indeed, a Mexican company in Nuevo León is building and selling the craft while a firm in Guadalajara is offering flight training.

But the sky is not the limit when it comes to sending unmanned craft aloft. Satellites are next, and it’s a Mexican physicist who is working on a way of powering the new miniature models, or cube-sats.

Paulo Lozano Tovar presented “the smallest motor in the universe” this week at a unique sort of meeting in Puebla. It is billed as a festival of brilliant minds and a celebration of creativity and human curiosity. La Ciudad de las Ideas, or City of Ideas, is an annual event that reportedly brings some 70 of the world’s most brilliant minds to the Mexican city.

Judging by a report in Milenio, Lozano Tovar qualifies on all three counts — brilliance, creativity and curiosity, with the result that he anticipates that his invention will provide propulsion for two cube-sats he hopes to launch next March.

These miniature satellites have become popular with schools and universities around the world for they can be built at a much lower cost — some US $10,000 — than conventional models. Their payload typically consists of one or two scientific instruments.

But once launched into a low orbit around Earth they’re left “tumbling in space,” as Lozano Tovar puts it. Until now there hasn’t been a propulsion system that will fit onboard a cube-sat.

“The goal is to make (cube-sats) do most of the things we already do with big satellites, except in a less expensive way,” he said. “People have very big plans for these very small spacecraft.”

His motor employs tiny ion thrusters that can cheaply and efficiently move the cube-sats through space. The thrusters, which can run on solar power, contain a small amount of liquid propellant. When electrified, it creates a stream of ions that are released from tiny nozzles as charged gas, generating thrust.

The motor, including its tank of propellant, measures all of two cubic centimeters, ideal for a satellite that measures just 10 cubic centimeters. The thrusters could steer a spacecraft for months at a time, says Lozano Tovar, at a fraction of a conventional mission’s budget.

The scientist grew up in Mexico City where he used to watch every episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which inspired a lifelong interest in space exploration. He spent his free time in bookstores; there were few public libraries then.

He obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics engineering in Mexico and then went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Later, Lozano Tovar joined what is now called the Space Propulsion Laboratory at MIT. Now an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics, he became director of the laboratory this year.

In Puebla this week, Lozano Tovar said one of the best teachers he ever had advised him that to solve a problem you have to be infatuated with it. Throw in brilliance, creativity and curiosity and you have a candidate for the City of Ideas — and revolutionary developments in space exploration.

Sources: Milenio (sp), MIT News (en)

- See more at: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/people/mexican-physicist-guest-festival-brilliant-minds/#sthash.nh5uzlJG.dpuf

Agency wants satellites by 2018

 
Space Agency chief Javier Mendieta.

 

Mexico News Daily | Sunday, October 12, 2014

Mexico should have its own, domestically-built satellites in orbit by 2018, says the director general of the Mexican Space Agency, Javier Mendieta.

The agency will seek additional federal funding totaling some 3 billion pesos over three years to manufacture and launch the satellites, which will give the country autonomy over telecommunications and monitoring.

Mendieta said in an interview that the economic resources required in the manufacture of the satellites will generate a return in terms of lives saved through the ability to predict natural weather occurrences.

They also have a key role to play in natural resources conservation and national security. “In these aspects we need to have control over the images that satellites provide and at present we get them from satellites that are not ours,” said Mendieta.

Observation of forest cover and other natural resources, monitoring weather systems and conducting scientific research are among other benefits.

Space infrastructure plans were included for the first time in the National Development Plan for 2013-2018.

Source: El Universal (sp)

- See more at: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/agency-wants-satellites-orbit-2018/#sthash.MfBQLDNC.dpuf

Telephones in Mexico

gomexico.about.com

 

Calling Mexico

The country code for Mexico is 52. If calling from the U.S. or Canada, dial 011 + 52 + area code + phone number.

Area Codes
In the three largest cities of Mexico (Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey), the area code is two digits and phone numbers are eight digits, whereas in the rest of the country area codes are three digits and phone numbers are seven digits.

Mexico City 55
Guadalajara 33
Monterrey 81

Long-distance calls from within Mexico

For national long-distance calls (within Mexico) the code is 01 plus the area code and phone number.

For international long-distance calls, first dial 00, then the country code (for the U.S. and Canada the country code is 1, so you would dial 00 + 1 + area code + 7 digit number).

Country Codes
U.S. and Canada 1
United Kingdom 44
Australia 61
New Zealand 64
South Africa 27

Calling Cell Phones

If you're within the area code of the Mexican cell phone number you wish to call, you should dial 044, then the area code, then the phone number. Mexican cell phones are under a plan called "el que llama paga," which means that the person who makes the call pays for it, so calls to cell phones cost more than calls to regular phone numbers. Outside of the area code (but still within Mexico) you would first dial 045 and then the 10 digit phone number. To call a Mexican cell phone from outside the country you would dial as if to a land line: 011-52-1 then the area code and number.

Phone cards

Phone cards ("tarjetas telefonicas") for use in pay phones can be bought at newstands and in pharmacies in denominations of 30, 50 and 100 pesos. Pay phones do not accept coins. When buying a phone card for pay phone use, specify that you would like a "tarjeta LADA," because pre-paid cell phone cards are also sold in the same establishments.

Calling from a pay phone is the most economical way to call, though all long-distance phone calls are more expensive from Mexico than from most other countries. Other options include calling from your hotel, or calling from a "caseta telefonica," a business that has telephone and fax service.

Emergency and Useful Phone Numbers

Keep these phone numbers close at hand for any emergencies that might occur. You do not need a phone card to call 3-digit emergency numbers from a pay phone.

• Emergency 066
• Red Cross 065
• Police 060 
• Directory assistance 040
• Tourist protection and information 01 800 903 9200 or 01 800 987 8224, from the U.S. and Canada 1 800 482 9232 or 1 800 401 3880

LiFi: download an HD film in just 45 seconds

He's seen the light.

 

 

 

 

Monday, July 28, 2014

 

LiFi is coming to Mexico next year, reportedly making it the first country in North America where “visible light communication” technology will be employed.

Computer and technology firm Sisoft Mexico will be installing the system in homes, businesses and hospitals in Mexico City.

LiFi employs light-emitting diodes to deliver high-speed communications, with speeds as high as 10 GB per second, fast enough to download a high-definition film in just 45 seconds.

The system’s range is not as good as WiFi because the signal cannot penetrate walls, but it can be reflected off walls so direct line of sight isn’t necessary for it to function.

Among the advantages is that it can be used in areas that are sensitive to electromagnetic influence, such as aircraft cabins and hospitals.

LiFi’s creator says the potential applications are beyond imagination. “. . . wherever there is light there exists the potential to transmit data,” says Harald Hass of the University of Edinburgh.

In late 2011 companies and industry groups formed the LiFi Consortium to promote high-speed optical wireless systems.

Source: Dinero en Imagen (esp)

National broadband project has 40,000 sites connected

 

 

 

Monday, July 28, 2014

México Conectado, or Mexico Connected, has the goal of delivering free Internet connectivity to 250,000 public sites during the six years of the current administration. Seven months into its launch, officials say they’ve achieved 40,000 sites; by the end of the year they anticipate the number rising to 65,000.

The broadband installations are being carried out in schools, health centers and public plazas, with signals delivered on existing telecommunications infrastructure where it exists, and by satellite in remote areas.

National coordination is being handled by the University of Guadalajara, which contracts in each state with a public university that has the capacity to identify possible locations.

This entails an analysis of potential sites, visiting remote locations and indicating which are the centers and school buildings that need connectivity, says the project’s director general, Carmen Rodríguez Armenta.

Installations are progressing at the rate of one state per month, she said.

Source: El Economista (esp)