Veni | Вени

The first meeting of the IGF Advisory Group took place in Geneva, May 22-23.
If you have to go to Geneva – try to book at the Manotel hotels. Any of them will do the job, but the closes to the train station is the Auteuil. Great hotels, and pretty good prices (for Geneva). Breakfast is quite good and healthy, and the tramway is just in front of the hotel. Hint: when bookind a room, it’s better to take the odd room numbers – the even face the railroads. It’s not noisy (it’s Geneva, after all!), but still.

Anyway, going back to the meeting…

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This news just came in from the European Commission.

I’ve made some compliation from different sources, and as many they are, the number of opinions differs.
Here are some of them:

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No joking.

Skype announced that all US and Canadian-based Skype customers can now make free SkypeOut calls to traditional landline and mobile phones in the US and Canada. Previously, Skype users in both countries were required to pay for Skype calls from their PCs to traditional telephones. Free SkypeOut calls to the US or Canada will be available to US and Canadian-based Skype users until the end of the year.

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Latest data about Internet usage in Bulgaria in March 2006 from Market Test:

Total percentage of Internet users (between 15 and 69 years): 29.3 %

Internet use from home: 15.10 %
Internet use from Internet clubs: 14.80 %
Internet use from elsewhere: 9.30 %

Women: 28.20 %
Men: 30.50 %

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You always read statistics about the number of people using MS Internet Explorer, compared to other browsers. Usually big research corporations give something like 90 % for MS browsers, 10 % for others
Today it all chnages.

We are going to review the real data. And you will be surprised!

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Many people ask me “What is it to be on the Board of ICANN?”

Here is my response, with some astonishing data.

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Earlier today, ICANN took a decision to not approve the .xxx in the top-level domain zone.

The application was proposed by the ICM Registry.

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My Internet colleague Peter Kalmstrom from Skype told me today about the new Skype beta – 2.5. It has some pretty cool features. I think you could also try it (regardless that it’s a proprietary software, which is a bug, not a feature!)Here are some of the key features (among them: text messages (SMS), outlook contacts import, etc.):

(updated May 10th!)

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According to a message at Kavkaz Center, the Swedish authorities have effectively shut down the web site.

It’s been under pressure in its previous locations – Lithuania and Finland, and now it’s been shut down by Sweden.

On May 5th, the Swedish web-hosting company PRQ, was raided by the police, and the servers, on which Kavkaz Center was hosted, were confiscated.

The reason for the act of the police was Read more…

In the last days I saw two movies, which I highly recommend.

They had their world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The first movie is Dear Talula. It is a half-hour documentary about Lori Benson – a young woman, who was diagnosed with breast cancer just 14 months after the birth of her daughter Talula.

The second movie is When The Road Bends. It’s a full 2-hour movie about the “Gypsy Caravan” – a big tour around the US of Roma performers from Macedonia, Romania, India and Spain.
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