Google recently announced that a highly sophisticated cyber attack on its corporate infrastructure originated from China, and they allude to it possibly being state sponsored. Google accuses the Chinese Government of hacking into Google’s servers to access information on Chinese human rights activists. Google’s company motto is “Don’t Be Evil” and though I have compared the company recently to The Blob, I commend them for taking a very strong stance in response to this recent attack. Google may leave China in response to this blatant breach of trust but before they do the floodgates may open. This is a quote from the official Google blog as written by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer:

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

I’m shocked that China (if there was in fact a government sponsored operation) would be so brazenly aggressive in breaking the trust that Google has made concessions to forge.  Now, Google is free to exorcise some nagging guilt about their criticized relationship with China should any exist. With the launch of the country’s newest technology stock exchange ChiNext the Chinese are feeling confident about their tech prowess and may very well feel they can run their own search engine just fine on their own. Indeed Baidu, the Chinese search engine based in Shanghai would benefit from Google’s exit from the Chinese market. Baidu, ironically has also been hacked by a group called the Iranian Cyber-Army who I’m sure are also being hacked by someone else right now as I type. And you’re probably being hacked right now too.

It’s a shame how this is all going down because it also potentially affects how the internet will be “governed” or “managed” for everyone outside of China too. The proposed Cybersecurity Bill, S 773 championed by American Senator Jay Rockefeller, D.-W.Va will likely feed off of this recent debacle. The bill is feared by some to be restrictive and protectionist. It potentially marks the end of the open-era of the internet and the beginning of the bureaucratized online era.

Just the way the Chinese government wants it.

Why the photo of the “sexy-Ninja” in this article you ask? Well- because that’s something the Chinese are now able to see if Google lifts their censorship and I KNOW they’ll be Googling for it. How could they not? You did, that’s how you got here right?

You may remember the films Titanic, Aliens or Terminator, or the sequel to Titanic, Waterworld. (Don’t sue, it’s a funny joke) These films pushed the limits of movie making and rendered studio executives bed ridden with anxiety as their budgets ballooned like mushroom clouds in the pursuit of perfection. The funny thing with James Cameron though, is that he never fails to deliver on even the most herculean risks. Titanic lived up to its name with accolades and over a billion clams at the box office while the Terminator films are two of the best loved sci-fi action movies of the past 25 years, Aliens raised the bar for all sci-fi films to follow.  Must be that good old Canadian work ethic he brought to Hollywood.

In his newest film, Avatar, Cameron once again had to pioneer new methods and film technology in the pursuit of perfection. The challenge this time? Bringing the very convincing lifelike digital characters out of “Uncanny-valley” the term given when computer generated characters just look  a little bit off,  not quite convincing, or downright awkward. In the pursuit of creating genuine human moments between digitally rendered characters, Cameron had his cast members wear motion capture cameras close to their faces, capturing every muscle twitch and nuance.  Then some guy who went to film school because he thought he’d be making awesome movies like Avatar sits for months on end engaged in a pedantically thorough recreation of every tiny pixel of the face. I’m sure they have some logarithmic computer program that he gets to hang out with and collaborate with though. Each frame took 50 hours of work.

Some critics have posited that the film may completely revolutionize the way we make and watch movies. In complete 3-D Cameron tastefully (i.e. without the obvious hurling asteroids and 100 ft monsters rushing at you) invites the viewers into an alternate reality,  so lifelike it’s absurd. I searched online but I couldn’t seem to find any reference to Avatar 3-D glasses which I figured would be an obvious marketing tool.  In fact some have criticized the producers and studio for not putting enough money into marketing the film, with $500 million going into the project it is the world’s most expensive movie ever made and I’d be making good and sure people were being banged over the head with the marketing mallet in anticipation of the release if I was at the helm.

The Avatar premiere in London two days ago was a success, wowing critics and normal humans alike. The film launches world-wide next week.

A recent report from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions at the University of Victoria (A school that is nearly as good as SFU) claims that there’s enough under-used capacity in British Columbia’s energy grid to charge 2.5 million electric vehicles, nearly the current amount of vehicles on the road. The grid, which receives the vast majority of its power from hydro dams (90%) and other renewable sources, is being continuously upgraded and modernized by the BC provincial government who aim to have complete energy security with adequate backup and mitigation measures for the province as it continues to develop and grow. This is great news for Nissan, whose new electric model, Leaf, will be touring through the US for the next 2 months, with one stop in Canada. That stop is Vancouver. Another development that will surely help the launch of Nissan Leaf in the Pacific Northwest will be the creation of an electric car corridor between Eugene Oregon and Metro Vancouver. This is also good exposure for Vancouver as it moves forward with an asserting of itself as the greenest city in the world.

The corridor is largely funded by a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (as a part of the recent stimulus funding) while Canadian taxpayer money similarly supports the creation of it here in BC. This has been criticized by some who think that increased transit, bike sharing programs, and urban density are more cost effective ways to reduce carbon emissions in the region and that the corridor may be greenwash. Some others believe that Nissan hedging its bets on friendly legislation, subsidies and infrastructure upgrades like the electric car corridors is risky, placing a lot of faith in taxpayers and governments to assist EVs breaking into the market. It’s true that electric cars, until they are produced and consumed in the millions, are going to remain relatively expensive. Mark McDade, Nissan Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) project manager made a blunt statement recently that subsidies and other forms of government help will be necessary if cars like the Leaf are to roll onto the market in substantial numbers. Without assistance they will remain too expensive and the fancy corridors we’re building will be full of very quiet recharging stations. Because Canada is such an energy rich country, it has largely been up to cities and provinces to help facilitate the changes that EV Cars need in order to attain real market presence. The Federal Government, for numerous pragmatic reasons, has been quiet on this front. (The massive geographic extent and therefore the cost of any automobile infrastructure upgrades on a national level for starters) Compared to past initiatives like Hydrogen fuel cells, electric vehicles have a simple plug and play refueling process, bypassing the largest stumbling block that other alternative automobile designs have suffered from.

The Nissan Leaf goes on sale in Vancouver starting in 2011. We’ll be the first market in the world in which it launches. After that it will be released in the rest of Canada and the world. According to McDade, the BC Government, BC Hydro and City of Vancouver have been “All hands on deck” even putting through legislation to ensure that electric vehicle power plugs are installed in all new homes and purchasing dozens of Nissan Leaf’s (Leaves?) for the provincial car fleet. Yes BC taxpayer dollars are going to make executives at Nissan very happy as we’re playing a major role in opening the door to the North American market for them, saving them a lot of money and effort. In the end though, I think the people of BC are more open to helping our province shift to an EV market as we’d probably rather fuel our vehicles with our own hydro-electricity than from melted tar pumped down from Alberta to Texas, refined and then sold back to us for 10 times as much. That’s just my opinion though, maybe there are some who like that.