Slashdot Mirror
Domain: unu.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to unu.edu.
Stories · 4
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Large FLOSS Study Gets the Real Facts
Hans Kwint writes "The European Commission's enterprise and industry department has just released the final draft of what could be the biggest academic interdisciplinary study on the economic / innovative impacts of free/libre/open source software (1.8-MB PDF). The study was done by an international consortium led by the United Nations University / University of Maastricht. The lead researcher, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, has overseen a large volume of FLOSS studies in the last few years, including ones on FLOSS policies and worldwide FLOSS adoption. This academic-grade study has a very broad scope and has collected real-world information that is valuable for both companies and government bodies thinking about migration. The study is about the economic impact of FLOSS, not excluding the hidden indirect impact. It compares scenarios of open and proprietary software futures of Europe. The study looks at the FLOSS's competitiveness compared to proprietary software and also provides a few TCO comparison case-studies. -
Richest 2% Own Half the World's Wealth
kop writes "The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. Most previous studies of economic disparity have looked at income, whereas this one looks at wealth — assets minus debts. The survey is based on data for the year 2000. Many figures, especially for developing countries, have had to be estimated. Nonetheless, the authors say it is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken." The study itself is available from the World Institute for Development Economics Research. -
Environmental Impact of the Ubiquitous Microchip
TimWeigel writes "The Japan Times is reporting the results of a study by the United Nations University on the environmental impact of michrochip production. We've already seen the impact of disposal practices, but is the manufacturing more environmentally friendly? Turns out it ain't necessarily so - according to the study, producing and using a 32MB DRAM chip weighing 2 grams requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 g of elemental gases, and 72 g of other chemicals, many of which are hazardous. I'm no environmentalist, but this looks like it might add up to more bad news when you consider that these things are cranked out by the millions each year." Update: 01/26 16:31 GMT by J : Yep, it's a dupe. -
A Universal Networking Language for the Internet?
Anonymous Coward writes: "The United Nations University is developing a Universal Networking Language for the Internet, which is designed to allow effective communication between people writing in their native languages, with automatic conversion through an intermediate Meta-language (perhaps a precursor to Star Trek's Universal Translator.) They will be holding a symposium on the technology on 18 November in Brussels, Belgium, where they will publicly announce their achievement. They claim that the initial stage of UNL will support 16 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Hindi, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese, Latvian, Mongol, Portuguese, Swahili and Thai." An interesting idea, but this is one of those "the devil is in the details" things. It'll be interesting to see how/if this can work.