Germany, Russia, and natural gas

Valdis Krebs has an illuminating post about the network of natural gas pipelines in Europe and how it confers power upon Russia.

Germany is a leader in the development of renewable energy and Krebs' map makes it very clear as to why that is so.

VIVACE

Defense Industry Daily

VIVACE is a very large research & technology project funded by the European Commission that was launched in January 2004, grouping 63 companies and research institutions from the aerospace sector to improve 7 key areas of the product development process, providing solutions in "Design Simulation", "Virtual Testing", "Design Optimisation", "Business and Supply Chain Modelling", "Knowledge Management", "Decision Support" and "Collaboration in the Extended and Virtual Enterprise". By using the latest innovations in advanced simulation and modeling techniques, it hopes to provide the means to improve knowledge about the product prior to its physical development, reducing development costs, shortening time to market, and improving product quality.

A well selected name.

Microsoft criticized for Open XML petition

An online petition posted by Microsoft to fast-track the standardization of its Office Open XML document format masks the company's concern over the procedure, according to a leading open-source advocate.

The petition, which was uploaded to Microsoft's U.K. site on March 29, asks businesses to show their support for the Open XML format being fast-tracked through the standardization process at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The format is integral to Office 2007, but Microsoft is pushing it as an international open standard for documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

"We already have an international standard, the OpenDocument format, and governments are increasingly adopting it," said Taylor on Thursday. "Having a second standard is utterly unnecessary."

Shorter Microsoft - we support open standards; it just has to be our standard. I don't see how they are going to make this stick.

This is another illustration of the importance of standards negotiations.