PLANETDAMAGE

The Epson e-paper, again, now righteously held by one of the developers. I don’t really have more info on the conference to spare, if you’re a Hungarian reader, check the lead article on HVG Online on the green IT conference. The rest of you, shiny pictures of the Atomium below.

Had to add this one, though.

The best pics off the Atomium trip. And honestly, the place looks so much better from the outside than the inside. The experience is fuller if you’ve queued, traveled in the elevator, checked out the cafe and had a look from the topmost orb but the inner pics are just not good enough to publish. And we haven’t checked the restaurant located in the topmost orb - don’t remember the menu too much but you’re good to go with some 30-50 euros/head, I think? Okay, so much for Brussels.

Do not make me describe the impact of the LOLplane. Four hours of sleep with having lots of party members and diplomats behind you and then this plane navigates its way to the adjacent gate reading LOL. Life is not without a certain sense of irony.

And the better-looking from the Mini-Europe theme park. Not much to add apart from the fact that my cam died, I did all these with an iPhone (which is fun as long as you point and click. When you want to zoom or change any settings, it becomes a hassle, because you can’t change any settings, you’ve gotta download a separate photo app for all that) and it wasn’t raining. Last update on Brussels contains the Atomium pics.

A couple of pictures here from my Brussels trip earlier this week, because I’m too lazy to write a complete rundown of the things seen there. If you’ve been following my Twitter feed, you might already know about a few details. More groups of pictures coming up in the following days.

Saeko Sato of Epson, showing off the e-paper prototype. (For Hungarian readers: I’ve covered this earlier on.) It’s ultra-light, ultra-thin, good to read and an amazing thing to hold. (Similar to the iPhone. You ditch it until the moment you can hold it in your hands, then, snap, zeitgeist.) The thing I haven’t taken a photo of is a wireless phone charger that does the whole charging thing in two hours, obviously you need a special kind of phone for that (and you also have a safety mechanism that kills the induction). The e-paper won’t be seen on the shelves in four days, whereas the charger will be on the market in Japan in 2009. I managed to ask the developers whether they are contracted with two certain Japanese phone companies, their laughter and reactions said I hit bullseye with at least one telco. No names, but you can figure it out for yourselves.

That’s a very bad piece of ego trip. That’s also for Salander, who says he can’t imagine me wearing anything elegant. He probably doesn’t know it was all black, which covers up the whole act of not being in urban camo.

That’s a pic taken inside the European Parliament. I don’t know what this statue is (what I believe is symbolizing the member countries), because I was too busy asking around about the photo policy. Too bad I didn’t do a few shots at the hemicycle, anyways, seeing the rows of translator cabins was amazing.

The European Parliament, again, from a very, very bad angle. And it was raining. With no extra set of clothes, no umbrella and a Leopold Park that was littered surprisingly well, even by the Budapest standards.

That’s the Atomium, a fucking huge monument built for the ‘58 Brussels World’s Fair. Lots of interior pics as well, but that’s coming up later.

A level 5 Dungeon Runners viking. It’s still raining, but now I have an amazingly unstylish and silver Atomium umbrella and I’m getting soaked under it because I’m trying to make good photos with one hand with a compact camera that’s doing the evil grip fu to slip away from my hands. We’re in the Mini Europe theme park just beside the Atomium, by the way. (And it’s raining.)

Neon decoration somewhere at the Zaventem Airport, classic wireframe matrix style. (More to come later on.)