Eight-year-old Nguyen Song Anh’s "Big Bang" Clock has been awarded first prize at the British Council’s Global Young Learners’ Art Competition 2011

Eight year-old Nguyen Song Anh of Ho Chi Minh City has won first prize at the Global Young Learners’ Art Competition launched by the British Council last July.

For the competition, which aims to celebrate the upcoming London Olympics, Anh, a student of the Luong The Vinh School in the city, drew a sketch of the Palace of Westminster best known for its “Big Ben” clock. However, the boy named it Big Bang Clock.

A press release from the council on Monday said: “Anh’s young ears must have misheard his teachers as he mistakenly labeled it ‘Big Bang Clock’, however, the misspelling of London’s famous Big Ben captured the hearts of judges.”

Instead of his error counting against him, judges including British Council director of teaching Anna Searle and Paralympics competitor Susannah Rodgers awarded him first prize in the category of 8 years old and under, and his work will be displayed around the world.

Robin Rickard, director of British Council Vietnam, said in the release, “It’s hard to second guess the judges’ thinking, but either they were charmed by the innocent spelling mistake or thought that there was a deeper hidden meaning.

“Next year will see the London 2012 Olympics and in his picture, Anh also shows us a winners’ podium complete with medal winning athletes. So the ‘big bang’ could refer to anything from the starting ceremony to the starters’ pistols in each race. So if it was a mistake, it was a very good mistake!”

Anh admitted the misspelling but thought perhaps he’d become confused with the Swiss brand of watch of the same name.

He said he was “very pleased and happy” when he found out he was a winner, and thanked British Council teachers for encouraging him to enter, as well as his parents and his art teachers at the Luong The Vinh School.

He attributed his good fortune to increased confidence in academic activities since studying at British Council Vietnam.

Anh’s drawing together with other 11 paintings by young children from around the world, including Thailand, Kuwait, Egypt, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, have been printed by British Council offices around the world for their new desk calendar.

The Big Bang Clock is on the front page of the calendar which is already sitting on thousands of desks in over 100 countries.

Alongside the honor of having his artwork viewed internationally, Anh also won a selection of London 2012 souvenirs, including a soft toy of Olympic mascot Wenlock, an Olympic gym bag and a cup showing both Olympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville, the Paralympic mascot.

He will also receive 10 copies of the calendar to give to family and friends.

Entries to the Global Young Learners’ Art Competition 2011 fell into three age groups: under 8, 9-11 and 12-15.

The three winning pictures and nine runners-up from the art competition will be available to download from the British Council website, the press release said.

Police have arrested a person alleged to have hacked the website of Vietnam’s leading internet security company last week, Tuoi Tre quoted the company’s representative as saying Tuesday.

Nguyen Minh Duc, director of the Hanoi-based Bach Khoa Internetwork Security Company’s Internet Security Department, said in the report that the suspect, whose identity was not revealed, was an employee of an information technology company in Hanoi.

Initial investigations by the Ministry of Public Security’s hi-tech crimes investigation department (C50) found that the suspect attacked the website http://webscan.bkav.com.vn from the suspect’s house in Hoang Mai District using two laptops.

Police are continuing their investigations to determine whether there were more culprits behind the attack, the newspaper reported.

According to Tuoi Tre, the site was hacked on February 2 and since then the company has been cooperating with members of C50 to trace down the culprit.

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On Monday the Vietnam News Agency reported that the company’s main website was also compromised last week. Beginning on February 4, the company’s website became unstable and was sometimes impossible to access at all, it said.

Both the websites have been restored and are now up and running.

Sleep ranks right up there with weight in the pantheon of health issues to obsess over: Millions of people worry that they aren’t catching enough ZZZs, or that the ones they are catching aren’t high-quality.

Those numbers are far too large for gadget-makers to ignore. As a result, a growing number of devices purport to track, coach and improve sleep performance, taking advantage of the computing power of mobile phones and personal computers.

I’ve been trying out three of them: the Zeo Sleep Manager Mobile and Lark, both of which cost $99; and the $149 SleepTracker Elite. All use sensors that you wear to bed to measure how long and how well you sleep. They also feature silent alarms that wake you by vibrating, so you won’t disturb someone else.

The most elaborate is the Zeo, which measures brain waves and eye-muscle movements to calculate how much time you spend in deep, rapid-eye and light sleep cycles, as well as how often and for how long you’re awake in the night. The data is transmitted wirelessly to a free Zeo app on your iPhone or Android phone.

Romantic restriction

You wear the Zeo device positioned over the middle of your forehead and held in place by an elastic headband, which probably isn’t compatible with any romantic plans you might have unless you’re auditioning for the part of Jor-El in the next Superman movie.

While the headband didn’t prevent me from falling asleep, I woke up the first night to find it lying on the pillow above my head. The next night it stayed on but I was so uncomfortable that I took it off myself in the middle of the night. Subsequent nights went better, though I still found myself aware of the device.

On the other hand, the simple Zeo app synced my data automatically, providing me with an impressive trove of information — including my “ZQ,” a single sleep score I could monitor over time to track my improvements. Even more analytics were available on Zeo’s website, including a coaching regimen to help me improve my score.

More comfortable

The Lark sensor was much more comfortable. Like the Zeo, there’s an elastic band — but you wear this one around your wrist, where it monitors your sleep by tracking your movements during the night.

The Lark’s data isn’t as detailed as the Zeo. It did capture how many times I roused in the night and for how long, but it didn’t break out the amount of time I spent in different phases of sleep.

The two devices also differ in how they wake you in the morning. The Zeo seeks a point around your designated alarm time when it senses from your sleep cycles that you’re most likely to feel refreshed. The Lark, by contrast, transfers its data to your iPhone and starts vibrating at whatever time you set. The company says it concluded that users don’t really like being awakened any earlier than they need to be.

Apple-only

The Lark, which also offers a sleep-coaching “pro” service for an extra $60, currently works only with Apple’s iOS devices. An Android app is in the works.

The SleepTracker Elite was the least hassle to wear. Unlike the others, it doesn’t require constant recharging. It’s also the only one you might dare to wear in public: a slightly oversize, waterproof digital wristwatch that comes in white or black.

Balanced against those advantages is that it works only with a computer. You have to download and install its software to your Mac or Windows PC. Nor is it wireless; you transfer data from watch to computer via an included USB cable that clamps on to contacts on the back of the watch.

Programming the SleepTracker requires pushing lots of little buttons and navigating various digital-watch screens. Once I got it up and running, it did a good job of waking me and was able to capture my data — though I did run into a bug in the Windows software that first prevented me from viewing my results, then concluded I had slept 17 hours. (If only.) The company says it is working on a fix.

None of these devices actually helps you get to sleep, at least not directly. The idea is that by providing you with data about yourself and offering various forms of encouragement, you’ll adopt healthier sleep habits — cutting out caffeine after 3 p.m., shutting off the computer and TV an hour before bedtime and the like.

That’s the theory anyway, though you couldn’t prove it by me. I had issues with all three. Frankly, I slept better without them.

Rich Jaroslovsky
Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The University of the Arts London (UAL), in conjunction with the British Council, will hold creative art workshops for local college students on February 13 in Hanoi and two days later in Ho Chi Minh City.

According to the organizer, the workshop, entitled, “A human sanctuary in the heart of the city,” is suitable for A-Level students, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate applicants interested in portfolio/praxis-based art and design courses, as well as non-portfolio-based art courses.

The UAL, one of the world’s most prominent institutions in the fields of art, design, fashion, communications and performing arts, has produced some of the world’s finest artists and actors including recent Oscar winner Colin Firth, James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, ad-agency founder Charles Saatchi and fashion designers Sir Paul Smith and John Galliano.

The event, which will be held at the Movenpick Hotel in Hanoi and the Norfolk Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, is a great chance to learn more about the UAL’s courses and facilities and may provide insight into why the university has produced so many world-renowned artists, said the organizer in its press release this week.

More importantly, participants will have the opportunity to meet Colin Kerrigan, Deputy Director of the International Center at UAL, to learn how the school may be able to help them build prospective careers.

Promising students may have the chance to be interviewed by UAL representatives for consideration as either foundation or undergraduate students. Prospective students should bring their art portfolios to the event.

Registration for the events and interviews can be made by contacting:

British Council HCMC

Tel 08 3823 2862 (ext. 2501)

EducationUK.hcmc@britishcouncil.org.vn

British Council Hanoi

Tel 04 3843 6780 (ext. 1995)

EducationUK@britishcouncil.org.vn

The Movenpick Hotel is located on 83A Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Hanoi; the Norfolk Hotel is located on 117 Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1, HCMC.

Vietnamese and French scientists have discovered a new species of scorpion in a national park in the central province of Quang Binh, VnExpress reported Monday.

Dr. Pham Dinh Sac from the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources said the scorpion, Vietbocap thienduongensis Lourenco & Pham, was found in Thien Duong (Heaven) cave located in Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park.

It was known locally as bo cap Thien Duong (Thien Duong scorpion), said the scientist, who discovered it together with researchers from the Paris-based National Museum of Natural History.

The discovery has been documented in the French scientific journal C.R.Biologies no. 335 of 2012, VnExpress said.

According to Sac, he and his colleagues also found another species of scorpion, Vietbocap canhi Lourenco & Pham, in the same park in 2010.

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Both species belong to the Vietbocap genus, which is part of the rare Pseudochactidae family, the newswire reported.

So far scientists have found four species of three genera belonging to the Pseudochactidae family across the world. Two other genera were discovered in Laos, and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Nearly 100 workers and engineers Thursday started seismic surveys at the location of Vietnam’s first nuclear power plant in the central province of Ninh Thuan, a local news website reported the same day.

VnExpress quoted Phan Minh Tuan, deputy chief of Ninh Thuan nuclear power project management board, as saying that the survey team will also drill for more than 3,000 meters at sea to collect comprehensive data for construction and operation works later.

According to the plan of national electricity development, work on the country’s first two nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuan will start in December 2014, and be completed in 2022

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The plants will be built with hi-end technology that is able to handle heat radiation automatically within 72 hours in case of problems, the VnExpress report said.

In October, 2010, Vietnam signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with Russia to build its first nuclear power plant. Russia in November last year agreed to lend Vietnam some US$9 billion for the project.

Vietnam also plans to cooperate with Japan on two other nuclear reactors. Thirteen nuclear plants with the total capacity of 16,000 megawatts are slated to go into operation in the country over the next two decades.

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For the last couple of years, Google has reserved the “Nexus” label for smartphones that provide the purest experience of its Android operating system. Meanwhile, Samsung has used the “Galaxy” brand on its top-of- the-line mobile devices.

So what do you get when you marry the two and put the result on the best 4G network? The Galaxy Nexus, a superphone that is still somehow a little less than the sum of its considerable parts.

The Galaxy Nexus, which costs $299 on a two-year contract from Verizon Wireless, is the first device to ship with Android 4.0, or in Google’s dessert-based nomenclature, “Ice Cream Sandwich.” It is supposed to blend the separate cell-phone (“Froyo,” “Gingerbread”) and tablet (“Honeycomb”) flavors of Android’s operating systems.

The idea is to simplify things both for developers, who otherwise have to worry that apps written for one version of Android won’t run on another, and for consumers, giving them a similar experience no matter what kind of device they’re using. Apple, not surprisingly, set the bar here with one operating system — iOS — running iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches.

Lard-free

The Nexus phone is mercifully free from the proprietary user interfaces and apps that manufacturers and carriers often lard atop Android. And Ice Cream Sandwich brings some welcome enhancements.

Physical buttons are out. In their place are on-screen back, home and recent-apps controls that rotate along with the display when you turn the phone into portrait mode. You can also create folders of apps by stacking them one atop the other, and — as on Honeycomb tablets — summon thumbnail images of open apps with the recent button. If you see one you don’t need, a sideways finger flick dismisses it.

One major innovation isn’t so successful: Face Unlock, which theoretically allows you to unlock your phone simply by holding it up to your face and letting it recognize you. It’s a neat trick when it works, but I repeatedly got error messages telling me I couldn’t be recognized. Take it from me: Few things in technology are as depressing as being rejected by your own phone.

Insecure

Some users, meanwhile, have reported being able to fool the feature by holding up a photo of themselves; even Google warns during the set-up process that Face Unlock is less secure than other ways of protecting your phone.

As for the Galaxy Nexus hardware, it’s handsome without being particularly distinctive. The nicest feature is the big 4.65-inch screen that, typically for Samsung devices, is absolutely gorgeous, with deep blacks and ultra-rich colors. My main complaint was the automatic-brightness level, which is supposed to adjust to ambient light but that I found consistently too dim for my tastes. Eventually, I went into the settings and disabled it.

Under the hood is a dual-core Texas Instruments processor, plus a gigabyte of memory and 32 gigs of storage. There are also 1.3-megapixel front and 5-megapixel rear-facing cameras, and it shoots video in full 1080p high-definition. The whole package is still only a third of an inch thick and weighs about 4.8 ounces.

Power outage

In the US, the Galaxy Nexus runs on Verizon’s LTE 4G network. LTE is the fastest network technology, and Verizon has the broadest coverage. But there’s a catch: LTE also gobbles battery life. I’ve generally found that Samsung does the best job among LTE handset-makers in managing power. But I’d be tempted to take advantage of the fact that — unlike iPhones — the Galaxy Nexus’s battery is user-replaceable, and carry a spare.

A version of the phone is also in the works for Sprint, which will start rolling out LTE this year. A model with 16 gigabytes of storage and using HSPA+ — yet another network technology — is available in other nations where LTE isn’t widespread. Carriers offering this version of the phone include Vodafone and Telefonica’s O2.

Because of Google’s open-to-all-manufacturers approach, it’s hard for any Android phone to match the seamlessness of an iPhone, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry or even devices running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. Perhaps that will change after Google takes control of handset-maker Motorola Mobility Holdings. Until then, the Galaxy Nexus comes closer than anything yet to providing the definitive Android experience.

Rich Jaroslovsky
Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

A “big, weird” bird caught by an ethnic minority resident in the northwestern province of Son La last month has been identified by a zoologist as the Cinereous Vulture (also known as Black Vulture, Monk Vulture, or Eurasian Black Vulture).

Professor Vo Quy, a noted zoologist, told online newspaper VnExpress the bird was not “strange” but it is rather rare.

On January 20, Le Van Lien, the 62-year-old resident of an ethnic minority village in Quynh Nhai District saw the bird swoop down on a pond near his house.

Lien said the bird looked like it was starving and could not fly any more.

He caught the bird, brought it home and fed it with meat and vegetable.

The 7.5-kilogram bird, with a wingspan of 2.8 meters and a body 0.7 meters long, has brought many curious villagers to his house.

The bird eats one and a half kilograms of meat and vegetables each day, according to Hien.

Hien did not reveal if he would release the bird or not.

After photos of the bird were carried by online publications, Prof. Quy told VnExpress it was the Cinerous Vulture (Aegypius monachus), a near-threatened species and one of the largest true birds of prey in the world.

The birds mostly live in southern Europe, northern Africa, Middle East, Iran, Mongolia and parts of China, but occasionally migrate to northern Vietnam in the winter, according to Quy.

They usually get caught after failing to find food and falling from starvation, he said.

Vietnam has sent 70 people to Russia to receive training in nuclear technology, the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology said at a Hanoi conference Tuesday.

The overseas training is estimated to last until 2020 and cost VND2 trillion (US$95.7 million), Le Dinh Tien said at the conference on global nuclear power in 2012, Saigon Tiep Thi reported. 

Along with the human resource preparation needed to implement Vietnam’s nuclear power plans, Tien said Vietnam will sign a loan agreement with Japan this year to start work on the second nuclear power plant in the central coastal Ninh Thuan Province.

The loan will be separate from Japan’s official development assistance to Vietnam, as Japan is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which does not allow provision of ODA for nuclear power projects, he said.

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Vietnam plans to develop 10,700 megawatts from nuclear power in 2030, accounting for around 10 percent of the total power output.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in a statement last week that Vietnam is determined to develop nuclear power for generating electricity.

He said Russia has agreed to lend Vietnam $10.5 billion to carry out the plan.

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New KOTO alumni initiative called Pots ‘n Pans will open on January 28 at 57 Bui Thi Xuan Street, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi.

KOTO, the NGO that does yeoman service to Vietnamese society by taking in street children and disadvantaged youth between the ages of 16 and 22 and making them into food and beverage professionals, has opened a new restaurant in Hanoi that is being managed by its alumni.

Pots ‘n Pans, to open January 28 at 57 Bui Thi Xuan Street, is a multi-level fine dining restaurant and lounge bar serving contemporary Vietnamese Cuisine.

It had a "soft" opening from January 17 to 21 to enable its team to perfect the menu and drink selection.