brazil

Brazil is hoping an effort to track its huge cattle population will jump-start the country's fledgling chipmaking industry.

By tagging every cow with a tracking chip, the South American country is aiming to make its beef supply safer while also helping to create big demand for Brazilian-made semiconductors.

"There are 200 million cows in Brazil, so that's a big market," science and technology minister Sergio Rezende said in an interview this week. So far, thousands of cattle from three or four large farms have been given the chips, Rezende said.

For all its rapid growth as a technology market… Read more

Here's a new phone form factor to flip out over. The Motorola FlipOut brings its unusual twisty motion to the beaches of Brazil, but will it make it elsewhere?

We've seen a few square phones lately, including the slider Microsoft Kin One and Two or the clamshell Alcatel OT-808. But the FlipOut puts a new, ahem, twist on things with a twisting action from the top right-hand corner of the keyboard.

Read more of "Motorola FlipOut: Flip to be square" at Crave UK.

Brazil on Tuesday opened the world's first ethanol-fueled power plant in an effort by the South American biofuels giant to increase the global use of ethanol and boost its clean power generation.

State-run oil giant Petrobras and General Electric, which helped design the plant, are betting that increased use of ethanol generation by green-conscious countries will boost demand for the product.

Brazil, the top global ethanol exporter, is already in talks with Japan to develop biofuels power generation there.

"We have great expectations to show the viability and economy of generating electricity from...an alternative feedstock to fossil … Read more

Late last week it was reported that following Venezuela's lead in attempting to reduce "violent tendencies" in South American children, Brazilian Sen. Valdir Raupp has authored a bill that would make it a crime to make, import, or distribute "offensive" video games.

The goal of the bill is to "curb the manufacture, distribution, importation, distribution, trading, and custody, [and] storage of, the video games that affect the customs, traditions of the people, their worship, creeds, religions and symbols."

Where this ban, like many others, falls short is in assigning blame for societal ills to video games instead of dealing with larger social issues, including a lack of parental oversight. There are, no doubt, influences in Brazil that are different from the U.S., but video game ratings have proven to be an excellent example of an industry-wide standard that could easily be adopted internationally.

In a recent report, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) praised the video game industry for continuing "to have the strongest self-regulatory code" of all the entertainment sectors. … Read more

Global biofuel use is expected to increase twofold by 2015 and Brazil will remain the world's top exporter of biofuel, according to a report released Wednesday by Hart Energy Consulting.

The U.S. is expected to see the largest increase in biofuel use per country, increasing its current consumption by more than 30 percent, according to data from the "Global Biofuels Outlook: 2009-2015" report.

The overall increased use of biofuel in many countries around the world will make a dent in the world's consumption of traditional gasoline, according to Hart.

"Global ethanol demand will represent … Read more

The open-source community has a long tradition of looking for and hounding away at the very thought of Microsoft influence from government IT policies.

For example, Open Source Initiative President Michael Tiemann rightly decries an alleged tie between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's charitable donations and Microsoft's "cabinet-level access to inform policy."

Apparently, however, Tiemann has no problem proudly displaying a picture of Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wearing a Red Hat fedora, declaring...

Would that all Presidents and all ministers of all countries were so concerned about the sovereignty of their … Read more

Wow. In discussing the Brazilian government's attempts to subsidize interest rates for Linux desktops in order to promote the open-source operating system, CNET uncovers a sad statistic about Linux desktop adoption. Despite a lot of noise around Brazilian adoption of open source and disdain for Microsoft, Microsoft is getting lots of love, as CNET reports:

A big part of this has been a government-backed "PC for all" program that subsidizes the interest rate for some models, though only those with Linux qualify....

That said, some estimates show as many as 18 or 19 out of every 20 … Read more

A Brazilian man has been charged in connection with operating a botnet composed of more than 100,000 computers infected with malicious software allegedly designed to send spam, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

A federal grand jury in New Orleans handed down an indictment charging Leni de Abreu Neto, a 35-year-old from Taubate, Brazil, with one count of conspiracy to cause damage to computers worldwide. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and up to three years of supervised release, as well as a fine of $250,000 or more based on the … Read more

Ever wonder why Brazil and other BRIC countries are so hot on open source, including Linux? Gustavo Duarte gives several reasons, not the least of which is the punitive pricing that Microsoft inflicts on these developing markets.

In the case of Brazil, Microsoft pillages businesses to the tune of 20.1 percent and consumers at a 7.8 percent clip. Some people pay tithing to their church; Brazilians are asked to pay a tithe to Microsoft. Perhaps this is indicative of Microsoft's self-important belief?

Sounds, bad, right? Well, it's particularly pernicious when you take into account how this compares to Microsoft's pricing in other markets:… Read more