I'm finally retiring my Nokia 6510 handset, which I've had as my main phone for six years this autumn. Excellent tactile design. Only now it's starting to give. The menu button produces no clicks or double-clicks. Compliment to the engineers and designers who created 6510, it has been a fantastic product - and not quite matched by Nokia's current offering.

Some statistics from the phone's call counters:

Dialled calls' duration 80:20:46
Received calls' duration 240:10:49
All calls' duration 320:31:34
Last call duration 00:14:42

That's almost a fortnight on the phone.

The 6510 worked fine on the presumption that mobile phone is good for phone calls and texting. Now that you're supposed to be able to do all kinds of smart things with your mobile, it seems it's the iPhone that finally delivers those promises.

Yesterday's adventures in Berlin Ringbahn reminded me of a new environmental development in the city. Namely, this summer might be the last one for retro cars. In 2008, all the cars without catalytic converters (Katalysator) will be banned inside the city encircling S-Bahn railroad. As all of them cannot be refitted to comply with Euro 1 emission standard, a great deal of Trabants, Citroëns, Minis and W123s might be gone next year. Automobilists protest accordingly.

Before I left for Helsinki I had a chat with Tibor, who stayed in our flat for a couple of days. He studies architecture at TU München and they have designed a really nice solar powered boat. Called "Solar Proa" its design is based on eponymous proas (a.k.a. catamarans) from Pacific Ocean and it's powered by solar panels, which cover the whole deck surface. The picture shows how clever it is, with that convertible canopy and everything. So far, the design has been featured in Der Spiegel, and their own website will go live later.

Running used to be the simplest form of workout. It is something, that you can do almost anywhere and anytime. No entrance or membership fees. No special gear needed. These things represent a freedom - and in this sense Parkour is freedom par excellence.

I'm still not doing parkour, but I became a jogging nerd instead. With the help of Nike+iPod Sport Kit, which I'm rebelliously using with Adidas shoes. Basically it's just an accelerometer chip and a wireless receiver that connects to an iPod nano, and Nano only. So if you've got one already, this chip is a reasonable accessory.

As you plug the iPod to your computer after the run, iTunes sends your workout data over to Nike website, where you can follow your progress. Unfortunately they missed a great opportunity to build a social network around their product. Nike+ website is a pretty but slow heap of Flash bling-bling and very limited functionality.

Justdoing.it is one example of an attempt to circumvent the system. At the moment, they can produce RSS feeds from your data and offer this kind of web badges:

Another notion is mapping. I've been plotting my runs on Google Earth. Its ruler tool does paths too and is great at measuring distances. At MapMyRun.com people can share their routes worldwide. I've also been doing some aerial reconnaissance to find new or better routes.

Proper spying is not based on satellite imagery though. The Nike chip uses active RFID transmission while on the move. Researchers of the University of Washington were able to monitor joggers from the distance of 20 metres. According to RFID Gazette blog, this is "possibly encouraging borderline personalities into surveillance activities that they might not otherwise bother with".