Hot desking in paradise: 11 exotic coworking locations.

Remote working is increasingly becoming an option for workers, particularly those in the tech industry. However, with the ability to work remotely comes the ability to choose where to get your work done. Coworking spaces are an attractive alternative to working from home for many, offering the amenities of an office and the social benefits of working next to other people. These spaces are popping up in countries around the world, giving remote workers the chance to ply their trades for a few hours, days, weeks or even longer from almost anywhere. If you’re aching to see more of the world, while still getting work done, here are 11 coworking spaces in some of the more exotic locations around the globe.


WORK Saigon
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Website: http://www.worksaigon.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in the city formerly known as Saigon, a small coworking space targeted to creatives. Also doubles as a cafe serving single-origin coffees and homemade goods such as breads, soups and cakes. Coworking residents get discounts on food and access to the courtyard swimming pool.

Costs: VND 2,000,000 ($94)/month for a guaranteed desk and locker; drop-ins can work for free with food or beverage purchase at cafe

Quote: “Ideal office away from my homebase in the US. Creative spirit and productive working environment... plus a killer passion fruit fizz and a pool!” Kyle Pfister

Jerusalem Startup Hub
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Website: http://www.jerusalemstartuphub.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in one of the oldest cities in the world and one considered holy by Christians, Jews and Muslims. This startup incubator offers access to legal assistance, mentors, venture capital firms and angel investors, as well as desks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for individual workers. Also provides personal lockers and unlimited beverages.

Costs: NIS 75 ($22)/day, NIS 350 ($100)/week, NIS 900 - 1,150 ($258 - $330)/month

Quote: “Great place !” Yossi Assayag

Hubud
Location: Bali, Indonesia
Website: http://www.hubud.org/

Special features/amenities: Located in Bali’s creative capital amid rice paddies and next to a monkey preserve. The interior space is made from sustainable materials including bamboo and recycled ironwood. Includes an organic cafe with smoothies, a granola station and gluten-free desserts.

Costs: Between $20 and $250/month, depending on level of access

Quotes: “I've worked in a shared environment before. But this one is the one of a kind….” Eric Tracz

“Awesome work space in Bali…. You'll often get a monkey visiting from across the road!” Max Bramwell

Urban Station
Location: Multiple branches in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Website: http://argentina.enjoyurbanstation.com/

Special features/amenities: Five current locations in Buenos Aires, offering lockers, laptop locks, ergonomic furniture and both American and European electrical connections. Also includes unlimited coffee services, including pastries, breads and fruits.

Costs: EUR 3 ($4)/hour, EUR 200 ($266)/month

Quotes: “Beautiful place ... with style .... very smart .... excellent lighting ... !!!” Nadia Toledo

“Very good place for business meetings, good weather, quiet, you can talk to. Good price, I totally recommend it.” Rodolfo Gómez

Enspiral Space
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Website: http://www.enspiralspace.co.nz/

Special features/amenities: This coworking space which is dedicated to tech startups, non-profits and freelancers with an ethical/social focus, is located a few blocks Wellington’s Waterfront. The space offers a Lego room and afternoon tea every Tuesday at 4:00.

Costs: NZD 40 ($34)/day, NZD 375 ($316)/month (hot desk), NZD 450 ($380)/month (fixed desk)

Quote: “The room is open plan with a high ceiling and exposed timber. Bookshelves keep the space from being overwhelming, but it is very open. A range of people from small firms are permanently here, with some freelancers or those who come in a day a week. Things are never dull.” Josh Forde

Punspace
Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Website: http://www.punspace.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in NomadList’s best city for remote workers, and just minutes from the shops restaurants and bars of Chiang Mai’s Nimman neighborhood. Offers a Skype room as well as free coffee, tea, water and snacks.

Costs: THB 199 ($6)/day, THB 1,499 ($47)/week, THB 3,499 ($110)/month.

Quotes: “It’s a great working space with a mix of people from local Thai working on tech startups to people from all over the world….” Max

“Great place to work, filled great people, beers in the fridge. 3 key ingredients for any workplace.” Adam McIntyre

The Common Room
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Website: http://www.the-common-room.co.za/en

Special features/amenities: Located in a northern suburb of Johannesburg, includes a quiet room with partitioned workspaces, as well an open work areas. Also features a room with a wood burning fireplace. All furniture is made from recycled shipping crates.

Costs: ZAR 50 ($5)/hour, ZAR 140 ($13)/day. Offers a wide variety of pricing plans for longer term access.

Quote: “Awesome spot for freelancers, start ups, entrepreneurs and pretty much anyone looking for a fun place to work !!!” Jo Coza

A_Space
Location: Manila, Philippines
Website: http://www.aspacemanila.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in Makati City, the financial center of the Philippine capital. The interior is filled with custom made designer furniture, including hanging chairs. Also offers vinyl record players, a small indoor garden, an at gallery and a snack bar.

Costs: PHP 100 ($2)/hour, PHP 1,000 ($23)/day

Quotes: “Cool vibe, perfect ambiance and atmosphere, plus, hanging chairs!” Sheryl Tan

“They had some free yoga sessions going on when we co-worked there. Good Internet. Good coffee.” Ari Bancale

“Best workplace I have ever been. Its not all work, its also FUN here!” Khaleen Catreina Yuxien Porras


Piloto 151
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Website: http://www.piloto151.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in the historic Old San Juan district of the city, right next to City Hall with a view of the Plaza de Armas. Has lots of open space, including three outdoor patios and two lounges, and a fully equipped kitchen with free local coffee.

Costs: $14.99/day, $249/month (shared office), $349/month (personal workstation). Also offers 5 and 10-day passes ($59.99 and $99.99).

Quotes: “Piloto is a great space with a helpful staff. The area is open, modern, and comfortable.” Froilan Irizarry

“Best coworking space in Puerto Rico” Daniel Santiago

Mindpark
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden
Website: http://www.mindpark.se/kontor/

Special features/amenities: Located in an old factory in one of Sweden’s oldest cities, next to IKEA corporate headquarters. Interior designer Niklas Madsen gave the space and furnishings a unique design and feel. The facility also includes a hackerspace and a cafe which serves fair trade food and beverages.

Costs: SEK 1,800 - 2,500 ($263 - $366)/month for a desk, SEK 6,900 ($1,009)/month for an office

Quotes: “Cool rooms filled with students and entrepreneurs in a wonderful mix. One can get a meeting room for a day or a cup of coffee, go to a lecture on the stairs and invite a colleague to lunch.” Anders Larsson

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Adtran lays groundwork for superfast broadband over copper

Telecom equipment vendor Adtran has developed a technology that will make it easier for operators to roll out broadband speeds close to 500Mbps over copper lines.

The conventional wisdom is that copper is dying out and fiber is ascending. However, the cost of rolling out fiber is still too high for many operators, which instead want to upgrade their existing copper networks (and in some cases fiber simply can’t be installed). So there is still a need for technologies that can make use of copper networks and complement fiber.
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Adtran has developed what is calls FDV (Frequency Division Vectoring), which enhances the capabilities of two of these technologies—VDSL2 with vectoring and G.fast—by enabling them to better coexist over a single subscriber line, the company said.

VDSL2 with vectoring, which improves speeds by reducing noise and can deliver up to 150Mbps, is currently being rolled out by operators, while G.fast, which is capable of 500Mbps, is still under development.

The higher speeds are needed for applications such as 4K video streaming, IPTV, cloud-based storage and communication via HD video.

FDV will make it easier for operators to roll out G.fast once it’s ready and expand where it can be used, according to Adtran.

The first G.fast deployments will happen in the middle of 2015, a spokeswoman for Adtran said via email. The underlying standard is expected to be adopted by the end of the year. Once that happens, chip makers and equipment makers like Adtran can develop products for commercial deployments, she said.

The technology increases the bandwidth by using more spectrum. G.fast will use 106MHz of spectrum, which compares to the 17MHz or 30MHz used by VDSL2.

The development of G.fast is currently at a point where vendors are trying to show they are the best alternative for future upgrades. Recently, rival Alcatel-Lucent demonstrated a prototype technology called XG-Fast, which is capable of 1Gbps for upload and download traffic, as well as 10Gbps in download speeds when using two copper pairs, it said.

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10 things you need to know about Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3

Since the release of the first Surface nearly two years ago, Microsoft has been improving and revising its line of tablets. We tested a Surface Pro 3 that came with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD. Microsoft also included a Type Cover -- the keyboard designed for this tablet that also serves as a protective cover, which is normally sold separately. Bottom line: The Surface Pro 3 is a beautifully designed machine that shows off the Windows 8.1 operating system. It’s billed as a tablet, but I found myself preferring to use it as a notebook, a nifty ultraportable one -- and doing so through the Windows desktop environment.

Form factor
The Surface Pro 3 is comprised of styles that complement one another. The flatness of its back is offset by sides that angle outward toward the display screen. Due to its size, which is close to that of 8.5-by-11-inch paper with a thickness of 0.36 inches, it’s safest to hold this tablet with both hands. The kickstand flips out initially to an endpoint of 22 degrees, but the two hinges will gradually and gently give, allowing you to turn them back to 150 degrees. This angle helps you use the tablet when you have it set on a table, without the Type Cover. Placing it on your lap, with the Type Cover attached, and using it as a notebook is doable and not uncomfortable.

Keyboard: Type Cover
The Type Cover, which is available in four colors, attaches tightly with magnets to the edge of only one side of the tablet. The keyboard’s palm rest surface is a tight and smooth-to-the-touch felt. The protective cover is a rougher but softer felt, like a high-quality billiard table. The touchpad is wider than the one on the first version. And while the original rested flat when opened; this one can be raised into an upward incline. I found that this elevated profile did make my typing better.

Software
The Surface Pro 3 uses the 64-bit version of Windows 8.1 Pro. This is, refreshingly, the “cleanest” Windows device (desktop, notebook or tablet) I’ve ever seen: It comes with several Windows Store apps owned by Microsoft, including Skype, but only one by a third-party: Flipboard. There are no third-party desktop applications. The only extraneous desktop application was Microsoft Office.

Display
The 12-inch, 2160-by-1440 pixel screen is color-calibrated, which aids in professional work where maintaining image fidelity is tantamount. To me, the colors looked somewhat dull. By default, the screen is set at a dim looking 50% brightness. I liked it better at 80% to 90%. Outdoors in sunlight, the display’s glass became so reflective that the screen was not viewable. When the tablet is held in portrait mode, its display’s aspect ratio is 2:3, which compares similarly to that of an 8.5-by-11-inch paper sheet. So the Surface Pro 3 can work well for previewing PDFs or scanned images of documents.

Performance
With an Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM, the tablet operated speedily with rarely a slowdown. I would purposely keep several tabs open in a web browser, while playing streaming music or video (at 1080p resolution), and jump between the Start Screen and desktop to launch applications or apps. The one notable time that the Surface Pro 3 became strained was when I updated Windows 8.1 through Windows Update. The upper-right of the tablet’s back (when the device is in its notebook orientation) began to feel warmer than usual to the touch, as the OS installed several updates onto itself. Things returned to normal after a required reboot to finish the installation process.

Digital pen: Surface Pen
The Surface Pro 3 comes with a digital pen, called the Surface Pen. You can use it to interact with Windows 8.1, as you would by tapping on the tablet’s touchscreen with your finger, but it was specially devised for the OneNote app. The Surface Pen has a button at its end that launches OneNote when you click it. Virtually doodling or writing with this digital pen on the Surface Pro 3 felt very much like doing so with an actual pen on paper. Even when I quickly swept its tip across the tablet’s display, OneNote kept up with my motions instantaneously to produce corresponding scribbles.

Sound
When set up as a notebook or held in landscape mode, the tablet’s speakers emanate sound through grills from the top edges of the bezel. The audio had a fullness, but lacked distinct and strong enough clarity in the high end. The volume range seemed narrow, but the loudness that these tiny speakers could put out was still impressive. When I listened through good-quality earbuds, the audio sustained clarity without any distortion at high volume settings.

The Surface Pro 3 has three mics: One in the bezel; two embedded in the back, which together are meant to capture sound in stereo. Using the Windows 8.1 default Sound Recorder app, the front mic recorded audio that sounded crisp and free of buzzing.

Camera
Both the front and rear cameras can capture images up to 5 megapixels. And, in general, I found they were equally capable of taking clear, in-focus shots under bright or sufficient light, whether indoors or outside. Colors appeared accurate and dynamic in such ideal situations.

The difference between them appeared to lie in how each handles focus: The rear camera couldn’t capture objects within about 22 inches in sharp focus. The front camera fared much better, focusing in at about 8 inches, as to be expected; this is the camera that will be transmitting your face when you’re video-chatting.

Battery
Microsoft lists the Surface Pro 3 being able to run for about 9 hours on a full charge. I managed to use it continuously as much as I could (letting it go to sleep when I took breaks) for almost 8 hours under its Windows 8.1 default settings. I browsed the web, captured audio and images, listened to music, ran desktop applications and Windows apps, and watched video. The Surface Pro 3’s power charger, which neatly sticks to the device with a magnetic connector, shines a bright white LED when it’s plugged into a wall outlet. But there’s no light on the tablet to indicate the charging status of its built-in battery. By my estimate, it took about 3 hours to completely recharge.

Specs
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro, 64-bit
DISPLAY: 12 inch, 2160-by-1440 pixel
SCREEN: Multi-touch touchscreen with digital pen support
UNDER THE HOOD: Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 chip, 4 or 8 GB RAM; 64, 128, 256 or 512 GB SSD
CAMERAS: 5 MP front camera; 5 MP rear
CONNECTIVITY: MicroSD slot, Mini DisplayPort, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11ac/802.11 a/b/g/n
BATTERY: Up to 9 hours
WEIGHT: 1.76 lbs
DIMENSIONS: 11.5” x 7.93” x 0.36”
PRICE: Starts at $799; Type Cover: $129.99

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