Starbucks Union

News reports "a US school district has created a new rule that will punish students for web postings that depict underage drinking,smoking or other "illegal or inappropriate behaviour".The move caused some parents to complain that the Illinois school district is invading the privacy of students and overstepping its bounds,The Chicago Tribune reported".It says "all students who participate in extra curricular activities,about 80 per cent of the district's 3200 students,will now be required to sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of illegal or inappropriate behaviour posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action.Community High School District 128 Associate Superintendent Prentiss Lea said the changes are part of an effort to get parents, teachers and students more aware of the potential pitfalls of such websites as MySpace.com". School blogs censored ...

(Thanks, Henri!) At 8:30am this morning, wearing neon Hazmat gear, 25 techology activists from FSF & EFF swarmed the 2006 Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle. Following the lead of the French anti-DRM activists, the new initative, Defective By Design, is signing up activists interested in getting involved in local actions to bring awareness to the crippling effects of DRM on art, literature, music or film, and free software. ...

The Associated Press is carrying a story this afternoon describing the outpouring of well-wishes for the gallant racehorse Barbaro. Traditional messages of flowers have been sent to the horse. The expected gift for a horse (apples) have been sent in such abundance that AP reports other horses in the intensive care unit are eating some of them. Digital networking has also been set in motion. To send a good wish to Barbaro, visit this new webpage at the animal hospital where he is a patient....

Tom Abate blogs in the excellent San Francisco Chronicle's Tech Chronicles about new net neutrality legislation: Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced legislation Friday that would define open access to the Internet and give the Federal Communications Commission broad powers to investigate alleged abuses. The Senate bill is a boost for Internet companies that are fighting telephone industry plans to create toll roads on the Internet, an issue dubbed "net neutrality." The newly-introduced Senate bill is virtually identical to legislation proposed by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) that was rejected by a House comittee last month. In its current form the House bill gives telephone companies a freer hand to charge traffic-senders higher rates for faster service. Phone companies say they need this incentive to justify their investment in providing better broadband access to homes. The House bill is expected to come to a floor vote in June. In a related development Rep...

Thousands of students in the United States are being helped with their studies by tutors outside of their country. The cost of doing so is something like 20% of the price for hiring tutors in their own communities. An overview of the distant tutoring is provided by the Washington Post article here. Picking up the phone and interacting over the Internet to study with a subject tutor or cram for a test may be the tip of a surfacing iceberg. Included in the article is this longer view: Some companies are thinking of educational outsourcing on a much broader scale than just tutoring. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System is outsourcing the grading of some papers to Smarthinking, a District-based online tutoring company that works with 70,000 students at 300 schools across the country and has both tutors in the United States and abroad. "Essentially we are acting as the teaching assistant," said Burck Smith, the firm's chief executive and co-founder. "We can do better serv...

The first zero energy home costing less than $200,000 has been built in Oklahoma. This house produces as much energy as it consumes in a year and combines "renewable energy technologies with advanced energy-efficient construction." This environmentally friendly house is just a prototype and not yet available for sale.

Links: Primidi, ZDNet

For some, the Internet it has become an addiction, reports CNN., adversely affecting their lives and their family's lives. While not yet defined as a true addiction, many people are suffering the consequences of obsession with the online world, warns Dr. Diane M. Wieland, who treats patients with computer addiction in her practice in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. For some people, the Internet may promote addictive behaviors and pseudo-intimate interpersonal relationships, reports Wieland in the journal, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. "Such cyberspace contacts may result in cyber disorders such as virtual relationships that evolve into online marital infidelity (cybersex) or online sexually compulsive behaviors," she writes. ... "The prevalence of Internet addiction is hard to gauge at the moment, Wieland notes. Extrapolating from prevalence rates of other addictions, she thinks that 5 percent to 10 percent of Internet users will most likely experience addiction....

Microsoft Corp. and partners are launching an effort to reduce the cost barrier to personal computers in developing countries, combining lower hardware prices with a technology that lets consumers pay for the time they spend using PCs. The WSJ reports. The technology, called FlexGo, is basically a timer that monitors how long a consumer uses a computer. To operate FlexGo-equipped PCs, a user buys a prepaid scratch card and enters the number on the card in the PC, which loads up the PC with time. As the PC is used, the clock clicks down. The program allows suppliers to cut the initial price of PCs and lets consumers pay for them over time with the prepaid cards. ... The program is the latest in a series of similar experiments Microsoft is making to spread the penetration of PCs in developing countries. In recent years, the company has worked with governments, educators and others in places like China and India....

This Shanghai Daily article says "the number of mobile phone subscribers in China hit a record 416 million at the end of April,the Ministry of Information Industry said yesterday.The number increased by 23.216 million in the first four months,more than twice the increase of fixed-line users.There are 55.7 million more mobile subscribers than fixed-line users,the ministry said".

Subscribers increase

DMasia reports "Tuk-tuk,a three-wheeled motorcycle which is a favoured form of local transport common in South Asia,is set to take a new form as a self-contained mobile telecentre in the hilly region of Kothmale in central Sri Lanka.Kothmale Community Radio (KCR) has devised an innovative approach of content delivery and radio production.The Kothmale CMC combines radio broadcasting with telecentre and training facilities.The station originated 'radio browsing',a format that brings internet to radio listeners through a combination of technologies.The 'E-Tuktuk' is a self-contained mobile telecentre and radio broadcasting unit which travels into remote villages in the Kothmale region and provides communities with KCR's programming.The E-Tuktuk contains a laptop computer,battery operated printer,camera,telephone and scanner.Internet access is provided via a CDMA-enabled wireless connection,and electricity is provided via a generator.A roof rack allows the vehicle to carry other equipment ...

Disaster Forensics:Leveraging Crisis Information Systems for Social Science is a PDF from Anthony Townsend, who knows what he's talking about. This is important work that we're going to need in the future: This paper contributes to the literature on information systems in crisis management by providing an overview of emerging technologies for sensing and recording sociological data about disasters. These technologies are transforming our capacity to gather data about what happens during disasters, and our ability to reconstruct the social dynamics of affected communities. Our approach takes a broad review of disaster research literature, current research efforts and new reports from recent disasters, especially Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean Tsunami. We forecast that sensor networks will revolutionize conceptual and empiricial approaches to research in the social sciences, by providing unprecedented volumes of high-quality data on movements, communication and response activiti...

USA Today says "welcome to the blogosphere,chief.And "good luck with your cesspool of crime,disease and victimhood".Such was top Los Angeles cop William J. Bratton's introduction to the rough-and-tumble world of online bulletin boards following his inaugural posting on LAPDblog.org.Just a week old, the site makes the Los Angeles department the biggest police force in the United States,and one of the first worldwide,to blog.So far,the "cesspool" post notwithstanding,Bratton's message and responses to it have largely been positive.The site's 24,000 visitors see announcements for department events and recycled press releases.The point is to build public trust by improving communication,to create an online give-and-take,even when the taking smarts."We want to hear feedback,"said Lt. Paul Vernon,who is helping to oversee LAPDblog.org."We welcome them, however serious or tongue-in-cheek they are". LAPD launches community Web log...

This MIT news office article says "Rachel Kern's office in the MIT Media Lab is quiet,a bit too quiet,when visitors drop by to hear about Monkey Business,her master's thesis and the latest research phase in the lab's Speech Interface Group.Then Kern sits down and begins to talk,and soon two plush monkeys hanging by their tails from little stands also begin to talk.A lot.The chatter starts with a naturalistic "Squee!" from the monkey on Kern's desk,followed at once by a slightly different,equally natural little shriek from the monkey on a second desk. Little monkey faces go up and down.Invisible sensors sense.Tiny motors whir.Fuzzy arms reach out.Their animatronic cuteness knows no bounds."They're reacting to each other,"Kern explains,as the electronic duet escalates,then ebbs."My goal is to facilitate informal communication among distributed group members,people who work together,but in different locations.The monkeys alert people in one office of activity or gathering in another place...

At the Nobel Peace Center, in the new Nobel Field you will find glowing portraits of all the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates emerging from screens among many hundreds of points of light. As you approach the screen of a Laureate the honoree’s display comes alive and audio of his ideas is heard. The Field is composed entirely by digital technologies. Architect David Adjaye said of the room: What is beautiful is that we're living in an information age and for me the fabulous thing is to dissolve the hardware and to make the software speak. Because thats what's precious, and thats what's delightful about the time we are in. via Information Aesthetics ...

Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Sensors Without Batteries In the future, the environment could be pervaded by sensors using the same power-scavenging techniques as RFID tags. Source: Kate Greene, Technology Review, May 15, 2006 Virtual nightclub offers teens alter egos School dances were once the training grounds for teens to learn to interact with the opposite sex. [But if] Andrew Littlefield has his way, young people will hone their social skills within his virtual nightclub, which features all the trappings of a trendy hotspot: dim lights, Jacuzzi and bouncers. Littlefield is the architect of The Lounge, an Internet nightclub that threw open its virtual doors on Monday. Source: Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com, May 14, 2006 SCAMPI trawls the internet Network traffic management is becoming increasingly important as computer networks grow larger and more complicated. A EU project has developed a combination of hardware and ...

(Thanks, Paul!) The San Francisco Chronicle, covering "Healing Games" that promote nonviolence, mentioned a smartmobby game, Peace Bomb: But the greatest applause, the virtual Nobel and the tiara went to Harvey Smith of Midway Games in Austin, Texas. Smith's Peace Bomb would be a community-building multiplayer online game that could potentially engage and organize millions of players around the globe via PCs, laptops and cell phones with the power to morph into a social movement. From time to time, players would organize "flash mobs" -- quickly organized gatherings -- to stage protests and do good deeds, such as helping the needy, cleaning the environment, or hammering nails for Habitat for Humanity. A scoring system could be developed to reflect players' deeds both online and off. It's said that computer games are a "lean-forward" medium because they engage their audience, while TV and cinema allow viewers to lean back. Smith's idea would have players leaning so far forward they'd a...

Mobile phones, email, Blackberries - technology has made us available all day, every day. But at what price, asks Karen Kissane. What price this noisy revolution, with its demands for everyone to be available everywhere, at every moment? How do we pay for the convenience of being able to keep tabs on the kids while we are at work, and tabs on work while we are with the kids? What is happening to solitude, attentiveness, and the boundaries between the public and private spheres in the age of mobiles and Blackberries, SMS and email? read the full article on The Age ...