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ActivismJune 14, 200619:45
I never do this, but I am reproducing this press release in its entirety because of its importance:
Global Gathering on the Commons
Press Release
By Anne MacKinnon and Charlotte Hess
UBUD, BALI, INDONESIA - Recent research from all over the world offers a new approach to combating poverty and other difficult problems worldwide, an international group of scholars says.
An organization of those scholars will hold a major international conference in Bali this June including a special session to make their alternative approach better known to policy-makers.
Examples from all over the world show that communities can successfully set up their own arrangements for managing natural resources, the scholars say. The result is greater prosperity for both the local people and the natural resources they depend upon – such as water, forests, and fish.
Yet the lessons from those communities are often left out of the mix in international discussions of ways to address poverty. Typical...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
19:12
"KDDI Corp. said Tuesday that personal information on nearly 4 million Internet service subscribers,including their names and addresses,was leaked to a third party,"the Japan Times reports."Tokyo police announced the arrest of two men on suspicion of attempting to extort 5 million yen to 10 million yen from the telecommunications firm,saying they had personal data on more than 4 million customers.The suspects were identified as Akio Minomura,57,from Kawasaki,and Akihiko Torii,47,from Adachi Ward,Tokyo.Their professions were not known,the Metropolitan Police Department said.The leaked information consists of the addresses,telephone numbers,gender,e-mail addresses and birth dates of nearly 4 million customers who applied for KDDI's Dion Internet service before Dec.18,2003, including those who canceled their service before or after that date,KDDI President Tadashi Onodera said".
Data on 4 million KDDI customers leaked; extortion bid foiled
...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
06:11
Scientists from the MIT have found a new material which can at the same time attract and repel water. This super plastic could be used in dry areas of the world to collect water. But it also could be used elsewhere to decontaminate water or in biomedical applications to make microfluidic chips. Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
June 13, 200621:32
DMeurope reports "the two billionth mobile phone user worldwide was connected this past weekend and new users are signing up at the rate of 1000 per minute,says the GSM Association (GSMA).More than 72 million of these users are 3GSM customers.Craig Ehrlich, chairman of the GSMA, says 'While it took just 12 years for the industry to reach the first billion connections.The second billion has been achieved in just two and a half years boosted by the phenomenal take up of mobile in emerging markets such as China,India,Africa and Latin America,which accounted for 82 per cent of the second billion subscribers.GSM mobile technology began in Finland in 1991. Today, more than 690 mobile networks provide GSM services across 213 countries and GSM represents 82.4% of all global mobile connections".
Two billion GSM mobile phone users worldwide
...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
21:07
This China Daily article says "she had never used a computer before,and she had no idea what a blog was.But it was this online innovation she knew nothing about that helped save her life.Chen Dongxiang,12,from a remote mountain village in Central China's Hunan Province, had been suffering from blood poisoning since last June.Soaring medical costs made it impossible for her family to help her,even as her leg was decomposing.Hope seemed lost.But because of a blogger,Li Guozhong,her story did not end there.Li,an amateur photographer from Hunan,was the first to report Chen's condition on his blog on May 24.Li had travelled to her village of Huaihua last month on a photography trip.While there he learned of Chen,who had already wracked up 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) in medical bills at the local hospital.Her mother was mentally retarded and her father blind in his right eye.The 800-yuan (US$100) annual income of her 11-member family was far from enough to cover further medical treatment.Chen's...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
20:36
This govtech.net article says "the wireless network movement is joining a new generation of high-tech meters to improve data gathering and increase revenue."We see parking as an important part of the public-service tier of services a Wi-Fi network could improve, along with traffic, maintenance and field inspectors," said Houston CIO Richard Lewis,adding that this summer,Houston will become the first major U.S. city to manage its parking meters over a wireless network". Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
20:23
This article says "we have come to one of those forks in the road that affect the direction of the entire newspaper industry.From tomorrow,the Guardian will publish stories first to the web,ending the primacy of the printed newspaper.The Mail is moving internet staff into its newsroom, the Telegraph is stepping up its digital operation - possibly with some internal confusion about its ultimate destination - and every man and woman at News International is scurrying to satisfy Rupert Murdoch's new interest in the medium.But for a newspaper to say that the website comes first is a big,big step".
The web trail
...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
20:11
"A dictionary of Sydney,to be launched today,aims to bring together local knowledge and university scholarship into a minutely detailed story of the city,accessible to anyone with a computer,"the smh reports."There will be something on every suburb,"said Dr Shirley Fitzgerald,the City of Sydney council historian who is helping to co-ordinate the mammoth project."You never know what stories people are going to come up with."Ms Fitzgerald has been working with a team from the council and several universities to build up a reservoir of information".Further,"members of the public will be encouraged to submit suggestions,but they will have to convince a panel of historians that their story is accurate before it is included".
Tale of one city - interactive and online...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
19:55
"Three men in Brunei have been sentenced to a year in prison for sending mobile phone video clips considered seditious and insulting to the royal family,"news reports."The case is one of the first involving the misuse of phone technology in Brunei,one of the world's last absolute monarchies,where citizens are loath to criticise Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and his family.The royal family controls key government posts and the country's oil wealth.Police chief Majid Damit said that in November last year,Isa Jaya, 32,William Rahman, 49,and Tuah Sabang,41,recorded their voices on a mobile phone and linked the file to a video clipof one or more members ofBrunei's royal family,as though the royals were speaking the words".
Jail for phone sedition
...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
June 12, 200619:31
The BBC reports that "pupils at a school in Buckinghamshire have been getting extra help with GCSE revision by texting their teachers.Far from banning mobile phones,Cottesloe School in Wing has decided to turn modern technology to its advantage in an attempt to improve results.Since Easter,Year 11 pupils have been able to message teachers from home with revision queries and get a text answer.The school said "text mentoring" had also seen teachers messaging pupils with revision prompts and exam tips".
Pupils get revision help by text ...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
19:08
"For a peek at what's cooking behind Google's research lab doors,check out this plan to get your computer to listen in to what you're watching on tv",the New Scientist technology blog says."By using its microphone to listen in and then connecting to an online database it could identify the show,and how far through you are.The next step is where it gets interesting.One application would be to automatically set up a chatroom for everyone watching the same thing at once,like a virtual tv couch.I think Google's bigger interest is in using this for advertising though, since it would be hard to make money from otherwise."[C]ontent providers or advertisers might bid for specific television segments",the paper says.Your computer might browse to your local video store when a film trailer was on,or show you where to buy a film star's outfit when they appear on a chat show.Of course,you'd have to be either very keen to see this advertising,or to have no choice".
Google's tv eavesdropping plan
...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
05:07
"Swedes who download free music and movies have formed their own political party and plan to field 140 candidates," Times Online reports.Further,"some 6,000 Swedes (and counting) have formed their own political party:the Pirate Party.To be clear, the Pirate Party doesn’t just represent all-you-can-eat downloaders,but downloading is the principal activity that this group, ranging from their teens to late 50s,seems to have in common."For a lot of members this is the first political party they’ve ever joined," says 21-year-old Balder Lingegard, an engineering student from Gothenburg who serves as the Pirate Party secretary and is a parliamentary candidate in this September’s national election."For some, they have felt betrayed by the political system for a long time,feeling it did not represent their interests.Others felt as if there was never an important enough issue for them to take a political stand."That "important issue" occurred last week in the form of a raid by Swedish poli...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
05:01
The smh reports "Verizon Wireless,the No. 2 U.S. mobile phone service provider,plans to launch a wireless service that lets parents check their children's whereabouts and alerts them when they venture out of bounds.Parents can use the service to set up geographic limits and receive text alerts if their children,who also carry phones,go too far from home.The service also lets parents check where their offspring are via a map on their mobile or computer".
Honey I tracked the kids...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
04:47
This IHT article says "when a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a summer intern this month,the company's president went online to check on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of Illinois.At Facebook, a popular social networking site,the executive found the candidate's Web page with this description of his interests:"smokin' blunts" (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex,all described in vivid slang.It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing.He was done."A lot of it makes me think,what kind of judgment does this person have?" said the company's president,Brad Karsh."Why are you allowing this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semipublicly?"Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors looking for their first job.But now,college career counselors and other experts say, some recruite...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
04:20
There have been a series of articles lately on basically how "less is more" with regard to blogging and of all things, conference organizing - events which notoriously take so much effort to pull through smoothly. Interesting trends.
On Blogging
-- Why Blog Post Frequency Does Not Matter Anymore - "Daily posts are a legacy of a Web 1.0 mindset and early Web 2.0 days (meaning 12 months ago!). The pressure around posting frequency will ultimately become a significant barrier to the maturity of blogging. Here are 10 reasons why. "
-- The noisy tragedy of the blog commons (Seth Godin) - Frequent posting is actually starting to have a negative impact on loyalty: Seth Godin (a frequent blogger) has a very interesting theory. - RSS fatigue is already setting in. With too many posts, you run the risk of losing loyal readers, overwhelmed by the clutter you generate. Readers will start to tune off if your blog takes up too much of their time.
On Conferencing
-- Why "unconferences" are fun...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
June 11, 200616:40
The podcast page on the Personal Democracy Forum launched the audio files of interviews and commentaries from this year's Personal Democracy Forum, Monday May 15th in NYC. Sanford Dickert from Rawlings Political provided the audio files live.
You will learn:
What Congressman Weiner thinks of Net Neutrality
What Jason Calacanis thinks of political blogs
What are the three most important take-aways from doing anything in the mobile space
What were some of the here-to-fore unknown lessons from the Dean Campaign.
Rawlings Political is an online political strategy and execution firm - focusing on using state-of-the-art technology and marketing techniques to build effective online communities to generate candidate support in both supporters and donations....
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
14:25
Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them.
Lost and Found in Manhattan
For some people, location is everything. As a self-confessed GPS geek, Cyril Houri has a thing about knowing his x and y coordinates – the latitude and longitude readings that tell you precisely where you are in the world. But because GPS uses satellite signals to triangulate your position, it works only in places where you can get a signal. [...]
So he grabs his smartphone and powers up Navizon, a system he developed that can tri-angulate his position by taking readings from Wi-Fi hot spots or cellular towers. Bingo!
Source: Frank Rose, Wired Magazine, Issue 14.06, June 2006
Getting computer grids to talk to each other
Grids have their own way of meshing together Grids that use different operating systems. Instead of developing individual translators for each Grid operating system UniGridS [, a IST-funded project,] developed an interoperability layer called t...
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
02:23
Phones must keep the focus on voice, says Daniel Robinson in ITWeek.
Mobile devices should not neglect voice communication as they acquire other messaging options.
In all the excitement over push email, mobile web browsing, instant messaging, fixed-mobile convergence, and numerous other features that modern handsets are sprouting, it is perhaps easy to forget that behind it all there is basically a phone.
I'm not suggesting that we should give up on mobile messaging and other useful features, but it is easy to forget that voice is still the "killer application" for mobile communication. Very few people can type faster than they can talk, and this means that in many situations it is much easier to just call someone and speak to them directly than it is to compose an email or a text message....
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
June 10, 200618:05
Today among the trailers shown of movies coming soon to the theater where I was in the audience, was one for Step Up, to be released on August 11th. The Step Up trailer included a message to be sure to visit Step Up at MySpace.com. When I got home I Googled "Step Up MySpace" and clicked through to the page here. The media mix is interesting, with the trailer pushing MySpace, MySpace pushing the movie, and a chance for dancers to win their way from their promos on the little videos into a part on the big screen. The project platforms on the hottest youth digital space, which seems like a step up for the online marketing crowd....
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
10:38
Source: Smart Mobs
Categories: Activism
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