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Many Polish people may indeed be nationalist, they may be anti-semites, russophobes... but racists? There are just not so many black people in Poland. Microsoft was probably right thinking that having black people in the ads would not connect in a 99.9% white population.

Not identifying with people of other races is exactly what racism means. In fact I don't think I could make up a better definition.

Yes, Virginia, many or most (all?) people are at least a little racist at some level. Subtly altering a candidate to look more like a voter makes that candidate more likely to receive the vote. Most Americans find it easier to associate words with negative connotations with blacks and positive connotations with whites. Yes, racism is almost universal to some degree and probably natural. Does this make you think it's ok or unimportant? To me it makes it all the more problematic.

What the heck? Equalitarian? No distinguishing from peers? In what part of Holland have you been living??

I would explain the 13.3% with the wide-spread use of Internet. Every noob I know surfs the Internet regularly, and hardly any of them care about technology. They just see computers and the Internet as a means to something else and are happy with what works (and the difference FF : IE is not that big). Also note that MSN is by far the superior IM here Short article on MSN usage in The Netherlands [smartmobs.com]. There is no anti-Microsoft feeling here, including universities, which indeed are highly Microsoft dependent. A lot of IT-students have never even heard of OpenOffice. Nothing will change with Vista even though MS screwed it up. Personally, I'm praying for ReactOS.

This appears to be confirmation that at least Michelin has put RFID chips in tires.

Tokyo train station gets facial scan payment systems
http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/27/tokyo-train-sta tion-gets-facial-scan-payment-systems/ [engadget.com]

Your face could soon become just another 'bar code'
  SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS AT STATIONS
http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/biometrics_you r_face_could_be_barcode.htm

Tokyo's Kasumigaseki Station
http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2006/04/26/tokyos _kasumig.html

Speaking of past and future predictions, how about we all step back in time a bit down digital memory lane...

Tokyo train station gets facial scan payment systems

http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/27/tokyo-train-sta tion-gets-facial-scan-payment-systems/

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RFID subway pass? Sure, New York says
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6033364.html

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Radio-Frequenci ID: Asian Impediments
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct 2006/tc20061009_971601.htm

(page was ALL jacked up in my Konqueror browser....)

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Suica

http://www.answers.com/topic/suica

Suica stands for "Super Urban Intelligent CArd"

"a rechargeable contactless smart card used as a fare card on train lines in Japan. Launched in November 2001,..."

"Technology
The card incorporates contactless radio frequency identification RFID technology developed by Sony, called FeliCa. The same technology is also deployed in the Edy electronic cash cards used in Japan, the Octopus card in Hong Kong, and the ezlink Card in Singapore."

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RFID in Japan

http://ubiks.net/local/blog/jmt/archives3/2005/02/ index.php?page=all

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RFID Cards Big in Tokyo

http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2003/03/15/rfid_c ards_big_....html

"Pockets in Japan, however, are getting lighter with the growing use of integrated-circuit smart cards. The size of a credit card, they are packed with thin antennas and an encrypted integrated chip that can be used thousands of times to pay for train fares, meals at restaurants and snacks at convenience stores. In less than two years, nearly seven million people in Japan have started using one of two types of cards, both based on technology developed by Sony.

So far, the main client for the cards is JR East, the largest railway company in Japan. Nearly six million train and bus commuters have started using the first of the two types, known as Suica cards, since they were introduced 18 months ago."

For those interested in similar devices (well, actually key fob) in the US, read 5-Peter Davidson's post about "Speedpass"

BUT, be sure to read # 7- "SUICA IS NOT RFID"

http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/suica/

----

heheh, slash image word: "rescuing"...

Actually, WiBro was demonstrated during last winter olympic games in Turin.

One of these things could be used simply to tell if there is an open spot, and a brochure placed in mailboxes nearby. I dont believe that the police will actually be using a laptop to connect to your network and do a test by surfing to google. Again I didnt RTA yet so if that is the case, then I start to be concerned.

This is part of the other half of their jobs. Helping people unlock cars, giving rides to people who are lost, just in general helping the communities they are there to protect.

Tokyo Cabs to Try RFID Payments

http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2004/10/19/tokyo_ cabs_to_t.html

Revelation 13:16 - 17
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=73&ch apter=13&verse=15&end_verse=17&version=31&context= context

Just combining...

There is a lot of evidence of massive cell phone use in developing nations, accomplishing much of what this laptop program is trying to accomplish. There is no evidence currently to support the laptop program.

Over 10 million people in Nigeria have cell phones: http://fellows.rdvp.org/davidlehr/blog/cellphoneus echangeslifeinafrica/ - that they use to find sellers or buyers of their crops.

Cell phones are providing a way to do low-cost banking in South Africa: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-08 -28-cell-banks-africa_x.htm/

They've been called a "lifter from poverty" - http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2005/11/26/mobile _phone_as.html/ and the "pocket answer to the digital divide" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4446966.stm/

The only thing stupid that MS is doing here is assuming that you need a keyboard and a tv. You don't. You just need a very capable phone.

Because this shutdown wouldn't affect the government members that might actually move to do something about it, it's not going to change anything there. If anything, with all the execs seeing how it could hurt their competition, it's going to fuel even more patent attacks.

I Don't Think So Tim.

"Washington is BlackBerry central. Members of Congress were issued the contraptions after 9/11, when cell phones died but BlackBerries kept working, and no political operative or reporter can be seen without one."

I then speculated that this could also be applied to nations. A country's greatness may be able to be measured by the ease at which its citizens gather information. And if you look at today's countries, this might be true.

Perhaps this initiative to deliver cheap laptops to students of poorer nations will help boost their economy and the rate at which information travels from person to person. After all, isn't internet access the fastest and cheapest form of communicating?

A woman in London during the transit bombings went to a public webcam and used her cell phone to report her observations and feelings. She may be the first to step in front of the new mass media, by and for the masses.

I was personally awestruck by how Del.icio.us and Flickr became channels for democratized real time reporting during the London bombings. Bloglines and RSS connected everything seamlessly, essentially turning the entire universe of Blogs into one stream.

Phone cams at one end took pictures from practically everywhere during and after the attacks. Enough people posted pics to http://flickr.com/photos/tags/london to extensively cover what was happening on the ground. Bloggers close to the scene provided ongoing summaries and updates.

As fresh news rushed to the Web from everywhere, http://del.icio.us/tag/london offered real-time-most-recommended links.

A couple of interesting facts: Since Bloglines includes the number of total subscribers to any feed you have subscribed to, you can tell at a glance how popular that feed is. The Flickr and del.icio.us feeds went into the hundreds from only a few subscribers within a couple of hours.

Completely spontaneous emergent mass media, by and for the masses. The digitally connected masses have leached the mass from media, now adjusting to its rightful place as simply another niche. In short, viable grass roots media has arrived.

according to this :
http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view& nid=1541

Just 90 seconds after Mr Hill began transmitting, Mr Gibson announced that he had the message received and written down correctly.

The message was

"Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing."

thats 108 characters

108 / 90 = 1.2 cps

yet the world record for SMS entry is 3.7 cps

http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2004/06/28/sms_sp eed_recor.html

Ms Kimberly Yeo,a 23yo business student,clocked just 43.24 seconds for typing this 160-character, 26-word text."The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

Based on ideas taken from Wikipedia and dodgeball , Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, using SMS text messaging on cell phones. Here is how it works, according to " Cellphedia Melds Facts with Mobile Smart Mobs " from E-Commerce Times. First, you register for free on the site and you indicate what are your subjects of interest. If you want to ask a question, it is sent to all the members who expressed interest in this particular subject. Finally, the first answer received by Cellphedia is sent back to you. This means that later answers, which could have been more accurate, are discarded. But this service is still very young and its creator is working hard to improve it. Read more...

Here is a general description of this service, created by Limor Garcia as part of her thesis while at New York University.

Inspired by Wikipedia, the all-volunteer, online community encyclopedia, and Dodgeball, a cell phone-based social networking service, Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, all through a mobile phone.

Registration for the service is free at the Cellphedia Web site. After registering, members choose areas that they're interested in -- art, architecture, food, music, etc. A member can ask a question in any area, but the questions go to people who have chosen the area as one that interests them.

Questions and answers are sent and received using SMS on your cell phone. And as I wrote above, only the first answer received by CellPhedia is sent back to the person who asked a question.

Unlike Wikipedia, answers to questions via Cellphedia aren't subjected to community review to assess their accuracy. And while multiple members might answer a question, only the first answer received by the system is forwarded to an inquirer.

Garcia noted that group editing of answers is her next priority for the service. "I'm going to open it up for people to correct answers as well," she said.

Interviewed for this article, Howard Rheingold, from Smart Mobs , said that Cellphedia was another example of the convergence between technologies such as cell phone, computers and Internet.

"The phone gives you instant communication wherever you are," he explained. "And the Internet enables you to connect with people who share an interest. Combining that gives you the ability to create something like Wikipedia with a social network."

"It remains a question about whether she's going to get a sufficient critical mass," he noted. "Wikipedia works because there's a sufficient number of people working on it."

Now, let's look at some examples of questions and answers stored on the Cellphedia central server. As you can see, there are all kinds of requests.

• Short question, short answer
  Q: age new pope
  A: 78
• Short question, long answer
  Q: what's a phreak
  A: a phreak is someone who is highly skilled in the use of phone systems. phreaksare considered a subset of hackers.
• Long question, short answer
  Q: does someone know how to install osx tiger on to an ipod for later installation on an ibook?
  A: not possible
• A question without answer
  Q: where can i find info on time travel?

For another point of view about this service, you can read this article from Wired News, "

Solipsis is a infinitely scalable virtual world, p2pnet and smartmobs have stories on Solipsis..

NB : The name 'Solipsis' comes from Solipsism, a philosophical doctrine that claims that reality only exists in one's mind.

If nothing else - the thought of 'dancing robots' really freaks me out

In that case, I heartily suggest that you don't watch this video.

I've been a strong advocate of the social bookmarking service named del.icio.us since it started (check here for an example). And almost every single day, a new tool appears and enhances the use of this service. This new one, DURL , written by Robin Millette , lets you type an URL and see if some other people already "delicious'ed it." And this is very efficient because it leads you to people who not only bookmarked the URL, but also assigned to it some pertinent keywords or tags, giving you new and fresh ideas. Services like Bloglines or Technorati among others certainly can return hundreds of links, so they are good for 'popularity contests.' But for building social communities and introducing you to sources you wouldn't have thought of, they don't compare to del.icio.us. Read more for lots of examples...

As I'm not sure if I convinced you, let's start with a real blog, Smart Mobs .

If I feed the URL http://www.smartmobs.com/ to Bloglines by submitting the search string "http://www.bloglines.com/citations?url=http://www .smartmobs.com/&submit=Search," I receive 3358 unsorted results.

If I do the same with Technorati , I find 1,614 links from 1,234 sources, sorted by date.

In both cases, this produces a number of references which is hard to browse. Why a particular site has quoted Smart Mobs? It's not obvious to find an answer.

So, it's time to use DURL, which returns a more manageable number of 45 results from del.icio.us.

http://www.primidi.com/images/durl_1.jpg

Here is a screen capture of the page returned by DURL. You can see that some people are reading Smart Mobs because they associated it with the concepts of "creativity" or "ubiquitous computing". Others are using tags such as "collaboration," "mobile" or "community." (Credit: Robin Millette/del.icio.us).

Let's check for example the tag "Social Software."

http://www.primidi.com/images/durl_2.jpg

It brings us to del.icio.us/hbryant/social_software . (Credit: del.icio.us). Wow! Exciting! New tools for del.icio.us! Let's visit Soooo del.icio.us people can't stand it! .

In a summary, with only two clicks, I found a gold mine. Do you know another service which is that efficient?

Now, let's return to the previous page and check the link to the "community" tag.

http://www.primidi.com/images/durl_3.jpg

This time, this leads us to del.icio.us/oubiwann/community . (Credit: del.icio.us). From there, I can now read a "definition of Mundialization" or discover what is the "World Government of World Citizens."

The more I use del.icio.us, the more I like it. This doesn't mean I'm not using Bloglines or Technorati, but I'm using them for 'exhaustivity,' not for 'discovery.'

[And here is an additional note for Robin Millette, the author of DURL. In fact, you can do the same search on del.icio.us by adding the string "http://del.icio.us/url?url=" (without the quotes) before the URL you want to see if it has been delicioused. But it might be too geeky for some of you.]

Source: Robin Millette, December 20, 2004; and various websites

I've been a strong advocate of the social bookmarking service named del.icio.us since it started (check here for an example). And almost every single day, a new tool appears and enhances the use of this service. This new one, DURL , written by Robin Millette , lets you type an URL and see if some other people already "delicious'ed it." And this is very efficient because it leads you to people who not only bookmarked the URL, but also assigned to it some pertinent keywords or tags, giving you new and fresh ideas. Services like Bloglines or Technorati among others certainly can return hundreds of links, so they are good for 'popularity contests.' But for building social communities and introducing you to sources you wouldn't have thought of, they don't compare to del.icio.us. Read more for lots of examples...

As I'm not sure if I convinced you, let's start with a real blog, Smart Mobs .

If I feed the URL http://www.smartmobs.com/ to Bloglines by submitting the search string "http://www.bloglines.com/citations?url=http://www .smartmobs.com/&submit=Search," I receive 3358 unsorted results.

If I do the same with Technorati , I find 1,614 links from 1,234 sources, sorted by date.

In both cases, this produces a number of references which is hard to browse. Why a particular site has quoted Smart Mobs? It's not obvious to find an answer.

So, it's time to use DURL, which returns a more manageable number of 45 results from del.icio.us.

http://www.primidi.com/images/durl_1.jpg

Here is a screen capture of the page returned by DURL. You can see that some people are reading Smart Mobs because they associated it with the concepts of "creativity" or "ubiquitous computing". Others are using tags such as "collaboration," "mobile" or "community." (Credit: Robin Millette/del.icio.us).

Let's check for example the tag "Social Software."

http://www.primidi.com/images/durl_2.jpg

It brings us to del.icio.us/hbryant/social_software . (Credit: del.icio.us). Wow! Exciting! New tools for del.icio.us! Let's visit Soooo del.icio.us people can't stand it! .

In a summary, with only two clicks, I found a gold mine. Do you know another service which is that efficient?

Now, let's return to the previous page and check the link to the "community" tag.

http://www.primidi.com/images/durl_3.jpg

This time, this leads us to del.icio.us/oubiwann/community . (Credit: del.icio.us). From there, I can now read a "definition of Mundialization" or discover what is the "World Government of World Citizens."

The more I use del.icio.us, the more I like it. This doesn't mean I'm not using Bloglines or Technorati, but I'm using them for 'exhaustivity,' not for 'discovery.'

[And here is an additional note for Robin Millette, the author of DURL. In fact, you can do the same search on del.icio.us by adding the string "http://del.icio.us/url?url=" (without the quotes) before the URL you want to see if it has been delicioused. But it might be too geeky for some of you.]

Source: Robin Millette, December 20, 2004; and various websites

There is a Spanish version of my post available at my blog: Conversaciones enlatadas.

Regards,
Pablo Martinez-Almeida

Rubbish. It's because he submits articles linking to his blog, which essentially contains a summary of and a link to the real article, and yet slashdot sees fit to post lots of them.

He's driving traffic to his blog to increase ad revenue and his reputation (he's now working as a professional blogging consultant), and slashdot are helping big-time. If there's money changing hands, or it's a favour for a friend, then fine - but the slashdot guys really ought to tell us.

yes, its from him

and after some diggin in his blog, i found another site with a post by same Roland. And this post is surprisingly similar to the one he posted on /.
:-)

yes, its from him

and after some diggin in his blog, i found another site with a post by same Roland. And this post is surprisingly similar to the one he posted on /.
:-)

Seriously, I think the Slashdot editors should really stop allowing him to submit things that link to his blog instead of the real source.

This blog, Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends attracts about 150,000 visitors per month, of which 60% come from Slashdot

OK, so it's heavy now, but give laptops / PDAs / phones a few more years of convergence, and think about the implications of spontaneous network formation at protest rallies (if you haven't yet, go out and read Smart Mobs). Picture the next Tien-an-men square (or anti-whatever-war-W-starts-next) protest, with a self-organizing network of all (or close enough - everyone one step away from someone who's a node) participants. Toss in some network consensus-building software. Digital cameras and sound already included. Every beating, killing, tank-running-over, whatever captured and distributed across the network instantly.

Eventually the Big Man'll get jammers and then we'll have to hack together LOS lasers, but that'll be fun too.

1) FCC - They have to approve every device and this takes time.
2) Slow adoption rate. The USA isn't big on advanced cells. Not like Europe or Asia.
3) Usually the better phones are GSM. Only recently has GSM become a real option here in the states.

Also: If this type of stuff interestes you, check out Smart Mobs and the book, it is excellent.

See!! See!!! I predicted this revolution. Now go and buy my book, you fucking sheep.

Love and kisses,
Howard Rheingold

You'll find the summary of this Business 2.0's story on Smart Mobs. And on my blog, you can find two other stories about RFIDs, Bye-Bye Bar Codes? and The Eerie Possibilities of RFID Tags.

Granted, having recently read Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Here is the /. review), I am probably somewhat oversensitive to stories like this.

Be that as it may, what makes this interesting to me is not only China's response, but the fact that 120 million people were using SMS to discuss and act on a single issue. And, there are other examples of this as well, such as the toppling of the Philipine president, tactical organization of WTO protestors, and the organization of protesters against the war in Iraq.

Thinking on a broader scope, these all seem to me to be examples of self-organization in the complexity theory sense of the term, and it has the potential to be more important than email because:

- it can be done on a relatively inexpensive devise I can slip into a pocket.
- the user does not have to be "logged in" in the same way that one does in order to get email on a computer. (Yes, I am aware of the Blackberry, but it doesn't have the market share SMS-capable phones have.)
- it is nearly instantaneous. The user is told that a message has arrived, and does not have to periodically check an account.
- it doesn't have the language issues the web has because if people send SMS's to recipients in other countries, they will share a common language with the person to whom they have sent the message. The recipient is an intelligent translator who can retransmit the message in another language as necessary.

It would not surprise me to see global movements applying nearly instantaneous pressure on local governments in the not-too-distant future using SMS. With the increasing popularity of MMS and phones with built in cameras, we will even get pictures.

Take an army of the recently-described feral hunting robots . To each robot, add a GPS chip and wireless mesh networking .

Give the people and dogs smart name tags , and have your dogs exchange your "business card" with the other smart name tags. Publish the FOAF url in it, so you can immediately check for compatibility and give the new information to the dogs.

Study the discovered FOAF files , each describing individual traits ("attributes").

Instruct the feral robots to find other people with compatible personalities , but to stay near you. They'll roam around, seeking people whose interests relate to yours.

For bonus points, add solar panels to generate power as it roams around, and electronic boundaries to keep it in safe areas, away from motor traffic.

Take an army of the recently-described feral hunting robots . To each robot, add a GPS chip and wireless mesh networking .

Give the people and dogs smart name tags , and have your dogs exchange your "business card" with the other smart name tags. Publish the FOAF url in it, so you can immediately check for compatibility and give the new information to the dogs.

Study the discovered FOAF files , each describing individual traits ("attributes").

Instruct the feral robots to find other people with compatible personalities , but to stay near you. They'll roam around, seeking people whose interests relate to yours.

For bonus points, add solar panels to generate power as it roams around, and electronic boundaries to keep it in safe areas, away from motor traffic.

http://www.orgnet.com/

http://www.anacubis.com/index.html

http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html

http://smg.media.mit.edu/projects/SocialNetworkFra gments/

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_4/krebs/

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_camero n030703.asp

Yes, OSS development shares two key characteristics with smart mobs: the OSS community engages in a form of collective action, and they use online media to communicate and coordinate. Smart Mobs specifically looks at the new kinds of social impacts afforded by the combination of mobile communication, pervasive computation, and collective action. When OSS developers start using the Net and mobile devices to coordinate their activities, they will be smart mobby.

Jenkins article was about the art and science of writing about the future in a way that would encourage discourse. I believe that we can have more influence on events if we understand the driving forces and critical uncertainties raised by the intersection of society and technology -- and if we have intelligent discussions about the implications. Anyone interested?

You should check out the book "Smart Mobs" it has chapters on where P2P technology is headed, and reputation management systems, managing public goods, social habits, all very good stuff. I find it fascinating.

You can read my own summaries of the book and the chapters within it easily enough, and an ongoing blog about Smart Mobs if you don't like the review. You can also read other reviews and articles about the book

You can read my own summaries of the book and the chapters within it easily enough, and an ongoing blog about Smart Mobs if you don't like the review. You can also read other reviews and articles about the book

The book has a companion website, wherein Howard continues his active research into Smart Mobs and the integration of technology into daily life. Smart Mobs

I've gotten to page 53 of the book, which is dense, yet so information rich that I carry it with me everywhere, so I can try to squeeze out a few extra paragraphs on subway platforms and in elevators.

It's an excellent exploration of where mobile technology may lead.

I certainly didn't ignore the surveillance implications of emerging technologies. The final chapter, "Always-On Panopticon or Cooperation Amplifier" gets into the surveillance implications.

Well, they can certainly try, and they probably will, but even our own FCC Chairman, Michael Powell agrees that we need to open the spectrum, as software defined radio makes spectrum scarcity obsolete.

Hey man, I agree with you about all of this, and there have been days recently with all of the malarky passing into law where I almost felt the urge to chuck it all - and live like it was 1975 - paper and all. But by the time they manage to get this huge bureacratic behometh to do this type of dirty work we could very likely see a massive decentralized ad-hoc and an emerging phenomona called Smart Mobs and anonymous surfing provided by Hacktivismo, censorship-free and anonymous information via Freenet, open spectrum and finally perhaps anonymous digital cash from Yodel Bank.

Planet P - Liberation With Technology.