WorldSpace and the Club of Rome cordially invite you to a presentation by Professor Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman, MIT Media Lab and Founder of One Laptop per Child. Please join us on November 18, from 11:00am -12:00pm, at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Tunis, to hear Professor Negroponte discuss his $100 Laptop world-wide education initiative.
I plan on being there and will post about this on my blog.
Live Ammo + Internet = Recipe for disaster.
Yet another case where the law has to catch up to the cutting edge technology combined with stupid ideas that people come up with.
Honestly my main beef with the show is that there are no asian characters. Come ON, people! Are we expected to believe that all CSIs are white and african-american runway models? Where is the guy from New Delhi or Shanghai?
Let's try and reflect the demographics of the profession.
The information economy requires infrastructure, access and education. How is Ethiopia ever going to move beyond a "non-developing" status if the technology gap just grows and grows?
A vibrant information economy in Ethiopia can only be a good thing. Greater access to computers and more local programmers can help stir economic growth. Economic growth means higher salaries which means more money for food.
A few months ago, I tried playing with my long-distance girlfriend online games that she likes, mostly dominoes but also other board-type games transferred online. It was all fine until she started winning, after which I became a whiny bitch.
So we stopped playing games and went back to long-distance phone calls.
YMMV. But if either of you are sore losers, you might want to think of another strategy to keep the magic alive.
A survey of internet user in China done by the Chinese Academy of Social Science found that Chinese people are quite interested in using the internet to engage in political discussions and interact with their government. Among the findings:
* 71% of Internet users and 69% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to express their political views.
* 79% of Internet users and 77% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people a better knowledge of politics.
* 79% of Internet users and 73% of non-users agreed that the Internet will give government a better understanding of the views of its citizens.
* 60.8% of Internet users and 61% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to criticize government's policies.
Maybe the Chinese government does have something to worry about.
Providing free and open source software to the public via libraries would be one way to help libraries remain relevant and integrated into the Information Society. Libraries in the US are clearly looking for ways to re-claim their space as a public commons and a knowledge repository, after decades of budget cuts and cutthroat competition from Barnes and Noble.
Having a FOSS section in the library, staffed by local volunteers, would seem like a no-brainer to me, something that regular stores are not going to provide, except the commercial releases.
I grew up spending much of my youth in my local library, always in danger of exceeding my borrowing limit. If I wasn't there I was home programming on my Commodore 64. I wonder how many of today's young people visit their local library?
In fact the battle is not between the United Nations and ICANN, it is between the International Telecommunications Union and ICANN. Please bash the correct international institutions!
For those who wish to see the actual text that governments are considering, it can be found on the official website of the WSIS here. Note that the paragraph in question is 14h, which has basically two options, one that gives more of a role of the International Telecommunications Union, and another that basically affirms the role of ICANN.
The author neglects to mention another popular sci-fi dream technology: the car that floats on air. Hovercraft technology has been around for awhile, and yet we seem to get along just fine on four or two wheels.
I guess hovering and flying are not the same things.
I am saddened by the many Ameri-centric, anti-UN bashing going on here, mostly based on misunderstandings of how the international system actually operates.
What underlies this article is an important debate that needs to take place on the intersection of content available on the internet and local cultural values and mores. I.e. if your indigenous culture has certain values and traditions on marraige, age of sexual consent, the resort to violence, etc, how do you deal as educators, parents, religious leaders and government officials with the kind of content available on the net?
To say that all information should be available to everyone ignores questions of pornography, depictions of violence, consumerism, that have serious effects on societies. Obviously censorship is just one of a range of choices that governments have. But having an international dialogue on these issues is a GOOD thing that does not deserve to be rejected outright, as is being done here.
Re:Who needs radio? The whole world!
on
Who Needs Radio?
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· Score: 1
Radio is the most widespread communications technology in the world. It can be received in the most remote rural areas, in areas without regular electricity, using very cheap equipment. You don't have to be literate or go through any kind of training period to use a radio, you just turn the thing on.
Whenever the United Nations tries to beef up its webcasting and other multimedia capabilities of its website, member states in the developing world constantly remind the UN to not forget the continuing importance of radio.
The Military Analysis Network has a more complete description of the Landwarrior's various subsystems. Sounds like you would need a very stable OS to handle all the communications, geographic, thermal imaging, and directional software it must be running.
.... is that there's nothing in it for me. Obvious Barry struck a deep nerve when he published the telemarketing firm's number. I think its the "something for nothing" nerve.
Why should I give you five minutes of my time on the telephone when you have nothing to offer me? I watch TV ads because I am being served "free" television shows. I look at pop-up ads (well, not really) because I have to get through them to get to the web content / porn that I am looking for. Billboards at least try and entertain or titillate me.
Telemarketing does nothing for me. Maybe if when they called I got 50 cents off my my phone bill each month I wouldn't get so ticked. In Europe, when you buy some sim cards for your cell phone, you can call a special code that will give you free local minutes on your cell, but first you have to listen to a 45 second commercial. I'm happy to listen to their little ad for the free minutes.
Surely these companies can come up with incentives for people to listen to their damn spiels. Every other form of advertising does.
In terms of international law, the Right to Information is enshrined in various international legal instruments including the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 9 of the UDHR: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. "
Sounds like a human right to me.
... to show the merit of this kind of reverse surveillance.
Watchdog groups are of course nothing new, but building a web tool that citizens everywhere can use IS new. It will succeed or fail based on people's willingness to use it, contribute to it, and vote based on it.
So they need one high-profile politician or govt official to get knocked down a few notches to get the media's attention, and thus a mass public participating. People who want this experiment to succeed should concentrate on targetting one govt official, rather than 3,000.
Kofi's remarks are only the preface for broader political debate on the relationship of ICTs to development.
In December, the UN is convening the first ever world conference on the impact of ICTs on development, culture, and society called World Summit on the Information Society. It will take place in Geneva.
As one of the reps for a non-governmental organization participating in the preparation for this summit, I know very well the background behind the calling for this meeting. It's an interesting melange of interests. Some developing countries, particularly from Africa, look to ICTs as a way to "leapfrog" their development forward, and thus are looking for increased investments and development aid in this area. Corporations are looking to create the infrastructure so that they can operate effectively in those countries and access their markets. Aid agencies and aid-giving governments (like Japan, Switzerland, Nordic countries) want to see their loans and grants put to more effective use.
The US's sole interest so far has been protecting the existing intellectual property system from being reviewed and trying to keep out any references to the US govt's "Total Information Awareness" program and other hyper-surveillance activities.
Slashdot Mirror
Live Ammo + Internet = Recipe for disaster. Yet another case where the law has to catch up to the cutting edge technology combined with stupid ideas that people come up with.
Honestly my main beef with the show is that there are no asian characters. Come ON, people! Are we expected to believe that all CSIs are white and african-american runway models? Where is the guy from New Delhi or Shanghai?
Let's try and reflect the demographics of the profession.
... and pretty soon you're talking REAL storage.
The information economy requires infrastructure, access and education. How is Ethiopia ever going to move beyond a "non-developing" status if the technology gap just grows and grows?
A vibrant information economy in Ethiopia can only be a good thing. Greater access to computers and more local programmers can help stir economic growth. Economic growth means higher salaries which means more money for food.
A few months ago, I tried playing with my long-distance girlfriend online games that she likes, mostly dominoes but also other board-type games transferred online. It was all fine until she started winning, after which I became a whiny bitch.
So we stopped playing games and went back to long-distance phone calls.
YMMV. But if either of you are sore losers, you might want to think of another strategy to keep the magic alive.
A survey of internet user in China done by the Chinese Academy of Social Science found that Chinese people are quite interested in using the internet to engage in political discussions and interact with their government. Among the findings:
* 71% of Internet users and 69% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to express their political views.
* 79% of Internet users and 77% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people a better knowledge of politics.
* 79% of Internet users and 73% of non-users agreed that the Internet will give government a better understanding of the views of its citizens.
* 60.8% of Internet users and 61% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to criticize government's policies.
Maybe the Chinese government does have something to worry about.
Providing free and open source software to the public via libraries would be one way to help libraries remain relevant and integrated into the Information Society. Libraries in the US are clearly looking for ways to re-claim their space as a public commons and a knowledge repository, after decades of budget cuts and cutthroat competition from Barnes and Noble.
Having a FOSS section in the library, staffed by local volunteers, would seem like a no-brainer to me, something that regular stores are not going to provide, except the commercial releases.
I grew up spending much of my youth in my local library, always in danger of exceeding my borrowing limit. If I wasn't there I was home programming on my Commodore 64. I wonder how many of today's young people visit their local library?
In fact the battle is not between the United Nations and ICANN, it is between the International Telecommunications Union and ICANN. Please bash the correct international institutions!
For those who wish to see the actual text that governments are considering, it can be found on the official website of the WSIS here. Note that the paragraph in question is 14h, which has basically two options, one that gives more of a role of the International Telecommunications Union, and another that basically affirms the role of ICANN.
The author neglects to mention another popular sci-fi dream technology: the car that floats on air. Hovercraft technology has been around for awhile, and yet we seem to get along just fine on four or two wheels.
I guess hovering and flying are not the same things.
What underlies this article is an important debate that needs to take place on the intersection of content available on the internet and local cultural values and mores. I.e. if your indigenous culture has certain values and traditions on marraige, age of sexual consent, the resort to violence, etc, how do you deal as educators, parents, religious leaders and government officials with the kind of content available on the net?
To say that all information should be available to everyone ignores questions of pornography, depictions of violence, consumerism, that have serious effects on societies. Obviously censorship is just one of a range of choices that governments have. But having an international dialogue on these issues is a GOOD thing that does not deserve to be rejected outright, as is being done here.
Radio is the most widespread communications technology in the world. It can be received in the most remote rural areas, in areas without regular electricity, using very cheap equipment. You don't have to be literate or go through any kind of training period to use a radio, you just turn the thing on.
Whenever the United Nations tries to beef up its webcasting and other multimedia capabilities of its website, member states in the developing world constantly remind the UN to not forget the continuing importance of radio.
The Military Analysis Network has a more complete description of the Landwarrior's various subsystems. Sounds like you would need a very stable OS to handle all the communications, geographic, thermal imaging, and directional software it must be running.
Man, how are kids going to understand this if /. geeks don't get it?
.... is that there's nothing in it for me. Obvious Barry struck a deep nerve when he published the telemarketing firm's number. I think its the "something for nothing" nerve.
Why should I give you five minutes of my time on the telephone when you have nothing to offer me? I watch TV ads because I am being served "free" television shows. I look at pop-up ads (well, not really) because I have to get through them to get to the web content / porn that I am looking for. Billboards at least try and entertain or titillate me.
Telemarketing does nothing for me. Maybe if when they called I got 50 cents off my my phone bill each month I wouldn't get so ticked. In Europe, when you buy some sim cards for your cell phone, you can call a special code that will give you free local minutes on your cell, but first you have to listen to a 45 second commercial. I'm happy to listen to their little ad for the free minutes.
Surely these companies can come up with incentives for people to listen to their damn spiels. Every other form of advertising does.
I miss the old Thinkpad 701 with the butterfly keyboard. Now THAT was origami.
In terms of international law, the Right to Information is enshrined in various international legal instruments including the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 9 of the UDHR: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. " Sounds like a human right to me.
... to show the merit of this kind of reverse surveillance. Watchdog groups are of course nothing new, but building a web tool that citizens everywhere can use IS new. It will succeed or fail based on people's willingness to use it, contribute to it, and vote based on it. So they need one high-profile politician or govt official to get knocked down a few notches to get the media's attention, and thus a mass public participating. People who want this experiment to succeed should concentrate on targetting one govt official, rather than 3,000.
In December, the UN is convening the first ever world conference on the impact of ICTs on development, culture, and society called World Summit on the Information Society. It will take place in Geneva.
As one of the reps for a non-governmental organization participating in the preparation for this summit, I know very well the background behind the calling for this meeting. It's an interesting melange of interests. Some developing countries, particularly from Africa, look to ICTs as a way to "leapfrog" their development forward, and thus are looking for increased investments and development aid in this area. Corporations are looking to create the infrastructure so that they can operate effectively in those countries and access their markets. Aid agencies and aid-giving governments (like Japan, Switzerland, Nordic countries) want to see their loans and grants put to more effective use.
The US's sole interest so far has been protecting the existing intellectual property system from being reviewed and trying to keep out any references to the US govt's "Total Information Awareness" program and other hyper-surveillance activities.