· November, 2006

Stories about Technology from November, 2006

China: Queer blogs for the straight eye

  30 November 2006

There hasn't been a terrible lot happening in China lately that could be filed under ltgbq news. There's been stories of a lesbian hotline in Beijing, the opening of the country's first university campus queer club, and the usual excitement over pro-gay marriage politician and public intellectual Li Yinhe‘s latest...

Tanzania: IT related words in Swahili

  30 November 2006

Jesp wrote about the difficulties of accumulating a proper Kiswahili vocabulary as an IT professional in Tanzania. This is what he did not know when he was writing his post, “The Kamusi Project has a list of 700 IT related words translated from English to Kiswahili, made publicly available in...

Malawi: lottery on mobile phones

  30 November 2006

“Earlier this year, Pay265.net launched their e-Wallet concept that would allow Malawians make payments via SMS and email when implemented. Now, the African Lotteries Company Limited (AFLOT) is looking for a company to operate on its behalf, an SMS/mobile phone lottery service that can enable the general public to play...

Malaysia: Incomplete Training Program

  29 November 2006

The Malaysian agrees with Malaysian higher education minister on the plan to send Malaysian IT graduates to India for training but feels that the duration of the stay could be longer. “I wonder if such a ‘condensed’ training package will be worth the investment financially?”

Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela: Chance meeting in Second Life

  29 November 2006

Trinidad blogger Taran Rampersad is delighted to meet a Venezuelan in Second Life: “Perhaps this is the start of a bridge across a geographic divide. So far I've met people from around the world, but there's something magical about meeting someone from right next door.”

Africa: technology conference '07

  29 November 2006

Tech4Africa '07 is gaining momentum, writes One Afrikan: “And so it begins…. We’ve started getting some really good feedback for the Tech 4 Africa conference (last check we were up to about 30 replies after a day or so of being up and emailing to an initial beta group for...

China: limited real name registration?

  28 November 2006

China Media project follows up the report and debate on blogger real name registration. The chairman of the Internet Society of China claimed that backstage real name registration is a limited real-name registration.

Argentina: Buenos Aires in 4D

  28 November 2006

Alan Patrick notes that Google Earth has added a fourth dimension and gives a hyperlinked overview of the then-and-now of Buenos Aires. For those still caught in a 3D world, you can still download Ezequiel Galotti's 3D Google Earth portrayals of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata.

Malawi: Malawian windmill

  28 November 2006

Hactivate has a moving story about a windmill in Malawi, “The windmill stands on a tripod of wooden polls about five metres above the ground. It consists of locally-available materials and as far as he can remember his investments were K500 for two bearings, K500 for a bicycle dynamo, K400...

Jordan: toot, tan and ikbis!

  28 November 2006

Blogging is growing rapidly in the Arab world, and some smart projects are capitalizing on this growth by providing tools that were until a while ago a de facto Western made only! After the hand picked posts in the famous ‘toot’ aggregator, the same company has recently launched the first...

Lebanon: Minister Pierre Gemayel Assassinated

  28 November 2006

Lebanon witnessed this week the brutal assassination of its minister of industry and trade. This terrorist act overshadowed all other events and topics in the Lebanese blogosphere. Nevertheless, the posts were as varied and different as the political inclinations of the Lebanese themselves. Here is a sample of what they...

Ethiopia's bloggers disappear again

  28 November 2006

The bulk of Ethiopia's bloggers disappeared from Ethiopian computer screens for the second time in seven months this week. All sites hosted by the popular Blogspot platform stalled when internet users tried to log on to them through their Ethiopian Telecom Corp dial-up connections. The small stable of anti-government blogs...

Tanzanian bloggers’ virtual conference

  27 November 2006

Tanzanian bloggers held their first virtual conference on November 18th, 2006. The aim of the conference was to discuss various steps to be taken to make the community more effective and expand its reach. Most bloggers feel that there is an opportunity for blogs to be a tool for critical...

Voices from Central Asia and the Caucasus

  27 November 2006

Astana (Kazakhstan) – Waiting for a bus – photograph taken by Richard Messenger (Many more bus stops here) While we're waiting for the bus, why not check out some of this week's highlights from the Central Asian and Caucasian blogosphere, brought to you bi-weekly by neweurasia? Web 2.0 in Central...

Tunisia: Censoring Wikipedia?

  26 November 2006

Sami Ben Gharbia writes (Fr): “We don't yet know if it is censorship or not but what is certain is that the Wikipedia and Wikipedia Foundation sites have not been accessible from Tunisia since the 23rd of this month. According to a subscriber to the francophone Wikipedia mailing list …...