Stories about Technology from September, 2008
Brazil: The Brazilian behind the new twitter design
Did you know that the designer behind the new Twitter interface is Brazilian? Futuro.vc [pt] brings an exclusive interview with Vitor Lourenço. “One of the goals was to make the application more elegant and functional. We've made very small changes, which together makes the difference.”
Lebanon: Lyrical Internet Usage Map
A Diamond's Eye View of the World, an American who lives/lived in Lebanon, draws our attention to Lumeta’s Internet mapping project, which “includes this lyrical (okay, slightly alien-looking) map of Internet usage in the Middle East.”
Brazil: Bloggers’ magazine on democracy
The latest issue of blogger magazine Feed-se: Democracia, available in PDF for free download (in Portuguese), is a special edition on democracy, by Brazilian bloggers Nospheratt, Alex, Lu Monte and Lúcia Freitas.
Japan: Internship at Hatena
University student and blogger id:suztomo describes (with many photos) their experience in September doing an internship [ja] at Hatena in Kyoto, Japan. The blogger had two objectives with the internship: to learn how to set up a server that can withstand many users, and to learn about how web services...
Jamaica: Cell Phone Etiquette
Jamaican blogger Stunner is amazed that “people can't get it through their heads that it is a common courtesy to silence their phones when at a function.”
Liberia: Update from Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
An update from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia: “A witness told commissioners of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) grisly accounts of how fighters of the defunct ULIMO-K faction slaughtered and ate eight civilians in 1993 in Lofa County.”
Japan: MIRAI brings together gadgets and the Internet
Alpha Bloggers announces a free event [ja] in Tokyo entitled, “Mirai: synthesis of gadgets and the net” (MIRAI:ネットとガジェットの融合), to be held on October 20th from 7pm to 10pm near Kudanshita station (see map [ja]). The event will discuss the possibilities of a future in which gadgets and the Internet are...
Japan: Group Bookmarking with 4dk
Osamu Higuchi at Higuchi.com introduces a free bookmarking service [ja] (in Japanese) called 4dk [ja], where bookmarks are visible only to those within a closed group. Higuchi refers to this idea as “group bookmarking”, explaining that it is different from the “group catharsis” of open bookmarking services like del.icio.us and...
Blogger of the Week: Sami Ben Gharbia
This week's Blogger of the Week is none other than Global Voices Advocacy Director Sami Ben Gharbia, known for his dedication to the fight against oppression and censorship. Sami is originally from Tunisia, but has been based in The Netherlands since 1998. He blogs at fikra.
Peru: The History of the Internet
Roberto Bustamante of El Blog del Morsa [es] posts about the need to write and document the history of the internet in Peru, and provides some interesting data regarding that history.
Brazil: Who are the Brazilian bloggers
Who are the Brazilian bloggers? Pedro Cardoso [pt] and Tine Araújo [pt] are conducting a census [pt] to find out, among others, what academic and professional qualifications Brazilian bloggers have, their relationship with traditional media and their social habits, tools etc.
Brazil: Free download of books under CC license
The book Além das Redes de Colaboração (Beyond the Collaboration Networks, pt), a compilation of texts organized by professors Nelson Pretto and Sergio Amadeu, has been published by EDUFBA (Federal University of Bahia publisher) under a Creative Commons license and is now available for free download. “The book, which tackles...
Nigeria: Impressive Branding
Impressive branding in Nigeria, “Etisalat Nigeria witnessed an influx of visitors to its web site as Nigerians sought to reserve special numbers on Etisalat’s network. The website apparently had over 8 million hits in less than one week with thousands already reserving their special numbers on Etisalat’s network. It is...
Africa: Surprising Africa
Ethan's impressions of the daylong Surprising Africa event at PICNIC08 in the Netherlands.
Environment: Maps, Online Communities & Carbon Footprint Calculators
Earlier this year, GV Environment listed the web2.0 tools for environment activism. Since then many more tools have been developed. This post will highlight some mashups, online communities, carbon footprint calculators and one online game. Mashups Rory of Carbon Smart Blog announced the Greening Africa Map by outlining the goal...
Jordan: Queen Rania the Blogger
Queen Rania of Jordan is blogging her visit to New York here.
Egypt: Jihad Hackers
Is Jihad spilling from the ground on to the virtual world? Egyptian blogger Marwa Rakha writes here (and here) about how the internet has affected the ongoing debate between the secular and Islamic camps in Egypt.
Japan: Mapping the News with Newsgraphy
Hatena user id:kaiseh introduces a news mapping mashup service they created [ja] called “Newsgraphy“, based on an earlier mapping service for Hatena blogs released in June (with much fanfare [ja]) called HatenarMaps (also by id:kaiseh). The new service creates a 2-dimensional visualization of news stories from Yahoo News using Voronoi...
Japan: Google or Galapagos?
Blogger and economist Nobuo Ikeda [池田信夫] remarks in an article [ja] that whereas U.S. papers are making their sites more Google-friendly, articles on Japanese news sites do not even have permalinks. His comparison of the isolation of the Japanese web to Galapagos sparks a response from Fukuyuki Murakami [村上福之] at...
Bolivia: One Year Anniversary of Voces Bolivianas
Cristina Quisbert of Bolivia Indigena [es] celebrates one year since the start of the Voces Bolivianas project and writes that it “planted an important seed so that young peopple and adult can begin to use blogs as an instrument to communicate realities, knowledge and feelings.”
Pakistan: “Hey! Why is Google ignoring us?”
Pakistanis are using blogs as a medium to raise their voices about an important issue regarding the biases of technology giant Google. The issue we are talking about is Google Doodles for Pakistan. Google Doodles refers to the Google's logo designs project that Google displays occasionally. Google celebrates and pays...