· April, 2009

Stories about Technology from April, 2009

Liberians Are Talking, Are You Listening?

  30 April 2009

"Liberia's national image has been defined by parachute foreign correspondents for nearly its entire history, since it was first founded as an independent republic by freed Black slaves from the United States in 1847. Today, Liberians are able to tell their own stories to an international audience by taking advantage of participatory media tools like blogs and photo-sharing sites," writes David Sasaki following a blogging workshop he ran last year at the American Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia.

China: Mash-ups in history

  30 April 2009

With ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ as one of the more prominent examples, Jeff Wasserstrom at The China Beat delineates mash-up culture in China, and don't miss out on the Confucian Blues.

Pakistan: Pak Voices

  29 April 2009

Pak Voices is a crisis reporting tool for Pakistan based on the Ushahidi engine. The website is mapping the recent unrest in Karachi city. “Submitted incidents will appear online [pending approval]” reports Dr. Awab in his twitter account.

Cuba: Path to the Future

  29 April 2009

“This little accessory hanging from the hip could well come to be all the newspapers we lack at the kiosks”: Cuba's Generation Y has faith in the potential of SMS to be a reliable source of information.

Guyana: e-Waste

  29 April 2009

“The mo’ they fall, the mo’ they break, the mo’ they break, the mo’ you buy. Slick, smart cell-phone makers and sellers”: Guyana-Gyal considers where all the e-waste goes.

Egypt: Wandering Internet Trolls

Wandering Scarab posted an interesting note on the four types of Internet trolls: “creatures that wander into forums and blogs, with malicious intent to generally interrupt online discussions by flinging their excrement everywhere, and inciting others into responding emotionally.”

China: Tracking swine flu on Twitter

  28 April 2009

Swine flu for China so far is a chance to reflect [zh] on how SARS was prevented from becoming a pandemic, and the steps being taken now in Mexico and elsewhere. Wang Jiadong has a post [zh] looking at how social media have been used to track the spread of...

Mapping the Arab Blogopshere

Meedan announces that data expert Will Ward is “heading to Copenhagen’s New Islamic Public Sphere programme for a couple of weeks as a Meedan representative. The idea is to share ideas about our attempts to map the Arab blogosphere and get input on our growing Arab Media Index, which will...

Africa: Africa's Best Blog Design

  27 April 2009

What is Africa's best blog design?: Africa is online. The number of bloggers continues to grow daily, inspiring readers all over Africa and all over the world. We are looking for the best blog designs from the continent.

Thailand: Anti-censorship Site Got Blocked

  26 April 2009

The website of anti-censorship movement in Thailand, Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT), got blocked by several University connections and ISPs on 25 of April. At the time of writing, it has still been blocked. The first report came from Thai Netizen mailing list. Blogger Arthit Suriyawongkul wrote in his blog...

Russia: Baymurat (aka Jimmy) Singing Bollywood Song

  25 April 2009

Videos of a rendition of a Bollywood song by Baymurat (aka Jimmy) – an ethnic Uzbek from Tajikistan, a gastarbeiter in a town near Moscow, and a YouTube celebrity: one of the earlier versions is here, and the performance at Asian Dub Foundation's April 4 gig in St. Petersburg, Russia...