Stories about Technology from March, 2011
Russia: “iPad 2 Smuggling in Full Blossom”
Profy writes about the attempts to smuggle iPad 2 into Russia.
China: The Interrogation (A Tale of AI and Revolution)
Stainless Steel Mouse, aka Liu Di, has seen many of her peers arrested or disappeared over the past several weeks. Looking at the unusual way in which China's failed Jasmine Revolution began, she has imagined a scenario which mixes fact with fiction.
Nigeria: Buhari leads in mock online polls
Nigerian presidential candidate Mohammadu Buhari leads in mock online polls: “There are now several platforms online that allow Nigerians with access to the Internet to vote for their favourite presidential aspirant and share their preference on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.”
Russia: The Most Fierce DDOS Attack On LiveJournal Analyzed
Ilya Dronov, LiveJournal's head of development, told [ru] some details about yesterday's DDOS-attack on LiveJournal, popular blogging platform in Russia. That was the most fierce attack in the history of the platform. Anton Nosik, suggested [ru] that (despite that most of the attacking machines were outside of Russia) the main client...
India: Online Solution To Help Save On Medicines
Living in the Past has a brilliant idea – to launch an informative website (with SMS based service), which will provide information about cheap medicine with identical compositions to help the poor in India.
Bangladesh: Online Payment Options
In Bangladesh, Paypal is not available and international online payment/receipt via credit card is restricted, which is a problem for the startups who want to sell products from Bangladesh and receive payment. T solve this problem Hasin at “The Storyteller” writes about merchant account providers, who helps users to charge...
China: Red flag on Wall Street
Co-founder of Chinese fund management firm CDH Investments Wang Gongquan stopped by the New York Stock Exchange building today to snap a picture of the flag of the People's Republic of China, flying over Wall Street to mark popular Chinese online security company Qihoo 360 Technology‘s IPO. Wang was mocked...
Pakistan: Life Without Cellphone
The proliferation of cellphones in Pakistan has reached a new high and Mohammad Yusha at Chowrangi asks “is not having a cell phone weird”?
Colombia: Fractal, a Sci-Fi event in Medellín
Juan Diego Gómez posts in his blog about Fractal'11, an event about fiction, art, science and technology that will take place in Medellín, Colombia, on April 8-9, 2011. Juan Diego introduces [es] some of the speakers: awarded Science Fiction writer Kij Johnson (@kijjohnson), cyborg anthropologist Amber Case (@caseorganic), researcher Johanna...
Russia: Mapping Bribery Online
Anton Nosik shares [ru] a link to RosKomVzyatka (‘Russian Committee for Bribes’), Ushahidi-based platform that allows users to map bribes (both given and taken) anonymously. It's another transparency project after rospil.info, gdecasino.ru, otmenta.ru, and others that crowdsource crime/injustice reporting.
Azerbaijan: BBC Azeri & the potential of social media in the South Caucasus
whatwaswritten, Stealing news from Azerbaijan since 2011, translates and summarizes part of what was the last traditional radio broadcast from the Azerbaijani service of the BBC. As a result of cutbacks, BBC Azeri will now only be available online and its final program solicited various opinions on the potential of...
Bahrain: Prominent Blogger Mahmood Al-Yousif Arrested
Shortly after 3am local time, prominent Bahraini blogger Mahmood al-Yousif was arrested in his home. Before leaving with police officers, the blogger tweeted, "The police are here for me." His arrest was confirmed by both his brother and son.
Africa: Coders4Africa
Coders 4 Africa is an initiative by several gentlemen of African origin. The initiative aims at developing African software development talent by providing access to free, high quality training in software development.
Lebanon: Ontornet instead of Internet
Frustrated with the very slow internet connection in Lebanon, a group of Lebanese bloggers started a campaign calling it “Ontornet” (“Ontor” in the Lebanese dialect means “wait”) to do something about it. They explained it all in this blog post.
South Korea: Application for Radiation Levels Checkup
As minuscule amounts of radioactive iodine and cesium have been detected in South Korean atmosphere, intensifying the already heightened fear over Japan's nuclear crisis, South Korean web developers debuted an Android application enabling citizen to check updated information on radiation levels in the country. Wiki Tree posted [ko] screenshot images...
Russia: 2010 Cyber-Crime Market Research
Group IB, Russian cyber-security research company, publishes [ru] Russian Cyber-Crime Market in 2010 report. According to the research, Russian hackers commit nearly 35 percent of all cyber-crimes. DDOS-attacks (from $90 to $300 per day of attack) are falling in price which makes this method of cyber-warfare more accessible to online...
Egypt: The Egyptians Book
The Egyptians Book is out! It claims to be the new book for new Egypt, set up to help Egyptians “connect and share with the people in your life.”
Barbados: Going on Facebook
“I just didn’t like the idea of credit cards. They seemed to be a device for misleading people into a pattern of life they probably wouldn’t have entered, but for the convenience”: B.C. Pires argues it's the “same thing with FaceBook.”
Cuba: Is the Internet an Equalizer?
Havana Times examines the Internet in the context of socialism.
China: Opinion Battle on Baidu's Copyright Infringement
More than fifty Chinese writers have formed an alliance protesting against copyright infringement by the Baidu Wenku platform, a Chinese version of Google Books which allows users to read, share or download books for free.
Cuba: Implications of the Alan Gross trial
In half-wired, blogger Ellery Biddle analyzes the Alan Gross case and the potential of ICT's in Cuba: “First, who decides what constitutes a crime? While Cuban courts say that Gross committed “acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state,” Hillary Clinton, Phillip Crowley and other State Department officials say that...
