Stories about Technology from July, 2008
Bangladesh gets a ‘Blog-Ban’ scare
On 15th of July, Bangla bloggers were disconcerted to find that they could not access Sachalayatan , a popular Bangla blogging platform that focuses on literature and contemporary issues, from within Bangladesh. Those living outside Bangladesh, however, had no problems with accessing the site. In the beginning, people thought it...
China: Bring your own wifi routers with you!
Re: exorbitant prices for internet access in Beijing's Olympic Media Village, one writer on Andrew Lih's AndrewLih.com: “I just can’t believe that not only do I have to deal with the Great Firewall of China, but also pay through the nose to use it!”
Kenya: Blogging workshop for marginalized youth
Kristina Rosinski, a volunteer at the Undugu Society of Kenya (USK), describes a blogging workshop in which she taught poor and marginalized youth how to blog and post photographs. She links to the blogs and Flickr photostreams of all 17 participants in the workshop.
Malawi: Healthworkers use of Frontline SMS
Kiwanja describes some of the initiatives that are using the software Frontline SMS (an collective SMS service for NGOs), such as Josh Nesbit in Malawi who's using it “to drive field communications between a local hospital and its six hundred roaming community health workers (CHWs)”.
Proposal to close Hausa Wikipedia
The blog Hausa Online reports that a few days ago a proposal had been made in Wikipedia's discussion pages to delete the Wikipedia in Hausa language, an African Chadic language spoken by more than 24 million people. This comes a few months after the blog Beyond Niamey expressed his concern...
Sudan: YouTube Blocked
Too Huge World reports that YouTube has been blocked in Sudan.
China: Xinhua PS News Photo
Donews looked into a Xinhua photo in which you can see a twins and the sudden change of floor texture as a result of PS editing.
Korea: To Me, a Blog is ___________
We all know about the ‘wave’ at sporting events. You stand up and down following strangers the behind or front, or left or right sides around you. Now the ‘blog wave’ is popular in Korea. A blogger or portal site suggests an idea and starts riding the ‘blog wave.’ This...
Macedonia: More on Discrimination Against Gamers
Filip Stojanovski of Razvigor :-) thinks discrimination against Macedonian gamers is part of a bigger problem: “[…] Regardless if a person considers oneself a gamer or not, I think they should become concerned by the pattern of discrimination labeling group by group as abnormal, wasteful, and dangerous even. And this...
Serbia: New Instructions and Law Regulations on Online Privacy
On July 21, Serbia’s Republican Agency for Telecommunications posted a Document of Instructions for Technical Requirements for Subsystems, Devices, Hardware and Installation of Internet Networks on their official web site. This news didn’t go unnoticed yesterday in Serbian blogosphere and internet community, as many bloggers expressed various opinions as well as disapproval because of the potential abuse of users’ privacy.
Taiwan: Bloggers Discuss Marketing Post
Taiwan blogosphere recently resumed the hot discussion about bloggers' advertising / marketing post -- but the topic goes hotter this time.
USA: Longest Walk 2 for Native Americans rights
An 8,000-Mile Walk for Native American Rights, Environmental Protection, and to Stop Global Warming reached its destination in Washington, DC. A successful example of community-building and citizen media usage - including first-hand reports and poignant comments.
Western Sahara: Introducing the Sahrawi Blogosphere
On July 5, Global Voices started its coverage of the Sahrawi blogosphere. Jillian York looks at Sahrawi blogs in English this week.
China: Olympic blog shutdown continues
One of China's oldest blog service providers, Sohoxiaobao, has been kept shut down for a week already and looks to stay that way until the Beijing Olympics wrap up in late August.
Upcoming tech conferences on Africa
White African informs about 5 upcoming conferences around technology or internet issues in Africa.
China: Baidu and Music Industry
DANWEI reprinted an article from Music 2.0 blog on Baidu's strategy in conquering the music industry.
Russia: Gulag Online
Robert Amsterdam draws attention to an online exhibition on the Soviet Gulag system – created by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in cooperation with Russian human rights organization “Memorial” – and posts a video depicting how arrests were made during the Stalinist era.
Russia: .su-Domain On the Rise
LJ user russ_cyberspace turns attention to the fact that the Internet domain .su (Soviet Union) has grown sevenfold since 2006.
China: More on the Olympic ‘sealing’ of internet data centers
Following up on the massive IDC server room lockdown, veteran Shanghai blogger Wang Jianshuo has also posted on the new Olympic regulation. For a better idea of how it felt the last time something like this happened, read his post from last year, ‘Yes. I am very frustrated.‘
New Zealand: Bloggers Union
Kiwiblog writes about the newly launched bloggers union that automatically counts any New Zealand bloggers as its member.
China: Fuwatron Toy
We've seen vampire Fuwas, life-size Fuwa robots, Fuwa-inspired soft porn, grannies dressed like Fuwas, even a supposed Fuwa curse and, now, a ripoff of the Transformers franchise. h/t @bokane. update: @chinkerfly brings us many more.