Stories about Technology from March, 2009
Americas: “Chuenga” A New Latin American Version of Digg
Chuenga [es], is a new effort launched by a group of Latin American bloggers. The site is based on Meneame, the spanish version of Digg. As they say in their blog [es] “we give priority to Latin American news.” La Brujula Verde [es] analyzes the project's possibilities.
Colombia: Convergentes Restarting Activities
The citizen media project, Convergentes in Medellín, Colombia, is restarting “with new spirit.” The site for HiperBarrio [es] has a summary of these latest activities.
Honduras: Linux Tour in San Pedro Sula
Norman summarizes the Linux Tour in San Pedro Sula, Honduras [es]. A team of open-source software users are traveling around Central America to provide workshops and lectures on the possible uses of this type of software.
UAE: Tweeting the Rain from Dubai
It's raining in Dubai and Twitter is abuzz with reactions about the unusual torrents for this time of year.
Cuba: Antúnez Surrounded
Uncommon Sense and Octavo Cerco share their thoughts on reports that the Cuban police “have surrounded the home of Cuban dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez), who for more than a month has [led] a hunger strike to protest abuses by the Castro dictatorship.”
Nigeria: Blogsville Initiatives
Blogsville Initiatives is a post about various initiatives started by Nigerian bloggers, which include Naija Bloggers Award and Blogsville Idol 2007.
Libya: From Funerals to Weddings
From the death of a cousin after a lethal penicillin injection to discussing why Libyan men prefer marrying 'stupid' women over those who are educated, Fozia Mohamed sifts through posts written by established and new bloggers in her country to bring us those stories and more.
Kenya: Turning shipping containers into offices
Afromusing writes about a project using shipping containers as pre-fab offices in rural Kenya.
Egypt: Google doodle by orphans
More than 160 Egyptian orphans took part in a Google doodle competition, held for the first time in Egypt and the Middle East. The winning design will be displayed on Egypt's Google homepage google.com.eg on April 3, which marks Orphan Day in Egypt. Eman AbdElRahman reviews the Egyptian blogosphere for reactions.
Zimbabwe: Bloggers not happy with the Coalition Government
Zimbabwean bloggers are unhappy with the way things are turning out within the coalition government between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. The reactions are a mixture of distrust of Mugabe ad disappointment in the policy approaches of the MDC.
Africa: Google AdSense Payment Scam
Bloggers and website owners in Africa are getting taste of a new scam. Naturally, it's probably not originally created to be a scam, but it's turned in to that for those in Africa who use Google AdSense, Miquel reveals.
Malaysia: Government's love-hate relationship with new media
During a speech in a Party assembly, Malaysia's incoming Prime Minister said that new media should not be regarded as enemy. But hours before the speech, the party banned almost all online groups from the event.
Belarus, U.S.: “Nationality Censorship in the U.S.”
Evgeny Morozov writes on Newsweek.com about a case of censorship by a U.S. web-hosting company involving a Washington, D.C.-based Belarusian, Yaraslau Kryvoi – LJ user yarik, whose own English-language account of what happened is here: “When I called for clarifications, a Bluehost representative told me that I “abused” their terms...
Sri Lanka: Combine Harvesters Take Over
Rajaratarala at Perceptions: musings of a renaissance farmer reports that this year more and more Combine Harvesters have taken over the job of harvesting from the manual labors in rural Sri Lanka.
Colombia: Are Politicians Making the Most Out of Twitter?
In the last few weeks, as the race for the May 2010 presidential elections has started, two presidential candidates have decided to join the Colombian 'twittosphere'. But, after some initial skepticism, Colombian twitterers show that both candidates (or staffers within their campaigns) are failing to reach the intended audience correctly.
Israel: World Leader in Water Technology Solutions
Israel is the world leader in water technology solutions with 75 per cent of sewage water recycled for agricultural use. Israeli water technologies are exported to more than 100 countries worldwide. Jonathan Shapira of Cleantech Investing in Israel and Jacob Richman of Good News from Israel have the story.
Cuba: The Black Cuban Woman
Havana Times republishes a mainstream media news article on a black, female Cuban blogger who writes about gender, sexual diversity and racism.
Ghana: mPedigree Fights Counterfeit Drugs Using SMS
mPedigree is a company in Ghana using text messaging to fight counterfeit drugs. Last year 3000 people sent messages in a pilot scheme. They received replies from manufacturers in an average of three minutes.
India: Social Media Summit 2009
India Social Media Summit 2009 will be held on 27 Mar, 09 in Mumbai, India. More infos on the summit are available at the summit Twitter and Facebook pages. Follow the summit in Twitter – #SMSummit09.
Bahrain: Internet Puzzle
Bahrain blogger Hussain Yousif has a question: “As a provider, I know that deals for installing and configuring censorship solutions are held between the ISP’s and the providers. The providers are at most agents\resellers for an international provider. The new thing is that the “UNIFIED” solution is suggested by the...
Sri Lanka: The Rationale Behind Blogging
The Whackster's Lair from Sri Lanka asks some questions to find out why we blog: “are we all boring? or are we just interesting to some people? and if we are interesting is that the sole reason to keep writing? or are we writing for our own pleasure in which...
