Stories about Technology from December, 2009
Kenya: M-Pesa is not a Kenyan innovation
Gmeltdown argues that M-Pesa, the mobile-phone based money transfer service is not a Kenyan innovation as many people think.
India: The Sapling Project
Two Mumbai based netizens have started a campaign to distribute plant saplings across Mumbai and other cities of India. The plant owners will use citizen and social media tools to report the updates of the growth of the plants.
China: Chinternet
As a result of a new round of internet regulation policies, such as the ban on individual's registration of CN domain name, Chinese netizens invent a new English word, Chinternet, to describe the China intranet.
Russia: iPhone 3GS
Profy reports that “two of the three largest Russian carriers have finally reached an agreement with Apple on iPhone 3GS which means that the gadget will be officially sold in Russia – as soon as in the first three months of 2010.”
Russia: “Cyber-Tatars”
Evgeny Morozov reviews the newest issue of Digital Icons (formerly known as the Russian Cyberspace Journal), which includes Dilyara Suleymanova's article that “explores how Tatar groups use Vkontakte, one of Russia's most popular social networks, for constructing and negotiating their ethnic identity.”
Russia: Blogger Calls For Open Technical Standards
LJ user bablaw wrote an open letter [Google translation – ENG] to the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calling him to veto amendments to the Civil Code that would make technical standards [ENG] closed to the general public.
Friendster now owned by a Malaysian firm
Popular social networking site Friendster was recently acquired by a Malaysian firm. Friendster is the leading social network site in Southeast Asia.
South Africa: A nation in conversation with itself 140 words at a time
“Was news of Manto’s death the Hudson plane crash of South Africa? Did the passing of the controversial former minister of health mark a coming of age of Twitter in this country?,” asks South African blogger and author Sarah Britten in her post on Thought Leader titled, “How Twitter broke the news about Manto.”
China: White-listing the Internet
DANWEI has translated the Beijing News’ report on the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)'s plan to white list websites on the Internet. More background can be found in GV advocacy: Online protest against CNNIC and White-listing the Internet.
China: People's microblogging online?
While the Chinese government has blocked a large number of social media websites such as twitter and fanfou, the official online media, people.com.cn, fills in the gap and launches its people's microblogging page.
Russia: Livejournal Vs. Tor and New Battle for Anonymity
Livejournal.com preventing users from accessing its site via an anonymizer caused panic and anger among global online community. It also showed the importance of anonymizers and revealed vulnerability of online privacy tools.
Kenya: AfricaGathering Nairobi 2009
Erik writes about AfricaGathering, a conference focused on tech in Africa taking place in Nairobi, Kenya.
Australia pushes internet censorship; Twitter erupts
Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy declared his determination last week to push through mandatory internet censorship of a government-defined blacklist of websites, sparking an online frenzy in blogs and on Twitter. News of the proposed internet censorship propelled the issue to a “trending topic” on Twitter for several hours, under...
China: Internet Triad Organization?
ESWN translated a CCTV article “Internet triad organization manipulates public opinion: 50,000 yuan can influence court verdict” which tries to justify the crackdown of organized-opinion making activities.
Qatar: Critiques bristle; calls to shut down popular online forum
A series of scathing posts on Qatar Living, an popular online forum, prompts locals to call for site's demise. Campaign not against all expats, says founder of anti-QL Facebook group.
Sri Lanka: Groundviews wins Manthan South Asia Award
ICT for Peacebuilding (ICT4Peace) reports that the Sri Lankan citizen journalism platform “Groundviews” has won the prestigious Manthan Award for South Asia under the e-news category.
Lebanon: Fun(d)raising
A group of Lebanese bloggers decided to draw smiles on the faces of underprivileged kids by getting them toys for Christmas. Fun(d)raising is the name of their project and they're doing it the fun way.
Russia: Popular Blogger Would Be Glad If Russian Authorities Restrict Internet
Popular Russian blogger and activist Roman Dobrokhotov talks to GVO about the Internet and online activism in the country.
Hungary: Bloggers Discuss the Corporate Use of Social Media
T-Mobile Hungary experiences an outage, a Vodafone Hungary's employee tweets about it, then gets fired. Marietta Le writes about the controversy and reviews the ongoing online discussion of the corporate use of social media in Hungary.
Puerto Rico Online Map Collection
Mapas de Puerto Rico links to dozens of online, interactive maps of Puerto Rico with different topological, political, historic, and touristic themes.
India: Indibloggies 2008 Winners
The winners of the Indibloggies 2008 awards have been announced. Over 150 Indian blogs were nominated across 16 varied categories and here is the statistics showing the final votes for each category. Go check out the blogs.
