Stories about Technology from January, 2011
Kenya: New site ranks serial over-lappers
Bankelele writes about a new site using Ushahidi platform – Overlap.co.ke ( #overlapKE ) – to rank serial over-lappers and point out over-lapping hot-spots for over-lapping in Nairobi, Kenya.
Burundi: Nation-wide forum on media and ICT next month
Burundi plans to hold nationwide talks on the press and the new information and communication technology next month: “Its objective would be to look into the big challenges of material, financial, legal and administrative challenges facing media professionals in the country.”
Egypt: Netizens Rise for the Support of Egyptians on their Day of Rage
The countdown for mass protests across Egypt has started, with very little information trickling from the ground after the Egyptian authorities shut down the Internet and virtually all other communication with the outside world. The aim is to clampdown on the protesters and netizens are fearing the worst.
Taiwan: Ma Ying-jeou on Facebook
President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan(Republic of China) opens his official facebook fan page today. At the “About” session it says that the goal of the fan page “…is not to be trendy, but to exchange ideas with all of you, share experiences through wall posts, think together, click ‘like’ for...
Vietnam: Saigon earthquake
Adventure as Miss Saigon blogs about the recent 4.8 earthquake which hit Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Twitterers like MoodyRain, eds_m, and nguyenhimself also tweeted about it.
Ukraine: YouTube Helps Discipline Traffic Police
Tetyana Bohdanova reports on how Ukrainians are using the Internet to expose unlawful actions committed by traffic police.
Egypt: An Internet Black Hole
Over the past few days, as protesting Egyptians have utilized social media tools for organizing and disseminating information, they've also come across numerous obstacles to access. Tonight, the biggest barrier yet as the country's Internet access is cut off.
Ecuador: Blog Competition Focusing on Public Safety
Ecuadorian bloggers are encouraged to participate in a Blog Competition [es] organized by the Guayaquil Canton to, “encourage the use of blogs as a platform for expression of ideas by discussing proposals related to public safety in the canton.” Visit the site [es] for more details and follow the competition on Facebook and Twitter.
Syria: Internet Users Race to Support Egyptian Protesters
As protests to take down the Mubarak regime in Egypt rage on, Syrians are rushing to aid the protesters in every way they can.
Madagascar: Can you sketch journalism?
Bunmi writes about Bastien Dubois from Madagascar who has been nominated for an 2011 Academy Award in the category of animated short
Arab World: New Media and the Egyptian Demonstrations
The Arab World is looking in awe at the developments unfolding in Egypt. Today, mainstream media is taking a back seat, while citizen media triumphs. Arab bloggers share their reflections on the protests in Egypt, as witnessed from their computer screens.
Russia: Students Launch Online Map of Illegal Gambling
Students of Saratov University of Technology launched gdecasino.ru, a crowd-sourcing website dedicated to map illegal gambling sites. A representative of Russian police said [RUS] to “Komsomolskaya pravda” newspaper that the website has already helped to close few illegal casinos.
Puerto Rico: Best Culture Blog
The Coalition of Artists of Puerto Rico gave the award of best cultural blog for the month of January to El Naufragio de las Palabras [es] maintained by Carlos Antonio Otero.
World: Free and open source software for academics
Kajsa attended a lecture by Joshua Kwesi Aikins as a part of a two-day lecture series for graduate students at Institute of African Studies at University of Ghana where free and open source softwares for academics were recommended.
Egypt: Anonymous Strikes Again
Egyptian blogger and human rights defender Ramy Raoof shares screen-shots of Egyptian government websites after they were taken down yesterday (25th of January) by Anonymous. This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.
Latin American Presidents to Follow on Twitter
Christian Espinosa in Cobertura Digital [es] ranks the top 5 Latin American presidents with the most followers on Twitter. He also shares other information on the use of Twitter by different Latin American administrations.
Argentina: Experimenting with Natural Dyes
Jade Scully blogs about the experiments with natural dyes that are taking place in The Argentine National Institute for Industrial Technology (INTI).
Russia: Internet Industry Stays at Home
Emma Barnett, digital media editor at “The Telegraph“, summarized reflections from her recent trip to Russia and explained “Why the Russian Internet doesn't need the West.” According to Barnett, the Russian Internet industry is “self-contained and self-sufficient” and it has no “ambition for the foreseeable future to expand internationally.”
Kenya: Sue: The Kenyan prostitute building a brand online
The Kenyan Blogosphere has just recently been graced by not your usual blogger and not your usual genre: a street prostitute building her brand online by sharing her experience and opinions.
Kenya: How developers can make money with Safaricom
Bankelele looks at how Kenyan developers can make money with Kenya's leading mobile phone company, Safaricom: “One of the unintended effects of Airtel’s price wars with Safaricom in Kenya is that it has made Safaricom more responsive to Kenyan developers in terms of collaboration on products, services, platforms etc.”
Philippines: The ‘Big Bad Blogger’ controversy
A story about a 'big bad blogger' in the Philippines who is allegedly in cahoots with a public relations firm in an extortion racket targeting an unnamed restaurant owner has caused a great stir among Filipino bloggers. Here are some reactions
