Stories about Technology from August, 2007
Namibia: Digital tools for development
Gerard writes about LearnLink Project in Namibia: “I will simply start with LearnLink, especially their LearnLink Project: NAMIBIA that saw Ed's Net see the day of light.”
Africa: Leave Africa alone
Communist Socks and Boots lashes out against One Laptop Per Child: “It based on the wrong assumption that kids will take it with them to hunt, or use it in their clay-wall classes. Or that they will need easy translation from English to local languages.”
South Africa: Who will follow Google to South Africa?
Vinny expects more Internet companies to move to South Africa in the near future: “South African Internet usage has grown 120% in the past year, and it won’t be long until you see eBay, Yahoo & the others follow Google & Amazon’s recent foray (Amazon’s Cape Town office built EC2)...
Iraq: Mobile Blogging
Morbid Smile from Iraq has caught up with the mobile blogging bug.
Bahrain: Facebook Trouble
Bahraini Rants points to Facebook problems in this post.
Malawi: Moving on Despite the Politics of Section 65
The phenomenal story of 19 year-old Malawian blogger William Kamkwamba continues to attract attention from around the globe. William began making headlines after his appearance at the TEDGlobal 2007 conference in Tanzania, in June, where he talked about how he built a windmill using locally available resources in a remote part of Malawi where the easiest means of energy is fuel, wood, kerosene and candlelight.
India: On Facebook
confused of calcutta on the kneejerk reactions to Facebook.
Bangladesh: under curfew
Civil unrest began in Bangladesh on the 20th of August when a petty dispute broke out concerning comments passed by armed forces personnel during a soccer match at a university gymnasium ground. An army camp has occupied part of the ground since the declaration of a state of emergency on...
Argentina: Videos Por Vos
Mariano Amartino of Denken Über [ES] talks about the Argentine video sharing platform Videos Por Vos and its attempt to compete with YouTube.
Russia: Blogger on Trial for Writing Fiction
Blogger Dmitry Shirinkin faces trial for having written on his blog that he had purchased a gun and was going to kill a few dozen people in one of the city’s colleges. According to Shirinkin, the text - posted on April 21, but made private on April 22 - was a work of fiction, "inspired" by the Virginia Tech shooting. According to the prosecutor's office, however, Shirinkin has violated Article 207 of the Russian Criminal Code by "distributing false information on a planned terrorist act." The trial is likely to take place in September; if convicted, the Russian blogger may receive a three-year prison sentence.
Barbados: Air Traffic Control
Barbados Free Press is concerned about air traffic safety at Grantley Adams International Airport.
Bangladesh: Disability and access
Voice of South on ICT accessibility for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh
India: Orkut and the death of a teenager
The online Indian community is rattled by the recent death of 16-year old Adnan Patrawala of Mumbai. Apparently Adnan was lured by his friends on Orkut and was later found murdered. Is Orkut responsible for the murder of this young teenager? Orkut has millions of users in India. Police investigations...
Blogging for democracy around the world
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based freelance journalist, author and blogger. He is currently writing a book on "Democracy and Blogging" and recently traveled to Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China to meet with bloggers.
China: Web2.0 listing
Kuangfeng has posted a list of new Web2.0 websites in China (zh), which including: consumer maps, investors’ information nexus, friending, drawing and chatting tools, QA platform.
Israel: New Blogger on the Block
Danya Ruttenberg, from Israel, introduces us to a new blogger on the block – Rabbi Alan Abrams.
Syria Bans Anonymous Speech Online
Syria bans anonymous speech online, reports Elijah Zarwan.
Russia: BBC Radio Off Russian FM
As the parliamentary and presidential elections draw near, the BBC's Russian-language broadcasts have been chased out of Russian FM radio. Vilhelm Konnander has more on it.
Europe: European Bloggers (Un)Conference
The Accidental Russophile links to the site of the European Bloggers (Un)Conference, to be held in Amsterdam on Sept. 27-28.
Mideast Youth: Unblock WordPress in Turkey
Mideast Youth has just launched a petition calling for the unblocking of WordPress in Turkey.
Turkey: wordpress.com ban inspires firestorm of criticism
Matthew Mullenweg, founding developer of the popular WordPress blogging platform, has received a letter from the lawyers acting on behalf of a Turkish Islamic-creationist, Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, claiming to be responsible for the blanket ban on blogs hosted on the wordpress.com blogging platform in Turkey. On August 17th, 2007, the Turkish Fatih Second Civil Court of First Instance blocked access to all wordpress.com blogs in response to a suit filed by Adnan Oktar’s lawyers on the grounds that blogs hosted on the platform published allegedly defamatory and “unlawful” statements about their client.
