· November, 2008

Stories about Technology from November, 2008

Egypt: Internet Freedom in Egypt

Tunisian blogger, Sami Ben Gharbia, published a video explaining the role of the Egyptian blogsphere in exposing human rights abuses and the role of the social-networking website Facebook and the micro-blogging platform.

17 November 2008

China: Blogger Conference

David Feng from China Review reports on various presentations at Chinese Blogger Conference, including: Michael Anti's presentation on his old / media experience, Ping Ke's presentation on ir/rational online debate,...

17 November 2008

Syria: No More Bab el Hara

Ayman Haykal [Ar] links to a report published on Haaretz that says the Israeli cellular provider, Cellcom, made a profit of approximately 400.000 shekels per month this year from the...

17 November 2008

Brazil: Flash mob protest against Digital Crimes Bill

Brazilian bloggers and netizens took to the streets of São Paulo to protest against the Digital Crimes Bill which typifies the cyber-crimes punishable by law and stipulates penalties accordingly, but might end up considering trivial conduct when surfing the Internet as a crime. At a public hearing held in the parliament, the project supporters "ended up sounding silly and unprepared".

16 November 2008

Egypt: Blogger Blocks Nawara's Blog

It seems that it is not only third world regimes who block people's blogs. Apparently, Google's Blogspot has decided to join the bandwagon, and has blocked Nawara Negm's Blog (Tahyees [Ar]), without specifying any reasons. Ahmed Shokeir writes here about the incident in Arabic.

16 November 2008

Argentina: Wordcamp 2008 in Buenos Aires

The second edition of Wordcamp Argentina recently took place in Buenos Aires, and which again featured the presence of Matt Mullenweg, Wordpress' main developer. Here he previewed the changes in store for the latest edition of the blogging platform and also provided his thoughts on the recent talk regarding the "death of blogs." In addition, bloggers discussed ways to earn money, get blog advertising, and also how to develop corporate blogs.

15 November 2008

Nagorno Karabakh: Peacebuilding Goes Online

With stereotypes and alternate and usually contradictory as well as inaccurate perceptions of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh still prevalent in both societies, a new online youth media project has been set up by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State to be implemented by Project Harmony.

15 November 2008

China: Too much time online? You got psychosis.

Facebook, twitter, blog, facebook, email, online game, then blog, how long have you stayed online? If you have stared at your computer screen and clutched your mouse for over 6.13 hours a day, you are, I am sorry, a person of mental disorder according to the latest official definition in China.

15 November 2008

India: Landing on the Moon

The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the Indian space mission Chandrayaan-1 crash Landed successfully on the Moon today. My Thought Waves reacts: “Chandrayaan has made each one of us proud....

14 November 2008

Syria: Using ScribeFire

In this post, Omar [AR] tells us that he used the FireFox add-on, Scribefire, to publish his post. He explains how it is easy to add the plug-in in your...

14 November 2008

Japan: Changing jobs in a recession

Noriyuki Okada at Silicon Valley wa Kyô mo Hareru (シリコンバレーは今日も晴れ) [jp] describes his experience taking the decision as a software-engineer to change his job despite being in the middle of...

14 November 2008

Japan: Street View and the Burakumin

The Internet, many would argue, has created the possibility for anyone to express their opinions freely. Recently, however, some have worried about an increase in the number of racist and denigrative comments against minorities spreading across the web. In Japan, the advent of Google's new Street View service has led some bloggers to discuss the relationship between areas photographed and discriminated communities.

14 November 2008

Japan: Children and mobile phones

At Kyô mo Aruku [ja], Shigeru Kurokawa casts doubts [ja] on the propriety of a report [ja], published by the government Discussion Group for Education Rebuilding, which urges mobile phone...

13 November 2008

Syria: Unprofessional Websites

Salam [AR] lists in this post problems most Arabic internet users face as they're viewing Arabic websites. He argues that the reason behind such problems is mostly due to the...

12 November 2008

MENA: Blogs and a social revolution

Saudi blogger, Esam Mudeer, clipped from CNN Arabic, an article asking -in light of last week's major events in the Arab world- if Arab blogs might lead a social revolution in the region.

11 November 2008