CNN reports on how social media is playing a role in developing events, like the terrible situation in India. Haven’t heard from James yet, but he’s (in theory) on the other side of the country…
The minute news broke of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India, social media sites like Twitter were inundated with a huge volume of messages.With more than 6 million members worldwide, an estimated 80 messages, or “tweets,” were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds, providing eyewitness accounts and updates.Many Twitter users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in Mumbai where doctors were faced with low stocks and rising casualties.
Fresh and in high spirits after iDEF, Elroy has pumped out a new review over at Elroy Online. He takes a look at the Sealab 2021 DVD and concludes that it’s “up there” with some of his favourite Adult Swim releases, but lacking in those all extras cartoons-on-DVD now so frequently give us. Check out his review here.
While doing XO demonstrations at iDEF in Melbourne I had an interesting conversation with a man involved in disabled services. The discussion centred around accessibility and it brought to my mind things I hadn’t thought about before – specifically, where do disabled kids fit into the OLPC picture? Well, that’s partly answered by this fantastic article, quoted below. Once again, by virtue of the open source platform, a solution is being developed without government, without big companies, without having to wait. Read for yourself:
Cynthia, the daughter of my friend Sue, has cerebral palsy and uses a small touchscreen with picture icons to speak. Sue explained that this is a costly piece of equipment at $6,000, with a $400 fee when it needs service – expenses that many middle-class families with special needs children in even the developed world cannot afford. I had just received my OLPC through the Give One Get One program and had a sense of curious excitement about this new platform, and little idea of the possibilities. “Hi Matt, what’s that thing?” asked Sue. The green laptop had caught her eye. After I explained, she immediately thought, “Could this help my daughter?”
It comes as a surprise but OLPC Australia has announced an Australian Give 1 Get 1 program, similar to those currently running overseas. Details are sparse but this is most exciting news, especially for those individuals I talked to during iDEF, who were very very keen to get involved. “Early 2009″ is the penciled in date. IT Wire is carrying a story, and you can always keep an eye on OLPC Australia’s page.
Over at OLPC Friends you can finally get some details on Australia’s first OLPC XO pilot. Pia’s been heading up the project, with an emphasis on remote collaboration rather than school-wide saturation and deployment. Available so far is the technical documentation, with more to follow…
Today Pia Waugh has posted on her blog a link to the technical documentation of Australia’s first OLPC trial. The details can be found here and it includes how to work within a typical relatively secure school. This is a great step for proving the value of the project for both Aussie kids, and kids in a “Western” country. It is also a world first of inter-school collaboration and the delivery of specialist services to remote schools.
The “No Clean Feed” movement here an attempt to raise awareness about the Australian Government’s plan to institute ISP and national level IP data filtering. I didn’t rush out and sign a petition, nor join the Facebook group because I figured the whole deal was going to be a non-starter. Not that I think you shouldn’t express yourself if you feel or know your opinion is going to prevail anyway (voter apathy, anyone?), it just so happened that the situation got better before it had the chance to get worse.
There are reports today that The Greens won’t give support to Conroy’s plan, effectively killing it. The Green vote in Canberra is strong and growing. And since I didn’t meet anyone who supported the plan, I can only surmise that our community has been appropriately represented by our elected officials. That’s a Good News item right there. This amusing article about Senators complaining about being subject to the same restrictions the public will be is the definition of irony. Talk about good timing though, it’s made some lawmakers give second thought to the idea.
Suspiciously good timing, actually! I might have to look in Hansard…
I only said “somewhere” because it sounds more mysterious. Orientalist threads still run strong, then. James is overseas and he’s taken his camera. You should check out the series on flickr;
Obviously Australian viewers don’t get to see these vids on TV (I assume they’re designed for air). Another “in a nutshell” video for anybody wondering about the OLPC project. These are running due to the Give 1 Get 1 program that has started this month, and will generate important exposure!
I don’t know if it’s made any international headlines, but the coast of Queensland has taken a beating over the past week. Massive storms, as evidenced by this video, taken on the 20th..I don’t think i’ve seen anything quite like it!
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