NetDay Speak Up
Day
Already 56 schools representing 9,000 students have registered for
NetDay Student Voices' Speak Up Day on October 29. During this online
event, approximately 500,000 students will share their ideas about
using technology and the Internet. The results will help shape the US
Department of Education's National Education Technology Plan, a
mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act. Students will have a first-
hand lesson in civic engagement, and schools will gain valuable
information about student views and ideas on technology use.
UN Summit Tones Down Open-Source Stance
International governments have toned down their proposed endorsement
of open-source software models, following lobbying by businesses at a
preparatory meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society, which
is set to run this December in Geneva.
Designing for Civil Society - Technology for Social Benefit
Position papers available.
Kabissa is a nonprofit organization
that seeks to use information and communications technologies to
strengthen civil society organizations working to improve the lives of
people in Africa.
PowerPoint, Robomanagers, and You: The Growing Intimacy of
Technology
Diane L. Coutu met with Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauz?
Professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT.
Turkle is widely considered one of the most distinguished scholars in the
area of how technology influences human identity. Trained as a sociologist
and psychologist, she has spent more than twenty years closely observing
how people interact with and relate to computers and other high-tech
products. At her home in Boston, she spoke with Coutu about the
psychological dynamics between people and technology in an age when
technology is increasingly redefining what it means to be human.
Linux in
Hollywood
It seems ironic that Linux dominates at studios known for building
secret proprietary technology to gain competitive advantage. What's
happened is Hollywood has recognized that having a standard open platform
to develop upon enables them to dedicate more of their resources to
creating their secret sauce, the technology that sets them apart as a
studio.
Net guru peers
into web's future
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, discusses the development of
a more "intelligent" Web in an interview with the BBC's Go Digital
program.
Thank this
guy for 'control-alt-delete'
Every time a software program locks up and you want to start over,
every time you need to change your password or log on or off your
computer, you can thank David J. Bradley.
Technology
opens books for teenager
For 14-year-old Maria Creswell reading a book can be challenging. Maria
has cerebral palsy, a disorder that affects movement control and makes
holding a book difficult. However, with the help of her friends at the
East Tennessee Technology Access Center, reading a book becomes much
easier. ETTAC is a United Way-supported agency that uses assistive
technology to help people of all ages with disabilities learn, work,
communicate and live to their fullest potential.
Site
has the vision-impaired in mind
Reagan Stone can't drive because she has a degenerative eye disease. So
she turns to the Internet to do a lot of the things she used to do in her
car, like banking and shopping. A special computer program that magnifies
her computer screen allows her to see a lot of what is on the Net. But
some Web sites look more like a tangled mess of dead ends than a sleek
information superhighway. A site launched Thursday will provide an
alternative for people like Stone. VisionConnection.org is aiming to
become the Yahoo for the 40 million people worldwide who are blind and 140
million who have only partial sight.
The NonProfit Times has named its picks for the six "hottest"
nonprofit Web sites. The publication picked the sites after reviewing
the Web sites of over 200 nonprofit organizations on criteria that
included availability of materials, rotating content, ease of
navigation, and unique features.
Woman Sentenced for Intercepting E-Mail
A judge sentenced an Arizona woman to 60 days home detention for
intercepting her husband's ex-wife's e-mail, saying the penalty is a
warning to others who might be tempted to do the same. [...]
Lee pleaded guilty in March and admitted accessing at least 215 e-mails
sent last year to her husband's ex-wife, Duongladde Ramsay. Officials said
she fraudulently obtained the user name and password information for
Ramsay's e-mail account.
Net
booms in Kabul
In a country with precious little infrastructure, wireless technology
is helping Afghans develop their economy.