Group items tagged

How important is Twitter in the political revolutions sweeping the Middle East? That was the topic of discussion on stage at the CTIA mobile and wireless convention today in Orlando, Florida and two very different, very strong opinions were voiced. "I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that sending a tweet is the equivalent of activism," said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, "but it's another tool people can use." Kenneth Roth, executive director of of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's most respected human rights organization, framed things very differently though. He said on stage (above) that mobile technology in general would make it impossible today for something like Nazi Germany to unfold again the way it did historically.

Tim Berners-Lee, the man attributed to the creation of the internet, gave a speech at an MIT symposium and shared his two decades worth of internet knowledge with the crowd. He spoke about a wide variety of issues, from net neutrality, which he is supportive of, to mobile web access. Berners-Lee's words concerning web access raised a couple of eyebrows, and definitely raised the interest of this writer. "Access to the Web is now a human right" he continues, "It's possible to live without the Web. It's not possible to live without water. But if you've got water, then the difference between somebody who is connected to the Web and is part of the information society, and someone who (is not) is growing bigger and bigger."

Do you have an embarrassing moment in your past? Did it turn out to be newsworthy? There is a good chance it made it to the Internet and now is forever searchable by Google and the other search engines. Google is being hit with a "Right To Forget" lawsuit in Spain as the country's Data Protection Agency has ordered the Web giant to take down search links on 90 people. According to The Associated Press, Google is fighting five of those lawsuits in Spain's National Court and in January refused Spain's request on all 90 of the claims.

According to a report released by Freedom House titled Freedom on the Net 2011, Iran is the worst country when it comes to online freedom.  The top three countries, in order, are Estonia, The United States and Germany. The study judged countries based on three specific criteria: Obstacles to internet access, limits on content and violations of user rights.  They assigned each country a numerical score based on those criteria.  Countries scoring from 0-30 are designated "free," countries scoring from 31-60 are designated "party free" and those with score of 61-100 are labelled "not free."

As Bangkok dries out from epic floods that the IPCC says will only get worse as climate change accelerates, its leaders are contemplating moving the entire capital city to higher ground. But I know what you're thinking: How does this affect me? Answer: It'll hit you right in the hard drive. Now that supply chains stretch across the globe and electronics can contain components from dozens if not hundreds of countries, it means you won't be able to get an iMac with a 2TB drive, because Apple sources "many components from Thailand," says Apple CEO Tim Cook. Floods have knocked out factories critical to Apple's supply chain, and " "the recovery timeline is not known at this point," reports Ars Technica.

"You hear that it's good to recycle everything," Mr. Herscher said, "and then you hear it takes more energy to recycle paper than it does to cut it down. It's really hard to know what the right thing to do is. This is a way to express my own frustrations."

Few things in this world can be more annoying than running out of battery. It seems like your cell phone has made the application of Murphy's Law its raison d'etre. It dies right before you are expecting that important call from a client. It dies the day that your kids are sick. It always seems to die when you have just left the spot that had an easily accessible outlet.

The US president has urged Chinese leaders to implement policies to help create a more balanced economic relationship between Washington and Beijing. Barack Obama also raised concerns about the human rights situation in China in talks with Wang Qishan, the Chinese vice-premier, and the state councillor, Dai Bingguo, at the White House in Washington on Monday. Obama and the Chinese leaders discussed ways of working together to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programmes, the White House said in a statement.

The time may finally be right to sell Americans on eco-driving, according to a group of transportation experts from four University of California campuses as well as representatives from industry and government who attended an all-day conference on May 18.

"Photovoltaic solar panels actually start paying for themselves right after installation," says Buzard. He estimates 10 solar panels in 235-watt sizes cost about $14,000 installed; add in a 30 percent federal credit, register for renewable energy credits and you pay for the system in less than 10 years.

The Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters were perhaps two of the most prominent reminders of how crucial it is that everything work just right for a spacecraft to travel to space and successfully return back to Earth. Whether it was the failure of the seal used to stop hot gases from seeping through, or a piece of foam insulation that damaged the thermal protection system, scientists and engineers must make thousands of predictions of all the things that could go wrong during flight.

The sign was a digital billboard, a new breed of outdoor advertising that is growing in both the region and the nation. The problem for Young, a Philadelphia architect, is that they're energy guzzlers, compared with other signage. In a recent report, he found that the largest of them can use 30 times what a typical household consumes. The report - funded by an independent grant but done under the auspices of an advocacy group that opposes the signs - concludes that as Philadelphia strives to become the nation's greenest city, a proliferation of digital signs might not be sending the right message.

It's an unfamiliar neighborhood and you find yourself in the middle of a bunch of streets and buildings you've never seen before. Giving the environment a quick once-over, you make a snap decision about whether you're safe or not. And chances are, that first 'gut' call is the right one, say Binghamton University researchers Dan O'Brien and David Sloan Wilson in an article published in the current issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Women have been left defenceless and at the mercy of militia groups in the aftermath of the Iraq war in 2003 according to research from the University of Birmingham.